New Leaf, New Day, New Ways

Triggles

Almost Halloween. Almost the 1st of November. You know what that means..... Christmas Prep begins in earnest now.

So let's see what I have done and what I still need to do....

Christmas card list - I actually have two separate lists. One for family and friends in the states. These cards need to go out sooner and their postage is more, so they need to be "flat" cards when I make them. The other list is for local/UK family and friends. I can wait longer before posting them, but will probably post them early enough to send them second class if possible. I'll have to check the prices - it's cheaper, but not a clue by how much. (do they still do second class post? you see how frequently I get to the post office just by that question alone :rotfl:)

Christmas gift list - I have the list made out, although a few people are getting cash instead of gifts - namely DSS and DIL, and DD and SIL. They'll get a few little fun silly items and some chocolate, but then some cash. That way they can either choose to spend it on something they need or towards something fun they'd like to get. DGSs will get a book, some chocolate, pyjamas and a little money to spend on a toy. (covers all bases :cool: )

DS1 & DS2 - already purchased a few items - pyjamas, video game for both of them. Looking to get another game for DS1, a toy tool box for DS2, then for each of them a book, and a board game (or two if I find a good deal) to play together. I am also planning on picking up some colouring books and crayons/markers - although DD often asks what the boys will like for Christmas, I may tell her these and then that's taken care of. My mum gives money to the boys as well, so I think I will get DS2 a fancy dress superhero outfit as he would really like one and then something fun for DS1 as well. Goodness that sounds like loads of presents.

Stocking stuffers - some sweets (probably chocolate coins as they're already talking about them from last year), an orange, a banana, some chapstick, a small matchbox car, and possibly some playing cards. Pretty safe stuff, really, but I want them to be able to help themselves to the things in their stocking.

Christmas Day menu - Again, I tend to go with traditional (what I had growing up) and don't go for much fancy (the boys wouldn't eat fancy stuff anyway). So it'll be turkey, roast potatoes, green beans, corn, and most likely Yorkshire puddings (because the boys really like them ). Then pumpkin pie or Christmas cake later in the day.

Boxing Day - the food will most likely be nibbly snacky food and leftovers. Also I'll cook the gammon in the freezer and use that for sandwiches.

Christmas cookies/nibbles - I haven't narrowed down what I want to make yet. We always make m&m cookies, and I might make some shortbread. I need to prowl through the recipes and make a decision soon so I can buy some ingredients of time. We don't make loads, but it's nice to have some on hand to go with coffee when friends pop in to visit, especially if they have children. :cool:

Teacher gifts - I struggle with this one, I really do. I've read some horrible threads on another website from teachers who are criticising gifts from students, and I think it's such a poor show to do that. I'm not comfortable bringing in wine for a teacher, as many do, or with mass contributions to buy the teacher big gift certificates. I'd rather give something small (and affordable) that the DCs can help with.

I may do a small gift bag of homemade goodies and let the boys help make a bookmark that I can then laminate and they can put ribbons through the end. Inexpensive and easy to put together over a weekend. The days of children having just one teacher seem to be long gone - most classes have a teacher and at least one TA in them now. And I would never send in a gift for one and not the other.

Decorations - We have to buy a new Christmas tree this year (last year the old one literally fell apart when dismantling it :rotfl:). I'd like a nice tree without paying a fortune. Argos has some wide variation in prices, so I'm pretty sure I can find one I like there. They have them on sale right now - even better!! So that might be a purchase over the next week. I have numerous decorations (yes yes 5-6 boxes worth!!) so at least I won't have to buy much. Although a new string of lights is also on the cards, as the one for the tree died an untimely death last year as well (luckily just after Christmas :cool: ). Anything else we want to put up, we can make. I'm also planning on making a few new decorations for the tree this year - just narrowing down what to make from different craft blogs. So... a new tree and a new string of lights. Altogether, not a huge spend. :j

Now I just need to keep checking for the 24 hour Christmas music radio station to start. :rotfl:

Triggles

I almost forgot one important category! (Sorry, DS2 had a head injury two days ago and is now feeling nauseated, so I'm trying to keep a very close eye on him in case he needs to go in again)

Charitable contributions - While I try to do contributions as and when I can during the year, I always make more of an effort over the holidays. Now when food banks are popping up all over the place, I plan on donating to our local food bank. So I need to find out where to donate and what they need (most likely non-perishables). So that's another thing I'll be doing over the next couple months.

