| poneke
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And yes, slowly but surely my girl blossoms:-)
Reply #1381. Aug 29 10, 9:19 PM
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| lesley153
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The boys miss you? Oooh! Want to tell us more? ;)
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My sprog and his girlfriend have done something I haven't been able to do for a long time - rescue the house from many years of neglect. They have been to the tip too many times to count, and I am seeing furniture, floors and walls I had forgotten existed.
He also bought a jigsaw to dismember a nasty sofa we neither liked nor needed, and took the bits to the tip. From time to time, I tell him that I want to keep him. I have now told them both that I want to keep both of them.
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Years ago, we had a wonderful, big, comfy sofa, which was fine till a bit of the underneath burst and some springs popped out. It was still perfectly comfortable, just looked a bit messy.
Everyone who saw it said that it would cost more to repair than to buy a new one. Among them were our immediate neighbours, who said they had a sofa that was surplus to requirements and I was welcome to it. What didn't occur to me until it was too late was that nobody was comparing like with like.
I had the old sofa taken away. It was a three-seater, a strong old-fashioned build with a lot of wood and proper springs - it had come covered in a dreary dark brown grosgrain, and we had had it re-covered in something light-coloured and not dreary - and it weighed a ton.
The neighbours' kind gift was a two-seater, light as a feather, full of foam, covered with a migraine-inducing pattern, and smelt of their dog, which prompted us to get a new one very quickly. The replacement for the doggy one was a little less migraine-inducing, and smelt OK, but we did eventually learn to hate it.
And that, gentle reader, was the last time I ever listened to advice from anyone. I had an enormous amount of unsolicited advice about how to bring my son up, and I am very proud of ignoring that, but now, I don't even listen. One sniff of anything remotely resembling advice, and all my hearing deserts me until the threat has gone. |
Reply #1382. Aug 30 10, 5:50 AM
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garrysouders 
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I would no more advise you on a subject than I would tell the pope how to do mass or the queen how to wave. You are a sage among the savages, I take your advice to heart. There is something in you that sees good and bad and sees it clearly, not pandering just telling it how I see it.
Reply #1383. Aug 30 10, 2:48 PM
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| lesley153
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Thank you - this is quite embarrassing because it makes me sound more than I am. I'll give you an idea of the sort of advice I had to field:
Because I didn't give him unlimited sweets and sweet drinks, I was unkind and he was deprived.
You can't expect a child to drink water - it tastes nasty - you *have* to put sugar in it.
Ignore him if he cries. Children enjoy crying and it's good for them - it strengthens their lungs. Don't pick him up just because you think he's distressed. He only wants attention and you're making a rod for your own back.
You don't have to say "please" and "thank you" to him - he's your child - he *has* to do what you tell him.
Don't make him say sorry. That's harsh.
What possessed you to discuss and plan his father's funeral with him? You were wrong to talk to him about it. He's only a child - it's none of his business.
See what I mean? Nothing there that required any effort or brainpower at all to ignore. |
Reply #1385. Aug 30 10, 5:17 PM
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satguru
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Others' advice is only there as options, anyone who sees it as orders is their own problem. Buddhists don't ever offer advice unless asked (officially anyway) and everyone else could follow that tip. If someone needs help they'll usually ask for it, if not then they can happily be left to their own devices unless heading for disaster. But that's the exception for kibitzing, as some people just love to kibitz. My family could have invented it if they weren't born so recently...
Reply #1386. Aug 30 10, 7:39 PM
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| Lochalsh
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I've always wanted to kibitz on a kibbutz.
Reply #1387. Aug 30 10, 8:53 PM
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| Professer
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How any one would dare advise you how to bring Jonathan up is beyonde my comprehension. From the time i have been reading your blogs i know you to be sensible and intelkligent, and that you do not and would not have needed advice.
Your blog has shown us that your son is a well mannered good intentioned person and that is down to your raising him correctly.
Hope you are keeping well Lesley and all is going ok.
Reply #1388. Aug 31 10, 4:58 AM
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| lesley153
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It sounds like the Buddhists have got the right idea.
Ooh - I've never been to a kibbutz. One day, perhaps.
