22 Foxhole East

greent

We have 2 heaters in our home 'office' which DH uses - tbf, the office is an ice block in Winter and a sweat box in Summer (large south facing window). There is no rad in the office but 2 in the room it runs from - so it has an electric hard - wired wall panel heater under the window and a plugBut when he is wfh the usage is higher - so this Winter's bills will be horrendous, I suspect. There is also an electric convector heater and he usually has both on. Sigh... whereas I run around the rest of the house usually with no heating on and wearing slippers, fluffy socks and layers.... (and have been known to wear fingerless gloves to do admin type jobs to keep hands warm and sit with a wheat bag on me) he will be in the office in jeans, a shirt and just socks (and the laminate in there is awful and very cold) Men...!  

kerri_gt

greent I wfh and my office is south facing, it was over 30 degrees in it at 8.30 this morning - nothing seems to cool it, no rhyme nor reason why it should be so hot - it's a flying freehold and over two hallways so hardly like the room below is boiling a stove all day. I've tried windows open, windows closed, blinds open / closed / in between, nothing makes any difference to it at all. I have just given up today and opened the windows to at least let what little breeze there is in to circulate. I think it might be because it's on a  side of the house itself so doesn't really get any benefit from other windows at the back being open or any breeze circulating. 
OH would also crank up the heating full blast and sit in shorts and a t-shirt in winter if I let him. I try to have the heating off from 31st March to 1st Oct at least. He thinks I'm mean. I also like the bedroom window open no matter what the temp - I should've been born a polar bear!
Might go freeze a hot (cold?) water bottle in the freezer for later. 

f0xh0les

So we are all married to hothouse flowers!  He thinks he earns a good wage and so should not have to be cold ever.  He does not pay the bills! Well, technically he pays the bills, but he pays me to pay the bills, so him and his wandering finger can stay away from that control panel!  As it is 30 odd degrees here today it is a moot point at the moment. The weather forecast just said it was going to be 24 degrees at 11pm here. Joy!

So what have I been up to already?  I ran 4km this morning. Blooddy heck it were a hard 28 minutes  I was really good yesterday, just fruit and salad, and 12 stone 2 (whoopee!) and walking around, and it was great up until 8pm  then dh laid a trap,  and made a fantastic feast of fatayers for supper  and he ruined it all.  He even made sugar coated biscuits. So I woke up 2lbs heavier this morning than last.  No great shock there.   It will go. Sadly not quite as quickly as it goes on.

Breakfast was cocopops. lunch was roasted asparagus, and I made a huge fruit salad with strawbs and watermelon (still half the melon to go - it takes up a lot of room in the fridge does half a watermelon)

We had mini power outages/surges last night, mostly flickering lights and house alarms going off, but it blew 3 fuses in plugs as well as tripping switches. Had to go and get some 3 amp fuses - we had the 5 and 15 amp fuses but no 3 - so that was a £1.88 spend.  3amps only come in a mixed pack of 10 from our friendly local community hardware store, and it would have been rude not to pop into the furniture charity shop while I was passing that way on the way to the post box to post my spyware.  So popped in and found a mini Ali Baba wicker basket with lid for £3, so that came home with me, stuffed with 2 double bed sheets (50p each) 2 slightly smaller mugs for the DS 3 & 4 who keep drinking half a mug of tea or coffee (decaf) and then forgetting it - 25p each, and two terracotta serving dishes for 50p each. £5.50 spent.  Just stitched the cotton lining more firmly into the wicker basket.  I think I might have to keep snakes in it or something.    Lady who works there told me they are picking up large donations again from next week and are booked solid, so itlooks good for bed frames very soon, and they are reducing the price of pretty much everything in the shop to half price, it seems.  There is a ridiculously fast turn over rate in that shop anyway.  If you are looking for something it really is worth popping in every day.  It goes that fast. Good job it is a 2 minute walk from our house!

Still waiting for the refund from the school uniforms.

Supper is  tofu and vegetable stirfry with asparagus, mushrooms, baby corn - and a y/s spring rolls for the kids.

Baileys_Babe

@greent could you put a rug down on the laminate floor.

OH has been encouraged over the years that the heating of any type doesn't go on unless people are dressed appropriately. If I'm getting cool I would put on another layer or get a hot water bottle if I have to be sitting down, otherwise, I sweep the floor or brush the stairs or do some other activity to get we warm.

