Moving on

Cherryfudge

Sunday was much less expensive though DD asked me if she could order through my (temporary) Ama zon Pr1me so a temporary spend of £23.99.

In the morning I was helping with a couple of things at church but wasn't in charge of anything so just enjoyed it. I like being a helper in the tiny kids' group, partly because it's not up to me to plan it, but also it gives me a chance to see how others lead the sessions and just make myself useful. Afterwards I said I'd help with serving the teas and coffees but I wasn't exactly useful so its just as well the main team knew what they were doing. I did seem to have a fair amount of running round finishing off small jobs (like refilling the washing up liquid in the basement kitchen) rather than leaving them for another day. I've also been asked if I'll take part 'up front' in a Christingle activity to 'raise my profile'. I've agreed, as it's not a big deal, but I do wonder what's being planned! I suspect it's something to do with the children's work as there was a plan some months ago for this to be more integrated. It may not be anything specific either: could just be that someone has asked who I am.

We just had a light lunch then I bundled up a couple of things for A and H and they collected me at 2 to go to the memorial service we attend each year. It's run by a hospital and over the years we've been, it's grown. This year was packed and when you take small children, with a craft table laid on to entertain them, it's a bit like musical chairs. There were lots of young children so it wasn't very formal but it's a valuable thing as it gives people a chance to grieve. Afterwards they had refreshments and N decided she wanted to try a mince pie. Her parents didn't think she'd like it but she explained 'raisin', 'chocolate' and demolished the lot. I'm sure it wasn't chocolate but it was dark and sweet so that's near enough.

H has asked me if I can make a little knitted snowman for F like the one N has, so I've borrowed it to copy.

Back at home, DH cooked gammon for dinner and we discovered that the sprouts, baked potatoes and broccoli in the freezer are all almost inedible so tomorrow the sprouts and broccoli are going in the compost (too old) and the baked potatoes might just do with lots of cheese and butter. The gammon was lovely, though.

I spent some time on Duolingo but am not doing well recently and fell down another league. I've had difficult spells before, though, and I know they pass.

This evening I plucked up courage to refuse an invitation to a Christmas get-together. In fact I'm looking forward to a few days of mostly my own company as DH is away at the end of the week. However, I heard back that others can't go, so it's been rescheduled to January, by which time I'm likely to be ready to socialise more.

So that's it for a full but satisfying weekend.

Cherryfudge

I completely forgot to say our new hand-held vacuum cleaner arrived in the morning. We left it to charge up and I got to play with it later. Very happy with it - it's one of those designed for pet hair and it coped with human hair brilliantly, though I had to cut it out of the brushes because it wraps right round. Easy enough to do, though.

Cherryfudge

I wondered why I was tired today - then I noticed I was posting after 1 am this morning, which wasn't a sensible move. I have to be up early for the grand daughters tomorrow so I will be off to bed soon.

It's been a rainy day and colder than recently. While the light lasted, I gave DH a haircut and absentmindedly set the clippers too short, so he has a new style! Oops. I think he quite likes it though, and it looks okay.

Dinner today was cold gammon with baked potatoes and veg. We threw the rest of the broccoli out as it was horrible.

We had our Friday coffee very early as DH will be away on our usual day (£6.60) and we went to the library after, then I went on to work. This evening I've got as much as possible ready so I won't have to think between getting out of bed and leaving the house!

I've just paid the credit card up to date and there are a host of pending payments from Black Friday and Saturday's shopping trip, so depending how much the bank will let me transfer to the card I might still end up paying interest on about £80. However, I also have to transfer cash to A who is handling buying the new-to-me phone for me and here's a really strange thing: I went back into messages with the seller to check the price and it's a lot less than I thought I was paying! There's another model for the price I thought, but I didn't give that one much thought. How on earth did I mix the two up? I thought I'd done due diligence looking up what it's selling for elsewhere, but I did look at a number of models so I suppose I just got something mixed up somewhere along the line. A nice surprise of course, but I'm not happy that I could make a mistake like that.

I'm also hoping I'm not going down with something as my temperature seems to be up and down, and I have the girls to look after tomorrow. However, I did have a really large coffee earlier so that might be the culprit.

Expenditure:
Postage (DH sending Christmas presents) - no idea.
Entertainment £6.60.

Cherryfudge

I could have done with more sleep, but I don't sleep well if I have to be up early, and I was unsettled about getting the amount wrong for the phone. However, DH has confirmed that at one point I'd mentioned the right price, then when I said something else, he didn't question it to me because he didn't want me to feel bad about spending more on a phone. I never have been very good with 'big numbers'. If I can't picture it, I can't pin it down.

Talking of bigger numbers, I suddenly thought of the account where I shoved the inherited money that I couldn't channel through a regular savings account. I've now checked on that: apparently I last logged on in June, when the annual interest rate hadn't been applied (hence I've mentally parked it in favour of sorting out the regular savings). It's now got its first year's interest ( ), but the rate isn't so good anymore so I need to give some thought to that.

Watty1

no throwing of broccoli out now  - turn it into soup with cheese - yummy!   honestly my using up has made me a bit evangelical LOL

Cherryfudge

I'm afraid it's already gone, @Watty1 - but it could have been the oldest thing in the freezer. Something like 2017, if I remember rightly! It's amazing it was still colourful but it had a texture like a bunch of wet feathers, and I didn't dare taste it.

Now I will have to get some fresh because when it's good, it's good.

Today was long but nice, apart from itchy eyes and nose. I had the girls from 8.15 when DH dropped me off before taking the car to the garage and walking to his appointment. H had already gone to work and A had a full day so in a sort of blast from the past I had two young children to get into the pram and a walk into town so F could have her allergy assessment. We met up with H for this, and DH had finished his appointment so he and I took N to the swings and taught her how to play follow my leader.

