NST April 2020: Fools we are not!

f0xh0les

NSD 20 over here.   Not so much as poked my nose out of the door today. Wet and rainy, miserable sort of a day. 

See you tomorrow.

apple_muncher

Today I am grateful for thinking that it was a work day and then realising that it wasn't, for US baking shows / competitions where they are all just so cheerful, for having enough batteries to get the wii going again, for finally starting to needlefelt my 3rd dinosaur (okay, he only has legs and a head at the mo, but at least I've started!), for the robin who likes to visit our garden, for dd starting to make syl fam items again.

lcc86

Checking in to report I've hit my target of 22 NSD's yesterday. Made a charity donation today with what money I had spare until the end of the month. Even though I hit my NSD targets I still spent the same more or less as I would've done on a normal, non-lockdown month in terms of my disposable income. So in May I must try a bit harder. Have made a list of all wants (couple of books, eyelash tint, takeaway for my birthday) and needs (vitamins, arnica massage oil - that stuff is a life saver, and a couple of other boring toiletry and household bits). I think half my problem is I get bored and scroll online and inevitably find something I want to buy! So must be stricter, although at the same time don't want to be too harsh on myself as these are unprecedented times and we all need ways to get through! 

On the plus side, the house is tidier than ever, DIY is getting done, I've read loads of books and I've been able to dedicate the last month to intense home physio for my back and hip, which is coming along better than I ever expected. So these are all my big gratitudes, along with a rainy walk today (weird I know), choccie rice krispie cakes with the last of the Easter eggs, homemade protein bars, and of course health.

greent

Abbi - sorry to hear about lo - glad shes getting better x

Today I am thankful for the rain (for the garden and for filling up the water butt), for an enjoyable post-dinner game of Clued0, for discovering that our local chippy is back open, for baking a tasty loaf, for getting paid 

facethemusic

abbi- sorry to hear LO was ill, but glad she's on the mend now. 
Tuesday- NSD 17. I seem to have spent about as much as in a normal month, as I'm furloughed will have a smaller pay at the end of this month to cover May so from now my spending is also on lockdown! Aim for next month is to reduce all the budgets and stick to them. 
Gratitudes- exercise being easier today, sunshine, a few more items in the charity shop box, finishing my book, cuddles with DD watching a movie. 

mothernerd

Ah the meaning of life, the universe and everything (sorry dolly).

Abbi, so good that LO is on the mend it's always scary when little ones are ill.

F0xh0les - take it from an expert Watch Your mental Health. You aren't your usual bouncy self, your posts are brief as the Cheshire Cat's appearances. We will all have times when our stress levels rise so sit down quietly with a pen and some paper and think about what makes you happy, what makes you feel valued, what makes you laugh.

Hide in your bedroom or the shed if you have to - alone time (you are used to everyone else going out every day, now they've all invaded 'your space' but you are still doing all the donkey work (dull boring repetitive tasks around them). weren't you thinking about going back to work when they were older (I know you want to 'be there' for them in a way that your parents weren't for you but they don't 'need' you in the way babies do - they will still need you when they are 50 and you are 70 but that relationship evolves and changes over time). Are there any online courses that will help when you do decide to return to work or anything you want to learn just for fun. Think about where you want to be in 5 or ten years time and start planning and training for that. Carve out a part of each day for 'work'

- (boring house stuff) If everyone's at home full-time then some of this should be shared

- training, updating old skills, learning new ones - set some boundaries. Make it known that you will be available if there is something they would like to talk to you about one on one but otherwise the hours X- Y are your work hours and you should not be interrupted). Let them know homework inspection is at the end of these hours and there will be consequences if it isn't done.

Fun

- small silly things like wearing fun socks, spotty ones, sparkly ones, odd ones

- plan a campaign of different ways to annoy or embarrass your children. When i was trying to get fitter (in my younger days but couldn't leave the children in the house alone), I would run up and downstairs in the advert breaks when watching a programme (also lie on my side on the floor and do leg raises whilst watching the programme). This would lead to them popping out of their bedrooms 'What are you doing/ what's all that noise? Dad dancing, singing loudly, especially if you don't have a particularly 'good' voice, doing silly walks up and down the garden (or outside on the pavement where the neighbours can see you)

Quiet time

- you already know how to escape into a good book

- watch the birds, or the clouds (we can cloud bathe together), watch something that makes you laugh, watch something that makes you cry (it's cathartic - sad music and films actually improve your mood and it's another way of embarrassing/ bewildering your children). I cry over Lassie films (the Greyfriars Bobby rip off), I cry for the little robot boy in AI (and that was before DS1 told me that is the 'happy ending' the film makers put on it - the book is sadder still), I was in the cinema once and a woman's children stood up and went to sit in a different part of the cinema because their mother was sobbing her heart out (the bit in the 'Herbie' films where the little VW decides to go and throw itself off a bridge).

