New Year, New Me is here!

thrifty_fifty

And a Happy New Year to you too loumac

So plans for today-take all the shredded paper, cardboard and other tip rubbish, drop 'outed' stuff at the charity shop, and then go to the garden centre to eye up plants for the spring/summer.

Need to make apricot compote for breakfasts, and come up with a solution for storing the bikes (the sheds here are not long enough to house them, so there is one either side of the kitchen table at the mo, which renders the table unusable unless you want to faff around wheeling the bikes outside first).

To read a bit more of my book -currently reading Paulo Coelho Valkyries.

Now you may think this a trifle potty (and I'm sure OH did), but I have a picture in my bedroom that I have just in view at the end of the bed. The scene is of a sand dune with wooden walkway and a blue sky. When I have been trying to chill out I imagine what the scene would look like at the top of the dune-with the beach below. Yesterday I painted that scene as I saw it, and stuck it next to the picture. I use the word 'paint' liberally as I have no skills in this area and I'm sure a small child could have produced something far better. Anyway to make a short story long, this picture has been my inspiration, each day when I look at it, it gives me hope that I will get to the top and view a wonderful scene (or put more simply, that there is something good around the corner which I am working towards). Maybe I feel more able to paint the final scene as I feel like I am getting towards achieving my goal. It's nice thought all the same.

My bird-which I think was a blackbird, has not surfaced today. Perhaps he is taking a lie in. xx

Oh and maybe a chocolate biscuit or two for breakfast. Naughty, I know. But I haven't made the compote yet. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. xx

loumac

Doesn't sound potty at all .. sounds rather lovely! Well done!

I read a quote this morning and thought of you ...

"Don't dwell on the people that let you down ... but cherish those that hold you up."

Have a good day thrifty. x

thrifty_fifty

Cheers Loumac. And in response to that I found a website online that helps you do exactly that, and one suggestion is that you write it all down on paper. I did the equivalent of writing a letter, which of course will not be sent but which will instead be burned on my debt free date. I love my life and even though I'm skint, I wouldn't change it for a thing.

I realise that what I did was not the best course of action to take, and perhaps I placed value in those things that I shouldn’t have.

I looked up to you as an older and more experienced person and I valued your ideas about life about being successful and creating a different life.

I must tell you though that you did a lot of things in our relationship to make me feel unvalued. Apparently I was too needy even though I only saw you twice a week. You hardly gave me any time, and you chose the location of our house, but never seemed to get into the idea of it being our home. You showed no interest and your only contributions were put me downs. It seemed that although we had financially put behind us the credit card bill for buying the things for the house which I took on, mentally it never went away.

I felt that you blamed me for the fact that we had to live in the area we did, when it was you who insisted we could live nowhere else. All this came at a point where I felt that even without the debt, moving in with you was a bad decision.

Throughout the relationship you told me not to expect things, like an engagement ring before you had a watch which you had wanted all your life and even when you got that you spent a good 4 years stalling. Like you were going to spend anything on me atall, and when Cheryl had things from Paul you pretty much told me that that wasn’t the deal I would be getting.
At the point where we moved into the house together it was the last chance that I was giving the relationship. My reasons for moving in were really an escape from home, and I knew I couldn’t do this on my own. Without the debt imagine my shock when I talked about decorating the place-just a splash of paint, you’re reaction was ‘you can’t dress up a dog turd’.
You talked about how I had trapped you when I announced the debt when we moved in. Imagine how trapped I now felt. I couldn’t go back home, and I had to spend what I then thought was the rest of my life with an !!!!!!!.

Every Saturday night that we went to your parents house I would look at how unhappy your mother was, and how trapped she had felt, and I knew that if I stayed in the relationship that would wind up being me.

Meanwhile I played the role of the ‘slightly dippy’ girlfriend. Even though I had strong views of my own I kept them to myself.
A year into living in that house and the love was gone to be honest. I was just getting through the day to day, working hard at my OU work so that I could get a better job, buy my own house and be free of this nightmare. You became an old man and boring and I started to live my own life. Only trouble was because I gave you most of my money I didn’t have the cash to do it. A year later and I got a call at work to say I had gone over my credit limit and had to pay a certain amount that day. I didn’t have the money to do it and went home sick. This was just before Paris. At that point I thought that things might work out, but no. There were daily put downs and when the main part of the upright hoover broke you stood and let me hoover the whole house on my hands and knees with the hose and attachment part of it, even though I had a bad back.

I think it reality hit me a second time when we were toasting the new year in 2007. It dawned on me that this was the year that everything had to change, including buying all your clothes from work. By April 2007 with the threat of redundancy and the pressure of completing my degree and having kept a debt secret for three years, it was all getting too much. I stopped reading my credit card statements, stopped reading my bank statements and cheques were bouncing.

I had secured a job at the Uni by this point and was looking forward to starting again. I thought the better pay would sort out the problems. However by this point I was too stressed and not thinking straight.

