Keeping up appearances.......

Honey_Bear

HappyNow wrote: »

Ah, that's it right there, you see. I'm not really what you would call a committed veggie - I'm very much a half-a$$ed one. I eat jelly babies, and I eat chip-shop chips without asking what they've been fried in. At barbecues I eat veggie burgers, even when I know they've been cooked on the same barbie as meat. I also occasionally eat fish. Committed veggies would definitely raise one eyebrow at me!

My kind of veggie! I stopped eating meat for six months a few years ago and it made me a much better cook because for the first time I had to deal with meals that weren't based on the meat and two veg template. Ever since then we've eaten a lot more fish (which makes sense as we live about 10 minutes walk from Plymouth Fisheries) and now only have meat once or occasionally twice a week. I don't miss it at all but I couldn't ever give up jelly babies.

I imagine deaf dogs might be quite hard to place? It would definitely be off-putting to me if I was looking to adopt or foster. Or maybe you mean that she will probably stay with the foster home, in which case if she's happy and they are too, it will mean less disruption for her to stay there.

I don't know if deaf dogs are difficult to place, to be honest, but I imagine they might be. The first dog I adopted from the Oldies Club happened to be deaf, but the way her fosterers described her she sounded so perfect for us that I decided to learn about it with her. Best decision I ever made. No one warned me the next dog was deaf, but I do remember her fosterer telling me that she never came to call - a dead giveaway that a dog is deaf but people frequently think the dog is being naughty. And I chose the third dog because she was deaf - I'd come to value their lack of hearing. As we live on Plymouth Hoe there are a lot of huge firework displays very close by every year which, of course, deaf dogs don't mind a bit. In my limited experience deaf dogs very rarely bark so they're lovely and quiet to be around and very, very responsive to their people and signals.

Vis a vis the fostering thing, the Oldies Club specialises in fostering older dogs that people have had to give up for various reasons, although the first dog I had from them had been rescued from the pound after the police picked her up as a stray. (My second dog wasn't fostered by them but she was adopted through their website, as was the third who came from a rescue centre.) The Oldies Club fosterers compile a report on the dog, and the dogs are vet-checked before they are offered for adoption. It's a lovely way to ensure that older dogs don't have to spend time in a rescue centre, where they often don't do very well and the fosterers keep them until they're adopted. I'll keep an eye on her, but I imagine it won't be long before she's snapped up.

Probably more information than you wanted there, but I'm a bit of an evangelist for the Oldies Club.

I don't have any overhanging, unfinished tasks, simply because I haven't even started them! For that reason I am going to make Awesome April a spring clean month.

Serious Flying plans there, Happy. I won't ask for before and after piccies but I'll look forward to regular progress reports.

It's taken methree years of flying to get this place into any kind of shape and I've still got the coal hole and the attic to go, so if you can get yours done and dusted by the end of Awesome April it clearly isn't that bad. (I'd never have managed it without the Flylady thread, either. Occasionally I come across MSE posters who seem to think Flyladies all love cleaning, which rather misses the point as one of them said a while back.)

Honey_Bear

• Nothing spent.
• Zero alcohol.
• Apricots, courgettes, broccoli, beetroot, and the last of the prune juice - hurrah!
• Five mugs of fruit tea.
• Beaucoup de Twinks. I've been really good about no sugar for a couple of days and then went completely mad today. The only crumb (because there's none of them left) of comfort is that it was at least Sunday and I know there are some people who don't think Sunday's count in Lent. I wasn't one of them.
• The lodger's microwave meals are stinking it out, so I depewified it. I'm rather looking forward to this one leaving next weekend.
• Still waiting for a homecheck.
• Nothing on the work front.
• No spider again.

HappyNow

Honey_Bear wrote: »

Largely because anyone who counts Pizza Express's toppings as fruit and veg has an elastic view of reality, to say the least. Moving right along ....

It was their Pizza Giardiniera though, so artichokes, leeks, mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers and olives. So THAT'S SIX PORTIONS RIGHT THERE!! I was on fire that night........

HappyNow

I'd never heard of the Oldies Club, so I thought I'd just have a quick browse of their site. I was on it for a good hour. It's a lovely idea and the assessments seem very thorough and honest. There were a good few there that I felt drawn to, probably best I don't keep looking!

