make do and mend for tougher times

[Deleted User]

HOORAH for FUDDLE who has finally stamped her foot and said no - Proud of you kiddo!!!! Brilliant idea childminding, from all your posts it sounds ideal, good on you. So very pleased that your landlord is on side too, it's about time you got things going your way for a change.

I've just bagged up another 19 double portions of the early new potatoes and they are now in the freezer. That makes 43 bags altogether, I am certain they won't keep in sacks this year and I didn't want to loose them to rot.

Have just been to the farm shop and topped up my spice pots for a while, they have lovely ripe peaches and nectarines at 4 for £1.00p so they are now in the fridge to be enjoyed later. They also do what are called 'Cake Mistakes' and they sell them at £1 , it's cake trimmings etc so I treated us to a tray of flapjack pieces too Mmmmmmmmmmm Yummy!

We have a free weekend from Sky Sports this weekend so I am currently enjoying the show jumping from Hickstead, love horsey things. Cheers Lyn x.

Pips_Mum

Really pleased for you Fuddle :T

Pooky

Fuddle. - Have a look on the NCMA web site for details of your local course (national childminding assoc,) I childminded for 5 years whilst mine were little and it was great. From memory I started the course in the september and was fully qualified and registered by the June, OFSTED came to do the house and business inspection around 6 months later. Do check if there's a local childminding group near you, sometimes they have a mentor that can help you with your set up paperwork etc. I had some lovely kids and am still in touch with them all.

Best of luck with it!

GreyQueen

:T Great idea, Fuddle. You'd be excellent.

My pal from school needed to back to work when her DD was still tiny but her older sister was a SAHM and a professonal childminder. Pal said she wouldn't have been happy leaving her girlie with just anyone but she went to considerable trouble to use her sis (and paid her the going rate, just like any other customer).

In life in general, I think "mate's rates" are a fine thing as long as you feel a reciprocal trust in the mate concerned. From what you've said, you were harmed by the refusal of people in your wider family to help you when you needed it, and if anyone has the brass-neck to expect you to step up for their children, either for free or for preferential rates, I think you'd be justified in giving them the sharp side of your tongue.

At various times over the years, I've done little sewing (making or repairing) clothes and have charged a very modest sum. Got stung by one girl who I'd agreed to make 2 pairs of cotton trousers for, from scratch, her fabric, for £5.

Cheap, huh? She tried to pay me £2.50 for the two pairs of trews and claimed that was what we agreed. I was an extremely impoverished student and really on my uppers so I had to insist. She brought the remaining £2.50 around to my bedsit in coppers and left it in the hall.

Another gal asked me to do a couple of repairs and we agreed a price and we met up the city to hand them over and it was a case of, Oh dear, I haven't got it now, I'm going camping tomorrow and I need to buy food to take....... Like a fool I let her off at the time and had to chase her later, in a group of other people. As she wouldn't take a hint, I had to say; "Thingy, about the £x that you owe me, I expect to have it now."

"Oh, I'd forgotten about that....." she rambled. But not in the sense of having forgotten and being embarrassed, funnily enough. I got my money (only about 3 months late btw) and later realised that this woman uses her looks and considerable charm to exploit the good-nature of others, not just me.

I don't often do stuff but these days, but if I do, it's your trousers/ curtains/ grass skirt in my keeping until I see the money, honey. Shame that some dishonest beyatches drive you to such extremes.:rotfl:

Monnagran, sorry to hear that you are being slug-ified, too. I killed a few more today, just ones which came to light in the process of giving my plot a radical haircut with a pair of grass shears. Which cut slugs in half very nicely, I have discovered.:p At the end of my workday, I clean off the metal tools, dry and oil them, ready for another day of mayhem.

I have also taken down the net curtain from the lottie shed window and it's just finished coming through the wash. It's the cut-off section from my living room curtain and is designed to obscure the goodies from view to deter villiany, of which we have some, unfortunately. I added to strips of hemmed gingham to the curtain wire as pretend-curtains to amuse myself (the spiders love nesting in them).

