Keeping up appearances.......

HappyNow

Did somebody say Fry's Chocolate/Peppermint creams? Make mine a double

Sorry for the time-lapse. Although I've not been posting I have been reading secretly on my phone and I think you are all amazing. You have also, unknown to yourselves, kept me sane and giggling while things haven't been great. Sometimes the giggling was inappropriate (consultant's room for example!), but meh .

Millions of thanks for all your collective coping and healing vibes. Things aren't great with Happy Pops. He's at home but not showing any improvement. We knew it would take a while, but thought he might be feeling a bit more human by now. He is still ridiculously upbeat though so the rest of the family are too, because not being doesn't help at all .

So, Fab Feb has been a bit !!!! !!!!!! (*slips Honey a fiver*) but I have high hopes for March! I have been lured back to alcohol but I'm keeping it sensible. My only success has been financial stuff, so I'm going to big-it-up with a list.

• Switched my unused M & S current account (opened last year for £100 incentive) to Halifax Bank for £125 which was paid yesterday. That will tax the car. I have also set up two standing orders to shift money in and out each month to qualify for their monthly £5 reward.
• Got accepted on a Bzz campaign to test L'Oreal Age Perfect serum and they've sent me a full bottle. I do use anti-aging serum so that's £10 or so saved. It seems nice enough.
• YNAB up to date and looking manageable for the rest of the month. I've spent more on petrol than usual because of the hospital/parent visiting stuff, but less on food because I haven't had time to go supermarket shopping. We haven't gone hungry, just eaten lots of beans on toast.
• By not drinking wine for the first half of the month I reckon I have saved £18
• Bought some new trousers from Wallis which were absolutely essential. Waited until their 30% off promotion yesterday so saved £9 there as I would have needed to buy them even at full price.

I will try to update again soon. In the meantime -


RAH RAH RAH

Dolphin1

Lovely to hear from you Mrs HappyNow, who'd thunk that the mere mention of Fry's Chocolate/Peppermint creams would bring you out of hiding .

Very sorry to hear that there is little improvement with Happy Pops but it is still early days and at his stage in life recovery is likely to take slightly longer, glad to hear he is still upbeat though as that is half the battle.

Very well done on the money front, I don't know how you have managed to keep on track with anything during this stressful time.

More 'coping vibes' heading your way and have one of these dodgy hugs :grouphug: for good measure . Take care!

Dolphin1

Update for yesterday...

1) None eaten :j.
2) Just over 14,000 steps :j (but I may have to rest this weekend as I am getting early warning signs of overdoing it ).
3) Light off at 10.15pm :j (although it doesn't really matter because it was Friday).
4) No spends on other people :j.

Honey_Bear

HappyNow wrote: »

Did somebody say Fry's Chocolate/Peppermint creams? Make mine a double

Virtual supplies being helicoptered up to you, Happy.

Sorry for the time-lapse. Although I've not been posting I have been reading secretly on my phone and I think you are all amazing. You have also, unknown to yourselves, kept me sane and giggling while things haven't been great. Sometimes the giggling was inappropriate (consultant's room for example!), but meh .

Glad to be of some help and giggling is always a good thing. It must be very hard work seeing people who are always frightened or angry - a bit of cheerful giggling should never be condemned. I say this a someone who was crying with laughter at OH's mother's house when the vicar came to call to talk about her funeral. In fairness to us, we'd be trying to find some suitable music for her funeral and OH had put her favourite tape on to choose something. The lyrics were so wholly, utterly and hysterically unsuitable that we were howling with laughter, with tears streaming down our faces and utterly helpless when he knocked on the front door. Did us all the world of good.

Millions of thanks for all your collective coping and healing vibes. Things aren't great with Happy Pops. He's at home but not showing any improvement. We knew it would take a while, but thought he might be feeling a bit more human by now. He is still ridiculously upbeat though so the rest of the family are too, because not being doesn't help at all .

I sort of figured that Happy Pops was probably not back to full on ballroom dancing yet, with a splash of jive thrown in for the Finals. I trust he contiues to hold his own and gradually gains his strength back. Buckets more *healing vibes* heading his way and more *coping vibes* for you.

So, Fab Feb has been a bit !!!! !!!!!! (*slips Honey a fiver*) but I have high hopes for March! I have been lured back to alcohol but I'm keeping it sensible. My only success has been financial stuff, so I'm going to big-it-up with a list.

