Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Baileys_Babe said:

Would a robot vacuum help to take some of the pressure off you Cheery?

I would love one but our "ground floor" is on 4 different levels, only a couple of steps up or down but I would always be needing to move it which rather defeats the point.

Ha, we're in a similar position - ground floor on four levels, and there's steps between the upstairs rooms too 😂

In reality, I just need to get off my !!!!!! more 🙄 Just did the flylady home blessing podcast - if I just did that and nothing else once a week it would make a massive difference!

Friends still not appeared - they were due at 12, delayed til 1, then til 1.30. Apparently they need to leave at 6 but we won't have eaten lunch by then at this rate 🙄

At least the house is reasonably tidy now! (Well, within reason - to a normal person it would be a tip of epic proportions I'm sure, and there are a million things to do, but main areas are picked up enough, wiped and hoovered, so that'll have to do!)

Baileys_Babe

That's tidy by our standards 🤣

Karmacat

Cheery_Daff said:

I'd like to get on with more DIY stuff but barely feel like I'm keeping up with treadmill of normal stuff, let alone anything extra.

In reality, we just took on somewhere that required more DIY/maintenance/work/general stuff than we had time and money for and are now paying the price 🙄😂

I can definitely relate to this!   One mistake in particular I made when I bought my last house in the city by the sea, the house needed some updating - but you can't do updating work when you've got clients in the house 4 days a week that need complete privacy.  So I had to sell it as a doer-upper when I left!   With this one that I'm in now, I've had a lot of work done - upstairs toilet, new kitchen, partially new bathroom, new electrics, fences, nearly all windows replaced, but I'm not looking after it day to day quite well enough.  

Sorry Mr Cheery isn't feeling well - that's bound to have an effect too, of course.  But your house and property sound lovely up there, in spite of all the DIY/maintenance etc stuff, and the pictures you post here sometimes really are idyllic.

beanielou

That is really cheap for a cleaner. 

Bluegreen143

I think that is super cheap for a cleaner! 

I’ve been looking into it as we’ve agreed that now I’m back to five days a week, once I’ve paid off the remainder of the loan to my mum, we’re probably getting one. 

The cleaning agencies seem to be about £60 a visit for a regular clean of a three bed house, so £120 a month if going for fortnightly! (In reality I’d love weekly but too pricey!!)

I think it’s cheaper to get an independent cleaner but I’ve not had any in to quote yet or anything. But my friend did say when she had an independent cleaner the issue was that she kept cancelling due to sickness and personal reasons - the agency she now uses sends someone else in that case so it is more reliable. 

Cheery_Daff

Gosh, that's expensive! I suppose it depends on the house though - I told ours not to quote for several rooms (bedrooms, music room, offshot which is basically a utility room/shed) so that made us a lot 'smaller'  - they were charging £17 an hour.

Cheery_Daff

Morning MSE chums! 

Right, today needs a plan. Ultimate priority is job form, but that will expand to fill any and all available time between now and Thursday 🙄 and I would like to get some other things done too. So...

MORNING
* workout
* breakfast and quick wipe round kitchen & put dishes away
* shower and dressed
* washing on
* get dehumidifier into the car 🙄 Utterly stinks in there. Mr Cheery's dad had an accident in there a while ago, then Mr Cheery left the window open and both front seats got soaked and now it stinks of damp too, and it's had a mouse in there too which is also not helping 🙄 So drying out properly is a good start since it's not raining today!
* job form - every section of personal statement now has something in, so send couple of emails asking for advice/extra reference, and spend 10 mins editing each section (there are 10...)
* hang washing outside

AFTERNOON
* make something wholesome for dinner - and make couple of extra portions for freezer
* meal plan while eating
* job form - another 5 mins on each section, and print for Mr Cheery to have a look at (he spent 20 years as an editor, so is useful to have around at such times 😂)
* flute practice - probably at least an hour
* make some snack bar things for work snacks (literally just blending a cheap bag of fruit & nuts, and mixing with a bar of dark chocolate melted in the microwave)
* bring washing in
* band practice - I'll be out 4pm til 7.30.

EVENING
* move dehumidifier into spare room
* make tea including extra portion for freezer
* make breakfast and dinner for tomorrow (working at home)
* 15 min declutter
* washing away (including last lot which is still in my study)
* clothes ready for tomorrow

Er, not even sure if that's all physically possible in the time available - I guess we're more likely to find out if I actually get out of bed 🙄😂

rtandon27

Out of bed is a start - out if pyjamas is highly optional! 😆 

Ramouth

For the car, once dry sprinkle bicarb over the seats, leave for a few days, then hoover up.  It really improves the smell and isn’t adding moisture.  Our car was a bargain but was quite wiffy when we got it - especially as the garage had tried to stem clean the smell away and left it damp - bicarb sorted the problem.

KajiKita

I was thinking bicarb too, just shifting the damp probably won’t help much.

KK