Keeping up appearances.......

Honey_Bear

HappyNow wrote: »

Hello and welcome to the last morose post of this thread! For a while at least **crosses fingers and eyes**

Fingers, eyes and legs all crossed here for nothing but good luck for the Happy Mob.

It's been a sad, sad week and I have spent most of it in tears, but it's time now to pull myself together and get on with my new normal.

Taking on older dogs I go through losing them on a relentlessly regular basis and the shock of the grief never gets easier. What does happen eventually, each time, is that I come to terms with not having them around but never stop missing the ones that really get under my skin and work their way into my heart. There's nothing I can do about that except get another animal to love and hope that the magic occurs again (it doesn't always, sometimes they're 'just' pets) and love them for as long as I'm allowed to have them in my life. (((hugs)))

Despite the sadness I know we did the kindest thing in letting them go, so I am going to focus on the positives of not owning horses - of which there are several!

• Money. They were costing about £50 pw to keep (and that's just feed, bedding, farrier, medication - we have our own land and stables). I can now afford to hit my DF target date of Feb 19 if I increase the debt repayments to £1200 monthly.
• Commitments. We now have more freedom to go away for days (maybe even the odd weekend) without worrying about who will look after them and whether they will be OK.
• Energy. Mucking out is hard work. So is fencing, fetching feed, mending fences etc etc.
• Time. They took about an hour per day just for general looking after.

This is probably totally insensitive, but it could be a possible opportunity for a new income stream. Would you ever consider the possibility of having other people's horses in your lovely facilites?

So, there we go. Some positives to look forward to. I'm going to pull on my leopard print jeggings and hit life running again!

Happy

(ps, you can take your hands from your eyes, I don't really own any leopard print jeggings)

Well you should. I'm up for chipping in 50p for my share so that you can have some to go jogging in. I figured they'd come from a market stall so they shouldn't be too expensive. And we can haggle.

Hmm. Jogging in leopard-print jeggings. I think my mind has just blown a gasket at the imagined image.

Honey_Bear

I have absolutely nothing good to report about my habits over the past few days. My birthday has been amongst it, the celebrations for which included an overnight/day trip to France (vast quantities of pommes frites scoffed), an evening here to make chocolates (OH's and my haul alone was 1.5 kgs and there were 14 of us so we probably used up the Ivory Coast's annual cocoa output) and a dinner for that group which I cooked which included a salmon, carved a Serano ham, poured a magnum of Proseco, sliced a chocolate cake made without gluteny flour, and served the biggest French cheeseboard I could pull together, and a lot of clotted cream with various desserts.

The feasty expensive stuff I bought over the previous year when it was on offer and salted away for the big day. As I turned 60 I figured I could afford to push the boat out as the occupational pensions kicked in even if the State doesn't think I've retired yet (boo, hiss).

On the spendy front, therefore, I have been bad and on the scoffy front, equally bad. Very bad. But it was soooooo worth it.

There are a lot of leftovers (what a shame!), so while I'm saving financially on the grocery front I'm not doing so well on the limiting the calorie front and won't be for a day or two. I think I might have to take a raincheck on the idea of eating sensibly for rest of Awesome April.

Dolphin1

Belated Birthday Wishes Honey Bear, sounds like you had a very indulgent time and why not! Have some more cake from me (not chocolate, I'm afraid) !

:bdaycake:

joeyjimbles

Sounds very well deserved Honey Bear. Good for you - and I'm jealous of the cheeseboard, I love cheese - and french chips too. Can we say salt overload?
Odd sort of weekend here, sorted new (to us) car, lots of tidying up and made a start on the second bedroom decorating so that DS2 can have a more grown up room. It feels vaguely disorientating and I can't quite decide why.
Hope everyone has a fab week.

HappyNow

joeyjimbles wrote: »

Can we have your address please, we will all send you leopard print jeggings to make you smile.

Honey_Bear wrote: »

I'm up for chipping in 50p for my share so that you can have some to go jogging in. I figured they'd come from a market stall so they shouldn't be too expensive.

Ah thank you both so much for that lovely gesture :rotfl::rotfl:
I really couldn't accept such generous gifts though. I'd be perfectly happy if you could both just send me photos of you wearing yours

HappyNow

This is probably totally insensitive, but it could be a possible opportunity for a new income stream. Would you ever consider the possibility of having other people's horses in your lovely facilites?

Not insensitive at all . We have considered it because it would be lovely to still have horses around the place. We've shelved the idea for now, just because if people were paying to keep their animals here they would expect a high level of fencing and land management, and we just can't afford to bring the place up to scratch right now. It's something we will look at in the future though - possibly an enjoyable little side-line when we're closer to retirement.

HappyNow

Honey - a belated very happy birthday. I'm so sorry not to have been around to congratulate you on the day, but it sounds like you had a very fancy blow-out and quite right too. Go you!

Love, love, LOVE the sound of your chocolate party. And the cake. And the prosecco. Oh and the cheeseboard. Hmm, seems you know how to throw a party - maybe the MSE Northern Contingent could hitch down for your 61st! Dolphin? Joey?

HappyNow

So, Awesome April.......

Well to date, this has been my least Awesome April on record. But hey, it's only the 18th, plenty of time left.

I couldn't even remember my targets, had to read back.

• Get the budget back on track. I paid the due £1125 off the debts and we now owe under £38K. Unfortunately I am awaiting huuuuuggge vet/cremation bills and I can't even guess the amount, so that figure might rise again. I wish they'd hurry up and bill me, I want to get it paid and over with . Today I have spent £3.50 on O2 priority lunch (very healthy), Greek yogurt (very healthy), Cadbury Twirls (not so much) and a new toothbrush for Mr H because he has lost his. Seriously.
• Eat healthily. 53 days to our holidays! Let the health kick begin. I've started MyFitnessPal again and set it at 1700 calories, which must include 5 x F & V, one bar of chocolate and one glass of wine.
• Seven hours in bed each night. No idea so far, I haven't been counting. Will start tonight.
• Neat feet I've still got hooves. From now until the end of the month I will exfoliate and moisturise them every day.

Dolphin1

HappyNow wrote: »

maybe the MSE Northern Contingent could hitch down for your 61st! Dolphin? Joey?

Sounds like a plan to me !

joeyjimbles

Road trip!!
And all of us in leopard print jeggings? Or have I gone too far?

I have dreadfully neglected feet too - particularly my heels as I have always preferred either bare feet or fluffy socks to slippers or shoes (in the house, I do manage to wear shoes outside). I keep looking at those adverts for clever roller things and wonder if they work. Anyone got any experience?