Keeping up appearances.......

Dolphin1

Hi Honey Bear :hello:

Well, that was a long post but so amazing to read.

I was very sorry to read that you had lost Kelpie, I know you were expecting him to be around for a while and you must still miss him but you clearly got a lot of pleasure from having him.

Layla sounds lovely. What a terrible start to life she must have had, cooped up in a crate producing litter after litter and having them taken away from her over and over again. It's so cruel. :mad:

Thank goodness you now have her and she can finally start to enjoy her life. Imagine having to learn to play and have fun at 5 years old! In human terms, she has missed out on her childhood. How sad.

I hope that it works out with Layla and any teething problems can be dealt with quickly so you can enjoy having her for many years to come!

reality_check

I had tears streaming down my face reading your post about your new dog, Honey Bear - thank goodness for lovely people like you who adopt these poor little souls. She has def won a watch coming to live with your family. I have a cocker spaniel so always have a soft spot for them, they are such wonderful dogs xxx

Honey_Bear

Thank you, Dolphin and Reality. Kelpie's much missed even now, but getting another dog is the only thing that makes his death bearable.

I'm enraged by puppy farming and the importation of puppies by traffickers, and organisation seemed to be a way to do something practical about it, albeit one dog at a time. Having said that, if the right dog had come up sooner through any one of the other charities this little one would have gone to someone else.

Many Tears has absolutely devoted fosteres, fundraisers, transporters and adopters, all inspired by one amazing woman. It isn't a charity because her life is too intertwined with the premises to comply with charitable legislation. A friend of mine was a fosterer for them and has now adopted four ex-breeders from them all at the same time!

The recent longest resident was a dog called Rex who was there for seven months. He was diagnosed with a Grade 5 heart murmur and an extraordinary couple adopted him almost instantly so that he would be loved, cared for and die in their home. (He was a Romanian street dog that I'd enquired about, but totally unsuitable to be homed with cats so out of the question for us, and he was the first dog on the website I enquired about. From then on I had a rolling application in so that I didn't have to keep applying from scratch which made a huge difference to the amount of time I spent filling in forms.) He was adopted the day we collected Layla, so I did at least get to see him being taken on a very, very gentle stroll prior to being collected.

Sorry for taking over your Debt Free Diary, Happy!

Dolphin1

Hi HappyNow et al :hello:

Hope you are all ok?

Not heard from you since before your holiday HappyNow, hope you had a fab time!

Seasidegal58

Another here hoping all's ok.
x

HappyNow

Here I am! Thanks for dropping by and I'm sorry for the long absence. As usual, I have reasons/excuses!

Dolphin - sorry to hear that you're struggling without the structure of the targets. I've also put on half a stone, average about six hours in bed, drink too much alcohol, eat too much chocolate and generally make a mess of life! I could be tempted back into targets if you could? No pressure though, I know it's something you have to want to do.

Seasidegal - I've just read your diary and MASSIVE congrats on your PPI payout . That's a huge amount of money, enjoy it!

Honey - I loved reading your posts about Layla. I hope she is fully settled now and that your training sessions are going well.

Holiday was lovely but I started feeling bored 10 days in. There was so much to do at home that I wanted to get on with, and also I didn't feel I needed the break as much as when I was working full time. Maximum of 10 day holidays for us from now on I think.

Back from holiday and straight into it, because Little Miss Happy, who has lived in a rented house for two years, has managed to buy one, and the sale completed two days after we got back. It's a nice little back-to-back terraced starter home but it did need a bit of tarting up, so it was all hands on deck to avoid her having to pay both mortgage and rent.


When we sold our rental house we put £10K aside for each child towards a house deposit, and my mum also chucked a couple of £K in, so she's now on the property ladder. Our son and his girlfriend moved in with us in March so they could save more towards a deposit, so his £10K is still sat waiting. I'm hoping (although I don't like to ask) that they're aiming to save enough to move straight into a family-sized house and make me a grandma! I do sometimes think that if we hadn't donated house deposit money to them, we would have virtually no credit card debt left now! Ah well........


I've just updated my signature and the unsecured debt is now two-thirds clear! I haven't quite managed the £750 monthly repayments that I'd hoped, but it's never been less than £650. We're still spending on this money-pit house, but it's all been done from income and the debt is still coming down.

We're working on the front garden now, but because it's an old farmyard we've got to source and lay some old stone sets, and because it's on a slope we've got to build some dry-stone retaining walls. Because it's at the bottom of a hill we're also having to find, clear and re-route some old land drains which have blocked up over the years leading to some scary hours with the torrential rain. It hasn't come into the house but it's been close and we need it done urgently now. All these jobs are so big that they're beyond our scope - especially with Mr H's dodgy leg and shoulder - so we've had to pay wallers and men with diggers. Fun but expensive!

Seasidegal58

Hi Happy, if you and Dolphin are going to set weight targets I might join you - my willpower has been absolutely abysmal lately and I really need to lose some lbs by the New Year.

I'm pleased to hear about LMH's new home. And hopefully your son and GF would get on the ladder soon and make you a grandma! Yes you could have paid off the CCs if you hadn't funded them both but they're getting a good start and how wonderful is it to be house owners at a relatively young age.

And you are doing massively well in banging down the debt. The figures at the bottom of your posts are fantastic. It won't be long now......

HappyNow

After reading Dolphin and Seasidegal's posts about lack of willpower I took a long hard look at myself. Not being that excited by what I saw, I had a flick back through this diary to the times when a few of us were aiming towards various monthly targets - and I barely recognise myself. I've become lazy about caring for my body and my life in general. I've also become 60 years old, and I can't expect my body to watch out for me like it did when I was younger!

So, I have decided to take some personal responsibility and re-set some targets to reverse this. The problem I had was narrowing down what I want to improve on!!

As it's halfway through the month I've decided to go in hard for the rest of August. As before, I will use this diary for daily monitoring/conscience pricking. So, my targets from now until 1st September are:

• Zero alcohol
• Maximum of 1400 calories per day, to include 5 x fruit and veg and just one sweet treat
• Six glasses of water per day
• Daily dog walk at a fast pace
• No looking at my phone in bed. I have an addiction here which is seriously affecting my sleep.
• No money wasting. Balance YNAB daily.

If I can keep to that lot (and I can, honest, I think....) I will start September happy and motivated.

If anyone else cares to join in - or even just give an occasional cheer from the sidelines - that would be fantastic, but either way I am going to DO THIS AND DO IT NOW!


Back tonight with an update

Elnora32

[FONT=&quot]Hello HappyNow[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I have been a silent follower of your diary since the beginning but I have only recently started joining in with the online community. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You’ve done really well since the start of your debt free journey and yes, you could have been almost debt free by now but it is such a lovely gesture to help your children get on the property ladder. I hope you get your wish that your son and his girlfriend buy a family-sized home.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I’ve always been reasonably active and fairly fit but I have taken this for granted, so I’ve been making more of an effort recently. I’m trying to get into an easy routine so that I will keep it up rather than let it slide. I’m not super fit by any means but I do feel better for making the effort and I know you will too.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Good luck with your targets – I will be cheering you on from the side lines and will pop in to offer support.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Elnora[/FONT]

Seasidegal58

Great goals Happy - I'm joining you.........:D
X