Aim: Mortgage Free / Time For Me

Nurse2047

Happy new year @postmenopause 🥳

postmenopause

MFW2026 said:

Happy new year @postmenopause 🥳

Thank you @MFW2026

try_harder

Happy new year and good luck with everything

Chiglepig

Happy New Year and New Diary.

Following for the gardening Seriously, gardening is so good for your mental health, I find it really healing I love sequestering myself in the greenhouse with Radio 4 and and afternoon of potting-on. Walking is also good for the soul (finally persuaded my husband of that after 15 years ) and although people say you can't outrun/walk a bad diet, I notice a real difference in my waistline if my daily average falls below 5km - but with two dogs, that doesn't happen very often!

Good luck on your journey.

postmenopause

try_harder said:

Happy new year and good luck with everything

Thank you @try_harder

Chiglepig said:

Happy New Year and New Diary.

Following for the gardening Seriously, gardening is so good for your mental health, I find it really healing I love sequestering myself in the greenhouse with Radio 4 and and afternoon of potting-on. Walking is also good for the soul (finally persuaded my husband of that after 15 years ) and although people say you can't outrun/walk a bad diet, I notice a real difference in my waistline if my daily average falls below 5km - but with two dogs, that doesn't happen very often!

Good luck on your journey.

To be honest @Chiglepig i dont know what i would have done without my allotments over the last few years, i think it has been my only release and it has given me something to get up for in the mornings, after all the weeds wont wait 🤣🤣🤣.  Also ive been trying to do my brisk walking now with the dog ( instead of my usual slow amble along), i must look daft as everytime she stops to sniff i’m marching on the spot🤣🤣🤣

PiggyBankShaker

I wanted to say hi. I read your intro about getting counselling and you deserve a huge huge huge congrats. Both my DH and I have had long term counselling (both individual and marriage) and it has helped us come to term with the roles we were forced to play in our childhoods (DH's mother is also a narcissist and very manipulative and emotionally abusive - he has now set firm boundaries and as a result 2 of his siblings have completely cut him out of their life... but I digress) Of course it's an ongoing process but our life (and of finances!) is so much better as a result of healing the old wounds and recognising and breaking old patterns.

Your allotment and cooking combo sounds great and I'm very envious. I've been on a waiting list for an allotment for aggggges and I've in hope that 2022 will be my year! 

Do you happen to have a FitBit or a fitness watch of some kind? I find mine invaluable for my steps, sleep tracking and cardio vascular fitness...

postmenopause

Todays quote:

“The only impossible journey is the one you never begin”


Thank you for reading my diary @Chiglepig and @PiggyBankShaker .  @PiggyBankShaker I didnt even know what a narcissist was until i had counselling 🤣🤣🤣….i just thought i was an unloveable ‘dogs body’ who was always in trouble with my parents and siblings for saying or doing the wrong thing.  I have certainly learnt a lot over the last year.

Todays Mortgage/Household savings:

1. Today i nipped to wilko and they have their seeds and seed potatoes in store.  I have brought some Charlotte (2nd earlies) and king Edwards & Desiree potatoes which are main crops….. i will put these in trays on top of our bedroom wardrobe to ‘chit’ until i plant them at the beginning of April (not a very romantic bedroom but its the coldest room in the house🤣🤣).  I also brought a few seeds that i know i needed for this year.  I am a bit of a seedaholic so i now have a list of which seeds i have and which seeds i need to buy.  I used to always buy my seeds when they were 50% off at the end of the year but to be honest i needed a bomb up my bum to get me to do anything the last few years…..this has got to change (hopefully with the help of this diary it will).
2. For Sunday lunch today we had the chicken that we were suppose to have had yesterday, it had been knocking around in our freezer for months but it tasted fine.  We had it with some salad that needed eating up, a jacket potato each and some coleslaw dated today.
3. We had a Tesco delivery also today and it seemed really expensive, but its nearly two weeks since our last delivery so that is probably why and we are still in budget.  Our budget per month is £400 but that is for everything ie food, toiletries, cleaning things etc etc.  A few years ago this was ample for four of us with treats but now a days the prices are so high and and when my daughter is home from university she always seems to like expensive things.  I think maybe now im starting to feel a bit better i will have to go back to meal planning to reduce our food spending a bit.
4. Today i also put the ganach on the ‘doomed’ chocolate fudge cake (that i made yesterday and broke the bottom of the cake in half) 🤣🤣🤣, but it looks ok.  I also made a lemon cheese cake, so the two home made puddings together, probably saved some money and will be far nicer than buying them (must try very hard not to eat them tomorrow when my DD’s & partners and parents come round)…..this is the get together we were suppose to have last week before my DD got covid (all of us escaped Omicron except my eldest daughter who had covid in early 2020 - probably because the rest of us only had delta in November).

