Another Week has Flown By!

Well, time is still whizzing past! Last week I went to Edinburgh for a couple of days and met up with a friend and had a great time. Edinburgh is a beautiful city - Mr G and I went there with the 4 DC last year. This time I was child-free and with a native Edinburgh-er (?) - so had some of the sights pointed out to me and history told as we walked around.

Saturday was DS3's 2nd birthday! He is such a sweetie and was spoilt rotten by everyone! We only got him a couple of toys because a- he's too young to know any different b- he has lots of hand me down toys from the bigger ones c- we knew he'd get lots of stuff from everyone else! I do now need to have a cull of toys though.. another job for the list! It was also my mum's birthday - we gave her a Radley purse and keyring (cost £14 groupon voucher and £3 - goods worth £43), a huge candle decorated with flowers (M&S Outlet reduced to £8 from £15) and a bodyshop gift box (£12.50 from £25 in the sale) Bargains!

I've decided to start following flylady again so have been working in our bedroom this week. I got everything out from under the bed (it's where I keep the Xmas and birthday present stashes and paper/ cards) and had a good sort out and vacuum. My drawers have been sorted and tidied (a few items put to one side for a charity bag) and mirrors and woodwork/ units polished. This leaves me the bathroom to give a good clean to and the landing/ dressing area to tidy and clean (and my wardrobe to sort) (We have our bedroom in a loft conversion - we have the whole floor to us - bedroom, massive bathroom and a landing/ dressing area between the two) So far it's going well - when I follow flylady (modified) it works - but I have to be 'up' to follow it, and recently I've been very down, so the house and garden need a good overhaul, as I've just not bothered :(

A good note from this week though is that I won £25 on premium savings bonds (we only have £600 in them). I paid this off the mortgage, along with some coins from the mortgage money box and rounded it up to make an overpayment to bring the mortage balance down to exactly £85000. I'm really pleased with this - we took a £130k mortgage when we moved here in Oct 2005 and a further £30k advance in Dec 2008 for the loft - so we've repaid £75k of capital in 5 1/2 years!! Our mortgage end date is officially Oct or Nov 2025, but I want to pay it all off by July 2016... eeek!!