13 Moons part 2 - Freebird & Frugabulous

makeup

Sounds like a fab saturday.

Enjoy your garden tomorrow too!

:j

Lula-Hula

That seemed like a very short weekend & I am crackered.

I got all the laundry done & most of the ironing too, I ran out of time & enthusiasm at 9pm this evening. I only have DDs uniform & a few tops of mine to do so hope to finish that off tomorrow after work.

The bathroom was cleaned & the home is now pretty much tidy apart form the piles of stuff to charitize or sell. Sorting through my summer clothes took a lot longer than expected. Largely due to some random person apparently having increased the volume of clothes by about 50% more than I remembered.

Oh my gosh, I really dont need to get anything new other than a couple of pairs of cropped trousers that are suitable for work. Even after a ruthless clearout there is a lot of stuff.

I know that I dont need any shoes or sandals either, I just need to convince myself to get rid of those that arent comfortable or simply dont fit. I'm happy to get rid of bags or clothes (currently watching 2 gorgeous ones on ebay) but do struggle with shoes if I think they are beautiful. I also discovered that I have exactly the same dress in 2 sizes .

Aside from the clothes mountain, we spent some time in the garden & dusted off our badminton skills. I was quite impressed with my ability to hit the shuttlecok with a racket that was a curly as a quaver. Really, it is a work of art. Have no idea where it came from but it's very bendy :rotfl:

Still no sign of icee cream van which means it was a NSD. Not looking forward to work in the morning & especially as I'm paying childminder which means I'm working the week for about tuppence ha'penny. I am now casually looking around for other opportunities to earn a living. I've never experienced the sunday dread until the last couple of weeks & it's not a good feeling.

Hey ho, once this tough month is over, I might get to feeling a bit more motivated again, although part of my despondency is due to finally admitting to myself that there is no chance of progression within that company & that my boss ( Gropey) is a complete bullsh!tter who just opens his mouth & it flows forth like a river.

Right, time for bed & 5 more sleeps til time off

G'night
xx

Shoe_Gal

I feel your pain about there being no scope for progress - exactly the position I'm in :mad: And no prgress means no more money

Lula-Hula

I decided not to post during the week as I want to be positive & optimistic rather than moany & whiney.

Ok, so I'm not stashed with cash, stunningly gorgeous or living a social or jetsetting dream. But, having done a quick stock take I do ... :

Have a home,
2 fab & fun DDs,
Good health ( all of us),
Paid work & enough income to live on,
A car I can afford to run
All the essential, techie & indulgent possessions that I NEED
The ability to acquire new ones when necessary.

It's not exciting or glamorous at the moment, but there is potential .

Grumpy reappeared at work this week & that has made a huge difference to the general atmosphere . In spite of Gropeys claims that his recent illness is an infection, the Goblin appears to have the same type. Whether this has anything to do with them having been seen walking around town holding hands ... who knows. It's not a though that any of us wish to dwell on.

Fit gorgeous fun guy is emigrating which is both sad as he was really full of life & motivation & yet somewhat inspirational too. Admittedly, he is 10 years younger & has a long term GF to accompany him, but still it's food for thought as to how to get the life I want.

Anyway ...

Work-job is now firmly locked at the back of my mind for a while & although there are a few tasks to tackle during my time off, some rest & recuperation is also needed. With easter & school hols being so late this year, it's nearly 4 months since my last break from routine & I was definitely fraying around the edges .

On Monday DDs friend came round for tea & I felt compelled to buy some nice food so spent £9.32 in the co op, bringing the weekly spend to £27.70 & my monthly total Housekeeping spends to £105.54 . It also leaves another £2.30 in the Leftovers Pot & a total of £4.90.

Tuesday was a NSD & we were both tired so went to bed early with our books.

Wednesday DD stayed at the childminders for tea so I just got all home-job work done which was great. Another NSD too.

Yesterday was home-job payday & I had enough to repay the cash I'd borrowed for grocery shopping last week & give DD her pocket money & had a fiver left for me. Spent £2 of it on sweets on the way home from childminders, had a sugar rush that made me feel quite ill & then fall asleep on sofa for an hour.

Foodwise I've been rubbish & consequently regained 2lbs :mad:. No, chocolate, toast & cake is not going to help me stay slim :wall:. Back on the attack phase of eating plan today. Giving blood this afternoon so that usually inspires me to be healthier as well.

Moneywise I'm doing ok. Just.

