NST Sweet May 2023 - Pick 'N' Mix Challenge

pollyanna_26

thriftylass said:

Good morning,  glad we're not the only ones still having the heating on occasionally. Unusually cold spring. Glorious day here today too.

Happy anniversary @f0xh0les!

Kids are off with DH today. I'm in work . 

Got loads more decluttering done yesterday, books, kitchen items, DVDs, started the kids' nursery art folders. Also unintentionally had to "declutter" a ceramic roasting dish as I cracked it last night. I thought Le Cr3uset is indestructible. 

I'm still searching for reading glasses but just noticed your post. I had to do loads of editing of my very long typed while sqinting through one lens post.

I used to collect Coastal Blue Le Crueset haven't so far broken any of the ceramic items  but did manage to kill the beautiful Coastal blue whistling kettle my eldest dd sent me as a suprise Mothers day gift , I used to stand in John Lewis stroking one while she muttered step away from the kettle mum everyone is staring at you.

I had an unexpected delivery one morning with a note Happy Mothers day lets hope you stop stroking things in shops. There was that beautiful kettle and i shed a few tears before phoning to thank her.

it survived a few days until I forgot to put the whistle on. Unlike an electric kettle it wasn't going to switch itself off but needed a human to hear it whistle and take it off the cooker.

I smelt burning and went to investigate. Kitchen full of black smoke and my beloved kettle with a burnt bottom and sides I'd forgotten to put the whistle on.

I was panic stricken but had to brave phoning eldest dd to confess. Royal Mail delivered an identical one the following day and I felt awful but she'd enclosed a note. Put the flippin whistle on there wont be a third delivery. I wrote put the whistle on on the kitchen  noticeboard and have put it on ever since.

Coastal Blue is such a lovely colour and I had samples of paint on the kitchen walls  trying to find the perfect colour to paint them.

I decided coastal blue would be perfect but it didn't exist in everyday paints.I live near the sea on the coast so got quite determined to find that colour in paint.

I trawled through  through all the paint company websites  and found a heritage colour that looked right but not availablei in emulsion. I'd kept the kettle lid the only unburnt part and the whistle I'd forgotten to use.

i noticed the company  had a special offer 3 paint samples free of charge with free Royal Mail delivery so ordered three of the one that looked right.

The samples arrived as emulsion painted one on the wall and held the kettle lid against it. Identical. I'd often

 bought paint in our local trade centre  where the trades do their shopping.

i put t#he paint samples and kettle lid in my bag and headed for the trade centre. Very busy with lots of trades in there. They didn't turn a hair when I handed the paint samples over but gales of laughter when I produced the kettle lid and said it needs to match that.

The manager said I have the code for that and can mix it in the machine if you have time to wait take a seat ad put your feet up. When the paint was mixed he wrote the code inside the lid from the wreckedkettleandI keep that just in case.

I have le cruset friends one in Scotland has a kettle but it's dark blue. I'm not sure if Coastal Blue is still available as none of them have the pale blue one . The kettles became popular again as they could be used outdoors over a fire during the energy crisis.

I have a Kelly Kettle for outdoors designed for that purpose and wouldn't use my beloved Le crueset for that purpose.

I'm surprised the ceramic dish has cracked sometimes putting a hot one down on a cold surface can cause that it's so expensive I'm very careful handling ceramics and wary of dropping it. I don't use the ceramics much since the Arthritis has got worse and the Fibro brain affects my concentration.

Since the kettle incident the trade centre have mixed some lovely colours for me in an outdoor paint for fences , garden seats my wooden arbour. toolshed and other wooden items outdoors. It's an outdoor eggshell from a well known company lots of colours and tough as old boots. much better than usual garden paints and very long lasting.

pollyx

Shrewbie

Everyone should be numbered up to here 😊

lcc86

Setting out my stall for May:

Money - aiming for 16 NSD's. May be tricky as have a few social things this month (birthday related) but just means I have to be smarter with my spending.

Monitor savings and budgets - my target this year was to save £4,000. I'm surprisingly almost there, although haven't counted times when I've dipped into it. I may have to re-evaluate and be a bit more ambitious. I'm grateful that I'm finally in a position to achieve this goal as I've never been able to save until recently.

