Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

savingholmes said:

Definitely allow yourself some funds to invest in your wardrobe. It really can make a difference - as long as you manage to rein it in after. 

I will give it a think … 🤔 😊

Another busy day in work but not quite as tiring. Did put my foot down at one point and ‘cut through’ some nonsense that was creating customer complaints for the sake of pedantry and points winning … 🙄 Also thanked historical self for ‘doing the right thing’ 2 years ago, soon after starting where I am, and deciding to be consistent with an improvement initiative across both halves of the business and not just the half driving the II, when a senior person from the other side of the business lumbered into view today via email, asking me to do a deep dive survey / gap review on ourselves v. the II that they are now deciding to also use in their side of the business…. 😉

Two rows of knitting done. 

Cats zooming about, loving life and being cats 😊
Mr KK prepping the Jeep to take to the local beacon lighting tomorrow night.  

Managed to grab Mr KK long enough to capture all his show / holiday dates, so I can plan my life around those now! 😉
Bathroom confirmed for delivery Friday pm.
Mr KK wants to blitz the bathroom changeover w/c 1st July! Wish us luck! 🤞
Spoke to the national grid contractor who needs to cut back some of our trees - it’s not the cherry trees that were horribly hacked a couple of years ago (they were left with a ‘flat top’ for goodness sake!), but the other side of the garden where hazel and ivy are starting to swamp a big transformer. He offered me the wood chip and I said yes - it will be useful for the veggie patch paths and might save me buying chipped bark next winter 🤞😊👍
Said yes to an event in the chapel field with a folk band and supper in a couple of Fridays’ time, although Mr KK will be away so I will have to go alone. 

Time to sort lunch for tomorrow and then a shower and a book 😊

KK

redofromstart

The beacon lighting sounds great, there are a few here within walking distance, and we have never been. Must Google those. 

KajiKita

Another bonkersly busy day ….

Harvested second lot of broad beans for my dinner and lettuce for my lunch tomorrow when I got home and pulled a handful of bindweed from around my onions 😊
Ran through all the mortgage stuff with Mr KK that had come through from the MA today - we’ve signed various bits that I can scan in and send off tomorrow morning. 

Clean sheets on the bed and four rows of knitting done - a good day 😊

KK

redofromstart

Your broad beans are so much further on than mine. It's my first time of growing them so all new to me. Did you over winter yours?

savingholmes

Nice win on the wood chip.

LadyWithAPlan

LadyWithAPlan said:

I LOVE a swishy dress, I also
love maxi  dresses and the colour of yours is lovely 
that whole having to figure out a top with a skirt or trousers never happens in my life! 

I must admit to an entire wardrobe of fabulous dresses - many of which have been collected over the years at vintage shops, maybe 30% new reduced designer … 

happy anniversary how lovely ! 

It’s interesting. I find I have a bit of a thing with clothes - I had years, and years, and years of being in debt (where for a long time I couldn’t actually afford to eat), followed by saving hard for a deposit, followed by big scary mortgage after buying at the top of what we could afford, where I just didn’t buy clothes for enjoyment at all, only for work or for practicality. It’s only recently that I have bought specific trousers for working in the garden rather than just using worn out jeans (the jeans are far less comfortable). I think maybe I should allow myself the ‘indulgence’ of buying one piece purely for the joy of it per year / season (depending on finances) … 🤔
I never have much luck in charity or vintage shops - I’m quite broad across the top of my chest or shoulders, so it becomes difficult to find something that doesn’t make me look bulky on top and like I’m bursting out of things. I’m surprised you don’t find the same with all the weight training you do?

