NST: November 2020 - Madness!!!

apple_muncher

Hi and welcome dfwmumof5. Yay - another turtle!

f0xh0les

Never to late to become a Turtle @dfwmumof5 !!

Today is NSD 4, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, it is flippin' freezing out though.  Very glad DS3's hoody for PE has come in the post this morning.  Poor thing must look like a smurf, running around turning blue with his 0%body fat and skinny sparrow's legs. Bought him 2 t shirts too, they will turn up at some point. I figure it is not going to get any warmer is it? and he has PE 4 days in a row and has to sit in his PE kit all day.  Now he has a kangaroo pocket and a hood to keep him warm.

Nesting.   I am not so cold in the house as I decided moving bedroom furniture about the place was in order - it looks much better in 2 of the bedrooms now. All nicely cleaned and freshly hoovered. All upstairs scrubbed. The ground floor is still a mess, but I just remind myself I am 2/3s  of the way through the house, and I have no plans for the weekend! It will all look much better by close of play on Sunday night. It does not all have to be done in one day.  I might just have a kitchen disco sesson and clean this evening.  Got DS1 to disinfect all the door handles, light switches and stair rails. He is showing no signs of covid and can go back to school again on Tuesday.

So just got to do the school run and the weekend begins!  I had a S&M Apple Hot Cross Bun toasted yesterday and it was lovely, so lovely I had another one for elevensies today. Have 4 left in the freezer. Tomorrow is allocated as a crumpet day.   Bananas are being smoothied at an alarming rate.

Right, if I get a move on I can have the living room tidied and hoovered before I have to go and pick up my band of wretches. Hoping to achieve a NS-Weekend. Not going shopping again until Monday.  If the kids want snacks they will either have to bake them, or pop some corn.  I will come in on budget this month.

Calling14

Hiya turtles and newbie turtles.

Yesterday was a NSD, bit of a disaster.  Afternoon off so cleaned house, then had to pull landing carpet up to take photos of the floorboards that the joiner is fixing next week. Well the underlay turned to blue dust and was then in all the bedrooms. Hoovered again! Then touch up walls in hall, disaster think either I didn't stir left over paint enough, its gone off or I got the wrong grey out of the garage!  Looks worse than when I started. Next my satinwood white paint was dried up yellow mess so woodwork job abandoned. Hopefully I can buy paint this weekend, otherwise wait until Monday until Wales's lockdown ended.

Made some cherry scones  to cheer myself up, not my best effort but ate 4 so abundant you're not alone in feeling bad.

Feeling sad another refund for concert in April next year in Scotland was so looking forward to meeting up with friends but can't see normality back by then.

Spent today, went for a walk lunchtime down the beach, cold wind so had a hot choccy treat, whippy cream marshmallows and tiny bit of flapjack. Friday treat day I have decided. Will lose a NSD today as need milk, fruit and veggies.

Grateful for

Watching people brave enough to be swimming in the sea today. Whilst I cuddling my hot drink with a big scarf on.

Sunshine

Our new pier being built, must be only one this century. Lovely to see.

Toni'sfriend

Welcome, New Turtles. Nice to see you.

NSD No 4

Oh it's cold here. Tidied out the fridge and freezers. A few surprises in there. Things I had forgotten about but basically lots of bread, frozen veg and, of course, Himself's stash of ice cream. All needs to be used before we buy any more although I do have fish coming on Sunday because we don't have any and nowhere local to buy it. Making a chicken stir fry for dinner. That'll use up something.

Our local SA is starting to collect toys for disadvantaged children to which we will contribute. I suspect there will be a lot of people struggling this Christmas. What I was wondering if you could help with, Turtles, is what is appropriate for 9 to 11 year olds. I'm sure they will get lots of soft toys, etc for little ones but maybe not so much for the older ones and it's a long time since I bought anything like that. So, any suggestions? I thought books (Michael Marpurgom or David Williams ?) but anything else you might think appropriate.

So, I had a lovely surprise today. Himself bought me an absolutely gorgeous diary for next year. I so love a diary (and nice pens, notebooks, etc, etc, etc. Can't be doing with all this online stuff).

[Deleted User]

Thanks for taking me under your flippers! Took me a minute to figure out *what's the turtle equivalent of a wing?

f0xh0les I've been moving bedroom furniture today too. We moved 3 weeks ago and I've been struggling to sleep in our new house now that the initial post-move exhaustion has worn off. I switched my bedroom round so I am facing the door, its the only Feng Shui principle I've ever ascribed to. I've sorted all the kitchen cupboards out so I can actually see what we have in. As expected there is significantly more wholewheat pasta than I could ever eat and the kids don't like it. I'm hoping this will help me to use what we have instead of buying more.