Have picked and podded another batch of peas for the freezer and will have to have a major sesh tomorrow picking SNAILS as they are all over the peas and in the blackcurrant bush.....it's more a case of there are blackcurrants in my snail bush than the other way around, wah!

I will gather them in my glov'd hands and chuck 'em in a bucket. Then I shall taketh them to a flat piece of ground and tip them out and chop them up with the business end of a spade. It will be distasteful but I hope to slow down their advance so that I might just have something to eat this year..........and they have eaten all the runner beans and the are my most favourtist vegetable ever and I am bliddy furious about that.

All together now..........mwah ha ha!!!!!!!!!!!!

mardatha

I haven't had any emails from MSE all day today, I was thinking nobody was talking I worked out I've overpaid my rent by around £100 so I have written to ask for it back. And I've been into Ravelry and drooled a lot - think it's time to start the xmas socks.

Evie74_2

Fuddle - hurrah for the childminding! :j That's a really good idea - having a career that will enable you to continue as a SAHM while bringing in the pennies. As regards your sister - I would tell her to go and whistle! If she and her DH are in good jobs and earning well, they can afford to pay for childcare - whether that's from you or from another provider. Good for you for standing up for yourself!

Monnagran - I share your disappointment with the veggies this year. I have two tomato plants which have plentiful flowers but I doubt whether there will be enough time for them to fruit before the autumn - there are a few little tiny green toms on there (and one big green whopper) but whether they will actually ripen remains to be seen.

A new peril has emerged in the garden - I was inspecting the raspberries to see if there was any sign of ripe fruit (there wasn't - still green) and I found a couple of leaves that were sort of rolled up and stuck together. I prised them open and lots of little green caterpillars tumbled out!! I am wondering if there is link between these and the pitiable state of my brassicas...:(

The kitchen is now completely packed and I am sitting at the PC surrounded by stacked up pots, pans and kitchen gadgets. I have put tablecloths over them to try and shield them from the inevitable dust but am sure it will be a waste of time!

I still have to tackle the horror of DD2's room - she and her sister have been up there allegedly tidying for the past couple of hours but when I last looked very little progress had been made. I haven't the heart to shout as they have been playing nicely and that has meant I could get on with the kitchen packing.

Now to try and cobble together an evening meal using random items from the fridge and my trusty microwave (newly installed in the dining room). Now where did I put those plates?!:rotfl:

Evie xx

[Deleted User]

Do you know fuddle I can actually feel your excitement stay detached re your family, you will only have to tell them once and first time will be the hardest. In a way though, it will be better if you don`t have their little ones, even at the correct rate, as they will try and take advantage. You could always say that you already have a waiting list

I have loved today, it has felt like being on holiday and we have sat out a lot in our higgledy piggledy garden. No noise at all and no smell of barbeques.

I made some unusual bread today, 100% wholemeal with activated yeast in warm water. I let it rest in the fridge for hours then stretched and folded with olive oil on my hands, incorporating seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, chia and linseed). I popped it into two floured bannetons to prove
http://www.bannetons.com/index.php?section=angebot&lang=en
mine go round and round. Then tray in oven and heated to 230 with a tin at the bottom. Upturned dough on hot tin, slashed top with very sharp knife, poured water into tray at the bottom. Baked 10 mins then down to 200 for 30. Oooh and it looks awesome and very rustic

Today I ordered flour from shiptons, not as cheap as supermarket flour but I like organic and I like shiptons. Tomorrow I`ll get the lock n locks out of the cool windy shed and the bags will go straight in there. It will arrive tuesday I think

Dh picked a load of blackcurrants today and the fruit drawer is filling up. Tomorrow I`ll pick cabbage, mini caulies and turnips and set to with a hoe. Its a really good time to get hoeing, weeds die quickly

There are bits and pieces re next week in public forum
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=474&c=5

smileyt_2

Fuddle, unless you are desperate for customers I would steer clear of minding your sister's child even if she pays you the going rate - it sounds like she's the kind of person who would expect her child to have preferential treatment in any activity and would give you grief. But childminding is a brilliant idea if you love little kids (I'm afraid I would be useless as I find children boring and tedious. Even the ones I love. I know that's not very feminine but hey. Give me a dog or other furry though and I have a full-on rush of maternal instinct!). The very best of luck with getting set up. I'm sure you will get customers from word of mouth once Mums realise how brilliant you are! Would it be worth keeping a journal of the things you do with your kids this summer, to show prospective customers your skills? You know, the simple stuff like baking, collage, painting pebbles, drawing pictures inspired by books the littlies have read?

