OberonSH's DFW Diary Thread - 1 Woman, 1 Toddler & A Whole Lotta Debt!

floss2

Obi's OH has a pregnant goddess of his own, he doesn't need Nigella!

Have we knocked another week of the baby-countdown yet Obi?

OberonSH

Good point, I haven't. Now jus 12 weeks until Baby Ash pops out.

Nice cheapish day today chicks. Farmers market, so went and got some absolutely gorgeous local lamb. Neck fillet, so it goes in the slow cooker but is seriously the best lamb I've ever tasted, so worth the extra. Bought some local organic soup & hummous for lunch, and picked up a couple of bargainous baby gros from Oxfam, as I'm aware that should DS arrive early, poor mite has practically no clothing as yet. By this time with DD, I had it all in the wardrobe, ironed and smelling of lavender. The babygros are sooooo teeny, it's hard to imagine the child stomping round the house like a baby elephant being that small. But she was.....

I also bit the bullet (again) and sat down with my little piece of paper to calculate the current debt now the shop is all officially tied up. Including OH's car loan, and the figure from Barclays which is being disputed (as half of it was spent by Hitler's Towel Boy (the ex hubby) our figure is....

gulp

£29,953.40 :eek:

It's better than teh 35k it used to be, but still a bit of a shock. Again. But I have a few things in my favour:

1) The car is going to be sold - his FIL was supposed to take over the payments as he's using it but hasn't done. So there's a few thousand coming off that figure before too long.
2) The Barclays loan is in dispute, as they said they were only going to hold me responsible for half the £19k. They've now decided not to, but that's a different story. This is worst case senario.
3) None of it is accruing interest, so there's a small mercy.

With the spanky budget I've done, I reckon we can be sorted out (without selling the car and assuming Barclays carry on being difficult about the loan) in about 8 years!!! Hopefully a lot less - by selling the car I reckon that figure will drop to around 6 years at the current rate.

Still, at least it's a figure, and not a 'could be this, could be that'. Not going to be going up.

Right I'm off to get a cup of tea and hav another crack at Ebay. You know - I'm not feeling frightened, or sad about my figure, thought I'd be wailing and gnashing, but I'm not. I just went 'Oh. Thats a big number' and got on with the rest of my housework. Naturally I'm going to do my damndest to sort it out a lot quicker than 6-8 years, but I'm not going to let it ruin my life. The sausage casserole smells great, the house is cozy and clean and I have a new pair of socks to start knitting tonight. There's a lot there to feel good about, and the fact that I owe a lot of money isn;t going to stop me enjoying hat I do have. 8 years is a long time to put your life on hold.

I hope that makes sense to you guys. If not, ignore it, and pretend I said something really witty that made you fall off your chair and pee yourself.

Toto

Welcome back obi, I've missed you these past few months. I can't believe it's only 12 weeks now till mini Obi joins us

hypno06

Well, as you say, you now have a figure that you can work to, and as it is a worst case scenario, there should be no hidden horrors.

And once you have a starting point, you also have a moveable target - in your case, that means moving it forward a bit. and then a bit more.

Now, please say something witty so we can fall off our chairs peeing ourselves..........

OberonSH

um...............





um........







No, it's gone.

hypno06

damn

:rotfl:

OberonSH

Can't promise it'll be witty, but for anyone who's interested, here's my daily waffling. If you're lucky I may remember halfway through to go take my head medicine, wander away and talk to the wall......

Very good day, went out to deliver OH's sandwich (he's too bloody lazy to make his own in the morning. Something he's going to have to do, otherwise it's Mr Flibble and the spoon....) and got my essentials like envelops for Ebay and some electric.

Am I the only person on the planet who HATES prepay electric meters with a passion? Ours is located around 8 foot up on a wall, and wails like a pig stuck in a blender. It never beeps at a good time - like when you're on your way, so you can say 'Oh, I'll need to get electric'. No. It's either a) 6am Sunday morning so an hour before the corner shop opens, or b) last thing at night when they're shut. Occasionaly c) when you have friends round who wonder what on earth that horrendous noise is and then look at you like something from Planet Zog when you explain what a prepay meter is. Handy for not running up huge bills, I grant you, but not cheap and not convenient in the least. The gas prepay watchamacallit is in the scary dark bit under the stairs with no lights, and so low to the ground you end up crawling around looking for the slot with the light from your mobile like some rabid cat-lady looking for a feral tom in a dustbin.

My sausage casserole went down a storm, not bad for 'That needs using, as does that - I'll whack a load of paprika in it and call it Hungarian Sausages...'. Plus I got my back bedroom (sorry, storage area) sorted out, and brought down a washing basket full of stuff to stick on Ebay. Satan's Haemorroid Applicator's toys aren't selling, so going to bundle a load of stuff up and do it in piles. The wools going nicely, even if it is at half the trade price - I'm getting rid, and the gap between what we have and what we need for the deposit (by end of month gulp) is closing faster and faster. I rock.

Made some cupcakes to send OH off to work with (Nigellas book is ace), but made the mistake of trying to use up a jar of Splenda in it instead of sugar - tastes okay, but as we don't use sweetener I can taste "chemically" aftertaste, so OH is going to take them with him tomorrow when he goes to Warhammer Games Day and dole them out on the coach.

