Finally Debt Free After 34 Years, But Still Need to Live Frugally

milann

I feel the same when dh and the children have been here and go home again. We miss our offspring something rotten and it’s perfectly normal.
I find I’m best if planning an outing to just ‘plan something spontaneous’ rather than stipulating exactly what we’re doing - that way if the weather throws a spanner in the works or something crops up I’m not too disappointed and can do something different in the allotted time - hope that makes sense. This week we’ve earmarked Thursday afternoon to do something together - not too sure what yet though.

HairyHandofDartmoor

jwil wrote: »

Are you on FB HHD?

There's a group on there 'Action for Happiness' each month they post a calendar with small daily actions. It's quite inspiring and this month's is 'Optimistic October'.

Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/actionforhappiness/?ref=br_rs

beanielou wrote: »

I love their calenders.

Thank you both . I've followed the group and the calendar looks like a good idea.

HairyHandofDartmoor

EssexHebridean wrote: »

That sort of thing makes me chuckle too - it's like when someone gets muddled and tells a child not to eat with its mouth full! :rotfl::rotfl:

I'm not surprised losing your Mum is still affecting you so much - try to remember there is no time limit on grief - it takes as long as it takes, and affects absolutely everyone differently. There are no rules here about what you should be feeling, how you should be feeling it and for how long. Be kind to yourself.

Thanks EH . I'm still finding it very hard to live without my Mum but hopefully I'll get used to it eventually.

Sun_Addict wrote: »

Glad DS3 got off to uni ok

What a lovely list of things to be grateful for, sometimes we tend to just think of the negative things, I know I do, but we can always find the positive things if we try. I think having good health is always top of the list.

Thanks SA . Yes there are always things to be grateful for, but sometimes it's hard to feel grateful.

milann wrote: »

I feel the same when dh and the children have been here and go home again. We miss our offspring something rotten and it’s perfectly normal.
I find I’m best if planning an outing to just ‘plan something spontaneous’ rather than stipulating exactly what we’re doing - that way if the weather throws a spanner in the works or something crops up I’m not too disappointed and can do something different in the allotted time - hope that makes sense. This week we’ve earmarked Thursday afternoon to do something together - not too sure what yet though.

It is nice to have 'something' planned but it can be weather dependant of course. At least with NT place you can go in the house and cafe so it's an all weather outing.

HairyHandofDartmoor

Yesterday was okay at school. Although I felt a bit underconfident for some reason and felt like I'd underperformed, or said and done the wrong thing occasionally. Although I've no evidence for this and it was just a feeling .

A child did make me laugh though when he said his friend had a sore mouth and when I asked why, he said he'd been eating a carrot at break time and he didn't have many teeth :rotfl:.

Today I felt more confident. I went on the school trip to part of our town and we had a great day. We went to some places I've been to many times before but when you're with six year olds you see it through fresh eyes. We saw some local landmarks, bought some fresh bread from a historic bakery and ate it in a secret garden and the children got to roll down a hill . They all had a lovely time and so did I. School trips are a good way to bond with the staff and get to know some of the children better. We were lucky as it was dry until we got on the coach to go back to school.

I feel tired now but in a good frame of mind .

DS3 messaged earlier to say he has a cold and water was coming through the ceiling in his student house :eek:. So DH helped him to compose an email to his landlord with some photos. The landlord said they'll send someone out to fix the leak today. It must be a missing roof tile or something :eek:.

jwil

beanielou wrote: »

I love their calenders.

They are great

HairyHandofDartmoor

Last night I felt really tired and a bit like I was coming down with a bug. I couldn't get warm until I'd had a hot shower. I went to bed at 9pm and slept quite soundly. I felt better this morning but still tired. I also felt quite dopey at school and like my head was stuffed with cotton wool.

Also something happened at school this morning that really upset me. Apparantly a teacher complained that my class is too noisy when they line up after play. I don't know who they complained to but a TA tipped me off. I'm disappointed with myself because I know I should make my class be quieter and I've allowed myself to be distracted by individual children when I should be monitoring the entire class and making sure they are quiet. But I also feel very upset that a teacher would go behind my back and complain about me . Why not speak to me directly and give me a chance to solve the problem? It was a teacher from a year group that I've never worked with so they don't really know me very well, but they still could have spoken to me and given me some feedback. I do so much for this school, mostly unpaid, and now I feel very demoralised and upset . Maybe I'm just no good at this job in which case I've wasted the last two years .