My sister had an op on Tuesday and was taken back into hospital this morning - my parents had to take her to A and E and she was admitted immediately. Thank God it doesn't seem too serious, but she is in a lot of pain. My Mum phoned me this morning and I learned what it means for your knees to buckle beneath you. So I have done nothing all day because I haven't been able to settle to anything. Hopefully she will be discharged tomorrow or Monday once she has some new pain meds - she had a bad reaction to the ones they gave her. She has a weird metabolism and often reacts badly to medication.

PAH is it you and/or Paidinchickens who has given up smoking? You have done the very best thing you could for yourself. I met an old dog-walking acquaintance yesterday. She has lung cancer from smoking all her life and has had chemo but it hasn't worked.:(. She is now going to have radiation therapy, but because they will be targetting her chest and her brain she may need an emergency op afterwards to open her gullet as it may fuse together. She is also going to have memory loss, but the doctors can't tell her what kind or how much. It is terrifying. But as she said, if she doesn't, she will only have a few months left to live. She is an incredibly brave woman. But I was left thinking, what a choice - die soon, or live longer with unknown memory loss. Our memories make us what we are.

I tell you what, listening to her story, and seeing my sister suffer in pain after her surgery, makes me even more determined to do everything I can to maintain my health! So, I am on a fitness kick. Swimming and cycle rides, one or both six days/week and fewer calories, but not so much that it tips my body into starvation mode. I did a four-mile walk yesterday but I have shin splints today, which I am horribly susceptible to. So no power-walking or running! I actually started last weekend before hearing these stories of ill-health but they have hardened my resolve. I have lost 2lbs and half-an-inch off my waist. Plus of course, the less I weigh, the less I will need to eat and the more Moneysaving that will be :rotfl:.

Kidcat I hope you are managing to get a bit of rest and that your pneumonia is getting better.

Hugs all round xx.

GreyQueen

Good to see you back, smileyt, I was hoping you hadn't succumbed to the blues over the job situation. I'm very sorry to hear about your sister and hope she is soon on the mend and back home.

Oh, I know exactly what you mean about children.........I'm afraid I'm a terrible woman who'll bike across town to see someone's kittens but not walk cross the office to see a new baby. A colleague of mine summed up her own (lack of) baby feelings thus; "They don't have fur or enough legs!"

Despite having been otherwise engaged when the maternal instinct was being doled out, small children are quite drawn to me, which I find inexplicable tbh. Have come to the conclusion that it must be because I'm softly-spoken and not prone to sudden and alarming movements. I have learned not to wear dangling earrings around babies, tho!

Good job that there's a lot of willing mummies out there or somebody might've got ideas about co-opting the likes of me into it, and I don't think I have the patience for small people 24/7. Didn't go a bundle on kids even when I was one......;)

Quick Q for the dog-owners up here. I saw something odd in the park this afternoon (wash your mind out, smileyt!) It was a middling-sized pooch of the Heinz breed wearing a coat with panniers on it. They were loaded but couldn't have been holding more than about 1 can of food on each side.

What was that all about? Are people using pooches to carry the shopping or is this some kind of training thingy? It was a smart, professionally-made rig btw.

It's going to join the list of the Odd Fings Seen in the Park, currently topped by the severed pig's head, for which I can find no rational explanation whatsoever...........

Evie74_2

GQ - dogs with panniers? Severed pigs' heads? :eek: Parks in Provincial City are a darn sight more [STRIKE]terrifying[/STRIKE] interesting than the ones near me!!

Evie xx