NST Amazing August

lcc86

Evening all, managed one NSD so far. Yesterday was jobs day, did all the cleaning and had the slow cooker going most of the day - have 8 meals in the freezer now. Also washed and waxed my car which was really pleasant in the sunshine. It's not something I used to do myself but I actually quite enjoy it.

Today went horse riding, then met with some friends to go to an outdoor car show. It was much busier than I expected, I'm sure the nice weather helped, but the lack of social distancing was really obvious. Back home and have a load of washing on, just getting stuff ready for work tomorrow as have two home visits to do plus a trip to the office. 

Grateful for seeing friends for the first time in ages, and for the lovely sunshine we've had all weekend. 

lcc86

Evening all, managed one NSD so far. Yesterday was jobs day, did all the cleaning and had the slow cooker going most of the day - have 8 meals in the freezer now. Also washed and waxed my car which was really pleasant in the sunshine. It's not something I used to do myself but I actually quite enjoy it.

Today went horse riding, then met with some friends to go to an outdoor car show. It was much busier than I expected, I'm sure the nice weather helped, but the lack of social distancing was really obvious. Back home and have a load of washing on, just getting stuff ready for work tomorrow as have two home visits to do plus a trip to the office. 

Grateful for seeing friends for the first time in ages, and for the lovely sunshine we've had all weekend. 

apple_muncher

Greent - are you sure that you want to end the month a min of 4lb heavier?!?

Today I am grateful for a walk to high tide with dd this morning, for a relaxed day, for a walk to and from tescim0 with dh and for getting what we needed, for messages from a friend, for starting a challenging 1000 piece jigsaw ( not one of baked beans or double-sided though. I'm not that daft...!)

f0xh0les

A – Always pay your debts and savings first. Credit card paid off no other debts. Once bills go out on Monday I will know my budget and make a mortgage o/p and move the rest to savings.

M – Make plans - school uniform month - ds4 goes back in 3 weeks this Wednesday. Other than that, I have no plans to go anywhere.  All the family is elderly, and to be honest they don't want us. If we behave maybe we can see them at Decembermas

A – Ask for help. I am utterly rubbish about this one. Instead of asking for help, I am going to go with 'ask for quotes' from builders

Z – Zen. I am going to be under 12 stone at the end of the month.  All food is home cooked anyway, I am running min 3 times a week, and reading every day, my house has never been this clean and ordered. I only have the downstairs bathroom/ store cupboard left to beat into submission, and that is already half done. I will continue.

I – Impulse. I am buying dh a bright yellow armchair from the Swedish store.  It has been in my shopping basket for over 10 weeks as the flippin thing is out of stock for delivery in Le'Shire. Probably because we are Plagueville and nobody wants to come out to us.  They have now permanently closed the Coventry store. Hopefully I will get it this month. If not, then next.

N – No spend days. I am currently managing to spend only 1 or 2 days a week. No more than that.

G – Goals. Daily - diet   Weekly-  sub £100 budget / mop floors / clean bathroom / Monthly - be running 5k regularly, be 11 stone something, get rid of all size 18 dresses, they hang off me now anyway, the c/s can benefit (they are nice dresses)

A – Annoying jobs for the month - school shoes / trainers / uniform    The Bathroom Storage Dump   The Shed. Quotes

U – Use it up. Fabric stash is ridiculous. Book stash is depleting nicely.  Less than 2 body/face cream jars to use up.

G – Gratitudes : I do not have to think about house insurance again until March next year.

U – Upcycle/Repurpose. Going to dye some off white sheets blue to keep them going a bit longer and match the boys' bedding.

S – Shop from home. And from the hedge. Blackberries and raspberries and plums, oh my!

T – Try it. What could go wrong?

