Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Ha, glad you're all enjoying the Homesteading Family videos! The woman did a series of household organisation ones which I really enjoyed (although it did make me briefly wish I had 10 kids I could send off to clean various areas of the house 😂 but then very glad that I didn't have 10 kids to feed and clean up after!)

So, another relatively productive day. We moved the bed frame back downstairs, and the mattress and base upstairs and propped them with the dehumidifier on. Made 11 portions of pasta bake for the freezer. Had a visit from the vet. Sorted 3 bags of clothes for the clothes charity bins at the tip, and a bag of old things for the bin. 

Also nipped to B&Q for a bag of plaster to take to Mr Cheery's dad's tomorrow, and filled the car up - we'd clocked diesel at 175.9 at Mr Ts on the way past, but Mr M was just round the corner and it was 173.9 so filled up there instead.

Also had a chat with both sister and auntie, and washed a load of dishes that had been in the chicken run. Oh,and an hour on the Happy Wheel this morning, and a couple of Prolific studies.

So not a bad day! Honestly, if I didn't have to go to work I would get SO much done 😂😂 I don't feel stressed at all this week - partly I'm relaxing, but part of it is a sense of possibility that things might get done eventually. I think what I find overwhelming is when jobs sta k up but there's no time to tackle them so I get further and further behind.

Realised I can't carry on working into the evenings. I never work at weekends (unless there's a really important deadline) but quite often I'll work until 7, 8 or even 9 at night, and then there's no time for anything else in the evening. Need to draw some boundaries. I keep blaming myself for being inefficient, but I suppose workload intensification is one of the reasons we're currently on strike, so...

Anyway, no list for tomorrow - we'll be leaving at 9am to see Mr Cheery Snr. Going via IKEA to pick up some shelves for him, but he's started picking up stuff for lunch so we should be OK there. I'll need to sort out my plastering kit in the morning, but there won't be time for anything else.

Right, sofa and tea 😁

cafelady

Hello Cheery. I’ve just read your diary and am delurking to say I am really enjoying following your adventures!

themadvix

That sounds like a really productive day!

I definitely think the effort of having and raising 9 kids outweighs the benefits of having them to do chores! 😂

EssexHebridean

The idea of drawing some boundaries around the working times definitely seems like a positive thing. (And yes - much as having 10 kids to despatch off to clean areas of the house would be marvellous, imagine when lots of them were all in the grumpy teenage phase at the same time - ugh!) 

South_coast

Two thoughts around working hours, Cheery. Feel free to ignore!

1. Work out your hourly rate (salary ÷ 52 ÷ contracted hours). Then work out your actual hourly rate (salary ÷ 52 ÷ hours actually worked). Compare the two. Ask yourself why you are prepared to work for x (actual), when your employer values your time at y (contracted)?

2. Don't do anything other than work during your contracted hours. No MSE, no Prolific, no chicken interaction, no cafe trips (obvs you're allowed a lunch break 🤣!) Just bum on seat, doing what you're meant to be doing. Then when you get to your finish time, you finish. The days still won't be perfect, as you're not some Zen master and there will always be interruptions and distractions, but you can stop work at the right time, knowing you've tried your best and you don't need to "just make up that time when I was doing...." and that you'll do your best again tomorrow 

Cheery_Daff

cafelady said:

Hello Cheery. I’ve just read your diary and am delurking to say I am really enjoying following your adventures!

Hello cafelady, excellent name - a woman after my own heart! 😁

Thank you all, yes I definitely am not really hankering after having 10 children - I suspect that would cause more problems than it solved! Definitely a very different life to mine, but an interesting one nonetheless!

Good tips SC. I shall indeed work out my hourly rate 🙄 Some weeks I do actually manage normal hours, and in the summer it evens out a bit as I'm far less busy and do sometimes work shorter days... There's definitely a much wider issue than just me feeling like I need to get the odd thing finished. Onesce these strikes are over next week (we're balloting for another round of strikes so it's still all up in the air), we're moving to 'action short of a strike' - basically working to contract, so no extra hours, and more importantly, no extra tasks, which all sneak in under the guise of 'well this part of your contract covers x', which it might do, but you only get so many hours a year for it and they've all been used up for y.

Anyway, blah blah. 

Currently outside Tesco in Hull - we've come to visit Mr Cheery's dad and it's been a complete palaver of a journey - I drove to IKEA, Mr Cheery woke up and said 'why are we here, we're not coming to IKEA!' 🙄 apparently he told me that yesterday and I clearly didn't hear 🙄 He refused to go in and buy what we were originally going to get because it would take another half an hour 🙄

Than I followed the satnav which suggested a quicker route, then at some vital point thought 'ooh, that looks like a short cut' except it wasn't, then we got stuck in a one way system...

Anyway, we made it eventually. Mr Cheery's dad had NOT bought lunch (don't necessarily expect it, but he has every time recently) so I've come straight back out and left them arguing about the fact that he's been trying to defrost the freezer all week with it still plugged in and the door wide open 🙄

Going to be a long day I think!

themadvix

Where is the blue smiley :eek: face for the freezer defrosting whilst on! 

I hope the day improves!

Karmacat

Right, I'm going to have to experience the Homesteading Family too, I think  

I really, really like south coast's ideas and suggestions - deleted all sorts of historical rubbish from 40 years ago   -  basically at a certain level, you used to expect to do the job and not count the hours.  But nowadays, it's obvious that you can't just do the job and not count the hours, that's not good enough.   Thank heavens you have a union: no more working so late!

I had to laugh about Mr Cheery Sr not providing lunch this time, I know how you feel when you start to get into a rhythm of doing something and it suddenly changes without notice 🍕🍕🍕🥐🥐🥐 have some pizza, with almond croissants  

👀 at defrosting a freezer while its still on!

Bluegreen143

@South_coast both points are good but your second point REALLY hit home for me. Terrible for doing chores in work time and work during personal time. Needs to stop as I’m feeling so overwhelmed and stressed atm and suspect it’s my poor time management to blame.

Cheery_Daff

Karmacat said:

Right, I'm going to have to experience the Homesteading Family too, I think  

I really, really like south coast's ideas and suggestions - deleted all sorts of historical rubbish from 40 years ago   -  basically at a certain level, you used to expect to do the job and not count the hours.  But nowadays, it's obvious that you can't just do the job and not count the hours, that's not good enough.   Thank heavens you have a union: no more working so late!

Do let us know what you think of the Honesteading Family!

I think that's still the case about 'getting the job done' in some places, and that's certainly how I *feel* about my job. I think one problem is that what counts as 'the job' is constantly expanding. Partly their expectations, and partly my wanting to stick my finger into lots of interesting pies. Although a lot of that was to do with aiming for promotion - but if promotion is only ever open to people who can work plenty of overtime with no extra pay, that doesn't exactly seem very fair... 

Anyway. The day did marginally improve. It was pretty productive anyway - I got a couple of walls plastered, sewed up a hole in an armchair, that type of thing. not done any plastering for ages and I think it's turned out ok, although he's got thecoal fire on in the same room so it may dry out a bit too quickly... We'll see. I suspect it'll need sanding down once it's dry - I'm not bad but I'm not exactly a professional! 😂

Finally made it home through several flurries of snow 😮

Tired now, and not planning on lifting my hands higher than elbow height at all tomorrow as they've been doing a lot of waving plaster around today!