Keeping up appearances.......

joeyjimbles

Well done Dolphin - half term holliday here so I am distracted with boys and homework/revision and decorating, which I rather wish I'd not done as I've spent rather too much time up and down a ladder rather than sitting in the sunshine.

Hope you are all having a good week and doing nice things along with all the necessities.

HappyNow

The fancy new internet has been mended and we're told the problem was a piece of faulty equipment and there's no reason to think it will happen again. We've finally got unlimited download so can now use Iplayer and Box Sets and all manner of other things I don't understand. I will research it all when we get back from holiday.


Yesterday we finally got the email confirming Mr H's redundancy payment has been approved and should be in the bank within four days. I've updated my signature to reflect the debt balance as it will be when we've paid the extra £10K off the debts and we're now 60% paid off!!! That still leaves us £4300 redundancy to top up my wages until Mr H is back working. Of course that will disappear quickly, but in the meantime we will pay £40 per month less interest and reduces our minimum payments to around £330 per month. We will only be able to manage minimums for a while, but I can live with that because the big chunk has come off.


Honey and Dolphin - hope you are both having a great holiday

brizzledfw

Sounds good. Have a great hols

Dolphin1

HappyNow wrote: »

The fancy new internet has been mended and we're told the problem was a piece of faulty equipment and there's no reason to think it will happen again. We've finally got unlimited download so can now use Iplayer and Box Sets and all manner of other things I don't understand. I will research it all when we get back from holiday.


Yesterday we finally got the email confirming Mr H's redundancy payment has been approved and should be in the bank within four days. I've updated my signature to reflect the debt balance as it will be when we've paid the extra £10K off the debts and we're now 60% paid off!!! That still leaves us £4300 redundancy to top up my wages until Mr H is back working. Of course that will disappear quickly, but in the meantime we will pay £40 per month less interest and reduces our minimum payments to around £330 per month. We will only be able to manage minimums for a while, but I can live with that because the big chunk has come off.


Honey and Dolphin - hope you are both having a great holiday

:hello: I'm back from holiday, refreshed and raring to go (or something like that :rotfl:). I have eaten far too much crap so I am only on 3 NCDs for June (I had a NCD last Sunday before we went) and I have had lots of late nights but I have done a lot of walking. Back to being good from today.

Lovely to hear that you have now paid 60% of your debt off :j. Hope you can keep up the minimums for now without stretching yourself too much. Even paying the minimums will have an impact over time.

I don't know when your holiday is but if it's soon then have a fantastic time!

Dolphin1

Update for Saturday & Sunday...

1) To have 12 NCDs - No crap eaten on either day so 2 more NCDs bringing me to a total of 5 NCDs so far for June.
2) To walk an average of 10,000 steps per day over each week (so 70,000 total for each week) - We didn't do much this weekend so only about 5,000 steps each day. I will see how it affects my average for the last week tomorrow when I get my weekly report from fitbit.
3) To put my light out by 11pm every night including weekends - Mixed bag, 10.20pm on Saturday night and midnight last night. I had less than 6 hours sleep both nights so I'm a bit tired today. I will need to get back on track tonight

Dolphin1

:hello: HappyNow!

Update for yesterday...

1) To have 12 NCDs - I had some chocolate so no NCD which means I'm still on 5 NCDs for June.
2) To walk an average of 10,000 steps per day over each week (so 70,000 total for each week) - Total steps walked last week was only 58,133 so only an average of 8,305 per day. I was clearly too lazy at the weekend. I must do better this week.
3) To put my light out by 11pm every night including weekends - Another late night, 11.40pm. I really struggled to get up this morning.

Honey_Bear

HappyNow wrote: »

The fancy new internet has been mended and we're told the problem was a piece of faulty equipment and there's no reason to think it will happen again. We've finally got unlimited download so can now use Iplayer and Box Sets and all manner of other things I don't understand. I will research it all when we get back from holiday.

Having unlimited access to t'internet is, without doubt, the greatest time-waster that has ever been invented - and I absolutely love it! I hope you do just as much, Happy. I found, in the end, that I read more not being able to surf in my usual way while we were away and I really enjoyed that, so I'm getting back into reading novels again. Our lovely neighbour has just given me four so that's worked out really well.

Yesterday we finally got the email confirming Mr H's redundancy payment has been approved and should be in the bank within four days. I've updated my signature to reflect the debt balance as it will be when we've paid the extra £10K off the debts and we're now 60% paid off!!! That still leaves us £4300 redundancy to top up my wages until Mr H is back working. Of course that will disappear quickly, but in the meantime we will pay £40 per month less interest and reduces our minimum payments to around £330 per month. We will only be able to manage minimums for a while, but I can live with that because the big chunk has come off.

60%! That's a huge step forward and should be celebrated with piles and piles of lovely (cheapo) treats like a holiday and some free ones, like rah rahs! Massively well done on the progress and huge congratulations that all your hard work is getting you where you want to be. I'm so pleased for you. Of course you can manage the minimums and the whole process will gather massive momentum now that you're well over, genuinely convincingly half way through. (Now I've got to go and round up some rah rah for you - and here they are.)

Honey and Dolphin - hope you are both having a great holiday

Well, I was, so thank 'ee kindly. Loved Lisbon, Porto was interesting and we've found an area we'd be even happier staying in next time, spent some time with our friends and met the baby and ate and drank really well.

Dolphin1 wrote: »

:hello: I'm back from holiday, refreshed and raring to go (or something like that :rotfl:). I have eaten far too much crap so I am only on 3 NCDs for June (I had a NCD last Sunday before we went) and I have had lots of late nights but I have done a lot of walking. Back to being good from today.

