Come and tell us your dull and unexciting news 32: 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.

Here is a link to the prior thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5148913-come-and-tell-me-your-dull-and-unexciting-news-31-calmly-through-the-day

Welcome to all regulars, lurkers, and new contributors! Everyone is welcome to join.

Note there is one minor change to the thread title. "tell me your dull news" has been changed to "tell us...". I thought it was more in keeping with the spirit of the thread.

I used to make bread regularly many years ago @Deathraystare but stopped for a while - then got into making sourdough (but not during lockdown, funnily enough, when so many people did!).

I must admit I had to refresh my memory re the pressure-cooker. We’ve had it for quite a while and I always forget how very useful they are. My beef stew was on for 20 minutes and it’s lovely and tender.

I love it, it really lifts my mood and helps with arthritis. I started going a couple of years ago, and I hadn’t been in a pool in over 20 years. For a long time I was too self-conscious to be seen in a swimsuit. The first time I went I was absolutely terrified, and I must’ve looked it too, ‘cos the lady on the desk asked me if I was sure I wanted to do it 😂 I said ‘it’s now or never!’ and she told me to just stay close to the side. I’ll always remember that day, it seems silly now, but I felt like I’d overcome a massive obstacle in my life (myself).

If you’ve been able to swim in the past, you may well find that you can still do it, you just need to practice and build your confidence and distance up again. I’d highly recommend 🤗

Well we have another layer of snow and school has closed. Though watching the news we got off lightly.
I love swimming and take dd every week but she likes to mess about rather than do lengths. I really need to find the time to go on my own once a week. In university I was 5 minutes walk from the pool. I went every other day and swam 100 lengths. It really helped to clear my head and get my thoughts in order. I suppose it was mindful before I had heard of that. Even more so in todays age of 24 hour news and smart phones.

Dandy: Snow Daaaaay!!!!!!!! 😁❄️☃️
I used to swim a lot, too. So meditative!

This is it.

Vitamin C Brightening Cream Cleanser | Garnier UK

Of course you can get it anywhere - Boots, Morrisons, I got it in Sainsburys.

Whoah.. !!

Everyone is talking about snow days ..
I need more on @HildaTablet 20 minutes stew !! 🤣🤗🤗😁

Toe is proving a little bit of a question for lots of people !

(I was being polite!!)

But in the meantime ...in order to occupy my self ...mam had to be taken to doctors.

She kept saying she was fine .. blah .,blah...

GP IS. Good and saw her.
Viral sinus and that throat thing that I can't spell!

Got her home .
Did housework.
Did food order
Cooked her a lovely meal ( even if I do say so my self 🤗)

She is settled and happy.

Back home now to snotty and coughing other person 🤢!

Bought him some more medicine while I was out ...

Moi right now 😷😷😷😷😷😷 !! 😁😁😁🤣

After having flu before chr and a stinking cold after it my sense of smell is finally coming back.

20 minutes in the pressure-cooker @bizzey! I browned all the meat first, then gave the veg five minutes to get it going - put it all together and added some stock, then put it on the hob and gave it 20 minutes of pressure. Tbh I didn’t think that would be enough but it was fine. A small miracle, in fact!
I think an Instant Pot is a similar thing to a pressure cooker nowadays?

Welcome, @CharlotteCChapel, and thanks for posting your dull news. I'm sorry you've been poorly.

Bizzey, it snowed here today, too, despite the forecast saying it would stay to our south.

And what a day it has been. Five blokes showed up promptly at 8:00 to take out the cabinets and start removing the tile floor. The cabinets came down pretty easily. The floor they had to hammer up, as the tiles are cemented to the subfloor. There was a lot of dust, but after it settled out of air, I hoovered up the worst of it. At least the stove still works.

Here are some before and after pictures.

And one more after picture that wouldn't fit on the earlier post.

I have noticed ...that everyone's before photos of their kitchen renovations ....still look nicer than my real life /now kitchen 🤣🤣

Even when their cabinets get ripped out !

Wow 😳 They really weren’t hanging about, @MissConductUS!

No, they weren't! They were hardworking blokes indeed. They left at 2:00 PM because the roads were getting bad due to the snow, which stopped a little later.

Welcome @CharlotteCChapel! Hope you're better soon.

I hope your mam feels better, bizzey. Good on you for masking up.

Swimming sounds wonderful, Dandy but I find it hard to learn. I can float but I can't put my face in the water. It's very frightening and if it goes up my nose, it's very painful and produces a lot of phlegmy stuff.

That stew sounds amazing, @HildaTablet. My DH roasts meat and veg every Saturday but I might persuade him to make a pressure stew.

What a palaver with the kitchen, Miss. I've been very lucky with kitchens and though ours is old, it's white gloss with chrome rod handles so looks contemporary. I don't think I could stand the building site of putting one in.

Today I have written a supporting statement and rewritten my CV for a new job. I'm hoping to apply tomorrow. I will be very excited if I get an interview.

