Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Afternoon chums.

How are things? Not particularly ularly frugal here I'm afraid 🙄 Drove to Lincolnshire to meet up with a friend on Friday and ended up spending £30 in a cafe 🙄 Did get free parking though 🙄😂

Then we've been to other cafes both yesterday AND today, oh dear! They really are our frugal fail 🙄 But they are also a bit of a mental health lifeline round here so there's a balance to be stuck, always - and right now I'm not inclined to give them up.

Not sure what there is to report. I've done another couple of hours of scything - I reckon another maybe 8 hours and I'll be done (not today!! But hopefully before the end of the month).

Started thinking about big goals for next year, and it made me realise how few things I'd ticked off my original 2022 goals list 🙄 Feels like this has been a bit of a consolidation and recovery year after a rubbish last couple of years. 

Anyway, it's spurred me on to get a bit more done in the house. I've messed about moving my giant rug from under all the furniture in the study because it was getting ruckled every time I walked into the room or wheeled my chair - it's only under the desk now (not desk, sofa, chest of drawers) so while it will still get ruckled by the chair, it's not in front of the door, and I'm hoping it will be much easier to straighten back out.

Going to try and fill the new study shelves today, which should let us remove the ludicrous spare shelves in the utility room, which are partly blocking the entrance to the downstairs loo, which has all my craft stuff in.

Measured up a couple of bits of furniture in the garage for my craft room upstairs, but I can't move them in til we've got the bed set up properly in the new bedroom - and we can't do that until we've sanded and repaired the slats, so I think that needs to be a priority job. Can do that inside with the heat gun so maybe it can even be an evening thing. 

Also need to order some flooring for Mr Cheery's dad, and some shelf brackets for the study - then I can get all my books back in here and free up even more space in the utility room.

Gosh, it's an endless round of shifting and doing, isn't it?? I can vaguely remember a time in the old house, before we started decorating, when I used to amble to the library on a Saturday morning and spend the whole weekend reading! Seems like a lifetime ago!

Cheery_Daff

Mr Cheery has identified a different solution for the bed, so no heat gun required (thank goodness - stripping paint from wood is NOT my favourite activity...). The new wood is in his dad's garage though so we'll need to wait til we go over there again, maybe next weekend. 

In the meantime, I'm making a bit of a meal out of clearing off these shelves 🙄 So I'm going to set myself a timer I think. Honestly, 15 mins should do it if I stop faffing and getting sidetracked 🙄

This time in 7 weeks it'll be next year, can you believe it?? 😱 I often hurtle towards the end of the year like I'm at the end of a race, ignoring Christmas til December then panicking because I only have 3 weeks to sort out presents etc. Work should be more gentle this year, but I'd like to finish the year strong, organised, and feeling a darn site better than I do now 🙄

Speaking of which, we learned today that a neighbour had a heart attack a few days ago. Not sure how old, late 40s/early 50s I'd say. Both his mum and his wife's mum died in the last few months so they really have had a rough year 😕 He's home and recovering, but it's making me think, yet again, about my own health and current lack of exercise... 😕

So I might sit down with a cuppa later and create some kind of 'finish the year strong' plan. Not quite sure what that will entail, but I imagine exercise, rest and recovery, consciously planning in cheerful things, and actively getting on with projects rather than just worrying/moaning about them 🙄😂

KajiKita

Hiya Cheery 😊 

Your comment about remembering a time when you used to spend the whole weekend reading made me chuckle - I can’t remember the last time I did that!! 😊

Re the ruckling rug, would that stuff you can get on @m@zon that stops rugs slipping on wooden floorboards help at all, hold it down a bit, stop it wandering quite so much?

KK

Cheery_Daff

I can only remember it because I used to post pictures of it on my blog! 😂

But the stupid thing is, now, it's not like I'm running round doing stuff ALL weekend, far from it! I think an important factor is that I didn't have a smart phone back then... 🙄

Thanks for the rug recommendation - but it's on top of my newly laid carpet 😂 It was just getting messed up mostly because of the wheely chair, and because it's a step down into he room so I think it always shifts a bit when you step onto it,  but then it wasn't easy to pull flat because of other bits of furniture round the edges. We'll see if this makes a difference!

KajiKita

Didn’t see your latest comment before posting. 😉 I totally get the planning in some cheery things - I find this stretch of the year a real slog, until the Christmas break. Cheery things would lift me no end too 😊 I think you are being a bit hard on yourself with the ‘getting on with projects rather than moaning / worrying about them’ comment. I find myself endlessly impressed with how much you do, every single day! And, I may be wrong here, but haven’t you had various distractions and unplanned activities thrown into the mix, such as supporting FiL? Don’t underestimate how much time, physical and mental energy those things take from you too. KK

Cheery_Daff

Yes you're right, of course, that has taken a fair bit of time and energy over the year, with pretty much weekly visits from Mr Cheery, and 2-4 weekly from me. And we HAVE got lots of things done - my list was just ludicrously over-ambitious of course! And we've both had covid which knocked us for a bit too. 

