I WILL get there!!

Hi Kitten, I'm ok, have just been super duper busy for the last week and hadn't even realised I hadn't updated

Relate was ok, it was the initial consultation (and I know this is going to sound ageist but) as lovely as the woman was, I felt quite uncomfortable telling someone my nans age about the graphic messages I had found. We will be matched with a counsellor now which could take 6 weeks, and at £50 a time it is going to be difficult to work into the budget, but I know we have to do it.

We have been taking our mind off things by doing bits around the house...(what I mean is spend money really....but it is in the household budget and is planned for)

We have ordered a new lounge suite for half the price we had allocated (It's on a 0% deal but we knew what we would be comfortable paying per month and it's much less so not too much damage done)

We have started scraping the flaking paint off the lounge walls in preparation to repaint (the people who owned the house had it replastered and didn't apply a mist coat so there are air bubbles all over the wall :mad:) Wallpaper for the chimney breast is picked out and paint chosen so we will be getting on with that soon.

The roof needs repairing as a ridge tile cracked and fell off a few weeks ago but all the roofing companies I have called refuse to repair and want to replace all the ridge tiles (at 75+ VAT per tile :eek:) which is just not going to happen at the moment. Finally found a friend of a friend who is going to replace the single roof tile for us at a cost of £75 cash - much better!

The garden is like an enchanted forest but because we have started cutting the bushes down they are all piled on the grass so we can't mow it :cool: best the neighbours love us when they look out of their windows

Hope everyone is ok, I've been slacking when it comes to keeping up with diaries but I will remedy this over the weekend (if painting doesn't take up my entire weekend!)

K xx

Hello everyone!

I am woefully bad at diary updating at the moment, there seems to be such a lot on that even doing the PAD counting up is a struggle fitting in the day!

I got offered a job last week, I was really torn about whether to take it or not so I made pros and cons lists and gave myself the weekend to think about it. It would have been £1500 extra a year, and a slightly shorter working day but would have involved a horrendous M6 and M5 journey to work (At the moment I only live just over a mile from work so walking isn't a problem although I often get a lift )
I just thought about it and realistically I won't be much better off after paying our for fuel - £300 a year isn't going to help my pay the debt off much quicker and in the long run, when we have a little one I won't want to be travelling an hour each way to work and the extra childcare that will cost.

I've been having a real think recently and I think part of my problem for a long while has been some family history with attitudes to success. My grandmother on my dads side was a lovely woman towards the end, but when I was younger we didn't get on very well for numerous reasons. One being that to her, success was the job title you had, the size of your house and car and the salary you brought home. I've realised how much of an effect that has had on my Dads life and we barely saw him when we smaller - retail management used to pay very well but left no family time. In the long run my parents are even worse with money than me so all the extra salary didn't do them any good did it?

I've decided to concentrate on what I really want from life - to be happy, with a child or two, in a happy home - none of that is going to be helped by taking on more stress at work for little extra money. I hope I'm making the right decision

The hen do was fab - except I got seasick and sunstroke on Sunday so vomited regularly for over 12 hours very unpleasant, but the rest was a blast! Had a great time with a lovely bunch of girls and even enjoyed the sailing to Isle of Wight (I'd never been before) we moored in Cowes for the night and got a water taxi to a pub called the Folly Inn where the food was lovely, then back to the boat for drinks we had brought with us so not a terrible overspend but I did spend what I had budgeted, no extra payments from that money

My mom had her op yesterday and it was horrible not being there, I was just sitting at work waiting for updates and my dad wasn't so great with those, so we drive to the hospital last night where there was a witch nurse on duty who kept being very rude to my elderly nan - we were taking it in turns round the bed but my nan arrived without seeing the others in the waiting room so had come over whilst OH and I were already with mom, boy did she get told off about the 2 by the bed rule and was not at all helpful when we asked about how long she would be in for (my grandparents are staying in a local hotel whilst she's in so she can have visitors everyday, but are booking a day at a time so she just needed to know how many nights to confirm)

My Dad got the job that I did the presentation for him for, he's thrilled and so are we - his current job has been terrible for his heart - the stress is terrible as is the attitude.

PADs are still going, I'm annoyingly close to another milestone but I just don't have the spare money to get under it at the moment - roll on more ebay sales!!

Hope everyone is well!

K x