The Ultimate Incentive natters on. Part 9

Birdie85

400 cookbooks?! That's mental! You should get a market stall to sell all them! I only have about 6/7 cookbooks and still think it's excessive since I hardly ever use them.

Well done on clearing the Barclaycard Shrimpy! :T

How does everyone plan on keeping track throughout this challenge? Write a list of what's been done? Or just keep a daily count without a specific list IYKWIM?

Funny you should mention that Day Zero list Dinah, I spent Monday (whilst I was 'working' ) rewriting my list and I'm going to start it again since things have changed and there are some things on there I just don't fancy doing any more! Going to try to redo my list on there and reset to day 1, if I can't I'll have to set up a new account.

Not too sure about my goals for 2013. Will have a think. Don't want to put anything baby related on there considering my doctor has just referred me to a fertility clinic so don't want to depress myself but can't think of anything else I want to achieve.

wendz86

Morning,

The challenge sounds good, will give it a go although not sure i will be able to do it every day.

That is good news on the card Shrimpy.

I am on my pre wedding diet starting today. Need to fit in my dress comfortably!

Hugs Birdie about the baby stuff. How long have you been trying if you don't mind me asking.

Birdie85

Oooh Wendz, your wedding will be here before you know it! So exciting! :j

We've been trying since October '11. Already fed up of being poked and prodded (and next week I get a new experience in the form of a scan!) to find out if something's wrong with me. Absolutely bricking it about having to go to a clinic though. Spent £80 on a ClearBlue fertility monitor last week to see if it works wonders so I can avoid all that stuff! :eek:

wendz86

It took us 12 months so try not to worry too much, I know its hard! At least you can count things out being tested etc anyway.

We will be trying again after honeymoon and i'm hoping it will not take us long but kind of prepared for it now.

shrimpy_80

Hugs from me too Birdie - do you have an appointment/date for the clinic yet? At least if they do find an issue you will know what you're up against, and it could well be something really straightforward, but will keep my fingers crossed that your fertility monitor does the trick for you.

I can't decide how to keep track of the challenge either. I did download that app so have a list of things to work through, but they are mainly 'to do' things rather than dejunking things. I think I will just try to get 10 things done each day, they I won't really have to keep track IYSWIM?

Wendz - when you mention your wedding I get panicky feelings as I still have so much left to do! Its good though - keep doing it as I need my butt kicking into action! I love the fact I can say "I'm getting married this year" now (sad, I know!)

Birdie85

Ah no, it's not sad Shrimpy, it's excting! I loved saying that! And now I can say I got married 2 years ago! :eek: Where does the time go?!

No date yet, just got told I was being referred this morning so who knows when I'll get the appointment. Lord knows what my team think since I'm always at the doctor and now having hospital appointments! It doesn't help that I've put on loads of weight (creapt on since coming off the pill which could be a sign of a hormonal issue ) so it looks like I'm 'hiding something' too! :eek:

I've just dug out a little notebook so I think I'm going to try to track my 'clears' in there. Will see how well it works! Going to hit the toiletries tonight (go to make room for everything I got for Christmas! ).

I'm also counting 1 'clear' for every 3 big glasses of water I drink as I don't drink nearly enough and it's clearing out the toxins. Is that OK do you think?!

Dinah93

For tracking, I'm going to post on here what I've done each day, but also try to just update the sig as well with a number but not details. Gave a huge stack of book s to my mum this morning, and forgot to count how many! I'd estimate 30, but I'll ask her to count them if she doesn't think that's too batty.

Birdie85 wrote: »

Already fed up of being poked and prodded

I hope the tests come up with some answers (or even better you don't need to have them in the end) - is it bad of me that my first reaction was 'I know they've been trying a while but her DH needs some pointers if that's how she feels about sex'!

Birdie85 wrote: »

I'm also counting 1 'clear' for every 3 big glasses of water I drink as I don't drink nearly enough and it's clearing out the toxins. Is that OK do you think?!

