22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

Last night was parents evening. Well, really it was teachers talking to DS1 while I listened.
He is fine, he is up there for 8 or 9s for most subjects as long as he makes the effort.

2 hours of my time. Somehow they think sitting next to their mum makes them listen harder. Plus they get to sell the revision books. So, lots of study guides on DS1s birthday list for a fortnight. He got quite excited he now has an excuse to escape to his room when the g-p's visit. (I am revising, honest)

DS2 is feeling ill, DH is feeling ill. DS3 is grumpy as Hull.

Poor DS2 spent most of his birthday asleep. He came home from school, tore open his presents, then hopped into bed for a nap! Then I was out for parents' evening, and didn't really see him again. Being 14 is hard!

Still, he seems happy with his laptop, extra memory, books and money.
As usual some presents have not arrived yet. So there is a T Shirt and another book on the way from s-i-l. and a card from step-gran.

Operation Get Stuff Out Of The House will begin this weekend.
Tip run
Organisation
Sorting and removing.

kerri_gt

Perhaps you could use the stuff bound for the tip to barricade the doors when the out-laws are due?

f0xh0les

They are coming. That is it.
When they do I will not need to see them again until next year.
I am not going over at Easter. I do not have the energy to waste.
I need to accept the trade off.

I cannot change the situation. I just need to plan for all their annoying food foibles.
F-i-l will not eat soups or stews or chickpeas or tofu, broccoli or cauliflower
M-i-l is dairy free, gluten free, oat free,'cannot' eat aubergines or mushrooms or green peppers, or citrus, or bananas, or peanuts, and has problems with beans, soya, seeds, white rice and can only tolerate a small amount of potato.
I think this list changes when she fancies something she is not supposed to have.

Honestly, it is a minefield. But they always expect to be fed.
So I must be doing something right.
And there is inevitably the 'you have deliberately poisoned me' nastiness at least once a visit. It usually turns out she has bought herself something and not bothered to read the label properly. Hot water bottles to the ready!

It is only 7 days. I can get through it! Might not have a tongue left at the end, for biting it, but I can ignore their idiosyncracies and bad manners for a week. I can be the better person. I can be the good host.

So the countdown is on, and every day I will get at least one more thing done, and off the list.
Their visit is going to be a celebration of how much I can get done in the next 15 days. It might be as small as putting a new toilet seat on, or taking one more bag to the charity shop, or it might be making new cushion covers or a new throw for the sofa, or getting a couple of new blinds.
But every single day at least one thing will be done.

They are a deadline.

greenbee

Good luck with the in-laws.

Two wardrobes arrived earlier this afternoon. I thought about leaving them, but inspired by you I've done the first one - it said it needed three people to put it together, but two of them would have been very bored. Getting the bits out of the boxes in a confined space was the hardest bit. The packaging will have to be disposed of gradually so is mostly in the garage.

The builder turned up just before the delivery. Hopefully he'll get some external painting/window repairs done this week. Then mid-October (while I'm away) he should be able to do the outstanding odds and ends and start on the utility room. He's free all of November, so in theory we can get the outstanding stuff, utility, front and back doors done. And possibly even the kitchen if I can make up my mind and get the units ordered (unlikely TBH).

Now I need to think about paint colours for the utility room... and tidy up in the spare room now the wardrobe is in.

chumpy45

Really impressed with all your busy-ness and organisation (and DIY skills). We don't have IK*A anywhere near us, but it sounds very bargainous. Good luck with the out-laws, might be a bit nightmarish but as you say only (!!!!) 7 days and then a year off :T Just keep on swimming ......

f0xh0les

Greenbee!! Yay to being able to put things in wardrobes:j !

Well done on getting it done. I swear I spend more time thinking than doing, which is daft. I need to just do it.

Annoyingly, the bit of L'Shire (my kids are in) half term holidays are not the same as Leicester City schools half term holidays, so there is very little on for the week the in-laws are here. No discounted swimming session or football or anything. So I am hoping for rain:rotfl: At least then we can stay home. Or just go to the cinema. At some point the GPs are going to have to accept they do not want to do what 8-16 yr olds want to do, and the kids do not want to do what 70 yr olds want to do. Which will no doubt be my fault but hey-ho, I can take one for my team.
2018 is not the same place as the WW2 world they were kids in.
Things change.

