Weekly Flylady Thread 19th April 2021

pigpen

Up, dressed, girls hoofed ot to school.. OH supposed to be going to the gym but mentioned coming back for something, I wasn't really listening I was keeping an eye on the neighbours 4 year old outside by the road by himself..

My breathing is bad this morning, my eczema is itchy and I have a new patch on the back of my shoulder, I found while in bed absent mindedly scratching it.

PJs and winter coats ready for the WM

Oh.. need to go give Moomin a college kick.. I'm being a bit of a dragon tbh..

Cuppa and washer and check bills are paid, buy batteries for the car keys and slap cream on my scabby bits

Goodintentions

Good morning!

Round I am glad you are feeling better, and I hope work is okay today. GWS vibes to your Dad
Fayolle hugs to you & DD. And a kick up the bum and poke with a sharp stick to DH!!  If you need to rant/vent, please do!
HB well done on your decluttering! You are inspiring me  I agree re the eby/selling, etc. I was just thinking exactly the same thing! We are not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I can't justify the amount of time & effort for a few pennies and a lot of grief (potentially). I do think that a lot of people are using the CS as a dumping ground though  I read a story the other day about a charity spending over £30k on waste disposal!! That is not on    I will continue to give stuff to the CS, as I figure they need the money more than I do - but only decent stuff! 
Mademoiselle I am loving the image of you driving around the countryside with the roof down playing loud music! I also need to spend less time on my phone - I get so much more done then!!

Dog has been walked, WMx2 done, 1 load on the line. I will hang the other one out when the baby naps. I finish a bit earlier today, and I can't wait! Before then I have a painting session planned with a 1 yr old!! I think it will be his first, and I plan to contain the mess & just let him get on with it. I will clean up later, and will probably need to bath him afterwards!!   

Have a good day everyone. Hugs, sticks and spoons are available  - help yourselves!!

mumof3.12kindebt

Morning all 
Boys are at school. Dd is watching frozen. I've put all the clean laundry in bags ready to go upstairs to be sorted to put away. 
Wm has been on 
Td is finished .... need to empty it
Dw is on. 
Kitchen is clean enough for now. 
I have about 4 hours till I need to pick ds2 up. And ds1 will be on his way home .. then the kids are going to my grandmas for the weekend so no flying this evening as I need to drop them off. 

Cuppa and tablets swallowed.. ibprophen rub rubbed on .. 


Off I go again 

Need to do a skip run .. might do my first one before I pick ds2 up 

I have so much to get done before Monday .. trying to use these next few days off to get our tip of a house back to a home.. 

First task .. all the clean laundry away 

mumof3.12kindebt

I'm about half way through sorting the clothes 😭

pigpen

100 items on EBEAST.

I do not like the listing process on Vinted on the phone so I will give it a whirl on the laptop see if it is any easier. I have 485 photos on my phone which the laptop refused to download last night and probably another 100 I just took. I popped a few bits on there too.. see which sells first.. bit of an experiment really.

OH STILL at the gym.. I bet he is sunbathing on the river bank with an ice cream really.. lol.

Loo cleaned,
Parcels parcelled

bathroom tiles.. *looked at*... in that way which says.. you're going in a skip...
WM on.. should be finished now actually so I will gather coats and put those in and get the wet stuff out.

Bills sorted but I need to check quotes for house insurance renewal.. I am not paying the additional £3 a month .. I am aiming for less than £40 a month.. this will be interesting!


OH has a CV to check and maybe update, a cover letter to write and jobs to apply for.. I am sick of him being in a grump because he doesn't want to go back to this one..
Then he can go play in the garden.

Throat super tickly today which is weird.. going to get another cuppa while I gather washing... and maybe feed the DW too.. and find a binbag.. ooh... school clothes to sort too, I would mine doing this less if it wasn't so gloomy in the back room. It gets no sun until late evening and is super messy, it is the indoor shed.

Not got that bedroom pile touched yet so that will be an after lunch job.

Cats all fed and asleep in various sunny cornes.. apart from Pumpkin who is charging around the house with a crinkly foil ball! Now she wants to leap on Pudding.. it is never ending furry madness in here.