OH does that with tea and coffee too. He also has the annoying habit of putting half a cup of cold coffee in the microwave to warm and the forgetting about it until one of us discovers it still in the microwave later in the day. His coffee mug is about 2/3 the size of mine.

I like the sound of your charity shop, I would end up in there all the time.

greent

f0xh0les said:

So we are all married to hothouse flowers!  He thinks he earns a good wage and so should not have to be cold ever.  He does not pay the bills! Well, technically he pays the bills, but he pays me to pay the bills, so him and his wandering finger can stay away from that control panel!  

This is also my DH's argument!

Well done on the weight loss continuing - s'gotta be below 12 before the month end, I would've thought And fair play to you for going for a run - I went on the rower in front of an open window and with a fan pointing at me and still found it horribly hard work. 

f0xh0les

I can feel myself getting better at it @greent . I can go for 2.5km without stopping, and my stops are down to about 30 seconds just to get over the urge to  be violently  sick, then I can trot along again happily.   That and in the last 3 weeks I have lost an inch off my waist and 2 inches off my butt.  All because of adding the running on to the dieting.  The weight is not falling off, but the inches are going.  I would say I now only look 5 months pregnant instead of 6.  What is that all about anyway? I get that the muscles are tightening up, so my waist is pulling in, but to shove it out the front is just unkind!  I have decided the last 200m of my run is to be done with stomach muscles tightened.  I can't do it for more than 200m  without getting the worst cramp ever!  DH laughs his socks off at me and my squeals of anguish. It is one of his more endearing qualities.

thriftyish

Do you track your runs? I use an app called strava which is free and fab for telling me I am getting better when it's hard to tell a difference. It's great that you can tell, you are doing so well. I was a similar weight but have crept up slightly recently and you are encouraging me to run too - not that I've actually got out of the door yet  Its amazing to see the inches disappear, very good motivation!

My DH had the heating on last month. I did turn it back off. In our old house it wasn't too bad, but the heating costs here will be astronomical at his sauna level. Ironically he hates the heat in summer, and is literally melting in the heat these last few days.

Thanks for the info RE: heating & keeping warm. I need dressing gowns and new slippers for the entire house, where do you look to purchase the gowns? I think we got our last set from primarni but that was several years ago, and I remember thinking they were expensive (but that might just be holding tightly onto the pennies). Might check the bay tomorrow. We also need new hotwater bottles: the girls have small unicorn ones from last Xmas but they are too small to make much difference. 
My children insist on covers in the living room, even in summer! A portable heater might be a good purchase for the office, especially if DH ends up working from home in winter.

I had to google Fatayers. I want some!

f0xh0les

That is the problem, there is no 'I want one' with a fatayer.  There is always 'I want one, and then another one' honestly, never has spinach been so popular!

I found that when the kids got to around 10 or 11 I could start buying ladies shortie dressing gowns when Herr Alldee have them (less than £10). Boys have a rubbish choice of colours, but ladies one's are all the jewel tones, they wash brilliantly and are good quality, and are much cheaper than kids ones! They are full length on kids and very snuggly.  I  never found a small kid's dressing gown I was happy with.

Sp0rts Direct do hot water bottles for less than £4 or they can be even cheaper online. Some on the high street are ridiculously priced.

I saw my first useful  supermarket offer on Monday - Sainsbobs have Tw1nings Earl Grey teabags (100s) for £3.50 instead of £5.  Of course I bought the monthly supply last week, but I am so tempted to go back and buy for the rest of the year.

It is so funny to see DH now.  He looks like a kid wearing his dad's clothes.  He is now referred to as 'my medium sized husband' as he def. takes a medium now not a large.  The T Shirts I got from the Monday charity shop haul fit him really well and actually give him a chest and a waist.   Everybody is delighted with their new-to-them clothes and DS3 really loves his shirt with sharks on.  It is all H& M, Denim C0. or DebNums, and it was all £1.  Support your local c/s!

Baileys_Babe

Home bargains/quality save and Wilkos do hot water bottles at a reasonable priced and good quality.

kerri_gt

Baileys_Babe said:

Home bargains/quality save and Wilkos do hot water bottles at a reasonable priced and good quality.

Savers do decent ones as well (I either got my last one from there or P0undstretcher) Just remember to check the rubber regularly and replace too - my friend had one burst all over her lap - on the scale of thing she was lucky (water went down her leg) but she was left with some pretty sever scarring and it took a long time to heal.