Mouche’s adventures with her first mortgage (while coping with her first baby)

mouche

tootallulah - do you live in Kent by any chance? Can you tell me who your cleaning company were? The insurer has said they will pay for a cleaning company but their own people have no dates available.

Didn't manage to clean the ironing board yesterday as LO didn't go to sleep till 10pm and I had to eat dinner after that and simply didn't have the energy after eating. Tonight I will try to eat while LO is awake so that I have some time after he goes to bed. The builder has not yet finished the 'snagging' so haven't booked a cleaner yet.

MSE-wise, I have grabbed one of the toys from the Amazon deal in Martin's newsletter. It may or may not be appropriate for LO but I have a friend with a slightly older son whose birthday is coming up so it will get used either way.

[STRIKE]Monday: work late and try to catch up on work missed[/STRIKE]
Tuesday: [STRIKE]bring ironing board into house[/STRIKE], clean and replace cover
Wednesday: if builder has finished work, organise a cleaner & oven cleaner for Saturday
Thursday: attend event at local library
Friday: bring shoe rack and coat rack into the house and clean

Goldiegirl

Hello!


I'm glad you are back in your own home again.


I think you are very wise to do mini-goals.


Ten years ago, after my dad died, I had a mountain of things to do. I had to sort out his estate, and, as my mum had dementia, I had to deal with her care arrangements, get power of attorney for her, completely clear their house, give up the tenancy and deal with all their utilities, council tax etc.


I had a list of things to do as long as your arm. But as long as I was able to tick one thing off each day, I was happy. ( I was over the moon if I could do two :rotfl:)


It was a long haul, but in the end, after several months, everything was done.


You'll get the end of your list eventually, and I think you have the right approach

mouche

Oh my goodness Goldie....I can't imagine being in that situation - I think I would just collapse. I do feel better about my own situation now though and encouraged by your vote of support for my very mini goals.

As a result, last night I got LO home, fed and into bed, took a shower, did a load of laundry and put it out on the airer, cleaned the ironing board and changed the cover AND managed to watch half an hour of TV. I get so much more done when OH is working late.

So tonight I (hopefully) treat myself by attending an author event at the local library. I was going to get a babysitter but I got the days mixed up and she is not available tonight. OH has said he will try his best to be home on time so fingers and toes crossed that I will be able to attend.

LO moment: He has started chattering away nowadays but he continues to surprise me with his vocabulary and his conversation. Yesterday we were watching TV while my dinner was heating in the microwave. He was completely absorbed but when the microwave pinged, he turned to me and said 'Your dinner is ready mummy.' It sounds very ordinary but I didn't know he knew what the ping meant! He has also improved considerably at throwing and catching and can catch football sized balls if you throw them straight at him.

tootallulah

Hi Mouche, sorry but my fire was in Notts so I cant help with the cleaning company however if you can find one I do really recommend it.

mouche

Yes I think I will tootalullah…probably best to go with a company for this sort of thing as you say. Though I won’t be booking a cleaner of any kind for a while it seems, as our builder has finally identified the source of the leak we have been complaining about for the past week. Apparently they put a nail through the central heating pipe while doing the bathroom. He has taken part of the kitchen ceiling down and there was water pouring from it when he did. The paintwork in that area is ruined as well so I imagine it will be a good few days before everything dries out and can be repaired. It is really annoying but at least he has found the problem and can fix it. So have swapped out the arranging cleaners mini-task with getting the broadband working again.

OH has a terrible bug of some sort – was burning up with fever yesterday when I got home from my event at the library (which I really enjoyed but ended up buying a £6.50 copy of a book I have already read in order to have a signed copy). He was supposed to work late again today but I hope I have persuaded him to leave as early as he possibly can – he shouldn’t be at work at all in my opinion but of course he thinks the place will collapse without his presence. Edit: He says he will need to work late….grrrrrr.

Money-wise, this month is turning into a very expensive month. I think my mindset has become – oh we have to buy so much for the house and spend so much, let me become lax in all areas of spending. So have ended up spending unnecessary money on work lunches, a book from the BookPeople stall at work, unnecessarily expensive toys for LO, unneeded perfume for OH etc. This has to stop or we will be struggling even after all the insurance money comes in. For the first time ever I have nearly maxed out my credit card – and it has a very, very generous limit. Much of that money is hotel bills and appliances that insurance will pay for, but a good chunk of it is not.

