NST February 15 for February

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f0xh0les- glad you're feeling more like you today.

Today I am grateful for getting out for a fab walk, for my fourth and final webinar re pensions and retiring being a good one, for not getting too wet on the wall, for all the purple croci doing their thing, for re-discovering the joy of needle felting polar bears, for finding the next (?) series of Alaskan Bush People on the telly in a few days.

DrCarrie

Evening all. NSD dat number 11 for me. Not much to report really feeling a bit better, but not much. No mojo at all again today. Right old struggle!...but gratitudes
- windows open for periods of time together
- loving kindness meditation with my yoga community
- daffodils and tulips smiling at me

Keep swimming turtles. x

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

Evening, another spendy day as i had to get my front door lock replaced.  The door was locking but i couldn't unlock it .  Walked to my friend's at lunch to take her a card and hyacinth and chocs, we sat in her garage and had a chat and she gave me some HM birthday cake Did Fb pilates tonight which was great - really helps to stretch me out after sitting all day.
gratitudes - finding a good locksmith; birthday cake and chat with friend; nice phone call with DD2
Nite everyone
Deni x

mothernerd

Washing out, bin bag out (an extra collected one not normal rubbish), more bits to the shed, wedges for floor fitting, part of a microwave shelf, dried out pack of stainless steel wipes (great on cookers but mum's is 'glass' type) all evicted from my tool box, sewing this afternoon, finished reading my book, cleaned the shower screen and most of the toilet (squirted the bit at the bottom but need to go back and wipe it - was naked and without my glasses so didn't want to stay in there any longer), not spent any money (NSD 12 I think). Oh and stripped the bed and put clean sheets on. And a fridge/ freezer audit of both fridge freezers.

Grateful for food delivery, clothes delivery, good food using up bits and bobs, lovely book.

mothernerd

Friday 19th February 2021
My full name is Jack Leroy Tueller. This is two weeks after D-day, it's dark, raining, muddy and I'm stressed so I get out my trumpet out and the commander says "Jack, don't play tonight because there is one sniper left".
So I thought to myself, that German sniper is as scared and lonely as I am. So I thought, I'll play his love song.
The next morning, here came a jeep from up the beach about a mile and a half away, and the military police says " Hey captain, there's some German prisoners getting ready to go to England, one of them keeps saying, in broken English "Who played that trumpet last night."
And he burst into sobs he said "When you played that number last night, I thought about my fiancee in Germany, I thought about my mother and dad, my brothers and sisters, and I couldn't fire." And he stick out his hand and I shook the hand of the enemy. He was no enemy; he was scared and lonely like me.
The power of music.

Calling14

It's Friday folks.

Today's good news Tiler showed up early this morning, hoping to go home to tiled kitchen well half done probably.

Bad news still got pains down my sides, hoping it is just connected to IBS really struggled all morning in work and would have popped out to chemists at lunchtime, but it hasn't stopped raining here.

Did food shop yesterday after a walk so able have a lazy weekend and sort my health out.

Going to have a NSD now takes me up to 10/15.

Grateful for

Cashing in Ugov surveys woo hoo. Is it me aren't they paying them faster now?

The weekend almost here.

Lidlee app shows me total amount spent on groceries this month. On track

mothernerd

I'm ready to call it a day (quite successful but very spendy - oops). I had left a message on the optician's phone and had a call at 9.30 am this morning, to say they had a cancellation at 11.30 am, if I could make it. Yesterday I had started to go into hyper-stress over what changes could have been detected at my diabetic eye screening, so took the appointment on the grounds that the sooner the actual problem and possible treatments were identified the better. So asked what the protocols were and carried on getting ready. Bit of stress as I was trying to sort the window cleaner's money, as I knew he would come whilst I was out. Mum hadn't brought the milk in (or the change from the money left for them last night) so ended up bringing milk in, tipping change out, transferring window money into a different jar, instructing mum not to touch the jar or leftover change, putting window jar out side, unlocking and pegging back the gate, taking the remains of last night's food order (canned food and drink) round to the back of the house (so no one could nip through the open gate and take it - was actually more worried about someone taking my borrowed shopping trolley), bringing in the sheet I left out last night. Then I had to have a rest to recover.

Eye appointment went well. Reading glasses are fine, needed to buy some drops for my dry eyes (should stop the stabbing pains) and use my strong light when sewing, reading etc (sewing and using the laptop are causing me most problems). Do need new varifocals and because I no longer get WTC, I don't get a voucher (ticked several boxes for the free eye test) so that's £232 gone (frames were only £42 so couldn't really do much about the cost). Beautiful light blue/ turquoise plastic frames - hate metal frames but they've always said I had to have them with varifocals before and should be ready in about 10 days. Could have just paid a deposit but money is still spent. Optician also fixed the arms on my existing varifocals (splayed out) so the journey home was much safer. I also got to sit in my back yard for ten minutes waiting for the appointment time and did a short walk to post 3 cards/ letters for mum.

