More on cars etc

Just a quick follow up to a couple of comments:

Junior Docspot - this is the first time we’re replacing a car without Mr H having written it off! In the past we’ve had so little money that we either bought from family (bad idea – my sister is rather hard on cars!) or sent Dad to a car auction saying to get what he could for a certain amount of money (being in Yorkshire compared to us in Cambridge he could get a lot more for the money). Both times we needed a car either due to work for one of us or the impending arrival of the munchkin!

Mumof4 – love the German language idea! Thanks! I thought the car needed a link as no one (me included) I’d spoken to had heard of the Yaris Verso before…glad it helped someone.

I’m plodding on here. Having a really can’t be bothered week, I’m struggling to get the motivation to do anything other than eat junk (am being fairly good still…) and watch trashy telly. I’m not sure where it’s come from, whether it’s a virus, a return of a bit of depression or something else… I’m just hoping it lifts soon! Mr H is a bit similar, though some of his is definitely down to working very hard and not getting chance to go out in the fresh air to do some exercise. Neither of us are sleeping very well which is never good as we just make each other worse, but hopefully that’ll stop soon. Anyway, thanks to the general crapness I’m feeling the dining room isn’t looking too great, though the breakfast bar is almost clear and the search for the MOT certificate for the Mondeo has meant that the desk in the dining room is clearer than it’s been for months too!

 

New car!

Mr H was browsing the local paper on Saturday morning when he saw a car listed for sale he liked the look of. He decided we’d go and have a look (it had been traded in at one of the local big dealerships).

We had a good look at it and gave it a test drive and then decided to try and barter the price down (Mr H being a typical tight-fisted Yorkshire man didn’t want to pay the full price!). They didn’t give as much for our car as he’d hoped for the trade in (but it was what I expected) and weren’t willing to drop the price at all (though they threw in a year’s warranty and 6 months tax). We ended up going out for lunch and having a big discussion as to whether it was worth the money and whether we could afford it.

We decided to go for it! We’ve just managed to pay for it out of our savings (plus £1000 on a credit card which will be paid off with 2/3  months). It does blow absolutely all our savings for now but we won’t have a finance deal hanging over us.

As of next Saturday (when we collect it after the service) we will be the proud owners of a Toyota Yaris Verso! (though a slightly newer model than shown there – 54 reg) It’s the horrible ‘gold’ (read sicky, metallic, yellow-green) colour but apart from that it’s pretty much exactly what we wanted as a replacement to our Ford Mondeo. It’s more efficient than the Mondeo and will be a lot cheaper to insure. It’s got masses of space inside, plus the back seats fold into the floor if we ever need to load it with a lot of things. It’ll be perfect for going camping with and we should be able to fit our bikes inside it as well without taking them apart too much.

The Verso is also something that I’d be willing to drive. The seats are a bit higher up and the car itself is a fair bit smaller than the Mondeo. The thing to do now is apply for a new provisional license and save up for driving lessons…at about £27 a go around here it may take some time for us to be able to afford for me to take many lessons. I still don’t really like the idea of driving but it would help us a lot if I could.

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In other news we finally have a munchkin who will say thank you (or rather ‘danks’) when we ask her to. Even though we often have to ask her a coupe of times it’s better than nothing. Potty training is still going well. We’ve had one wet accident in the past week (on the sofa!) but we’ve not seen a #2 for 3 days now…

The kitchen is still looking fairly good. It was left a little messy over the weekend but it won’t take very long at all to get it tidy and clean again. This week’s mission is to get the dining room in the same condition (i.e. clean, tidy, clutter away).

The diet isn’t going too badly. No loss this week, but no gain either. I definitely deserved to see a gain this morning, I ate so much junk over the weekend thanks to it being a certain time of the month and being out car shopping on Saturday. Back to trying ot be good this week. I’m tracking everything on Tesco’s healthy living tracker (which is free as well!) and am trying to be honest on there so let’s see if that helps.

 

Kitchen update

The kitchen sorting is going fairly well, if only I could work out where I want everything to go! Mr H is going to have a very good excuse for not cooking for us….he’s not going to have a clue where I’ve put anything!