Magic and awe - I love being in nature, and am also satisfied by simple things like finding a new place to get a quiet lunch on my own. I'm definitely a solitary introverted person! I also plan to do a new bike ride at some point this month.

Meal plans and everything plans - got mine and my sister's birthday in May. I have a spa day booked by OH and a day out with friends to sort but all budgeted for. I'm pretty good at meal planning each week and am finding new cheaper meals that are low calorie as trying to lose a stone. I signed up to Noom last month, not massively expensive but I suppose also not very MSE. I'm finding it helpful though. 

Mindfulness/Meditation - I'll freely admit I'm terrible at this. The only time I can seem to focus my mind is doing yoga/pilates/swimming so I'll use those as meditative activities! 

Munch those Frogs and Elephants - we've needed a new toilet seat since we moved in about 6 years ago so this month I will finally change it! Also in the process of arranging a new front door so that it is compliant with new fire regs, that should've been done in 2021.

Today was a planned spend day as I bought my sister's birthday gifts and card. Also sent £10 to savings and £10 to my Very account (have about £40 on there to clear so will focus on that this month). 

Walked to the gym first thing for an hour and also walked to the local shops afterwards to pick up a few bits we'd run out of. I've made a few lunches and some yummy vegan protein pancakes for breakfast too. Feeling like I've achieved some excellent adulting today!

pollyanna_26

Toni'sfriend said:

Welcome to May. Let's hope it's a bit warmer, drier and less windy than April! 

My Granny used to say "Wash your face in the May dew and you'll be beautiful all the year trough". Didn't work then and I don't think it would work now and besides it was too damn chilly this morning.

So:

• NSD No1 . Probably helped that it was a bank holiday and we avoided the shops.

• Bedding changed.

• Washing done and mostly dried outside and put away. Just a little to be finished off upstairs.

• Soup made using some sad looking carrots and bendy celery. That's tonight's dinner with some bread rolls decluttered from the freezer.

• Some pancakes liberated from freezer to have with a cup of tea before bed. Not conducive to weight loss but there are so many together with scones and apples pies etc in there that it's becoming imperative to use them up. (well that's my excuse and and I'm sticking to it).

• More boxes in the recycling.

• Larder tidied. Nothing thrown away because it will all be used but there's an awful lot in there.

• Planted up some basil and mint that I'd been "rooting" on the kitchen window sill. More greenery for the little "garden". Plants all watered. It's looking good.

• Started reading the first of the books last night.

Not too bad a day all things considered. Oncologist tomorrow. Fingers crossed. xxx

My grandma used to say the same thing and I'm still waiting. Positive thoughts to you for your Oncologists appointment . I'm sure msny will be thinking of you tomorrow and wishing you well.

ETA Not sure if it is within your budget but the christmas before last my ECV daugter was struggling with cooking. Her boyfriend working from home was working long hours at home for the NHS.I mentioned it to a friend on the Old Style Forum.They had bought a breadmaker and lots of flour but due to his long his long working dsy.he couldn't get to the local shops and she didn't want him to or to have deliveries to the house as although she'd had her jabs she was afraid of catching the virus.

My friend said buy them a soupmaker for Christmas . She and her husband are both very unwell and she said her soupmaker was keeping them fed.

it was quite funny as many others posted they too owned that soupmaker. I began to wonder if she was on commision but no her mentions of hers had made their lives easier as many of them had health issues and it was easy to chuck some veg and things in and  have nice soup in a short time..

I emailed dd to ask if they wanted one for Christmas  and they decided they would.. I began to get happy emails . With that and the breadmaker they were enjoying quick hot soup and freshly baked rolls. She managed to replicate the oat  topped rolls we used to buy in Marks pre pandemic and sent me a picture.

Then she wrote a review of the soupmaker . Nice disability friendly handle, Cleans itself I was choking laughing and thinkng she sounds lke me, She was used to me pointing out positives or negatives before buying any object.

There were just a few recipies  with the soupmaker so Ifound a very cheap recipe book online full of healthy easy recipes and bought her one of those .