Mumof3.. a weekend of childlessness sounds epic.. I hope you achieve all you are hoping for! xxx
Round.. how is Papa Round doing?
Dance.. sending hugs.. because you deserve some!

Love and hugs and spoons and sunshine for everyone else.. xx

Honey_Bear

I've reached a grinding halt this morning.  I simply don't have the physical energy to do anything, and that means my mind won't be up to making decisions about decluttering.  I'm taking the day off, despite eight boxes in my office that need sorting.  They can wait and I'm going to drink coffee and veg out today.

I didn't mean to do this, but writing it turned into a 'thing'.  Skip if you want, it's sort of about decluttering, but then again - not.

YL I'm horrified by what some people apparently think is donatable.  At the start of the pandemic in the first few weeks of the first lockdown things were very unsettled at the Foodbank, so those of us that could pitch in did some extra hours covering for people who couldn't, for various reasons, be involved (mostly shielding because of age).  I also took our Lockdown Lodger (lovely bloke) to the big Morribunds on my weekly shop so that he could stop feeding himself hand to mouth from the corner shop and do a big shop, and noticed that the Foodbank donation point was more than overflowing, it was a tsunami spreading over the floor.  I rang the Foodbank and asked if they wanted me to bring it in and so got involved by just covering that supermarket for a few weeks until the usual volunteer could do it again. 

Most donors are kind, thoughful and unbelieveably generous (including Moribonds - £10,000,000 in kind!) but some just regard the donation spot as a guilt-free feel-good decluttering spot.  I found clothes (rather nasty apparently dirty clothes, I might add) opened packets of food and my personal nadir - food that was over 10 years out of date!  And that was before the Food Standards Agency changed their guidance on Best Before dates! 

Personally I'd have dropped all of that rubbish in the supermarket's bins, but we have to take the donations in, weigh everything in, and then when it's being sorted throw out everything that's unusable for whatever reason and weigh it out again.  I know this because I'm the one who records all of the stock in and out for our Foodbank, as well as a few other admin tasks.  I know EXACTLY how much food is unusable when donated because I add up those sheets and enter those figures and it never ceases to amaze me that a very few and far between people seem to think that a) we're a rubbish bin, and b) what that implies about the way they think about our Service Users. 

On a happier note, the level of generosity made me cry, quite literally, several times.  Emptying the donation bins moved me to tears every time I did that job, including the day that I'd had to go back for a second car load, and the Trustee volunteer who was taking the donations at the Foodbank (weighing and stacking in date order) opened the door, saw me, and said, 'Bu**er off!' because of the volume.  We were quite literally drowning in food, and had to take over two church halls for months because we had run out of space.  I love that about the general public - there are a few people that make me :shudder: but most people are thoughtful, generous and kind and that makes me very happy.  Demand is significantly up, but so is the most wonderful generosity I've ever witnessed. 

If anyone reading this has ever donated to a Foodbank - thank you.  You not only make Service Users' lives better, you make volunteers and staff's lives better by reminding us all how wonderful people can be.

pigpen

cereal scoffed..
Squeaks school shirts delivered.. Pixie will need them after summer so it wasn't an insane purchase with only this term left at primary school.

Apparently.. my search for comfy clothing led me to buy Tiktok leggings... should be hilarious at my age, I think they are all about 20 in the vids haha.. my thoughts on comfort are probably more comfortable than theirs.. I'd post you a pic but, ya know... booty shots aren't really our thing! haha

both WM's on, One has Hazels bed, she vommed in it and is now refusing to sleep in it. Hopefully a wash will bring her happiness.

DW on.. still a few bits lying about but it is much better.

Head pounding.. and the Romanian neighbours have their Romanian music at a ridiculous volume... it is not helping.. it isn't my thing either but, if it makes them happy, quieter would be nice... I can't complain really, I have my 80's/90's rock/metal (depends on the day, I am not a Buble kinda girl!) at deafening levels but inside the house, it drives OH crazy.

Cuppa next and then I want to get some bedroom sorted. It would be infinitely better if I could get to put my clothes away. I am considering moving my chests of drawers from over there to over here and the wardrobe from over here to over there and putting OH's second CofD in that space.. .. my chairdrobe could go in front of the window and the drawers SHOULD.. in theory be more accessible.. and OH will have room at his side of the bed for my ebeast boxes haha.. they are all stacking boxes so neat compared to what is there now.