Tomorrow is unlikely to be a NSD as the bathroom lightbulb just blew and it's one of those fancy ones that you have to spend extra money on! I'll be having a bath by candlelight this evening, maybe the bathroom light wanted to do something romantic for me. I'll make sure I buy the other couple of bits I need tomorrow too so I don't waste any other NSD's.

apple_muncher

Today I am grateful for a morning pretty frost, for finding a gf/df selection pack in aldee for dd, for catching up on some training, for a good chat with my GP, for a warm and dry home.

greent

3 NSDs so far. Today I had to spend out on a car repair bill (but only £132 - I was fearing a bill of somewhere between £500+-£1K, so feel lucky!) so nipped into smkt and scored some YS veggies and some bits from the list

Thankful for: lower-than-expected car bill, sunshine, a break between work bits today so I made it home for lunch, watching squirrels in the school fields whilst at work

mothernerd

Mummy of twins came and did the weeding and we made a start on the rockery (not enough rocks). M-o-twins has some at her house so we stopped to eat and have showers (separate houses) and she brought a few rocks back later. She's coming again next week with a few more rocks (they're very heavy on a car's suspension) and I'm hoping she will touch up the twiddly bits on the gate (black paint has arrived, still waiting for silver anti-rust). Excellent day for painting (paint s for both old and new raised beds came yesterday) but mum vetoed painting again.

Put a good dress on as did not feel up to doing more sifting of soil and rocks. I feel exhausted but not done much today, it's the cumulative effect of the past few days efforts. Dress is a size 18 (happy dance, happy dance). Bought a black one and a bright blue one last year when I went to my aunt's funeral (wore the blue one for travelling down the day before). This year they brought out some new colourways including bright green. I waited until the price was reduced and There were blanket 40% off if you spent so much and bought the green dress and a navy one that is similar and bought the size smaller as I have 3 'on their last legs' ones that I want to wear out. It fits, I am size 18. Was in size 20 with a couple of 22s where the fabric was less forgiving or the 20 was sold out. So will persist with the trying to do my best most of the time and not beating myself up for the occasional slip up (or chocolate biscuit). Also put on my navy ghost waterfall cardi (cs special).

Have been putting together a 'storage unit' using some of the boxes that have arrived over the past week - 10 days. Just using them to stack books and candles neatly. Will treat myself to a roll of wallpaper to smarten up the longer term boxes - some are a bit weak but will be okay for the time being. Fed up of shopping. Spent half the day tracking down a pack of scandi ribbons I had seen (to use up the rolls of craft paper that padded out some earlier deliveries rather than buy wrapping paper) only to find that they are out of stock online. Tempted by packs of beautiful paper but will do a purge before I actually buy anything - no point spending a fortune on stuff to 'use up' stuff we have.

Nine to eleven year olds - building bricks (lego type but w!lko have compatible cheaper ones), action figures (we got loads of star wars figures second hand for 50p each when there were only the original 3 films), reasonable quality drawing paper and pens/ paints -most of the themed (tv/disney tie ins) ones are poor quality but some of the pound emporiums have art pencils and oil/ water colour paints, crafting kits, books, lots of books - worth trying for boxed sets in places like the worx or trawling the cs for like new ones, maybe a board game.

I am grateful for help (young fit people who can dig and carry rocks without having to sit down for a rest), for making my d-i-l happy with something I posted on-line (sheepdog watching sheep on the tv - 'This is Harry. Harry is now working from home'), for simple but good food - soup, bacon, beans and potatoes, for pretty papers, for a non rainy day, for new turtles (a very warm welcome).

facethemusic

Friday- spend day, so still on 4 NSD, had to buy milk (a recurring theme), veg for the bunnies and topped up on veg for the humans at the same time. All sounds good so far- but then it went horribly wrong and I ordered takeaway for tea 🙈. It comes out of the treat budget so the money is there, but it was an unplanned and really not required treat! My only excuse is that its Friday and it made DD very happy! 
ditty1234 most days I do more steps than that- today I've done over 21000. I have a fairly active job, walk to do the school run (when I do it), have a horse to look after and a dog to walk! 
Toni'sfriend, books are a good idea, also "girlie" bits- nail varnish, smellies, pampering things, "posh" bubbles, art/craft things, games like chess or a rubik's cube or other puzzles, fluffy socks, fancy notebooks/journals and nice pens. Depends massively on budget- most of those are fairly inexpensive per item but you could fill a nice toilet bag with a notebook, pens and a few small toiletry things to make a decent present. If you wanted a bigger item- lego, make up sets, science kits or a total winner with every primary school kid I know- NERF guns! My list is more girl orientated as I have a DD, all the boys that age I know  are either football or computer  game obsessed. Anything minecraft or fortnite would be a solid option. Hope that helps. 

abundant1972

Good evening!

Welcome aboard 🚢 to all the new 🐢

Felt better today, and your comment about eating 4 scones you just made Calling made me laugh! See we are just prepping for hibernation. This working through the dark months lark just isn't on! 

Today = NSD number 4

I have a glorious week off now - time for a total recharge. I really need it. Not much planned but hope to get in lots of walks and fresh air, and give myself a bit of a mental reboot. 

Catch you all tomorrow x