Thanks, Gary. A lot of it was just moaning from people who had had a difficult pregnancy or birth, and saw me as the ideal person to moan at: and all of it was out of date. But parents of older children love to pull rank on new parents, and pretend they know everything and you know nothing. They also love to say things like: "You think it's bad now? Just wait till he's 17 and says Dad, I need the car keys."
One woman had post-natal depression, and said it can strike at any time. She was walking round Sainsburys with her 11-month-old, with tears streaming down her face, therefore, so would I. With hindsight, I wonder if it was because she was in Sainsburys, but I wouldn't dream of saying it, because that would be naughty, and not funny at all. And no, thank goodness, I didn't get PND. I didn't even get the three-day weepies, which some people call baby blues, and others think is the result of a zinc deficiency.
One couple, who ran the local newsagent, delighted in telling me anything they could think of to upset and frighten me. The worst one was about a toddler who had fallen down a flight of concrete steps. I said please stop, I don't want to hear any more. They carried on adding more detail. I walked out of the shop, without doing what I'd gone in for, and didn't go back till they'd been replaced. I have no idea how their minds worked, and I don't think I want to know.
All these people have one thing in common: they tell you they have a piece of advice for you, but they're really telling you their own stories; and they're all making it sound as though it's guaranteed to happen to you. If I put together all the things I was told to do and not to do, I reckon there would be enough to fill a book called "How to raise a toothless psychotic who won't want anything to do with you after he's fifteen."
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Jonathan is here for another day or so, and we're tidying up and sorting bills out. We've just walked to the post office, which is half a mile away. I did it by myself pre-op, and took 20 minutes there, and 15-ish back. (Back is easier because it's downhill.) Today we took 19 minutes there and about 15 back, and I'm pleased with that.
Still, if I'm to do anything at all productive while he's here, I need to lay off FT - not sit at the computer, waiting for things to happen.
Back in a bit! |
Reply #1389. Aug 31 10, 10:40 AM
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| Professer
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So good for you to have your son there a while longer Lesley, You deserve the care and attention you are geting it will only do you good in the long run.
Now if i cpuld only get Chantelle from BB to come here take care of me for a few days we would both be sorted.LOL
Reply #1390. Aug 31 10, 3:30 PM
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Deunan
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"Still, if I'm to do anything at all productive while he's here, I need to lay off FT - not sit at the computer, waiting for things to happen."
Whoa! An epithany happened here too!
Hang on people. It's spreading!
Reply #1391. Aug 31 10, 4:12 PM
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| lesley153
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Oh dear - another of the headlines I spotted today was that Chantelle says she's still in love with Preston. I suppose there's no accounting for taste! I saw him on Buzzcocks. He threw a tantrum and walked off the set. Perhaps it's not fair to judge on one appearance, but there was nothing that made me want to see more of him.
What's spreading most delightfully is the visible wall area and the walkable floor area. They got rid of the sofa and a few tons of paper and I am happy.
He plans to go back to London tomorrow afternoon, but he'll be back next week, I hope. While he's away, I can see how much needs cleaning, archiving or slinging. |
Reply #1392. Aug 31 10, 4:51 PM
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| lesley153
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PS I just saw you say the same thing in Prof's blog.
Please tell - what is the sudden insight, and what are you doing since you had it? (Or tell me where to look.) |
Reply #1393. Aug 31 10, 4:59 PM
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Deunan
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A dream. A dream in which I packed all the "can'ts", "shouldn'ts", "what ifs" and the like into a box, taped it shut, stuck a note on the top addressed to "naysayers" and put it outside the front door. I then closed the front door, returned to the livingroom and realized all the colors were brighter and had more substance.
I woke immediately afterward (at 5:30 a.m.) and began an amazing day. FT, breakfast, visited two spice shops, ran a couple more errands, returned home and felt like I had a wonderful adventure.
I made a wish for a job I can do from home and it appears that is also coming true.
Lesley, you started your epithany, I think, when you went to the new doctor, had your surgery and then started cleaning out the old, unused, unneeded stuff from your home.
Feels fantastic....doesn't it?
Yipee!
Reply #1394. Aug 31 10, 6:03 PM
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| lesley153
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I made little stabs at it over the last few years, eliminating people who used to visit regularly and steal my oxygen and my time. One of them conned me out of a satelite system. (Grrr.) I'm afraid Merv was not the only one - just the one I wrote about - but I might write about the others one day. It won't take long. There was not one who was as rich a source of material as Merv!