Triggles

Tis the season to be shelling out loads of money. And I'm not even talking about Christmas!!! It's school picture time! DS1 brought home his pictures (well, the proof picture, not the real package) and a price list. There's ALWAYS a price list, isn't there? The thing is this - the package of prints I need is £25. The digital image alone (without prints) is £25. Or I can get the package of prints that I need plus the digital image is £30. I'm leaning towards the £30 so I can get the prints and still have the digital image in case I've missed someone I normally send pictures to (yes, my organisational skills are still being worked on lately - it's been a bit of a muddle). And that's JUST for DS1's pictures! I imagine DS2's will be about the same, when I get them. They haven't been taken yet, that I'm aware of, which is unusual as I always thought they did them in September or October. Maybe I missed the notice? The boys don't go to the same school, so no option of getting their pics together and saving money that way. Rats.

Honestly, I'm paying for the convenience. I could sit the boys down, take a series of pictures, choose the best one, and then send them out to relatives. But that involves actually getting a decent shot (and we all know how long THAT takes!!!) without DS1 falling apart (or me for that matter), choosing a picture, and then taking time to go organise sizes and numbers of prints. Ooooooorrrrrrrr... I can order the package. :rotfl:

I find it's a fine line between doing something myself to save money and spending an exhorbitant amount of time and sanity to save money. This picture thing would definitely come under "not worth stressing over" in my book.

A quick trip up to the attic today to get down the Christmas decorations. I tend to pack them up rather quickly just after New Years and don't look too closely at their condition. So I sort them during November, toss out anything that is not repairable, and then put them up during Thanksgiving weekend.

So... the race is on.... it's currently the 2nd of November. Thanksgiving is the 28th of November. I've got 26 days to finish painting the hallway (almost done), put the flooring in the hallway/entryway, paint the living room (eeek! still deciding on colour scheme!), and replace the flooring in the living room!! This could be interesting.

I also just spent £23 on 2 pieces of chew jewellery for DS1. He is constantly putting stuff in his mouth. Already had to take him in to A&E for swallowing a lego. And have caught him with legos, little toy soldiers, toy shoes, and the like in his mouth since then! I have to watch him like a hawk. Yes, I could go through and lock up every little thing in the house that a 7yo could put in his mouth, but my god it would be a nightmare!! I just have to watch him like a hawk until these chewy toys get here and hopefully that will help. If not, I'll simply go mad. :eek:

Triggles

So I'm juggling a number of ongoing goals at the same time...
- no spend days as much as possible
- finish painting hallway/entryway (plan to complete it Tuesday)
- put down flooring in hallway/entryway (buying it Tuesday, to hopefully start Wednesday!! eeeeekkk!!!)
- paint living room (ok, I really need to get this done - but I cannot decide on colours!! I've gone round and round!!! Help!!)
- put down flooring in living room
- decorate for Christmas
- get food shop down as low as comfortably possible
- build up small stock of things I use regularly for winter
- make Christmas cards (design pretty much decided on, just need to make them now)
- address and post cards
- buy Christmas presents (already started)

I've completed my menu planning for the next 3 weeks, using pretty all stuff we already have in the house. :j Thank goodness for freezers!! That means on my regular shop this Friday, I will only need to get milk, butter, eggs, and fruit/veg. That leaves me a fair margin to do some of the stocking up that I want to get done, so I'm quite pleased with that.

I'll also be popping into Aldi's this week, as their heat logs are going on sale. Chimney sweep comes this week as well.

I'm planning on starting the Christmas cards tonight. I can work on them after the DCs are in bed, while I'm watching some television.