Shortly afterwards I bought a soup maker and the book myself. When our GP phoned before the pandemic news was really out and told her she must stay indoors and not go out it was obvious she wouldn't manage without her boyfriend and the two cats they'd rescued He was still working in our local hospital then but moved to NHS tech support working from home soon afterwards.

i took her to his village a few miles away  and for the first time in my life found myself living alone . Weird as I'm a mum of four. One son in Crewe eldest dd was in Scotland then in charge of all the Waterstones stores from the top of Scotland to Preston in Lancashire. She'd previously worked all over the Europe stores but thankfully was back in Scotland when the pandemic arrived she started to get frustrated about opening and closing stores over the lckdowns I told her thems the rules but she used to spentd hours o the phone tslking to Nicola the first minister who just kept saying they're the rules quite rightly.. She wouldn't listen to me and a while ago I got a don't cry mum email. she'd been with Waterstones since graduation from Uni many years ato apart from a short stint running the Trocadero in london.

The don't cry mum was she'd marched in to her CEOs  and handed in her notice after all those years. They couldn't convinceher tostay but gavehera huge cash leaving gift and discountedbooks for life.

In a way it was a  relief  to me as she'd long ago appointed me as her secet shopper which was ridiculous as they knew I was her mum as we'd often shopped in the store together. In fact we'd shopped there since she was a child.

She has been doing RHS training .  but is in Portugal at the momnt visiting the friend she met on their first day at Uni pictures she sent home back then she looks like Carol Decker from TPauwith her lovely natural red hair. Clothes wise was more Bananarama cotton jumpsuits . She denies those thin gs. She shocled me a few years ago when opened  the front door to a blond woman I didnt recognise she'd called in at Toni and Guy and her lovely red hair was dyed blond.

In the family we've been trying to decide who won the battle between !st minister Nicola or eldest daughter. I used to tell her to stick to the rules we were all having to follow and it seems nicola had her own worries. She'd pledged to bring Independance to Scotland but is no longer 1st minister.

pollyx

apple_muncher

Today I am grateful for sitting doing needlefelting with dc, for a chilled day, for my book, for Scooby Doo, for the apple tree starting to produce blossom.

beanielou

Good to see you @pollyanna_26 xx

Happy happy anniversary @f0xh0les xx

beanielou

@Toni'sfriend.  Hope all goes well the morra  xx

@pollyanna_26.  I ditched the Le Creuset. Got too heavy!

ldee2111

1 May

Checked our bank account to see if mortgage end date had been recalculated since OP in April. It had! Our new date is May 2029, it was originally June 2040! As long as we keep on track with consistent OPs, we should be MF in April 2026 - for our 40th birthdays! Our dream! 

OH and I have had a DS-free weekend so today we went to the Cost.C0 place and stocked up on household items like toilet rolls, dishwasher tabs, laundry detergent, etc. Not everything is cheaper there so we were comparing costs online as we went around the warehouse. We’d saved up for this bulk buy and only need to do it once a year. We’ve £40 leftover from the budget which I’ll hold onto until I spot deals on some of our other frequently used items that weren’t available in Cost.c0.

On the way back from shopping, I posted shoes I sold on V!ntD yesterday. And almost as soon as I walked through my door, I got a notification saying I’d sold another item. I’ll post that tomorrow.

In the office tomorrow so I’ll be making sure I remember my lunch this time! 

Grateful today for DS being home from grandparents’, for the home stockroom being fuller, and for a lovely long weekend with OH. 

Starlight_at_Sea

Well done on the sales and stock room restock ldee, and that's a great ambition re your mf date. 

Checking in with NSD #1. Largely a restful day today, catching up on mountains of washing while the weather was good. Have made a reasonable dent in one of my frogs, tidied my bedroom at my folks. It's now clean, but the ambition was a sort out too - of one chest of drawers, 2 boxes of paperwork etc, and 2 bags for life of miscellaneous 'stuff' from home. Hopefully it now won't feel too overwhelming to push on with that this week. I will enjoy the tidy room and freshly made bed tonight. 

A little magic and awe and investment in family connections tonight, went over to my cousin's to help her 9yr old son cook sausages over an open fire, aka a BBQ! Veggie sausages in my case from the depths of the freezer. Kids full of beans, and sausages, and hot dog rolls. It was fun, and lovely to be warm enough to enjoy sitting outside for dinner! 

f0xh0les

  Well look what I found!  all down to a control C, and I can also provide a