Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - Part 3.

dizzy_lizzie

rubytuesday wrote: »

Hello everyone

I've managed to have a couple of no spend or low spend days lately.

Sorry to hear about your cats Tumpty and Paidin.

I took Wedgie to have her stitches out yesterday - should have been the day before but she went missing in action and Marmalade is continuing to stick a paw up to death!

Such a resilient cat!

Yesterday I ended up hopping mad and spitting feathers - I went to my elderly neighbours as I usually do on Wednesday but much later.

Her bed was filthy and soiled so when the carer arrived I politely asked her if she changed the bed.

I was told " Don't tell me my job!" when I said "I'm not telling you your job I'm just asking as someone else might do it" I was told " Don't talk to me - I'm not talking to you!" so cross words ensued!

I'm really not impressed with the levels of care that are being given there!

I'm going to try and motivate myself to have a swim today as it's a lovely day.

Ah Ruby, your Wedgie sounds such a little minx And kitty wishes for Marmalade that she continues as she is.

As for your neighbour that's appalling. Doesn't the carer have a supervisor you could ring just to express your concern. I know it's not the easiest of jobs but a polite, 'thanks for letting me know, I'm just going to do it now,' would surely have been the right response. Jobs that care for the elderly, in my mind, are not 'just' jobs, they are vocations, and elderly folk are still human beings. Heartbreaking really.

OH has started putting the heating on, I didn't even ask him to
Here's the baby blanket and card I made. Gave them to her today and she cried, I didn't think they were that bad Aw she was thrilled to bits. Also bought her some pamper bits to relax with.



Attached the pram part by stitching and glued on with my hot glue gun, which is brilliant, the little flowers and felt. Actually looks nicer than the photo.

Here's the crochet baby blanket.



Hope you don't mind me posting the pics and kind of relevant to the thread as they are handmade not bought

Hugz to all
x

seriouslyfrugal

tumptyteapot wrote: »

I think we can make allowances for new babies :-)

OT but I just got a leaflet about self esteem through from the NHS mental health service, it's photocopied upside down and back to front, almost impossible to read and it occured to me that it would be better for my self esteem if they had bothered with it a bit more - it makes me feel pretty worthless!
Am I just being picky? (tell me straight, I can take it)

Tumpty: I think that is really awful to me it shows a lack of pride in a persons work that they don't even think that it is worth doing somthing correctly i come from a customer service background and there are days when i'm not so good ( I have depression) but I try really hard not to let it show when I work in fact I have had people comment on just " how happy " I am but I think if only they knew the truth after all we can all put on a face to the world

So here at frugal towers apart from the usual jobsearching I have had a couple of low spend days and one major spend day as I needed petrol :eek: I have heard the price of oil is going down about time to I have resisted the heating going on yet - but for how long i'm not sure
out health walking tomorrow so that will be good

To all that have poorly pets - i'm thinking of you

have a good day everyone

rubytuesday

Dizzy my first response was to phone social services as I was absolutely hopping mad at the rudeness and aggression.

I have spoken to them once before about a club she wished to attend and raised some concerns then but on reflection I've decided to talk to one of the daughter's on the phone first as I don't want them to feel they are being undermined or left out of the loop - I think they already feel guilty enough as they are far away and hardly see her.

Really they want her to go into sheltered housing but she's too stubborn - not that I blame her.

I'm just rather cross because I do wonder what actually gets done and it doesn't look like a lot.

She's getting herself in a right old muddle with appointments and paper work and although I'm happy to help really she should have that support in place professionally I think.

The carer even had the cheek to tell me not to visit her at dinner time - which I hadn't, she'd just stuck her meals on wheels in the microwave when she arrived and I was just leaving!

I told her I'd visit whenever I liked and not to speak to me so rudely again!

All fun and games!

Anyway what a beautiful card and blanket!

She must have been chuffed to bits!

23rdspiral

Awe dizzy they are lovely! I certainly don't mind u posting pics... With such nice things as that I'd encourage it! Friendly, thrifty and inspirational :T

I really want to learn to crochet... U tube didn't help much though:(. I can sew, but wool crafts leave me all fingers and thumbs.

Friends came round for a sewing session today, they came here... That's never happened before! Yay for new house! And for them bringing cake! And for them giving me their old bread maker!!:j.:T

So I've got a bread maker! :T. So excited! Ooh the possibilities.....

Oh and a NSD!:D

dizzy_lizzie

rubytuesday wrote: »

Dizzy my first response was to phone social services as I was absolutely hopping mad at the rudeness and aggression.
I told her I'd visit whenever I liked and not to speak to me so rudely again!

Good on you Ruby. And what a brilliant neighbour you are
Thank goodness your neighbour has you looking out for her :A

Anyway what a beautiful card and blanket!
Aw thanks

23rdspiral wrote: »

Awe dizzy they are lovely! I certainly don't mind u posting pics... With such nice things as that I'd encourage it! Friendly, thrifty and inspirational :T
Thank you

I really want to learn to crochet... U tube didn't help much though:(. I can sew, but wool crafts leave me all fingers and thumbs.

Don't give up. Try this set of tutorials from the Lion Brand Yarn.
It may help http://www.howcast.com/playlists/10491-Crazy-About-Crochet

Don't give up on You Tube either. A few work colleagues learnt from there. Think it was this lady they watched...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11Wh7IOT9BI


Friends came round for a sewing session today, they came here... That's never happened before! Yay for new house! And for them bringing cake! And for them giving me their old bread maker!!:j.:T

So I've got a bread maker! :T. So excited! Ooh the possibilities.....

OH was talking about getting one of these but after reading reviews and not deciding on which one, we gave up the idea! But I have heard that a lot of people never go back to shop bought bread after.