Whilst in town I went in the little community shop, spent  £8 mainly on some healthy snacks and spice jars (+ some chocolate including triangle chocolate - mother's day present to myself. Avoided Greggs, went in Boots for eye drops (got the cheapo £3.99 ones, £2 off) a meal deal (was 2 pm before I got back so was ravenous) and a couple of things from the sale shelf. I knew when I went out that I was feeling 'deprived' and I've always found that a small controlled 'treat' avoids a major breakout . So I have a massage bar soap and a sweet little soap dish and soap (bbc earth). I went in the £ emporium to see if they had little square sticky pads for card making (mum request) - they didn't but I bought the 3 for a £ ibuprofen, a large vaseline (mum uses it) and a tin of nivea (£4 but contains the equivalent of 2 - 3 plastic pots - not needed right now but things we will use). Got cash for mum from the machine and went across to the newsagents. Bought 2 for £5 books, sweets including hard spanish and liquorice tablets for mum (she can have them when she behaves herself) and a puzzle book (just for variety especially as I'm keeping screen time to hrs a day). They didn't have little sticky pads either.

Made my way back to the taxi office. Definitely done too much lifting last night and probably need to bind my left foot and ankle, took forever to get myself into the cab. Walked in, locked the gate, put clothes in the wash, gloves and mask left outside, washed me, sat and ate. Mum tried to start an argument which was basically a reprise of Monday's argument. On Monday she took out the things I had put in one of her cupboards (mostly boxes of cereal - she eats 3 and always has to have them all in, kitchen rolls and pads in case she does not get to the toilet in time). She'd exhausted herself and was then yelling at me to put them away on a top shelf after taking the teabags down from the top shelf. Due to arthritis in my shoulder I've been having to put plates away one at a time, so reaching above my head was agony. She later suggested that it might be arthritis and perhaps I could have gold injections (again all done 3 years ago) along with physio referral. Physio said I was managing to keep a good range of movement so keep doing what I had been (mainly shoulder shrugging and circling), but not to be too brave - take painkillers when needed. I went back to mum later and told her that I was often in quite a lot of pain but that 'unlike some people' (ex partner's daughter) I did not go around telling everyone about it every five minutes.

Today I had no sooner started to eat than mum started started sighing and saying how exhausted she was. She's had a go at another cupboard, dragged stuff out, put a load of jigsaws on another top shelf and pushed them right to the back and wanted me to put cereals that came in last night's order in front. I had done the jigsaws and she thought they could go to Oxfam (which atm means putting them in the shed in space I've only just cleared). I asked why she was doing stuff that did not need doing. 'Somebody's got to do it' I pointed out that this 'somebody' had rearranged the toy cupboard to fit in the videos brought by DS2. She then switched to arguing about a lack of soups/ variety of soup. 

I stock checked the kitchen cupboards two days ago and only 2 soups had gone (cupboard has space for 6 soups), I did refill the beans and tinned tomatoes and did my best with the rice pudding and tinned fruit (because someone took all the prunes out of the last order and filled the space with them, after exclaiming with wonder because there were no stones in them  - SM had sent a substitute). So I've retrieved all the jigsaws from the very back of the top cupboard and now have 10 extra jigsaws in my room (luckily past two weeks work means I now have several empty cube boxes) I've told mum that if she cleans the carpet at the bottom of the cupboard (about 16" x 20"), because it's filthy - non-one would know if she hadn't pulled everything out and tells me when she has done that, I will move some things across from the other cupboard and from my room (found her 5 different soups - in my room because there were some old stock tins in her 'soupery' and I wanted them all used before the new ones) so that they can all be clearly seen (and I'll do another stock check and maybe sort out a few later dated ones - possibly to go in the shed if I ever get to the bottom/ back of it (6' x 4' shed was rammed to the gills).

So lying here with numerous aches and pains, awaiting her summons.

Today I am grateful for little turquoise shark soap dishes (it makes me smile), new glasses (not really unexpected as I planned to start putting money aside after the last pair were purchased and I have, just not in box marked glasses) think I was way overdue for testing and so relieved I am not going blind (one of my worst fears), vegan 'healthy' snacks (edame beans and roasted chilli lime chickpeas) and my mother who I do love very dearly (she just drives me up the wall). 

apple_muncher

Today I am grateful for getting back to the park we went to yesterday (dd had met up with a friend for a walk) and finding the brolly she had left behind when climbing a tree, for dh also retrieving his front door key that he'd left at church (it has a USB stick attached, so was 'safe' in a laptop there), for the scaffolding people putting the scaffolding (surprise, surprise!) up so that the roof next door can be fixed which should mean we can dispense with the water collection point in our loft and sort out the wardrobe, wall and ceiling on my side of the bed, for my final jigsaw being enjoyably challenging, for free yoga, for hm fish + chips to look forward to tonight..

f0xh0les

@mothernerd - my goodness she is getting her money's worth out of you! Do you think she might be a bit anxious that lockdown is going to be lifted after Monday's announcement and you will return to your house at some point? Might explain why she is stressing about where everything is, and how much soup she has in.  

You are coping with this situation so well.  Give yourself a break, we all know you love her, but it does not stop it being really hard work!

NSD 13 today, So far I have fed  people but that is about it.  Hopefully I will be more productive as the day goes on. 

All I want to do is bake and eat cake, but I also know I need to get back on the diet before I ruin it entirely.   So soup for lunch again, might stew some plums and make some custard later. It is less worse than baking cookies. or cake. or scones.

I need to find my motivation again.    Luckily DH is gaming online tonight, so I can please myself and get on with things later. 

We are having fish and chips tonight too!

Porridgecat

Last proper day of half term today. NSD 9/15. I made a sourdough loaf today which finally seemed to work, I used my usual recipe for a quick loaf but the method for a double rise, this is the first time I've been able to tip it straight from the tea towel into the pan to cook it without it sticking like anything to the towel, despite using half a ton (it feels like) of flour on it.
Grateful for good sourdough loaf, my crocuses coming up and a good lie in.