December 2006 drag yourselves over here!

[Indith]

Oooops no room to link to old thread!

Lol at AQ forgetting that she is pg Sure the madness will pass. And don't worry about my chocolate supply, I live round the corner from Tesco

Jabber I think you should pop ds in the post and I'll sned him on holiday with all my clibing friends, they do similarly dangerous stunts on a larger scale. He'd have a ball

Good luck with all that bp. I'm really hoping that I will be able to have better organization at the new house. That;s been our problem with "a place for everything and everything in its place". Some stuff in our house now just doesn't have a place!

Dont think I've forgotten Babystep 20 - Include laundry in your routines Ie, do a load a day and it wont mount up. And always put it away!

Washing is on at the moment. We have 2 weeks off to do the gardens. I worked so hard yesterday that even my fingernails hurt.

We had 10 conifers taken out of our back garden at the weekend. I'd been meaning to get quotes for ages and then some fly by night tree cutters came and offered to do them for cash. I agreed and within an hours or so they were done. They left a mess on the front drive but it only took 10 mins or so to clear up. I cant work out if it was cheaper or more expensive than a proper company but hey it's done and now I can get some quotes for a new fence Garden is now about 1 metre longer!

Happy anniversaries, Jabber and Ze

Am rushing off to clinic for hysteroscopy thingy, worse part is not being able to eat/drink - drink, today, of all days!! - until this evening.

Hope everyone is well, will catch up in day or two!

Hope it goes ok, Eli.

Hope it all goes well, Eli - thinking of you.

Hope it goes well Eli x

I'm gardening here too! Well, 'landscaping' is probably more apt. We had a huge yew tree on one side of the garden that took up about a fifth of the available space and blocked all the late afternoon/evening sun so we decided to take it down. Tree people came and quoted £150 to fell it and £80 to take the stump out, if we wanted to. Stingy Hands on DH decided he could fell it himself really easily and save the £150 . 15 trips to the tip, 2 blunt chainsaws and 3 weeks later - we still have a foot high stump. AND the tree men are coming to take the stump out after DH discovered it cost £120 to hire the grinder thingy.

Blinkin' men.

The plan is to level it, bark it and stick the trampoline/sandpit/water table/random garden toys on it so that's been my job - digging out tonnes of mud so it's relatively flat. I ache ALL over.

Posted too soon as usual.

Hope the oscopy goes well Eli and you have a nice rest in hospital .

FGS, how's the pox?

Happy Belated Anniversary Jabber and Margo!

Yep - we're doing the bark thing too.

Good luck, eli, may you have plenty of good drugs

I'm planning to do an area with bark too. Recently a friend was telling me about using shredded recycled tires instead. She said they had that at a park she was at and it was nice and soft and you wouldn't have to replace it all the time like bark. So I'm going to at least check into it.

That's what I wanted, Jabber, but it's MEGA bucksover here. We need to cover about 16 sq m and it was going to cost about £600, compared to £180 for the bark. Unsurprisingly, dh said no.

I would say we're going with bark too!

Hope all has gone well with the op Eli and you are having a good rest as I type.

Pleased to hear the party went well Jabber, I know how you feel about the tidying... we were meant to have guests (my Mum and step-family) the last 3 weekends running and everytime they have cancelled... by the time they get here the clean duvets will have been buried with dust and junk, and I tell myself sod them I won't clean again, but I just know that I will waste another few days scrubbing when the next visit is planned.

Another bark related landscaping effort going on here coincidentally! We are building a veg plot and a little area for DD at the same time. Also looked at the rubber chippings... looked lovely but when we saw the price. Why is is sooo expensive for everything over here? I reckon we could get them shipped from somewhere for cheaper, if only they weren't so damn bulky . The bark is expensive enough as it is.

Not sure how our veg growing efforts will go. We live 'up north' on top of a big blustery hill, and have frosts into June most years. Not the ideal growing conditions, but it'll keep us occupied. Just trying to bid on some outdoor toys for DD now... eBay is so annoying nowadays. No one bids until the last minute so unless you have a cowboy trigger speed with getting your bid in you have no hope

Oh, good luck Eli! Hope you enjoy the reading!

Everyone's doing their garden! We took out the patio & path (why why why!) 3 weeks ago because had the chance of some labout (dp's brother is landscaper) and got a designer to redo the whole layout (why why why?) so waiting on her until we can actually touch anything. Well, I am anyway. Now we can just afford to put some concrete slabs back again in a different position! We had two of those half-tonne bags of bark last summer, took us a week of evenings to cover not very much garden! And then it all disappears again for next year.

Anniversaries sound lovely, I don't suppose dp & I will ever get married now Engaged these 8 years now. Still, he's been a bit of a plonker this week so I don't think i want to right now.

Please tell me not to get excited about twin1 being a girl (because I am quite hopeful) when I have scan next week. Surely should be focussed on welfare of BOTH, not sex of one. Indith, have you seen mw yet? Scan date yet? How're you feeling?

Hello! One down, 3 to go!

Eli hope all goes well for you.

Am very impressed at the gardens. I really must get round to doing my pots for the summer but never get round to it. Will be a bit late if I leave it til after exams though! Think I will have Friday morning off work after the last oral and do them.

