NST: February 2023 Freedom

grandmanerd

Okay, the day before yesterday I contacted the waste wizards, they came to do an estimate yesterday (my detailed itemising of the bricks wasn't good enough, apparently) and then said they'd be back an hour later, after visiting another client. Took a bit longer than they expected but they' took the first lot of bricks. I'd written a note for the neighbour at the end and she'd moved her car to the next street.

After they'd gone I felt really cold so moved myself upstairs with hot food, had a shower to get warm and got back under the bedclothes swathed in extra towels and a warm fluffy throw. Fell asleep before 6 pm and woke around 11 pm, when I put my clean winter nightie on. Still tired (ankle is throbbing) so I'm going to recline on the chaise longue and read until they arrive. They'll do a second brick run and then clear the back (lots of scraping and bagging) and do a final run with all the gubbins. The gubbins pile is growing - I was going to ask them to take the 3 large pieces of ivy root (it's possibly too thick to be allowed in the green waste bin and it would take hours to cut it into small slices) but I've since added all the tree branches that are waiting to be chopped into shorter lengths for binning. 

If I feel that I'm being lazy I'll calculate how many hours it would have taken me to do all that. I'm keen on reusing and re-purposing but just now I need to simplify and let go of things sooner rather than later. So before DS3 and Beloved move out, they're going to help me break up the 3 old wardrobes that they hate, I hate (everyone but my mum hated) rather than using them as raised beds for a few more years. They're late 60's early 70's, mum got them second hand, they went to Weston-Super- Mare with my brother for 12 years and mum insisted I bring them back, after he died. She only told me they were staying at my house when I'd transported them. so they  will be disposed of - I may be really environmentally unfriendly and have a celebratory bonfire.

Grateful for getting rid of things, gentle pottering and 5 minute jobs and books ( 6 library books read so far this month with another in my sights by the end of today  (I may go back to bed after the magicians disappear - rest my ankle, have a nap or 2).
Big project in the planning.

thriftylass

Good morning,

today I'm grateful for free cheese and crackers leftover from a meeting yesterday, sunny morning, DS hating the early side effects of puberty but talking to us and letting us comfort him rather than shutting down.

After yesterdays debacle of my laptop, email etc accounts in work being suspended, I came to work this morning to find my ID card to swipe in had been disabled (and the receptionist asked me if I had lost it yesterday?) and on top of that someone tried or did sign into my am@zon account (no idea haw that works as I thought 2way authentication should prevent this). What is going on? I logged out of all my apps on the phone and changed some passwords.

Positives: Z1ffit finally paid out and that £15 is going straight to the CC

f0xh0les

@grandmanerd have you used up your 'bulky items that the council will collect for free  in a 12 month period',  allowance?? you can add extra items for around £27? Well, you can in Manchester/Salford/Belfast anyway.   The allowances reset in April.  Unless you are in Trafford, then it is just under £40 for 5 items.  In another life, in South Staffordshire ( oooh, don't call us Wolverhampton!!) I was the voice on the end of the Wheelie Bin and Bulk Collections phone line.....Just a thought....

grandmanerd

f0xh0les said:

@grandmanerd have you used up your 'bulky items that the council will collect for free  in a 12 month period',  allowance?? you can add extra items for around £27? Well, you can in Manchester/Salford/Belfast anyway.   The allowances reset in April.  Unless you are in Trafford, then it is just under £40 for 5 items.  In another life, in South Staffordshire ( oooh, don't call us Wolverhampton!!) I was the voice on the end of the Wheelie Bin and Bulk Collections phone line.....Just a thought....

The Council won't take the bricks or rubble, most of the stuff I need to get rid of. It might be worth trying them for the wardrobes but would need to get them downstairs (co-ordinating visits by one or more boys) and then keep them  indoors (or outdoors bundled up in tarpaulins etc) until collection.

At the same time as I was doing the last waste wizard collection at mum's (one broken couch but mainly wood, plastic, broken stuff that the Council don't collect or allow us to put in the bins - and I'm not allowed to take it to the tip because I don't have a car) my niece was trying to arrange collection of some bulky items from my brother's house (broken washing machine to go so that it could be replaced by mum's, older single bed to go as he was to have mum's 'hospital' bed) and she had to phone each day for over a fortnight hoping that they would eventually have a slot for her.

