Teetering on the brink

SuzeQStan

Ooh loving the sound of 9 in 10 work week - wish my employers would think about adopting that!  Happy Friday EB - you’re doing great keep going! 👍🏻👍🏻😊😊

EatingBeans

Happy Friday @SuzeQStan ! 

I’ll be honest, until a colleague mentioned in passing that a meeting I was booking in was clashing with her ‘non-working day’ and we struck up a conversation about it, I had absolutely no idea that my employer would consider 9 in 10 either. I’d worked there years at that point and no where on the company website or in the employee handbook had any mention of it, but as soon as I asked, it was amazingly easy to set up. I believe there has been a change somewhere along the line about how employers have to treat requests for flexible working and it makes it easier to get now. Of course it still would be a challenge for many jobs where it wouldn’t work for practical reasons, but I am led to believe that lots of traditional office jobs are now accepting of it even if they don’t advertise it. I can’t imagine giving it up for anything now!

EatingBeans

I have tv again!  Woop woop! 🎉
Remote has been connected, wifi settings changed, tv remote returned to packaging. 🤣 I was in half a mind to just return it but that feels a little harsh when someone has paid to post it to me in good faith. So instead I have decided to pop it in the draw with all the old cables in the vague hope that next time I swop the wifi I remember where I have put it and can dig it out again. 

Needless to say my good mood has continued all day. I posted an item I sold on Vinted and bought some stamps as I had run out. I grabbed some more medication - it still amuses me that the one shop where they all remember me by name is the drug dispensers!😬 I had planned to get a bit of dog food to tide us over and had roped dd2 in as my ‘pack horse’ to carry it home again, but the new big sack showed up just as we were leaving the house, so no need for any extra anymore. Also, I should point out that I didn’t actually need someone to carry anything home, I was really just using it as an excuse to take her with me so we could have a natter as we went, and also to give her an opportunity to earn a bit of extra food shopping as I could tell she was getting low. The sack turning up kind of scuppered that plan but I still wanted to give her some extra food and it is always better if she feels she has earned it, so instead of dog food I decided to properly treat myself and bought a microwaveable meal, some chocolate and a bottle of WINE! Honestly, I felt like I had had a MASSIVE splurge, but even once I added in the milk, cereal and pizza for dd2, it still only came to just over £23.75 so I am still on track for the month. Now I know just a few months ago I wouldn’t have even registered that as spending anything but today that felt like I’d gone mad splashing the cash. I mean WINE! When does that ever happen?! Er, never. Last bottle I bought was some time in 2024. 🤣 

So now I am going to end my very relaxed Friday by sitting down with my microwaveable meal (also something I literally never buy but I really fancied), I am going to pour myself a glass, (or maybe two 😬) and thoroughly enjoy another episode of the Night Agent. Cheers to many more of these ‘non working days’! 🍷

Now all I have to do is remember not to drink too much of the wine and keep enough back to make some delicious chilli for the freezer! 😋

SuzeQStan

Your diary is so inspiring - that’s put a smile on my face - your good mood is catching! 😊😊 enjoy that vino - you deserve it after your LBM & hard work 🍾🍷👍🏻

redofromstart

I hope you enjoy the wine. and the chocolate.

Cherryfudge

Being happy and knowing it is a great thing.  

EatingBeans

Morning all. Another glorious day has dawned! 👋

Glad to report that I thoroughly enjoyed my yummies yesterday. 😋 I think someone got a bit confused when they designed my microwaveable meal though, as it came with an onion bhaji that was not microwaveable and had to go in the oven on its own for 15minutes. 🤔No way would I usually heat a whole oven just for that and I did wonder just how many ended up in the bin, but, since the oven was already hot from dd2’s pizza I opted to chuck it in and it actually turned out pretty nice. My chocolate got shared with dd1 as she happened to come home just as we walked back in the door and looked thoroughly disappointed that dd2 and I had chocolate and we hadn’t bought her any. And I had one large glass of wine (which was delicious😋), before deciding that was actually enough as I wanted to enjoy it but not wake up with a hangover. So, lots left to make the chilli and maybe also have another glass of wine this evening. 👍

The puppies are bounding around with the joys of spring this morning. Having suitably topped up with food, they are off playing a great game of bitey face and tug of war with their toys. There is something about watching two equally nutty labradors playing that just warms my heart.😍

dd2 has already left for work. I still haven’t quite got used to her leaving before I’ve even got out of bed. She says, “morning, bye, see you tomorrow, love u”. Her shifts are insanely long and she regularly leaves before I get up and doesn’t come home until after I have gone to bed. She’s on a zero hour contract but all shifts they assign are compulsory and some weeks she ends up working more hours in her part time job than I’ve done in my full time job! Great for saving money but not great for her health given that she also attends college full time. After several conversations she built up the courage to raise it with work (I am very proud of her for this!) and now they have agreed to limit her hours to about 20 a week. Still excessive imo but she seems happy with the balance now so happy days. 😁

As usual, I started the day with a quick survey - Prolific this time - then reconciled all my accounts and checked my budgets. All looking good. 👍 I even managed to remember to drink my coffee while it was still hot! 😁

Jobs for today, apart from the usual laundry and general cleaning, is to go through all the food I currently have and make a meal plan for the week, then on to more listing. 

