Wednesday Hodgepodge 5/8/20

Wednesday's Hodgepodge is hosted by Joyce over at "From this side of the Pond".  Pop over there to see who is playing and how to join in.  If you do join in remember to visit your neighbour on the Linky List.  Have fun.

1.  What's happening where you live in terms of schools opening? How do you feel about it?

Schools are due to re-open in September but there is much uncertainty about it.  It's difficult.  Many parents are saying it's not safe.  Staff are nervous about it too.  Although actually schools have been open for key workers' children (Healthcare staff etc) all the way through the pandemic.  It's a tricky balancing act.  The Government want workers back at work but many workers can only do that if their children are back at school.

2. What's something you still do 'old school'?

Text messaging in full sentences.

3. August 4th is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. Will you/did you celebrate by baking a batch? Eating a batch? Nuts or no nuts? Homemade or store bought? Soft and chewy or do you prefer your cookie to snap when you bite into it?

Well I don't follow this calendar so no special eating for me although I do love a Chocolate Chip Cookie but no nuts thank you.

4. What are you starved for?

Hands on time with the Grandkids. 

5. Anything new and interesting on your August calendar? What is one thing you're looking forward to this month?

We're going to visit Grandson Noah at the weekend.  We haven't seen him since February.  We have managed to see the other two but a trip to Nottingham hasn't really been possible.

I'd like to think we might have a moving date in August but it's looking more likely to be early September the way things are going.

6.  Insert your own random thought here.

I might not have known it was Chocolate Chip Cookie day but I had some in the house!  (Not any more!)

20 in 20 - Weekly Photo #30 - 26/7/20

Yep a day late again but here we go:

A lovely belated birthday present from my son and his family.  (Well more from the DIL considering the content)

A perfect present - chocolatea, Waterstones gift card to buy new books and a new bag to keep them in, hand crafted by Grandson Noah.

What's not to love?  Of course seeing him this weekend was a good present too!

I also had another gift card from my other son and family this week too.  One plus side of Covid-19 - birthdays go on and on.... (mine was back in June)

Friday's Fave Five - 31/7/20

Well it's Friday again so time to look back on the week and highlight some blessings.  This meme is hosted by Susanne over at Living to tell the story.

Pop over there to see who else is taking part and to find out how to join in.

I skipped joining in last week - it had been a funny old week and I was feeling fed up with the house process but things have been better this week so here are my 5:

1) We had a lovely time with Rory last Sunday.  It was our Son & DIL's 6th wedding anniversary! That time has flown!  Anyway we fed Rory, bathed him and then I put him to bed.  He's in an ordinary bed now but he made no fuss when I put him down.  He likes you to sit with him until he falls asleep but I actually left him when he was sleepy but not right asleep.  I expected him to tell me "No Nanny" but he didn't and when I checked on him shortly after he was sound asleep.  I hope the next baby is as good.

2)  There is room to move in my bedroom again.  We moved our daughter's stuff that was in the loft down into our bedroom a couple of weeks ago and it was driving me nuts.  We moved it all to our son's garage last weekend.  We just managed to fit everything in the car so we only had to do one trip!

3.  They did a drain survey on our house this week and it seemed fine.  This prompted us to get one done on the house we're buying and that was ok too.  Breathing a sigh of relief lol.

4.  Our downstairs toilet had started making a strange noise.  Our retired family plumber suggested it was probably the inlet valve & washer that needed changing.  A relatively easy job for any DIY minded person.  Which hubby is not!  But that's why we have insurance for things like that.  I went online to book an appointment at around noon and found I could get one for the same afternoon!  A lovely young man came and had it fixed in no time.  He seemed very competent and he was extremely chatty!  Probably took longer explaining everything etc than he did actually fixing it.  But hey when you're spending a lot of time cooped up inside just with hubby someone different to talk to is a bonus lol.

5.  We're gradually getting rid of our unwanted items.  We've used sites called Freecycle and Trash Nothing where you can list items you want to give away and have had interest for some of our items.  Hopefully some will be collected today.  A friend of Nick's who does car boot sales said he would be happy to take stuff as well so we're trying to collect everything together in the next day or so for him to collect and then see what we're left with.  I need the house fairly tidy by next weekend as our buyers are coming for another look.  They've agreed to keep our Freezer and Tumble Dryer which are in the cellar so that saves us the job of getting them out of the cellar and disposed of.  They also want a wardrobe and chest of drawers that we don't need in the new house so that's another disposal job avoided.  We seem to be going in the right direction.

I could also add 2 more things to my list - we discovered an I-Pod docking station yesterday that Hubby thought didn't work too well but I managed to get it connected up with his hi-fi system and it sounded fine.  He's pleased about that! 

We also found that our video player still works despite languishing under the TV for longer than I care to remember.  Yes we still have videos - including First Communion videos of our kids which we will have to embarrass them with at some point.  I'm thinking of getting a treadmill for the room in the garden at the new house and although we might not be able to get TV reception down there I'm sure I could watch DVDs or videos while using the treadmill.  Sounds like a plan to me.  Making plans is good!

Although with 3 grandbabies on the way and the possibility of our daughter trying to move house I'm not sure when I'll have the time lol.

Enjoy the weekend.  We're babysitting Nathan tomorrow and our eldest son is coming down from Nottingham.  Will be lovely to see him - last time was in February!

And another day dawns

I actually saw the dawn today - well saw it was getting light through the curtains.

Some nights I sleep reasonably well and others.... well let's say I'm well acquainted with our spare bed thanks to hubby's snoring/my restlessness/overheating/overactive mind......I'm sure you get the picture.

I made it through till almost 5 last night but after tossing and turning in the spare bed for over an hour I decided to give up fighting the desire for more sleep and got up.  Yes I know all you early birds will be saying this is not early but for this night owl it definitely is!

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the move - where things will go, what we'll need to do.  To do lists for the actual moving process - things like labels on furniture that's not going to the new house but being left for the new owners here.  Oh but wait we haven't checked yet if they want certain items - note to self to check that out.  Note to self not to pack the masking tape - can't rely on post it notes not falling off!  Get the picture?

Organising was my thing when I worked so it does come fairly easily to me but this move is definitely daunting.  I did manage to persuade Hubby yesterday that we really don't need two crates of box files/ring binders/folders when we don't really do anything that would require them.  We didn't put all of them with the "dispose of" pile but we did reduce the number we're keeping.  Sigh!

One thing we did score a win on though was a crate of records and tapes and packaging materials from when Hubby had a spell of selling on Ebay.  He contacted one of his friends who does that sort of thing and he said yes to the box!  Hopefully he's picking them up tomorrow.  One less thing to move.

I probably should be more ruthless than I am but Hubby is more of a hoarder than I am.  I think he gets it from his Dad.  He was definitely of the "it might come in useful one day" clan.  My argument that, "if we haven't used it in over a year we're not likely to, and if we did get rid of it by mistake we can afford to replace it" falls on deaf ears. Although it is hard when I hate to just throw stuff out to end up in landfill but recycling can be time consuming.

Of course sitting here blogging is just my way of procrastinating about doing more sorting!  There is still a lot to do and now people are starting to talk about discussing dates for exchange and completion!  Yikes I need to get my skates on.  No, wait, they were another item I did manage to shift via Facebook lol.