Crazy Cat Lady Chapter 4 - The Aftermath

crazy_cat_lady

I'm trying not to stress about it Beanie but I could actually cry. I need to replace my whole bathroom at some point but I don't have another bathroom sink to use. I keep worrying that it's going to fall to bits over the crack and hurt one of us, or one of the cats. But I do nothing as well as I do worrying.

DawnW

I assume that the cleaner's insurance will replace it? Can you use a bowl in the bath till it gets sorted? A bit awkward, but it works - we had to do lots of this kind of improvising when doing our house up, when we were without a proper bathroom or any sort of kitchen for a while. Best not try to use it if you are worried it is unstable, and keep the cats out of the bathroom if possible, in case they jump on it. Try not to worry too much though, these things are pretty tough.

f0xh0les

Dont fret about the shopping this week, sort it at half term when you have time, when you can compare an 4ldi pizza and a Liddle nugget. If two of you like sausage and mash, you can freeze mash, and make a ping meal out of it. Spag bol and chilli freeze brilliantly and are the same base sauce.  If it turns out that you are going to be making 2 or 3 different meals to keep everyone happy, you might as well start saving takeaway cartons and make your own frozen ready meals.  There is nothing wrong with reheat and eat food -if you line the carton with a freezer bag, then freeze, it makes a block and you can stack them without the carton. Maybe roasting a chicken once a week might be a thing to do.  The rubber chicken in the old-style threads always made me laugh. They were always slicing bits off for sandwiches, slathering bits in gravy and freezing it, cubing other bits and flaking the rest. It always sounded like they could get 47 different meals out of one reasonably sized bird. But if you are going to just embrace that ds and dd just don't like the same food, then cooking once and freezing 4 portions might be the easiest way to go. Then you get the fun of eating the things you like, and not having to eat 'kid food'. 

trix-a-belle

boo to the broken bathroom sink, I hope it gets fixed quickly without efforts from you (how on earth did she manage it?!)
would they both eat risotto? its easy to do, you can chuck all sorts of extras in it so they can adjust to suit them, DD can take a portion before you add cheese (i've only ever done it with cheddar so don't think you have to have parmesan), my favourite additions are bacon and butternut squash

janb5

Hiya,
You`probably find your sink comes under our external insurance as fixtures and fittings.  Definitely get an estimate for a new one and get the cleaner to cough up pronto- how the hell did she break it?  Or you can get one second hand quite cheaply..maybe look at Ebay and search the local ones?  If you know a local plumber they often remove other people`s and it may save a trip to the dump for them.  Often nothing wrong with them but pepole doing up kitchens etc.  Or try Freecycle?

PurpleFairy26

I agree with @f0xh0les that batch cooking and freezing is your friend here and then you can all have what you want will little work for you on the day. You could even make it a task for them to get their tea out of the freezer each day (should it need defrosting) 

Buy a couple of packets of sausages and freeze in portions of how ever many your son has. Make mash - use an ice cream scoop to potion on a baking tray and freeze until set and then bag up and he can just get ‘2 scoops or however many out’ and then batch cook spag Bol, chilli etc and potion ala f0xh0les style. 

Could be a a family activity for the day in half term? 

Only 3 more get ups after today....

PurpleFairy26

My supermarket is good for comparing prices. I confess to only using it for specific things but DH and I like a particular brand of coffee, it’s normally on offer somewhere so we’ve never paid full price for it, just search on there and voila. Maybe useful for the couple of things DS won’t compromise on, at least you won’t be paying over the odds. 

f0xh0les

My name is F0xh0les and I have an embarrassing Her0n fascination.   The branded things you find in there for 1/4 of the 'normal' price is astounding.  Having said that, I just had soup for lunch that I made from the leftover veg from a meal at the weekend.  Do you find you have much food waste CCL?   I will learn from all you working people how other people's lives work.  With me being at home a lot of the time, I can launder, and clean and bake and marinade and shop while all you are at work, so when the kids come home I can relax and sit on the sofa, I honestly don't know how you fit it all in without going stark staring bonkers.   That being said, my kids would rather have something shop bought from Gr3ggs than anything I make, which is soul destroying sometimes.

1LuckyLady

f0xh0les said:

 I honestly don't know how you fit it all in without going stark staring bonkers.   That being said, my kids would rather have something shop bought from Gr3ggs than anything I make, which is soul destroying sometimes.

Same here! 

CCl,  Lovely to hear you sounding focused.  Not many get ups left,  enjoy your half term.

crazy_cat_lady

Hello everyone  
Made it through another day and am at home, showered, kids fed and with my feet up. DS had leftover bangers and mash from last night and dd had lasagne that she made in food tech at school. I had a shake (a la f0xh0les). Believe it or not foxgloves, I had genuinely never thought about batch cooking and freezing individual portions of different stuff. But it's now on my list. I can make shepherds pie with extra mash and he can have his bangers and mash and we can have that. I will make a start on that over half term I think, unless I can be bothered to look at books before then. We actually have a heron in walking distance from home f0xh0les but I tend to prefer farmf00ds if I'm freezer shopping. But I'll bear it in mind once we get a workable budget and routine going. I remember how much dd used to love the Chinese curry from there. And I had forgotten about my supermarket but that is back on my list of things to do. 
As for how I fit it all in, simple truth is that I don't. I let go of things I hate doing - cleaning, cooking, gardening - in favour of extra work and money, plus time with the kids and cats. Unfortunately I can't keep doing that and the very last thing that I want to do is give up my cleaner - it keeps me sane having the house semi presentable all of the time. She will be the last of my treats to go... So I do the things I want to and either pay people or ignore the things I don't. I swear my mam has been nagging me to decorate the living room for 10 years now - it's been painted but I can't be doing with anything else - I have better things to do with my time. For stuff I have to do like laundry, dishes and a bit of food I make sure I do half an hour in the morning when I've fed the cats - usually putting washing on and washing dishes, putting rubbish out. Then I simply don't sit down on the evening until I've done what I need to do. Tonight we got in at half five and I sorted ds dinner, hung the laundry out, changed the cat litter and went in the shower, then washed up and I've just sat down. If I sit down that tends to be me finished.
You asked about food waste - I tend not to buy it in if I don't think it's going to be used, and I also tend to have a lot of cans on standby. I have two freezers and am fairly good at freezing things that I don't want to waste. As with most people I think, my most common wasted items are veg, bread and sometimes cheese. I hate food waste, and I will eat most things so I rustle stuff up that the kids won't have or think has gone off. It's not that bad.
As for my cleaner - I have a very small window above the bathroom sink, and I keep (or kept) a decorative pot on there. By all accounts she knocked it off and it smashed and so did the sink. It's had a temporary repair and she says that it will be replaced this week (pot is gone but was just there for politeness as I didn't like it). I think her hubby is actually a plumber so I expect he will do it. It's still usable, and patched up without looking like it's going to drop to bits but it does need replacing. I'm just going to let her sort it - whether it goes through her insurance or not.
Three more get ups now, and parents evening tomorrow night. I am tired it has to be said, but I have a couple of things to look forward to apart from sleep next week. The knife angel sculpture is very close to me and I want to take the kids to see it. Obviously we're scouring food shops and looking for good deals and we always have a day where we watch N3tflix in our pj's. I'll see if I can get them on board with some cooking and prepping as well. I also hope that I get some exam money soon. My budget is tight and I have no spare room for overpayments at this minute. Ah well