But what I've been doing recently is the real thing, and yes, it's a new beginning, and it feels wonderful.
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Last month I renewed my mobile phone contract. I thought I was paying £20 a month, but it was nearly £30, because they'd added insurance I didn't know about. (Must read my bank statements.) Bit peeved to learn that I was paying £8 a month to insure a brick. My new bill is £15 a month, which is nice.
And now on to broadband and the home phone.
I've had my phone with British Telecom for thirty-odd years now, but the bill is getting silly. Landline rental, plus the "anytime" package, which means I can call any UK line at any time for up to an hour without extra charge, caller ID, the BT answering service, and anonymous call barring, add up to £37 a month.
I rang BT to ask about cancelling, and got a phone call offering me line rental, caller ID, answering service and anonymous call barring, plus the "anytime" deal, at a few pennies under £14 a month.
Broadband next.
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Reply #1395. Sep 01 10, 8:36 AM
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Deunan
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Woohoo! Lesley is on a roll. Love it!
Reply #1396. Sep 01 10, 9:18 AM
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| lesley153
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This house has been connected to Mercury/NTL/Virgin broadband for about 14 years. So long, that someone from Virgin rang me in May last year and offered me a phone, no connection charge, and no charge for any inland calls, for a year, as my reward for being a long-standing valued customer. (A cheaper line would be been better!) That was the line that the woman next door told the ntl engineers, who couldn't find the grey ntl box that's by the front door and even I can see it, that it was OK to connect to hers temporarily, and then her children came home and cut the cable. (I blogged about that a couple of years ago.) The deal didn't include an actual phone, but the engineer found a dusty old phone on the windowsill, and plugged it in for me.
I didn't want or need the phone, and I was tied into an 18-month "anytime" agreement with BT, so free calls didn't save me anything. I allowed myself to be talked into something I neither needed nor wanted, didn't give the number to anyone, fielded any number of calls from double-glazing sales people, or people who were doing a "survey" on what I wanted from double glazing, and after-closing-time wrong numbers. In the end I stopped even answering it. I rang them after 11 months to cancel it.
I am now paying Virgin £21.50 a month just for broadband. It was 1 meg. It was supposed to have gone up a while ago, but a speed testing programme said I was still getting 1 meg. BT offered me broadband for an extra £8 a month, but didn't specify the capacity. Jonathan has ordered O2 (on his account, because he has an O2 phone, which entitles him to a discount on this) for IIRC £7.50, and that will give me 11 meg. Eleven times as many meg thingies for roughly a third of the cost. Thanks, Virgin, it's been fun. |
Reply #1397. Sep 01 10, 2:56 PM
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garrysouders
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Today I am going to call my satelite dish people and offer to cancel if they do not give me the free upgrade that they are offering new customers. Seems odd to me that to get a new customer they will offer an incentive they have not offered to me, I am going to be as tough as Lesley and shake the tree a little, maybe some fruit will come a flying.
Reply #1398. Sep 03 10, 4:45 AM
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| lesley153
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Bravo Garry!
If they say no, will you go ahead and cancel? I suppose you'd have to. A bit like giving a child an ultimatum - you have to follow though. Actually, it's exactly like giving a child an ultimatum!
I read ages ago that it costs twice as much to attract new customers as it does to keep old ones. Not too impressive, when you think about it, that companies will dangle goodies in front of prospective customers, and let the existing ones go hang.
Good luck: and please tell us what they say!
I'm not that tough - it's my sprog who's the tough one, but it's beginning to rub off. The only firm it didn't work on was Virgin. He rang up and said we want to cancel because the service is rubbish and it's overpriced. I have never been so proud of him. :) They said if you can get it for less than £21.50, go ahead and get it for less. So I have. [smug smug] |
Reply #1399. Sep 03 10, 7:23 AM
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Jazmee27
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I'm seriously contemplating cancelling my subscriptions to the talking book magazines the library sends me. I no longer have a working player-the last one they sen me, the eject button poppeed out and I still have that one. They sent a digital but I don't think the tapes can fit in there-it's made for cartridges!
Reply #1400. Sep 03 10, 8:42 AM
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