NST March 2020 Merriment

BadBookkeeper

Mothernerd - I feel sad for my ironing board now 😂

abundant1972

Good morning!!!

Thank you all so much for your congratulations - I am feeling very loved    I won't have to move city so still living it up in sunny Manchester!!! 

Today I am grateful for:

1) Getting some clarity on a few things this morning
2) Peace, calm and quiet
3) The people and places in my life I have released to make way for new experiences and friendships

I am not getting caught up in the media storm, and am feeling so much better for it. A bit like Mothernerd I am of the mind that we will all eventually come into contact with it, and what will be will be. I am keeping as well as I can, and supporting my elderly parents to do the same. I feel they stand the best chance if they are feeling happy, loved and supported - thereby less stressed, and a better immune system as a result. The rest is in the lap of the Gods. But that's just me... My thoughts and love are with those people out there going through a difficult time, and to all the people involved in supporting the sick and their families. They are much appreciated. 

For now, I am getting on with my day, and will catch up tomorrow xxx

f0xh0les

Today is NSD8, I have been out and even tried to spend money, but alas, nothing doing.  Nothing is urgent, so will either go ys- shopping tomorrow or Monday. when I am out anyway.  I have accidentally made chocolate covered cherries, they are amazing. I have £35 left for the next 3 days, so utterly doable. Even if my kids are intent on eating every scrap of bread or cereal, or biscuit in the house. I do not want to go shopping. I have my budget.  Annoyingly I cannot log into my mortgage without one of those do-hicks that look like a mini calculator, and I have not seen mine for at least 5 years - I know because I have not used it since Salford.  Now my credit card provider has adopted the same thing, so I will have to order one and can no longer access my balance online.  I do not want it all to be linked to my phone.

Grrrr! DS2 has just  announced he needs new school shoes, so I am off to our shoe rack to see if DS1's  nearly new old school shoes  fit my muppet.   Otherwise  I will have to go shopping before Monday after all.

dolly84

f0xh0les said:

Today is NSD8, I have been out and even tried to spend money, but alas, nothing doing.  Nothing is urgent, so will either go ys- shopping tomorrow or Monday. when I am out anyway.  I have accidentally made chocolate covered cherries, they are amazing. I have £35 left for the next 3 days, so utterly doable. Even if my kids are intent on eating every scrap of bread or cereal, or biscuit in the house. I do not want to go shopping. I have my budget.  Annoyingly I cannot log into my mortgage without one of those do-hicks that look like a mini calculator, and I have not seen mine for at least 5 years - I know because I have not used it since Salford.  Now my credit card provider has adopted the same thing, so I will have to order one and can no longer access my balance online.  I do not want it all to be linked to my phone.

Grrrr! DS2 has just  announced he needs new school shoes, so I am off to our shoe rack to see if DS1's  nearly new old school shoes  fit my muppet.   Otherwise  I will have to go shopping before Monday after all.

Our M&S credit card has just gone down this route, I put the app on my phone but I was annoyed that the only people inconvenienced by the new measures are the customers, the hackers seem to still get what they want.

Spent an annoying hour today applying for a job, had to fill in an application form online which I detest more than you can imagine, it looked rubbish but they can like it or lump it.  I wish employers would only ask you to complete the forms if they actually want to interview you then you could save all that hassle for the ones that don't.

Went to Tesco for hot dog rolls and every single person we saw walking around, paying and in the car park had loo rolls, there were no packs of ibuprofen or paracetamol by all accounts.  Went to Wilko for eye drops for DS and some people were actually cheering around a basket of loo roll, again no basic painkillers.  We bumped into some friends and they had two huge and I mean huge plastic storage boxes, I asked what they were storing and they said food - I really didn't know what to say.

In other news I did manage to get DS a pair of nearly new Adidas astroturf trainers for games, paid £6 for them which is much cheaper than ebay and way cheaper than new.

f0xh0les

Part of me is like, !!!!!!?? the other half is rolling around on the floor dying from laughter.  There are an awful lot of people who have entirely lost the plot.  It is utterly bizarre, and there is no emoji to convey this amount of w-t-f'edness.  When I tell my fellow volunteers on Monday (they are all well over 60 and some into their 70's) they are going to find all this utterly hilarious.

ponypal

MARCH forward. - I just finished reading the Philippa Perry book 'you wish your parents had read' which was very insightful. I am not a parent but it explained a lot of things about my childhood. Going to be kinder to myself.

ARMOURY - I am paycheque to paycheque at the moment.

REVIEW your shopping habits. Been doing a lot of emotional spending lately, need to cut that out.

CHECK out what you have in your cupboards, fridge and freezer. Definitely need to be better at this. We did a food shop last week so have plenty in.

HAVE all your budgets in place before the start of the month. I always have all of this but routinely overspend and have no emergency fund at the moment. Need to strategise.

MIX IT UP went on a new walk we have not done yet since moving to a new place!

EXERCISE the walk!

REST AND RELAXATION. Took a bath with stuff I had in the bathroom

REDUCE 100% vegan today

IGNORE the mass media I have deleted some apps and trying to avoid social media where I can for obvious reasons

MUSIC I watched Boogie Nights - started last night and finished it today and the soundtrack is great!

