Second Time Lucky

amycool

giblet1979 wrote: »

Hey amy,
Gosh it sounds like you've been really busy! You're doing great thought - fantastic overpayments and savings, whilst still getting a million things done. I need to take a leaf out of your book
Hope you feel better soon xx

Hi Giblet! Thanks a lot. I'm such a procrastinator that things take forever to get done here but generally they get done eventually.

I am sat feeling a little sorry for myself after my trip to the dentist. I had to walk there and back (an hour in total) and I'm starving but my mouth is still totally numb and I stupidly forgot to get in anything easy to eat like soup for when I can feel again. Doh! The good news was they didn't have to remove the whole filling and start again so there wasn't too much drilling. The bad news is that local anaesthetic tends not to work on me so he had to inject 4 times :eek: and then I still felt pain when he was drilling. He also cut my tongue as I kept moving it by mistake. The lady who helps kept getting water all over me too and her vacuuming skills were rubbish!

Anyway, I made it home without blacking out (that happened after a filling once) and hopefully I won't need any more treatment for a while. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was only charged £32.50 as they knocked the check-up cost off the total. And I even remembered my PIN.

Last night we had a man round to quote for the woodwork. I haven't received the official amount but it sounded like it would be reasonable. He also said he could do the gate and fence at the side of the house but I need to decide exactly what we're having before he can give me a price. It will certainly be cheaper than the £1000 on one website.

The water butt is in and doing its job. It might help to reduce the waterlogging of the back lawn too, which would be good. It's more moss than grass.

Had my 6th driving lesson. Got up to 4th gear and started to feel more confident, then stalled whilst still moving along a very busy congested road. The instructor calmly gave me instructions of how to start the car whilst still moving, which was crazy. I didn't know you could do that. We spent most of the lesson getting to grips with stopping at traffic lights so when I was nearly home and simply had to turn left, my brain, triggered by going back to first gear, went into stopping mode and I just stopped!!!! I am truly awful at driving. :rotfl: I'm so glad my instructor is calm and patient. I've been reading forums where people are equally bad to make me feel better. I haven't cried or sworn yet, so I'm doing okay.

I'm not impressed by the awful weather. Very depressing.

amycool

Okay, before I start my ranting and raving and self-pity, I must make it clear that I am certainly not unlucky and live a charmed life compared to the majority of people on this planet. I don't have to drink dirty water or work 14 hour days on a tip to survive. I don't have to rely on foodbanks to feed my family and I've never struggled with reading, writing or using a computer like so many people finding it impossible to find a job.

However, I am a feeble human being who gets stressed by relatively minor problems.

Bearing all of that in mind, please allow me to have a moan without judging me too harshly.

The effing damp patch is back!! Over about 6 months we spent a huge amount of money on trying to remedy the damp patch and eventually we found it was caused by hygroscopic salts so we had to remove most of the plaster from the wall and get a plasterer to use special salt-resistant plaster. We thought it was fixed and decorated the room, ready for our future-child.

This morning at 6am, on a day when I was desperately in need of a lie-in (anything past 7am would have been a treat) my husband awoke me to announce that a new damp patch had arrived and it had already spread up to the ceiling.

An hour of stressing began. We have a damp meter so I pencilled around the worst affected area. I had suspected that this might happen as when the plastering was done, there was a weird bit of old plasterboard that wasn't removed before the special plaster was put on. We had hoped that it would dry out. It didn't.

So I've called the plasterer and he's coming out tomorrow, but the thought of having to hack a large section off again and go through all the mess and dust, to then have to re-decorate all over again, is making me feel really rubbish. I don't even much care about the money at this point.

We have a man coming to fit shelves on Friday and I was so looking forward to finishing the room and putting up curtains. Sigh.

So that's my rant. I was also devastated last week by the election result. On a selfish level, it means I will almost definitely be losing my job next year and the library that I have grown to love and that holds many lovely memories for my OH. On a less selfish level, I know that £12bn of welfare cuts for people who already have nothing, are too horrifying to imagine. Most of our customers who come in for benefits advice are lovely people who are very stressed and worried for their future. They often have disabilities, or have cancer, or have learning difficulties which make it very hard to find work. This year I have experienced a number of people desperate for a food voucher as they haven't eaten for days. Some of those people are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol and cannot access support to help them with this.

So really my problem with a bit of damp, especially as our future-child could feasibly have the box room in the short-term, is not a big deal and certainly something that can be overcome with the money that we have saved from both being in jobs that pay us fairly.

I feel a bit better now. I can't promise there won't be another rant in the future though.

In other news, after 7 hours of proper driving lessons my OH felt brave enough to allow me to trundle around an empty industrial estate in our car. I got 3 months learner insurance for £199. However, driving a 10 year old petrol car is totally different to driving a brand new diesel! Just getting the thing started was a mammoth task. I managed to drive around the same loop for about an hour but still haven't got to grips with the pedals and the handbrake is so stiff that I can't move it. I'm glad I'm doing it now though as there's no point passing my test if I can't actually drive our car.