Quick report on yesterday's efforts before I dash off to create my culinary masterpiece (eggs & beans on toast tonight). So Sunday:

• Half an inch of wine that was left in the bottle
• No spends to make up for Saturday's madness
• Loads of water to fend off my hangover
• 5 x F & V - tinned peaches, tomatoes, apple, orange juice, peas
• No Words cos I was too busy CLEANING
• Completely emptied the sentiment cupboard. Chucked away loads of crap from it that I couldn't ever remember seeing before and wasn't sentimental at all, put everything I wanted to keep into my new storage boxes (which are BEAUTIFUL and an ornament in themselves) and gave the cupboard a mega-scrub. Cleaned the dog/cat food cupboard and emptied two drawers above it, that were full of miscellaneous junk. Half-filled them again with the same miscellaneous junk because Mr H seemed to like most of it. Took all the dusty unused crockery from some shelves and dish-washed it all. Now to clean the dusty shelves and put most of it back - tonight's job. Feeling quite fired up by it, even after being at work all day
• Listed two items (one of which was the camera I won) on eBay to try and raise a bit of money for decorating

Honey_Bear

HappyNow wrote: »

It was their Pizza Giardiniera though, so artichokes, leeks, mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers and olives. So THAT'S SIX PORTIONS RIGHT THERE!! I was on fire that night........

That'll be the School of Nutrition that counts chocolate as a food group, won't it?

There are at least four on the Oldies Club website that I would have right now, today, if I could cover the vet's bills. I think the work they do is brilliant and they're very good at it. Such a simple idea.

When anyone is in the right frame of mind clearing out junky storage spaces is incredibly cathartic. The feeling of release when all the crud is gone and the cupboard is under control is rather rewarding in a 'I feel I have to point out I am not a sad person' kind of way. Lovely Ionafan on the Flylady thread told me about a method of getting to grips with the junk of generations offloaded onto me, and nearly two decades in the house, called Dot-to-Dotting. One cupboard gets done, then another bit when there's time and then another bit when there's more time until the whole room is done. The secret, of course, is that once somewhere is sorted it stays sorted. It's worked for me so far, and even when one of the places gets junked up again, the junk is only superficial in comparison to how it used to be. Happy Flying!

Honey_Bear

• Postage and insurance, so necessary expenditure. I had to order a photo mug for a friend's birthday, and had planned to buy a couple of other things in B00t$ while I was in there, one of which was soapflakes to make soap the easy way. The prices really shocked me - nearly double what a local family-owned good old fashioned ironmonger type hardware shop charges - but nowhere near as expensive as Amaz0n or Ebay. They're just havin' a laugh.
• Zero alcohol.
• Sultanas, tomato, broccoli, courgette, sweet potato, onion
• Four mugs of fruit tea.
• Five mini-Twinks. The sugar craving is a hangover :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: from stopping drinking and I can't believe it's still this strong after eight months. I will beat this eventually but it is a real struggle.
• No Fly Zone. Being dogless the place just doesn't get messy any more. I'd rather have the mess.
• Miniscule progress on the dog front. I am not a patient person.
• Phone calls made, samples posted.
• Spider played briefly at difficult stages of working, and work completed. Then I went mad and played it for ages while listening to the radio at the end of the day.

HappyNow

Honey_Bear wrote: »

There are at least four on the Oldies Club website that I would have right now, today, if I could cover the vet's bills. I think the work they do is brilliant and they're very good at it. Such a simple idea.
I see some of the dogs there are currently with the RSPCA. In my town the RSPCA branch has a special scheme, whereby if someone adopts an older animal, the adoption fee is reduced to £5 (animal still wormed/neutered/vaccinated etc)and for £5 per month ongoing the animal gets free annual vaccinations/check-ups/flea & worm prevention plus access to their vet for £5 per consultation. Lots of other benefits too. I can PM you the link if you think it's worth enquiring with your own branch. Not sure if it's nationwide, but yours might do a similar thing?