I may manage to finish it today, but that depends on the munchkin, she’s being rather clingy today, she’s quite tired so I may attempt a nap later on so I can get more done. If it’s not doe today it should definitely be done tomorrow which would be great!

Suburban Mum – I think it’s taking so much out of me that by the time I’ve got the house as I want it I won’t be able to do anyone else’s for them!

 

Vodka + glue = easier job!

Sticky stuff gone, I didn’t have any surgical spirit (thanks missbliss), however a little vodka rubbed in to it helped a lot. Shame I don’t drink when I’m alone with trhe munchkin as after all that hard work (took me the best part of 30-40 mins of scrubbing) I definitely felt like I deserved a drink of my own (I compensated with the last slice of birthday cake though!).

Just having a quick breather before sorting out the kettle side of the kitchen surfaces (otherwise known as a bomb site). Happy Tuesday everyone.

 

I’m back!

I’ve returned to a rather cold Essex and I’m back to blog again…or not!

Posts for the next couple of weeks may be short and sweet. I’ve spent a lot of time reading blogs and writing here over the past couple of months and for the moment the house needs me more! I might manage a quick update a day, but I might not!

I’ve finally started to realise I’m much happier when the house is clean and tidy, but it’s going to take a fair bit of work to get there. I spent time on the dining room table last Monday before I went away and it’s been great for us all to be able to eat there together again. I’d much rather do that than trays on knees and the munchkin on her little table and chair near by.

Now that the dining table is clear I’m moving on to the kitchen. The cooker side has been cleaned, tidied and reorganised (and the fat fryer cleaned and put away – it wasn’t helping the diet). Now I’m on the other side. I’m currently working on removing a soap dispenser the old owners of the house put up, not with screws through the holes designed for the purpose but with lots of strips of sticky foam pads! It’s going to be a bit of a challenge to get it all off, but it’ll be worth it in the end. I still need to clean out the cupboards, something sticky has leaked in one (a while ago!) and I haven’t sorted it out yet (I know,it’s disgusting!).

I’m going to try and slowly catch up with blogs, but with 557 posts to read on bloglines it may take some time! (I think I need to cut that down again too!).

 

The imposition!

The H household is decamping tomorrow and we’re imposing ourselves on a lovely friend (and her husband!)…

I’m starting to get a bit worried about the munchkin having accidents everywhere. She’s been generally very good at the whole potty training thing, but is still having an accident every day or two and won’t poo in her potty. How bad will I feel if she has an accident in the middle of their floor? I know, you can’t answer that, but still…

It all could be rather unsettling for the munchkin as we return on Sunday only to head off to see my parents on Tuesday (until Friday). I do wish timings hadn’t worked out as they have. Trying to fit in time off for Mr H with when V is free and then trying to get cheap train tickets to go north at a time near my birthday and when most of my school friends are off work (Easter holidays for teachers) hasn’t been easy.

I’m not sure whether I’ll have time to post on Monday (I’ll need to do lots of washing and repacking), hope you all have a good couple of weeks and I’ll prepare myself for a huge list of post on bloglines for me to catch up on when I return.

 

Weekend roundup

Hello! I hope you’ve all had a good holiday weekend.

We’ve had a very quiet weekend, Mr H came home from work on Thursday with a virus and has been rather low all weekend, though we have been out somewhere each day (if only to buy a toilet seat for the munchkin!). It’s not been the nice family weekend I had planned. Oh well, as long as Mr H gets better, at least we’re going away for a few days this week (a couple of nights with my lovely friend V and her husband – I know she reads this so hello!). Hopefully that’ll give us a few days of nice family time.

We got up yesterday morning to snow fall which settled! The first snow of the year arrived on Saturday, but didn’t settle, however yesterday it did! We arrived at church in the morning with the munchkin bundled up in wellies and her snow suit! sadly we didn’t have a camera out so we have no photos, but take it from me, she looked fab!