Like most grandparents, they are convinced my kids are addicted to computer games, which I find funny as the GP's sit here texting their friends and reading on their kindles and taking calls on their phones, and then complain that the kids talk too much when they try and have a conversation with them.

i need to check I have 8 bowls and drinking glasses and more importantly teaspoons, as they will all be in use at the same time, at least twice a day. Should stock up on washing up liquid too, and loo roll.

So much to think about, going from a 'normal' 6 person meal plan to an 8 person mealplan is actually quite a jump when dealing with intolerances.

greenbee

BOTH wardrobes are done, and have stuff in! I may be able to clear two bedrooms and get them back in use (which means no excuse for not having visitors... unless the builder is here).

My mum is staying with her grandchildren at the moment. She makes an effort to do what they like, even if she doesn't understand it. Apparently she's had a crash course in Pokemon today!

f0xh0les

greenbee wrote: »

My mum is staying with her grandchildren at the moment. She makes an effort to do what they like, even if she doesn't understand it. Apparently she's had a crash course in Pokemon today!

Your mum sounds like a good'un.

SingleSue

Reading your diary over the course of the week prompted me to want to paint the kitchen. I have paint sitting there I think, let's go for it...open the paint pot (a humungous sized thing) and it's useless, no amount of trying to mix it makes it anywhere near usable.

I'm still in the painting mood, I've just got to wait for the painting money now!

f0xh0les

Well done SingleSue, you can so easily get stuck in the planning phase, It really is not that difficult once you decide you are going to do it. It is so annoying when you open a tin 'gone bad' Someone told me the trick is to store opened pots upside down, so the air does not seep in through the tiny crack around the lid. It makes a paint seal, and it keeps for longer. Also W1lko has nicely behaved good price paint. Much cheaper than the orange Big n Quirky store.

No bills have gone out, and no money has come in. Stupid weekend banking. So I am sat here unable to do anything until tomorrow and I am not good at waiting.

Finished a book last night, so started another. Only got 2 left of the series on the bookshelf, but I am missing 2 somewhere toward the end, and I am sure she has written more since the last one I have - these are the ones I found in the c/s around Easter time, and went back and spent about £20. Car book is Dawn French's book. I am often at the school gates with 15 minutes to spare, and as much fun as it is to listen to other people's conversations about the non-mol orders they are getting against the fathers of the their children, and restraining orders against previous partners, it just makes me sad really. I heard three different sets of people, last week alone, trying to arrange play dates after school so they could attend court hearings.
The school gates are starting to be a place of sadness for me. Then thinking of sending DS3 to the school up the road where his elder brothers go, and I realised if I sent him to the closest school to our house, the half term dates are not the same - one is city one is county - and I simply cannot do that!! They all need to be on holiday at the same time, it is hard enough trying to tally DHs term dates with the kids term dates and then factor in exams and marking, without adding another set of holidays.

DH submitted one job application last week. He is now having stress dreams. I don't know wny. He has a job already. Win, lose, or draw, he is in the position of power. it is an hour commute if he gets it, if he doesn't get it, then he still has a job where he is, and it lets the dept know he is not happy to stay at the level he is at, and he wants a senior lecturer title, as that is what he is doing anyway.

Poor thing is probably worried I will make him move house another million times.

He is worried about Brexit and a property crash, but the house is never going to be less than £100k, which is the end of this year target, and it's main function ( to stop our heads getting wet when it rains), it is fulfilling marvellously.

Not feeling the love this morning.

I don't like Sundays, it always feels like the end of something.

Lots of laundry to be done, swim kits to be packed, PE bags to be packed, football kits to be packed, might go wild and push the hoover around the whole house. Make the kids do their homework. Bath everyone. blah blah blah.
Sundays. I hates 'em.
It was my mother's favourite day of the week, I could never understand it.