Bricks Not Books

VintageHistorian

South_coast said:

Surely a jigsaw would only ever sound like a jigsaw 🤔? I wonder what they thought it was! 

The only thing I can think of is some kind of loose jewellery. That said, someone I follow on IG had a similar notification only to have their parcel show up a month later perfectly fine, so perhaps I'll end up with a second puzzle in the New Year.

The replacement has arrived though so at least that's come through fine.

Merlin's_Beard said:

A good idea for insurance is to do a video walkthrough on your phone, which then gives you a visual record to jog your memory (especially about brands and amounts).

Yes I need to do that too. Or rather, delegate it to Mr VH next time I take DS out without him 

VintageHistorian

TT of £4.77, very very close to the £30 target for this month!

DS has once again come down with a bad cough but is otherwise a cheerful little soul. We've been out to get his haircut this morning, and then went to Waitrose. Once we'd bought the shopping he wanted to sit in the cafe and since we weren't in a rush I agreed. Bought a cheese twist to share but promptly dropped it on the floor as I tried to carry him to a table, and then had to queue up to buy a replacement as the group in front of me dithered over their order.

What was more annoying was I only bought a cheese twist because it was cheaper than the gingerbread man I'd originally considered (which was probably more expensive due to the Christmas-themed icing on it), but after buying two of the darned things I paid more than one ginger biscuit would have cost.

Despite my annoyance (at my own clumsiness) DS had a nice time sharing pastry with me and watching people around us. He was particularly fascinated by one of the staff cleaning tables. A new development thing we've noticed recently is that he's more interested in "helping" us at the moment, to the point where I'm having to actively plan things to ask him to do so I can handle more fragile things. Case in point, he wanted to help unpack the shopping when we got home so I gave him crumpets and a carton of passata before he could demand anything involving glass.

The only Christmas purchase so far this week is a bag of Toblerone chocolates in the Tesco shop, which I've used a Clubcard voucher for as it was due to expire this week anyway and I don't need more Disney+ vouchers at the moment. But I need to do a Hotel Chocolat order tonight and this weekend I might pop into town to go book hunting for my Dad.

DS has 30 minutes left of his nap, I need to have a shower and photograph a few of his toys to try and sell before Christmas so I'd better get my bum off this sofa.

Dinner tonight is pie and chips. Have a good week everyone!

VintageHistorian

November's OP total finished at £30.93.

December has started with £15.94 (including 24p in ebook sales ). I need to OP £31.64 in total this month to hit my £400 target for the year so that's a good start.

Pretty much finished with Christmas shopping, just need one last thing for my brother. Wrapping it all is the next task. Some decorations are out but not the lights. We don't have a tree so they'll go up on the furniture again.

DS's cough continues. In fact he's coming towards the end of a very disrupted naptime. Gave him some cough medicine at lunch time but it hasn't done much, and he also called out needing a wee about half an hour ago. I suspect I'm in for a grumpy afternoon with him but we'll see what the overall outcome is. But I did have time to eat my lunch and make him a fresh batch of bean casserole. Some of that will be his dinner tonight and the rest will be portioned up for the freezer.

I've had a few more sales of DS's outgrown things this week, one item of clothing and two toys. No money has been exchanged yet, hopefully that will all be sorted out next week. The two toys were quite large so their removal (I've kept them in the office over the weekend) has meant we have more storage space in our hollow footstools, so a couple of less-played-with things have been packed in them. DS will occasionally find them and have another play, but they're not core favourites so I don't need to keep getting them out and putting them away again later.

Now that we're in December I'm starting to think towards next years plans. Writing them down would be helpful but my 2026 planner hasn't arrived yet and the back of my 2025 one is quite full up.

Time to retrieve the barely-napped toddler. I wonder if a hunt for yellowstickers would be fruitful this afternoon, a ride around in a big trolley might be a good distraction for him and if I can get some reduced beef mince then I can restock his cottage pie supplies.

Dinner tonight is oven pizzas (hence lunchtime toddler batch cooking, I'm not putting much effort into dinner tonight!) once we pick up DH from the station, he's been working today. Have a good weekend everyone!

VintageHistorian

DS wasn't too bad yesterday afternoon and only really crashed out when DH came home, probably overwhelmed by tiredness and the presence of Daddy. He slept fairly well but had a coughing fit at 4am so I ended up getting up to give him some more cough medicine. And then got up with him this morning as DH was exhausted from a 6 day working week. Eventually got 20 minutes to myself plus a shower so I'm taking that as a win.

During the Waitrose trip yesterday I picked up a yellowsticker bag of cherry tomatoes, so also grabbed a red pepper and a red onion as we walked around (no mince beef though). Roasted the veg in the oven this morning with garlic, oregano and thyme then cooked it further with some low-salt stock, a squeeze of tomato puree and some split red lentils. Blitzed it up and made some cheese on toast as well for DS, he ate it all quite happily and DH had the rest (bowl and a half) for his own lunch. Quite glad I spotted those tomatoes, DS has been fussy about eating his fruit this past week so I'm pleased I managed to get 4 veggies and some garlic into him.

I have also made a lemon drizzle cake because the oven was already on and I had eggs that needed using up.

I really should have got the Christmas lights up this afternoon but I'm just too tired. DS will love it when they're finally up but the mental energy just isn't here right now. I'm taking DS over to see my parents this afternoon but Mr VH has a list of things to do already and will have no time for the lights. Will I have the energy to do them tonight? Probably not but I'll try to find it.

Dinner tonight is roast chicken in the slow cooker. Potatoes are already peeled and yorkshire puddings are in the freezer. I've peeled extra spuds so a few can be kept to one side for DS to have with his own roast dinner on Tuesday night.

Have a good week everyone!