The tiniest thing sparked this chain of events. I actually opened my bank statement and instead of saying post, it said request. Stupidly I didn’t read any more because I thought I had gone over my overdraft and had to give more money I didn’t have. I cracked. I wanted out, and not just out of the house, I wanted out of life. I hated my job, hated where I lived, hated the relationship I was trapped in, everything. I had a panic attack. I took 16 paracetomol and prayed for it all to be over. I rang you at work as a goodbye. I had been prepared to take the rest of the other packet when I put the phone down, but your words said we could sort it out. You lied.

It was the amount and I knew at that point it was over. 10 years of a hellish relationship was done, and next to come was a year of hell where I lived in a house where the occupants hated each other, and one still continued to take advantage-drinking my birthday wine which was a gift from my friends, watching my DVDs and asking if I would do a stint on the sofa to take it in turns. Did you really think that was going to happen?? Really? Coupled with that I never got to tell my half of the story and everyone turned their backs on me.

I have to tell you that after a !!!!!! few years I have met someone new. The person who I should have been with all along. My soulmate. This person cares for me, treats me like a princess and I do the same back. He picks me up when I’m down, praises me, encourages me. I can be anything I want. We have both had debts and so there is no judgement on our past. I don’t feel the need to be chained at the hip, because we both have our own interests, and common goals for the future. I express my opinion and he his. Yes we have arguments but they are few and far between, and with discussion afterwards help us to understand each other. As you once said ‘love isn’t like it is in the movies’, but if you can have half of that, then that is to be cherished.
I’m not what they say I am. I have not racked up debts again as you said I would, all the while hiding a new guitar purchase round your friends house Incase the bailiffs came for it. I have nearly finished my debt free journey, and although there will be obstacles along the way I’m making the life that I always dreamed of having.

I’m saying goodbye to you now, and I hope you can be happy. I hope that you have learned from this experience how not to treat people, but how to value them, because if you never find that, then it is a very sad thing indeed.

thrifty_fifty

Ooh I just remembered. This is the year I can eat my rhubarb. Planted it last year and you are supposed to leave it for a year. Yum, I can't wait. Rhubarb crumble here we come!

thrifty_fifty

Crikey it is windy. Down side of having sash windows being that they rattle when it's windy.

So today more sorting and shredding and making the house look like a house again.

xx

loumac

:T:T:T:T:T

Well done.

thrifty_fifty

Morning Loumac, and well done on that debt busting. What an achievement!

As part of the new me, have been sorting out everything in the house from cutlery to my smalls. I realise that I am a devil for buying, especially when it is a bargain. Considering you can only get 4 people in this house at any one time, why did I feel the need to have 10 different shaped crystal wine glasses? Yes I know they were a bargain at £8 for a set of 2, and they will come in handy when we have room enough to entertain, but for the moment I have nowhere to put them, so they are sitting on top of the wardrobe and every morning when I wake up and see them, they bug me.

However, saying that I have come to realise too this morning that this is a teeny, tiny house, and I have lots of fabulous things. I think you come to realise that there just isn't enough storage space here when the only place for your bikes is round your kitchen table, you have nowhere to keep your cuddies (I have 5 bears and yes I'm a softie I can't bear to part with them-no pun intended!)

However they have to come out of the bottom of my wardrobe so I can get my shoes in there. Not all of them, my collection is vast, and having seen what I would get for them on ebay and the price of shoes in the shop at the moment, these are far better quality than I could buy for an equivalent price in the shops, so for now they need another home-under the bed?

Now girls, I think you'll side with me here. It is simply quite impossible to store all your clothes in one wardrobe alone. I knew that this wardrobe was small but I hadn't realised how small until today. I placed two pairs of flip flops in there and they take up 3/4 of the available wardrobe floor space. Is that not teeny?

Have to say v posh candle that I got for christmas is a delight. I was a very lucky girl and got a Cire Trudon orange blossom scented one. The bedroom still smells of it this morning, even though I blew it out early last night. De-lish. Bedroom is now at that horrible stage, where you got everything out and you really want to pack up tools, stick yourself on the sofa with a good read and some chocolate. If I do I won't be able to get into bed this evening though, so I guess I'll crack on.

OH has some onion soup bubbling away in the slow cooker for lunch. Could be a weather warning for gales in doors as well as out, later on.

thrifty_fifty

New things learned today. Don't buy costume jewellery, it can become a habit!! Things get tangled, they break, they tarnish. Meh.

Discovery-If I take all the magazines out of the straw basket, I have somewhere to put my towels in the bathroom. Why have I not thought of this before?

thrifty_fifty

So that's the bathroom cupboard cleared out. Still got too many toiletries for my liking so will be running those down throughout the year. Without asking OH managed to clear the old t-shirts and jumpers from his suitcase. Still need to work on the suitcase though-it's still serviceable, given, but it it dusty, has paint splashes on it, and is large enough to fit a tardis in it. Still, I should be grateful for small victories. And now down to outing the various house magazines-I could build a house with these, honest to goodness.

I think a well deserved bath and a glass of vino are in order later. The bedroom is still a tip, and all that remains is to do the cupboard under the stairs, the shed, the garden, the allotment, a second sweep of the stuff remaining from the first clearout, and then all the usual housework things. If I could have another month off work I might just get them all sorted out.

thrifty_fifty

Just learned how to break apart the pallets we have. Will use them around the allotment and also as kindling for the fire. Isn't you tube good?