Santas challenge 2017

chanie

Crazy cat lady your little bundles sound like a lovely idea.

Happy kitties what are your plans for your DDs big 2-1?

I went to a family dinner for New Year’s Day and grabbed all of the cracker toys for my link boxes. I have also done a quick sweep of the house and grabbed a couple of bits for my boxes (a flannel, small toys, a mug and stationery etc). I need to hide my stash though, as it’s currently in a shopping bag and DD7 keeps pulling stuff out of the bag and claiming it for herself (although in fairness, some of it is stuff of hers!)

Katiehound

Belated New Year folks!

I have been lurking around since NY eve but had things to do urgently!

Do you think we could/ might / should ask Mum2One if she would start a bright new shiny thread for the new decade? or if not that at least change the date to 2020!! only she can do that

Today I got the annual travel insurance sorted. Got a renewal invite from Saga yesterday but it seemed on the dear side until I started hunting! £200 more from Aviva & no quotes at all from Compare the Meercats!! So I have settled on the one I first thought of!- they only charge one excess however many parts you need to claim for. I was going to reduce the cancellation sum- not worth it - cover £2.5K less for a saving of £8!

Another thing has been the visas.
I have now got the wrong one for Sri lanka!!So have e-mailed them to cancel it. You can only have one valid visa. Flying in on day 1 and sailing out day 2 isn't free 48 hr transit. Curses

Filled in the 9 pages for Indian visa, attached the photo, went to attach photo of passport. Wrong format- not JPEG, needed to be PDF! Night mare. Travel agent converted and sent by e-mail- but you can't extract. Spent one hour at library- just 10 mins from end and no futher forward then a member of public offered his help. Bingo. He managed to click on PDF, drag and drop onto memory stick. Sorted.
Then all finished at home except..... you've guessed... went to pay by CC. Payment refused- immediately phone rings and it is the CC fraud call! Well, they are on the ball except I'm only allowed 3 attempts to pay before whole application is deleted. Ten minutes later payment goes thro and today---:T e-visa is issued. Relief.

Hopefully all the other things on the list won't be quite so.... awkward!

Happy_Kitties

chanie DD has spotted a few bits in the Lulu Guiness sale and i will only buy if in a sale and a very very special occasion!!!
Hopefully depending on my next surgery we want to do Vegas later in the year. We've always talked about doing it for years for DD 21st but it is health dependant unfortunately

katiehound i like the sound of a new thread for a new decade

Oh god the travel insurance and visas just sound like a nightmare. I would of struggled. Hopefully everything will run smoothly now

Tree and decs are down and have been packed away today. Normally i like to leave them up till 12th night but i dont know whether it is bec it is a new decade, it just felt completely over very quickly. Was getting very antsy about the tree still being up.

Have been very lucky with getting some more sale bits. Morris@ns (that i dont go to so often now) had quite a few bits this morning. Have picked up some more bits for the charity auction and a couple of bits for birthday presents. Nothing i could really put in the boxes though which was a shame.
Chanie i did smile when u said ur DD keeps pulling bits out from ur bag and claiming them, that is exactly what my DD and DN would have done when they were younger. If it was in the house, they automatically had claim over everything-including the cats!!!!!

chanie

Katie pleased you got your visa sorted. I’m sure when you get to India it will be worth it. Plus, there will be lots of unique gift buying opportunities - cashmere scarves, wall coverings, leather and wooden goods....

Happy kitties lulu Guinness isn’t in my radar, so I just had a quick browse at the website and there are so many pretty things. I think their items are prefect for a soon to be 21 year old.

We now start back with the birthdays. OHs side of the family have most birthdays concentrated in Feb-May, whereas my family are Oct-Jan. The only month we don’t have a birthday is June. I don’t prep for birthdays in the same way that I do for Xmas, because it’s not practical for me to do so. Besides, having a couple each month is more manageable than having to buy 20+ presents in December.
I will, however, buy all cards for the year once I’ve sorted through my card stash to see what I’ve got and what I need. I have wrapping paper and gift bags.

Happy_Kitties

chanie i have since caught DD on the Lulu Guiness website again looking at things so i know it's the way to go. Did the same for DN on her 21st but never thought to look for DD until i caught her looking!

I'm quite lucky after May i have a break in birthdays until August and then October.

