NST May 2018: May the odds be ever in your favour!

sashanut - are you able to upload photos, I would love to see one of your kitten.

Yesterday was spendy. DS wanted to light the chimenea and toast marshmallows so the kids and DH went to get some and also came back with dog chews and 3 packets of doritos so £4 spent there. However that pales into insignificance as I spent £23.45 on 4 BNWT bra's on ebay, 2 pairs of knickers (2 bras were red and I had no red knickers and I like to match) £11 there, a pair of shorts for £8 (again BNWT but half the price of buying from the actual shop), a bottle of salicylic acid for £6.30 and a tub of nutritional yeast £2.45. Oh dear.

Last few days have been quite spendy so I'm still on 1 NSD :rotfl:

Going to eat with some friends later but i have chosen somewhere relatively cheap. :money:

Will spend the day having some "me time" in the park reading my book. :j

Hope everyone is having a lovely Bank Holiday so far.

I'm grateful for sunny days, time off work to rest and opportunities to spend time with friends. :T

Sorry for my absence - the laptop had a mini meltdown and when I got back on I was locked out of everything - email, pinterest, forum and some very peculiar things suggested by utoob. Had to find the code book and then log back in (still not tried a SM shop). Also my earlier bedtime and limiting screen time isn't helping with being here.

Washing line has been knotted back together again but am using garden chairs and the waterbutt for the heavier items (will replace the line when I find someone selling the proper thick ones, preferably with a wire inner).

Gave the washing machine a trial run, it worked but leaked a bit. Fully unscrewed the filter and declogged it. put it back and finished with pliers. Working fine now. Have dealt with the mini flood - sunshine did some of it. Lots of washing done - have changed the sheets several times as it is so hot and they get sticky.

Old bedcover has had its day. I did try to repair it when I was convalescing 3 years ago but it wasn't working so decided to use it as long as I could. The silk side is all gone, the middle layer is coming off / gone into hard lumps. It's finally lost all its softness, but have worked out that it is at least 15 years old and its got me through winter (as an addition to the duvet) so will let it go. One of the pillow cases has ripped across but it was one of my grandma's and she's been dead for 38 years so that can go too.

Started again on the craft pile. Did the 'toolbox' first - it fell off the drawers one night last week so have once again sorted all the pens, scissors, brushes, tapes, sticky fixers, glue sticks and other assorted bits. Then I sorted 'paper bits' into sheets to use, templates, larger templates, ideas, pictures and cut out bits (toppers mainly but some need additional embellishment). Found boxes to hold pots of buttons, embroidery stuff then separated again when I found moreplus sequins, 'gems' (too fiddley for most of the craft club, so I am using them by making them into small animals/ flowers etc).

Went through about 4 more trays (due to previous sorting I seem to have lots of trays with only a small amount of stuff on each) and 2 bags (the one I took to crafts last week and one from a while ago). Used a roll of wrapping paper, a brush and various parts of my anatomy to clear out under the drawers, the space between the drawers and the bed and whatever other bits I could reach.

Finally cleared a space across my bed, got to the window and opened it and sprayed anti-mould on parts of it (don't want to bleach the curtains and when it gets dark enough to need the light on I would be visible to everyone on the carpark if I pull the curtain all the way back).

Lots of recycling and washing up done, cooking has been mainly using up odds and ends from the freezer. Today I have done a proper shop at Icyland so it's a spendy day but not adding to my total as mum owes me for items bought in the last two weeks so she paid for the whole bill - got everything on her list and mine (plus DS3's suggestions).

I will be working into the night as I need to have this craft stuff nailed down. The end is in sight but it is so easy to start hunting for particular items then a tray gets dislodged and it's back to square one. I have narrowed down my list to 6-7 items we can be working on over the next two months, mostly using the same basic components. I will set aside a small box for stray Christmas and halloween items, make up a Spring/easter section and may do a bit more prep when I have time. Bought another roll of labels to bag bits and label them (so the original roll should appear anytime now).

My elephant for the rest of the month will be to make it so that I can walk from the front door to the back without having to step over/ go round anything. Should be simple but I counted 11 bags (some empty but mostly not) between the front door and the door from the living room to the stairs/ kitchen). The parcel with the small cube shelves in it has been treated as a 'hall table' - all DS2's letters are on it and the roomba was there for a while (it's supposed to live under their bed when it's not being used).

This week's paper task is to do homework for Thursday's appointment with the therapist.

Today I am grateful for my washing machine continuing to function (and all the other gadgets I need - must look for my can opener again, beloved's is useless on some cans), for the sunshine and the heat, for hot baths and cool sheets, for having 'enough', for getting better at letting go of things instead of trying to repair them when thay have reached hte end of their life (or putting them 'away' with the intention of trying to repair them at some unspecified future date), for charity shops and bargain shops and shops that deliver, for empty coathangers (I have a cunning plan), for being able to sort a few small areas of my life out, for good escapist reads.

Counted all the coins i have found whilst trawling through the other stuff and so far it's £20.17

Oh lawks, I don't think I've checked in for about 5 days... I've skimmed through 5 days of posts *looks embarrassed*

I can't remember if it was Dolly or Raphael with concerns about stress fractures from running. I had a similar concern last year; it was a very sharp pain in a specific area and it came on rather quickly in each run. It stopped me lifting as well (so quite a serious issue!). I asked a friend who runs ultras about it all and realised that my trusty trainers had probably done about 5 times the suggested mileage. I got a new pair (bearing in mind my previous, previous pair had also probably done 3-4 times the suggested mileage) and was fine; I suspect if I'd tried to carry on any longer I would have ended up with a stress fracture. I did wear the old one pair one last time last year as they were proper trail runners and I went for a half marathon distance cross country uphill (not a race, just hubby and I killing time one morning!) and I didn't want to risk slipping. They were OK for that, just, but I did get rid of them after to remove temptation. As it was it turned out it I was preggo at the time, my hips fell out immediately and that also removed temptation. That's a really long story, but the moral of it is, when did you last replace your running shoes?

Oh and Dolly, I very much enjoy overtaking cyclists going uphill when running - it makes my day! I'm actually an endurance weightlifter rather than a runner and enjoy lifting what the blokes do, because I'm a girl and I wear pink . I know it's totally stupid but whatever keeps you motivated, go for it

Back to budgets -
Groceries: 127/200 - this looks terrible, this month it included all my maternity toiletry items (if you get what I mean!), batch cook ingredients and some more 'prepared' ingredients rather than the bare ingredients I usually buy as my back is getting worse. Basically gives c.£25 per week, next week's shopping list comes to £6 so I'm not overly concerned
Personal: 0/22.04
Diesel: 30/30 - gotta last the month!
NSDs: 4/19 - cross about this, I had a big shop delivered, the day before I went to a different shop and bought the bits that the online supermarket said they didn't have. Delivery turns up minus all the important bits, with impossible substitutions! Ended up going to a third supermarket the following morning... I do online shopping because walking round shops is painful, ended up doing more than if I'd just sucked it up and done one big shop and made my own choices.

Grateful for:
Hubby is safely home after a month away :j
Hubby being home when I had the worst day with my back and hips I've had in my pregnancy
The NHS
A 'personalised growth chart' for my baby bump showing that I am not "measuring small", I am just "measuring small" because I am small! I love common sense