I was called by the specialist about ankle surgery. I was put on a two year waiting list in October and was given a steroid injection in November. I can't have the surgery until six months after the injection. A week after the injection the hospital rang to ask if I could come in and have surgery in early December. I explained about the injection and was put back on the list. They called again today to offer me surgery at the end of January. Again I explained but they said they would call back in April. So I might have the surgery this year.

DH and I then booked our holiday for June. I told him I might be in plaster by then and he said not to worry and if they do call back in April I can tell them I have a holiday booked. He seems laissez faire about it, but it's equally possible I'll still be waiting till late 2026. He is always clear about dealing with why we know now, rather than second guessing what might happen. It's quite mindful.

I had to do the booking and it took payment but said there was a problem. I then had to call them and they said they will take a manual payment later and then send me the tickets. Hopefully they will arrive tomorrow.

My SIL also messaged to rearrange our catch up to tomorrow rather than Wednesday, which will be a lovely treat to go round and have coffee and a chat.

That's all today's news. Sleep well everyone x

Lots to read here!
Fog has settled in again. It's 4c atm, so a bit chilly.
Have made a pot of chicken veg wonton soup. ☺️

Myrtle, I hope you get the surgery soon!
Miss, tour crew sure got a lot done today!
Bizzey, hope your mum feels better soon. You and ds, too!
Hilda, glad you're still here. I've never used a pressure cooker.
@CharlotteCChapel I lost my sense of taste and smell with covid in '23. And last year, with covid 2x, always smelled a weird burning. It was maddening. And worrying!
Orlando, the swimming talk us making me feel like going back to the pool. 🙂

Soup was very good. Just waiting for baby to fall asleep the going to have a piece of banana bread... with a bit of froyo, I think. 😋

Does anyone know what these emojis mean? 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↔️
(Is it nodding yes and no?)

That is an interesting shaped room MissC to fit a kitchen into, do you have to have things custom made to fit that corner?
Havoc I loved taking my little ones swimming. I managed to find lessons locally in a small pool. They took my 3 year old in a class on one side of the pool whilst I had lessons with the baby in the other part. It was a bit of a juggle getting everyone dressed but we all enjoyed it and they slept well afterwards. We tend to swim on holidays so I’m glad they both learned.
We woke up to more snow and it has snowed since but fortunately both schools opened and I managed to drive dd in. There was a van crashed into a hedge and lots of ice so not looking forward to school run later.

@MyrtleStrumpet, there was no hope for my old kitchen. It was original to the house, so 38 years old and the cabinets and worktops were not great quality to begin with. The old cabinets were literally falling apart.

@DandyDandylion, that one angled wall is a bit tricky. Our front hall closet is on the other side of the wall. My builder has a carpenter who will make an angled filler board for a standard cabinet and the new quartz worktop will be cut to fit the angled section.

My cabinets have arrived! They are in boxes in the garage, and yes, we have a lot of new cabinets! Hopefully, they will finish taking up the tile floor today and start installing the cabinets tomorrow or Thursday. My new sofa and loveseat are out for delivery, so I'll post a picture of those once they are here.

Yes Hilda; an Instant Pot is an electric pressure cooker. You just set it and leave it to get on with it. When the programme is complete, it automatically switches to Keep Warm, for up to 10 hours. I wouldn't be without mine.

@sueelleker ...so is an instant pot like a slow cooker but quicker ?

And a pressure cooker goes in the hob (the gas ring ) ?

@sueelleker, another fan of the Instant Pot here! DH makes Mongolian Beef in ours.

I think the electricians will be here for the rest of the afternoon. They have a lot to do.

My new sofa and loveseat have been delivered! 😃

I think we have an Instant Pot. My DH boils eggs in them and forgets to get them out but it's never a problem because they are kept warm.

An old fashioned pressure cooker was a big saucepan with a dial on the lid to increase pressure. You cooked stuff in it on the hob then gradually loosened the dial to reduce pressure.

I have been out today to see SIL which was fun as one of her two dogs decided I was a cushion and sat on my lap all afternoon. My GP has authorised another oestrogen blood test to see if the bioidentical HRT is now working. I applied for a job and those I sent my draft application to said it was great. Yay!

I complained to Waterstones that the items I ordered on New Year's Eve are stuck in processing. It will take 7-10 days to reply because of the backlog. So my calendar will probably be a month old if when I finally arrives.

The holiday people sent a confirmation of the holiday so we are now going, as long as we hand over eleventy million pounds before June.

@bizzey, it's a little complicated. The instant pot has a tight sealing top that lets it cook at high pressure, but it's electric, so it does not go on the hob. It's very quick. It does Mongolian Beef, which is a stew, in 10 minutes and the beef comes out very tender. I think it also has slow cook settings, but I've never used them. The whole point is that it's really quick. Mine is about five years old, so it doesn't look exactly like these, but the general idea is the same.

https://instantpot.com/collections/instant-pot

That's the American site, I'm sure there is a British equivalent.

I'm going to pop up and see what the electricians are doing. After they removed the tile floor, the kitchen was very dusty, but they hoovered.

Slow cooker! That's what I was thinking.
I've never used one. And never used a pressure cooker either.