There's enough in the bank to withdraw £30 for the next weeks; groceries, pay the lovefilm direct debit of £5.99, the vodafone direct debit of £16.18 - higher than usual due to easy/lazy way of donating to comic relief, the bill for piano lessons - only £101.70 rather than the expected £130 so that's good .

The week after that I should be able to repay some of the £220 that I owe my funds. This is absolutely crucial as the Gas & Electricity bills are due at the end of the month & car tax is due at the end of May. I must take meter readings today & supply them so I get a real bill rather than estimated. Have no idea whatsoever as to how much either will be.

That week is also the week that I get paid so I'm hoping ( ever the optimist) that I will start to see some benefits to having cleared the debt ... I will have to pay extra money in to the funds as I am teeth-grittingly determined to put every single penny of that money back. It's mine, I saved it so the only person losing out is me. See, I told you I'd be far more strict once i was playing with my own money :rotfl:

The washing machine has done its thing so I now have to throw some clothes on & venture to the garden to hang stuff out.

Have more news, so will be back again in a bit ...

Lula-Hula

More news :

I have been very good with surveys this week & amazingly earned a massive £8 in just 2 days. I got this converted into PayPal money which went some way to paying for the gorgeous little bag I won on ebay. total cost to me after paypal deductions was £11.99 & I have already confessed all on the CCC & updated my sig total.

I still have another £10 in Amazon vouchers due to arrive some time which will boost my pressies fund somewhat . I'll add this to the sig when it finally arrives.

I also received a £2 Tatco clubcard voucher which will be put towards fuel as I am far too impatient to save it up for something else.

I also have my shiny new co op credit card ... but no pin number has appeared yet so it's just sat there in all it's virginal glory at the moment :rotfl: I'm hoping the pin number turns up soon so I can buy the bits needed for DDs room & the cooker. There were some fab deals on cookers last week, do hope they wont have ended by the time I get to pimp the card about .

Must remember that this 0% deal is only for 6 months & not get too excited about buying stuff; cooker is an essential, sofa is desirable, anything else is unnecessary. I do not want to have to pay more than £250 off the balance each month in order to clear it by September.

The local library is being squeezed. Funding for staff has been cut ( inspite of apparent £60,000,000 underspend by county council :mad:. There's an appeal for volunteers to help run it & keep it open, so I'm going to offer my services.

I've also joined a local meetup group for other single working parents. not done any actual meeting up yet due to work, but hope to very soon. I am scared though, very scared

Must get DD some lunch then head out for blood donating, grocery shopping & posting birthday card.

Shoe_Gal

Well done on the 'joining' - I'm far too scared to do things like that

Lula-Hula

Shoe_Gal wrote: »

Well done on the 'joining' - I'm far too scared to do things like that

Believe me, joining up & actually meeting up are poles apart .

There's a meet up picnic planned for this sunday. Half of me really wants to just put on my 'F* off I'm Fabulous' hat which gives me confidence to just be me & go, but the other half says " meet up with a bunch of strangers in a wood :eek: are you out of your freaking mind ?, they're probably either swingers or psychos ".

Well, that ^ & the fact that I havent run it past DD yet to see what she thinks .

I need to do something though, my social life is now almost nil. I did bump into old flame earlier & I had a bit of a hankering ... but deep down I know it's just boredom & safety that makes me feel like that. I'm bored & he's safe. I've broken his heart twice now by running off with someone thoroughly unsuitable & doomed to failure, when he got a bit too intense & frankly, he deserves better than I can/am willing to offer him.

We were stood chatting & I said how I was really growing up & settled now & he just laughed at me & said that I'd never settle & he just bet I had a plan to do something very unsettled... camper van anyone :rotfl:

All this was after I'd been to donate some of the red stuff. Turns out my iron levels are amazing now - that drop sank like a stone - but actually getting the stuff out of my veins is as awkward as ever . Poor nurse thought she had foudn a juicy one, but it produced nothing. She had to call the blokey over who inspected my other arm, selected a most unusual vein in it & then plunged straight in like the adrenalin shot scene in Pulp Fiction.

New fangled methods of reducing bruising mean I now have what looks exactly like a mini lilet strapped to my arm, very fetching & with the plaster over the gouged out hole in the other one I look a right mess.

The lovely lady who gives out the tea & biccie did make me want to giggle though, for every new person that sat down & had a snack, she sneakily leaned in to the pot & helped herself to a pack of biccies. She has clearly been doing this job for some time as she had some fantastic curves.