Been lucky in the sales again, picked up a few more bits for charity auction. Me and DD popped into the next town this morning to pick a click and collect parcel up and happened to stumble on the sale section. Picked up a couple of nice bits reduced. Im now regretting not picking up more of one item for me.
We then noticed that the C@rd F@ctory had their 75% off they do for one day on Christmas items. We picked up over £30 of things for £8.50.
I haven't been into this town for at least 18 months and was saddened to see the state of it. Many shops have closed, still a lot of top names but the bottom part of it, it just looked so scruffy with many empty shops with signs saying 'to lease' stuck on them. I really was shocked as the whole shopping area appeared scruffy. There seems to be no pride in the area. Completely different to when DD and DN were growing up. I used to take them there alot shopping for clothes or them wanting to look at the latest games for playstations etc. It was always a busy shopping area then

chanie

happy kitties I’m also saddened to see the state of the High Street. I made a point of trying to shop more locally since watching ‘Cant Pay, We’ll Take It Away’ on TV and seeing how local businesses are struggling. It’s not convenient for me to do all of our shopping locally, but I do try to spread my spends more widely, when I can.

Katiehound

Curses: just written a reasonable length post and somehow deleted it!! How does that happen??

Today went to BBC Radio Lincolnshire to give an interveiw in the charity spot about my fund raising with doggy duvets & about Dogs for Good charity. Hoping for another outlet

Then went to Mr T.
Nothing stunning but I got magnifying glasses for the shoe boxes. I think I've only been in that store once or twice so don't know where anything is!! They rebuilt it a few years ago
For small gifts/stocking fillers I got some silicone collapsible pet water bowls with belt clip- bargain @ £1
Also they had rather nice bamboo mugs with maybe silicone lid? - half price @ £2

I did notice they had a recycling box near the door for any crisp packets in conjunction with Walkers but it needed a lot more advertising. I don't know how I even noticed it.

Hopefully last night I sorted the Sri lankan visa- but no confirmation e-mail- yet

Happy_Kitties

katiehound the interview sounds like it went really well. Fingers crossed about the visa.
I think we've all done well with picking up of bits this year, although i really need to see what i have for the shoeboxes. I fear stock supplies will still not be great even though i have been slowly adding bits in.

chanie there is no way i could physically go into the next town all of the time to shop, and even locally shops are very poor. Unfortunately our local high street is in a similar state although they have made the empty shops tidy and have tried to invest to attract people in. We are a very tourist area with seasonal work so have lots of food places and for some reason so many hairdressers and beauty parlours!

I wish we had a crisp packet collection point near here and a cat sachet one would be amazing aswell. The nearest is nearly 45 minutes away so counter productive

Just by chance i stumbled on a make up set thru a martin lewis article that i didnt even know existed. I had bought DD the make up palette for Christmas and this was part of the range. Using a code from Martin Lewis i managed to get £8 off so that will go towards her birthday presents. I dont even know whether DD knows this set exists.
I also had a sort out last night putting all the sale bits away. Its just the big bits i need to try and find a home for.

Just waiting for one of my wheelchairs to be fixed. Ive never seen the engineer so much. My poor other chair suffered alot with the Poland cobbles and im always trashing my brakes.....when there is a ramp i have to speed down it!!

Katiehound

Well I really need to store stuff for 2020 boxes!! or not!
Today one of the cheaper charity shops had brand new beanie hats in their 50 pence box..... (reduced from £1.50) so I bought all 9.
I'll never ever get this house even partly tidy!!

When checking my MrT points yesterday realised I was missing 25 points from the customer survey I did last month.
I phoned up and had the chap on the other end laughing when I said that someone has to win the £1000 but I suppose I'll have to settle for the points!! He gave me 100- big thanks- and then he reissued my about-to-expire vouchers (and one that had died in November.) I thanked him profusely.

No feed back from radio interview but a friend said she heard the edited version today and that it was very good. I've got a nice photo too, taken in the studio with presenter.

Katiehound

Quick update- Today Sri Lankan e-visa in my inbox. Whew!

Just discovered a strange brand new patchwork thingie by Ulster Weavers that I bought in charity shop y'day is in fact a cafetiere cosy! It might wrap a wine bottle as gift. My 50 pence buy is selling at up to £10 on ebay! Most certainly over priced.