Now I'm home I feel really tired again. My ear has felt partially blocked for weeks and I have a slight rushing noise in that ear. I've tried putting Otex in it but it hasn't made much difference, so I'm not sure whether to see the nurse practitioner about it, but when am I going to get time to do that?

I'm fed up with feeling tired and demoralised all the time so I'm wondering whether to go to the doctor and mention how tired I am all the time in case something is wrong with me. But I hate going to the doctor and I don't know when I'd get time to go as I can't take time off school.

Perhaps I should look at my diet. I eat enough protein I think as I eat eggs and baked beans most days and some sort of vegetable protein. I eat a banana and a satsuma every day and have frozen berries in my breakfast porridge. But I eat virtually no vegetables, so maybe my diet is lacking. I do take a multivitamin/multimineral every day.

I feel like eveything is getting on top of me at the moment and I'm too tired to cope with anything .

Sorry I'm moaning again .

foxgloves

Hello HHoD,
Both my sister & best friend are teachers. I also worked in professional partnership with schools for many years before taking VR. I would be cross too, if someone had complained about me without coming to me directly, but my experience & everything I hear from my sis & friend leads me to the conclusion that schools (like many workplaces) can be strange places.......they are a community within a community & have all the same power struggles, individuals you learn to 'watch out for', stirrers, tittle-tattlers & troublemakers in microcosm, as exist outside in 'real life'. My sister has this kind of thing happen often at the school where she works, which seems to be full of senior management-created factions. Sometimes I think this kind of thing is deliberate as the complainer is looking to curry favour with management, but often it's just a throw-away comment or moan, which with hindsight, could easily have been taken up directly with the person in question. Annoying as it is, I think you need to try not to dwell on it, as these sort of things can eat into your evening, when your time should be your own. Remember that it was just one person & that they may have been having a really bad day. It wasn't the optimum way to go about dealing with her niggle, but it would be a great shame if you spent all day ruminating on it & thinking you are no good at your job or that you've wasted your time doing all your training. If you agree that your class is getting a little bit noisier than is ideal at lining-up time, you can deal with it next time & hopefully that will be the end of it.

I do sympathise with your feelings of missing your Mum. I sat with a coffee today & re-read my journal entries for this time last year, when my poor Mum was in her last week of life. I thought I would find it terribly stressful to read, as every day from her being moved into palliative care, I had written somewhere in my diary entry for that day that I hoped her passing would be as soon as possible. I thought I would read it back & conclude that I was thinking about my own stress, but oh my goodness, the account of her final three weeks & how very poorly she was, I know that I definitely only wanted her suffering to be over. In a strange way, even though those diary entries were very sad & full of stress, I actually feel better for reading them. What a weird thing. Such silly things make me miss my Mum......often seeing something in a shop she'd have loved, or finding a knitting pattern for something I'd intended to make her for a present. And then I'm often struck that because we were so involved in dealing with poor Mum's illness & death, we barely had time to miss our Dad, who died less than a year before Mum became ill.
Oh well, m'duck, onwards & upwards. Try & do something nice & relaxing tonight inseatd of dwelling on school.
F x

HairyHandofDartmoor

Thank you Foxgloves . I'm know I'm probably taking it too much to heart because I'm tired and a bit emotionally fragile at the moment. But it is upsetting that they didn't speak to me directly. I think I probably do need to keep my class quieter, but it's not a nice way to be get feedback . Next week I will focus 100% on making sure my line is quiet and not allow myself to be distracted by individual children fussing about things.

It is often the little things that make you miss a parent; wanting to tell them about something that you know would interest them, seeing something in the shops you know they would like, seeing mother's day cards in the shops, etc. But we have to keep going and so we do.

doingitanyway

I think you eat well and healthily but we can all use more veg especially leafy green ones.

You are being hard on yourself as you have said yourself that Autumn is tough for you for understandable reasons.

I too would be cross with the teacher not coming to you directly. You are NOT at fault, she is. I, (and probably everyone else) can see you are doing a great job.

Sendinga a hug x

HairyHandofDartmoor

Thank you DIA . Maybe I am too hard on myself, but I want to prove to myself that I can do this job and be good at it. Some days I do feel like I'm good at the job but on days like today I worry that I'm out of my depth .

Mind you I told my sister (who does a similar job to me) about what happened to me today and she told me a child in her care ate a mushroom today and had to go to the doctor (but was fine luckily) and that some teachers at her school can't control their classes.