Breaking Through, Travelling On

Karmacat

:wave::wave::wave: Back again :j internet is currently working :j

The soundproofing will be brilliant, absolutely - the effort of staying calm while the noise goes on at 1 - 2am will be done away with, so thats good. Didn't contact the builder while I was away, as I'd planned to do, because there was so much detail to sort out with the probate, especially as the cheques are coming to me now to be distributed.

But the journeys were brill (and pretty short, considering!) and we tried our best to see the tail end of the eclipse, though no go never hurts to try, hey?

I'm just recovering and hanging out right now, though I've found a couple of pieces of DIY in desperate need of doing - a little gap in the kitchen thats never been a problem is suddenly sprouting those humongous house spiders, sigh, two since I got back. And I came down stairs this morning to find my energy efficient lightbulb in the hall smashed to pieces on the floor (I don't think the spiders climbed up there to do that, though you never know ). Left wondering what I breathed in last night, they do say to leave the room if one smashes....

Anyway, finance wise, just a couple of yougov surveys done, quick ones, yay. Plus I need to get my sister's signature on the probate forms and get them sent out. And I've been able to distribute the first batch of money between us, from firms that didn't need sight of the probate documents. It goes monumentally slowly, but it goes ...

Garden is good :j so's the baby, apparently he's been forgiven for sleeping through an Everton match :rotfl:

smallholdingsister

The spiders are looking for lurve at this time of year. Ewww.

beanielou

All sounding good

ZTD

Karmacat wrote: »

And I came down stairs this morning to find my energy efficient lightbulb in the hall smashed to pieces on the floor (I don't think the spiders climbed up there to do that, though you never know ).

Naah - it'll be the ghoosties...

Karmacat wrote: »

Left wondering what I breathed in last night, they do say to leave the room if one smashes....

If it was on, then vaporised mercury. That's Bad News Bears right there. Otherwise it'll just drop into your carpet, and stay hidden. You'd probably need to be more concerned about broken glass in that case.

Karmacat wrote: »

Garden is good :j so's the baby, apparently he's been forgiven for sleeping through an Everton match :rotfl:

Probably the best dribbler out of the lot of them...

EatingTheElephant

Just caught up with your news, congratulations on becoming a great auntie :T

Karmacat

ZTD wrote: »

If it was on, then vaporised mercury. That's Bad News Bears right there. Otherwise it'll just drop into your carpet, and stay hidden. You'd probably need to be more concerned about broken glass in that case.

It *was* on, yes fortunately there's vinyl underneath it, and a window at the top of the hallway was open, so I probably managed to sweep everything up, and the vapour had lots of time to get out. I'm not dead, anyway, so I'm probably okay

EatingTheElephant wrote: »

Just caught up with your news, congratulations on becoming a great auntie :T

Thanks EE!

In finance news, the last of the probate thingummies was sent out yesterday, after getting my sister's sig to accompany mine and my brother's. Alterations (initialled by all of us) do mean that something might get sent back to be filled out again, I suppose, but thats okay, the hard work's been done.

Accordingly, I've been cleaning this morning :eek: one tiny section of the living room :eek: dear god. And I've been decluttering the Xmas deccies, of all things some have seen better days, and some are just unwanted

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Karmacat

Okay, SL, was asking on Alex's thread about the year since retirement, and I made the presumption that it was aimed at me sorry if not, but its a good question anyway :rotfl: so first of all I'll requote John Lennon, in a song published a few months before he was murdered: life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.

No murders here! But plenty of other stuff:

STUFF THAT HAPPENED
- I got 90% better from the fatigue in the month after I retired.
- my brother and his wife separated
- my mum was diagnosed with terminal, inoperable, aggressive cancer, and my brother moved in to look after her. My sister and I shared nursing duties, but she died 5 weeks after diagnosis.
- auntie proved, erm, insensitive, leading to a breakdown in communication, which my brother has just started to heal.
- lovely Norfolk rellie given the same diagnosis as my mum, though is lasting much longer.
- my chronic fatigue revisited me

FINANCE STUFF
- probate has taken oodles of time and energy. Decluttering her house putters along. Distribution of initial money has just taken place.
- I've just realised that in this year, I've been able to make the shift from "I need to save for my retirement, save very hard because I'm not earning much" towards "I am now spending those savings, very carefully and sensibly, but this is what they were for. Deal with it
- similarly - I still want to write. But I probably won't start up the business of selling cat images for greetings cards, mousemats etc. I'm not rich in UK terms, but I have assets and I have *enough*.
- also similarly, I'm not going to start up a catsitting business. Great to do it for family, but I can't currently commit to weeks away. Nor do I want to.
- first set of building work, maintenance, will start in the next few months. Electrical and plastering still to be done *after* that, but the stuff thats booked will be a great start, and I can't cope with it all at once.
- still got to decide what to do with the dosh tied up in actual pensions: I'm favouring tax free sum and drawdown, but I've not done the research. That's the last big thing.

So, its very much an ongoing thing.

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Suffolk_lass

Sorry about asking on Alex's thread! I think I thought I was at yours at the time (sorry):o

I met up with a colleague who retired about three years ago recently and he was saying that for the first year after he retired he was still setting himself deadlines for completing tasks that reflected the work pattern, and maintaining his lists of things to do. One day his wife asked him where the deadlines had come from for some of the tasks and he had a bit of an epiphany and has gradually kicked back over the last couple of years so that now he thinks differently about his lists and the tasks he is recording.

Karmacat

No probs on asking on Alex's - I didn't want to invade his with *such* a long post, though

I know what you mean about the lack of necessity for self imposed deadlines - but most of mine are coming from outside. My mum, the family problems of 3 rellies, my health, the lack of maintenance on my house and garden (another wall of repointing set to go ka-boom for instance, and when it does that, it's a year of damp wall **internally** - its very not good), plus the merging of two of my pension pots because the companies are merging, so I get tipped over the point at which I have to pay for an IFA to advise me, which I don't want to do - I have two in the family, as well as two para-legal peeps.

I'm really fed up of trying to catch up with the maintenance, but there are problems building, and they've got to be sorted before they become major.

ETA - there is one good thing about self imposed deadlines, actually - I don't want to use my precious retirement time letting admin tasks stretch out - I want to get them done and get out into the garden, or go that walk, read that book, etc. Admin is *not* what I retired for :rotfl:

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beanielou

Love it.
Admin is not what I retired for