Moving on

rtandon27

Fabulous Haul! Nothing like unopened new products for padding out those stockings.

I"m well impressed that the sewing machine people charged you nothing! What a fabulous advertisement as I'm sure you'll pass that around by word of mouth & friends will be sure to frequent them.

Cherryfudge

Yes, all in all very satisfactory. :) It also gives me another stocking filler for last Christmas for my niece - that saga runs on and on! I heard from my sister for the first time in weeks yesterday, I'm usually the one who makes first contact. She'd swapped phone numbers but I could tell from the content who it was, asking if I wanted some poieces of china or can she sell them? They aren't my style, so that was easily sorted out. Between them and us we have had so many health issues that we've not actually seen them since they got back to the UK, which I think was last September, and the box of gifts I'd accumulated for stocking fillers is in my way!

Perhaps it's time I asked her if they are moving to the house they bought further north, as that was the plan when we last talked about it.

That said, it was fun getting the things and I need to think about how to start practicing on that machine. I suspect it's 'sew a contrasting base to this worn tote bag' time. ☺️

Cherryfudge

I texted my sister and it turns out their shipped goods arrived last week - eight months in transit - so those have been taken to the new house.

Last night I stayed up to pull together an agenda for the team meeting this lunch time, then this morning D and E arrived while we were still at the dressing gown stage, to borrow our loo before going on to the local 10K race. Both our boys were in it and we saw the start of the race before going on to church and my meeting.

I had a fairly lazy afternoon with a bit more work on the garden. We've not had the heatwave but it's very pleasantly warm. Dinner was chicken chasseur from stuff we had in stock and there's enough for tomorrow too.

This evening I wrote up the notes from the meeting and watered the plants. The patches where I've got most moss out of the lawn look as though they've had months of drought so I did what I never do, and gave them a hosing. I'm hoping the remaining sparce grass takes heart and thickens up now it's not mossy.

Cherryfudge

Further gardening today: some trimming back of the flowering currant and more raking the lawn, but more gently this time. The bits I did earlier are very scalped! However, watering them last night was a good call as there are bits of grass showing the will to live.

DH set up the carpet cleaner and did the high traffic areas. It seems to work fine though the suction may not be as strong as the old one. The downside of getting the compact version is probably that it needs to be refilled often.

DH went to the car boot sale but it was too hot for me at 29C. DH came back with a painting for him and a strimmer for me, as I'd said one might be useful. It cost a fiver and it works but it seems to want to plough the lawn not strim it so I need to do a bit of research (a Flym0 C0nt0ur, if any of you happens to be an expert in them).

One load of washing has been done and is probably bone dry by now. We had a walk down to the shops as I had £5 off a £25 spend at L1dl, and also got some discounts from Ice1and, having checked Oli0. I still think they are generally more expensive for what I but, but the mark-downs mean I shop there often: two cooked chicken breasts for 76p instead of £2.50, and broccoli for 27p instead of £1.

Lunch was soup from the freezer and cake from the work buffet, and dinner will be the rest of the chasseur sauce plus the cooked chicken bought this afternoon.

Cherryfudge

While I'm not spending at car boot sales, V1nted is still there. All today's spends except the tee shirts were pre-planned, and one of the tees was included with other things.

2 tee shirts, 2 bras, 2 camisoles, 1 pair work trousers. Total £27.81.

Cherryfudge

Yesterday was child care day, and another hot one. We took the children to the swings and library in the morning, before it got too hot, then played indoors in the afternoon - TV time was moved to the other side of the house as the sun room was baking and too bright, even with all the blinds down. The girls had fallen asleep on the way back from the library, and usually take a while to come round so they are allowed TV over lunch time - gives us time out to some extent, too. I then got involved in a game of Rapunzel - which felt rather unending as I couldn't remember all the story, making it hard to move the action on. As the wicked woman who steals Rapunzel as a baby, I had to do a lot of sitting round in a super-hot room making a bed for Rapunzel's cat (AKA little one who refused to be handsome prince). Various soft toys appeared as guards searching for Rapunzel, who I misdirected to another room. Managed to signal to DH (relaxing downstairs) that help was needed, so I eventually got the excuse of having to drink my coffee before it got cold. Then all of a sudden, Rapunzel declared she had 'sworded' (!) the guards, DH intervened by switching on Gabby's Doll House, and I escaped! 🤣

I even managed a nearly-complete tidy-up before DS1 got home, but forgot my mug and my work fob, so DS1 has dropped them off at DH's work today.

