Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2015

nursemaggie

Siebrie that sounds wonderful. I expect you can use the days when one of the children is sick.

meritaten

Lyn - wonderful about the pregnancy but the poor girl has been treated shamefully! good luck to them with the baby!
I cant understand why GPs receptionists are allowed to 'triage' patients. that is the job of a qualified nurse surely?

camelot1001

Lyn - What shocking behaviour, poor girl, a complaint should definitely be made. On saying that, such good news and I wish everyone well.
Siebrie, that's a great system over there, much more family friendly.

I made do with left over party food for lunch, actually really enjoyed it. Some folk at work were going to put it in the bin yesterday!

I had my elf outfit on yesterday (I work in a school) and a couple of bells fell off so I sewed them back on. Wore it again for the hospice party this afternoon and the ribbon inside holding the drawstring for the waist came unstitched so that has been fixed too. Who knew an elf had so much work to do!

Minimised some dirt from the floors, they have all been mopped, need to go for a shower now and an early night.

Lynplatinum

Hiya y'all

Many thanks as usual for your wonderful and helpful comments. :A I feel sorry for those decent folk working within the NHS - they all get berated and tarred with the same brush as those who do not do their job (certainly a minority). As I said the staff @ A&E and the maternity unit were wonderful, kind, caring and very professional.

However, if those who a wrecking the reputation of the NHS are not bought to book then others will suffer.

I so agree with you Nurse Maggie - if folk with very little wrong with them sorted it themselves; if those who miss appointments (without exceptionally good and provable reason) were fined - even if they are on benefits; and if folk took more responsibility for their own health (for example someone I know has diabetes and is still drinking and eating like a pig - despite being overweight) then the NHS would have more money for those who need it! It does make me cross :mad:

To make folk smile - when I broke my leg last year I was asked (at the hospital not in my home area) to fill in a form stating who my doctor was. The doctor whos name I put had retired some 5 years ago!! When they got my records they told me that I had not been to the docs for 7 years - just turned up for breast screening and yearly arthritis review at the hospital

MM&M today: Make do - tea 2nite was other half of stir fry from last nite! Also took own coffee rather than buy one (2 day is my long day away from home); mend nothing on that front I am afraid!; Minimise - managed a trip to the tip with loads of old wallpaper and plaster!
Hope all of you are having a good evening! :A

nursemaggie

We went shopping tonight at Mr M. Did not feel like cooking after work at home this morning, fitting the best paid surveys and then 6 1/2 hours painting. We bought some pasta salad and went over to the hot cooked meals. They were reducing them.

Following YS stuff was bought, 4 spicy chicken kebabs 49p; 5 jumbo sausages 29p; pies, 2 minced beef slices 29p; 2 cheese and onion slices 29p; beefsteak or chicken pie not sure which had labels for both 19p; sunday dinner (whatever that is) pasty 19p; 12 chicken drumsticks 45p, meat loaf 29p; 6 fancy seeded bread rolls 25p; 3 apple strudels 19p.

I put all the pies, meatloaf and sausages in the freezer. DS had 3 kebabs and some pasta for his tea, I had two chicken drumsticks, the other kebab, a pile of pasta and a bread roll. You would think I would not have room for any more as I now only have half a stomach but I managed one apple strudel. Apple strudel is lush with brandy cream on it.

A very good day all round. Better watch what I eat until Christmas. Will take the pasta salad and chicken drumsticks with us tomorrow and have them when we have a break.

GreyQueen

nursemaggie wrote: »

silvasava some of us are MM&Ming our new flat. We can't get the glue off the wall that was papered. Does that mean the emulsion will not stick and we have to paper it again? I hope not we, have over spent on decorating materials already and we would need a paste board and brushes, just for one wall. Neither of us has done paper hanging before. We have no where to keep a paste board.

Apart from the two papered walls and the deep purple and navy blue walls I don't think this flat has been decorated for at least 40 years.
.

Oh, those deep purple and navy blue walls have me wincing in sympathy, that must be pretty oppressive.

One time when I was very very poor, and only had one pot of the top colour emulsion, and had to bring down a very dark colour before repainting in a light colour, I did the following.

Took a small amount of white emulsion, diluted it slightly with water to make it s-t-r-e-t-c-h further and used a cheap bath sponge to scumble it over the walls. The originial chocolate brown was still noticable under the scumbled white, but much reduced in prominence. I was then able to repaint in one coat with an eau-de-nil green. I have used this technique to take down a vivid emerald for repainting with an apple white, too.