Ta for the virtual contribution. Always grateful, and more welcome anytime as my contributions have been few and far between. *preens self*

• Switched my unused M & S current account (opened last year for £100 incentive) to Halifax Bank for £125 which was paid yesterday. That will tax the car. I have also set up two standing orders to shift money in and out each month to qualify for their monthly £5 reward.

Excellent. Do you have enough time to add up your moneysaving ducking and diving to calculate how much you've saved/made from each duck and dive? Very satisfying I find, especially if I'm waiting for a train, or queueing, to do the mental gymnastics and then make a note of the running annual totals. Super motiviating.

• Got accepted on a Bzz campaign to test L'Oreal Age Perfect serum and they've sent me a full bottle. I do use anti-aging serum so that's £10 or so saved. It seems nice enough.

It's free, therefore it's fabulous. Well done on getting on to the campaign.

• YNAB up to date and looking manageable for the rest of the month. I've spent more on petrol than usual because of the hospital/parent visiting stuff, but less on food because I haven't had time to go supermarket shopping. We haven't gone hungry, just eaten lots of beans on toast.

Exceptionally good for you, beans on toast. Protein, veg, carbohydrate - a balanced meal. Jolly well thought out.

• By not drinking wine for the first half of the month I reckon I have saved £18

*kerching* Probably balanced out the petrol.

• Bought some new trousers from Wallis which were absolutely essential. Waited until their 30% off promotion yesterday so saved £9 there as I would have needed to buy them even at full price.

Well done. I managed to find some much needed lovely clothes at the end of the January sales, which now seem to flow into February - hurrah.


I will try to update again soon. In the meantime -


RAH RAH RAH

Ta for the motivating Rah Rahs. The lovely Shaggy who runs the Giving up Cutting Down alcohol thread found some pom pom type smileys. Must see if I can find some for you. It's lovely to see you posting, but you've got enough on your plate at the moment, so don't worry if you don't get round to it for a day or three. You're doing fabulously.

Honey_Bear

Dolphin1 wrote: »

Update for yesterday...

1) None eaten :j.
Back on track! Well done.

2) Just over 14,000 steps :j (but I may have to rest this weekend as I am getting early warning signs of overdoing it ).

I hope you're taking the weekend off so that you don't actually damage anything. Every time I start exercising I over do it, end up in pain and have to stop, never to restart. Hopeless. I hope you're more intelligent than me on that one, although, come to think of it, I hate exercise so much I'm probably deliberately sabotaging myself.
3) Light off at 10.15pm :j (although it doesn't really matter because it was Friday).

But such a good habit that it probably makes sticking to it for the rest of the week easier.
4) No spends on other people :j.

Well done Dolphin. You're doing amazingly well.

I have a question for you, if you don't mind helping out. I love pizza, really love it, and we have it on Saturdays. However, I've noticed I wake up every Sunday with a headache and I'm pretty certain that's a reaction to the pizza dough. Have you found a brand that's lovely? I know you love the GF bakery stuff that a visitor to this thread recommended and I've made a note of their name somewhere, but can't put my hand on it at the moment. Do they do pizza bases? What's their minimum order? Could you PM their website address please? I think it's time I took this a bit more seriously because it seems no matter how litle ordinary bready stuff I eat I'm getting a reaction which is seriously, seriously off-pi$$ing. *£1 gets lobbed into the pot*

Honey_Bear

• Meal plan from existing stocks as much as possible every week. I've now meal planned March and April, but when I counted up February it turned out we substituted, changed and ignored the meal plan over half of the days. Fine by me, because it means we eat exactly what we want to eat and can be bothered to cook, but that I never spend a moment thinking, 'What should I cook/get out of the freezer/tell OH he's cooking tonight?' That was what got me down in the pre-planning days.
  
• Clear desk gibble daily Sorted.
• Stop ****ing swearing. Fine £1 a word for each ****ing occurence Ta Dolphin for your thoughts. Up to the end of the month I'll stick to bunging in quids for carp and dam, but after that I'm going to allow them back into the lexicon without worrying about it. The other words, no. I say this a someone who let rip with all of the banned words between 3.15 am and 3.30 am as I dragged the dog around the block on yet another walk (11.30 pm and 1.30 am) because he just wouldn't settle, was whining, barking and generally being a solid pain.
  
