Remember remember it's frugal November

[LonelyOversharer]

Woo hoo! I've never done the new thread before!

Same here re DC and petrol.

Oh meadow, poor you on the continued sickness. And I’m also sorry the family think having a baby is going to impede your career. It won’t if you don’t want it to, it’s just logistics and determination if you want it enough. And who knows how you feel until you have that baby in your arms. But I’m mainly feeling crap for how long you’ve felt crap bless you.

I did love the hedgehog pics and the cakes were amazing.

We don’t even own a microwave, haven’t for 5 years. Don’t miss it and hate the clutter (saddo, me), our neighbours microwave the Christmas pud for us

Ah meadow sorry you are feeling grin still. How many weeks along are you now?

I have a cooks works cheap microwave. It's fine.
I've had a bit more of a clear out. Sold some bits, charity and rubbish.

Question frugaleers- does anyone do car boot sales. Will loads of out grown toys, clothes, bits of household stuff, books and maybe kids dvds seek ok or an I eating my time and chazzer it?

Christmas pudding in the slow cooker need?

I seem to be in credit for my gas and electric ATM as well @need. Very strange as I've had the heating on everyday! Very unfrugal of me.

Gosh we use our microwave several times a day! Sterilising bottles but also defrosting/ hearing all the individual portions of stuff I batch cook for DS. And beans take much longer on the hob!

Lonely you really are so talented. I wish you would change your name to something knitty again! And sounds as though you are doing really well on shifting yarn and some stock.

Lovely pic Em

How far along are you Meadow? Hopefully you'll turn a corner soon.

Mammy just wondering how things are going with DH now?

We've had a good day - after a very difficult day with DS yesterday (I'll spare you the details 💩) he's been lovely today. And somehow it's worked out that DH has had DD for much of the day and I've been around DS more. And he's been delightful - lots of cuddles and tickles and some messing around outside while I weeded and pruned the garden a bit (it is still a terrible mess though ).

Jamie's 5 ingredient tikka chicken roast tonight. There will be lots of chicken left but it will taste of curry so not sure what I'll do with it - probably just lunches /sandwiches. I hope I don't live to regret cooking it directly on the oven shelf! Smells great anyway.

Now, I had completely forgotten but now remembered to look out my old Clear Blue ovulation monitor. Not sure who was interested though - was it you Love? Anyway, I haven't found the manual yet, although I know I have it, so will look for that too. Let me know if you are still interested.

My microwave gets me out the shit frequently.

meadow Our relative who's in law has done exceptionally well but she had to be back at work 6 weeks after her children were born. Any longer wasn't feasible & there's a lot of socialising at law society dinners & going to events to network. She is the most intelligent person I know & their children are lovely.

life I've heard car boots are awful places. Plus it's winter, you'll be freezing.

Glad it’s not just me missing!

life, I just always forget about the pud in the SC until it’s too late, with all the hustle and bustle of Christmas Day. So it gets sent to the neighbours. Re car boot, my friend says don’t bother scrubbing and cleaning and sorting, folk seem to go for the piles of crap, thinking they will find a gem.

Meadow i know a barrister who took 2x 9 month maternity leaves and now mostly works 4-day weeks. That's in a central London chambers. Things are changing slowly. I also think that career-wise it's less disruptive to either have your children as early as possible, before you've really got much profile /responsibility (and pick up the pace later without interruption) or as late as possible, when you are already well established. Personally, with the benefit of looking backwards, I can see lots of advantages to having your children earlier (as I didn't!) . Work and opportunities will all still be there afterwards if you want to go for it.

seacow, I remember the joy of spending time alone with DS when DD was a baby, I used to hate the feeling that I’d abandoned him. I get that. Totally.

Meadow I know a lady who was the first ever female judge to take maternity leave.* They had to have a special meeting about it because no female judge had ever been pregnant before. She has four dc all together. Mainly grown up now.*

meadow I know both lawyers who have been pregnant and it (in the eyes of their seniors) hindered their careers and those who have continued to work full time to get to the top. I think it really depends on what you want and the support structure you have.

We’ve done bath, story (guess how much I love you) and milky. Ds was asleep. In his basket. Then I heard a rumble. And he did a super poo. Haha! Luckily it’s dhs turn to deal with it.

