make do and mend for tougher times

smileyt_2

Ooh look, I'm first up on the thread this morning! I'm going swimming, part of my mission to get fit. Pool opens at 9 so I am going to give the dogs a little walk first - they can have a bigger walk when I get back.

Fuddle, what a naughty doggy! All your hard work .... It's a good job he's so cute. I have to say that the one thing Bruno has never done is chew any of my craft projects. He just contents himself with digging nests in my furniture.

Kidcat. What can I say? I really think you should be an advisor to the Government when they are looking at their policies about caring for autistic kids. I don't know how you cope. I am sending you virtual hugs and virtual mops!

Pops we are getting an Aldi near us NEXT WEEK :T whoo hoo! For some reason I don't mind Aldi's expansion, whereas if it were a Tesco I would be fuming. I think because Aldi is good quality and reasonably priced, whereas Tesco's :mad: ..... I usually use Asda but can see myself switching to Aldi as they now do soya milk. I buy most of my really vegan stuff (like yeast flakes, tofu, soya mince, quinoa etc) from the wholefood shop so a switch from Asda to Aldi for the rest is certainly possible. It means I will also not have the temptation of craft magazines and books as Aldi don't stock them - even more moneysaving, as craft mags are a definite weakness!

Well I'd best get on. Adult-only swim is 9 til 10 and after that the kids start getting in and splashing around. Which is fair enough. We were all splashy kids once!

Have a good day, wonderful people.

PS Greyqueen have a murderously good day .... slugs are the one thing that somehow seem to be exempt from my vegan radar ....

ETA B*gg*r, beaten to it by fuddle and elona ..... must try earlier next time Lol!

GreyQueen

Enjoy your swim, hun. I like swimming myself but it doesn't work too well with having ME as I do about 10 lengths of a 25m pool, need 5 mins of rest between each length, suddenly lose all muscle strength between one second and the next in mid-swim and often can't get out of the pool without my legs buckling........ and then that's me wiped out for the rest of the day.

I'm chilling for a few mins before washing my hair which is very long and very thick and takes hours to dry, so will do it now then bike to the lottie and let it dry al fresco. Won't inhibit my gardening at all.

Re slug and snail-slaughtering, I wouldn't normally harm wildlife but I make an exception for those two types, especially this year. They have reached pestitential quantities and gargantuan sizes and are literally eating all in their path. I don't use chemicals on my plot and am getting down and dirty with cold steel. It grosses me out (humour is my coping mechanism) and I'd rather not do it, but there are too many now and I dread next year if they overwinter and their eggs hatch. I was thinking the other day that it's a good job I'm neither a Buddhist or a Jainist..............:D The balance of nature is totally-skewed and the slugs are twice the size of most of the frogs and toads so there's no way they're going to keep them in check for me.

A promising looking day, weather-wise, possibly even summery. Have a good 'un, whatever you're up to.

kidkat I could almost see the family leaping into action like a well-drilled military team. The things you have to cope with! Congrats on discovering there is a plumbing work-around.

ETA Evie74 I don't know whether PC is particularly odd, it's one of England's smaller dozier places, or whether odd things just happen on my watch. My family suspect the latter.

Evie74_2

Good morning Toughies!

The sun in shining here today :j which is a good thing as I forgot I had a line full of washing and left it out all night - I guess with all the delightful weather we've had recently I'm no longer used to drying things outside!

Today's agenda involves a ruthless clearout of my wardrobe (there are things in there that I'm never going to fit into again, if I'm brutally honest - good quality stuff so it can go to the CS and do someone else a good turn) and clearing the decks upstairs to enable the electrician to do his stuff. I also need to do my daily veggie check/slug massacre and added to that I now need to root out sawfly larvae from the raspberry canes (thank you Grandma247 for identifying those for me!).

Fuddle - your creative ideas sound absolutely brilliant! I may have to pinch the idea about drawing targets on the outside wall with chalk - my DDs often play hopscotch/make pavement art but I'd never thought to make targets for them. And laminated butterflies sound lovely too :T

Smiley - I am in awe of your fitness plan. I am very conscious of my expanding waistline so once the kitchen makeover is complete and I have my house back again I shall try and psych myself into digging out the dreaded 30 Day Shred DVD once again. I have gained a lot of weight recently (comfort eating after DH's job loss I think, as well as general greed, and lack of gardening due to rain) and I do need to do something about it. I used to be a WW member many moons ago so I might start that up again - I still have all the recipe books etc and some of their online stuff is free to use. I know there is a weight loss thread on the OS board so I will have to have a peep at that too.

Elona - your budget salmon meal sounds delicious I love it when people don't realise how little you've spent on something...! It makes it easier when dealing dealing with certain folk if you can keep up appearances - I like a quiet life

Right, better set to and start on the [STRIKE]clothing marathon[/STRIKE] second coffee :cool:

Evie xx

Evie74_2

GQ - you're not alone with weird things happening - it's a standing joke at work that odd things always happen to me in the workplace - I always get the weirdest clients/scenarios. Makes life more interesting, I say! Also provides entertainment for my colleagues watching from the sidelines

Evie xx

jamanda

Fuddle - sorry to butt in, but even if your sister agreed to pay full price, what makes you think she would actually pay it?

GreyQueen

Evie74 wrote: »

GQ - you're not alone with weird things happening - it's a standing joke at work that odd things always happen to me in the workplace - I always get the weirdest clients/scenarios. Makes life more interesting, I say! Also provides entertainment for my colleagues watching from the sidelines

Evie xx

I work in a call centre. There are about 50 of us. The weirdest calls come to me..............and I'm not even a full-timer. Some of us are just lucky that way, I guess!

Evie74_2

GQ - yep, some of us are just magnets for the crazies...! I only work part time too, but still they manage to find me!

Evie xx

fuddle

jamanda wrote: »

Fuddle - sorry to butt in, but even if your sister agreed to pay full price, what makes you think she would actually pay it?

I don't know. It didn't even enter in my head that she wouldn't. :cool: I'm keeping it to myself for a long time and by which time I hope to be knowledgeable about what I'm allowed, tax purposes etc Once I get my confidence up, work my figures out I'll be able to just say no. I do expect I would be taken advantage of with her though, you are right. If it's not the money side it would be easily half an hour extra here, time on the weekends etc and I'm not prepared to do that. If I'm honest I don't want to do look after my nephew to be. She is demanding and she'll be stipulating what I should do. I don't want any part of it. It's just whether I'm strong enough to say no, if the question ever arises. I've plenty of time to get strong

GreyQueen

Evie74 wrote: »

GQ - yep, some of us are just magnets for the crazies...! I only work part time too, but still they manage to find me!

Evie xx

Do they come and sit next to you on buses and trains, too? My Mum is the same, complete strangers come up to us and tell us their innermost secrets. Perhaps I missed my vocation and should have joined the secret services.........:rotfl:I get the oddities so often even my supervisor remarks on it.

paidinchickens

Morning everyone

Had a fabulous day yesterday :j

The sun was shining which made me feel so much better and I got caught up with Mount Doom (washing)

In the afternoon I went to a jumble and bought a Braun food processor with every extra gadget to it for £2, kenwood juicer and mincer for 50p each , some clothes for 20p each for moi, and a brand new mattress protector for 50p. Some other bits and bobs for the total of £7 :j:j



Off to dog training this morning even though "they don't train husbands"


PiC x