For the moment, I'm off to browse B&Q, and see what paint colours I'm interested in. sigh... MUST decide on colours for living room.

dawnybabes

De lurks. My next door neighbour pops her kids in shool uniform and takes them down to boots/mothercare/small studio etc and has the "school" photos taken there, much cheaper and generally better photo as she's there to make sure hair ok, smiling etc..

Triggles

That's a clever idea! Thanks! I will certainly think about doing that! I've got a bit of time before I have to order the school pictures, so I can look into that first.

Triggles

Things are slowly progressing. The decorations are going up little by little (so that I don't have a huge stack of Christmas boxes sitting in the dining room).


I've finished painting the walls in the hallway/entryway, and one coat of paint on the ceiling. It's pretty obvious it needs a second coat, so I'll have to do that this coming week, followed by the flooring.


Then next comes the living room. The first thing is the painting. I STILL cannot decide on a colour scheme and arrangement that I am happy with, but I really need the walls to be done before I put up the Christmas tree. I think in the interest of my own sanity, I'm going to put on a coat of magnolia so the room looks nice and revisit the colour scheme after Christmas. I am still going to put the flooring in, but I guess when I get around to actually deciding a colour scheme, I'll just have to make sure the floor is well covered when I paint again. I've invested far too much time trying to figure out the colour scheme and I'm just tired of trying to sort it out.


Once that is all done, I may focus on organisation until after New Year's. I want to get the budgeting more streamlined and work on trying some new meals to put into the meal planning. I also want to trim 5-10% off my grocery budget starting in January, with a view to trimming it further after a few months if possible. I had wanted to get the DCs' rooms redone before Christmas, but I think that it will just end in manic work and chaos, and I'd rather just enjoy the run up to Christmas, so I will start work on that in January or February.


DD and SIL (and DGS) are taking us out for a meal today for my birthday. I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing meal with no clean up afterwards. And then this evening I am going to browse through my two new cookbooks (gifts from family) in search of new recipes to try.

Triggles

Derailed by massively agonising toothache caused by an infection in the root of the tooth I'm waiting to have extracted. Dentist put me on antibiotics, and the tooth is coming out tomorrow, bumping the filling on the other side of my mouth for another two weeks. So hopefully the pain from the extraction won't be too bad, as otherwise I'll have sore teeth or jaw on both sides. I'm so nervous about the extraction tomorrow. I think I'll just be glad to get it over with at this point.


So no painting or flooring done right now. I am keeping up with the household chores such as vacuuming, washing up, laundry, and obviously child-related things like school runs, meals, and so on. But nothing extra at the moment.


Although, on a positive note, it's relatively no-spend. LOL I'm not up to going anywhere so not spending money.


I've managed to get my grocery shopping to about £21 for next week by running it through the online shopping to price it all up, juggle things around a bit, then write it down and emptying the online trolley. I had to be a bit brutal with "okay, we don't really NEED that, and we can do without THAT." But I've got most of the ingredients to make nibbles and biscuits during the week, so I kept it pretty basic.


I'm slowly putting up the Christmas decorations here and there. I was going to wait until closer to December, but I've just been putting up one or two things each day when the DCs are in school and it's become a game for them to go around the house trying to spot what I've put up during the day.


I've had to put the heating on a few extra times here and there, as DS2's room can get pretty cool. Thankfully, he's the one that is always complaining he's too warm, so he's happy that he's in the coolest room. But I try to keep his room temperature at least 17-18 at a minimum. The prepayment meters are still a challenge, but at the moment I am reading the meters every day and noting the amount left, and calculating how much it's costing daily and averaging over the week. It's still quite reasonable, so I'm not too worried. My concern is obviously more focused on when the heater will need to be turned on for longer time periods and how much it will cost. I'm planning on having it off as much as possible during the school day, as I'm bustling about cleaning and the DCs are in school. Some well timed bursts of heating from 3pm until 8am the next morning will hopefully serve us well while keeping the cost down. (fingers crossed!!!)

