I have lost my OS ways, help!

CyclingLondonSaver

Caterina wrote: »

CyclingLondonSaver your housemates' behaviour is really annoying, are they all like that or can you form alliances? Can you talk to the landlord? I hope you can resolve it in an amicable way but if not it might be worth thinking about moving, personally I would hate living in a dirty place and also could not be someone else's skivvy just because they are lazy.

Thanks for the kind words Caterina. Unfortunately I have just moved in so can't move out yet. One of the housemates is a good friend of fine, but he's hardly about so the mess isn't down to him. For the moment I think I'll just keep my bits tidy. My personal baking stuff lives in my room so it can't be mistreated! If it carries on, I may have to raise it with the house though.

Not a NSD day for me unfortunately Managed to forget to take my lunch to work so had to spend a bit to feed myself. While it was a spending day, I decided to pick up a couple of bits I'd been needing for ages - toilet blocks, fabric conditioner and loo roll (exciting stuff! ). All from Poundland. Every time I go into a Poundland or equivalent, I'm amazed at the variety of stuff they sell. Can't believe I never shopped in them before recently!

It was a long work day so I've been chilling this evening. It has literally just occurred to me though - I put my cheque in my coat pocket this morning to pay in and I managed to completely forget about it! I walked past two HSBC branches twice! Grrrr. Must pay it in next week.

Dinner was the leftover of a chilli con carne I made yesterday, with homemade rice pudding as dessert. Yum!

Also booked myself onto a free health screening at work for the week after next. Apparently it's quite comprehensive. Hoping my cholesterol levels aren't too high!

Hope everyone's been a bit more MSE and OS than me today and you've all had a lovely day.

Icey77

Oh My Days, I feel human!!!! The Toad boy sleeps :D:

He slept from 7pm to 6am without waking up once, which has never happened before. I kept checking on him all night this morning he snarfed down his breakfast of porridge, yogurt and mashed banana and now is napping after having some milk, hurrah hurrah, all is right with the world yada yada yada!!!! :D

We are off to my mums today, something to do whilst waiting for the chickenpox to scab over, I think this is a day away at most. Before we leave we are waiting for the tiler to arrive. He is putting the splash back on the sink in en suite bathroom and I'm going to see how much he'll charge to put some of the remaining bathroom white tiles on the kitchen windowsill, much easier than trying to arrange for a wood sill to be put in by the builders

Icey77

Forgot to say, I also mended the vacuum cleaner I took it apart, more apart than it's ever been before and washed everything out, the filter was almost back and there was a clog of carp in one of the cyclone thingies so that'll be why it wasn't working properly.

2 days waiting for the filter to dry and today it works fabulously and I've saved myself easily £40 by servicing it myself :D:D

Caterina, like you say I think it was the builders dust, messy stuff

Caterina

Good evening,

Sorry for missing in action for a whole day, not had a lot of opportunities to go online and don't like typing on the ipad as it drives me mad with autocorrect and it is uncomfortable to type while holding the blasted thing!

Icey, how good it must be for you now that your little boy is sleeping more, enjoy the break! Just beware that he will drop at least one of his daytime naps if he sleeps nights - it is a fair swap in my opinion, but it is a shock to the system when you are used to a couple of hours to yourself twice a day! Well done on vacuum cleaner repair, too. I have emailed my vax people for a part replacement so I can fix mine, hopefully.

CyclingLondonSaver, I hope your health screening gave you good results. Please do not worry about being "less MSE" than anyone, from your posts it seems to me that you are doing everything right, at least as good as any other MSEer. More important, remember, you are an OSer, that is, the Chosen! The SAS! The Elite of MSE!

Good day today, my NSD no. 14 and FF no.6, the week is nearly over and I have been absolutely fine with this no spend malarkey. DH a bit less so, he had to pay the dentist and today he went to a special Aikido course, but we count it as health expense as it is his main exercise. Also, it is important that he attends some of these courses as he hopes to get his black belt this summer.