Oh and a NSD!:D

I'm actually off out tonight! Dropping OH off at work and keeping the car so I can pick a friend up later and have a drive somewhere I won't be drinking, obviously so it will be a frugalish night. (must get my frugal bit in my posts) :-) So off to get ready now.
Hugz to all
x

hattifattener

rubytuesday wrote: »

Dizzy my first response was to phone social services as I was absolutely hopping mad at the rudeness and aggression.

I have spoken to them once before about a club she wished to attend and raised some concerns then but on reflection I've decided to talk to one of the daughter's on the phone first as I don't want them to feel they are being undermined or left out of the loop - I think they already feel guilty enough as they are far away and hardly see her.

Really they want her to go into sheltered housing but she's too stubborn - not that I blame her.

I'm just rather cross because I do wonder what actually gets done and it doesn't look like a lot.

She's getting herself in a right old muddle with appointments and paper work and although I'm happy to help really she should have that support in place professionally I think.

The carer even had the cheek to tell me not to visit her at dinner time - which I hadn't, she'd just stuck her meals on wheels in the microwave when she arrived and I was just leaving!

I told her I'd visit whenever I liked and not to speak to me so rudely again!

All fun and games!

Anyway what a beautiful card and blanket!

She must have been chuffed to bits!

The carer is not her friend, you are, she has no right to tell your neighbour or her friends/family when they can socialise. Her job should be to blend seamlessly into her daily routine and enable her to do the things she used to do or would do if she were more mobile. This is very rude and it always worries me when you hear of carers being rude in front of strangers because you never know how they may act behind closed doors, which is a horrible thought, but it's true. I would involve your neighbour's family, but you or (preferably) them should call the care company and explain that certain standards aren't being met. Often people are scared of rocking the boat with their care staff because they feel like the carer is 'in charge' or things might get worse, but the carer's boss should be more sympathetic to the situation once they know about it. If the care company don't do anything, has your neighbour got a social worker still attached to her case?

rubytuesday

hattifattener wrote: »

The carer is not her friend, you are, she has no right to tell your neighbour or her friends/family when they can socialise. Her job should be to blend seamlessly into her daily routine and enable her to do the things she used to do or would do if she were more mobile. This is very rude and it always worries me when you hear of carers being rude in front of strangers because you never know how they may act behind closed doors, which is a horrible thought, but it's true. I would involve your neighbour's family, but you or (preferably) them should call the care company and explain that certain standards aren't being met. Often people are scared of rocking the boat with their care staff because they feel like the carer is 'in charge' or things might get worse, but the carer's boss should be more sympathetic to the situation once they know about it. If the care company don't do anything, has your neighbour got a social worker still attached to her case?

Exactly!

Her attitude towards me was extremely rude and aggressive.

I don't feel anything untowards is happening however -just as you say certain standards not being met.

The carers are only popping in for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening.

Although my neighbour has some dementia - more than I initially realised at the same time she also has her wits about her and wouldn't be shy in coming forward were anything untoward going on.

I usually pop in twice a week now and will get the daughter's telephone number when I see her at the weekend.

She does still have a social worker and that's who I spoke to a while ago.

I mentioned that I was concerned that she was always in the same dirty clothes.

The social worker did say that perhaps the carer gets her into clean clothes and then she changes back.

Whilst I know she does have a penchant for a particular skirt which is now more hole than skirt I really doubt that would be the case.

I think they visited after my call as she told me they wanted to take away her commode which she uses as a table!

tumptyteapot

I learnt to crochet with youtube videos, I found some that really slow down what you need to do. Once you have the yarn holding sorted it is plain sailing :-)
Love the craft pictures, I'll post mine when I've finished the next quilt - it's an xmas present for my sister.
Tried on some sale clothes yesterday and took some photos of my fat in the mirror, that is going on the fridge! My weight is down a little but if I just lose 5lb I fit into all my winter clothes! At the moment only 2 pairs of trousers fit me.
Mr T yesterday, no extreme bargains, but a huge bag of pasta for £2 instead of £3.50, it will keep us going for a while, especially if I have to eat salad for the forseeable future :-)

paidinchickens

ruby My daughter used to work for one of these meals on wheels kind of places and they NEVER had enough time to do the things they were supposed to. Each shift would leave things for the next shift so they had double the work or you would get the ones that had the "thats not my job it is not on my list" When you would get a caring one (my daughter would pick up little bits of shopping or hang the washing out) they would get dragged into the office and reprimanded. One day she was at a ladies house who was very poorly so she had to wait for an ambulance to come and take her to hospital she was then dragged into the office for not getting to her other calls on time :mad: A friend has just finished a two week trial at a similar place and when he said about a lady not being particularly clean the woman who was showing him the ropes said "well I can't get round there to do it there is not enough room" (quite a large woman by all accounts) So when reported he was seen as a trouble maker!!!

One old lady sits in fear in her house as she can hear voices trying to get her and the office just says "yeah she is always like that":mad: Well why have they not done something????????? Reported, got the doc in? ........because of course they are not paid extra!!!

As my nurse friend of 30 years says " there is no care in care of the community" It is so very wrong. Families and tax payers pay for half an hour call three times a day and they are lucky if the get 10 mins. There should be more random checks.

Well I think this lady is lucky you visit her Ruby as the care for the elderly is terrible. If you feel something is not right no matter how small it is best to get to the bottom of it. Please remember social workers do not always want the extra work either. There are of course the awkward b*ggers that drive some very kind ladies to distraction.



You rock that boat girl :T

23rdspiral

Care, or lack of care of the elderly is something I find very upsetting, so I'm sorry for not wading in ruby, but I do totally agree with everyone else. You are wonderful for being so caring. Thank you for that.