• Identify and contact five outlets for each working day in February, so that's 21 in all I realised on Friday I'd completely forgotten to email places in the second county so I did that, and within an hour had a rejection, which is fine, but a bit of a confidence denter. Will ring round the first county on Monday, so fingers crossed please. Just one Yes would be enough to restore my confidence.
  
• 15 minutes a day flying five days a week. It's the weekend! :j A fly free zone in this house.
  
• No sugary stuff one day a week for the first week, two days a week for the second week, three days a week in Week 3 and four days a week in Week 4. The cravings are lessening but what's worrying me is that I know once I start allowing sugary stuff back into my life they'll just return. I'm going to have to be very careful with this after Lent.
  
• No computer after 9.00 pm (except my ipod so that I can choose my night-time listening) and lights out by 11.30 pm Tick on the computer front, hopeless on the lights out front. The one night I did manage it, OH crashed into the bedroom when I was asleep, turned his light on and generally behaved like an giant oaf. Most unlike him.
  
• 5 fruit and veg a day Tick mostly, but not yesterday.
  
• Electric toothbrush once a day. Tick.
  

Dolphin1

Honey_Bear wrote: »

I have a question for you, if you don't mind helping out. I love pizza, really love it, and we have it on Saturdays. However, I've noticed I wake up every Sunday with a headache and I'm pretty certain that's a reaction to the pizza dough. Have you found a brand that's lovely? I know you love the GF bakery stuff that a visitor to this thread recommended and I've made a note of their name somewhere, but can't put my hand on it at the moment. Do they do pizza bases? What's their minimum order? Could you PM their website address please? I think it's time I took this a bit more seriously because it seems no matter how litle ordinary bready stuff I eat I'm getting a reaction which is seriously, seriously off-pi$$ing. *£1 gets lobbed into the pot*

PM sent Mrs Honey Bear. I can't remember but did you say you have already been tested for Coeliac Disease? If not, maybe time to think about getting it done? It's only a blood test to start with.

Dolphin1

Update for yesterday...

1) A chocolate covered macaroon .
2) Just over 3,000 steps (but I really had to take a day off from it before I did myself a serious injury, not going to overdo it for the next few days either).
3) Light off at 10.30pm :j (despite it being a Saturday night, maybe I have got in to a habit).
4) No spends on other people :j.

Honey_Bear

Dolphin1 wrote: »

PM sent Mrs Honey Bear. I can't remember but did you say you have already been tested for Coeliac Disease? If not, maybe time to think about getting it done? It's only a blood test to start with.

Thanks for the PM, Dolphin, I've bookmarked the site now. No, I haven't been tested; I think I've spent a lifetime overdosing on bready things, and I think my mother did too. She never had any energy, had a huge appetite and yoyo dieted all my life; she battled with her wieght after having children and so I'm very aware of not allowing food to assume too great an importance in my life in any way.

Eating bready stuff cumulatively has a strong effect on me and has done, I now realise, for about a decade. I honestly don't think I've got a good enough reason to go the GP and waste the NHS's time and resources; I find it fairly straightforward to shift pounds, my digestive system is tickety boo and if I don't eat bready things - I'm fine. I know they absolutely dread people coming in saying they're 'Tired all the time' to such an extent it has it's own acronym, TATT. Besides which, the whole wretched food fad business means that I'll just sound like another attention seeker 'worried well.'

If things start to go a bit haywire, I'll see the GP but for the moment thanks for your concern and I'll keep it in mind.

Dolphin1 wrote: »

Update for yesterday...

1) A chocolate covered macaroon .

Temptation, temptation, temptation. That's the problem with finding such a great supplier of goodies.

2) Just over 3,000 steps (but I really had to take a day off from it before I did myself a serious injury, not going to overdo it for the next few days either).

It sounds as though you need it take it easier for several days, so rather than a , how about you give yourself a :T for being so conscientious so far?

3) Light off at 10.30pm :j (despite it being a Saturday night, maybe I have got in to a habit).

I wish I could ....

4) No spends on other people :j.

You're doing rather well, I think.

Dolphin1

Update for yesterday...

1) None eaten :j.
2) Just over 7,000 steps (I can't quite bring myself to use a :j despite knowing that I am doing the right thing by not overdoing it. I am currently fighting the urge to put my shoes on and go for a long walk, it's very frustrating :mad:).
3) Light off at 11.00pm (so much for getting in to a habit ).
4) No spends on other people :j.