I also intend to go through everything that I listed over a week ago and tidy up the listings/lower the prices. I have LOTS of unused clutter in this house so no real need to hold out for the very best prices. If all my debt was at 0% then maybe I would be more inclined to be patient and wait, but in my head I am effectively paying interest on the value of the ‘stuff’ for all the time it just sits in my house rather than paying down the debt, so I might as well get shot early. Based on previous experience, reducing the debt is also more likely to encourage Barclaycard to start offering 0% deals again and that would help save me big chunks of interest which would almost certainly outweigh the difference between a high price and a lower price on the things I am currently selling. No guarantee obviously, but given the impending ends to my current 0% deals I am willing to give it a go.

ellen_vannin

Your posts sound lovely and cheerful the last couple of days.
Wine treat sounds just what you needed.
We did the same this week and spent £12 on the Tesco meal deal.
This included a bottle of Malbec, lasagne for two, creamed spinach and 2 lovely trifles. Cheaper than a meal out and nearly as good.
I was going to suggest you lower prices but you are ahead of the game.
Great idea.
Sunny here hope it is where you are.
Good luck with the listings.

EatingBeans

Things are challenging my happy mood status today. 🫣

I opened the post to yet another threatening letter from the dentist! I mean seriously, since when did dentists think this was an appropriate way to drum up business?! I realise that I am lucky to even have a dentist so I could kind of understand if the letter was saying something like, if you keep cancelled appointments we will strike you off our list, but it doesn’t. Instead they send a letter which implies that if I cancel my child’s check up again they will report me to social services for neglect! Seriously? It’s not like I keep cancelling, I cancelled once because I realised it clashed with the event dd2 needed to attend at college where she has to apply for her next year of college (kind of important right?), and when I called them I didn’t want to just make another appointment immediately as I wanted dd2 around so we could compare schedules and ensure we could both attend. Oh, and it’s not like noone has seen her teeth in ages, she had an orthodontist appointment 3 days later that she DID attend. Priorities guys ok. Now, ordinarily this letter might have been enough to chip away at my happy mood, but in fact I just laughed at it. Clearly they are desperate. I say this because this is the second of these letters I have received, the first being about dd1. Who, as I pointed out when I called them back, is 18, i.e., an ADULT! Yes, she has chosen not to go for a regular check up but what would they like me to do, drag her there?! She is under the care of an excellent consultant orthodontist who I can guarantee would say something if he had any concerns whatsoever. (He is a real perfectionist and seems very invested in her end result). She’s been seeing him for years, hell, I’ve even been to see him as a private patient as I think he is so good. The man is a genius when it comes to teeth. So no, dear local dentist, we are not going to bow to your threats of social services for a grown adult. Or indeed her sister. We will come when we are ready, not because you try to intimidate us!

So yeah. Happy day continued…

I popped the pups back into their crates for their morning snooze and got to work on my daily task of picking up all the random bits of cardboard they have had fun shredding, along with the crazy amount of dog toys they manage to spread everywhere everyday and popped them all back into their toy box. (It’s like having toddlers I swear. I put all their toys away, and as soon as they hit play time again they root through the whole box and empty the contents onto the floor because they always want to play with the one at the bottom 🤣). Anyway, cardboard binned, toys away, time to send the robot vacuum around. These little machines are a great invention imo. Yes, they will never quite be as good as the upright Dyson but they are great for the quick daily wizz around to keep the dog hair down to a ‘reasonable’ level. I mean Labradors moult, a lot. If you have a problem with dog hair, maybe don’t get a Labrador. I just accept it is part of the deal (and the girls buy lint rollers in bulk🤣) but I do like clean floors. Not only does the robot vacuum reduce the time spent vacuuming, but it also forces people to regularly remove shoes, bags and basically anything that might get eaten from the living spaces. My robot vacuum therefore matters to me, and my dd’s know that so they are really good at making sure they don’t kill it. Soooo…. Guess what happened this morning? Hmm. Can you guess…?

Well, just before I popped pups in their crates, Little dog had been up to her usual counter surfing in the kitchen (nothing there but she was just checking), and as she dropped back down to all fours, she landed on the edge of the hoover. It lives under the kitchen unit and just sticks out a fraction when it is charging so every now and again someone knocks it and it pops out, realigns itself and goes back on charge, no problem. The old one did the same no bother. Only this time Little dog managed to land on top of it. It came out, did a little ‘I am lost’ dance, and, knowing I was about to use it I just hit pause whilst I put the pupsters away. I went back, emptied it’s little dust bin and cleared its roller… hit the autoclean button and… it span around and around backwards, followed by the harrowing sound of “main wheel error, please contact Customer Services!”  NOOOOO!!!!!  I cannot be without this aide in my life! I mean, obviously I can, in fact, live without, but the thought of having to go back to actively hoovering every day about made me stop being happy. 😩 Then I remembered that this particular little machine isn’t actually that old and I still have the box 😉, so I looked back at Amazon and I bought it in September. I am absolutely going to fight this one for a replacement or a refund. I don’t know that Little dog landing on it caused the issue, (and I couldn’t be mad at her if I tried), so I am going to call faulty! I really cannot afford the £200 odd to replace it right now but I absolutely will fish it out of the replacements pot if I have to. For now though, the days of manual hoovering everyday beings and I have already written an e-mail to Customer Services to try and get a replacement. 🤞

Thankfully, the sun is out and shining through the window so that has managed to keep this set back from denting my mood too much. Maybe a little dink, but I can bounce back from that. 😁

joedenise

I'm with you about the robot hoover.  I've only had mine a few months and there's only 2 of us here and no pets but I still like to send it round every other day to keep on top of the bits on the carpet and to wash the hard floors!  We only have carpet in the living room and bedrooms so most of the bungalow is hard floors and it's so much easier than washing them with a mop, although that happens from time to time!  I'd definitely be replacing mine when it needs it.  

Can I ask what make you have as I definitely paid more than £200!