NST January 2024: This is Sparta!

KajiKita

@Starlight_at_Sea, i am few posts behind now so you may have sorted your windscreen now, but is there an owners club you could contact for your car? They are often really helpful for sourcing obscure parts. 

KK 

Toni'sfriend

Nsd no 15, I think. More than I thought I could manage really.

Quietish day, Been cooking again and chatting to Himself. Trying to calm him down.

Wee Nancy - I've been trying to trace my family in Scotland and Ireland for many, many years now and I'm intrigued by how far you have got in your transcriptions. Would so love to be able to do that. xxxx

weenancyinAmerica

@Toni'sfriend - Ireland is difficult even if you know the parish as the records don't go back very far. Scotland - the records can go back into the 1500s if you have the parish. FamilySearch has the earlier records, but Scotland keeps a tight reign on the more recent records (1855+). I use Scotlandspeople a lot when I am doing research for other people. Costs but it is very reasonable compared to other places. Some times I can get the index from Ancestry or FamilySearch - and then go to Scotlandspeople as that can save money. The lack of death records in early parish registers is a problem in Scotland - naming a new child the same as an older one doesn't mean the first child died in Scotland like it does in other countries. I have families with three children by the same name - John the Younger, John the Middle, and John the Elder. All of them survived to have families. And widows often revert to their maiden names. So the research there is more complicated sometimes. That is why I like doing Swedish or Mexican research when I have a chance - the records are often easier to follow! But even when I just get a little bit of information on a family, I can get excited - even if the family isn't mine but someone else's. Good luck on your research. If you have a specific family that you need help on, feel free to PM me and I'll see if I have any ideas for you. Anyone else can too. 

f0xh0les

Limbo time again in F0xh0les T0wers.  Payday is coming, painfully slowly though.  Will not get paid for 'my' work until end of next month.  Very relieved not to have 'the builder's money' in my account any more though. One less thing to stress over. 

Spent most of the day in the loft doing more insulation and loft legs.  There was a New Year Offer on BookFace with a local company, they were quoting £1000.  Ouch!!  Not spent 1/4 of that.

Nerves are frayed in the house.  Whenever I go out to work, DH lays down the law with the kids, and they ignore him, and he waits until I finish work to throw the ultimatum grenade. It is a horrible atmosphere.

Just going to push on and see how many jobs on the list I can get out of the way before February.

Flying_By

@wishus  many thanks for the Fitbit info.  I'll do a bit of research and see what would suit my needs.  
What rotten luck on the car-parking ticket, I hope you won't receive the dreaded "letter"!

Flying_By

@DrCarrie Happy New Home!

Flying_By

@DawnW Glad to hear that your brother's appointments are being set up for him and that his spirits are up.
Sounds like you are making great progress in the garden and even finding time to make cake!

Flying_By

@Toni'sfriend Gosh, you've been incredibly busy, remember to cut yourself some slack!

Thrifty_Taylor

NSD#16 have put something in a basket line, but not pressed buy it yet! It's some yellow baking utensils to go with an apron I'm making for a friend's 50th next month.

Very windy here today, but southerly so not cold. Did yoga for the first time in ages, then walked with DH to deliver the quilled initial for another friend's birthday. 4.6 miles altogether & face wind on the way back 😓

Read my book whilst eating dinner, then a friend dropped more firewood off for us 😃

Spent the afternoon making a 'bumper' & a sheet for a moses basket. Watched the rest of a series in the background. Pleased that I'm meeting the customer tomorrow, as the basket takes up quite a bit of room! She's giving me some fresh eggs too 😍

Won 4 free entries for an online competition, but didn't win the big prize. Never mind, it was exciting & didn't cost me a penny 😂 Did the ironing & picked DS3 up from hi friend's.

Had a bath & read my book. Only 40 pages to go.

Grateful for being cosy inside & listening to the wind howling outside, my friend liking her present, my sheet facemask which made me laugh as it had a Rudolph face printed onto it, which I wasn't expecting! 😂🤣😂

grandmanerd

On Saturday I took a  bag of toiletries to the collection point in the library and searched the shelves for a number of books I thought I'd returned but are coming up as overdue. Didn't find any of the 5 so they must either be lurking somewhere in the house (multi bags everywhere in an effort to 'contain' the mess) or I've given the wrong bag to a cs (unlikely).

I then carried on as far as the town centre and went into the 'new' £ emporium (they relocated into the Will Co store).  I don't go into the town centre on Saturdays, although a lot of the action is on the retail parks now, and the £ emporium is one of the last places I would go but it was nearly empty. It's very much not  a £ emporium any more though I didn't do any analysis on what proportion of stock is still £1. I found some of the things I needed, a new washing up bowl (thin, yellow and I hate it - it will be out in the garden growing strawberries as soon as I buy a replacement - probably stainless steel) and a roll of sticky labels (to start packing DS3 and Beloved) and bought a couple of things I saw.  A very reasonably priced choc orange - I don't care if it has a snowman, I'm not eating the box and it still hurts that I didn't get any of the 67p Ocado ones and the last roll of brown paper packing tape (been looking but not hunting) and it was still £1.  They didn't have any half sized buckets and there was a lot of violent pink in that section so I skeddadled. I did indulge in two containers with handles in a very pretty colour (the sort you put cleaning supplies in to tote around the house).

I returned home via the main pedestrianised area (lots of benches) with a passing glance at the family owned toy shop (lovely jigsaws but I'll  stick to the cs ones) and went in G's for bakes and a gingerbread man. My knees and back were nagging by the time I got back across the traffic lights but I only had 2 blocks to go and then round the corner to home. I opened the door and sat on my walker outside until I'd drunk a whole can of caffeine free drink.

I sat on thre couch to eat (DS3 still  asleep so I could stretch my poor legs, did a few small jobs (rubbish out, washing in and more out using the same pegs) and then came back upstairs (the laptop reception was intermittent and it needed charging anyway) with drinks and salad.

Yesterday (Sunday) was more productive. I practiced what I preached by doing some little 'extra' jobs - I took down the shower curtain after I'd had my shower and later when I came back up to  use the bathroom I threw down the bathmat for washing (neither has yet gone into the WM but the last oddments from previous washes went outside). More rubbish/ recycling bags put in the bins and I did trek all the way to the end off the block to bring back the emptied bin. One of the neighbours is in hospital (saw his wife going out for visiting). 

Did 4 bowls full of washing up. They used the DW about a week ago but have left pans and things inside. If  I empty it, I won't have any energy left to actually do any washing up and as a lot has been lying around and has stuff stuck on, the bowl is better. I have dermatitis and eczema so I tend to put things in very hot water and then come back later so I don't have my hands in the water too long. I filled the old bowl with a mixture of hot and cold water and put it on the front room  windowsill with the 2 lemon plants inside. I noticed they were droopy from lack of water when I went to my appointments (DS3 keeps the curtains closed so I don't often see them).

I also tackled another spot that's been annoying me - at the bottom off the stairs but just inside the kitchen. To be fair it's usually covered by washing and  bags of recycling and rubbish that have been thrown down so it's only just become more obvious. I also did the bit in my bedroom beside the door (bags of rubbish, recycling, shopping that has come up and other things to go downstairs congregate there). 

I had an early tea and was upstairs asleep by 6 pm.

Grateful for the things I did find in the shops, tackling a few difficult spots ans forgotten tasks (it's taken a lot off cleaning and clearing for these to become 'visible') for easy food options (must do better)