Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 14: Calmly through the day

[MissConductUS]

I've started a new one. Please join us and share the boring and mundane things happening in your world. It will be calming for all.

rhubarb we also have a no man's land in the garden, neglected for many years. Last year in lockdown DBIL started clearing it for us and we've carried on doing so. Very satisfying when I pull a huge ivy vine, 30 foot long, like hauling in a ships anchor!

It's about 3/4 done, it definitely keeps us busy.
( for the wildlife there's a further woodland area below which will stay untouched)

We need more dog food. I normally order the dog food, but find it much easier to do so when I'm told we're running low

As luck would have it, DH is driving past the (30 miles away) dog food shop which will save us the delivery cost and means DDogs will not starve to death overnight.

However DH (who firmly believes that such things as dog food magically appear in the house rather than, you know someone actually ordering them and arranging delivery) has forgotten to go to the dog food shop and has sailed past on his merry way home. Apparently because I didn't tell him what we needed, not because he forgot you see.

I had a completely rubbish night last night, had to take a hayfever tablet at 5am as my face was exploding. Switched my alarm off at 7.30 and then slept through til 10.55 🤦‍♀️ Good job my boss knows what I’ve been through and is happy to let me get on with it

Teams does not want me to use it!
So I mail people.
I switched the heater on it is cold here!

DH has gone to the office again but will come home for lunch. Silkiecat had industrial levels of tuna which seems to have worked, both kids at school.

I'm also taking lots of anti-histamines otherwise I get allergic asthma but the non-drowsy ones seem to make me very sleepy. I was puzzled but on the market says non-drowsy, warning can cause drowsiness in some people. Though started taking them just before want to sleep.

DS did PE yesterday, first time this year though seems to now be avoiding art.

market = box

Just had brocolli and stilton soup with nice bread and butter and chocolate cake. A magpie has appeared on the roof and is being rather loud making this noise over and over:

www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/magpie/

I like broccoli and stilton.

I'm doing a huge casserole thing to use up my overflow of vegetables, a cabbage, 2 onions, 2 carrots, mushrooms have gone in. Puy lentils and loads of paprika, garlic, ginger, stock, etc. Not sure how this will turn out. I've got a feeling I'll be living off it for a week.

Hello, DH and me have a day off today, and we had to get some shopping in. As I got out the car I realised I still had my crocs on(use them for popping into the garden)

After my initial embarrassment and some piss taking from DH, went and did the shop and came home and am not traumatised by it. so yaay

DH is back for lunch and Silkiecat is letting him know he's in trouble for going to work this morning.

Welcome, @NewYearNewTwatName, and thanks for sharing your footwear and shopping news. I don't have crocs, but I do knock about in these a lot:

www.hokaoneone.com/womens-recovery-sandals/ora-recovery-slide/1099674.html

They are so comfortable it's easy to forget I have them on.

Crikey, it was -2 C this morning. It felt like a time warp back to February. I had to put out four bags of old clothes the Red Cross is coming for later today to do a charity pickup.

DS has an interview this afternoon for a remote paid summer internship in the tax department of a technology company based in Boston. It's 30 hours a week with some flexibility, which would be lovely as he's going to be helping to care for DH and me after our surgeries. For a while, he was looking at internships that would require him to go away for the summer. Since we've already lost DD for the summer, we really want him home if possible.

I’m in a pensions presentation on teams. It’s quite complicated!

My lentil and vegetable casserole was really nice but I can't work out why or which country/countries it was emulating?

Ok so hot paprika, smoked paprika, tomato puree, stock, star anise, fresh ginger and garlic. Can't put my finger on it.

Fingers crossed for DS MissC, job sounds interesting

Sunbird, it is and it's probably even more complicated in the US as we have so many different types of retirement accounts. DH is very savvy financially and still hired a financial planner to review everything. We're hoping to retire in 3-4 years.

Save as much as you can!

Miss I’m lucky as I have an employer contribution pension, so I’ll get that on top of the state pension allowance. I don’t have a private pension but I do have a rental property which gives me an additional monthly income (less quite a lot of tax, but that will get better after I retire).

I finished working for today - tomorrow I will go into the office and get some work done. There is software trouble so I'll probably have to phone a helpdesk
Cold and grey here, but DS's GP phoned to let us know he'll get his vacc. next week, which is great. A place where he knows all the people since forever.

You are lucky Sunbird. The only people who still have active private pension plans in the US have government or union jobs. Private employers have all moved from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans. If you vested in the pension plan before the change you'll still get whatever you earned but they've closed them to new contributions.

We still have the government pension, aka social security, but it is only designed to replace about a third of your income at retirement.

I'm torn between utter boredom and utter fascination over pensions. It's one of my 2021 missions to amalgamate all mine and possibly look to pay extra on top so I can supplement my retirement with hedonistic living.

In boring news, someone has scratched the big car. I know where it happened and it's a result of the other car parking too close and pushing their door against mine in order to get out. The damage is so minor that it will probably polish out, but I'm very annoyed nonetheless.

The charity shops are all still closed here but I managed to give away DSs old school trousers (which he has just suddenly grown out of) to someone on the village Facebook group.

Just done a long walk in some pretty countryside, with a stop halfway round at a pub for cider. In the sun. Very nice.

champagne that's so annoying about your car, hope it polishes away.

A pub! What's that? (Not open here, and we haven't even been told when...). I'm not a big pub-goer (was in my youth, but I'm old now) but I would so love to sit in the sun outside a pub with a pint...(sunny here although not very warm).

thedudesmummy it was medium busy. A bit shady, cold later on, with ice in my drink. Lovely though, they opened last Monday.

Next doors cat is staring at me. It is very timid, but at a distance it's going all soppy and rolling over like it wants to play.

Bars and pubs have been open here for quite a while, at reduced capacity.

At our last house the neighbor's cat would sit on our deck and groom himself while our cats watched him through the sliding glass door. Based on his activities we named him Butt Lick.

Pensions are both boring and fascinating. According to DH, the key figure is how much we will need or want to spend in retirement. That's hard to know exactly. Also, since our personal retirement accounts are heavily invested in stocks it's hard to know that they'll be worth. I find the whole topic a bit stressful.

All sounds good, @Sunbird24 :) you deserve some good news.

Regarding the car, DH has un kindly pointed out that it's probably the fact the car is clean that the mark shows. He feels that in its usual state of gentle decomposition the mark will be invisible