- pampering.

Look after yourself f0xh0les, you look after everyone else and that has to start with looking after you.

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

Morning everyone
quick catch up from me.  Wise & kind words from mothernerd above.  
i achieved a NSD on Monday but i was unwell - had a migraine and stayed in bed all day, mostly sleeping.  Didn't even raise my head for popmaster so must've been ill  
"went back" to work (from home) yesterday but still not feeling great and could quite happily stay in bed sleeping today.  
We've had our usual walks.  DD1 went shopping and made tea yesterday.  DD2 is a bit down.  
Grateful for DD1 for doing lots of chores, getting paid - FT and PT roles, managing to mostly dry my bedsheets on the line yesterday, good TV progs to share with DDs
Dx

f0xh0les

Aw thanks mothernerd- I am in a bad mood because I am dieting.  Another  2lbs gone this week - One stone 5lb in total so far.

Being hungry is not conducive to bouncy happy me - and the amount of water I am shipping is ensuring I am climbing the stairs at every ad break just to get to the loo.  And what is even worse, is that I have managed to split the thigh in both my pairs of jeans this week, when they are baggier. How???  It is just not fair! and there are no charity shops open to get more new-to-me ones.  I have now done 12 months without buying a single 'new' item from a 'proper' shop (bnwt S&M undies are available in our local 0xfam - worry ye not! I have it covered).

DH is vocalising his work worries, which is fine, t he is borrowing trouble - although his work load has just risen massively. 

And once again I have had to deal with a maths teacher before 8.30am.  I  have managed to create four totally laid back relaxed offspring -  just like the teenage sons in sitcoms. I am now a stereotype.

I think I need to start going for a quick run in the morning, as the background radiation of irritation and stress is starting to become apparent.  I am boring myself!

Anyway, today will be NSD21, I am shopping tomorrow (payday! yay!) for food I will not be eating,  and by Monday I am hoping to have dropped another lb so I am out of the obese category and merely in the overweight one.  Small win, but still a win.

This nasty virus has still not affected us, or our families, so really it just  feels like we are in limbo.... without the fun of a pole or the rum.

mothernerd

Sorry for non-attendance yesterday - this old laptop was giving me 'the black screen of death' as DS3 calls it and I haven't got this site up on the new one yet. When we moved to this new 'platform' is it?, I used my original gobbledegook password (it was written in my codebook) but I think the caps lock was on (have new cap lock version written under the original with Feb 2020 next to it). However it must have been more complicated than that because it isn't working - I may have to regenerate (sorry dolly).

So yesterday went out to the shed and retrieved my old jumper and paint covered ancient joggers and 'cleared the yard'. Wanted to get the soil off the ground before it rained. i have been mixing equal quantities of new 'super soil' with old tired soil reclaimed from various locations around the garden/ transported from my house. It's not how I want it but the 'gets worse before it will get better' stage has been tamed so that mum can totter safely up and down the yard using her walker, to 'help me' by putting clothes on the line (or rearranging the ones I've put out in peculiar fashion that only makes sense to her - sheets hung upside down in a 'scallop' pattern) as she won't let me put them out at night and bring dry things in, in the early morning when I go out to feed the birds, take milk to the shed, bring older milk back from the shed, put out all the different categories of rubbish, unpadlock the gate, see if there is post in the post box, come back in and lock us in again.

Replied to the girl who asks about veg boxes, offered spare space in our brown bin (neighbourhood page = just our street/estate) and asked for any unwanted plant pots, 2l bottles and old buckets etc, unsuitable for their original purpose, got into a discussion on plastic bottle tower gardens.

Ate at 2pm, went back out to the polytunnel, had set up some tasks in there for when it started to rain. SM delivery came at 3.30pm (scheduled for 4 5 pm) but only had to unlock the gate put the trolley near the gate step back. He put everything in the trolley in bags (I added a laundry basket across the top when it started to pile up) then I locked up again and took everything to the shed. Brought mum's cornflakes in (from the helpful video - box will have been touched by people at the SM but the bagged contents inside will not have been touched since it left the factory (if then), so undo the box and tip bag out onto clean surface, discard box to safe location (virus only supposed to live for 24 hours on cardboard). Did a bit more in the polytunnel - strawbs into bottle tower containers and some in temporary home - ends of bottles (to be used as planters/ mini cloches when I bring more bottles from home). Have enough to start building a couple of towers now. Spare soil from bed moved into one of my containers and mixed with new (tiny weeds taken out before move).