KK

I have always  weight trained but it allows me to have a fast metabolism and whilst I do have muscle  it’s not bulky .. if I ever look bigger and too busty it’s cos of excess crisp and haribo eating I am tall though which helps 

on the vintage I have shopped abroad a lot - New York, LA, France has yielded some of my long term favourite pieces -
UK charity prices have really gone up especially in London - in France they love designer wear but rarely shop second hand so always much cheaper to get incredible designers for a fraction as in 1% of original cost was my best bargain on a £3k plus jacket 

however this finding a much loved dress in a different colour on Vinted is a new hobby or buying a dress from a favourite designer that I know fits me is a new game, 

So yes to the buying one-off lovely pieces on an annual basis ~ now you have the budget ! Of course I bought clothes and shoes and handbags whilst you were buying houses so yours was the better long term plan - 

Brie

re your wood chip.....if they separate out the sawdust that's good on the veg beds.  Or you might sieve what you get so only the bigger chunks go on the paths.  Just a thought.  Mom used to get sawdust from a local mill for her massive garden.

KajiKita

redofromstart said:

Your broad beans are so much further on than mine. It's my first time of growing them so all new to me. Did you over winter yours?

Yup 😊 Always do. They have been a bit beaten up by the weather though and I need to get my runners in so the BBs have until Sunday morning and then they are coming out! 

I think the wood chip and sawdust will all be the same size as the contractor will just be shredding the brash from the hedge. I am always a bit leery of putting sawdust straight on top of a bed as I have heated it takes nitrogen from the soil to rot down - my soil is so nutrient poor that would not help! 😉 I can imagine it be useful for leavening a heavy soil though. 

@LadyWithAPlan, reading all that makes me think I need shopping lessons! 😂😂 However …. we will be going to Bayeux for a week in 2026 for our second honeymoon (20 years),so will actually make an effort to try second hand shops then 😊 Not something that has ever occurred to me when travelling tbh. 

Another ridiculously busy day in work - so many meetings that even after I got the finance month-end data, I didn’t have time to do anything with it … 🤷‍♀️ I was going to work through a management meeting but my boss told me to join in person, so heck, it will have to be Monday now …

Did manage to scan in all the signed off mortgage related documents and send those off. 👏

Tried to leave early to go a dental check up, but got waylaid by a level crossing closure, a caravan and a tractor, so gave up about 20 minutes from them as I know I am usually the last appointment on a Friday for them, so they wouldn’t want to wait / work late. By this time I was in the plant nursery (first safe place to stop) so bought two courgette plants, some mixed zinnias and more lobelia 😊😉

Got back early enough to help with the bathroom arrival check off, bringing in and stashing *everywhere*! (The vanity unit is in my potting shed! 😂) 

Spent a good hour in the garden this evening getting the last of the baby dahlias in the cut flower bed along with a few of the zinnias 😊 Also, got one big dahlia and a lily in in the ground, in the sit spot border 😊 Bakers and bolognese for dinner this evening and my last job is to register Mr KK’s van for the tip. 

Been a good day 😊

KK
 

beanielou

Glad that you have had a good day. Is the bathroom your last big project then? 

KajiKita

beanielou said:

Glad that you have had a good day. Is the bathroom your last big project then? 

Blimey! I wish!! 😂😂
It’s this years’s big project. 

We still also want to:
- build a small, single story extension as a connected utility and wet room, to save us going down to the external cellar to get to the second fridge freezer and washing machine and to future proof here for us, if either of us breaks a hip at some point. 

- put new, wider, less steep stairs with a turn at the bottom in. This will restructure the ground floor to some extent and make the snug a proper dining room (it’s just a corridor to the living room atm), remove the downstairs loo (which will already have been replaced in the utility / wet room), make the dining room with the 1850s fireplace into a proper snug and build an outdoor eating room. It will make Mr KK’s bedroom a bit smaller as that is where the space will have to come from to make the stairwell wider - but that would mean we wouldn’t have to take the banister off every time we need to move furniture up or down and would allow the fitting of a stair lift in future. 
- We should also upgrade the draughty uPVC conservatory. 

If we ever had significant ‘extra’ funds we would also like to:
- replace the septic chamber with a proper tank, buried much deeper or relocated further from the house
- remove all the hawthorn from the boundary hedge at the back of the veggie beds and replace with something less bitey-fly infested and less prickly. 

- bury the overhead power cables that Mr KK finds visually offensive - they don’t bother me that much and I quite enjoy seeing pigeons and magpies lolloping about on them 😉

KK