I haven't done the meter readings for 3 weeks. :eek:

StrugglingYouth

It isnt how you start, its how you finish that matters!

Keep at it. Most things can be rectified, unfortunately though, certain things require liberal applications of money to be solved but as you said, you have never been troubled to feed/clothe or warm your family. Take solace in those things. Keep smiling!

in_need_of_direction

Very wise words from the youthful visitor. Chin up. The damp will be vanquished. If it were me, I'd have been livid that I was woken early. The damp would still have been there after a lie in.

Firegirl

Everyone's allowed a rant now and again. Hope you feel better for it :0)

amycool

Thank you so much for the lovely comments. It's crazy that one can get so upset over a damp patch when so many have died or lost their homes in Nepal, but logic doesn't always win. Although I haven't had a chance to reply until now, I felt so much better after reading the comments.

So, the plasterer came out to have a look and his opinion is to leave it for now and keep monitoring it. So far it hasn't caused the paint to flake off or go yellow, and his feeling is that it's crazy to spend loads of money and make loads of mess for something that isn't yet causing any visual problems and won't be causing any health problems (damp caused by hygroscopic salts is fairly innocuous). So for now we are keeping a close eye on it and measuring the spread. When you open the window on a sunny day it dries up fairly quickly.

It's a bit of a sword of damacles feeling knowing that it will definitely need doing in the future but no idea how long we'll have. At least it puts off the expense for a bit. Interestingly, next door have exactly the same problem in their little boy's room (damp patch where the old chimney was) but they haven't done anything about it yet.

So I'm feeling a bit more positive and trying to get on top of everything today. I've done the meter readings (slightly higher than a few weeks ago as it's been quite chilly) and once I've posted this I will check on the bank accounts and update the spreadsheet.

In slightly disappointing and sad news, my amazing driving instructor, who I feel totally relaxed with, is not very well and is going to have to hand me over at some point to a friend of hers. She tells me that the new lady is very similar, so that puts my mind at rest a bit, but it's hard when things are going so well to change things. I'm finally starting to feel like I might be able to get it! Today (I think I'm about 9 hrs in) we did a pretty busy loop around town with lots of traffic lights and narrow roads, and although I felt a bit jelly-legged afterwards, it didn't feel terrifying. Hopefully this means I won't need thousands of pounds worth of lessons after all.

I'm trying to keep plugging away with the surveys (I've limited myself to two companies as it used to be overwhelming) but I'm generally not what they're looking for about 75% of the time and with VO you don't even get a token amount of points for the 2 minutes spent at the beginning.

Tomorrow the woodwork man is coming to make the shelving and hopefully we'll get a quote for the gate and fence too.

As it stands, I have nothing arranged for the weekend. This is a marvellous feeling. We've also finished the adoption home study. Hooray!

amycool

Forgot to mention that my OH, who in the past has never wanted attempt any DIY of any kind, made a planter this week! We needed something quite long and tall but thin to block off a small drop in the garden and when I looked online nothing matched what we wanted and buying two shorter ones would have cost over £100. My OH got all of the materials for less than £50. Well done him! It looks pretty nice too, if a little wonky, but once there are flowers inside you won't notice. I have a few mature plants ready to go in too thanks to my friend.

I also managed to buy a lockable cabinet and a first aid kit (for the adoption application) for nothing as I had survey credit with amazon. That was a nice surprise!

And the car passed the MOT. :T Another surprise...:rotfl:

StrugglingYouth

Some sweet silver linings there! Very positive news.

I only really use Opinion World and Global Test Market now for surveys as I seem to do fairly well from them. Id trade it for a part time job though for sure!

The driving lessons sound like they're coming along nicely. Have a little faith in yourself!

Firegirl

I was really scared of driving - and I mean really scared - I had 4 instructors altogether. And my lessons spanned over 10 years on and off! My only tip which I wish someone had told me is just don't stop, no matter how much it costs or how hard you finding it just keep getting lessons until you get it. I passed 3rd time lucky at 8 months preggers...... Avoided emergency stop!!!! Lol. Good luck and you WILL get it in the end! Promise!!

amycool

StrugglingYouth wrote: »

Some sweet silver linings there! Very positive news.

I only really use Opinion World and Global Test Market now for surveys as I seem to do fairly well from them. Id trade it for a part time job though for sure!

The driving lessons sound like they're coming along nicely. Have a little faith in yourself!

I used to do about 11 different surveys! I did this for about a year and made a fair bit but after a while I couldn't face answering another question about mobile phones. Late last year I decided to pick up YouGov (not too many surveys and usually very interesting), Ipsos and Valued Opinions. I just hate it when you get kicked out after 5 minutes and get no reward.

I love it when I get amazon vouchers and then forget all about them, only to later discover I can buy stuff for "free". :-)