NST April 2023: April adventurising

Toni'sfriend

Glad you're feeling a bit better today, Thrifty

Hair all cut and coloured. I look almost human again!

New coffee machine arrived. It looks very futuristic. Makes a nice cup of coffee,

Doctor phoned to say that they had received my notes from the hospital and the prescription for a hormone tablet that I now have to take is ready. Couldn't go yesterday, bank holiday on Monday and hospital appointment on Tuesday so it'll have to wait till Wednesday now. It sounds like I'm leading a busy life when I'm doing nothing at all really. 

Looking a bit dull here. Hope it clears up and the sun comes out. xxx

Starlight_at_Sea

With thanks for inspiration on the round up to Shrewbie, and to Apple for the challenge this month! 

A is for Adventurising. Find your adventurous spirit this April and get out and enjoy yourself. Avoid unnecessary spends whilst still having fun.

The challenge really inspired me to try to take the spirit of adventure into some difficult situations this month. Seized the opportunity to go on a short tour and stay somewhere interesting when away for the hospital admission, for example. Have explored some different parts of London during work trips. Had planned a couple of adventures with 🇺🇦D that had to be postponed, but the plans can come out again soon. We did manage a drive and short walk in a national park, and cuppa in a new to me nat trust parkland. And she took me to a new cafe near home to celebrate her first wage packet!

P is for Pack your bag. You can’t go adventurising if you haven’t planned ahead. You know the sort of thing: dates in the diary, spending, saving, socialising.

Have been better than before at planning ahead for the next few months and have a couple of adventures planned in May and June. Did I mention very often that we are going to Eurovision!!! Am dead impressed at the travel cup I invested in during hospital stay. Have been good at taking healthy snacks from home, on the whole, I think. 

R is for Rejoice! Get outside and enjoy nature, be grateful for what you have and tell us three gratitudes every day.

I am getting closer to being fully mobile again after my Jan op. Am looking forward so much to swimming again hopefully in may. Have taken opportunities to eat outside or just get short walks in where I could. I intend more in this vein next  month. 

 And Reduce – your wants, your needs, your stuff. 

I blitzed my garden area in the house during April and did a couple of tip runs with things that were a bit broken, could have been but never were used. I didn't make much progress inside the house with similar spring cleaning, but did get a few maintenance jobs done. This will need to be a continuing focus of the month ahead, especially with new house purchase going through. 

 Also, Remember those who are struggling, who are worse off than you. You might be too stretched to give time, money or donations. But kindness is free to spread around liberally.

I feel like I've done quite a lot of good friend tasks for my wider network this month, but also, have had a lot of love and help back when I have been struggling! I've opened the house up to one more temporary lodger who was in real need of a stable but short term base and agreed generous terms that suit her situation. It was 🇺🇦D birthday this month and tried hard to make it special on behalf of her family overseas. Purchased a few things through charity routes rather than mainstream retailers this month. Have taken on a practical remote task for the food stall as I currently can't commit to cooking regularly.  

I is for Ice Cream. You can’t have an adventure without ice cream, at least in the apple household. Plan your treats and savour them.

Hmmm. This happened! I think I'd like to take a leaf out of shrewbies book for next month, high quality and healthy treats  

L is for Live your life. What do you want your life to look like? Have a ponder and commit to taking some steps towards it this month. Invest your time, money and energy in the things that really matter to you.

Made steps towards the new home and stable base of my own in my hometown this month. Limited time and emotional / mental energy for long term planning, was more a month of plodding along  keeping head above water, in vague direction of progress. One to try to increase focus on next month I think. 

Avoid unnecessary spends - I didn't always manage this this month, but have tried! I did well at combining trips places in the car with tasks to do in that vicinity. I made use of loyalty club points for things I had forgotten to pack during recent trip. The big thing remains the seemingly herculean task of claiming back monies for expenses! 

Looking forward to May!

facethemusic

I stay on NSD 15 and its how I will finish the month, I've done something very un-MSE but I'm very excited about it! New puppy comes to live with us tomorrow. It is a very cute cross breed and seems very chilled. We lost our old girl last year and it's taken a while to be ready for another one but this one sort of fell into my lap so it's the pup for us! 

lcc86

Evening turtles,

I had an evening out with friends yesterday at someone's retirement do, I was driving so just had a couple of drinks and dinner, I spent £16 all in.

Today I was on call and had to go in, spent a lot of time hanging around waiting for other people to be ready but got it done and was home by lunchtime. Did loads of batch cooking of dinners and lunches and a few other jobs. Still have a couple of things to do in the slow cooker but they'll have to wait until tomorrow. 

I went to go to the gym an hour ago but forgot they close at 5 on a Saturday! So had a little walk instead and a home workout.

Nothing much else MSE to report, finalised May's budget and now just chilling out.

thriftylass

Hello, 

had a lovely lunch for FIL's 86th birthday.

Yesterday I spent £90 of May's food budget on an Asd@ order, got loads of meat to stock up. Might take the kids and me shoe shopping tomorrow 

Thrifty_Taylor

Thanks @Toni'sfriend.
@facethemusic you must be so excited!! I hope he/she settles in well & you'll all be happy together 😊

Went to town with DS3 this morning, dropped off & collected sewing, also pinned a woman into a dress. Bought tiles for my porch floor, then took mum shopping. Treated us to icecreams, bought a box half price on offer, so we had one each, & one spare to go in the freezer, wouldn't be able to buy them individually for 45p!

After the shopping was put away & I'd had dinner, I gathered some cardboard delivery boxes from the garage, flattened them out & placed them under the fruit bushes, then covered them with a thick layer of homemade compost. Weeded one of the raised beds, then got a deckchair out & read a couple of chapters of my book.

