Keeping up appearances.......

Dolphin1

HappyNow wrote: »

Dolphin - you have one I believe?

I certainly do! I love it and I wear it religiously during the day to help keep track of the number of steps that I do and it does encourage me to do more steps than I normally would. I use to wear it at night but stopped because I found it a bit annoying on my wrist and it was never any good at making me go to bed any earlier . OH has also decided to get one now but I think we may have enough t3sco vouchers to cover most of the cost :money:.

Honey_Bear

Dolphin1 wrote: »

Wow, didn't you just complete a plastering course (?) and now you have moved on to carpentry, I'm impressed! Are you going in to home renovations or is this just for diy at home?

Yes, plastering was last autumn and I now feel confident that if a huge chunk dropped off a wall or ceiling here, which has happened in the past, or at the chalet, I wouldn't have to wait an age for a builder to turn up who would then have to charge an arm and a leg to make it worth his while to do the work.

As for the carpentry, I've been looking for various bits of furniture or kit to fit in various places for years and I'm sick of it, besides which the cost is always prohibitive. So, I kind of figured that I should be able to create exactly what I want if I set my mind to it, once I had learned how to do the tricky bits and then practiced them. I've got oceans of time, enough money to keep me ticking over but not enough to do or buy all of the things I want. I've also got an attic full of crud, including piles of old tools - I even found a plasterer's trowel up there. I found three tenon saws last night, and that's just checking one tool box! A neighbour has told me he'll give me his square, which is one thing I know I don't have. I can sew, so I'm pretty sure I can measure accurately and I get a great deal of satisfaction from doing stuff for myself. OH hates doing diy, but I think I could be okay at it. The cost of all of these courses is being met by the fact that I gave up booze 18 months ago, so it isn't technically costing me a bean and I'm thoroughly enjoying all of it. Those three hours passed in a flash on Monday.

basketcase wrote: »

What makes you think he'd stop in the first place?! :rotfl::rotfl: You've obviously never seen me in jeggings. And you really don't want to - trust me!:eek:

Isn't the whole point of jeggings that no-one, and I mean absolutely no-one, looks good in them? I honestly do not know how anyone can put them on and think that wearing them outside the house in public is a good idea. All I can think is they must be very, very comfortable, although the idea of that much man-made fibre that close to my body .... *shudder*

Honey_Bear

HappyNow wrote: »

Update for yesterday and part of the day before. I've got mixed-up somewhere but it doesn't matter.

Permanent state of affairs here, being muddled up over days or part thereof ....

• Get the budget back on track. Ummm. Well, after the glory of Monday's no spend day, yesterday I bought a Fitbit . Now that might seem like an unusual choice for someone with £38K of debt, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance after a friend bought a new one for £100, realised he'd bought the wrong model, couldn't be bothered to return it, and wanted rid of it for £50. It is literally a week old! I can't stop playing with it. Dolphin - you have one I believe? They are SO MUCH FUN! Love the sleep tracker especially, although it shows I have a problem.........

Bargain, and if it helps you get to grips with toning wobbly bits in time for your holiday it's an excellent investment. A load of Flyladies have them and swear by them and it does seem to be an eye-opener for most people who have no idea how much exercise they already do, or which small tweaks might result in big results. And fiddling with it seems to be part of the fun. I like having friends who buy expensive kit and then let it go for a bargainacious price.

• Eat healthily Three days in and all going well. 5 x F & V daily, one small bar of chocolate (crunchie this time) and one smallish glass of wine. 1700 calories total.

Sounds as though the diet is going well. Any diet that includes crunchies is a winner as far as I'm concerned.

• Seven hours in bed I did manage this last night, but according to my Fitbit I had ten bouts of restlessness or wakefulness.

I seem to remember from the timing of some of your posts you have trouble sleeping, so with any luck by tracking what you eat and drink with the fitbit you'll be able to see if there's something specific that's disrupting your sleeping patterns. Well done on the seven hours.

• Neat feet Still not done any sandpapering, but I did apply E45 from the knees down last night. I hate rubbing cream into my feet, it's creepy.

I totally agree. And for true creepiness - a pedicure. However, once your trotters are neat and with sparky nails, it won't seem so creepy just keeping them looking beautiful.

Honey_Bear

• Stop eating cr*p and start losing some of those ounces that have been piling back on since [STRIKE]Good Friday[/STRIKE] Maundy Thursday. So glad you support my MSE efforts regarding the grocery bill, Happy by scoffing leftovers. I very generously, I thought, gave away a big chunk of my birthday cake to the neighbours yesterday, so sadly chocolate cake for breakfast is a thing of the past. But not for tea, yet. It was a big cake. No point in doing things by halves.
• Tighten up the language a bit. It was not okay to tell the new neighbours our joint chimney is f*****. Excellent news on the grammar front, Happy. Such a versatile word should be celebrated. So I will, occasionally.
• Groom Kelpie for at least 10 minutes daily because his winter coat is definitely starting to shed and the house will be knee deep in black fluff within days otherwise. Thanks for the reminder.
  
• Teach him that having his teeth cleaned is fun fun fun! Ditto.
• Do something significant every day to make the day of my birthday party calm. Dental appointment to have my first ever crown fitted today, which is rather fitting, given that it's the
  Queen's 90th birthday. Snap, Ma'rm. In my case it involved a large enough quantity of Temazepam to make the pharmacist blanch, so I'm not doing a lot else in the furniture shifting and general tidying department. I don't want to end up like a friend of mine who took weeks to track his hairbrush down. Turned out it was the biscuit tin all along. (I'd have found it within an hour or so, but he was the abstemious type.)
  
• Do something constructive every week about the micro-business's future. I've got a couple of calls to make but they have to be on Tuesdays or Thursdays and I keep forgetting. Hey ho. Then it'll be research for a few months.

brizzledfw

I now have a Fitbit and love it. It nudges me into exercising more and generally looking out for my health a little more. And £50.. Bargain

joeyjimbles

I don't have a fitbit yet but have just been signed up to a local running group for novices - for mums only. I can see that after my beautiful aqua trainers that I purchased today, a fitbit or similar may be next. My friend runs this group and I said I would join when the nights were lighter and the weather a bit warmer, so she came round this morning with all my forms filled in ready for my signature - she knows me rather better than I thought she did. I've been promised its gentle and gradual so I will let you know as it goes on.

The joys of really good customer service were not lost on me today, I had pretty much an hour and a half consultation where the chap watched me run, measured all sorts of bits of my foot and then recommended the cheapest pair of the 10 I'd tried. You've got to love a really proper sports job, independent and in business for over 60 years, and he gave me a discount because I mentioned the running group too. I just checked the same trainers online and they would be £10-25 dearer almost everywhere else so it ended up being MSE too.

I think this will also be the kick I need to sort out my feet as I can only imagine they are going to react in some way to this new punishment, and they already look neglected and sad.

I have £10 off my next Avon order so I may use it for some of their foot stuff which is reputed to be quite good. I've been using their hair dye for a few months, its certainly as good and much cheaper than the brand I used to buy, and this month's sale brochure has it at buy one get two free - is it naughty if my next order will be for twelve of them? They don't put a limit on it but I don't want to be greedy. What do you think?

HappyNow

Very quick flyby while Mr H is out with the dog, just to keep up the momentum.

• Budget: £63 spent at Tesco. Not begrudging one penny of the Fitbit money, I love it
• Eat Healthily. Tick
• Seven hours in bed. Eight actually last night and heading off there again now
• Neat feet. Nah, still gross. Did scrape them today though and will E45 again in a minute

Back tomorrow for a proper read-back and update

Dolphin1

joeyjimbles wrote: »

I have £10 off my next Avon order so I may use it for some of their foot stuff which is reputed to be quite good. I've been using their hair dye for a few months, its certainly as good and much cheaper than the brand I used to buy, and this month's sale brochure has it at buy one get two free - is it naughty if my next order will be for twelve of them? They don't put a limit on it but I don't want to be greedy. What do you think?

Sounds very MSE to me and it's something that I would absolutely do. I have recently bought 6 large boxes of wash powder and 8 large boxes of teabags as the brands I use were both on offer at half price which rarely happens so it was well worth storing them in my opinion :money:.

Honey_Bear

joeyjimbles wrote: »

I have £10 off my next Avon order so I may use it for some of their foot stuff which is reputed to be quite good. I've been using their hair dye for a few months, its certainly as good and much cheaper than the brand I used to buy, and this month's sale brochure has it at buy one get two free - is it naughty if my next order will be for twelve of them? They don't put a limit on it but I don't want to be greedy. What do you think?

Absolutely not. If they're doing buy one get two free it sounds as though they'd quite like to be rid of the stuff so you'd be doing them a favour.

HappyNow wrote: »

Very quick flyby while Mr H is out with the dog, just to keep up the momentum.

• Budget: £63 spent at Tesco. Not begrudging one penny of the Fitbit money, I love it
• Eat Healthily. Tick
• Seven hours in bed. Eight actually last night and heading off there again now
• Neat feet. Nah, still gross. Did scrape them today though and will E45 again in a minute

Back tomorrow for a proper read-back and update

Sounds as though everyone is doing rather better than I am at the moment. *shudder* at the foot scraping thing.

Honey_Bear

• Stop eating cr*p and start losing some of those ounces that have been piling back on since [STRIKE]Good Friday[/STRIKE] Maundy Thursday. Cake finished, the rest of the cream and freezeable cheese frozen and the stinky cheese that has gone well beyond edible will be binned tonight for tomorrow's collection.
  
• Tighten up the language a bit. It was not okay to tell the new neighbours our joint chimney is f*****. Doing better.
• Groom Kelpie for at least 10 minutes daily because his winter coat is definitely starting to shed and the house will be knee deep in black fluff within days otherwise. A bit of defluffing has happened.
  
• Teach him that having his teeth cleaned is fun fun fun! Er ....
• Do something significant every day to make the day of my birthday party calm. One more thing to put away and it's all over.
  
• Do something constructive every week about the micro-business's future. ... starting next week.