Came in, had shower and put clean clothes on. mum had planned our tea so I sat, was fed, cut out some letters from coloured scrap paper. Mum is still writing birthday cards to the year end but we have run out of 'mens and boys' so will make some that spell happy Birthday using cards we have as background. Luckily I have three embroidered pieces for new babies so I only need to mount one ready for the new arrival.

I've been up since 5am and ran out of steam at 8 am so have been writing lists - Things I want from home (for DS3 and Beloved to collect from around the house and bag or box before leaving by the front door), things I want to bring if I get a man and van to collect them, things I want them to look out for when they go to the shops, things to ask for if people phone to see if there's anything we need (only put plain yoghurt and fruit gums today - fg are to help with sore throat), extra things they can put out for the binmen (because the tips are closed and people decided to have a clear out whilst they were at home, we are allowed to put one bin bag at the side of our black bin and it will be collected - once every three weeks). Need to start a book list wish list - found the hive site yesterday (ethical choice/ alternative to amazon) but also considering signing up to free amazon prime trial and finding as many of the books I would like, as cheaply as possible (series I will read and reread) in an attempt to bankrupt the tax dodging so and so. Might help with some of the things I have had trouble getting hold of too.

Cooking (use up list), cleaning list, extra cleaning list (cleaning upholstery by hand), next task for gardening (plus things to order if anyone has stock and is posting out - W seeds were only 'in store'). One of the best sites only has 3 people instead of 6, so only taking orders for one hour a day and packing the rest of the time. Someone had been buying the garden mags for the 'free' seeds. I did one bag before I went into exile (that's what it feels like).

I'm not surprised people's budgets are off course. Sometimes we have to sacrifice cost considerations for more urgent needs. I know lots of things I normally pick up in the pound emporium or other 'cheap' locations (BnM, HBargains - cheap cost but not quality) but I can't go there now so picking reasonable value but able to be delivered preferably without reducing the number of food items (only managed to get a Tessimo slot so far and they have a strict 80 item list, so 3 loose baked potatoes is 3 items, they did have a 2.5kg bag but they no longer stock that). Delivery fees have risen sharply and I have seen complaints that those who have paid for delivery savers can't get slots. I'm taking careful note and working out who will get my custom in future but if we need it enough (eg otc meds) I will pay extra (although keep repeating to DS2 that cheap generic version is identical to 'posh' brand). I'm going to have a bit of a yoghurt glut because having trained DS2 which yoghurts and flavours to look for I just told him to get the same the following week and there are some on the SM delivery but they all have long dates - the ones in the fridge from last week are all end of this month - mid May (and I have them in date order on the shelf, of course), but it means I have the luxury of yoghurt every day rather than rationing them.

So gratitudes for yesterday are all the birds that visit our garden (think the tits are living here and a very fat pigeon who nests in the tree by the back door), that the single magpie who has been haunting us like a harbinger of doom for weeks has found a friend (so two for joy, I have decided that both of them are male and this is why it took him so long to find his soulmate - even the bird has a backstory), for all I accomplished yesterday even if I could barely walk later on - no trip home, for rain to damp down the worst of the hayfever symptoms, for watching Happy Valley from the beginning (mum was going to watch the dreadful film she avoided the other night) and for being busy (f0xh0les I could keep you and all your tribe busy).

crazy_cat_lady

Hello everyone
It's been a strange few days this week. Weather is up and down, work rates are up and down, moods are up and down and I have a cough. Ugh. I don't feel poorly at all - I just thought it was hay fever all day yesterday but it's worse today. Luckily enough with me being a key worker I am entitled to a test and have managed to book myself straight in tomorrow morning at a place less than 10 miles away. I'm pretty sure I don't have anything but dd has it in her head that I'm now going to die and is panicking a bit. Bless her - I've told her most people don't get very sick at all and some have no symptoms but she has me and her dad as parents so she was always going to be anxious.
Mothernerd, I love reading your posts and your advice is always so brilliant. You've helped pull me back from my own despair on more than one occasion.
So now that we're isolated for the short term I can't even do my daily walk for my mood and the weather has turned so I can't sit out in the garden. Best make sure I make plenty of time to relax and read or crochet in between my work, GCSEs in everything else and a research project on Edinburgh Zoo.
Is there a May thread yet? Has anyone volunteered to run it?