Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻

rtandon27

@Cheery_Daff - nothing wrong with a little grumping now and then luv - gets it out of your system and then you can be thankful whole-heartedly! xxx

Cheery_Daff

Thank you lovely lass xx 

I've cheered up now, after a cheerful blog post. Mr C is disappointed too, but we have declared Boxing Day as Christmas Day At Home so all good

And I'm planning on everything being ready by the end of tomorrow, so Tuesday can be for friends, and Wednesday can be festive fun day

Baileys_Babe

That's frustrating about the lack of communication regarding Christmas dinner plans. 

We always spend Christmas with my wider family, we now take it in turns to host Christmas day now we live a lot closer to each other, which we all enjoy. One year pre-children we did spend Christmas with OH's parents, OH has said never again as what was the point of that, it could have been any Tuesday, we do visit sometime either over Christmas or early January (MILs birthday), but we don't turn down more festive plans - this has been decided by OH, if he's happy I'm happy.

Cheery_Daff

We went on holiday for many years just by ourselves, which was lovely.  Its just these last three years which we've done a big family dinner.  It's fine, but I wouldn't necessarily choose it myself.  At least with mr c's family there's no real drama or expectation or nonsense.  Turn up,  have dinner and a nice time,  go home.  

I could go to my sister's, she always has my mum round and I do feel some residual for about that. They live much closer together and she has the grandchildren,  and I never really felt guilty until we started going to Mr C's family and not mine! However,  I'm choosing not to engage with my guilty feeling 😬

Woke randomly at 5.30 and was disappointed to find no octopod coffee codes but it seems I was too early! Snagged one now 😁 Mr C and I are going to sneak in a festive early coffee before I go off for the last of my shopping,  and then the tree is going up,  no excuses!

Sun_Addict

They release the coffee codes around 6am. I’ve had a Gr£ggs one this week as I’m off work this week and won’t be passing a Ner0. 

We have DS and family round on Christmas Eve so the GKs can spend Christmas Day at home with their presents. Our parents are long gone so it’s just us and DD on the big day. SIL has gone to Lanzarote for Christmas. 

Cheery_Daff

Well we enjoyed our free coffee 😁

Then I've been Christmas shopping. Not *quite* finished but very close now. Went to three different places (two towns and a little shopping village thing) so quite a varied day! 

Home now, and I've made some soup for tomorrow's lunch guests, and roasted a load of sweet potato - I was considering putting it in the soup but I'm going to freeze it for advanced Christmas Dinner prep i think.

Mr C has dismantled the drum kit in the living room, so it's time to retrieve the tree from the loft 😁 Hope it's been safe from rat invasion 🙄 if not, it'll be spending the night in the garden (although then it'll probably just get covered in slugs so perhaps not!)

rtandon27

Can you rig the tree upside down over the branch of a big tree in the garden to air but keep it slug free?  Similar to the way you keep food away from bears when camping? (I realize this is a very Canuck image so hope it makes sense?)

Cheery_Daff

It does indeed make sense,but fortunately not needed - the wrapping was intact and no beasties have inhabited it 😁 tree is installed, lights are on (and working!) and I have done some festooning 😁 we have endless amounts of baubles, many glass ones from the 1970s that Mr C has acquired over the years - I've put on all the ones i like, and he can add as many as he likes later (he's very much a maximalist when it comes to decorations of any kind 😂)

Stopping now though. He's having a bath, and I'm setting up the spare double sofa bed in the study for the duration of the holidays. I've been in here as a single while I've not been well, but the rats in the attic are driving him a bit batty upstairs so we're both moving downstairs for Christmas. It'll be like being in a hotel 😂

Morning yoga is going to have to move upstairs to the proper bedroom though - there won't be enough room in the study with the other half of the bed up, and I'll likely be up earlier. Let's see if my morning routine survives having to go upstairs... 😬 (or maybe I could fit in front of the Christmas tree?? That's up some stairs too 😂 but not as many 😂😂)

Cheery_Daff

Morning chums 😊

Musical bedrooms here 🙄😂 we both started the night upstairs, but it looks like my snoring has driven Mr C elsewhere (although whether elsewhere is the upstairs spare room, the spare double downstairs, or the sofa, is yet to be ascertained). No sign of the rat but I'm a heavy sleeper so may not have heard it (and my snoring may have drowned it out 😬)

Friends are coming for lunch today 😊 I've made soup, Mr C will acquire some bread while he's out doing last minute present shopping this morning, and I'll run the hoover round - the Christmas tree may not be real but there's always some loss of needles in the putting-up process.

We'll have to nip out later too - a final couple of presenta for me and a little bit of Christmas food. Nowt fancy. We bought Christmas veg in Mr L for 5p the other day but Mr C has eaten all the sprouts already 😂 We've got stuffing, but we'll likely get a quorn roast, and I'm not sure we've got gravy. That'll be it, I think - we do a veggie roast dinner, but not loads of fancy accompaniments or puds.

Right, best get up and find somewhere to do yoga (the bedroom I'm in actually has a lovely amount of space for it - I'll just need to retrieve a candle from somewhere).

Bit of budgeting today too, check on the Christmas budget.

Oh!! And I found that flipping joining letter from the Spanish bank yesterday and remembered I've not actually done the required spending on the card yet 😬 Most vexing - I hope it's not too late, or else we'll have missed out on £200 of vouchers and opened accounts for no reason! 😬

beanielou

A good excuse to spend then 😹