A Birthday Saturday

I wasn't working at all this weekend, which was a bonus, especially as it was LB's 15th birthday this Saturday.  She had arranged a meet up for a bunch of her friends in a local park, so I bought them some snacks and drinks to enjoy whilst they were there.

She seemed to enjoy the presents that I'd bought her, and the rest of her present from both OH and myself was money.  As a teenager, she much prefers to get money to spend how she wishes, than things, which is all good.

We've booked a week in New York at half term in February.  We've wanted to take her for ages, but never got around to booking it.  OH has booked our flights and we're supposed to be staying in an apartment belonging to someone he knows through work, although we'll be sharing it during working hours, as it is currently being used as an office. 

This will be a bit weird, but we'll probably mostly be out and about sightseeing anyway and alternative accommodation in New York is astronomically expensive, and quite small by comparison.  If the worst comes to the worst and we don't like the arrangement, we could always book a hotel for a few days when we get there. I'm just hoping that the weather isn't so bad that our flights are cancelled either way or that it will be impossible to get around once there.

As a consequence of the above, LB is very excited.  She's getting her birthday money in dollars, which also has the added advantage of preventing her from spending it before we go. She can't wait to go thrift shopping in NYC and I'd be very interested in visiting a few thrift stores myself out of curiosity.

Saturday morning we took LB out for brunch at a local restaurant, on her own request. The afternoon she spent with her friends and then theyof them came back to our house to hang out later and have a piece of her cute birthday cake, that I bought from ASDA. She's just now taking an interest in vinyl, but loves music, so this was perfect.

On the way back from the restaurant, I made a point of dropping into a couple of local green grocers, to buy most of our fruit and veg for this week, in an attempt to cut down on the plastic waste I usually accrue at the supermarkets. I should do this every week, but I've got into the terrible habit of the convenience of one or two stop shopping at big name and value supermarkets. It's a habit I really need to break this year, for things such as fruit and veg anyway, as they are packaged in so much plastic these days, that it is obscene. I did go out to the supermarkets later to get the rest of our shopping.

With the grocery shopping done for another week, I settled in for the afternoon to finish emptying the ironing basket, which had built up since we went away at Christmas.  It felt so good to get it up to scratch and feel on top of things again. The same can't be said for the cleaning, but I may do some tomorrow before I go back to work on Monday.

I'm not sure if I'm going to the gym tomorrow, as the system for booking has changed and I didn't get a place this week.  You can now book 20 days ahead instead of 7, so all classes get booked up and the waiting list, which used to bump you up into a class dependent on where you were on it, is now a complete free for all, which makes it virtually impossible to book a place when one becomes available. 

It's a real mess, worse than before. I can't understand why they introduced it.  Probably because of a few complainers.  Let them suffer the consequences, is what I say, and they will if they're not on it when it comes to booking 3 weeks ahead. Crazy. Now everyone will just book everything for three weeks and cancel as necessary, and then let the unlucky rest fight it out for the places that crop up due to cancellations.  So stressful.

It really has made me think seriously about cancelling my membership, but I'll hang on for a while and see if it all dies down after the January rush to the gym.