Before I do anything I need to find some floor which might take a month.. it is THE messiest room in the world.

ionafan

Afternoon (only just) to all.

Well said HB.

T'internet is playing up big time today, on my phone as well as my PC so I have
- stripped 2 beds
- done WMx2 and hung out
- started load no.3
- S&S'd kitchen
- tidied LR 
- made up a batch of yogurt
- fought the good fight with (half-Welsh) DH's compression stocking and won - thinking of changing my name to Georgina!
- weeded 3/4 of the way down the rough border alongside the communal drive, which is the neighbours' land but they can't see it because of their 6 foot fence.  Lots of last year's seeds have already self-set and I shall chuck out a few more packets of bee- and insect-friendly annual seeds that have been cluttering up the back porch for years.
- said I'd be ready to go out to the forest at 12.30, so I'd better grab my fleece - it's nice in the sunshine but still chilly in the shade.

Catch up later...

pigpen

HB... That just made me cry. We have been relying on foodbank donations from the local church since last March.. I don't want to but that is how it is.. 80% of minimum wage is not viable, especially not for 15 months (OH back to work in 3 weeks but not paid until June and won't get a full/normal pay until July), those still on furlough are not getting the increased minimum wage until they go back to work so we are even worse off than we should be. The children still grow, the mortgage and bills still need paying and those have to come first. I got the school uniform we needed for September from the uniform charity.. one of the councillors collects it all and each child gets 10 items. I actually donated all the stuff which was outgrown but wearable and swapped it for stuff which fits, I already have a mountain for them this year. I hate being reliant on others, I hate not being able to provide ourselves what is needed, I hate having to ask for help.. and then the WM broke.. My mother loaned me the money for a new one.. she is on a pension so has more disposable income than we do.. she has more income for the 2 of them than we have for 7 of us. To make matters worse the HMRC have estimated OH's earning way over what he actually got so they have cut the bit we do get by £16 a week, they are 'reviewing it' currently, it's a lot of money when you don't have it.  When things are better for us financially, and I have paid back my mother and Mimi who also loaned us quids.. I am piling that foodbank tray high.. I am going to pay back in kind what I have received.

Our local food banks do not have storage for fridge or freezer food yet I have seen frozen pizza, milk, cheese, raw meat all in the basket. I always return biscuits etc that we get.. I am not ungrateful I don't need sweets and biscuits I need food I can make a meal with, fresh fruit and veg I love it when we get that.. it is my absolute favourite. I know it is meant well so I am not complaining at all, i am thankful for every tin of beans, every tin of soup (if a bit fed up of tomato! lol) and every pasta twist we are given. I have seen a lot of horrid, rude, entitled nasty people the last year but so many more kind, generous, awesome people.. businesses feeding hungry families when they have no income themselves, people going above and beyond to help others out.. it is utterly wonderful how the majority of people have come together and helped their communities. Thank you for all you do, I know how grateful those families you help are and I know how much it means to them, more than their words can say I'm sure. <£

I am still trying to help others out.. a local FB group collects and distributes items for families in need so I have donated bedding and curtains and silly things like pictures for walls , the things which make a home. I don't want to meet people or see them but the thought of someone going without when I can help is not a question.

A couple of our local charity shops sell unwearable items as 'rags' so still get money for them. The managers I spoke to said to just throw it all in because everything gets sorted anyway so it makes no difference, that may be why people are dumping their scratty stuff on you.. no excuse for dirty though.. I wash and fold everything, or take it directly out of cupboards and bag it.. I have a big box of trinkets and bits to go and 3 crates of childrens books. I can not just bin things so this is a good compromise.

But thank you all who help out as volunteers in your communities.

mumof3.12kindebt

All the laundry is sorted into people's piles 

Wm back on 


Thank you @pigpen we are abit excited tbh. 😆


I need to Hoover everywhere! 

I also need to do Skip runs..  I think that will have to wait till tomorrow now! 


I have a list ..  slowely getting through it