F's assessment took the rest of the morning so we went home via the shops and H dropped the baby back with us. One allergy is confirmed and there are probably others. They suspected this and had been being careful, but thankfully it's not severe enough to require an epipen.

She is also outgrowing her second sleep, so she was awake till well into the afternoon. DH took them out while I tidied up and had a rest. When A got back from work he gave me a lift into town while DH finished the childcare. Handily, he dropped me in M&S car park so I cut through the shop which had some excellent discounts on nice fruit. We now have enormous oranges, plus chestnuts and raspberries. I even managed to get to work a little earlier than usual.

I've lost track of today's spending as DH had bought himself some snacks. His initial feedback from the doctor on today's tests is good: they couldn't see anything immediately wrong. He's had no tachycardia since reading up and increasing his fluids, but I know that's no guarantee it won't happen again. Then he texted me at work to say the car has been fixed, and I forgot to ask how much but it was something to do with the fuel pump.

Expenditure:
Housekeeping £4.96 + ?
Car?

Cherryfudge

Today was mostly spent looking after baby F. A dropped her off at ours before going to work and the idea was that I'd walk her back home late in the morning so she could sleep. As it was, she didn't want me to go out of her sight and I hadn't set things ready in advance, so I put the pram up (has to be done out of doors as it's too wide to fit through our kitchen), threw a coat and scarf over my lounge top and went to the nearest supermarkets. She slept, but only for half an hour.

I was on the look out in Mr T so as not to waste the coupons that expire in four days but as it was, they remain unspent. Two of them are no use to me, the fruit one is restricted to apples and pears but they didn't have the apples DH likes and I rarely eat them, and the one for butters and spreads would have had me buying several months' worth in one go, when all I wanted was to treat myself to real butter for Christmas. I already have a big tub of vegan butter so I can bake for both of us, and I don't want to spend on space-fillers that might go out of date before use.

I suppose that sums up as 'Didn't waste the money' .

Ice land did me slightly better as they were selling off bright plastic plates so I got a set for the grandchildren and some for the Sunday morning group who, I feel, should have plates to put their biscuits on.

After that it was L1dl, so I opened the app and hurriedly activated the offers as there's not enough signal inside the shop. Then before I went in, the phone battery died, but I used my phone number to validate the coupons, so I got some discounts. A lot of what I bought was baby-friendly foods, though, so I now have a tub full of snacks. Little F ate as for England which is very unusual for her. She then slept another 50 minutes. It turns out she has had immunisations so was probably under the weather,

This evening was work - thankfully Dh gave me a lift as it was cold and wet. There's a 12.5 hour contract going for the areas I've been covering so I'm giving that some thought.

WelshmansDaughter

That’s something like what I do Cherry. Although I’m 15 hours

Cherryfudge

The standard cleaning contracts are 15 hours here, too, @WelshmansDaughter. However, that would mean I'd have to cut out the two evening commitments I have. 12.5 would be negotiable - having spoken to the manager I know she would be willing to negotiate how the hours are spaced out as long as I could do something daily, which I could. However, doing the Maths in my head I'm still coming in at about half an hour short of getting to evening meeting - I could occasionally take leave, I suppose, or learn to drive so I don't have the 2 x 20 minutes walking - but I like my walking and it's good for me, and although people tell me they couldn't live without driving, I've never had it so I don't miss it.

That said, once DD's baby arrives, it would be handy to be able to drive - not that I want to, but I saw for myself how useful DS1#s driving skills were when there were no ambulances and he had to do a hospital dash.

The job advert either isn't out yet or I've missed it.

Today: I helped with Toddler group this morning and remembered to return the tea towels and put away the plastic plates for the Sunday group. I need to look at staffing for that group again, as we've had a couple of rota changes. I also signed DH and myself up for the travelling Nativity, which as far as I understand it is a couple of sets of Nativity figures that tour round the congregation. Each time they change hands, we meet for a coffee or a meal with the next people and take a photo (or a photo of the set in situ). I'd not read the thing properly or I might not have offered! However, I booked us in before someone I like a lot, so she will be a pleasure to meet with and we have plenty to talk about. Then I discovered that the person handing over to me (tomorrow) is someone I've chatted to and liked, and we are meeting at the church in between our rotas for coffee so I'm actually looking forward to getting to talk to her properly.

Once I got home, it was nearly lunchtime, then DH set off for Auntie's house. She's the other side of the country, and tonight A is taking his family up to Aberdeen. I'm a bit concerned about this as there's a storm forecast, especially in the north of Scotland, but down here too. Dh will be away till Saturday (thank goodness the car is fixed!) and the others are due back on Sunday. That reminds me I must transfer the phone money to A so he can collect it. I think there are other things needing to be done but all that comes to mind is to send in the form for the course I'm doing in January.

I've just been out to the shed to collect various bits and pieces as I want to paint a door frame while DH is out! I'm also intending to shampoo some heavy-traffic bits of carpet while there's just me around. I've emptied the compost bucket into the newly-restarted compost bin out in the lane at the back, and that reminded me to bring in bits of foliage to make a winter arrangement. It will be as MS as possible, but I have my eye in (I wish!) after last year's helping with a flower-arranging class. Not having oasis means the ideas are in my head and don't stay put but I enjoy it.  

Well, the sky looked like dusk at two o'clock and has actually lightened a bit but I need the house lights on and the heating kicked in while I was in and out of the house so that sounds like a good reason to push on with making it cosy, and bearing in mind I have work at five, I'd better get on.

badmemory

It has been so dark here today that I almost closed the curtains at one, but finally gave up 20 minutes ago.  At least it is a bit more cheerful with the lights on.