Moving on

Cherryfudge

Well, that was nice: I finally got round to ordering a new screen protector for my Kindle and got a free Pr1me trial (must remember to cancel before the thirty days are up and they start to charge me). I also used a gift card to pay so it's all a freebie. Now, what might I reasonably order to make good use of the free delivery? Bearing in mind, of course, that not ordering anything is more MS.  

Cherryfudge

Yesterday caught up with me: I realised I was still speeded up by bedtime but thankfully it didn't turn into sleeplessness. I woke up at six because my body decided it had had its allotted sleep time, and we actually had two lots of laundry done by the time we went to the car boot sale. We took the hobby car for its weekly run and that was fun. Open top and the occasional thumbs up from fans of older cars!

No big spends at the car boot: there was no one collecting at the gate, so no entry to pay. DH bought a video recorder as we have loads of my parents' home made videos in the loft. They've been waiting years for us to sort through them. I bought a bag of onions for 50p, a set of butter knives for when we do buffet meals (£1) and a second small blue Pyrex bowl to match one I bought not so long ago (also £1). That blue glass is lovely for displaying fruit, but I can use it when cooking too.

Home for breaded fish and cous cous, then out again for my cunning plan to spend the rest of my garden centre voucher while there's an offer. I bought a small garden fork, having worked out the difference between that and the 'digging fork' I got earlier in the month. The digging one is meant for generally turning over soil and larger areas, whereas the 'border' one is for getting into small areas (or lending to a partner to use two forks to prise things apart). I got a fiver off with my loyalty card and used my voucher to pay £28.50, then the remaining £6.50 was paid the usual way. (Future historians take a break at this point to discuss whether I paid in glass beads, leaves or by telepathy).

Home again and I was so tired, I wasn't coping well and feeling a bit down. I spelt soundly for a while, after which I moaned to poor DH who has helped me sort out some bits and pieces. He's got a cold, too, so he could probably have done without this. The upshot is I've resigned from one of the two cleaning rota slots and am contemplating pulling out of helping at the Thursday morning Toddler group. I would miss that but they have more volunteers than they used to. 

Expenditure:
Garden £6.50 + £28.50 voucher
Housekeeping £4.29 + ? (will have to look that up)
Household £5
Medical £5.75

rtandon27

Good to hear more on your journey to finding balance.  I'm always struggling to find mine!  Too many fun things are usually my downfall.

Cherryfudge

I think I'm not dissimilar @rtandon27: I enjoy a lot of what I do and the bits that are hard work are utilising skills so I know it's worthwhile - but there's too much of it. It doesn't help that I play computer games to give my brain some down-time.

This morning seems to have gone okay: I wasn't leading the preschool activity, just h elping and there was a good ratio of adults to children. It was fun. Afterwards we had our team meeting and loads of people turned up. I didn't manage to keep it to 15 minutes but apparently it was 22 minutes, which I count as a success. I even have a volunteer to make a velcro activity board to assist communication (not my idea but the team has used one before and found it benefitted some children - and I'm hoping it will benefit adults too as all the leaders have their own style so helpers don't necessarily know what they are doing!). And I have cover for a session where we had a gap!

Afterwards I spoke to the senior pstor to let him know I'm reducing my cleaning hours and interestingly he said that when people fill gaps, sometimes overstretching themselves, it disguises the need for other action to be taken. That's something I knew, but interesting to have it reflected back at me! So those hours are no longer my responsibility.

We came back and had dinner (mackerel) and watched Race Around the World, then I played on the computer but it seemed a shame not to try to make some progress on the garden so I've mown the lawn, just before a shower came on. There's still a lot of brown in the grass but the green bits are getting longer. I've not attempted the little lawn as it's dusty and flattened with the men working near there. The ground elder is sticking up in the bare earth at the other side, looking more or less like meercats poking out of holes with cautious expressions in case they need to dive back underground. In better news, the bag of potatoes is developing nice leaves and looking healthy, there are strawberries forming and at present the biggest load of greengages ever - though the wind has blown a  few down.

Cherryfudge

I turned all productive later in the afternoon, and spent an hour and a half weeding - of which fully an hour was ground elder. I'm taking advantage of the builders having turned over some earth so the area by the back door is beautifully friable (possibly through being well broken up by ground elder ). I have another small bucket of roots drying out, and managed to remove lots of horrible bits from the soil - plastics included a bird food net, plant labels and bits of plastic plant pot. What are we doing to our planet? These are years old and the writing hasn't totally disappeared, let alone reassimilated into the environment. And what's worse, they are from our time at the house. I also found a stone edge to the gravel along the old front of the house so that's left in place till I can uncover the bit between it and the rest of the line. Then I found three wrecked tent pegs! They have probably been there since the turn of the century and the tent is long gone.