Lucky you - I came back suffering from lack of sleep because apparently I've turned into one of those old people who doesn't sleep well in any bed but their own. *humpf* However, I also managed to eat fish and chips pretty much every day, or pizza, or toasted sandwiches and other assorted carp and ... lose weight. OH and I discovered that a hotel breakfast can fill you up with really great food that keeps you going until about 8.00pm as long as we had an ice cream, cherries or nata mid-afternoon. Such a hardship, to have to track these things down when we were in the middle of an engrossing museum or whatever. Glad to hear you had a lovely time.

Dolphin1 wrote: »

Update for Saturday & Sunday...

1) To have 12 NCDs - No crap eaten on either day so 2 more NCDs bringing me to a total of 5 NCDs so far for June.
2) To walk an average of 10,000 steps per day over each week (so 70,000 total for each week) - We didn't do much this weekend so only about 5,000 steps each day. I will see how it affects my average for the last week tomorrow when I get my weekly report from fitbit.
3) To put my light out by 11pm every night including weekends - Mixed bag, 10.20pm on Saturday night and midnight last night. I had less than 6 hours sleep both nights so I'm a bit tired today. I will need to get back on track tonight

You are being good, Dolphin, but I regret to say I think you're pretty much on your own right now. I'm struggling to come up with anything targetty that I know I can stick to. I'm surrounded by chaos, I'm eating too much gluteny stuff, not back to sleeping through the night and generally discombobulated. When I've got myself back into a happy rhythm I'll be in a better position to join in again. In the meantime, I'm rooting for those that are strong enough to work at it with a few of those rowdy, rounded up and caught rah rahs.

Dolphin1

:hello: HappyNow!

Also :hello: Honey Bear, nice to hear from you! Sounds like you had a lovely holiday despite the lack of sleep.

Update for yesterday...

1) To have 12 NCDs - Chocolate again so no NCD which means I'm still on 5 NCDs for June. I am not buying any more chocolate, I can't be trusted.
2) To walk an average of 10,000 steps per day over each week (so 70,000 total for each week) - Not as many steps as I had hoped for Monday (5,587) and Tuesday (6,204) so I am off to a bad start but I will try and make up for it. Better weather would help!
3) To put my light out by 11pm every night including weekends - Success, I switched my light out at 10.45pm and went straight to sleep. Unfortunately, I then woke up at 2.30am and couldn't get back to sleep until gone 4am so still not a very good nights sleep :wall:.

Honey_Bear

Dolphin1 wrote: »

:hello: HappyNow!

Ditto.

Also :hello: Honey Bear, nice to hear from you! Sounds like you had a lovely holiday despite the lack of sleep.

I did, and it was. Due to a power cut that lasted from 9.00am to 3.30pm this afternoon I have now finished unpacking and putting it all the holiday crud away except for luggage to go back up to the loft and I can't get any laundry done because it's pi$$ing down here and is going to carry on doing so for a week.

Update for yesterday...

1) To have 12 NCDs - Chocolate again so no NCD which means I'm still on 5 NCDs for June. I am not buying any more chocolate, I can't be trusted.
Neither can I, apparently. Bizarrely, with both managed without sugar on holiday but don't seem to be able to now we're back.
2) To walk an average of 10,000 steps per day over each week (so 70,000 total for each week) - Not as many steps as I had hoped for Monday (5,587) and Tuesday (6,204) so I am off to a bad start but I will try and make up for it. Better weather would help!
Missing my long walks with Kelpie but now that we've stepped up his treatment at the vet's, he's finally starting to show signs of recovery. I think it would be unwise to go back to such a long walk regularly, sadly, even when we've got him through this, and for a while there I thought we might not. It means he's not losing weight as fast as I'd like, but he lost a kilo over five weeks so it's not too bad. Just another 3.5kgs to go. *oops* Favourite friendly eighbours are taking over a dog today/tomorrow from seriously far north following a family bereavement. Let's hope the dogs get on.
3) To put my light out by 11pm every night including weekends - Success, I switched my light out at 10.45pm and went straight to sleep. Unfortunately, I then woke up at 2.30am and couldn't get back to sleep until gone 4am so still not a very good nights sleep :wall:.

I've not quite got back to sleeping straight through but I think I know why, so within a couple of days that I'm hoping I'll be back to normal. Hope so. I now find it very difficult to want to keep the light on after 11.30, so the new habits I started to create using this thread have seriously changed my life for the better. Hurrah!

You're doing really well all on your lonsesome, Dolphin. *admiration*

joeyjimbles

Rah rah rah rasputin - sorry, I know you want the other sort of Rah's but I can't get that one out of my head, and no-one could be uncheered by BoneyM.
You are both doing well. I am merely plodding on. DS1s exams are over - yippee - and the decorating is mostly done, just need to move furniture and sift through toys etc but will do that next week as there are sleepovers planned this weekend and the big empty room is useful as it is.
I've been finding it hard to sleep too - combination of being too warm at night (weather and the curses of being woman of a certain age), jackdaws yelling out in the garden at 4am, and my inability once awake at anytime past 3am to fall asleep again. The last couple of days of cooler weather have helped a little but I've been having most peculiar dreams involving people I've not clapped eyes on for 10-20 years, and I wake up from them feeling quite perturbed. I wouldn't mind so much if I'd had a drink but I've not.
Job of doom appears to have been replaced by the job of boredom - which is basically the job of doom but for a different client and with less forms to fill in. Sadly it is now going to pay less but I'll take that over the hassle.