A new royal start

QueenJess

savingholmes said:

Hi Jess
Just caught up on your diary. I am in awe of how much you are achieving while under threat of redundancy and being pregnant. I had to laugh at the fact - that probably due to homeworking your employer hadn't realised you were pregnant. I threw up really badly for 22 weeks with my first - there was no hiding anything. I also temporarily went off chocolate and coffee. He's 23 soon and DD is 17. Time flies. This year I bought him a new bed - a double! 

Thanks   To be fair until this week I didn't look pregnant at all and even people who had seen me were shocked!  No idea how I survived the August heatwaves with 22 hours a day sickness.  DS certainly watched a lot of TV whilst I lay around with my travel bands on unable to move!  Thankfully this second trimester is fine for now (apart from the baby sometimes purposely seeking out a nice squashy organ and jabbing it really hard so it hurts!).

QueenJess

Oh, I am definitely clock watching today.   How is it only 11am... it feels like 3pm!

Having some fun with HR as apparently they don't know maternity rights very well.  I am hoping they will go and look it up and it will all be fine as I don't want to fight with them for SMP.  I can lodge a complaint with HMRC,  but am hoping it is just HR's lack of knowledge and it will just sort itself out.

I never seem to learn at work.  The only way to survive is to sit around, do as you are told, not voice any opinions or draw any attention to yourself and definitely never try to do anything properly.  I should know that by now.  Unfortunately my job is meant to be one of giving opinions as an "expert" and I am allergic to not doing things properly.  I also need to continually learn something all the time otherwise I get bored.  I am so bored at work (have been for 3 years and so learnt all kinds of random things online as I will go crazy if I don't exercise my brain ... even set up my own website once as I wanted to see if I could do it!).  I thought (stupidly) that my time left would go quicker if I actually had a project or something vaguely interesting to do.  I volunteered some opinions on something I could fix (and I have experience in) and thought they would be happy and leave me to it.  Already wished I hadn't bothered....  should have just sat here counting down days.

Anyway... only a few more hours left for this week...  got DS's xmas show thing later which was pre-recorded and they are showing on a drive in cinema at the nursery.  Should be interesting.  Apparently it was very delayed yesterday, so I need to organise myself after lunch and pack up drinks, snacks and blankets for the car.  Hoping to make some popcorn and some chocolate chip cookies if I have time.  

No idea about weekend plans yet.  Just seem to be clock watching each day away at the moment.  I think it will be a huge relief come end of Jan to be unemployed!  I'll probably be much more productive at home.  I remember when I was on maternity leave last time waiting for baby to come, I was ridiculously bored as I had done absolutely everything on my list and the house was pristine!  Probably not quite the same this time as DS likes to try and get every single toy out to play with at the same time, so it's a never ending stream of tidying, washing clothes and feeding him!

savingholmes

I can relate to always wanting to be learning. With my second child - I did a coaching qualification while at home as I was worried my brain would otherwise find something negative to obsess about

QueenJess

I think I'm ready for bed already lol.  Crammed way too much in the last 24 hours and slept very little last night as DS kept waking up.  Think I was rebelling after being at work all week at a place where Yes Minister's "creative inertia" phrase always comes to mind (i.e. lots of activity but absolutely nothing ever gets done).

Yesterday I quickly made cinnamon popcorn and chocolate chip cookies before picking up DS.  We then had a lovely time munching through those with drinks and cosy blankets on in the car in the nursery drive in cinema xmas show thingy.  It was actually really good and the we got to see DS on a big screen.  DS also loved seeing all the xmas lights on the drive back as it was properly dark then.

Between then and now I also:

• Made half the baby room furniture on my own (was very easy..) and rearranged part of the room to try and finally conclude where everything is going to go.  Also put all the books on the bookshelves I made already and some of the bigger toys into the toy box I also made.  DS helped put the books on and insisted on his own shelf for the books he wants to read to the baby 😍
• Cleared the room of doom of the charity stuff.  It is now neatly packed into boxes and stacked nicely for DH to take.
• Did 2 loads of washing, hung them out and put all the clean clothes away.
• Finally got round to getting rid of the massive black plastic tray in our kitchen diner.  I used it to grow loads of seeds from March onwards and couldn't get rid of it as I grew some ginger I had leftover, but didn't have an outer tray/drip tray to put it on.  I got my plant pot in the week and so replanted it and tidied away all the other junk that seemed to have collected on there.  Should make DH's day as he's sick of it being in the way.
• Put all DS's xmas cards up in his room.  DS decided he wanted to send xmas cards to his class at nursery (18 of them!).  We've now done all but 5 of them.  It takes forever as DS has to decide which card he wants for each person and then draws a different picture and adds a sticker for each one of them.  Will have to finish this off tomorrow.
• Tidied around generally.  Place still looks a bit of a mess though... will eventually get there once the room of doom is done.
• Watered all the plants, dusted the whole house, changed all the beds and cleaned all the mirrors.
• Cut up two massive boxes to file in the recycling box.  The others will have to go in future weeks I suspect.

Lunch was tomato pasta (with the leftover pizza sauce), with salad and garlic bread.  Dinner is fish and chips.  Pudding is chocolate fudge pudding (which I have made and is waiting on the side ready to be cooked for 15 mins in the oven) and ice cream.  Naughty snacks later will be more chocolate chip cookies

After dinner we are going out for a drive to find some more xmas lights.  DS loves to see them and people round here tend to go a bit crazy!