You can be excited about sex and still be concerned about the welfare of both AQ I am ok thank you (your ds is lovely BTW since I've still not replied to e-mail), seem to be settling down mostly, very tired but that could just be exams! Have my booking in appointment for the 16th, they usually book the scan during that. I bought a lovely summer skirt with elastic waistband which has made me feel very happy since jeans only work with the good old elastic band trick but next size up jeans from post ds are still too big!

Everything OK AQ? Am sure you could/will get married at some point if that's what you want - can imagine you've both had other things to pay for/spend time on with your DCs in recent years.

Can relate to OH being a plonker from time to time... but then as he rightly points out, if he could read minds, he wouldn't be a plonker at all . Things have been rocky on and off (mostly off now fortunately) with me and DH since DD arrived, in fact if I'm honest since I got pregnant - having children is a major strain on any relationship. There's so much else going on that a few of the basics get ignored like quality time ALONE together, sex, taking the time to ask each other how we are and actually listen and take it in... things are good right now, but I'm sure another baby would off-balance things again for a while. Although, I think we are overall much stronger as a couple and happier as individuals since we became parents.

And I would be excited about the possibility of having a girl, but try not to set yourself up for a fall IYSWIM.

Who was it who was freecycling? Please help me!! I live in the middle of nowhere and have a few things I would like to get rid of. Have been on the local freecycle group for a while, but a bit nervous about having a total stranger turn up at the house... please reassure me!

Pox is rapidly improving but it looks awful. She has blisters everywhere

Lennied - freecycle is very easy. If you are worried arrange for them to collect at a time when you can have someone over at the house with you.

I must be mad. Chances of DD2 getting pox in next week is high. DH has chance of going sailing in Spain for 4 days from Saturday and I have agreed he can go

FGS - So sorry to hear DD has the pox but glad she´s on the mend, its such an awful illness. Fingers crossed DD2 manages to stay free

Eli - hope the op went well

Haven´t been around much spent a few days at the outlaws, I mean in-laws and yesterday DS had his op to have his tear duct unblocked. It was a short procedure but he had to be put to sleep. It was heart-breaking as they wheeled him away in this huge bed - he looked sooo tiny Back to his usual mischievous self today, thank G!
Fingers crossed it works or he´ll have to go through the same darn thing again...

Sounds like you´ve all been busy in your gardens - keep up the good work ladies. Not sure where to start with ours. The grass is somewhat bald and we´ve just had notification there´s no watering allowed so not much hope for improvement

Indith - good luck with the essay... There always seems to be some tragic incident of domestic violence in the news here, its frightening. Seems to get worse in the summer too

bebespain. Glad DS is ok. It is a worry when they need treatment for anything isnt it!

DD2 is such a grump today. I hve given her medised and she went for a nap at 8.45. I dont know if it is a cold, teeth or pre-chicken pox grumpiness.

Babystep 22 - where is your control journal? and
How to build a control journal I found this quite useful. I now have a spreadsheet of housework jobs which need doing in each room of the house, and also which days I should do them. I dont always follow it but if things get out of control for me then I revert back to it.

bebespain poor you, poor LO, and so glad he's back to himself today. It is horrid seeing them sick/injured, I think they get over it far faster than we do!

AQ, I was very excited about seeing gender of dd2, I think the experience of dd1 being 'ok' at the scan made me feel more relaxed about that part and left more room for the sex bit...but either way, as Indith says, you can feel the lot! I even felt excited AND disappointed she was a she, at the time, simultaneously, IIRC. Definitely also felt loss of things I was going to do I had to put off, when pg second time - so understand re the wedding, but hey, when you do get married, you will have an adorable crew of ring bearers/flower girls at your feet....

Hats off (and feet up) to the gardeners - and very glad dd is feeling better, FGS, sounds like she had a hefty dose there, poor love.

Thanks for thoughts, was nice to know you all knew I was going in - IYSWIM - because I sort of messed up the support system here, and till the last minute looked like I was going to have to get the tube there and a cab home, which felt a bit lonely. Sorted in the end, took tube there and DH picked me up...and most importantly, the polyp had fallen off on its own, so no resection needed and a clean bill of health

Unless you count feeling sick all night because I ate a big goat's cheese sandwich and some trifle on a stomach full of nurofen, DF118s, and whatever the strong stuff they give you when you wake up is

dd2 has her first shoes and is brimming with health, had to put that bit in, its gorgeous!

O god, jsut realized what you said about dd2.....hope its not the CP grumps, or if it is, that she has it more mildly.

And I didn't expose dd2 in the end, thank you for helping me get back to what I thought in the first place

Eli - you saying that about AQ and her crew of ring bearers has reminded me of a Lapland brochure I had thrust upon me by an overzealous travel agent when I went in to exchange money last week (she saw me with a small child and the £ signs started ringing up in her eyes me thinks ). In the back there is a picture of a couple getting married in Lapland surrounded by a brood of little ones. Looks so picture perfect, I said to DH - we should have got married in lapland with DD there. He gave me one of his trademark 'You have lost your mind' looks.