Crazy Cat Lady Chapter 5 - Trying to recover from the pandemic

Drawingaline

I joined a slow cooker group a few years back to get some ideas. All it made me do was start using it to bake cakes and bread 🙄😂

My daughter is learning to drive. She won't get a car though unless she buys it herself, and she is planning on going to uni in September so doesn't really need one. I had originally planned that we would fund the lessons and then when she got her child trust fund at 18 she would give us that money to pay us back (which we would then use to fund our next child who turns 17 15months after her and so on) her trust fund has about 1k in so wouldn't buy a decent car or really help a huge amount for uni so we thought this was a good compromise. My hubby doesn't drive Ashe never passed his test so the kids see how limiting this can be and were happy with this arrangement. As it is our income had increased dramatically over the past two years so we have decided to let them keep the trust funds as we can comfortably cover the lessons. She has her test in March have everything crossed she passed first time. 

Although my girl earns about £600-700 a month in her part time job. Almost as much as me

crazy_cat_lady

I'm so pleased that you agree that driving is a good skill to have DAL. It's so expensive to learn, and quite costly to run a car but the freedom that comes with being able to go where you want, when you want, commute a long way to work etc. is so worth it. I would hate to be completely reliant on public transport (although would be fine with it if I lived in London, but I don't).
I'm a bit worried about my dad - he's complaining about numbness in his legs. Woke up with it Tuesday and it isn't going away. He's not getting any younger either, and struggling to walk will finish him off. He has so far refused to speak to a doctor or 111, or have me take him to hospital. But if he's not better by the weekend then I'm going to make him see someone. He's absolutely insistent that he's going to get over here and sort out dd's car on Saturday but at the moment he can't even get out of the house in terms of walking. I've googled a few things and there are a few possible reasons (some of which are really scary obviously) but as he says it's getting a bit better I will wait before I panic. He has a few health issues and this one is niggling me a bit because he had a TIA a few years ago - I hope that it's not a sign of something bigger.
Kids have come back to work with another awful attitude. Another negative of the pandemic. It's only the first couple of days and I'm already seriously struggling with the lack of effort and interest from quite a few of them. Never mind. I've been a teacher for a long time now, and I need to remember that for every pain in the bum kid there are at least another 20 lovely ones. And I'm SO annoyed with myself today because I made myself a lovely coffee to take to work along with my packed lunch and promptly left them both on the kitchen table. Didn't realise until I was almost at work so no hope of getting back for them. So I ended up spending £3 on a meal deal so I could have some lunch. Did without the coffee because I can't justify that level of spending. But really annoyed with myself - however these things do happen.
Nothing else much to report. It's cold, it's January (snow arrived this afternoon). Got home, did the few jobs that needed doing. Had my packed lunch for dinner and crocheted a couple more of these squares. Now winding down for the evening and getting ready for bed. What an exciting life I lead eh?

Drawingaline

I always hope my kids are the nice ones, and parents eve tend to reinforce this. However my girl is a super high achiever and is hard work in a different way. My eldest boy is in the cba camp, the 12 yr old has the teen grumps and the 9 yr old, well that's a whole different story 😂 exclusions galore in yr R and yr1 led to some huge interventions and he is now doing well, but am now at the stage of trying to get him into a senco secondary school with 8 places! I keep telling my daughter she has more chance of getting into the super difficult uni she has applied for 😱

If it's the teen age group you teach I do not envy you at all. They can be ruthless, esp in pack form!

ladyholly

My Mum who would be over 100 yeats old now used to tell of a teacher that they drove to a breakdown so its not just modern young people who were difficult to say the least. Not sure if thats any consolation for you hard working teachers out there.

crazy_cat_lady

It is the teens DAL - I am scared of young children. Most teenagers are absolutely fine - they have a lot to deal with on top of school and some of them cope better than others with the other stuff going on. I can't imagine how tough it is growing up in a world with social media and all of those pressures on top of hormones, friendships, family and everything else. I like them mostly. 
I can't believe I'm this tired after 3 days back at work. It's been nice to be back but the stress levels are right up again already. I'm back to eating too much and feeling like I don't have a spare second in the day. And it's not so bad in the department - no absences among our staff (yet). Left work just after 3.30 and then had to dash straight home to pick up ds and drop him off at a bowling party. Took dd with me and we went to do the weekly shop at Herr Aldee and Mr S. Strange that when ds is with me we normally total spend about £90, but with just me and dd we spent £57-50 and have everything we need for the week ahead. Hit quite lucky with yellow stickers as well so ds got some of his treats (chocolate croissants), dd got some chicken steaks and I treated myself with a ys ready meal in Aldeeeeee - butter chicken with 70% off so it tasted even better knowing I'd only paid 84p for it. Managed to get my yellow peas as well to make some soup over the weekend, and dd has requested coleslaw again.
The stress with dd's car rumbles on. I'm starting to fret about whether we can get it going again now it's stood for this long. That's just me and my anxiety though and the finances that can't cope with having to buy a new battery if that's what it needs. Plus the insurance is up for renewal at the beginning of next month and there seems to be a bit of a hike in price all over. I do not like it now that we can't have 'new customer' deals any more. Obviously rather than make it all cheaper it all gets more expensive. January is always tough I know but I am finding this January a real struggle. AND it's still 23 days until payday.

f0xh0les

Bizarrely, my insurance is less this year with the company I was with last year. Only £3 less, but £3 is, after all, nearly 4 ys butter chicken dinners in Alidee A couple of the price comparisons seemed £20 cheaper, but once you added on the legals and personal cover tweaks, they were all more. So I am sticking where I am this year.  It is that dog one that says Oh Yes!!

DH's car was a total nightmare for the battery, so we ended up buying one of those recharger things - you have to take the battery out of the car, put it in the cradle, and plug it in to the mains, and 12 or 24 hours later it is recharged.  Hope yours  is all relatively simple to jump start.  His car sat outside so long it grew weeds!

One of the Manchester neighbours came round once and asked if he could borrow some jump leads. DH asked why he thought he would have any, and he said 'You have a Renault on the drive, course you have jump leads'.

foxgloves

Well that's a grocery budgeting tip sorted then, @crazy_cat_lady, don't let your son anywhere near the food shopping, lol! That is a serious difference in total weekly spend.
Maybe you can kind of riff on this without banning him from the supermarket......you could decide on your meal plan for the week ahead, write your shopping list based only on what you need to produce those meals plus breakfasts & lunches & stick to that list like glue. Then, if your son is with you, he could be invited to choose maybe two additional items to go in the trolley. That way, he gets to choose some treats, but the person in control of earning & managing the budget maintains a tight reign on the total spend, which is how it should be. 
I am sensing you are feeling determined this year. It will almost certainly help reduce your stress levels if you are feeling more on top of your finances. 
Good luck with it all. You can do this! 
F xx

Tiredbutdetermined

I am utterly exhausted already too

I am so worried about exams too. I don’t know if I am more worried by the snippets they are saying or the things they aren’t saying. I got myself emotional chatting to y11 and they were touched I care about them so much. I really do but it was also he fear of losing the exam marking contracts again! 

Porridgecat

I also teach teenagers and come out in a cold sweat at the idea of dealing with younger children. I like this age group as I find they are more developed verbally and you can have a (mostly) rational conversation with them. 

Honeysucklelou2

Give me younger ones to teach any day...it’s the secondary that bring me out in a cold sweat 😊.

Do you have breakdown cover CCL? My cover includes from home so they have come out and jump started the battery before now.