Hoarding...not just on TV

Patchwork_Quilt

Dear me JoJo! Put your feet up and have another doughnut!

Just popped in to read posts and offer encouragement. Keep going chaps!

Also, went to see DD at Uni today and offered her the two cookbooks, which she was delighted to have.

I would have decluttered one of our houseplants to her but couldn't quite do it. I was thinking about it in the car. I have a houseplant that was given to me by the type of friend who will notice and be hurt if it disappears. However, I never wanted it. I have cherished the thing for three years now and it has multiplied. Then I realised that the only reason she gave it to me is that hers had multiplied and she had filled her windowsill with beautifully tended examples of the thing.

So actually, neither of us wanted it.

Unfortunately, this does mean it will have to go on the compost heap but I can't seriously pass the thing on to someone else.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

I'm fine. It was just the bug with a few other bits, masquerading as something horrid. I will admit to getting a little bit concerned when they were all being so nice to me in A&E and not having to wait more than ten minutes each time. The doctor and nurse even both came back as I was being discharged to say bye and give me a hug!


******


I agree, GQ, about the imaginary inquisitor deciding whether I am worthy of that purchase. It's the voice asking who did I think I was kidding in wanting that thing/from that shop.


What helped me was using examples of things that I really do know what I'm talking about, where I'm confident.

In my case, I know what I'm doing where it comes to music, some techie things and some history/art.

This means I am fine in music and electrical stores. 9 times out of 10, I'm treated perfectly well, but on the rare occasion I'm dismissed or ignored, I can respond to it - the central London music stores were left in no illusion about how silly they were, everybody in Currys giggled when, after being ignored in favour of male shoppers, I stood with my back to a group of management, waved my credit card in the air and said very clearly 'Hello, seven thousand pound credit limit here' and then told the person (who had systematically bypassed me in favour of men wandering aimlessly around) when he said 'can I help you, then?'

'Well, yes, you could have done twenty five minutes ago. However, I'm on the phone to Apple now and I'm going to buy it from there instead.' and walked off confirming my rather expensive order.

And, on a day when I wasn't due on , talking in a vintage dealer's yard about different style furniture and using the German term for art from the nouveau period - and him asking what Jugenstil meant. (I did grin and say 'I almost sound as if I know what I'm talking about, don't I?' just in case anyone thought I was showing off )

****


Now, all I have to do is channel that confidence into other places.



What or where does anyone else feel confident?

And how do you think you could use that somewhere else in your life?

GreyQueen

Glad you're not about to be hospitalised, Jo Jo.

Now, I know very little about music but I went to art school and was made to suffer through lectures on art history and design history so feel comfortable about that.

I know that Monet and Manet are two different painters, not one with a typo. And that Joan Miro is a male Spanish artist (Yo-han) not a woman called Joan. So I can talk art and design at least without making a t*t of myself.

I've also had a [STRIKE]messy[/STRIKE] erm, varied working life and know some rather oddball things about various fields of endeavour, and am quite devious about slipping a few things into a conversation esp with garage blokes or repair blokes as in stuff that's not common knowledge. My purpose is to send up a flag that says I may be female but don't ever think to play me for a fool. I can speak Bloke pretty well.

I was once kept waiting a silly-long time to complete a not-inconsiderable purchase and there was no good reason, just gossiping lazy assistants who couldn't be arrised. So I saw a managerial type and went over to him, holding up my wallet.

See this?

Errr, yes?

There's several hundred pounds in this wallet which should have been in your till, and would have been, but for your rude and lazy staff. Now going to spend it in a rival store - byeee!

I have made a Decision. I shall treat myself a bit better. I shall buy a badly-needed item for my working wardrobe. And perhaps even have my hair trimmed professionally next time instead of hacking it off with clamshells. It won't be easy but I need to work on this sense of unworthiness.:)

The_Dragon

Hmm got two stories to add to this, one when I was dressed in jeans and a rock t-shirt being ignored by a franchise in H*rrods (but being served in D*ckens & J*nes). two days later when I went into H*rrods dressed in a smart business suit at the same franchise I was fawned over (I got the info I wanted and went back to the other place.

The other one was with Dr Dragon, he was wearing a seriously geek t-shirt and we were in PCW*rld and this pimply faced youth (looked about 14 :eek::eek::eek:) was being really condescending and was thwocked down (in front of his manager *yes :beer:*) by Dr Dragon

Molly41

Byatt wrote: »

I also admit to having binned AF cous cous.

Im never buying AF again.
So pleased for you Elona. Hope DD makes a quick recovery in the comfort of her home x

wannabe_sybil

Elona - that is such good news, fingers crossed.

Jojo - I hope you feel better soon.

(next bit is a bit self indulgent so can be ignored up to *)

August my feet were so swollen that I couldn't get socks on. The dr ran some tests, and at the beginning of September told me I had intermittent heart disease. I got an appt to see specialist in November. A fortnight ago breathing became a bit of a challenge and so I finally got water tablets. Now I am getting pains in my chest, and I don't know what that means. It could easily be indigestion. However I really can't do much. Today my lovely next door neighbour is taking a huge linen press out of the house, and I can barely move to clear stuff out of the way. Once it is gone there will be a gap and I will be trying to clear out a lot of stuff and rearrange stuff because I will finally have room to move and get at stuff. Except doing anything, like dancing for less than five minutes with little bear yesterday, makes the pains worse. I am still considering indigestion as the most likely option with the tablets, but worry that it isn't. So clearing the room is going to be really difficult. I have shirts to iron for next week and nowhere to put the stonking great ironing board that was a real mistake to buy. During this time when I have been on my knees, my husband has not so much made a sandwich.