Triggles

I have discovered Aldi's recipe pages. Quite a few interesting recipes that I am interested in trying. I am still torn on shopping at Aldi. I would say most of the things I buy are relatively similar in price (from what I've seen when browsing in the store) to what I'm currently buying at Sainsburys. But there are a few noteable differences - the super six, of course. And sometimes the meat is cheaper. So I may have to just give in and do one shop at Aldi's just to see if I come out cheaper. And with all their Christmas line in shop now, that may be debateable!!


Temperatures outside are below freezing this week, which means a bit of a lean on the heating. Again, keeping it off during the day, but getting frustrated as there's no actual thermostat, only a timer. The heater itself has a dial on it, but it just has coloured lines to indicate how high it is, no temperature reading at all. I want to look into getting a thermostat fitted to it, if possible, preferably one of those electronic portable ones.


Dental work did not go as planned. The tooth did not come out, due to long roots and dense bone at that point in the jaw. So it's now broken up and still in my jaw. I've been referred to the local hospital for an oral surgeon to surgically remove the tooth, however, it could be weeks (up to 18 wks?) to be seen for an assessment, and over 6 months for treatment. I was told by the dentist that if I went private I could most likely get it taken care of within a week or two for a cost of roughly £400 or so (he wasn't really sure on the cost, was just estimating). I'm going the NHS route for now, but if I can put the money aside, I may have to go the private route simply to take care of this. I am having a fair bit of pain and am quite worried about infection, as there was already an infection present (which was the reason for moving up the extraction to begin with). I'm on antibiotics, so hopefully that will help. At the moment, my jaw feels like it's been slammed with a sledgehammer a few times, from all the work done on it with the attempted extraction.

Triggles

Tonight's meal is dedicated to our eggs, which will be going out of date soon. The boys love scrambled eggs, so I think a nice warm meal of scrambled eggs and toast is in order. I will thaw out a small bit of green pepper and onion from the freezer and cook it up in some butter and put that and some cheese in an omelette for me (kids won't eat it that way). Yum!!


I have discovered a very odd thing. As much as I have been walking around the house freezing lately, you'd think I would have tried this sooner, but I put on a pair of the gloves with the cut off fingers the other day and wow! what a difference. Obviously for me when my hands are cold, the rest of me is cold. Gloves on, I'm much warmer. Happy days! I don't think the house is THAT cold - the DCs seem fine and are not complaining about being cold. The heater is still off during the day, however, I try to time things accordingly. I will do some baking this evening while washing clothing. By the time the baking and washing is done, I will put clothing in the dryer. So between the baking and the dryer, there is some extra warmth in the house. It just keeps the house warmer without having to run the heater. It's the little things, right?


Now that the weather is colder, I've found I don't really look to buy soda pop or cold drinks. I have two bottles of wine in the fridge that will probably stay there until Christmas as I just am not fussed about drinking it. I have been drinking more coffee and tea (basics - very inexpensive!) to keep warm.


I've found a couple new recipes that I've liked and that went over well with the DCs and family. The first was Nigella's chocolate Christmas cookies and the second was Mary Berry's Treacle Tray Bake (although I modified the recipe a little as the DCs wouldn't eat it with the ginger icing on it or ginger pieces in it, so I used ground ginger in the cake and left it without icing). Quite tasty and definitely something I'll make again. Treacle isn't too expensive (I think it was 83p in Sainsburys) although the recipe uses a fair bit of it.


I've been mulling over what to put in Christmas stockings this year. I'd like it to be things the DCs are allowed to just help themselves to. The things I'm thinking about are: chapstick, playing cards, chocolate coins, orange (debating over a chocolate orange LOL), some new fun socks. It's just little stuff really.


I will make this point though - I will be doing what my mother did years ago. We always got playing cards every year in our stockings along with other things, as we used them all the time. She bought us all the same kind and then she bought a couple extra decks and kept them back. Then if we lost a card or two she could replace it out of the spare decks and it matched the deck. It kept those decks of cards going a lot longer that way, as we loved card games. They are great for learning numbers, playing everything from go fish to cribbage.