The morning service was very long (2+ hours!) but was great. There were 4 people reaffirming their baptism vows by full immersion as well as the Easter communion service. The evening service was amazing as well, even before the service started I had a feeling that God was really going to work in our church that night. As we were setting up the mics and music stands I looked up to see the sun streaming through the stained glass window at the west end of church, it was a beautiful sight. Another member of the worship team was being baptised (though she didn’t want to be fully immersed) and another 2 were reaffirming their vows by full immersion. After this we were all given the chance of renewing our vows, about 8 of us went up and it was an amazing experience. I really felt that God was asking me to rededicate my life to him, to trust in his plans and timing and to work hard to spend more time with him (that’s not been very easy over the past few months, even when I now it makes a huge difference to how I feel and how my day goes). The feeling of God working in my and touching my life is just indescribable. After an inital filling of emotion, I was filled with a huge sense of calm, especially with regard to our plans for the future and trying for another baby (any regular readers will know I’ve been finding waiting incredibly hard lately). I know God has a plan for me and that at the moment it doesn’t include a baby but that one day he’ll make clear that the time if right for us again. The lovely friend who gave me a lift home said that she had seen in me that I had to go and reaffirm my vows and that afterwards she’d seen a change in my face, I was more relaxed and clearly calmer.

Since then I’ve just felt so at ease with what we need to do. I’ve spent more time with God and been more relaxed with what’s going on in the house, it’s still a tip, but I’m calm about it and know that I can sort it out. I really hope and pray that I can keep this change going.

I’m even more relaxed now about the potty training! We did have an accident all over the munchkin’s smart leather shoes on Sunday morning but that was the last wet one (so far!). I think poos may take a little more time. She’s holding them in unless she’s got pants on (pull ups don’t count apparently!) and even then she’s rather hold them in. She still doesn’t like the potty (or the toilet seat) but we’re doing ok as long as I keep asking her to sit down every so often. Going to stay with V on Thursday will be the first big test (closely followed by the 4 1/2 hour train trip to my parents next week).

 

Stir crazy!

Day 4 of staying in and trying to potty train the munchkin and I feel like I’m going mad!

I suspect I may try and take her for a walk up to the corner shop later on, I don’t think another full day of staying in will do either of us any good.

On another note we know that the munchkin has quite a lot of control of her bladder, she lasted 4 3/4 hours before doing her second wee of the day yesterday and for the last 2 hours of that she was crossing her legs and squirming all over the place, she just didn’t want to use the potty. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll go out and buy her a little seat to put on the toilet (I sent Mr H out for one on Monday when we got a second potty – thanks to her weeing whenever I went up to wash put the potty – but he didn’t know what to get!). She’s worried about falling in when I sit her on the toilet, despite me holding her carefully, I think she may prefer to go on there though, we’ll see!

Yesterday’s score was 1/2:2 1/2 (yup, only 3 hits/misses altogether!), hopefully we can get a better ratio today.

 

Why is it…

…that whenever I post or comment on here about the munchkin’s wees (or lack thereof) she then produces a huge one? This time it started in the potty then she stood up mid way through! I was chancing it and emptying the dishwasher so I couldn’t get her back on the potty before the floor was soaked.

 

Just a quickie

Busy morning here. So just a few quick lines.

We had some friends over for a cuppa this morning, three other 2 year olds and their mums. It was chaos, good to see some people during the day though. And a good excuse to cook (and then eat!) cake!

The munchkin had a big accident at just after 11 shortly before they all arrived, and since then, nothing! It’s now 4pm and she’s crossing her legs and squirming around but won’t do a wee anywhere! Every tip my parents tried when I did this when I was little have failed, I’m expecting a big puddle at some point!

Yesterday’s facebook score would have been 7:4 (hits:misses) for those of you that saw it on there on Monday. I may do it again tomorrow, I didn’t today with the girls and monkeys over.

missbliss- generally I love being a stay at home mum, though it can get a bit lonely. The more toddler groups etc that you can find, the better. Now we have a sure start children’s centre nearby it’s a lot nicer. I love being around to see all the firsts and having such a great time with her. I wouldn’t have liked someone else to tell me about her first steps or the first time she ate something. I do miss teaching a bit, but I really don’t miss the crap from the (minority of) kids. I’m not too worried about getting a job later, maths teachers are always in demand and the government has already written to me offering a return to teaching course and I’m assuming they’ll still be around should I decide to go back to teaching. At the moment I don’ want to have to do all the planning and marking that teaching involves, my home time is family time not work time to me. Also, I don’t miss the moving 6 times a year thing from Cambridge days either!