I think the trouble is also that I have basically lost track of what I am spending and that allows it to mount up. I need to cut right back till the end of the month when I will pay off all the credit card bills, straighten out the savings to see what is left, and start over.

Plans for this weekend – go back to hotel to get parking charges sorted out, pick up meds from pharmacy, attend Pilates, grocery shopping and then entertain LO in the evening while OH watches football. Sunday, I am hoping we can have a day out if OH is better. Did I mention we signed up to English Heritage a few weeks ago? We’ve been to 3 properties since and hopefully we can visit another one on Sunday. I am going to have o plan for extra petrol usage now! But if we do go, I will try to organise a picnic to reduce costs. Trouble is OH doesn’t like normal picnic food – he likes Indian and Chinese and very little else – certainly nothing that can be eaten cold. Oh well, let’s see how it goes. Have a nice weekend everyone.

[STRIKE]Monday: work late and try to catch up on work missed
Tuesday: bring ironing board into house, clean and replace cover[/STRIKE]
Wednesday: ring Sky to try get broadband working again
[STRIKE]Thursday: attend event at local library [/STRIKE]
Friday: bring shoe rack and coat rack into the house and clean
Saturday: Laundry and ironing
Sunday: Bring hallway cabinets downstairs and clean

ljaneyr

Mouche I am so relieved to read that you are back in your own home! What a pain about the leak though. OH's professional opinion on the definition of 'snagging': cooker hood = no, leak = yes because "these things happen". He is now chuckling about the time he put a nail through a central heating pipe at my mum's house about 8 years ago. It sprayed black water all over me when he switched it back on and i had to wait with my finger over the hole for 45 minutes while he went to get some plumbing stuff! :rotfl:

It will definitely be worth getting a cleaning company to go over everything, then you can have a fresh start in a nice clean house.

I like your baby step approach and my try something similar as my lists are getting overwhelming

Janey x

mouche

Thanks for popping by janey. Glad to hear your OHs views - put my mind a bit at rest as I was thinking along the lines of - if he can put a screw in the central heating what else has he destroyed in the house! Was laughing at your experience though! Reminds me of the stories my mum tells me of my grandad who was an amateur electrician. He was fixing something once and asked her to switch it on - at which point she got a minor shock. When she complained, he said, 'how else am I supposed to know if I've fixed it or not - try again!'

Not a very productive weekend as OH was really quite ill. He’s take the day off sick today as well though hopefully it will be a recovery day. LO was a bit hot this morning – hope it’s just the weather and not him catching OHs bug. All I managed to get done this weekend was getting the broadband working again and some laundry. We couldn’t make the most of the weather either though we managed a trip to the playground yesterday evening. Oh well, it’s a new week so onwards and upwards.

I’ve realised that two months in a hotel has made me out of practice at getting stuff done. Plus, LO always slept late (9pm ish) but now he doesn’t go off till 10pm so that leaves very little time and even less energy! So I think, while I should keep at it, I should also not get upset at myself if I can’t get things done. Also, I’ve realised we have just 2 weekends left till we go on holiday. So it might be best to leave the house in terrible-but-functional state and get things organised for the holiday. I really want us to enjoy this first vacation for the three of us. We’ve been to the New Forest one year and Wales the next after LO was born but this is the first time we are going abroad and also the first time my parents aren’t coming along to help out. There will be a long summer afterwards to get the house sorted.

This week’s mini-goals:
Monday: [STRIKE]Ring insurance to chase remaining payments; Figure out how to download latest maps to SatNav; [/STRIKE]attend parent’s evening; do ironing & email all holiday details to work address for printing
Tuesday: Post book sold on greenmetropolis; print out holiday details; do laundry; make lists of things to do and things to pack for holiday; update maps on SatNav

Will decide for the rest of the week based on that holiday list.

LO moment: We took him to the playground yesterday in the evening and he was the only child there. A little later a 6-7 year old boy came along and seeing as LO was the only other child there, they started playing together. Now the other boy was very quick up and down the big slide so at one point LO looked around him and said ‘Where’s Freddie gone?’ Now I hadn’t heard their whole conversation so I said ‘He’s over there’. A little later the other boy passed me and I called him Freddie. He looked very confused and said ‘My name is XYZ’. Where LO came up with Freddie I have no idea!

