Fantabulous February with the Friendly Frugaleers!

[Cagliostro]

Hello everyone, new thread time yet again!

Still in bed. Dh is meant to be making sausages and eggs for breakfast but he's asleep.

Had a great sleep in the spare room. Catface came in at around 5am and was meowing for something. I opened the curtains gave her some biscuits and then went back to sleep. Woke up again in daylight. Nice.

Ps I've had fair success in recent years growing raspberries. They yield quite a lot if fruit for the footprint they occupy, iyswim, and are expensive to buy.

Sorry, thanks to Wreck and Girlie. Did I get that wrong. Bit frantic here this week.

need your running sounds lovely. My little joy this week was getting some of my own writing published in my favourite newspaper. That always gives me a little burst of pride.

I would love to grow raspberries! My green-fingered friend has loads and they're always beautiful

Morning all I had a nice sleep as well, went to bed fairly early as was knackered and slept through till 8am, nearly 10 hours sleep

Mammy hope things are a bit easier this morning, is your dh still trying to address and improve his issues? I'm not sure I would want to live like that indefinitely....

Seacow thats rubbish re the OT, I guess it must vary area to area but our OT was very helpful. The original assessment was over an hour long and went through everything, it was followed up by a home visit and a detailed care plan. I also attended a days course on SPD which was so useful and I learnt loads. It might be worth a phone call to say your concerned some of your ds sensory issues seem to be getting worse and see if they can bump you up the list a bit.

Dd has riding in a bit (already paid for) and this afternoon I will be making a poodle birthday cake wish me luck!!

Aww Cath that's brilliant! Well done :)

A poodle cake! Gonna need a photo :o

Seacow yes make sure you mention the way his increasing issues are impacting his ability to live a normal life, if you sometimes can't get him out of the house etc. x

Thanks for the advice Girlie and Cag. I am going to write to the child development centre to query his overdue paediatric follow-up and very long wait for OT, and I will set out my concerns.

DS has just told me there is a baby in his tummy. I told him it was actually blueberry pancakes

I second the call to see the poodle cake!

Christmas I'll be very interested to hear how you handle NHS stuff. It's such a minefield and you know all about it from both sides.

Just got a cc bill for nearly £500. That's for all the baby stuff we've been buying including bedroom furniture from Ikea. I wouldn't mind but I'd paid off the cc in full last month which means we've spent that since the end of Jan.
We still need a bigger car and probably a laptop as we have nowhere for our big desktop once the spare room is officially the babies' room.
I'm starting to worry how we are going to afford everything once my maternity pay kicks in. We don't have a huge amount saved up.

I know what you mean Snuggly. I thought parenthood was all going to be about nice prams and babygrows, but it quickly turns into the added expense of replacing a worn out washing machine and getting the loft boarded and buying plywood to cover the front of the bookshelves to stop them being constantly emtied on to the floor. Good luck there.

You'll be ok snuggly

Asked dh yesterday to get the bottle of wine for my aunt, told him between 4-5£ because it's just a small acknowledgment. He rang me to say he got it at work, super I thought. Then when he came home he told me it cost 16£ which was cheap because restaurant price is 50£ [shock...
very nice wine but fgs why can't he just stick to the asked budget
Today I bought 2 Sofie Schnoor suits for 15£, cheap because they are normally 40£ a piece. my friend got them for Christmas for her daughter but they are small in size and after she washed them to small for her dd

Went riding. My instructor was really good. She said no riding after 6 months (she rode up to that point with her kids and had to stop because she needed to pee all the time!) and to not push myself. She's swapping me onto more of a placid plodder pony. Very responsive but won't do anything unless you ask. And no jumping. If at any point I feel unsure/uncomfortable I'm to tell her. So basically I can carry on until I dont feel happy doing it. £25.

Home now and dh has made eggs and sausages (finally). It was meant to be an omelette but was more like scrambled eggs! Super tasty though

We're having home made Chinese tonight. Yum. I was dreaming about crispy chillin beef last night. I'm finding I'm hungry all the time. Dr told me to eat normally but to space it out.

Off for afternoon tea with friend this afternoon. Yippee!!!

It's so weird Em isn't it that you can feel super pukey and yet ravenous?! Smaller amounts more often worked for me. Jealous of your sausage and egg I could murder a cooked breakfast right now! :o Sounds like a great plan with your riding instructor. :)

Yep. It's bizarre.

We told Bil 1 today. He is not the one getting married. He was super excited (but thanked us for putting the pressure on him now!! )

Still have to tell bil2. He may be upset. But his fiancé is preg too so he should hopefully understand not wanting to do a long haul flight. And if he doesn't she will!! We're Skyping him tomorrow.

Lovely sunny day today. Catface is super stressed though. It's tough being her.

Lovely day here. Dh treated me to a Ralph Lauren top and I got myself some skinnies from gap also got dd two tops and a pair of shorts for NZ and ds a t shirt. I wanted everything.

Looks lovely Wrecked.

Well done Cath, that's brill. Was it The Mail .

Spends.
£20 Aldi (cleaning produce and stuff for the horse box).

Need You know me. It's the Sunday Sport or nothing. I can't stick poor quality journalism.

NSD

Just about to get out of bed. Headache came back and was sick this morning. Think a trip to the drs will be needed next week.

BIL and kids are about to come round to stay til tomorrow lunchtime. On the plus side, DP had to change bedding (that he'd used all week due to being ill) and clear out the room (of mainly his stuff) for them

I may be anti social later once the kids are asleep and leave the men to play on the Xbox. I may take the cheesecake with me

£16 on gift and £18 on top up food as having friends for dinner tonight. Bit annoyed as wanted a nice green salad but could only find Iceberg lettuce, oh well.

Bit shocked at how high the energy prices are going - we have just fixed with Ovo. Have been very happy with them actually.

I have won a book on the MN bookclub board - yippee!

I love Gunwharf Wreck - we always go before we get the ferry on holiday so always feels like a beginning of the holiday treat!

Been Hope you feel better soon . My DH has been a bit snotty the last few days but not so unwell to be off work thankfully. It's his last day of his 4day cycle today, yippee. We were going to go to a craft fair tomorrow and have lunch there but I think it might have been cancelled . So I'm thinking we might go to the cinema and have lunch out there instead, we have an independent cinema that is really nice. Spendy but eh.

Today I spent...about £5 in the pharmacy on a foot warmer (don't ask, going to trial it as a bed for the guinea pigs) and heat protection spray. Then about another £5 in the grocers on lettuce and tomatoes (was a rip off I was gutted but I was too anxious to say no when she told me the price . At least I'm supporting local business though. £3 in the (independent) card shop on a valentines card for DH made by a local artist. And £3 in Sainsbos on milk and cookies...sooo thats £26 total spends and bad value for money as well really.

I had a lovely chat with an elderly man walking his daughter's schitsu (don't know how to spell that) when I walked back home though. I'm so desperate for a dog but DH can't be persuaded (yet ).

Oh and I love the cat sunbathing!

Spendy weekend. I met up with some work friends last night for a meal. One of the girls left two years ago as she got a job closer to home, so it was lovely to see her again. The meal was €36 each for 3 courses and a bottle of wine and we had one drink in a bar afterwards.

We're meeting up with some friends tonight for a 40th birthday. We're staying in and getting a Chinese take away.

MIL and FIL have offered us €500 towards the cost of doing some renovations in the house. We didn't ask them, honest. DH just casually mentioned that there are a few things we'd like to do around the house. It turns out they've recently benefited from an investment so they're giving a donation to each of their children. It's extremely generous of them.