So tomorrow is an 'at home' day with DD, wantd to make some homemade playdough, but don;t have any cream of tartar (hatever that is) so will probably get her to help pack. She loves putting things in boxes. Not usually the right way up, or in fact in the right boxes, but it keeps the little mite happy and she likes to help. I have been guilty of asking her to keep an eye on the washing machine to make sure it doesn't leak, and that kept her busy for half an hour.....

OberonSH

Evening chicks,

Hope veryone had a lovely cheap day. I personally spent £1.10 on 2 packs of butter for baking cakes with the little'un. Alway a cheap day with child at home - you dare not stray into a shop for fear of the havoc they cause. Mines not bad, just very nosy, and so you find her wandering off to ask strangers 'What you doing?' 'You reading a book?' in a cute 2 year old way.

Day started a bit strangely - Mr Obi was due to leave house at 5am to travel to Nottigham for Games Day with work. So, being a loving, caring thing that I am, I got his flask ready, with coffee, told him because its brown sugar to use half the normal amount. I even filled the kettle and left the flask next to it so as to avoid any confusion int he morning. I come down when he's gone to find my kitchen in a state that can only be called 'Massacre at Starbucks'.

There was coffee splattered up the walls, across the worktop and the sink was half full of lukewarm sweet coffee. The flask was sitting at the end leaking and there was a suspicious lack of Coke (he's been told to cut down on it, as I keep finding half full bottles everywhere that he won't drink because it's gone flat). Apparently he'd added too much sugar, and so left it on the top. He'd no idea how the kitchen ended up resembling Coffee Bean Hell.

DD was grumpy and tired today, and hasn't actually eaten anything apart from a slice of bread & butter and half a bowl of branflakes. Late night at Grandads Friday, and hasn't seemed to catch up the lost hours. So whilst not a horrid child at the worst of times, she was just narky and grumpy. Made worse by the fact that Mummy's simply too knackered by 3pm hauling her brother around to get on the floor and play.

Managd to put together a budget for Barclays - the sheet they send ou is just too pathetic for wors, so I redid my own to send to them . I also drafted a letter to go to Thomas Cook demanding my dposit of £300 back, as we couldn;t go thanks to the pregnancy and they were so unhelpful finding an alternative I just ended up cancelling. I was told basically it was my own fault for getting pregnant, and there's nothing they can do. They can't tell me they won't be able to fill the places we booked with the 4 months notice we gave!!! Pretty sure this sort of thing comes under the same law as the unfair bank charges - it;s not cost them anything, so why should they get to keep my money? Answers on a postcard please....

So just waiting for OH to com home, then I've got a half a washing basket of stuff to ebay, a toilet to clean and a baby's sweater to finish. Newborn size my bum!! Wanted to knit something warm for him to wear straight off, and a 14" chest (prem) knits to 16" (newborn) that actually looks like GodOnlyKnows" (Swamping a Baby Elephant). I'm persevering, and in true DFW style have pulled down a half finished cardy for me that won't ever get finished to do a sweater for DD.

I hope you guys are all doing well, feeling good and getting there. Tomorrow is a day closer to where you want to be, but don't foget to enjoy the ride.

Natlou_2

Hi Obi
Have just read through your diary and would just like to say I really admire you. I have my own shop near Scarborough, its only been open since May and so far is doing ok, but Ive still had scary moments where cashflow has proved a problem, and of course Im still learning - its hard isn't it! Im also a fellow knitter and I hope you don't mind me being nosy, but what knitting magazines do you buy? - I have a 16 month old daughter and struggle to find nice patterns where I am - any suggestions?
Anyway, good luck with the rest of your pregnancy & I'll keep reading your diary with interest x

OberonSH

Morning Nat,

Thanks, that's a really nice thing to start the day off with! Having your own business is very scary - what do you sell? If I had my time again, I'd go pro-forma until I had a good grasp on what I was doing. Still, I'm not doing too badly now the shop is closed, and the ebaying is clearing out my old stock at a nice pace.

I get 'Knitting' - not bad, but a bit arty farty - not the sort of stuff you' bob down to Nettos in, but I find the masterclasses on finsinhing, edging etc a lot better. I also get 'Simply KNitting' which is excellent for stufff you actually want to knit, and always has little bits like Alan Dart toys that keep getting added to my list! If you can get it, there's a magazine called Yarn Forward which is produced by HipKnits - I got issue 1 and it's a great little 'smaller publisher' magazine, that has some bits about spinning it it too.

But my altime, favourite brillinat mag is an online one (and therefore FREE!!) that always has great patterns - the website is www.knitty.com. I'm planning on starting the 'Intolerable Cruelty' skirt - very vamp, and I'm sure there's something there to appeal to a 16 yar old. It's American, but if you get stuck with the abbreviations or yarns just let me know.

I hope you have a good day at your place today - bucketing it down here so I'd be looking at a slow day if I was still 'bricks and mortar'- luckily it's never rainign on ebay so this morning I have another load of stuff to list. Nearly at my target for my deposit!!