crazy_cat_lady

Evening all Lovely to see everyone starting the month with such enthusiasm. 
I wanted to do more today, but I've never had a kitten before and I didn't know that it was like having a toddler... so my time of getting stuff done before the kids are up in the morning was almost non existent because the kitten was up. I managed to wash the dishes and cross 2 frogs off the list but that was as far as I got apart from playing with the kitten until dd got up and took over. He loves dd - she is definitely his favourite in the house. All of the cats hate him and he drops everything and goes to her as soon as he sees her. 
Once she was up I spent an hour talking to my neighbour at the bottom of the garden - we haven't spoken for years since I fell out with her grown up son who is her carer but a bit of a ****. Anyway, I always liked her and it was a good catch up - and she offered to go halves on replacing the fence with me so that will be a bonus. Then I packed the car with rubbish again and headed off to the tip with dd. Just made it to Foods of the Frozen Farm in time to stock up on loo roll, fizzy drinks and golden chicken and pies. Got home, booked another tip appointment and have sat here all evening with the best of intentions but never gotten going other than to make yet another list... There's a lot of annoying jobs still to do and a few big home improvement jobs still to do as well. Goodness knows how I'm going to get them done - but I am at least more than half way. And there's no rush at all I keep telling myself. I got up, got dressed, crossed frogs off the list, ate as planned, and that's about it really.
I am grateful that the kids are so happy with the kitten and are doing more than their fair share of looking after him so my life hasn't completely stopped.

bizzie

CCL boy-kitten looks so cute. I'm sure he will be very happy & loved regardless of how much mischief he gets up to!

First update:

A – DDs & SOs will start going out tomorrow. Budget set for the month though need to review food as spending has started creeping upwards. No work / school / and home from Uni having an impact.  

M – Have put a blank planner page up on the kitchen door for everyone to pencil in any plans so we know who’s likely to be in/out and what they’re up to.

A – Asking for help instead of doing it all myself. Started with getting everyone picking their own laundry off the line and dishing up their own dinner.

Z – Zzzz catching up.

I – Impulse. See below. Oops

N – No spend days. Aiming for 15. So far just 1 as today an item that’s been on my wish list / been in the basket for a while was 25% off.

G – Goals set for myself for daily/weekly/monthly targets across self/health/wealth for personal/family/home.

 

A – Annoying jobs listed and have completed a few still loads to do and no doubt more to add.

U – Using it up rather than getting more so this weekend all meals were from what we had in.

G – Grateful for lovely neighbours.

U – Fabric and some pillowcases were turned into facemasks by my DD. Some old plastic storage pots have been used in the garden to plant salad leaves.

S – Shop from home will be opening this week. Have a list of items to find before resorting to buying from stores.

T – Trying it as it’s been a long time since I left education I’ve signed up for a couple of online (free) courses, subjects I’m interested, in to see where it takes me.

greent

apple_muncher said:

Greent - are you sure that you want to end the month a min of 4lb heavier?!?

Whoops!!!

misstara

Did a bit of decluttering yesterday - sorted out a variety of gift bags that I saved and got rid of some that I will never use.  Found a bag of clothes/jewellery which were for an 80s themed night which I have hung onto but have put away in a cupboard instead of sitting in a bag on my living room floor (the 80s night was at least 2 years ago ).  

Some good shopping from home yesterday - OH's mum got me an aroma diffuser for my birthday which I was planning to buy some oils for but in my tidying up yesterday, I found a lemon one and a peppermint one so very pleased with that.

Today should be a NSD and I'm seeing family later on

greent

Yesterday was not NSD- Tesxo shopping - although did use some reward vouchers from 2 years ago which are due to expire this month and then the rest was paid for by a discounted gift card (through DH's work) 
Shopping from home - sorted some spare cleanjng stuff for Ds1 to take back to uni.
Decluttering - 2 flebay sales posted off. 1 item added to donation bag for school's second hand uniform shop. 
No exercise but did get 10k steps completed. Food wasnt bad - omelette (no cheese) and veg for brunch and bbq for dinner. 
Today is exercise, housework and yet more school.uniform/ games kit sorting/ ordering... argh!

Beautiful weather here - hope it is wherever you are  

mothernerd

Yesterday was more cooking, the meat arrived on Wednesday and some of it needed using up. Mum had soaked her peas and boiled up the ham shank and yesterday she boiled the peas, cut up the shank (birds got the fat, pile of ham for the pea soup, pile of not so nice bits into the freezer - special bag of bits for my brother's dog, he loves visiting here), and then added onions and carrots. I marinaded tandoori lumps and cooked the remaining three chicken breasts on the other shelf. 