After we left the playground and got into the car, LO announced unprompted ‘That was very nice holiday’. So I asked ‘Was it nice?’ and he replied ‘Deeelicious!’ He cracks me up, he does!

Goldiegirl

LOL at your LO. I wonder where he got Freddie from.

I do Greenmetropolis as well.

As I've got a Kindle now I rarely list any new books, and on average sell a book once every two or there months. At this rate it was take me about 20 years to sell all my books!

But May has been good so far - I've sold 5 books so far this month, which is astonishing

poorbutrich

Hi Mouche
I've just caught up with your diary and am again amazed at everything you are achieving while living in a hotel!

I hope you enjoy your much-deserved holiday and that normal life can resume quickly once you're back in your house.

BTW, I noticed a few LOs including DS saying "deee - licious" - I think it's from Peppa!

mouche

Hello pbr! Lovely to ‘see’ you. We are back home now and though I sometime wish we had brought housekeeping with us from the hotel, I am very glad to be home.

It’s been a very spendy few days as had cleaners in on Saturday to scrub every inch of the kitchen inside and out. It took them 7 hours but we are finally able to move all our kitchen equipment back in. Some of it is still in boxes as they will need to be washed in the dishwasher before we can use them again but it is slowly starting to look normal again. We intend to order a dishwasher today so hopefully that will be installed soon. After our experience, we were wary of buying another dishwasher but we are finding it hard to manage without and I guess if we are careful about not using it at night or while we are out, it should be alright. We are also going to buy a medium-level one rather than a cheap one in the hope that it will be better quality! Am happy to report that through OHs work scheme, we have loaded £400 onto a Curry’s gift card and paid just £368 and this is what we will be using to pay for the dishwasher. Am very pleased with this.

We have also ordered a dining table and chairs to replace the one that was thrown away. We went a lot more expensive than planned….grr….lesson not to go into the most expensive shop first – the cheaper ones will never look as nice. But we have bought expensive items where we are unlikely to ever replace them and gone for cheaper options on the things that we tend to replace more often. So we have an expensive fridge/ freezer, washing machine, dining table and dishwasher but on the other hand we got a 4 person dinner set from Sainsbury’s reduced from £30 to £10. Our original one was a wedding gift and far more expensive/ nicer but this one is perfectly respectable and an absolute bargain! We will not replace LOs high chair and though we will replace his toys, we will do it gradually. Currently he is perfectly happy playing with his kitchen (which survived the fire) and scooter and his baby toys which were in the toy box and weren’t affected.

The builder still has some minor things left to do – plus he has to check our new water softener as it doesn’t appear to be softening anything. Unfortunately his kids have measles so he won’t be in for a while.

Insurance is taking it’s time making the final payment which means my credit card is maxed out again with the payment due just before we go on holiday. This will mean I need to take money out of my fixed rate ISA to pay the cc and for holiday money. Need to read up on how much interest that will cost me.  Edit: Well it would have cost me about £7 but on the advice of a colleague and a search on MSE, I have applied for another credit card recommended for overseas spending. The time between the DD coming out for my existing cc and the insurance money being paid in should not be more than 2 weeks so it seems a bit pointless to break a fixed ISA for it. All my remaining ‘loose’ savings + my entire salary for the month will just about cover the cc bill. So we will have to manage with OHs salary for other DDs and some travel cash. I think we can just about do it. LOs nursery had said if we need some time to pay his fees (after the fire) it was fine – I think I’ll ask them if I can pay half (with childcare vouchers) on the due date and half 15 days later. If they agree, I think we can do it.

I also have a bid on a car seat on ebay that I would like to take with us on holiday. Unlike our existing one, it is small enough to take on the plane and it meets the criteria for on plane use. I’m hoping LO will settle in it better than he would in a regular seat (which I am 100% sure he will try to wriggle out of).

LO moment: We took him to a much bigger playground over the bank holiday. He climbed to the top of the first slide he saw, looked around and said ‘Mummy….LOOK…MORE playground!’ It doesn’t take much to please him!