Dinner was salmon (bought as part of getting £5 off a £25 spend at L1dl) though we bought a sauce to go with it. In MS terms, we buy the larger sauce as it's cheaper per helping, so we now have some to use up. I think the pasta we had with it was a N3ctar offer, too.

One of my friends came round for coffee later and we had a fascinating time pouring over a couple of the books I bought at the car boot sale. She's going to borrow one when I've read it, so that helps me to be disciplined and actually read. She also told me she's got her house up for sale, but is hoping to move closer to the centre of town. We neither of us can work out a way to get our group going again - her work won't tell her her shifts till the last moment seems to work well for her otherwise. I'm tired out on a Tuesday so not at my best. Our other friend is super-sociable and always has a crowd of engagements and, I think, tends to assume the working person will be asked to work, as that's often the case. I'm thinking of trying a lunchtime or daytime coffee slot.

Cherryfudge

Today is cloudy and cooler, which means comfortable to walk around in bare feet and without a jumper with the doors open and the bird song coming in.

My 'working week', the part I have to manage actively, starts today with the only scheduled thing being meeting with the church group this evening. Tomorrow is half term, so no evening class, but cleaning in the evening. I should try to fit in church cleaning, too. DH has Friday off and we are probably going to visit the painting restoration person with DH's large old painting bought a few months ago (paintings come and go a lot round here). I'm working on Friday evening. I don't think there's anything settled for Saturday, then I'm leading the Sunday morning small children's session.

At some point this week the scaffolding is due to be taken away, but till then I can't move pots or bench back to their proper places in the garden. However, there is moss to rake, shrubs to trim back and weeds to pull.

Indoors - far too many catching up jobs. Nothing dramatic, so I shall chip away and report back. Interestingly, there are tiny creaking noises forn the corner of the room I'm in, which could be stacked books making themselves comfortable (need to sort out some donations) or could be a small animal that's come in through the open back door. I'm keeping an eye out but probably the best thing is to put a dish of water to lure it out and stop it dehydrating. This method doesn't work on books.

Cherryfudge

Catching up has so far been mostly about laundry. There were a number of mini-loads, things that needed a different detergent or had to be washed with similar colours, or needed stain remover (I know stains should be done at once, but sometimes that's not practicable). I also have only half the drying space I normally have, as the builders snapped a washing line and I'm not going to replace it till they've taken the scaffolding away. The spare piece at least came in handy when we rigged up a pulley to get cleaning materials to the first floor windows the other day!

I've taken lamb mince out of the freezer for a Shepherd's Pie, but I need potatoes so I'll be off to the shops soon. Some bits of admin from the team meeting are done and dusted, and I've given the grass another mow - which is a bit like giving a haircut to someone with only tufts of hair, and those tufts have decided to grow fast and long!

I've also sorted out a few bits of makeup and will drop them in the T3sco makeup recycling bin. Some have been around forever, and the others are lipsticks from Saturday's haul which look to have been used and in case, are the wrong colours for me. That lead me to thinking what a good subject for YouTube it would be - how much usable product can be extracted from a seemingly-empty tube. Then I decided I'm a blogger (well, I used to be), not a YouTuber. Rabbit hole time…

JGB1955

I'm exhausted by your laundry tales. There are two of us. I do 2 washes a week. One is towels/bedding. The other is everything else. The only hand washing is bras. Everything else goes in the 'mixed' 40 degree wash. The only time I 'suffered' a colour-run was more than 25 years ago. Not being critical - just bemused! How many hours a week do you spend on laundry???????

Cherryfudge

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82013681#Comment_82013681

LOL - not all that many but we have two double beds and since both of us have been ill, we've got into the habit of one of us going to the spare bed if can't sleep/too hot/ other one is snoring - so there's more bedding to wash. We also fetched some of the (now grown) children's stuff from the loft so there's been that to wash through - DD's leotard from being on a team will go back to her, but it's handwash delicately and now that it's a few years older, I didn't want to spoil it by putting it in with the rest. Then there was a reds wash and a turquoises wash, each with just a few items but there's a red uniform tee and a turquoise uniform tee and I know the colours run from both of them. So that's three washes, plus bras - 4 washes, plus mixed stuff that was just a load in the machine (5 washes), then whites that had been in stain remover to try to restore them (semi-successful) (6 washes), then jeans that had muddy marks but are now good again (7 washes).

Honestly, that's unusual but there was a backlog due to having had builders in and thus limited space to dry things!