Teetering on the brink

ellenvan

Put the £5 x 2 this way = £120 per year - Sounds better. Now thats 24 x £5.

EatingBeans

Well I made it all the way through my first day back at work. Can’t say it has been my most productive day but at least I cleared all my e-mails, met a new colleague, reintroduced myself to my managers and generally just turned up to meetings which is more than I’ve done the rest of the week, so hey, I am calling it a success. 

Little dog was less impressed at me being boring all day, chewed a corner of her bed in her crate, and had great fun ripping up the foam. I am so glad I didn’t replace the bed last time she tried this and I just put the remaining bed in an old quilt cover instead. The idea being I wanted to be sure she wasn’t going to do it again before I purchased a new bed. Literally yesterday I was thinking, hmm, maybe she has moved out of teething stage and proved that she can be trusted with a new bed now (it’s been a couple of months since the original destuffing incident), but nope, apparently still cant quite be trusted. 🤦‍♀️

It is funny how dogs are all different. Big dog has literally never chewed anything (well apart from the Firestick remote but that was less chewed and more crushed in excitement during his chase me, chase me game). I still haven’t replaced the remote yet btw! Little dog has caused a bit more damage, mainly from counter surfing and swiping things off the side but she is also a bit of a chewer too. Big dog will instantly spit out anything if told to leave unless it is a cat toy (which he adores) but even then I can just pop my hand in his mouth and he will let me take it out (and then sulk). Little dog very rarely leaves anything on command and if you try and take anything out of her mouth her first reaction is to swallow whatever it is (regardless of how edible it is) and then she lets you look as if to say, “told you my mouth was empty”. And when I say she chews anything, I mean ANYTHING. For example last weekend I could hear her chomping away on something crunchy when I hadn’t given her anything and knowing she just has a tendency to swallow first, ask questions later, I spent 10minutes asking her to spit it out. Eventually she conceded and dropped it into my hand (I was expecting possibly a baby tooth), and oh no, she spits out a chunk of glass! The girl had been chomping away, seemingly enjoying crunching down on it! Crazy girl! No idea where she got it from I am just glad she didn’t swallow it! That said, she is not as bad as my first two labs. One chewed everything he could get his teeth around, including a brand new expensive sofa, rugs, plants and walls (cost me several thousands in damage.) The other was 100% fine until he had fits (he was epileptic) and for about an hour after each fit he would eat everything and anything. Mostly the contents of the bin, but if that wasn’t available, anything plastic was apparently fair game. Needless to say he did sadly have to have a few ops to open him up and retrieve things. So now, having seen what happens when things go bad, I now use crates. Big dog loves his and chooses to go in there way more than he needs to. Little dog doesn’t mind hers most of the time but can be a bit like an overtired toddler sometimes (as in “I don’t want a nap, I want to be out having fun, I really don’t need a nap, I am going to kick up an almighty fuss…” 2minutes later spark out snoring). They are so funny. 

With all this talk about them, here is big dog (black) and little dog (yellow). Their names aren’t really big dog and little dog but they have unusual names so I am calling them that to remain anonymous. 😁 Basically, after dd2, this is where all my disposable income goes… haha

EatingBeans

Oh and I forgot to say…
List 5 things a day ✅ 😁

EatingBeans

Today was going so well but then I got really tired and hungry and had no energy to cook. And crucially, I had no batch cooked, defrost and throw in the microwave meals, prepared in the freezer. Then dd2 also got tired and hungry and gave me the 🥺. I tried to suggest pasta but I didn’t have the energy for the fight and soon caved.

After a suitably long lecture from dd1, I reinstalled Just Eat and ordered a McDs. 😞 But! I did at least remember to use my First Direct card and I found a £10 off voucher so total cost was £9.21, delivered. It definitely could have been worse. 

Only problem is now they know I might actually cave, so in future it will be even harder to say no. That’s future me’s problem. I am going to blame it on the exhaustion of going back to work. Normal service will resume tomorrow. 🤞 🙏 

in_need_of_direction

Gorgeous pups

EatingBeans

Omg the college is having a laugh with this DofE stuff. dd2 had to take her stuff in for a kit check and apparently some of her stuff “isn’t good enough”. Apparently she needs a new sleeping bag - the one she took is a few years old but cost close to £100 new and I have used it plenty of times, I know it is good enough. And she needs a new fleece. Apparently her 3in1 fleece/waterproof combo (definitely wind/waterproof) isn’t sufficient. The girl is taking plenty of good layers to go underneath and when you are walking, layers are much better than one thick coat. Utterly crazy. I thought insisting on gaiters was bad enough but asking me to replace perfectly good stuff is insane. 

ellen_vannin

I'd challenge that.
Failing them backing down, claim they are discriminating, against people without the ability to buy all new 
Can they share/ borrow kit from anywhere?

themadvix

I agree, definitely push back against that and ask where she can borrow it from, if all else fails.

As the owner of a cat with plastic-eating tendencies, I totally understand the difficulties of naughty-pet ownership!

shirleytch

Hi Beans -  hope you are doing okay. I don’t know if you’ve seen but there is a promotion on TopCashback today. If you activate it you get a £2 credit against a purchase so just buy a £5 gift card for the supermarket and you will get £2 back plus the regular cashback.

Not to be sniffed at. Your girls can get accounts as well I’m sure my husband and I both have

EatingBeans

Turns out the fleece isn’t sufficient as it zips all the way down! Seriously?! And the sleeping bag doesn’t pack small enough! Honestly, it still has its own stuff bag and is pretty darn light imo. They even took issue with her gloves as they weren’t waterproof enough! My only consolation is I hadn’t actually been out and bought any of the things he turned away. Apparently kids were turning up with brand new stuff and his answer was “well I hope you kept the reciept because it’s not good enough!”. 😱 Poor kids. How to kill their excitement. Whenever anyone asked why, apparently the only answer he would give was that some really bad stuff happened to the group last year so they have to be really strict this year. Apparently, if they get so much as potential blister from touching something that is too hot or something, then they will be taking them to hospital. At this point I am beginning to wonder how safe this whole thing is because what on earth happened last year to make them so ridiculously paranoid? 

dd2 came home frazzled, ate pizza (which I bought en route with a Tesco gift card to claim the cash back), had a hug and and went to bed. 😕