I think it'll have to be an early night tonight!  More stuff to get done tomorrow, but better tone it down a bit...

QueenJess

Another full on day today.  I was going to pick up some more leaves from the garden, but it's been wet and miserable all day.

Instead I ploughed through a load of household and other stuff:

• Finished DS's xmas cards with him and they are now packed in his bag for tomorrow.
• 3 loads of washing done and hung out.  All clean clothes away.
• Built most of the new furniture now (all myself), but got some bits I need DH's help with and I still have a few bits missing from my order which I will have to chase up.
• Cleaned all toilets & sinks (just got bathrooms/kitchen to finish in the week).
• Lots of tidying everywhere!

Things are looking pretty good now, although still got more clearing in the room of doom and a heap of cardboard boxes to cut up and distribute in the recycling box.  Slowly making progress!

Dinner is in the oven - roast beef with parsnips, roast potatoes, carrots and yorkshire puddings.  Pudding is the other half of the chocolate fudge pudding and ice cream from yesterday.  Looking forward to relaxing this evening and trying not to think about work tomorrow.

QueenJess

Well I just don't know where to start.  This week has been mental at work and so I am now knackered and the house was a tip.  Spent today tidying, doing washing, rearranging the baby room so all the furniture is in the right place (just need to put on doors/handles now), cutting up more boxes for the recycling, changed the beds, did all the dusting and cleaned the mirrors.  I also made 2 batches of biscuits for the tin which myself and DS have already tucked into today 

The house is looking a fair bit better already, although more to do tomorrow.  Got a huge stack of boxes for recycling, a charity box of stuff and some other things to either get rid of somewhere (eBay/freecycle probably) or the tip as a last resort.  Hopefully next week at work will be quiet as lots of people are off already, so I won't get quite so far behind 

Work has been crazy for a couple of weeks now and I ended up sorting out a big mess for them (since no one else was doing anything about it..).  I'm still in shock, but I must have made an impact because despite them knowing I am pregnant and have taken no holiday yet this year, they offered me a full time position!     I genuinely was expecting to finish at the end of Jan and that would be it.  In fact, I was so surprised that I haven't actually given an answer yet!

However, I will be accepting given that I get paid way better maternity pay and I only have to come back after for 3 months not to pay it back.  I would be silly to turn it down and given the current state of jobs as well.  Plus if they made me redundant whilst I was on maternity leave I will have gone past another year of service.  Hopefully the shock will wear off over the weekend.  I am now thinking I need to re-think finances.... I may put more in ISA/pension before the end of the financial year rather than having my current mortgage payment fund as I can top it back up next financial year before we re-fix in October.  Need to think about it though.

DH is cooking dinner tonight (fish and chips).  Totally forgotten to make a pudding as I was so busy today, so ice cream, biscuits or fruit and yogurt it is.  May make a nice crumble for tomorrow.  After dinner we are going for a walk in the dark to see the xmas lights.  DS is very excited.  He loves seeing the xmas lights (there are loads very close to us) and there is nothing more exciting to a 3 year old than going for a walk in the dark with his own torch!

Apparently we are about to go into tier 4 now    I really hope this gets under control soon.  The tiers make little difference to us as we are following the tier 4 rules anyway and have been since March, but I am worried about going to hospital for the baby.

Jessy103

Congrats on the job offer, jess! 😀

Grogged

Brilliant news on the job front!

rugbymadfamily

Great news on the job offer, definitely agree worth taking it means better Mat pay!

QueenJess

@Jessy103 @Grogged @rugbymadfamily Thanks all   Still not quite got over the shock!  I'll be accepting the job offer tomorrow and hopefully will get the paperwork through relatively quickly!

Lots more organising done today including, cleaning all toilets/sinks, lots of tidying and cut up all the cardboard boxes which now fit neatly in one cardboard box out of my way (apart from some pieces DS borrowed to make a road).  House is getting close to being nicely organised now, but it's always the way before I go back to work and it falls apart!  Hoping for a quiet week at work so I can keep on top of it for a change.

Dinner is in the oven (roast beef, roast potatoes, yorkshire puddings and roasted veg) and the apple and blackberry crumble with custard is ready to go for pudding.

I definitely won't be relying on having a job generally anymore and would love to get to a stage where I don't need to work at all.  We could probably just about manage now, but pension etc might be a bit tricky, as would holidays/other luxuries.  So, the plan is to catch up some pension and put what I can in before the end of the financial year.  I then have April-October to save up again and can decide whether I put this to ISA's/pension or house overpayments when we get to the end of our mortgage deal.  I want to keep house payments affordable on a single salary, but it will depend on interest rates at the time and whether DH wants to put a lump sum in the mortgage (as he has some catching up to do).

I also need to fix the joint account deficit as quickly as I can still after all the furniture purchasing.  Will check nearer the month end where I have got to.  It should have gone down, although maybe not as much as I had hoped.  Will have to set some goals for the start of 2021.

Need to do a list for food shopping tomorrow later.  Expecting a big list as I will definitely be adding a few treats in there    Plus DS will be here everyday and he eats and eats and eats!