I did look up chicken and broccoli in oyster sauce, found some good recipes but I do need to buy oyster sauce (just use a couple of spoonfuls with other ingredients) and have added 4 ingredients to my shopping list. This is not the regular shopping list - I have a wholefoods supplier, a deli type supplier and a 'spices and ingredients' supplier, all of whom do bulk purchases, to try. For example the dried peas which I've only been able to get in tiny boxes - stall on market has stopped selling them months ago, local no waste shop doesn't stock them, most SM don't have them - the deli shop sells them in 1 kg bags at a very good price and I can use them for growing as pea shoots and even peas as well as in pea soup. It's a long while since I've cooked Chinese recipes (Ken Hom was but a young boy with a lush head of black hair) so apart from 5 spice, I don't have much in. I don't want to buy stuff that will never get used but I do need to expand my repertoire (go back to things I used to cook before children) and the same supplier does bulk bags of things I use a lot. 

So sliced chicken is in the freezer (after taking out Sunday dinner), pea soup is portioned and cooled, ditto tandoori lumps, the other chicken will be diced, portioned and frozen. Still to deal with brown chicken meat (or 'slimy chicken' as my boys used to call it), the broth off the brisket, make coleslaw, potato salad, turn the boiled eggs into egg mayo and egg and peanut roll. I still want to bake and turn the wholemeal seeded loaf into tuna (just with vinegar) sandwiches and freeze those - oh and I used one pint of milk to make strawberry blancmange and both of us had it with fruit for tea (pineapples left from the cooking bacon gammon we had last week). I'm still using the plastic bags mum's blister pack pills come in - found lots in the pile of assorted bags in mum's cleaning cupboard, large bags with closeable seals (used two of the tiny bags for sausages - think they were originally the 'poo bag' pile for when daft dogs visit but that doesn't happen often or at all atm).

Shopping from home/ using up - mum thought she had seen some hand cream in the bathroom cupboard. I investigated and found 4 shower creme/ body wash things and 4 assorted moisturiser/ hand creams. It's only a tiny cupboard and they were obscured by the dazzling array of products her cleaner uses. I told mum I had been using her festive stock of obscure items. She has got the hang of asking for 'consumable products - stamps, lined writing paper, bars of chocolate and her favourite toiletry products. I buy from the pound emporium and look for twofers and offers in Will co and Boots and buy 6 at a time of shower creme, body lotion/ cream and roll-on deodorant for her birthday and festive presents. Her partner's children keep buying 'gift boxes' (total waste of money with the possible exception of the January sales or buying them 3 for 2 with points) which have some of the main products (stuff she actually uses all the time) along with a variety of obscure products (does anyone actually use separate day and night face creams?) so I've been whittling them down - all face creams are used during the day (and for my hands and feet when they're especially dry) as I'm not allowed any products when wearing my mask. Any ideas what I can do with multiple body scrunchies,  think they are too harsh for mum's fragile skin - there's a purpley one, might turn it into a festive gnome.

One of my frogs will be taking the childproof bits off two of the large wooden drawers (were on to stop mum's partner accessing them - he had dementia. lock on bathroom cupboard was put on when he attempted to drink shampoo - nasty, he stopped. The bathroom one will have to stay as children can access that (if / when they can come in again) but the drawers couldn't be pulled out by a child - I can barely open them and then the safety bit pings in ouch. Would have done it yesterday but the screwdriver that emerged on Saturday had receded into the 'general mess' again. I had hacked my way through to retrieve a large bag of small ornaments which have been doing nothing at all ( except take up space) since mum moved here. They have now gone to the shed and I also brought a number of food items in from the shed - filled my fridge with drinks once all the meat had been cooked.

Watered stuff in the greenhouse, wrote a list of things to be done (not desperately urgent but the sooner they're done the better) and started a plan for the week but only got one (very important) item for Friday, relaxed/ kept mum company watching Downton in the evening. Saturday was an NSD but yesterday wasn't. Really don't want to shop at all but there's so many things I need to have in, we need to be self-sufficient in isolation (bought a couple of replacement tools on Friday as well as a few from home). Need to get the tool rack (more a garden rakes spades and brushes thing) up in the shed and more hooks in the cleaning and other cupboards (I have a hook multipack and several special purpose/ heavy duty ones).

 Grateful for having food (squirrelling away as much variety as possible in an 'eat one, freeze one or more' way for days/ times when we aren't well - mum has been mostly soup/ rice pudding/ cheese and crackers for a couple of weeks and I've had several 'sore throat' days when I just want soft things that will slide down without pain). Meant to make a food bank donation yesterday, must make sure it's on my list. Grateful for the rain - the garden needs it and it makes me feel less guilty if I don't get out for very long. Glad I can relax a bit. Grateful for hot water for a shower - going there now before mum finds me something else to do.