It's your challenge too, if that's how you want to play it then do that, it's about feeling honest with yourself that you've achieved something you otherwise wouldn't, rather than some set rules.

Tete_en_l'Air

Hi all - happy new year! Hope you all had a lovely Christmas, haven't been internetting much over the hols apart from FB and Twitter on my phone so having a big MSE catch up now. Thanks Dinah for the Xmas card - I didn't have your address to reciprocate but could you DM it to me for future reference pls?

Thanks for all your wishes about my Dad before Xmas. It wasn't the best news, the tumour has grown again so he's beck off to chemo from Friday. Fingers crossed he won't be too poorly with it and it has some effect. It's not something that's ever going to be cured but hopefully they can stabilise it. We're just trying to keep upbeat and positive. I refuse to let 2013 become a horrible void of inertia like most of 2012 was.

Shrimpy - so glad you're feeling well - any news on the house yet or am I being too much of an eager beaver on the 2nd?

Sorry to hear about the India thing Lara, but I bet that pouffe more than made up for it - amazing! Was it you who was talking about wanting to make one a while back? I still have a tutorial up on pinterest somewhere but hadn't thought what the cats would do with it - good point Shrimpy!!

Ah you poor thing Birdie, I can imagine how frustrating it must be - especially when there are constant stories of neglect in the media and it seems every horrible person in the country has about 10 kids Fingers crossed something will show up and you can get it seen to, or better still, nothing will and you will relax and conceive quickly!

As for Day Zero - I changed a few of my goals a couple of months back, I think you can change the date but I didn't want to do that, I'll def start a new one in January though. I'm 24% of the way through this one with 12 months to go

On a similar note to Dinah's 'where would you like to be on 31.12.13?', I've been thinking about where I'd like to be when I'm 40 and starting to form a [STRIKE]10[/STRIKE] *gulp* 9 year and 2 months plan - I've never properly looked at my future long-term like that and probably should have! as for where I'd like to be at the end of this year, well the answer is half way through a PGCE, but similar to Birdie I don't really want to say that as it's out of my hands to some extent. It would be nice to have a better social life this time next year.

My only resolution this year is to be more organised - I'm sick of running about, unprepared and late for things - it's SO stressful. I did also write a list of aims which I wrote about on the blog, and I just posted on my own thread about my weight and how I'm on a diet again!

As for De-Junk Jan - count me in! It's something I was doing anyway (after watching the hoarder progs over Xmas - I definitely have potential!!) but this gives me an added incentive. I put three bags in the chazza shop this morning in fact! As for books - the only thing I can think of is a boot sale and it's not the best time of year for those! I stopped doing RiSi long ago as P&P was more expensive than just buying a book in a charity shop. I've challenged myself to chuck 20 books from my shelves whether I've read them or not (this is unbelievably hard for me!) - Dad is going to take them to the chemo day unit on Friday as there's a little library there - probably most hospital wards will have a library if you don't want to donate to a shop? Re cook books - I have a lot of these that I don't use too (not 400!) - sometimes Amazon has a trade-in thingy for them which might not be a lot but shouldn't leave you at a loss?

Also - what is the Hell of the North??

(Wow sorry I really should post more often rather than do mammoth posts like this once every three weeks!)

Birdie85

Dinah93 wrote: »

is it bad of me that my first reaction was 'I know they've been trying a while but her DH needs some pointers if that's how she feels about sex'!

:rotfl:

I like your goal of being more organised Tete and I'm trying (as I do every year it seems ) to do the same. Some of my new Day Zeros goals link into this as each year I *want* to be prepared and make birthday and Christmas cards and presents for everyone but I never actually do it in time! This year I made some extra Christmas cards to sell, but they were ready too late to really sell as many as I would have if they'd been made a month earlier! So I have to work on my actual productivity this year!

Oh and yes Tete, you do need to post more often!