They’re in the other room now. Dh is watching nfl with him and explaining things. And talking him about die hard. They’re going to watch it apparently...

Have you got dear zoo em? Brilliant book for babies.

Indeed Need - and I don't feel guilty about ignoring DD because I'm with her all week! It's lovely to step outside the struggle of the daily routine and remember how gorgeous he really is. He has the best smile and giggle ❤️

Thanks everyone. I'm only 9 weeks -cries- !!

Seacow Yeah that's one of the reasons we decided to try and have children young. The plan is for me to take a few years out-ish or at least on the back burner and then try and launch more into career later - if I still want to. I may change my mind. I just get irritated that my DF is so rude as to say something like that to me. I mean even if you think it, keep it to yourself!! Anyway what if I change my mind and want to be SAHM for ages or something, it's not his business anyway. The funny thing is DM was a SAHM anyway and didn't really have a 'career'. Obviously she's had various jobs but not a career iyswim. She hasn't worked in many years now anyway, she's basically retired because they don't need another income and she couldn't find a job she wanted anyway.

I love doing car boot sales but never make hardly any money. If you would hate it I don't think it's worth it, but if you'd enjoy the few hours out like I do then you may as well give it a go?

Wreck That is a mad story!

I've read as far as here

Meadow I presume you mean the judge thing, not Dear Zoo?

Well dear zoo is pretty mad when you think about it. Yeah, just send a kid a camel. :o

I also had a day mainly with older child on her own. She was very tired by this afternoon so we just watched a film together and had a cuddle. It was lovely and made me wonder why we decided to make life more difficult by having more babies! I don't really mean that and I absolutely adore them but just think of all the sleep I could be getting!

Enjoyed Blue Planet again. I still can't get my head round those cuttlefish eating whole crabs. They must be crunchy!

Didn't enjoy the takeaway at all. Bleh. It did have ice cream with it though, might have to break that out if DD stops feeding for like a minute not sure if it's general cluster feeding or because of her cold.

Caglets only just gone to bed, super clingy as DH not back from work yet. And when he does get back he has the joy of putting a wash on... there was an incident babies are gross. :o

Oh I love dear zoo. Must get that! The only other kid friendly books I have are:

Narnia;
Wind in the willows;
Winnie the Pooh;

Until we get more books wee starting Winnie the Pooh and the house at oooh corner and all tbe a a Milne poems. Then moving to wind in the willows and then narnia. Once we’re done with those I’ll move on to Harry Potter or lord of the rings.

Or the tiger who cane to tea. Or (my fave) mog. I bought dsis “goodbye mog” a couple of years ago for Christmas. Tears ahoy.

I had to counsel a devastated family once in the library, as they were looking for Mog books in the junior section and they'd never seen the goodbye book before... proper devastation ensued 😰

Caglets helped me come up with an Amazon list called Rowan's Little Library, it's all the books they used to love that they've now outgrown, and we will rebuy for her :) I will of course use the library too but I think she will have a fair collection of board books TBH

She did get to hear a chapter of A Little Princess tonight though. :)

I am quite looking forward to cracking out all DS's old books. I ditched the random annoying ones (Dinosaur Sleepover, for example 🙄) so it's plain sailing ahead! Same with toys, we have some lovely things waiting for DD.

We also love Mog here. Lots of them were out of print 5 years ago so I laboriously tracked them down on eBay. I think the book people have a bargainous set of them now. Probably popular again following that Christmas advert.

Oh God goodbye Mog nobody warned me. I wept copiously in Waterstones. I was pg as well, and just stood there crying! like a crazy woman

Sadly ds enjoys you tube more than all the wonderful (if dogeared) books we have. I must try harder. Room on the broom is about my favourite.

I've just read my first Harry Potter, found it in the loo, discarded by one of my dd's. It was better written than I thought it would be. I love all the 'how to train your dragons' too. Dd1 and I pre-ordered and fought over the last 2! She read the last one in an evening, but I'd already read it while she was at school - ha.

I found my limits with "happy dog, sad dog" and "goodnight tractor" though. Drivel.