NST JUST JUNE

abundant1972

Good evening!

Good day at work, which was mentally challenging which was nice! I think I will enjoy my new role once I settle into it. 
Back on track with my eating after a chinese takeway accidentally fell into my mouth at weekend    
Finally have an end to my car situation... I now own it (Yay!) - but have a 0% interest credit card to pay off. This way I am not tied into monthly payments of nearly £200 per month and have 2 years to clear it interest free. Just gives me more flexibility if I am having a tight month.

Today I am grateful for:

1) A resolution to my car situation
2)  For my new job and the extra day off
3) For the authors of the novels I am escaping into

Today = NSD number... erm... I'll brb and check!!!

Night all!!!  

... I'm going with 3 NSDs!!! 

ditty1234

Good evening hope everybody had a lovely day. Woke up with a blinding head ache this morning, but slowly got myself untangled from bed, and this afternoon I went on a long walk with both boys. lovely sillines and only a bit of this way or that way discussion.
I still feel tired and a bit wonky so I'm off to bed. But grateful for boys, walking, mild weather, and a naughty piece of cheesecake.

greent

Thankful for some nectar deals meaning I got an extra 995 points with my shopping, a sunny day, ds2 having a good day with home schoolwork, being successful at freezer tetris

mothernerd

Woke with a hacking cough so stayed in my room and tidies a bit. Moved mum's handbags (she doesn't use them, think they were gifts) put them in a drawer full of small ornaments (ornaments inside the bags) to clear a wardrobe space. One bag had old address books/ spare glasses in and another is the bag she takes on holiday (toothbrush, half a tube of toothpaste and a flannel - may take them out as toothpaste will have dried up by the time it's safe for us to go away again). Put the crackers/ biscuits and wraps in there with wash tablets at the back. Some crackers ok up to December (will be used long before). There are still a few things in the 'soupery' in mum's room, so any new stock is being stored in my room. Soup consumption has slowed because I'm doing most of the cooking so it's only if mum isn't feeling well or hungry or I'm working in the garden and she wants something quick. I want to get to the bottom of the pile before I start rebuilding. Found a bag suitable for holding bags of pasta and I can hang it up as it doesn't do well in with the tins (and I hate having to scrabble about in the bottom of the cupboard).
Bin out for collection and various categories of recycling rounded up. Did an hour and a half in the garden. Can't see what I've done (mainly hidden by the shed) but I've succeeded with something that was a struggle yesterday. More dwarf bean planted out and two old wellies filled with stones (mum wanted them painting blue but they have a waterproof coating and it was running off faster than I could paint). They will be used to hold a panel in place whilst I fill between it and the fence with soil (narrow bed as I want to be able to get behind the shed).
Watched Midsummer Murders with mum (we agreed the cough was the pre-existing one which resurfaces from time to time). The WTC people have decided they have acted correctly but I have won a partial victory as they have backdated the change to April 2019 so I 'only' have to pay back last year's money, not two years. They have also sent me a form for my doctor/ health professional to fill in, giving details about my mental health (focusing on my ability to manage money due to my mental health and what effect having to repay the debt would have). It does briefly touch on physical problems. Will talk it through with the doctor's receptionist, depending on who is around it might be better to ask someone from the weight management service - they might have more time and it's a holistic service so they have lots of notes and the Occupational Therapist visited my home (at its messiest and most chaotic).
So as of now every single one of you is going to do better at this month's challenge than I am, as I am now officially in debt to the tune of £2,770-35
Today I am grateful for not being over £5,000 in debt, for a partial resolution to that particular problem (even though I have a new set of hoops to jump through), for jelly with fruit in, for fixing a difficult bit of kit, for tidy top shelves in the wardrobes (and more space at the bottom and on the floor).

Narola1976

So sorry to hear about the repayment you have to make mothernerd, but definitely a good thing that it isn’t as bad as it could have been. I have every confidence you will get through this. I really admire your tenacity and perseverance. I am hoping that will rub of on me. 

Really glad for you @abundant1972 that your car is all yours now.

I am doing little bits but I really need to make a concerted effort to clean the house. Everywhere I look is mess. I know it would help my mental health to have an orderly home but there is so much to do that the little I do barely makes a dent. 

Hmm, so what am I grateful for? I am grateful that I have enough money now to buy DD her birthday gift and I won’t need to go into debt for it. For the hugs and cuddles my DD still gives me even at nearly 18. For a lovely cup of coffee and time to enjoy drinking it. 

apple_muncher

Well done you, abundant! After all the umming and aahing about your car, you go and make a decision!

f0xh0les - turns out it was mango pulp not purée. I used about half of it mixed with alpro yog to make 4 ice lollies for dd. The ice lolly maker only make 4 lollies, so the rest is in a pot in the fridge.(apart from what I somehow managed to guzzle. Amaaazing how yummy it is.) Am toying with the idea of mango cheesecake, to use the silken tofu I still have lurking... but I have no gf/df biscuits for the base... Hmmm, need to get thinking and goooogling...

mothernerd - such a bummer about the money. Why on earth does someone award money to those who need it, only to have someone else demand it back...?

f0xh0les

Narola, all the little bits of tidying will eventually join up. Don't try and do too much.  If it helps, divide each room into a 9 part grid and just tidy one part.  A reward (cup of tea / break for lunch / read a chapter) after each completed bit.   I used to pick one room at a time. and when that one space was cleaned and cleared, the door was closed. I might  end a session with a  box containing bits that I did not know what to do with, but the room itself was done.   If it got messed up again by the kids during the week, so be it.  The house is for living in. But slowly, week by week, the puddles of chaos  will disappear. 