I had a few OS friends visiting after the jumble sale (which I did not attend so I would not be tempted to spend), one of whom brought some amazing cakes, carrot cake and a tea loaf, to die for! I had cake for lunch and dinner. It was so good to spend some time with these friends, as always.

In the afternoon I went to check on a friend's post box (she is in India and wants me to remove the post from the box and put it in her flat so it does not show an empty property), then another friend's visit, where I had more tea and lovely chatting.

Then I needed to stick a button on my coat but did not have the right colour thread so went to yet another friend who had it, and had more cake and tea and chatting. What a lovely social day I had!

To finish the day I decided to clean and polish my two pairs of ankle boots, my staple shoes for the winter, to maintain them at peak form, and at the same time I also cleaned and polished my leather gloves which I had stupidly used for allotment work last week, as I did not have any other gloves. The shoes had the proper boot polish treatment but I did not want to use this on the gloves so I used a mix of olive oil and lemon juice, which did the trick. Now I have shoes and gloves that look and feel like new!

When DH came back I cooked dinner, well I reheated the leftover curry from last night and added some cooked beans, a bit of quinoa and made a nice red cabbage coleslaw. After all the cake I had in the daytime this was more than enough food. I had wine glass no.4 of January, but only half a glass. My Dryathlon is definitely broken, although I intend to have only the odd glass of wine, if that, as it does not agree with me entirely, it gives me a bit of a headache and heartburn if I have more than a tiny amount.

We had a visit from the girl who is going to spend a few weeks with us, we asked her to come and discuss things regarding her stay. I was a bit nervous because we had to tell her that given our circumstances (family issues and builders in the house) we could not have her here as long as she expected, but that we wanted to help and so she could stay here until she finds alternative accommodation. She is a lovely person and accepted it completely. I really hope there will be no bad feeling because I would hate to have hurt her. But we really needed to set limits according to what we can cope with at the moment.

Ok, off to bed now, I am very tired as always at this time of night, I hope DH makes me a nice herbal tea and a hot water bottle then it is time for sleep!

I might or might not be online tomorrow as we have to steam-strip a room by the end of tomorrow, so that the builder can start the crack repairs and plastering.

Good night.

moments_of_sanity

Catering, amazing work on your FF & NSD's. I am sure your house guest won't be hurt at all, you have been kind enough to offer her accommodation which will undoubtedly give her some breathing room to find an alternative. I hope you got your herbal tea and hot water bottle.

A few quiet days for me, what with running and collecting DD from the station and the extra work one person can create, I don't seem to have much energy for much else. Yesterday we had a lovely dinner of sticky coated pork belly strips with noodles that I coated in the sticky sauce once the pork was removed. My DD1 had her boyfriend over and he joined us and it always makes me smile with what he 'chooses' to leave on his plate. He is from Singapore and their culture is that you leave something on your plate to show you have been provided with enough food and not left hungry, so he chose a small piece of pork fat and a noodle string! . DD has been brought up to clear all the food on her plate and when she first went to dinner at her boyfriends house, she cleaned her plate 3 times and had more food put on it 3 times before her boyfriend thought to mention that if you clear your plate it means you haven't had enough food! :rotfl: DD could barely move from the dinner table afterwards as she had eaten so much!

Today, I need to make some 'snacks' for DH & DD to eat next week at Work and Uni and it needs to be something that keeps them full for longer so I am thinking maybe flapjacks or something along those lines.

Wishing you all a lovely OS day and good luck with another FF & NSD Caterina.

Caterina

Good morning,

Thank you MOS for your kind words and wishes. How funny to read about your DD's BF, i would have exploded in that situation, as I find it really hard not to clean the plate!

Today is my last official FF day, I definitely need to spend tomorrow, fuel in the car and some veg at least in the fridge, but I still have so much stuff that I shall try to fit a couple more NSDs in January if I can.

Of course my big no-NSD/FF is paying the builder, which had to happen this week as well, I can't withold his wages! It is such a big expense, even though his prices are really reasonable, but there is so much to do and the materials are costly too. We are trying to keep neutral,what comes in with DH's salary and my bits and pieces of babysit money goes out with builders expenses, but it is verging more and more on the negative, what with regular bills etc, this means we are cutting into savings, which is so not a good idea.

We looked at paints, we really want the natural, non-VOC one, that's going to be another big expense, I asked DH to calculate the whole surface, all the rooms that need painting and how many coats, so I can try and negotiate a discount for bulk buy. At least I have the (expensive!) floor oil already because I had the savvy to order the large tub when we were planning to oil the kitchen floor.

It will all be worth in the end, but I am WEARY of building works. And we are doing all the decorating ourselves, meaning that all weekends and a lot of the evenings for the foreseeable future are going to be taken up by decorating. Groan.

Anyway, on this happy note I have to get up, make porridge and assist DH to strip the wallpaper from DS's room. What fun. At least it will keep me out of spending mischief!

Have a good OS Sunday.

moments_of_sanity

Caterina, DD did struggle to leave anything and the only piece of food she could bare to leave was half a potato :rotfl: I love hearing him talk about his culture and how things are 'done', he will never leave the house without being immaculate as you may see someone you know and to be seen in anything other than your 'best clothes' is disrespectful to your family, your job shows how well you are doing in life so they like you to be a Lawyer, Doctor, Surgeon etc etc otherwise you bring shame on them all. He is incredibly respectful at all times and treats my DD wonderfully so even though I don't agree with all their cultural beliefs i can't complain as he would move Heaven and Earth for her.

We spent money today which I could have done without really but DD has a huge IKEA bed in her room but needed a standard double so we could get a desk in her room so we needed to buy a new double bed and will look at getting a desk in the next week or so.

I would love to decorate but it's the mess that is putting me off, all the upheaval and disruption.....I may have to give in some time this year though as I really need a couple of rooms doing.

Well, DH is making a move to bed so I had better head off as well, that way I might get to sleep before 4am. Night all

Icey77

Morning, watch out there's a rant ahead!!

I am falling out go love with Li*l, I went yesterday which is a bit of a hike but a trip out is always nice. However they only have 1 child trolleys which means that I have to put Frog in the main trolley part when Toad is in the seat. Every other supermarket in the known world tells you not to out a child in the trolley part as it's unsafe. Lidl, it would seem , actively encourage you to as they don't give you any other option if you have 2 children. Frog did almost fall out and bumped her head lightly on a shelf, it gave her a fright and made her sit down, but only for 5 minutes. Then she was back to jumping up to point and try to grab etc. Added to this insanity the seat doesn't have a safety strap so Toad was falling about everywhere.

I spoke to the manager but he said this was all Lidl supply to all their stores, he would pass on my comments and urged to me to contact customer services but I have my doubts that anything will happen. I have decided to vote with my feet and my childrens safety and go to Adli instead. They manage to have a variety of trolleys which are safe :mad::mad::mad:

Phew, I feel better for that today we off to Tesco to get the bits I can't get in Lidl or Aldi. And this afternoon we are off to the library to get new bedtime story books for Frog.

ginnyknit

Icey too much stress for you in Li*l, I think you should let rip in an E mail - they want our custom - we have other options!

Just found a bag of white beans in the back of the cupboard :j that will bulk up a few meals. I am soaking the full bag then will freeze them in portions when they are almost cooked.

Nsd today for me although I do need some essentials tomorrow, nappies for a nappy cake, 2 pillows for making cushions and toys (Mr T £2 each) and a little storage box from £ shop. I think thats all I need for a good few days.

Tillytrotter1

Regarding the comments about Lidl and the children's trolley seat, the Manager is wrong as I shop in several different Lidl stores and they provide trolleys with 2 seats for the children. As there is only 19 months between my two I would certainly struggle without both sitting in the trolley, although they still have no straps which is a design flaw I think.