Chatting, ranting and some stepping! Come in and have a brew with us.

[carrotsandcelery]

A place to have a blether, and a . All chatters are welcome, stepping or otherwise.

Come inside and settle down on the sofa.

Morning everyone. Hope you are snoozing now cats.
Dd has a mini show at the stables today. Then we are going to see the loan pony so it is a busy, outdoor sort of day.
I have done a few jobs as i will be out so much.
I will be hanging around a lot so if i can connect i will pop in and say hi.

Morning! I forgot to turn off all the usual Tuesday alarms, so got woken up far too early!

We need to take the DDs shoe shopping (DD1 has actually worn a hole in the front of her shoe!) & then go buy some herbs to put in the new planter thingy DH made me yesterday - I'll take a pic of it later, but we copied the idea off pinterest (on my garden board I think)

Hi bessie. Very interested to see the planter. I now have beetroot and courgetted, given to me by a friend, and dwarf runner beans, more peas and more mange tout to plant. I still have carrot seeds as well.

I am waiting to see what comes up in our herb planters: chives, parsley and mint are doing ok and I think I can see some rosemary as well (although I never use it).

Pup is on the trampoline with dd. It is very cute to watch. He is having a ball!

Our first load of sofa covers is out of the machine and hasn't shredded - Yay!

I am not sure they look hugely revived either though.

How long is a sofa supposed to last? This one is 12 years old and I still think of it as new but maybe it isn't so new anymore

We are just about to leave. I just need to hunt out some suncream

We're going to take advantage of what could be the only decent-weather day all week and go to the beach for a picnic, kite flying, sea-playing (with not in -- I'm crazy, not stupid), etc. Picnic packed up. Toddler breakfasted. I just need to finish getting myself ready.

Hi all, I went back to bed at 7.00am and woke up at 10.00am DH looked after the DC. DH I feel loads better now!
He is back to work tomorrow so I will have to get up with the DC.

I was going to get on with loads of stuff today. Instead I have slept all day! I woke and got some breakfast and then lunch but otherwise just slept! I even took a caffeine tablet after each meal but still went back to sleep! (Grrr Wretched fibromyalgia!)

I am partly glad because I really thing I needed it and partly fed up because I have loads to do! Trying to come round a bit now so I can at least do some jobs this evening!

Decided I wanted to use some of these before the Jubilee is over.

I enjoyed last night. I went to a moor near my friends house where we had Jubilee cake and tea and coffee and a brass band and lit a beacon at 10.00pm.I was a bit surprised tit was a gas beacon (a bit like a patio heater but on a taller pole and with more upward flame iyswim). I would have preferred a proper wooden beacon but I can see how this was easier to implement and remove afterwards without yobs coming and using it to set fire to the moor. There were photos of previous Coronations and Jubilees where wood beacons were made that were 20ft plus high! People had to camp out near them though to protect them the nights before!

Evening everyone.

Apologies for the language but have any of you seen this organisational website?

I got the link from this thread

Haha love it! (magic erasers really are magic!!)

Didn't trinity once post on our thread?

Good day with my boys. But on the way home, not long in the car to come home, Toddler decided to projectile vomit. We had to pull over two more times on the way home and I had barely had him in my room to get him washed down and changed when he decided to sick again (fortunately it wasn't anything but water & bile then). Poor little lamb.

MrScout read TS a story and he went right to sleep. He's been sound asleep since then. Fingers crossed he stays that way.

I've hand washed (twice) his car seat cover and it's in the shower drying. Tomorrow we'll pull out the car seat and wash it down and wash down the car (thank God for "leather" seats -- wipe up on the side of the road was so much easier). First thing in the morning I'm going to go and wash all of the vomit covered clothes, towels, Bunny and Baby Bunny. Poor Baby Bunny got absolutely soaked. Bunny only got a bit on his ear but we haven't been able to get him from Toddler since he started being sick (we did clean up his ear but Bunny could do with a proper wash) though we're lucky we were able to get Bunny from TS each time he started being sick.

Not really how I wanted to spend my Tuesday night and Wednesday morning but hey-ho, the life of a mother!

Oh dear Scout. Poor TS. That sounds horrid. Does he have any other symptoms or just the vomit? Do you think he was car sick or it is something else? Did you eat anything "with potential" while you were out?

I really hope you have a peaceful night.

I need to go to bed. Operation Scrub The House For Guests Coming starts tomorrow with gusto. If anyone sees me lurking for longer than 15 mins at a time tomorrow I request that you boot me forcefully back into action please.

It is very sad that it will take me about 12 hours to scrub sufficiently for me to feel comfortable hosting for about 3 to 4 hours.

The place isn't that bad either but I still seem to feel deep shame and a sense of not being good enough

Hi Scout just wondering how your night went and how TS is this morning?

TS is running around like a nut. Well, he was but he's just gone down for a rest (about 90 minutes or so later than I wanted him to -- yes, MrScout, I'm looking at you). Thanks for checking, carrots.

I've been to town to sort out all of the sicked on clothes, jacket, rain gear, etc. Because he got his car seat good and soaked the first time he was sick I pealed him out of his clothes, put on his spare top (from my diaper bag) and the waterproof rain trousers (also from my bag) so he didn't sit in wet/sick for the (approx) 60 minute journey home. But then he sicked on that, too. I would have washed it anyway but sick went down the front AND inside. BLURGH.

The car seat cover is (finally) dry -- took ages to do. I've washed the car seat itself and it's drying outside. Won't take long to dry but I didn't want to try to paper towel ever nook & cranny. I've told MrScout he's responsible for wiping down the inside of the car but he's still sitting opposite me. I don't want to put the cleaned car seat onto the mucky car seat....

I am glad he is well again Scout.