I am patiently waiting until 10 so that I can start hammering floorboards back down.  Most are cut to size now, so just need to get on and finish. By lunchtime I will be done, the skip-dived floorboards will be out of the back room,  hammered down, and the floor will be even. Yay me!   Sadly, (I think this month should be renamed 'bathroom misbehaviour month') the loo in the upstairs bathroom seems to be leaking.   Grrrrr.  If it is not one thing it is another.

So, today will be - floorboards, researching toilets (joy) and dismantling the built in cupboards around the loo (stupid idea) with a bit of recreational floor mopping and extreme cushion sewing    

Well, it is a plan anyway.  Without a plan nothing gets done. Not everything needs to get done, but as long as some things are wiped off the list, I call it progress. 

mothernerd

Narola just keep doing the little bits. It does all help. Try to concentrate on what you have done rather than what still needs doing - sometimes I write things down as I do them because when I'm struggling (either mentally or physically) I get to the end of the day, nothing on the 'to do' list is done and I can't remember the things I did do.
Try to leave each room a little bit better than it originally was. Take things with you that belong in the room you are going to. I lived in the attic room at the 'big' house for a while when DS1 had to move back in. My reasoning was that it was easier to take the few things I needed up there (used the bed that was already there) and make room lower down for all his stuff. It really concentrates the mind if you know that anything forgotten or left behind means climbing up two flights of stairs (my leg was already painful but it took over two years to diagnose that I needed a complete hip replacement).
Things that might help
1)   Remove the obvious rubbish first. Do the same for anything you want out of the house. I always kept a charity donation bag handy - the boys would come with things they no longer wanted and ask where the bag was, but this could apply to stuff that could be put outside in a shed or garage (or even just outside if it won't damage).
2)   When the boys were small I would put a box or basket for each of them on the living room floor and toss any toys and other items in them, then take them to their room(s) and leave it there. Used the same technique when getting them to tidy their room(s) - throw all the lego in this box, pieces from games, jigsaws etc that need to be reunited with their boxes in another, stack up books and PS games, clothes on the bed (sort the heap later). This left the 'rubbish - paper, apple cores, crisp and biscuit crumbs, dirt to be swept up and binned. 
You can have a container for each room (laundry baskets are good for sheets or clothing that have had to be dried indoors) and  remove everything that does not belong in that room.
3)    Big brown box technique. I first used this when I was pregnant, had just moved back into 'my' house (used bf's house whilst CH was installed plus some other jobs) and there was still 'stuff' everywhere. Mid-afternoon bf left to go and meet his mum, to take her to a concert for her birthday then come back to stay overnight. I think he apologised. In despair, I went round gathering up as much stray stuff as possible (putting like with like, any loose papers in one box - to be dealt with later). Once the room was clear of 'stuff', I cleaned it, arranged it - we had a battered, rusty tin trunk which I covered with a pretty cloth, then topped with a small lace edged tablecloth (side table size), cleaned the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom (mother-out-law had our bed), sorted out the food and still had time to go through some of the boxes sitting down with my legs up. The transformation was so complete that my bf kept going round looking in places like under the stairs because he couldn't work out what I had done with it.
4)     Clear, clean, put back only what belongs there  This is a small scale version of the above, applied to worktops, drawer tops, table tops, a whole room if you feel up to it (it works with my bathroom because it's only small and I have to remove all the things on the floor -bathmats, towel bin, toilet roll holder, rubbish bin etc- before I have room to clean). Then move on to the next bit, but if you are tired, rest - sit where you can only see the 'done' bit, admire your handiwork. Most 'tidy your whole room' features on pinterest (seem to be generally aimed at young women) involve taking everything out of the room except furniture, then cleaning as above. I do this from time to time but it means piling stuff up in the bath (had to do this when the boys were younger when changing rooms - whoever was doing important exams got to have the room on their own - as there were several tight corners to negotiate and it was the only way to make more space (me + 3 growing boys in a 2 bed house).
An alternative is to put all your 'stuff' on the bed, clean the floor, furniture and other fixtures, then sort the stuff - clothes to be hung up. When I was a teenager I would practice an extreme version of this, piling everything in front of the door - it's amazing how fast you can tidy when you need to go to the bathroom (it wouldn't work now).
5)  For a good laugh, I recommend the sloblady thread on here. It's a reaction to 'flylady' (as practised on the Old Style board not the original). The OS flylady can be useful but it's totally overwhelming when you 'aren't feeling up to it. Sloblady is a series of confessions by failed flyladies (or those who didn't even try). It includes things like the lady who put the ironing mountain in bin bags and hid it in the boot of her car.
Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. Ignore everything else.

mothernerd

June Challenge Day 10
Take time for Yourself
Who has remembered to include fun in their daily to do list.
Quotes
Self-care is giving the world the best of you instead of what's left of you
Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you
Self-care means giving yourself permission to pause
You alone are enough. You don't have anything to prove to anyone (May Angelou)
 Hugs to anyone who is in quarantine on their own.

Currently without my lists of dates. I know where it is - in the middle of a big pile of stuff.

abbi_aurelia

Morning

mothernerd - good news about only being one year, but bad news that they still want that back

f0xh0les - our old place had a toilet with built in cupboards, totally agree its a stupid idea (it also had a basin that was 2 inches deep and cuboid so a nightmare to clean the right angles and water splashed out of it)

Feeling very tired today, taking medication for a few days to help mental health but it causes insomnia, so now I can't decide which is worse

Grateful for LO sleeping through the night even though she's teething, for finishing the Aeneid and for my job being relatively secure