Note to self - do not do any job that enables free snack scoffing.

I came home again before tackling the joys of waitrose; mainly as whilst I was lying there being bled dry, I realised that not only had I left my pyjama clad DD at home with strict instructions not to open doors, answer phone or leave the premises unless it was burning down & she had first thrown all my shoes & the laptop to safety & that she was to text me should she need me ... but that I'd also left my phone at home too :doh:.

I also needed to pee, a lot. A pint of water is now required to be drunk before donating. I'd had one before I left as well. It's all very well for small girls (DD was a regular) to use the staff facilities in Waitrose, I doubt I would get away with it though.

So, back on the eating plan means lots of protein again. I did my best to buy cheaply, using offers & reduced items & got through the till having spent £30.32.

I also had to use my pocket money to buy some crunchie ice creams ( bogof so perfectly acceptable ) & gum. I did get 2 x £2 coins in my change but now have a deficit which I am not taking out of the pot, it will have to come off next weeks budget.

I have £4.41 of 2 weeks worth of pocket money left & any ESSENTIAL groceries will have to come out of that .

I now wish I hadnt bought DD a cottage pie, that's what tipped me over the budget. Of course it wasnt the reduced 75p roast chicken dinner flavour crisps :whistle:

Dan29

Hello! Just been catching up on your diary while I should be packing up my flat in Cardiff. Glad to see that all is going well.

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Fit gorgeous fun guy is emigrating which is both sad as he was really full of life & motivation & yet somewhat inspirational too.

Sorry if I missed this, but how is/was he inspirational? Inspirational is good.

Lula-Hula wrote: »

I eventually get rid of him & immediately book myself in for an intensive course of amnesia to overcome the trauma of the disturbing images that conjured up.

:rotfl:

Lula-Hula wrote: »

There's a meet up picnic planned for this sunday. Half of me really wants to just put on my 'F* off I'm Fabulous' hat which gives me confidence to just be me & go, but the other half says " meet up with a bunch of strangers in a wood :eek: are you out of your freaking mind ?, they're probably either swingers or psychos ".

Do it! What's the worst that can happen?! (don't answer that).

Lula-Hula

Hi Dan,

hope your move is going well ?

I'm still thinking about the Swingers & Psychos meet up ... will definitely go to one; (after my time on Plenty of Freaks, nothing can faze me :rotfl:) just not tomorrow as I am due to do the quarterly rellies visit *sighs & braces self*

Re fun guy at work - I didnt word that very well, what I actually meant was that the fact he is emigrating is inspirational. I actually really liked & admired him as a person; he & his fiancee had travelled around the country & had an idea they wanted to emigrate there. We had that conversation about a year ago, & now they're just doing it. She's already over there & looking for a place to live in & he's aiming to follow within a few weeks. Has his resignation all written up & ready to give it in as soon as he gets the word from his fiancee.

They are in a different situation from myself, a couple, no children & no financial ties here, but it was how he's approached it that really inspired me. Talking about possessions & such he just said that he realised how little they actually needed & was just selling most of their stuff.

It made me think that for those who want to put down roots, then having expensive furniture etc is all part of the lifestyle they aspire to. Whereas for others, that sort of stuff really just serves a purpose & is almost 'transitory' in that it only exists within a certain place & time & when the person moves on it ceases to be important.

I did the big money test & it threw up some interesting results for me.

Apart from scoring 9/10 ( smug grin) on the knowledge ( ehic card let me down) & being pretty good at tracking & keeping on top of stuff, it turns out that my money motivator is freedom.

Life is ticking on, my DD is about to embark on 5 - 7 years of intensive education & peer group pressure, I need to get myself a life plan & some money :eek: I need to travel, yet normal holidays just dont inspire me; I want to live it, not just visit

For now though, I have to empty the washing machine ... hey ho domestic bliss :rotfl:

MrsMoo2U

Creeps in to say hello. I have come across your superliciously humorous posts elsewhere and, unusually for me, whilst browsing todays new posts your jumped off the page at me. I have a bit of a thing when buying books, I like to read the first paragraph, if I like it I buy the book. I do a similar thing with diaries on here and blogs. I read the first page, now subscribed as I feel another rib tickling enjoyable read to look forward to.
Congratulations on your debtfreedness. I may have to go back and find your last instalment to see just how you managed.