Cherry takes the reins

Cherryfudge

I borrowed the idea from in need of direction, Lou. It's nice to finish on a positive!

Today was going to be an NSD but I have just bought my train ticket for next week: £49.92, which I'll reclaim from Mum's estate. Amazingly, I have cash left in the housekeeping find again: £14.35! £10 of it has gone with DH though, as he is doing the Sunday dinner shopping while I'm at work this afternoon.

Nothing else to report: yesterday's snow is glistening in the sunshine an d the birds are searching through it for the remains of yesterday's bird food.

Time I went to work.

Spending:
Travel £49.92 (to reclaim)
Things to be thankful for:
Sunshine
Sunshine
more sunshine
DH has put the final kitchen cupboard up - looking good!
Extra work.

HairyHandofDartmoor

Glad all your kitchen cupboards are up Cherry and hope you have a good day at work .

WannabeFree

Hope work went okay

Well done on the overpayment

Take care
x

Cherryfudge

Finished work for a week! Tomorrow I'm off to work on Mum's old house again, to try to make some real progress. I plan to be back on Thursday which gives me a couple of free days at home: I found on my last trip that there's no transport on Saturdays at the moment, and all recent Friday journeys have been awful, overcrowded, exhausting...

Today has been an NSD, with no particular money saving to report. The paths were like an ice rink in places this morning but tonight it's melting fast and the forecast is quite nice for the next few days. I'm low on Internet on my phone so I'll probably need to top that up, which will be a fiver.

DS2 has just announced he and a friend are going to visit another friend - on the far side of the world! Eek! I was okay with DH and me going, and DD went for much longer and came back unscathed and happy, but it's easy to worry when it's this particular offspring...

Things to be thankful for:
Annual leave to use up
Good weather forecast

Cherryfudge

I'm back!

Travelling Monday to Thursday turned out to be a good call: trains ran as they were supposed to and I had a seat all the way there and all the way back - it's been months since that happened. The new cabin case was also a good choice as it's light, manoeuvrable and stable. It was fun discovering that not only does it fit through the centre aisle of a train without having to go sideways, but it can actually be wheeled through. That's brilliant.

I got loads done! Well, the first half day was very productive but the next day I think I was just too tired and maybe fighting off a cold or something. I didn't feel I was doing well, dragging myself through jobs, so I had a bath and an early night and slept for ages. The next day I felt healthy and energetic and forged ahead, got loads done in the remaining time. I mean, there are still months of work to do at the pace I've been going but I do feel it has to be clean in order for me to make sense of what is rubbish, what I want to keep and can keep, what I want to keep but can't and what someone else might want (and then, whether to send it to charity or attempt to sell it).

I managed to lose a crochet hook on my journey over so I've bought a replacement today, and some of those little inserts that add a layer of shelf space in cupboards. Then I got groceries, by which time I was laden with stuff as I still had my case with me, so I was tired when I got in. I think a quiet evening and computer games are restorative though.

I did get a few groceries while I was away, so my spending is as follows:
4/2/19:
Gift £10.00
Housekeeping £5.50 (Confession: £2.60 was coffee on the train)
5/2/19:
Housekeeping £2.10
6/2/19:
NSD
7/2/19:
Housekeeping £5.95
Hobbies £1.50
Household £3.98
MS:
Found 8 umbrellas at Mum's place and today was rainy so I've brought one home! I am sure seven will suffice over there as I've used them maybe once in several years.
Flask of coffee for the return train (but this flask doesn't taste nice)
Decluttering:
I can't find my list right now but I think something around 25 items. Some were tiny like stray envelopes and some were bigger (I went through all the cleaning stuff and chucked two old carpet cleaners that looked worse for wear and had no instructions).

Cherryfudge

After a wet, windy start to the day we now have a sunny, windy day - so after giving myself the morning off, I've spent the last couple of hours pottering about putting things in their right places and searching for the last ball of wool for this crochet. It's nowhere to be found. If it doesn't turn up soon I will go and get more... it's one of these yarns that has bits of different colours in, so I'm hoping the change in dye colour from one batch to another won't be too obvious. In fact I remember the missing ball was from a different batch and slightly more 'salmony' than the rest!

