The Ultimate Incentive Part 11 (or 10B) It's The Final Countdown

Cinny91

That is REALLY petty about the ebay person! Hope you had time to give her negative feedback too

If ceramics don't start popping up in your shop on the lead up to Christmas then I'll be upset, Birdie Will be picking your brains in a few weeks if we get to know the gender for some "from your unborn grandbaby" Christmas presents

No idea about the challenge title or guidelines, my mushy mind stopped at the idea of a challenge :rotfl: We could do it on a longer scale than a month though, like we did the other year where we did a fresh name each month? Say, do it through until the new year so we can all start 2016 with fresh houses and (as)clear(as they get for us) minds?

Currently sat in a slowly drying top. I'm feeling really faint Fox movements almost constantly now, and at the very least I can tell where they're "sat", but I was in the office kitchen going for a drink of water (thankfully) when they moved a bit suddenly/bigger than normal and it made me jump so much I threw the cup at myself :o:o

ETA: Make sure you don't give them a refund unless they can send you a copy of the receipt, Wendz. Pretty sure the Post Office always puts the postal address postcode on their receipt? Maybe it's just my shopping style but I find it weird that people would actually send ebay purchases back?? (unless you bought something new from a proper ebay shop)

Birdie85

'Clear by Christmas'? 'Neat by New Year'?!

Exciting about little Fox movements!

Birdie85

Cinny91 wrote: »

ETA: Make sure you don't give them a refund unless they can send you a copy of the receipt, Wendz. Pretty sure the Post Office always puts the postal address postcode on their receipt? Maybe it's just my shopping style but I find it weird that people would actually send ebay purchases back?? (unless you bought something new from a proper ebay shop)

Agreed! It would never occur to me to return something bought second-hand from someone on Ebay just because it didn't fit/didn't suit me/whatever. It's part of the risk of ebay!

Cinny91

Neat by New Year! NTNW is a pretty neat (hoho) shorthand too I want us to have the house baby ready before I start working from home so that works for me!

Glad it's not just me with ebay, it's not exactly the sellers fault if something doesn't fit me. And you'd still be down on the postage anyways?!

Meant to say that's a good idea Birdie had about the workshop, Dinah Or you could do seasonal themed arts groups for kids? Like Halloween/Bonfire Night/Christmas?

Dinah93

I've always fancied doing some kind of group but I think I need to let the dust settle on our current arrangements for a month or two to work out how much time I do or don't have, as at the moment I'm panicking I've taken on too much. But it's a good idea maybe in the new year, rent a village hall one morning a month or something? What kind of crafts would people be interested in learning?

Haha I learn towards Clear by Christmas, would be nice to treat myself to those few days between Christmas and New Year off from working (never going to happen though since I'd imagine it will be a busy few days for Quidco).

Cinny91

Ooooh, that will be exciting! You'll have to get fully into the Black Friday and Cyber Monday business too.

A Christmas target is fine by me! CBC?? Was talking through plans for it with OH last night and he's on board Going to sort the will-be-nursery and OH's office today as I'm going to my old town to pick up some things for Fox and can drop by the skip to drop things off.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend

Birdie85

Alright, lets all plan to be Clear By Christmas! Must keep posting our updates here to keep us all in line! Anyone else in?!

As for crafts, something a little different would be good. Didn't you have some sort of kiln or something? Anything that a regular person wouldn't have the tools for at home would be a winner. Or something simple but fun like decorating tote bags or t-shirts? I've been toying with the idea of doing a make-your-own-frame workshop kinda thing but I'm too scared to do anything about it!

Cinny91

Rather than a hall, if you were doing a smaller craft, you could maybe do it at a cafe? Say an independent one in the evenings when they'd be closed anyways. Sure ones in my old town used to have craft evenings

Ready to crack on with CBC this afternoon! Will update tomorrow with what I get done

Meant to mention I got some baby things at the weekend! Got nappies to (hopefully) see us through until we get into a routine for the cloth nappies we have, a box of 72 pampers newborn reduced from £10.50 to £4. And we bought the rainforest jumperoo because it was only £65 compared to the £90-100 we'd been seeing it at (Think it was even more ££ at Mothercare.. maybe £120?!) Going to be so weird to have something baby related in the house that's not some clothes or a steadily growing supply of Johnsons..

Birdie85

£65 is a good price for a Jumperoo! They're wonderful things!

I really hope Zach isn't in his sleep dodging mood again this week (horrible teeth coming through!) so I can get to work with CBC on an evening! I'm also torn between using my free time to sort out my junk spaces or to work on a mega frame I've been planning for weeks... I guess by doing the frame I'm using up some of the stuff I've got lying around as well as getting the frame out from behind the sofa so it's all for the cause?!

Dinah93

Sleep regression can suck it. There isn't a single hour in the last 24 hours I haven't been awake for part of. You're 15 months old go to chuffing sleep!

Now waiting for my 9.30 Skype with Quidco, which seems to be running late. Not too late I hope as I have the dentist at 10.30 (Medicash to the rescue).

I made the decision to join in with the no new clothes for a year challenge. I buy far, far too many clothes, I only wear about 30% regularly, and I'm scared to work out how much I spend in an average year. I want to streamline my wardrobe (or wardrobe and 10 plastic storage boxes) but how do you give away something you like but don't love but that does the job?! Again it comes down to clutter, I know it will be less stressful not having to iron mountains of clothes or wade through 4 tesco crates of ironing looking for my work t-shirt, but it's a mental block atm.

Still no start date for NIM.

Trip away to Alton Towers was nice, we did end up buying dinner on the Thursday at the hotel pub, but it was actually pretty reasonable as Ben had a kids soup (£1.50) and ice-cream (£1) due to a sore throat, Grace had the kids meal which was about £4.50 for a drink and proper home cooked meal with loads of veg, and I only had a starter for £5 so it was only really NIM who put the cost up

Feeling quite ragged atm, I need to settle into a routine but I'm not sure it's going to be possible until NIM goes back to work. Really not helped by the fact he is TERRIBLE at writing things on the calendar or into my diary, so he suddenly throws in that he has to be somewhere the next day at a time I also have to be somewhere, leaving me having to cancel or frantically get a parent to babysit if it's the evening. So many jobs to fit into my time as well as playing with the kids, keeping the house tidy and trying to declutter, as well as seeing friends. It's a good life but an exhausting one (especially when you don't get a good night's sleep Mr Benjamin!).

Had my first meeting of my adult yoga teacher training. I think I'm going to really enjoy going back to 'school'. She's also said we don't have to pay all the fees upfront in October, we can pay a second lot in January and a third in March so that just spreads the cost a bit. Especially as one of our credit cards comes off 0% on October 1st, there is still about £4k on there so we probably need to move that somewhere else, although NIMs dad has made noises about paying it off and we keep making the payments each month to him instead. We'll see, need NIM to get over the latest plague he's been afflicted with so I can talk to him about it.