Cheery's buttling diary: tea in one hand, plant pot in the other, running shoes on

Cheery_Daff

Yeah, that's me, a human squirrel :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Today's haul was just a mince pie from a meeting :rotfl: :j :j managed to keep it unsquashed in my bag for the whole afternoon!! Turns out my ziplock bags (from £-land) are airtight, so you can seal air in which makes them less easy to squash

Not much else MSE-wise to report. Went to the pub at 3 but stuck to tea which was £1 a mug - unlike last night which turned into a multiple-pubs-and-a-curry extravaganza :rotfl:

Nothing planned for tomorrow - just a fairly relaxed day at work and some painting in the evening. Sister is coming Friday night to do some decorating so need to make sure she has a bed! :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Oops, missed off my reasons to be cheerful/thankful:

* I actually managed to ask a colleague for help with a difficult situation and they said yes (I don't do asking for help...)

* free mince pie :j

* nice supportive meeting this evening.

Not really MSE related but all I've spent today is bus fare, taxi fare, oh and I bought someone a coffee (but someone else bought me a cuppa later so it all worked out)

Must think about presents again tomorrow!

Cheery_Daff

Evening :hello:

Popping in to help me focus Mr Cheery has gone out, and I've spent the last 40 mins sitting on my backside when there are things to be done! Gah!

So, a list.... and WHY OH WHY can't I do colours on this stupid forum any more?? Wahhhhhhh! I miss my stripey lists!)

8.45-9.15
* find bedding - may have to wash some and bloody ancient washing machine takes 2.5 hours :eek:
* YNAB/banks
* order Christmas present (which may have to be a birthday-in-January present at this rate :rotfl: )

9.15-10.00
* gloss paint kitchen skirting boards
* clean brush (yes, it gets its own line to cross off...)
* check cellar to see if we have any plaster
* make list of tasks [STRIKE]for sister[/STRIKE] to do while sister is here

10.00-10.30
* clear path to spare bed (might do this tomorrow after work
* blog post (not necessary but part of my cheerfulness plan )

That's probably enough for tonight! :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Popping in to report minor progress :j :j

8.45-9.15
* [STRIKE]find bedding - may have to wash some and bloody ancient washing machine takes 2.5 hours [/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]YNAB/banks[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]order Christmas present (which may have to be a birthday-in-January present at this rate )[/STRIKE]

9.15-10.00
* gloss paint kitchen skirting boards
* clean brush (yes, it gets its own line to cross off...)
* check cellar to see if we have any plaster
* make list of tasks for sister to do while sister is here

10.00-10.30
* [STRIKE]clear path to spare bed (might do this tomorrow after work[/STRIKE]
* blog post (not necessary but part of my cheerfulness plan )

Hmm, started writing that update 45 mins ago then got trapped in a mad spiral of buying a book online at an obscure website/seeing if I could get the Secret Survey site to pay out in Paypal/trying to figure out if I could part pay for things with an online prepaid creditcard (the option for those of us who haven't set up Paypal for survey payout yet)/emailing to set up Paypal/paying for the damn thing via paypal myself :rotfl: :rotfl:

Had to have a small glass of advocaat while all that was going on and still haven't started the gloss painting... :rotfl:

But on the plus side I have

(a) ordered a Christmas present :j and
(b) redeemed my first points from secret survey site as online vouchers which will serve nicely as a young relative's present :money:

Also realised my preferences were set to one survey every 2 weeks (the default - I hadn't realised you could change it). Have changed to unlimited in the hope of making my fortune :rotfl:

Right - paint. Might have a quick cuppa to try to lessen the effects of the advocaat... :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Ok, pretty much stopping for the night now :j

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

8.45-9.15
* [STRIKE]find bedding - may have to wash some and bloody ancient washing machine takes 2.5 hours [/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]YNAB/banks[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]order Christmas present (which may have to be a birthday-in-January present at this rate )[/STRIKE]

9.15-10.00
[STRIKE]* gloss paint kitchen skirting boards[/STRIKE]
* clean brush (yes, it gets its own line to cross off...) - actually, wrapped in cling film as suggested by retiredandskint the other day :j Not sure if I'm going to gloss anything tomorrow mind you but saved me washing it tonight :rotfl:
* check cellar to see if we have any plaster
* make list of tasks for sister to do while sister is here

10.00-10.30
* [STRIKE]clear path to spare bed (might do this tomorrow after work[/STRIKE]
* blog post (not necessary but part of my cheerfulness plan )

So much for the tea - I followed it by a swift second glass of advocaat :rotfl: Tis Aldi £4.79 stuff so at least pretty :money: :rotfl:

Other money-related things...

* got a refund for those lovely boots I bought that didn't fit :j :j Didn't realise til after I'd bought the book via Paypal so that's eaten into my balance, but essentially I've withdrawn £20 to the bank (I'll add to the house fund when it arrives) and got a 'free' book (or at least the money hasn't come out of the bank) so hooray :j

Payday tomorrow :j or, in fact, in 1 hour and 2 minutes That'll mark a whole year of paydays at my new job :j :j Will do a bit of shuffling tomorrow and hopefully have a decent wodge to stick to house fund :j

Still got some presents to get... but off to visit someone in a different city on Sunday evening so will go early and whizz round and finish shopping then :j

Right, off to make a quick list of housey jobs and maybe ponder a blog post (or maybe just doze off on the sofa and do both of those tomorrow...)