It can be cost effective as white emulsion is invariably much cheaper than coloured emulsions, and you often have a bit on the premises, or can ask around and get given some.

Re the painting over wall-paper adhesive residue, you can do it but the paint will have a horrible scabrous appearance, which will be much more obvious once the paint is on than it is now. I believe you would be very dissatisfied with the look and, once the paint is on, it will be difficult to ever get a resolution.

I have resolved this problem myself in the following way; get wallpaper scrapers (you can get these in the pound stores), a couple of big car-cleaning sponges and buckets of hot water with washing-up liquid in them. The hot water gets swabbed on, working in small areas. Once you've swabbed an area several times, try sliding the scraper across.

I would be very surprised if the adhesive didn't lift like the pith from orange peel. Wipe it off into a bin, and repeat until the whole wall is done, then wash thoroughly with fresh water/ w.u.l, rinse, and wash with sugar soap. Allow to dry very thoroughly (couple of days at least) before repainting. The reason for the delay is that emulsion is latex-based and will seal moisture into the walls, so you want them very dry before you start painting.

As with all decoration, the prep is 90% of the time and effort, sadly. And I would also recommend putting the wash-water from the buckets, and the rinse water from your sponges, through an old sieve before putting down the drain. Some of the adhesive-pith will inevitably end up in the bucket/ sponge, and will be a beggar for causing blockages in the pipes.

I do know what you mean about the difficulty of decorating in very small homes, as well. My biggest room is 12 ft 9 x 9 ft 7 and my bedroom just about takes a standard double bed with room to stand on one side of it!

Anyway, I hope the above will be of help to you (the hot water is the key to softening the adhesive btw) and that you get past this problem. Good luck!

Lynplatinum

Evening All

Well the above phrase well and truely hit me today!! So I started off well - putting chicken into marinade and some into freezer - sat and did a survey - sorted all me other e-mails as well. Had a shower. A pitta bread with the cooked chicken and salad in. Had a successful shop for Christmas ingredients for pressys + a couple of pressies for DIL.

Then it all went haywire - had a phone call 'come and pick up the Christmas pressy I ve got you' - very kind; very nice - but I have no pressy ready for them :eek: Sit round there for an hour (having found some reasonably posh biccys for a presy! (will have to buy more for other friend for whom they were intended). Also starving by now - ended up @ chippy - savaloy and chips costing £3 - Blown resolution to keep on healthy food till Christmas and resolution not to open purse

Not happy with self!!! GRRRR :mad:
Why doooooo I do this to myself - I know I could make a summat for tea in 15 mins with what I have in!!!! And it will be healthier and lower cal!!! :mad:
Going to bed in a mo cos gotta get DIL into hospital by 9am! (for check up and to get blood results) Means leaving here @ 7.30!
Nite all

nursemaggie

Oh dear Lyn have a hug and I hope you sleep.

GQ thanks for the suggestion. In view of the short time, has to be done by 29th carpets go down on 30th we do not think we have time.

We are exhausted now, we still have to cook, clean, wash shop and DS has to do his daily quota of job applications before we can go. We keep having to break off to go into town to see the council, make phone calls during office hours etc. We have promised ourselves Christmas day and boxing day off so we have decided to put lots of pictures on that wall.

Our days are very long it is usually midnight by the time I have cooked and we have eaten dinner.

One last shocker three walls of the living room were at some point pillar box RED :eek: sorry to anyone who likes red, I do like red but not that much in a small room. OK on the cushions and a throw.

vulpix

Good Morning people,Just a flying visit as we are off to Chester shortly as it is Mr V's birthday treat.

I have had no internet since Tuesday as they have been improving the internet service in the village.

gotta go vxxxxxx

GreyQueen

:T Hope you and Mr V have a lovely day out and your internet is soon back and better than ever.

nursemaggie, I well know the feeling of overwhelm when you have so much to do and so little time to do it. I was nearly a decade on the council list and when this flat came up, I moved with 4 days' notice. The other flat was slightly bigger, the furniture brought form there to here wasn't right for the size of the rooms and it was chaos. It also fell at a time when I had pre-committed to an intense training course on top of my working week, and had cleared my diaries of everything.

I swear that for the first three weeks I didn't know whether I was coming or going!

You'll get there in the end. But I swear people who paint small homes strong colours ought to be put in the stocks........