* My neighbour is going to pick up the linen press this morning. I think while he is there I will ask him to get a book case out. It is a real cheap and nasty one, I think it came from Littlewoods many moons ago. I will need to redistribute the books but I think a lot of them will be able to go, especially now I can actually reach them.

I will still be faced with the challenge of four tyres in the room, but a lot more room for those tyres, and I am optimistic I shall be able to get rid of a bit more.

I am trying to keep up with the thread, I am getting a lot of inspiration from the people on this thread. Thank you.

hugs to all

valk_scot

I agree wholeheartedly about not judging by appearances, trust me! I spend/spent so much time on the alltment in past years that I got used to going into shops in bag lady gardening clothes and getting totally ignored. However I also have quite a posh speaking voice when I want (think Penelope Keith, lol) and it never fails to amuse me the way shop staff leap to attention as soon as I open my mouth.

I also worked in retail long enough to know how disillusioned shop staff get with the general poor attitude of the paying public, I'm sure this doesn't apply to anyone here but shop staff do get treated like absolute dirt by far too many unpleasent and entitled people. I belive there's a duty of courtesy on both sides but no, the customer is by no means always right, it's just that the shop assistant is paid to do a job and part of that job involves putting up with the kind of crap the customer would never dream of using to an "equal", bah. So while I do insist on good service, I try to be courteous and friendly to the staff member while doing so.

SpikyHedgehog

I very rarely buy couscous as an adult, having suffered from the couscous mountain as a child but still enforced it on DS1 as I automatically bought it - everyone needs couscous, don't they DS2 likes it, so we have a bag in at the moment, but when its finished, I won't get another till requested.

Hoping you're starting to feel better, Jo Jo. Glad GP insisted you got checked out!

I was first diagnosed with asthma when DS2 was a baby. I'd got home from work with what I thought was a (nother) bad chest infection, managed to get an appointment to see the GP that evening. Then-DH dropped me & the boys & the buggy off at the doctors & went off to work. GP tells me I've got asthma, prescribes 2 inhalers & sends me off, knowing I've got the boys with me as they & all our coats are in the room with me. Get the boys & me back in our coats, DS2 back in the buggy, walk half a mile to the pharmacy to get the inhalers, walk the mile home - no money for taxi.

Go back to see GP a week later, he prescribes stronger steroid & tells me I should probably have gone to hospital last week for treatment with nebuliser & oxygen. So I tell him I ended up walking a mile & a half home pushing the buggy. He was horrified & I was fuming - medical people should never assume all patients have someone waiting in a car to take them home!

Well, I'm here still, so obviously not a bad statistic.

GreyQueen

Couldn't agree with you more, valk_scot; I work in customer services and you'd be amazed at how about 20% of the public see fit to talk to other human beings doing a job of work without the freedom to answer back.

So, I'm always very polite and very understanding and never fuss if I can see the assistant is busy/ struggling with a big queue on her own/ has a legitimate reason not to be paying attention to the customers.

What does get my goat is if people employed on a shop floor are on their mobiles having a trivial chat with their mates about their social lives or standing in groups in corners giggling instead of working. I figure it's a failure of their supervisors as well as a basic failure on the staff member's part to comprehend what exactly it is they've been hired to do i.e. separate me from my money.

Mostly, I'd just put my shopping back on the shelf and walk out without saying anything. Very few shops are selling unique goods at unbeatable prices and you can get the stuff easily enough elsewhere.

And I'm often in gardening duds to and fro the lottie, too, and sometimes in shops looking, shall we say, a trifle scruffy. It is amusing to see people change reactions when they hear my rather cultured RP accent.............:rotfl:If I need to kick butt, I dress in my smartest and ratchet said accent into cut glass territory, it's amazing how it works.

Crazy thing is, I've interacted with tens of thousands of people over the years, face to face as well as on the telephone, and you absolutely cannot judge a book by it's cover. Some very smart-looking and well-spoken people have swinish manners and some people who have ended up sleeping on park benches are the nicest and most cultured people you can meet. And there are plenty of regular working folks whose manners and decorum show up the rudeness of the hooray henries and henriettas on a daily basis.

Today, I have decided to take it easy with a little light allotmenteering in the afternoon and a bit of lolling this morning. I may remove a file from the top of the wall unit and go thru some recipes.

I'm a basic and rather idle cook and I have to understand that there are things that I am only too happy to eat should someone else cook them for me but that hell will freeze over before I bother to cook them myself, even for guests.

I've come to the conclusion that a lot of clutter in my life is the result of not facing up to the facts; especially the facts of my own nature. Some things I will take infinitate pains over, and other things trigger a big yawn and a desire to run off and do something more interesting instead.

The trick is recognising the difference and not beating yourself up over it.

((((((sybil))))))) that sounds worrying. I hope you'll get to see a GP soon. Completely understand you, Spiky, about having to toil about the streets without a car as that's been my experience for most of the time and indeed now. Medical wallahs often seem to send people zig-zagging over half the city for blood-tests etc giving a moment's thought to whether they can get there or if they even have the busfare.

lostinrates

To those wanting to look better..don't forget your local beauty colleges. They did nothing for me, but I have difficult hair and very odd skin (meds effect my skin). I have started having facials with a local beautician as this summer I just could not take care of myself well enough. It's kept me feeling female not just dead man walking. (I resent the money but I like her, she is a neighbour and she is not very expensive yet has good experience and doesn't push the most expensive things)