They're very strict about what they will and won't take - no wood (not in the bins, branches can go in the green bin but they've reduced the diameter of the branches - it used to be 15cm/ 6", when I cut down some tree stumps at mum's I was quartering them to go in the bins), not in the bulk waste collection, so no wooden bed frames or head boards (and no no no kitchen units - I persuaded the bin men to take one from dad's over 20 years ago. It had once been a set of drawers (I think he dragged it home when someone else had thrown it out) but was basically a drawer and two long sides, which he put a kitchen bin underneath. When he was in hospital I cleaned out the larder unit mum had bought with her full time wages when I was 21. It took a whole afternoon. The spices were way ood (mum had left him 25 years previously and they were the useless ones they include in large display sets) but I was told off for throwing them away. I rearranged the newly cleaned larder unit (tall freezer sized cupboard with shelves, I remember me and mum putting it together), making space for the cutlery, dragged the redundant unit outside, broke it into pieces. The bin men 'weren't supposed to take kitchen units' and it had been a kitchen unit. I told them I'd had to break it up or he would have dragged it back inside the house (I showed them the outhouse full of carpet scraps that I'd brought down out of the back bedroom piece by piece) and they took it.

Well the rubbish magician's have been, taken all the bricks and the tat, moved the larger pieces of next door's wall back onto their land, scraped the ground outside my property and scraped and thrown sufficient of next door's ground to locate the hidden grid and for me to be able to walk across safely. I'm back on the bed with food, drinks, books and the laptop and will move if and when I feel like it. I'm tired and aching and my ankle needs strapping up, so it doesn't get worse. I'll do gentle exercises to get various bits of my body moving but may need a nap soon.

f0xh0les

So glad you have managed to get that bit of your ground back!  When is the great brick wall build going to happen?  Alway good to secure the perimeter fence. 

beanielou

That's really great work @grandmanerd

Toni'sfriend

I am so angry! I have told Scottish Power on numerous occasions that I do not want a smart meter and I don't have to have one. Once they managed to con their way into the house when I wasn't there and told Himself our meter was being replaced, Never mentioned it was a smart meter and he doesn't really understand about these things anyway. And when the engineer arrived he couldn't fit it anyway without a council official being there to open the electricity cupboard for the block. I told him then to cancel it as I don't want a smart meter. A young man has just arrived saying he was here to check our meter. He gave me the impression that he was here to check the readings that I have submitted regularly every month. But no. It soon became obvious that he was here to try and get us to change to a smart meter. I told him the I wasn't well, was waiting to go into hospital and would he please go away and tell them once again my meter does not need replaced. This is bordering on harassment.

BadBookkeeper

 F - Freedom - Nothing here today

E - Exercise - 100 skips

B - Budget- nothing here today

R - Rules - Conscious of heating, washing etc

U - Unburden tat - Nothing here today

A - Advanced planning - Nothing here today

R - Refuel - Sleeping well, diet going well, no alcohol. Chocolate in drawer stayed in drawer in work. 

Y - You - self care - Nothing here today. 

2 - 2 trips out - Planned

0 - 100 days - working daily towards this  

2 - Read 2 books - Not today

3 - Gratitudes x 3 - grateful for supermarket click & collect, supermarket refund for short date items I’m not happy with, my bank offering 5% cashback on supermarket shopping. 

4/15 NSDs 

Dfw38

Sorry to hear of your troubles with your energy company @Toni'sfriend, we were with them once. Never again, the same as BG. Wouldn't go with them if they were half the price for energy.
Grateful for : 
1. 1x paint in woodwork to go, cannot wait - tedious painting woodwork.
2. Nearly time for half term 🥳
3. Simple dinners, just had bacon, egg, chips and tomatoes and enjoyed every bite.

f0xh0les

I did not spend a single penny today. Think that is NSD 3. I will hold every £ hostage this month.  
Volunteered, got very cold so had a good, long, hot bath with my book when I got home. 
Another Dave hotel arrived today. Baited and in place. It feels like he/she is laughing at me now. 4 hotels to chose from must be enough to tempt him/her soon.