Apple muncher's number crunching

apple_muncher

How could I have forgotten to mention that HMRC have sent me yet another cheque - £220 this time. Think that's the last one, though, but still nice to get. (Must pay it in some time soon...)

apple_muncher

We have not left the house today. I think we all needed it. I was awake and up by 6.30 but no-one else stirred for about 2 hours!

Not a lot done really. A wash. A workout (zcut #10). A feather duster to attack the myriad of cobwebs. A gf lemon bakewell - but I put in too much lemon curd so it's rather overwhelmingly sweet. Finished 3 more glove cars and cut out 2 elephants.

Stepdd has asked if they can stay with us when they spend the weekend this way in June. They were planning to stay in a hotel. So it'll be nice to see them properly and not just as 'visitors'.

michelle09

It's always a celebration when you get money out of the HMRC, so well done.

The lemon bakewell sounds good, do you make your own pastry or buy prepackaged?

apple_muncher

I make my own as it's simpler that way, esp now with dd being gf and df. Any gf pastry in the shops is sooooo expensive. And then it sits in the freezer for months....

Snow is falling again. Dd is hoping for 8"...

apple_muncher

Have finished off another few glove cars and an elephant, bringing the month's total to 23 so far.

apple_muncher

Workout done already. Thought I'd try getting up a bit earlier and doing it before my brain could object. Down side is that my body is slower to warm up, but I still got pretty sweaty. ZCUT kettlebell #10 in about 11 mins. Plus warm up and cool down. There are 12 in the series but it's not progressive so they are all pretty tough. I'll definitely be going through them all again, as there were some new and interesting exercises or exercise combinations that I enjoyed doing. And I can always 'upgrade' from my 8k KB to my 12k one. Gulp.

So today: school run; counsellor; sainz shop (got roped in to cooking with the brownies again tonight); lunch at local harvester with dh (have a 50% discount voucher plus a £30 gift card to use); school pick up; scoff some tea; cooking with a gazillion brownies; bed.

Is it wrong to sit here thinking, 'but what about time for myself'? I find that I really do need solitary time every day. Am sure I can shoehorn some in somewhere...! I want to get another elephant made and start to unravel a scarf I bought - it has lots of tassels and is made of super chunky wool, so should be worth the effort.

greent

Nope - not wrong at all. I have to have solitary time to recharge me. Am terribly grumpy and resentful of doing things if not!:o

apple_muncher

Thanks greent. I got some solitaryness done. Phew.

Got paid back for the ingredients I bought for brownies cooking - and was also able to bring home the unused ones. Result. However, am pooped, despite there only being 11 of them, and 4 of them had done the cookie cooking before!

Somehow made it to 22,000 steps today. Partly due to there being huge gaps between buses so it was faster - and warmer - to walk than wait. And we walked to and from the harvester for lunch. We used the 50% off voucher, saving the £30 giftcard for when the step kids are over and we may all pile down there.

Dd is also wiped out - so tired she gets hot/cold and disobedient. But then gets upset at being disobedient! I have pointed out to her that simply doing as asked would be simpler for us all... She needs to break up a week earlier than she is.

earthgirl

I think my children are the same! Just needing a break now.

I love time alone too, and feel strange if I don't get it!

apple_muncher

Paid in the hmrc + brownies cheques today so once that clears, it can come off the mortgage.

Dh and I realised yesterday that we aren't 'just keeping our heads above water' financially. He was able to shift over £300 pcm to a saver account and I've been paying down the mortgage by a few 100 each month.

His earnings from his permanent job brought in much more than we thought last year (because his fixed pay is teeny tiny, but he has had a fair bit of extra work, and since his earnings are so low, he doesn't pay tax). And his self-employed stuff is pottering on even without him promoting it. To be honest, he's not really had the time to take on extra.

I bring in extra by marking for an exam board and following the change of spec, all exams are now examined and no longer moderated (if they were), which means more pay for me as there are more papers that need marking. Today I received an email inviting me to the role of senior examiner for one component. Go me! I asked for more details and had a swift and very comprehensive reply. So we shall go through the details of that tomorrow and make a decision soon. It will pay more for the role and involve extra face-to-face training,so I'd better check that I can have the time off work to do it!

And I am doing some more drumstick knitting - I love how quickly the knitting grows!