EVERY DAY here I am, back again

NO SPEND DAYS (NSDs) Today was one

THREE things each day to be grateful for. 
- spring flowers in the park
- sun was out
- cat has tested out the cat tree we got for him so that is hopefully not a waste of money!

BadBookkeeper

Hoping all turtles are well!

I organised my monthly budget as from April.  With everything going up I am £30 a month worse off and any pay rise I may have been getting is being postponed to help cash flow. I was supposed to use today to sort paperwork but I just could not be bothered with the drudgery of it.
Exercise - walked 1.62 miles towards our challenge.
No decluttering in ds room so will have to do 2 areas tomorrow.
Screen time in way too much.
No NSD as treated family to chippy tea so still 6/15.
My dads birthday gathering for next Friday has been cancelled so a smaller group may come to our house for a few drinks and nibbles sending me into stressy mood due to extra spending!! 
Grateful for - Things being ok today.
Charity - nothing here today.  

apple_muncher

Got myself some new specs today at an eye-watering £208. And that was getting a £19 frame. Eek. But hmrc gave me a tax rebate of £238.10 which I banked today, so I'm £30.10 up and cheekily claiming an nsd. Mothernerd, I believe the naughty step is currently unoccupied, so I'll toddle over and keep it warm, shall I?

Today I am grateful for finding some frames that I like, for getting in and out of town super fast, for starting to needlefelt a dinosaur - tho it's more like a sausage dog at the mo!, for missing the showers, for dh fitting the new wiper on the car, for the magnolia and cherry trees and forsythia all blossoming away (sorry, hayfever sufferers).

facethemusic

Friday was NSD 9/15, Saturday has been a spending day.  Been a fairly busy day, but nothing much to show for it other than a project of DDs moving forward. 
Gratitudes today, friends who help me out, being able to assist a different friend, ponies and shops which still have food. 

mothernerd

You will have to sit on one end of the naughty chaise longue apple, I've had a couple of self-indulgent days. Yesterday I went in two cs. Bought a turquoise necklace (not sure if it's real or fake but it goes well with the bracelet DS2 bought me and at £1.50 it was a considerable improvement on the £95 one I saw a few years ago - was thinking about it for Ds2's graduation, so that's roughly 10 years ago), 3 for a £1 books (stocking up in case we do go into lockdown) and a sweet little photo frame. Second shop had 4 books for a £ including a hardback copy of the book Marion Keyes said she was giving to every woman she knew as presents. Bought an early festive present (got to keep those elves from getting shot) for £4. Then went slightly overboard and bought a copy of my favourite gardening mag for £5.99 (but with ten packs of veg seeds - not common or garden ones either [unintended pun/ weird irony]). Thinking books and starting on my garden are a lot more positive preps than fighting over toilet rolls - may have to go to mum's for a week or two although we are all keeping our distance when we have coughs and colds.

Today I watched a lovely clip on bookface - Italians in 5 different apartment blocks standing on their balconies or hanging out of windows playing musical instruments and singing together. I am aching quite a bit (may have overdone the tidying as a lot of it involved bending and lifting) so I had a bath with some muscle relaxing soak in. Went out shopping with a list. One thing was bulk buying stamps for mum which I tried and failed yesterday. Took two books back to the library then went to the far end of the high street (using the walker - will have to keep using it as I can walk a lot further and better with it, been using up all my energy just tottering around). Did an online order last weekend and they only sent one of the most important item - the thing DS3 had been meithering for for over a week (think I put down 6 - usual quantity - but then changed it to 10 as there was room in the freezer). Website did have a mardy in the middle of ordering so that might have been the fault. Bought enough to have it delivered (mostly stuff for them) so I could get the other shopping unencumbered.

Have been domestic ( not goddess perhaps an acolyte) today. run washing machine on normal programme and then when it gets to the end and won't open I put it on drain and spin (9 minutes) and then it lets me open it. Some things coming out wetter than usual but it's workable. Have moved round items in various stages of drying (quilt from 2 days ago was making puddles for the first day - someone threw a towel over it). Looked at the dishwasher and added to what was in there (took out two clean pans). Have made basmati and wild rice salad (was going to have it warm for tea but it wasn't ready), a gorgeous chilli and have taken chicken breasts out to defrost and made a tandoori marinade (using yoghurt from January).

Took my stockpot out of the cupboard and putting together a veggie curry. Altogether have used up about 12 packets from the freezer (a full cauli and half a broccoli in the veg curry, then various amounts of onions, peppers, mushrooms and any other bits that would get lost in there). Many tins of tomatoes and kidney beans and oddments of other things - tiny skerrick from the ketchup bottle. Many trips to the bins, rubbish gathered from every surface including the floor and added to the binbag I started yesterday (found 3 empty 2l water bottles under the bed, loads of rubbish and the inevitable pile of sequins) - think dragging the bed about is what has hurt my shoulders (only pulled it away from the wall so I could sweep/ scrape/ hockey move the stuuf to where I could get at it).

Today I am grateful for music making Italians, for finding what I needed (spent too much this month but have made savings targets + little extra bits to all money pots, for making more space (some things will need 'tidying' again but will finish my current projects, then re-sort as I gather stuff for the next batch of sewing/ crafting). They are 'away' but not terribly neat atm.