Since then I've written up and sent off this morning's meeting, messaged a few people and fed and watered the houseplants and DH has pulled up more ground elder leaves.

Time to look at the coming week's agenda:

Monday - builders coming. Get them cake and drinks to show appreciation! I need to send in timesheets and look through the material from the most recent course session. Work in the evening and a half hour meeting to do with the course.
Tuesday - look after the grand daughters. No evening meeting as my friend is working.
Wednesday - I've postponed my client for the Wednesday job as the doctor has moved the appointment I made. In the evening there's a church meeting but I forgot and have said I'll work.
Thursday - Toddler group in the morning, work later.
Friday - Afternoon meeting with my mentor and work in the evening.

Cherryfudge

The builders are here again. For some reason that set off a poem in my head: 'Robin Hood is here again, with all his merry thieves. Hear a ghostly bugle note go echoing through the leaves!' I don't remember offhand who wrote it, but it was surely written for a timeless glorious morning, like this one. Sunshine again...

The builders had filled most of the path edging with sand by the time I opened the door and said hello. It looks so much more advanced than the pale grey hardcore rubble that was visible minutes before. It's a nice even dark brown, but that will soon disappear under the first of the tiles.

Today's plan:

Ironing

Some laundry - it will have to go on the airer on the back lawn but at least a) I have an airer and b) I have a back lawn. Both are blessings as is the freedom to use them as I please and not worry that things will get stolen, bombed, drenched with rain or any other catastrophe. However, this may need to be planned around the chaps who are currently pounding the area by the backdoor preparatory to putting sand down.

Send in timesheets and, if available, the link to the training certificate from last week.

See if we have salmon in the freezer for dinner.

Get the men some cake and drinks to show appreciation!

Look through the material from the most recent course session.

Work in the evening and a half hour meeting to do with the course.

Cherryfudge

Tired again. I think the men would have assumed I was an office worker, WFH, today as I spent till about four thirty on the computer apart from sticking my head out of the door a couple of times to tell them how nice the path looks.

The morning got absorbed into sorting out timesheets, which are now submitted. I don't know if I got the additional spreadsheet right, though. It's a very long time since I did one as I've not had work with that post for ages. I also deleted a big backlog of emails from work: not all gone but a couple of hundred sent to the bin.

After lunch I tackled the write-up of the rest of the notes from the most recent session of the course. I didn't have to do it but it refreshed my memory and looks a lot neater than my notebook. It also meant I could insert some quotations via copy and paste rather than vainly hope to look them up some day.

After that there was no time to get cake for the men: it was time to leave for work. I could only do two hours as there was a meeting to follow up from the course and that overran a bit. On the way home (still light so it didn't feel like around nine o'clock) I called in at the supermarket and got posh cookies and cans of pop for the men, cheap digestives and chocolate limes for my work bag and looked in vain for more cappuccinos. I still have plenty of decaff though.

Dinner was southern fried chicken sandwich with mayo, as there wasn't enough salmon in the freezer. The ironing didn't happen.

Tomorrow is the last day of path-making! We are so pleased with it! It's a bit wider than I envisaged but that could be because I mentioned being able to get a wheelchair or a buggy up it. The bricks are very similar to the house, so I'm hoping for an effect hinting at tasteful, olde-worlde continuity.

Expenditure:
Housekeeping £19.69 (which includes DH's spending).

rtandon27

Well done on the digital tidying - so often a hidden corner that gets overlooked!

Cherryfudge

rtandon27 said:

Well done on the digital tidying - so often a hidden corner that gets overlooked!

Thank you! That's my work inbox - I won't admit to there being 35,000 unread in my personal inbox!  Yes really. Every new year I clean out a few hundred and unsub from things, but in reality I'm never going to sort through things from 15 years ago and the storage is free. I try to keep on top of current ones but even so there are various that slip through.

Cherryfudge

Last night it rained, which was poor timing for the washing, which I forgot to switch on in a timely manner so was on the line overnight. It's now been spun again and is on the airer and the sun's come out.

This was supposed to be the last day for the men to work but they can't do the sand-between-bricks in the damp so they will do that bit another day and are currently cutting the last bricks to shape. Nearly there! They got cans of Peps1 and nice biscuits as a little thank you. It's so hard choosing for people you don't know, so I hope those hit the spot.

DH and I are on grand children duties today but he gets the early part. I've sent overnight oats in the car so I don't have to carry them. Before I join them I need to log in to my Wednesday job then my relief jobs to sort out a couple of bits. Then there's the bathroom to clean and the ironing to do and there's not necessarily going to be time for either, but I'll have to see how it goes.