When anyone is in the right frame of mind clearing out junky storage spaces is incredibly cathartic. The feeling of release when all the crud is gone and the cupboard is under control is rather rewarding in a 'I feel I have to point out I am not a sad person' kind of way. Lovely Ionafan on the Flylady thread told me about a method of getting to grips with the junk of generations offloaded onto me, and nearly two decades in the house, called Dot-to-Dotting. One cupboard gets done, then another bit when there's time and then another bit when there's more time until the whole room is done. The secret, of course, is that once somewhere is sorted it stays sorted. It's worked for me so far, and even when one of the places gets junked up again, the junk is only superficial in comparison to how it used to be. Happy Flying!
Dot-to-Dotting it is! So far progress is slow and steady, but the dresser (which is made up of fancy kitchen units) is now cleared and tidied inside, and I am polishing the outside later today. I opened one of its drawers this morning to get a pen, and guess what? I COULD FIND ONE!

Well done on Monday's successes. I didn't get chance to post yesterday because it was a stupidly busy day, and yet again I can't remember anything that I did two days ago. I think it must be age..... So, I will move along to yesterday, below.

HappyNow

Yesterday

• Yet another £30 spent on Mr H's petrol. I really don't know what he does with it all....... Bought some slippers in the M & S sale because mine had fallen apart. They were reduced from £19.50 to £10 and I had £7 left on a Christmas gift card so they only cost £3 and they are perfect and so comfy.
• No alcohol - this is very, very easy now mid-week
• Four glasses of water
• Four F & V - tinned peaches, vegetable and lentil stew (hand-knit ), orange juice, peas.
• Four chocolate biscuits
• A teeny bit of flying, mainly just bed-making and one small drawer emptied/refilled
• Two ongoing games of Words, but played just before bed so they didn't really stop me doing anything more important.

Working from home today. In and amongst I need to make the house decent, just in case the plumber calls. He just said he would nip in 'one Wednesday' which is a bit irritating but at least it makes me tidy up every Wednesday. Luckily Mr H managed to bodge the toilet leak more effectively so it's not urgent.

Honey_Bear

Thanks for the suggestion about the RSPCA, Happy. I hadn't come across that scheme and it sounds like a really good idea which, if I'd known about it, might have made a difference. The RSPCA's own search engine used to be the dog's bo**ox but now a prospective adopter has to search for their dream dog site by site and despite doing so for hours it proved so frustrating I gave up on them. I then discovered an umbrella organisation that pulls together a huge number of the small independent dog-type rescue charities which was much easier to use. Anyway, I'm going down the fostering route if the Oldies will have me, so adoption is off my agenda now, with any luck.

Speaking of which, I had news on Monday and a phone call yesterday, there is an entry in my diary for later in the week, and OH has strict instructions to be at home on Friday afternoon at 3.00 pm for about an hour. Fingers crossed.

Being able to find things - Oh the joy! After years of wasting time having to look for vital things that I absolutely knew we had, giving up, going out and buying more crud because I needed to use the vital thing I just couldn't find - I'd love to say that's over. However, two years ago I carefully washed, folded and put away my 1 tog summer fever duvet and can I find that little sucker? I even remember thinking to myself, 'This folds so small and neat, I must remember where I've put it because I won't find it again otherwise. Still, this makes so much sense as a storage space for it that I won't forget.' Hey ho.

Honey_Bear

• Zero spent.
• Zero alcohol.
• Sultanas, tomato, apricots, beetroot. Oops.
• Four mugs of fruit tea.
• Beacoup de mini-Twinks. Epic fail again.
• Tidying, just keeping on top of things, really. I have to deal with my office today, my Room of Doom, to get it ready for someone to sleep on the futon for two nights. It's the only time I ever tidy it up so it's quite useful in an irritating kind of way - a bit like your plumber not saying which Wednesday.
• Fingers crossed.
• Follow up phone call not made as I realised I need to give the recipient time to come to the right decision.
• Spider played just a bit too much, but loins girded eventually to tackle a difficult job that I should have got to grips with over 40 years ago. I've always hoped, somehow that the solution would just magically present itself, but I am going to have to methodically work my way through several sets of instructions, You Tube and a number of websites to get to grips with something and learn how to do it properly. Some progress already achieved.