Did more hooking on my rug after tea.

Grateful for a beautiful day, hearing the bees in the flowers, seeing my first Swallow of the year, a rabbit crept into the garden whilst I was reading, & a handsome rugby player smiled at me twice outside Tosco

Shrewbie

Morning turtles
Fab news @facethemusic how exciting!!

yesterday was a long day of waiting around until our train at 6pm. Arrived in Seville around 8:30pm and met my sister and her friend for tapas dinner…. There’s a chickpea and spinach dish that I liked which reminds me of Indian saag…  then we walked a bit out of the city  to see the fireworks for the end of the Feria. It was super busy but managed to find a space on the grass to watch them with churros and chocolate, then to bed around 1am. We walked for around 3 hours apparently!! Bit disappointed that we didn’t manage to get into the fair itself, there were just too many people at the entrance watching the fireworks and we decided against it as it was late.

heres the link for May again: 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6442551/nst-sweet-may-2023-pick-n-mix-challenge#latest

Toni'sfriend

Well it was a spendy month what with hairdresser, new glasses and replacement coffee machine to name but three. Finished on 11 or 12 NSDs. Not sure but I've kind of lost track.

It was also another bit of a traumatic and stressful month  so thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all your encouragement and support,

Best foot forward for May. xxx

grandmanerd

Thanks for this month's challenge apple. I wasn't very successful. The month has been dominated by my ankle injury (resurgence of two bad sprains many years ago) with knees, hips, shoulder joints and my back in accompanying roles. As  always, any enforced rest period has focused my attention on the need to establish systems when I'm 'better' to help get me through when I'm not. Not sure I know what 'better' looks like any more - vaguely mobile perhaps.

I overspent wildly on food, mostly managing to keep to small  'SM' shops via big river and juussst eat but the selections were patchy.  On good days I managed to heat things in the microwave or make salads and sandwiches with a combination of fridge/ freezer and the tins. Did a part rearrangement of the store cupboard and found useful things (another 3 tins of corned beef when I thought I was down to the last one). I've eaten lots of raw veg (carrots, broccoli, beetroot and all the usual salad stuff) and fruit (oranges, grapes and let myself buy berries - usually regarded as luxuries). There has been some food waste,  I couldn't get most of the food into the kitchen (although the area behind the front door makes an excellent 'chilled' area), I scooped up raw veg and fruit directly from the bags but have found deliquesced spinach and other items lost in the bottoms of bags (with other bags piled on top).

Most days I've managed a few small tasks but the stairs were a major obstacle. When I went downstairs I did as much as I could down there before gathering food and drinks to bring back up and on days I didn't feel up to tackling the stairs for a few hours, I've worked in my room. I have small puddles of tidiness. My to do list will mostly roll over onto next month and quite a lot was rolled over from February. The mountain of tasks I've started over a period of months and not found the time to go back and complete them or move onto the next stage is overwhelming. 

I've felt vulnerable, helpless, struggled not to fall into the pit of despair and self-pity - I'm definitely 'fragile' (physically and mentally), quite unprepared for the impact of a fairly minor injury. On the other hand I've read lots of books, watched some good series and films (not always serious - I re-watched 24 Hour Party People and 51st State both of which we originally had on VHS). I rebuilt a very small wall, did lots of soil sifting  (many many bags of rubbish, stones and mortar, weeds and small branches), had a successful shopping trip and began and am ending the month with wild adventures (to the wilds of West Didsbury today). Onwards and upwards, with lots of plodding and some crawling (although I really could do without the rain, especially today.

Yesterday was surprisingly productive. I drank everything in my room and DS3 wasn't downstairs to sort refills so I bandaged up my ankle and hobbled down. Took the bags of paper recycling out, then green waste, went through several bags taking out any remaining contents. I divided rice and curry into two tubs, chopped up 3 peppers (including a wrinkly one from the fridge) and added one and a half to each tub. Ate the first. Chopped up the remains of a small cabbage and had that with the second portion later. 

One small job led to another and I did 4 hours outside in the yard. A lot of shuffling things around (built the remaining cobbles higher to take up half the space) a lot of sitting down sweeping as I cleared each patch. The black rubbish bin will be collected this week and so far only one is filled (I'm still using next door's but will add bits of the things still in his yard when there's room). Cleared a  pathway so I could start moving my trees into place (three done). I tried last week and it was easy moving the containers on the path but I struggled on the former raised bed area so had to come up  with a modified solution. More moving to get at the things I needed. 

Decided any more would be pushing it so came in at 4 pm, scrubbed my hands and set off for the £ emporium for more coir blocks (used the 3 I had). They didn't have any left (big gaps in the garden section) and no plastic sheet (for decorating) which I needed for another job. Hobbled back to the house, nested on the couch with a sandwich and a drink until I felt able to move again. Came upstairs, had a shower, scrubbed my finger nails and washed my hair and spent the rest of  the evening relaxing (was ready to sleep at 7 pm). 

Currently, I'm getting ready for the day, very slowly. I've just smothered most of me in body lotion. Wiped the first layer off in places in case I had soil/ dust in places I didn't know about (back of my right ear was spectacular) and practising smiling all the time - in case of any mobile phone photos or videos.

Grateful for DS3 being fairly helpful, getting 3 trees in place as well as lots of other stuff, relaxing, turtles, the little loops on the back of my trainers that help me pulls them on over multiple layers of bandage.

grandmanerd

Oh joy, Manchester United have a 2 pm kick off at Old Trafford, I'll be skirting the edge of the affected zone but it will slow things down both going and coming home.