Cheery_Daff

Evening chums :hello:

Had an email today that my fixed energy deal is coming to an end. At the minute we're on a flexible direct debit, and because we built up quite a surplus last year, I reduced the DD to £67 a month (for both gas and electric), but the 'official' deal is £89.

Their suggested fixed deal is £101 a month (although obviously that will depend on usage) so I need to have a shop around and see what else I can sort out...

Just putting this here so I remember it when the time comes

www.greenelectricity.org

It's a comparison site for just green tariffs (which is what we're on now, and what we'll move to). Interestingly, I had a very quick look at the one we're currently on isn't listed... Need to get exact figures of what we've used though for a proper comparison.

Anyway, not a job for tonight, as my sister is currently on the train and will be here in an hour, and we're going to decorate the spare room :j :j Quite excited :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: Be nice to feel like there's a room done (although clearly it's not going to be *done* as there's still two gaping holes in the wall that will need plastering... but *nearly* done is good enough for now..)

Nothing else to report. Oooh, but it's PAYDAY today so maybe I've got time to sneak in a small bit of money shuffling before I go and pick her up :j :j

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, I know what I meant to say - finally qualified for the bank's everyday reward scheme - £4 a month for meeting a set of criteria (paying in £800, having 4 DDs set up etc), plus 5p for every use of debit card, up to max of £1.50 - we got the whole lot so £5.50 has gone to the house fund :j (except I rounded it up to £10) :j :j

Cheery_Daff

Right, dosh shuffled around, £500 added to house fund and sig updated :j Would have liked to add more, but paid for the bedroom carpet and still waiting for an invoice for some other work we've had done, plus just paid £120 for a professional membership :eek: and need to keep enough out in case I rejoin the gym...

However - January I'm doing this uber frugal month challenge :eek: so we'll see how much extra I can save :eek: :j

Cheery_Daff

Evening :hello:

Sister has been and gone, and my goodness we wooshed through the house - painted pretty much all of the spare room, some of it with two coats, including the paintwork :j And we even painted a couple of walls in the kitchen which I'm SO pleased about - one was BRIGHT yellow and the other 30-year-old-grey/blue :eek: both were stained with goodness knows what and had all manner of blobs and marks - now it's all a lovely sage green :j :j Still needs a second coat, and I need to do round the window (which is bright yellow and covered in bits of filler :rotfl: ) but it's getting there! :j :j

Had an email reminding me to 'renew' house insurance, and another one about the tv licence so must get on with those while I'm off over Christmas.

And, thinking about Uber Frugal January, I'm considering getting back into a survey site or two... just ones I can do on the phone while I'm on the bus or something. Will be investigating. I've enjoyed buying a few Christmas presents with the Pinecone dosh this year :j :j

So, today some things that I'm grateful for:

* my sister travelling over and painting with me :j :j Made me get on with stuff it would have taken me forever to get round to. And it was nice to just hang out for a day :j And she seemed to think she was having some kind of relaxing spa weekend despite the fact we still don't have a functioning bathroom door :eek: :rotfl: (her house is a bit hectic)

* Pals and their social events - I'm currently sat in my pjs trying to work up to going to a friend's christmassy do, which I WILL get to, because I haven't seen her for yonks :eek: Off to an old boss's Christmas do in another city tomorrow too.

Right, really must get dressed and go else everyone else will have gone home! :eek:

Cheery_Daff

Well I made it to the party, and the other one in another city last night, and yesterday morning I ran 10 miles and today I mostly spent thinking about sleeping... :rotfl:

Not much to report. Had some read and goats cheese left from the weekend so took that to work for lunch - still plenty of bread for tomorrow and I've got soft cheese jn the work fridge that needs using too.

There was loads of stuff left after 2nd party so we all came home with a goody bag :j and someone left a big tub of chocs in work today - I was so tired I ended up eating quite a few which probably didn't help in the long run...

Oh, and i met a friend for a cuppa in Waistrose - free cuppa of course :j you have to buy something to get it these days, but it works if you just buy a banana :j Today i went with a cupcake with a picture of a bee on top lady couldn't find it on the till so put it through as something else, so I got 20p off :money:

Got all my Christmas presents out of various bags this evening - now have a list of what's left to get and it's not toooo bad (at least it doesn't require too much imagination, which is what I struggle with )

And I've written all the cards that are getting written :rotfl: ready for the last posting day , as blithering usual but it's an improvement on the old days when I rarely managed to get them in the post at all - have to celebrate small achievements... :rotfl:

So, trying to keep up my gratitude list (alhough today I don't feel too grateful )

* I'm grateful for lovely friend who took time out to meet me for a cuppa today. She's 70 next year and I always feel honoured to have older women as friends, they have so much experience and wisdom (of course some of them can be just as wrong as the rest of us but this one is pretty wise!)

* the IT system at work breaking this morning :rotfl: it meant that I could give myself permission to get on witb a different task that I really wanted to do but was struggling to justify. Made good progress!

* mr cheery - he's had a tough and dull day shifting stuff up and down stairs and I wasn't very cheerful about it when I came home but I did manage to capitalise his good work by rolling up the bedroom carpet so it can go to friend's allotment ready for new one to arrive on Friday (ooh must remember to ring carpet shop back!)

That'll do now other things too but I'm in bed on phone and as I've been so very tired today I should probably go to sleep......

Night night :hello: