5 OS pleasures in your day today - part 3

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

Forgot one pleasure from the last few days - My DH bought me flowers, carnations & gypsophilia (not sure if spelt correctly ) It was a lovely surprise & no he hadn’t done anything naughty before you ask :rotfl:

MandM90

1) Finally made use of the cooked and frozen butternut squash I prepared last year. Nothing fancy, just a soup bubbling away with a couple of onions and a dash of sage, but it'll be warm and nutritious and the house smells fabulous.

2) Also got round to a freezer inventory. We haven't defrosted in over 2.5 years (eek!) There's only a mini (2 shelf) freezer and an under counter one to do, so nothing too extensive. I think we can get through it all in two-three weeks. It also means our grocery shopping should be minimal. So far on the list all I have is rice cakes, bananas, custard powder, rinse aid and cat food. That'll trim some fat off the budget this week!

3) Yesterday I booked the rest of the accommodation for our 16 day trip around France this year. We're doing Normandy, Loire and Paris, with a mix of Eurocamp and good value hotels. Super excited to practise my French. And in four weeks we're having a weekend in Lille for hubby's birthday, so yesterday I rang and booked a special restaurant for the evening. Can't wait! After the great debt pay down of 2015-early 2017 it feels amazing to be in control and be able to work such treats into the budget. All in all we'll have gone away 6 times this year. We'll probably rein it in next year in favour of a more aggressive approach to melting the mortgage, but for now we're enjoying a healthy dose of (carefully saved for) frivolity!

4) Yesterday's yoga with girls from work was PERFECT. The studio was hidden less than 2 minutes from where we work, the instructor was wonderful and - best of all - I realised how far my fitness has come as a result of CrossFit. Usually I'm the dunce in yoga because of my poor hamstring flexbility. I'm still v. inflexible but was complemented on my plank and thigh strength and could definitely do loads of things I would've struggled with last year. Felt very chilled after, too, which is a bonus. Well worth the £8 from my pocket money. I'll probably be blowing the rest tomorrow, in the first week of the month, at the RHS flower and orchid show.

5) Random bits of money, here and there. £25 refund from dental insurance (through work) processed today and A's colleague gave him a huge bag of coppers that he (the colleague) was threatening to throw away because he couldn't be bothered to cash it. Eh? They all think hubby and I are strange because he never buys lunch and we budget every penny, but then ask if we secretly won the lottery when he books off time for holidays or talks about house renovations. They all earn very good money but can't see the insanity in complaining about being skint when they *literally* throw away money (on top of smoking, takeaways and spending £6 a day on coffees and lunch!)

villagelife

Not posted for few days. Have been busy.

1. Had a great time in France and flight home in Tuesday was only about an hour late. It could have been worse following IT problems in Brussels.

2. Work has been busy as people on leave and sick but luckily people who worked were ones that get on with it and does what is necessary.

3. Started walking to the bus stop over a mile away across fields. I decided to do as I enjoyed all the walking we did in France.I have been enjoying it and eating more healthily too.

4. Done some garden the evening. Hens are paying more eggs now.

5. Long chat with neighbour. I hadn't talked much to get all winter other than a quick hello and how are you.

My local church is raising money and having talks by various people on topics like 1st world war, local brewery and hop picking a small admission charge and drinks available. Also once a year the local amateur dramatic group out on a play and all proceeds goes to the churr.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

We are unable to bring you the BoPiness today!

house_elf

Afternoon Peeps!

Thursday

1. Bought some more grout to finish the shower.

2. Made Sloppy Joes in the slow cooker. Then DS2 announced his friend was coming for tea, and I had to dash out to T for Halal. Managed to find some chicken in the reduced fridge, so the day was saved!........ Our Sloppy Joes were yummy.

3. Made lemon curd to use up the glut of eggs and the lemons drying up in the fruit bowl. So easy, and so nice!

4. Mending clothes while watching Make! My choice for the TV. I don’t often make a request, but I think DH quite enjoyed it!

5. Feeling the effects of the Aqua fit class, but also had a good nights sleep, so definite benefits. :rotfl:

Have a lovely evening

mhagster

For today.

Video chat with DD1 first thing. Her housemate had bought GN a book so had wanted to read it to me! Lovely. Rhyming and great illustrations.

Finished the book I was reading. Enjoyed it right up until the end.

Went to skinny club. Had lost 1.5lbs.

GN & DN came up and went to visit friend who has puppy. That was the good bit....then we went to soft play...that was the not so favourable bit fi the day...there's obviously a time in your life ( ie when your own kids are young and it ain't school holidays ) to go! GN had a ball so that's what's it's all about I suppose.

DD1 read GN the story from afar! How wonderful technology is.

Bought a nice bunch of raspberry coloured flowers RTC

Washing hung out and mainly dried though rain did come on which meant soaking wet dog!

DigForVictory

The Easter break is about to end, and I still have seeds to plant before RL as the dance of chaos restarts. Your pleasures continue to brighten my online life!

OS Pleasures recently
I've been struggling with my freebie Good Housekeeping. Especially this edition with "taking care of mum & dad ... Without the guilt" - I'm sorry but if I'm going euthanise them, I think guilt is part of the deal. Besides which (as any parent knows), guilt comes with the child - remove the guilt, bend the relationship, surely? I'm resisting reading the article, indeed the whole mag - it was the best 'deal' of the bunch but it is still utterly wrong for me!

Reading of the Wimsey hands & smiling. Mine are utterly Viking, completely without elegance or nobility but briskly competent in a few fields (that rarely get showcased in portraits)!

"You, lying there like an anorexic whale!" - ah, fraternal banter!

"My phone died on the sly. It's predecessor beeped." Truly modern technology has new & exotic ways of disappointing you!

Sight of eldest protesting the indignity of supermarket shopping, sending the at-last-empty trolley into deft loops in the carpark, indulging his inner toddler & amusing mine.

"What's a dalliance?" Oh gods, teenage sons ask some tricky to catch questions. Still both of us have agreed the general outlines and have not died of embarrassment.

Son making a small box & crooning over the screws "so little, so little! Aww they're cute!" - they are perfectly functional woodscrews just only slightly longer than glasses screws & absolutely minute in comparison to the brass boat building ones we acquired decades ago from a chandler. (I only went in for split pins, was much taken with an implement a Hobbit could go to war with - a cabinetmakers screwdriver as it turned out & "go on, what do you use that for?" turned out to be a cardboard box of screws of a size slightly too big for the average shotgun. I was smitten & bought....) When next making a church door, or an Ark, I have the fundamental metalwork.

"need all our strength and beauty and courage" - I don't usually look to science fiction for inspirational phrases (I have a very ticklish sense of humour) but this is sticking and holding as a reminder that the uncertain requires a broader cv than mere achievements.

Someone is reading out a list of assorted skulls for sale - it was only *after* I recognised one space race from Warhammer that I realised this wasn't a demented-banana-republic-clear-out but a demented-war-gaming-figure-clear-out. Happily there are too many for even my lot to buy & divvy out....

Ah, son has just realised he's screwed the lid on a box he's made upside down. Vocabulary regrettable & alas all familiar.

Just found a handful of short stories by Lois McMaster Bujold, and am enjoying them to the hilt. Glorious how an author can open a door into a pocket universe where you can leave all the rest of RL to their own devices.

Husband hooting "lug nuts, precious lug nuts" - he needed a very specific bit of imperial metalwork for a project & now today has changed direction noticeably.

When it takes four minutes to thread the sewing machine needle, it just may be specsavers time. Still, the green thing is turning into a garment rather than an unfinished project. As in "I've started so I'll finish...." [Says she now snugly ensconced & pondering wrist fastening options.]

Son's mate arrived, they set off, he returned (left his phone behind! It Can Happen!), bounced off, returned again "need a rag" (declined Joplin but grinned at the suggestion) & headed out again. They're going fishing - I think I should start to require fish. (Even if it's a tin of mackerel.) Focus the hunter gathers instincts....

Ok there's another "yer wot" question "Do I have an iron?". Eldest has been gradually converting Christmas & birthday monies into Things that Will Be Useful - like a really nice set of pans (which I covet) - rather than Subway food & model figures entirely. (We didn't have to suggest it that hard either. Could it be he yearns to be parent free ?)

I have finished a Work In Progress (started at Christmas)! My husband has a gloriously engulfing fleece shirt from a New Zealand outdoors firm. Having a length of fleece fabric in my stash, I laid his on chequered paper & "drew round it", then used this "pattern" to cut pieces out of my fleece & basted it together. It was not an unqualified success & languished unappreciated til this Easter-break-with-snow when I finally got out the thing, extended the hood, machined it all together, removed the basting thread & am now several degrees warmer than the rest of the house. Some of which may be entirely placebo but it has the cuddly engulfing feel I sought and No Pockets. Reinforcing gussets yes. Pockets for maps, mobiles & other Stuff? No. (Ironically it is also green but a much more Festive Fir than olive green.)


Right. Health, strength, love, courage, persistently sprouting seeds etc and wellies to all as needed. Onwards!

Frith

Quick pleasures for today (Friday)


1) Not a bad sleep.


2) Went to meet my school friend and her children (and a bonus child!) for a walk in the woods and a hot chocolate.


3) Hens well.


4) Popped into local town for petrol, library etc.


5) Had a bit of a tidy up of downstairs and was up to date with the washing for nearly 2 hours!


6) Bigger son has come back from his father's early. He went to work tonight and we've just been watching First Dates.


7) Planted courgette, sweetcorn and pumpkin seeds and they're now in the propagator on the kitchen windowsill. I made the little pots yesterday using my gadget that forms them from newspaper.


8) Bright and sunny all day.

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

Friday pleasures

1. Finished cleaning the fronts of the kitchen cupboards :j

2. The space for my DSis’s ‘stuff’ is almost empty :T

3. Bright dry breezy day - shame I didn’t have any drying to do :rotfl:

4. Snorkers for dinner with last of the tomatoes & mushrooms, plus bacon, roasted carrots & parsnips, mash & a small portion of lo mash, sweetcorn & peas. Absolutely delicious :drool: & enough lo to form the basis of a brunch tomorrow

5. Admiring the beautiful flowers from my DH

6. Reading your posts.

MrsSD

villagelife

1. Admiring daffodils I picked from the garden. They are such cheerful flowers.

2. Four loads of washing done and all dried on the line. Now have some ironing to do though.

3. Did some gardening but ground still very wet to be digging new beds. Hens enjoyed themselves. It was warm in the sun.

4. DH came home and we had a drink in the garden. Very relaxing and peaceful.

5. DS2 out with GF so we had sea bream. It was delicious as I cooked with spinach and tomatoes with some butter.