Other than that I have 101 things to do. Maybe an exaggeration there but I haven't done my makeup, I need to find a roofer to fix two displaced tiles (the man who did the log burner was supposed to be doing this but isn't replying to texts, which is a shame as I will pass that on to anyone who asks us if we can recommend his work)… what else? I've told DH I'd visit his Dad today. I need to contact work about an annual leave day. There are a few things like toothpaste that really ought to get bought. Pudding rice too, as we have 4 and a bit pints of milk in single pints and A and H will be back tomorrow needing their share of the fridge! Oh, and dinner for tonight.

On the plus side I have caught up with Wannabe's thread and her fantastic news :T:T:T, and it's warm enough indoors for me to wear a tee shirt so I feel much more able to do things than when I'm bundled up.

More anon.

Cherryfudge

...oh, and the little matter of housework.

I rang work and my manager is off sick so I'm going to carry the leave forward: they can do without another person off on Sunday and I don't really need it. I might try for some random Sunday between now and the start of the next financial year, though, as a Sunday off is lovely.

I've made a start on the latest lot of mould that haunts our bathroom, sent a slightly shirty message to he-who-does-not-do-customer-follow-up, done my makeup (before phone call and message: power psychology )… now for coffee then I'm going out.

Cherryfudge

Well, what do you know? I actually completed my list! I think that's the third time in my life, and yes, I do keep count.

Had a lovely chat with DFiL - he's looking a lot better than he did a couple of weeks ago. I also got the bits of shopping and the wool turned out to be from the same batch as that which I'd originally bought! I told the shop lady how marvellous this was and it seemed to cheer up her weary face (it was nearly closing time and I was the only one left in the shop but I got the impression she knew it made a difference, she wasn't just celebrating the end of the day and the fact that Happy Woman would soon be out of the shop).

I finished cleaning the bathroom, which I always tell myself is proof to all comers that my standards are naturally high and any mess or clutter they've witnessed elsewhere in the house is nothing to do with me. I also tidied out the fridge, thus hiding the fact I've been borrowing A & H's part of it while they've been away. There was also a spot of decluttering as the OOD meds have gone to the pharmacy, a small carrier of oddments has gone to the charity and lots of bits of packaging has gone in the recycling.

I met DH in the supermarket so we spent a bit extra by getting the fish to go with tomorrow's chips, and various other bits and pieces.

Spending:
Hobby £3.50
Housekeeping £13.93
Medical £1.50
Toiletries £1.00
MS:
Reclaimed train fare from the estate
Paid off CC
10th coin savings £1
Hot chocolate and chorizo both on at lowest price so got one of each.
Decluttering:
Total from time away turns out to have been 32 not 25.
Today's total 23.

Cherryfudge

Not much to report today: I've been lazing about quite a lot, and made a lot of progress on my knitting, but now I'm wondering what to do when it's finished.

DH and I went to buy paint and another item for the kitchen - the whole kitchen project is being slowed by the parts not being available but we now have a door for the last cupboard. I had just over £10 left of the housekeeping but we pooled what we had left and did the Sunday dinner shop, after which we only had small change, but that's better than going over.

It's A and H's last weekend with us. Of course we will see them quite often but their new home should be ready this week. They spent the morning doing their holiday laundry as one does, next weekend I think it will be J and L's washing as they are due to move in when the others move out!

Storm Eric seems to be subsiding: a tree in the garden decided to shed twigs and a small branch but nothing too drastic. The man who installed the log burner came back for some of the remaining jobs but I wouldn't let him do the work around the chimney as I thought the wind made it too risky. Hopefully in a week or two he can make that good too.

Spending:
Housekeeping about £10.50?
Pets (fish food) DH paid
Kitchen cupboard (household) DH paid
MS:
Frozen fish with our chips not ones from the chippie
Decluttering:
Nothing
And I'm thankful for
Lots of days off and time with family
A nd H arriving home safely
Another kitchen cupboard should soon have a door!

HairyHandofDartmoor

I'm glad log burner man has returned and that you didn't lose more than one branch on your tree. It always seems sad to me when mature trees come down as they are so majestic and interesting even in the winter.

Good news on the kitchen cupboard door too .