Wellbeing:

1. When i started to eat healthy last week, i decided i would eat all my meals and any healthy snacks at our dinner table.  This is something we always did as a family when my DD’s were growing up, but since they have flown the nest, me and my DH have got out of the habit.  I have realised that it helps me to not eat mindlessly like i do when i just shovel things into my mouth when i sit in front of the tv eating.  By sitting at the table i have found i actually know ‘how much’ and ‘what’ i am eating.  I have also discovered that when im eating on my own at the table ie my breakfast, it gives me time to think and slow down instead of eating on the go….this has got to be good for my metal health and my weight?
2. I’m really enjoying writing this diary, it is doing me soooooooo much good.  I’m finding it so therapeutic, it has really surprised me.

Anyway thats it for today.  If anyone is reading this post, then thank you for taking the time to support me on my new journey

XXXX

postmenopause

Todays quote:

It’s not about what people think of you, it’s about what YOU think of them”

Mortgage / Household savings:

So today we are having our my dd’s and their partners round and two of their parents.  We are doing kababs on the bbq ( my dh brought the charcoal and firelights in the sales in autumn as we always use it).  It will be lovely to have my family back together again after covid struck.  

The homemade cheesecake and chocolate fudge cake seemed to have turned out ok ( i don’t think you can tell the fudge cake bottom broke in half before i put the ganache on)……hopefully they will taste nice 🤞🤞🤞

Wellbeing:

I always work really really hard cleaning and cooking etc before we have guests (by guests i mean anyone other than our dd’s as i know they love being here whatever because its their home where they grew up).

I try so hard before hand to think of everyone ie what everyone would like to eat or drink.  But it’s always the same, before they arrive i pull my whole house to pieces and get into a state “this looks dirty or have i done enough food? Will they look down on us etc etc”.  Similarly after our guests go i then dissect  every minute, worrying that i said this or that wrong.  

Through my counselling i have realised that this is because i am conditioned to cater for every persons needs and i was always made to feel ‘not good enough’ when i was growing up. This is because i grew up in a house with physical and narcissistic abuse from my father and emotional abuse from my mother ( though the counsellor helped me to understand that my mother didn’t realise she was doing this).  The narcissistic abuse from my father has now stopped, due to me going ‘no contact’ last year (with the help of my counsellor).  I find it really incredible that your early years influence your adult life so much.  

Unfortunately i find it hard to accept that people could actually like me….though i’m going to try really hard to change this.  One thing i must remember today is the quote at the start of my post.  Our guests today are lovely and i cant imagine they would ever judge anyone and it is the second time they have joined us for kababs so they must have liked our company and food the first time around.  

One thing i have learnt as a coping mechanism, is to talk to myself in my head like a good parent would (apparently this uses a different part of the brain than the awful voice that tells me that i am not good enough), so today my ‘inner good parent’ will need to keep a good dialogue up 🤣🤣🤣

Anyway, i’ll write about how it goes tomorrow.  Thank you to anyone reading my ramblings.

XXXX

Fortune_Smiles

Hello PM.  Just popping in to say I'm enjoying your diary.  Keep up the good work.

Fortune x

South_coast

The cakes look amazing, beautiful presentation 😋!