It is these moments that make you realise how badly designed car seats etc are. Potty training also brings it into sharp focus

I am doing battle with myself. I discovered a small Snickers bar...

Dd has come home from school unwell. She didn't feel great last night but I put it down to exhaustion after a very busy weekend.

Someone was ill at school today and she is pale and won't eat and is just curled up on the sofa very, very quietly.

It is not like her at all.

Seems like there are lots of nasty bugs around atm. Here's hoping all dcs are well soon and no dparents catch said bugs from dcs!!

BTW. I really love my new hand-held steam cleaner. (Cheapie from Lidl).

It has done a fantastic job on my spare room window. I'm hoping it will be good on bathroom later though to be fair, bathroom isn't that bad because of regular swish and swipes!

I am interested to hear more about your steam cleaner Arti since I am now in agony from cleaning windows again today.

There is a thread brewing about the hand held ones and I just saw an advert for a mop style one.

Intrigued!

OK- The mop one I have (cheapie from Asda - £30) could not be used for vertical surfaces like windows, because it has to point downwards for the water to flow into where it makes the steam iyswim. It is great though for the vinyl in my kitchen and bathroom and I would imagine it would also be good for tiled floors. It maybe of use for some laminate too if they are made to withstand the damp/steam.

It is also great for things like the bottom of the bath (would be good for shower trays too). I also used it to refresh the carpet near my entrance door where it gets most grime and some dirt came off onto the cloth and it does look better but I don't think it is as good as proper carpet cleaning. If you have a lot of hard floors that can stand up to steam I would have thought it would be brilliant with dogs and dcs. No messing with detergents and mop wringing and buckets of hot water etc. The one disadvantage with mine is that you have to empty out the water reserve chamber after every use or it leaks. Just fill chamber with water, put mop cloth on bottom (attached with velcro) plug in and go. Then just bung cloth in was afterwards. I've wanted one for ages but decided I couldn't really justify the cost for a small kitchen and bathroom. Then read about the Asda one on here where someone said they had it and liked it and I'd been given an Asda £10 token so I decided to use that against the cost!!

The handheld one I have is a bit fiddly to use and I only tried it out yesterday for the first time. It has a small ( 2cm diameter) brush and a narrow steam spot attachment ( not used yet!). It basically poured loads of steam over my window and I then squeegeed it and wiped it over with a dry cloth.I wasn't sure what I thought last night but this morning I can see it has done a really good job. It is still quite labour intensive but it does away with the need for any chemicals and if polished with dry cloth at the end is really streak free.

Should be "steam spout attachment" not "spot attachment"!!

I'm just having yet another cup of tea before cooking the hotpot. No point cleaning kitchen until after that as my cooking skills are rather dyspraxic. Good practice for the steam mop though!

Thanks Arti. My shoulder problems mean that it is the scrubbing/polishing that is the problem so they maybe aren't my magic wand.

Have any of you tried this decluttering motivation It might be something to dip into for variety.

I have a problem. We have no food and dd is too unwell to take round the supermarket, which was part of this afternoon's plan, after her activities.

We will be having a very interesting evening meal as I don't even have an onion to get something started with.

My stomach is making alarming gurgling noises that are making me nervous too (sorry if tmi).

Popping in to update on hand held stem clean er as I have just tried it out on the bathroom.

Pros:

It gets glass and mirrors fantastically clean and sparkly (needs a quick wipe over with microfibre cloth once sprayed with steam)

It is really good for any gungy bits and if sprayed round the bath, just then needs a quick wipe and is done.

You don't needs to use any cleaning solutions

Cons:

Fiddly and a bit faffy to use. I'm not convinced I'll get it out every time I clean ( whereas I certainly will with steam mop). It will probably be reserved for just before my mother visits spring cleaning or if I've decided to really blitz the windows!

The steam is really powerful and a bit scary to use till you get used to it!. The pressure of the steam blew the little spout off at one point an I couldn't find it till I realised it had fallen into the loo

We'll have to ask you how much you've used it in a couple of weeks time arti!

I've ordered this one after reading some good things about it on a thread on here. Apparently QVC are really good at customer service too, so there will be no problem returning it if it's no good.

carrots hope you are feeling ok? Can't you get a window cleaner round? (or is it the insides?)

Glad TS is feeling better scout, I've never had to properly wash a car seat & hope I never have to!!

Still at it! I'm glad my dm doesn't come that often.

Some stuff is going to have to wait until tomorrow am I think which means I may find it difficult to find the time to pop to Aldi for bits and pieces.

Still, never mind!

Steam mop doing its miraculous stuff on kitchen floor again. The floor has never been so clean as the last few weeks!!

I will be very interested to hear how these steam mops go down over time.

It was the insides of the windows bessie. We already pay £21 for someone to clean the outsides (and I have realised they skip 2 of them so will have to have a wee chat). Sadly I am in agony and dreading going to bed where I will just lie and think about how sore I am. I will drug myself to my eyeballs before I go and do the same tomorrow.

I have had to barricade the lounge door with chairs so that Pup doesn't go in there and get it hairy again. He is too clever sometimes and can open doors.

It is telling though that I let my dogs in the room and not my children it doesn't say much about my parenting that I think my dogs will be better behaved!

Arti I am sometimes glad that dh had a row with his dsil and that she now refuses to come and visit. I think she thinks she is punishing him but tbh it is a blessed relief. I love her dearly but don't enjoy her as a house guest or cleaning in preparation for her coming.

We once took her on holiday with us when dd was little, at our expense, and she got the room with the ensuite or loo or whatever it was. She made a massive fuss about the standard of cleanliness until I went in and cleaned it for her just so that I could have some peace. Some holiday that was, I just got more people to run around after. Grrr!