My journey to a debt free life

Seasidegal58

Just catching up with diary after two months!  Plus my internet is very intermittent at the moment so I keep losing the service!

Sorry to hear you've been in pain. Hope you're feeling better today. 

Wow - you've been so busy with your painting!  You put me to shame - I'm useless at DIY jobs and will always get the professional in!  Well done!  

Good luck with the flooring. It will all look lovely when it's been done. 

Joining you on mourning Charlie Watts - the Stones are up there on my list of top fave rock bands of all time. 😞

Onebrokelady

Hi everyone I've finally made it back ,I've been soooo busy over the last few days. The floors have been done and look fantastic and I am over the moon with them. The guys that did them did such a good job and also cleaned up very thoroughly after themselves, you wouldn't have known they'd been here. They also put all my heavy bits of furniture back for me. I needed felt pads to go on the feet of the coffee table and settees and they found some in their van so put them on for me. I've just spent the last few days putting everything back where it belongs so the living room is straight again now,I just have to sort out the internet cables ,they were tacked along my skirting board but I don't want to do that so I'm thinking about alternative ideas, I've got a few rattling round in my head but I'm not sure which idea is the best yet 

I now have a new issue to sort out as while they were laying the floor they noticed one of my radiators has a small leak. I managed to get hold of a plumber who came out on Saturday and the actual radiator needs replacing, it's gone rusty on the back near the bottom corner  so will eventually cause a bigger problem. The plumber I called lives down the road from me and he is a really nice bloke but he likes to talk, he was here for an hour telling me about his family and his cats,I was gasping for a drink by the time he left 😀any way I asked him to service the boiler too and I happened to mention there is no radiator in my bathroom so he is going to give me a price to put one in,it's only a small room so it won't be a big one but I do need one because it's freezing in there in the winter and it might also help the mould problem. I have money left in the house fund so I'm hoping it will cover the bill for this. It was supposed to be going towards my bathroom panelling but this is more urgent.

The oven was also fixed on Thursday, it was the heating element so only took about ten minutes to fix,he also put a new bulb in the oven so I can see what I'm cooking now too 😀

Work has been a busy nightmare and I'm dreading going in every day,we are soooo short staffed and so busy it's horrible. We can normally borrow staff from other wards but they are really short too, our covid patients have increased from two to thirty at the last count and it's not even winter yet. I have literally been coming home and going to bed early because I'm too tired to do anything else. Still I do have a lovely house to come home to now 😊

Onebrokelady

Oops forgot to say I still haven't finished the painting so will have to put dust sheets down and mask off areas I don't want to get paint on. I need to finish the porch way and the bedroom doors. I haven't done any painting for a few days because I haven't felt well enough. My hip and leg have been awful so that's caused a problem getting up and down a ladder. 
Tomorrow I am off so might do some then but I also need some shopping so it depends how long that takes. Our local bus company has a big shortage of drivers so services have been cut,I need to check the website before I go to make sure which bus is actually running, I left work last Friday at 1pm because I was ill and I didn't get home until 2.45 pm😫 

Cherryfudge

A lot seems to be happening at your place! The new radiator is an unexpected expense but I think you will be glad of it.

You'll be able to sit in your nice warm house admiring your floors this winter!

I'm sorry to hear work is such a nightmare. All we can hope is that those filling the wards now will be healthy through the winter and that having the pressure now will reduce it later.

Onebrokelady

Cherryfudge said:

A lot seems to be happening at your place! The new radiator is an unexpected expense but I think you will be glad of it.

You'll be able to sit in your nice warm house admiring your floors this winter!

I'm sorry to hear work is such a nightmare. All we can hope is that those filling the wards now will be healthy through the winter and that having the pressure now will reduce it later.

Definitely could have done without having to buy a new radiator but I'm thankful that it was flagged up now while it's a small problem, I really don't need a leak all over my new floor, I'm also happy that I should be able to cover the bill from my house fund savings which means I still don't have to break into my emergency fund

I wish I could be so optimistic about work but all the signs are showing a very rocky time ahead. My trust have just enabled their covid surge plan. They have opened up the covid wards again and are planning for loads of patients coming through in the next few weeks. I think this winter is going to push us over the edge with a combination of excess illness and lack of staff. The babies we have in now are much sicker than normal and they are non stop, every time we emptied a bed on Sunday there was a patient waiting in the ED to fill it,it's just relentless 😟

Cherryfudge

I'm sorry to hear about the Covid situation in your area, I understand it can change over just a few days but with schools about to go back I can well believe they are planning for an upsurge. It's even harder when staff haven't had holidays or time off to replenish themselves.

I hear locally that a large proportion of cases are children, I don't know if that means there is a degree of immunity in the adult population or that children are currently more exposed to it, or something else.

I suppose all you can do is try to bank your rest against the busyness but that's not easy when there's work to be done at home. Do feel free to come on here if it helps to talk it through at all, there are so many lovely supportive people around.

Onebrokelady

Thanks Cherry, our little patients are coming in with RSV which seems worse this year, I suppose children have been cooped up at home a lot more over the last year so they haven't come into contact with normal viruses as much as they would normally. We have had a couple of older children with Covid too but still not as many as the adult wards. They are really struggling due to lack of staff mainly,it's not just holidays and sickness either,we have had 5 staff members leave in August alone on our ward 🙀

Onebrokelady

Today got off to a good start as I actually woke up and was ok to get up at 9 am 🎉🎉. I chucked a load of bedding in the machine and had my breakfast before taking B out for her walk. I then hoovered all through in a record time. The washing was finished by this point so I pegged that out and brought in the bedding I left out overnight which was lovely and dry

I've also been to town and picked up my shopping plus chicken corn and pellets and I'm now just finishing lunch before I go out and cut the grass on the front garden. I'm doing that today instead of painting because it's a nice dry day and I don't want to miss my chance in case it starts raining. Painting will be moved to Thursday when I'm going to be home all day so will be able to spend most of the day on it, the only inside job for today is to fill a hole with some polyfilla so it's set by Thursday

I still haven't contacted SC but am planning on sitting down and looking at my account with them tonight to see where I am with my creditors. I still need to contact them but I need to do my budget first and I just haven't had time,I can have a look at it now things have calmed down. I'm still trying to decide if I want to go self managed but will have a look at everything first and then work out what I want to do 

Dieting went out of the window over the weekend and I didn't go to my meeting on the bank holiday Monday because I was really fed up with it all, I don't know why because it was going ok and up to this week I was up to 5lbs lost which I was happy with. I just got so stressed out at work on Sunday and totally fell off the wagon,I need to find ways to deal with stress at work that doesn't involve eating loads of rubbish that is hanging around in the staff room. Today I have stocked up on healthy food so I'm starting again this week with renewed motivation 

milann

Good to hear you have renewed motivation with the SW….I went off the wagon when the family were home but been much more in control this week again. It’s so hard not to pick rubbish when you are stressed at work…..the staff room sued to be one of my weak areas when I was at work but I don’t have that excuse these days…..if I go off the rails it’s all my own doing 😏
The house sounds as if it is coming along really nicely- I bet it’s lovely to be in now.
Work however doesn’t sound a lovely place to be at all……your u do an amazing job 👏

Willowtree222

Flooring sounds good. I’m glad it looks nice and hopefully you do have enough to sort both radiators. 

It’s awful how short the NHS is. I hope it gets resolved soon. 

You’ve done loads today. Much more than I’ve had motivation to do all summer!

have a lovely evening x