Anyway. I have lentil soup in the hay box, and a mushroom risotto on the hob 😊😊 

And me and my sister are about to sign up for a ludicrous race 😁😁 Not done that since she had her stroke a couple of years ago and we both miss it terribly. We won't be running this, just walking it. We've checked with the organisers and it's fine, as we knew it would be. We've done it before - it's 1km laps round a track, do as many as you can between sunrise and sunset 😂😂 It's just under 8 hours. I did 17 miles last time before my knee conked out. My sister carried on and did 1 lap over marathon distance to say she'd done an ultra marathon 😂😂

Not sure what we'll manage now we'll be walking - to be fair we did quite a bit of walking last time 😂 Love this race cos it really doesn't matter, you're just going round in circles until a set timepoint so not keeping anyone waiting. 

Does feel cheerful to have something to look forward to and (not) train for - it's 27th December so can nicely work off a tiny bit of Christmas pudding 😂

Karmacat

I'm just catching up, Cheery - and I totally agree with KajiKita's comments - you've done loads and loads this year, and had to supervise/oversee more with all the building work.

The walking sounds like a great idea - I went for a walk last Wednesday with my old business partner, and every day since then I've done two lots of exercise/gardening etc, and it's made a real difference, particularly to my abdominals.  Though I really don't think I'd do anything of that level on 27th December, you and your sister are stars ⭐⭐

EssexHebridean

That walking thing sounds like a great thing to sign up for although I confess I'm utterly rubbish with anything with laps - both of our most local parkruns are ones with laps and I get SO bored on the second one - almost certainly a reason why I can't recall the last time I did one!

Thinking about what you said about the times when you'd amble to the library and spend the rest of the weekend reading - realistically pretty much your whole lifestyle has changed since those days hasn't it - and obviously that's something you actively wanted to and chose to do, but still, it means that an awful lot of things take more time. Even taking that literal thing of "ambling to the library" - I'm recalling that back then it was a walk or a cycle - but now you'd have to use the car, there would be a distance involved, it wouldn't be worth doing "just" the library so you'd get other errands run at the same time, and in turn because of that distance involved, perhaps even using the library is less practical now than it used to be as of course once the books are read you also have the same time/distance commitment to return them again...? And that additional commitment of time to do things now multiplies out to almost everything you need to do, or indeed choose to do doesn't it - so that again means that more energy is required to "get those things done" whether that is going to work, getting some shopping, seeing pals or whatever. And of course the knock on effect of that is less tie to do "all the things" and also the things you DO decide to do being more tiring. Goodness - this has turned into a ramble and I fear it made more sense in my head than written down - oh dear!  TL:DR then - cut yourself some slack!  

Cheery_Daff

Thanks both 😊

😂😂 You're right EH, of course! Before, the library was a nice 10 minute amble down the road, less than a mile. We'd often combine it with a charity shop trip and a cafe, but still, it was close to home and we were usually home by 11.30.

Now, the library is a round trip of 22 miles 😂😂😂 In reality about 30 mins each way, including parking/walking, and as you say, I very rarely 'only' go to the library - it ends up being breakfast, all the charity shops, and usually a trip to Wilkos and the supermarket as well while we're in that town, and we're rarely home before 2 even if we set off at 9 😂

It's funny, I think I've completey discounted the extra time and energy involved to do stuff 🙄 Which sounds ridiculous when I say it like that!! Some things don't take *longer* per se, but they're a drive rather than a walk - which then means time buying diesel more often, more cost, no exercise involved in walking. 

And some days just end up daft - today I had a blood test this morning - in the old days that would have been a 30 min round trip walk (so I would have got in some exercise) but today it was a round trip drive of about 12 miles, taking a total of about 40 minutes. Not much extra time, but no fresh air or exercise involved. 

This evening I'm tagging an aquarobics class onto going out for slimming world, so the same round trip I did this morning - and I'll likely end up going to the supermarket later too. 

So while I feel like I've done 'nothing much other than work' today, I'll have actually been driving for almost 1.5 hours - time I've mentally not counted at all because it's all just in the closest town.

Funny how you look at things sometimes, isn't it??

Cheery_Daff

Well this evening turned even more daft. Went to slimming world, left early, collected parcel, pottered round the supermarket wasting a bit of time before aquarobics class, got back to the car - and realised I'd left the bag with my swimming costume in the kitchen at home 🙄

No time to go home and back to town, even if it hadn't been so impossibly foggy, so I had to admit defeat 🙄 Not all lost though - I cancelled the class and got a credit note, and got home and did an exercise video 🙄😂

Other than that, reasonably productive evening. Had the rest of the mushroom risotto, did a load of washing up, and did over an hour of flute practice/attempting to be able to play some of the stuff we're doing for our Christmas concert 🙄😂

Curled up on the sofa with Escape to the Chateau now 😁