N.I.M

Tete_en_l'Air wrote: »

Hi all - happy new year! Hope you all had a lovely Christmas, haven't been internetting much over the hols apart from FB and Twitter on my phone so having a big MSE catch up now. Thanks Dinah for the Xmas card - I didn't have your address to reciprocate but could you DM it to me for future reference pls?

Thanks for all your wishes about my Dad before Xmas. It wasn't the best news, the tumour has grown again so he's beck off to chemo from Friday. Fingers crossed he won't be too poorly with it and it has some effect. It's not something that's ever going to be cured but hopefully they can stabilise it. We're just trying to keep upbeat and positive. I refuse to let 2013 become a horrible void of inertia like most of 2012 was.

Shrimpy - so glad you're feeling well - any news on the house yet or am I being too much of an eager beaver on the 2nd?

Sorry to hear about the India thing Lara, but I bet that pouffe more than made up for it - amazing! Was it you who was talking about wanting to make one a while back? I still have a tutorial up on pinterest somewhere but hadn't thought what the cats would do with it - good point Shrimpy!!

Ah you poor thing Birdie, I can imagine how frustrating it must be - especially when there are constant stories of neglect in the media and it seems every horrible person in the country has about 10 kids Fingers crossed something will show up and you can get it seen to, or better still, nothing will and you will relax and conceive quickly!

As for Day Zero - I changed a few of my goals a couple of months back, I think you can change the date but I didn't want to do that, I'll def start a new one in January though. I'm 24% of the way through this one with 12 months to go

On a similar note to Dinah's 'where would you like to be on 31.12.13?', I've been thinking about where I'd like to be when I'm 40 and starting to form a [STRIKE]10[/STRIKE] *gulp* 9 year and 2 months plan - I've never properly looked at my future long-term like that and probably should have! as for where I'd like to be at the end of this year, well the answer is half way through a PGCE, but similar to Birdie I don't really want to say that as it's out of my hands to some extent. It would be nice to have a better social life this time next year.

My only resolution this year is to be more organised - I'm sick of running about, unprepared and late for things - it's SO stressful. I did also write a list of aims which I wrote about on the blog, and I just posted on my own thread about my weight and how I'm on a diet again!

As for De-Junk Jan - count me in! It's something I was doing anyway (after watching the hoarder progs over Xmas - I definitely have potential!!) but this gives me an added incentive. I put three bags in the chazza shop this morning in fact! As for books - the only thing I can think of is a boot sale and it's not the best time of year for those! I stopped doing RiSi long ago as P&P was more expensive than just buying a book in a charity shop. I've challenged myself to chuck 20 books from my shelves whether I've read them or not (this is unbelievably hard for me!) - Dad is going to take them to the chemo day unit on Friday as there's a little library there - probably most hospital wards will have a library if you don't want to donate to a shop? Re cook books - I have a lot of these that I don't use too (not 400!) - sometimes Amazon has a trade-in thingy for them which might not be a lot but shouldn't leave you at a loss?

Also - what is the Hell of the North??

(Wow sorry I really should post more often rather than do mammoth posts like this once every three weeks!)

Hi Tete, Really sorry to hear about your dad, but if its a thing of just controlling it surely they think they have a good chance of doing so, not sure they'd suggest more Chemo, with the unpleasant side effects, for a "lost cause" type case iykwim?

The Hell of the North is a 100 mile on-road bike ride through some of the toughest (read hilly) terrain in County Durham. I'm planning to do it this year to raise money for the Neo-natal Unit at North Tees. Started my training well (7 miles on Boxing Day) but only got out once since and my bike computer doesn't work anymore, I think I broke the sensor, so dunno how far I got, but as the routes I know were flooded it wasn't far. Does anyone by any chance know someone who has a turbo or rollers I could put the bike on to do some work at home on a weekday evening? Otherwise I'm going to have a real hill to climb when the light comes back.