So close, we can smell mortgage freedom!

Baileys_Babe

themadvix said:

Pity you haven't got a diary BB - I'm sure you'd have more interesting stuff to write about than the waffle I put here!

In a nutshell, my diary would say, home educated the children, planned children's lessons, drove the children to X, Y or Z for their education, meal planned, wrote a shopping list, did the laundry, turned off the excess of lights rinse and repeat 🤣

Cheery_Daff

Happy new diary! 😊😊😊😊 so much looking forward to celebrating when your mortgage goes! And hooray for the allotment!

South_coast

Hoorah on the new diary, on the allotment, and realising you have "enough" - that's a powerful feeling 👍

themadvix

Martas said:

Hi @themadvix!
Oh wow! You are so close, only 29k left!

I know what you meant about staying in your house as we are exactly the same. We planned to stay here for 5 years, it's been already 4 and I don't think I will be moving anywhere anytime soon and to be honest I can imagine having it as a forever home. Our reasons are quite similar: we don't want to pay 200k+ more just because the house is in a fancier area, all of our neighbours are so lovely and it's a very quiet street, house is big enough for our large family and is well insolated so really it ticks all the boxes. I think I just always thought that I would live in a detached house with a big garden but never really realised that is not what my family needs to be happy. We have a roof over our heads and lovely community around and that's so  important.

Your new allotment sounds amazing. My DH and I are big fans of Hugh Fearnley-Whittigstal and the River Cottage, love anything to do with foraging and GYO.

It's good to know we're not alone. For us it would be nice if the general area was a bit nicer/greener - the design of the road is such that the fronts of the houses have a footpath and no one really uses it and the back is a concrete/tarmac jungle with cars and bins and stuff and people's back gates - a normal road would be nicer! But we've created our oasis in the midst of this and we have lovely neighbours on one side (the others are lovely too, but their house is up for sale!) and others nearby and we're very close to BIL and fiancee, which is nice. I've also made friends via Olio, so you're right about community!

 I think the allotment and garage will make a big difference to us.

themadvix

Baileys_Babe said:

themadvix said:

Pity you haven't got a diary BB - I'm sure you'd have more interesting stuff to write about than the waffle I put here!

In a nutshell, my diary would say, home educated the children, planned children's lessons, drove the children to X, Y or Z for their education, meal planned, wrote a shopping list, did the laundry, turned off the excess of lights rinse and repeat 🤣

My diary isn't actually that interesting - I think we're all just nosy about others' lives! 🤣 That, and I love how we all encourage each other to think about things from different viewpoints here - there's always something to try or learn or appreciate.

themadvix

Cheery_Daff said:

Happy new diary! 😊😊😊😊 so much looking forward to celebrating when your mortgage goes! And hooray for the allotment!

Thanks Cheery! I'm quite nervous about the allotment!

South_coast said:

Hoorah on the new diary, on the allotment, and realising you have "enough" - that's a powerful feeling 👍

Thanks SC. You're right about 'enough'. I've always thought I've been quite good about appreciating stuff, but I guess the house/location of our house was one of those things I couldn't see that in. It's probably not forever, but who knows. For now the appeal of mortgage free is too strong!

(ooh get me, it's only taken 10 years for me to get the hang of multi-quotes!)

edinburgher

I know what you mean about ending up staying somewhere for longer than you intended. When we moved into this house we were always going to move to "the end of the road", where houses had an extra bedroom, a garage and were detached. 6 years ago the price difference was £125k, now it's £250k!   We couldn't afford to move to the end of the road even if we wanted to now

themadvix

Morning lovely people,

Another terrible night's sleep and a headache this morning, but the sun is shining and I have lots to get done today. I'm going to try to cut the grass this morning and need to clean up the litter trays a bit - a full wash is going to have to wait but they are a state (not helped by B&W cat 'missing' and Ginger cat loving to stand on them with muddy paws when I'm emptying them in the morning). I've also been approached by a potential new client about a project, so am awaiting a reply from them. This afternoon I'm off to the beauty salon at the college, so all manual labour will cease after that until after the wedding (DH was muttering about trying to fix the fence tomorrow - I don't think he's well enough, so not ruining my manicure was a great excuse - so unlike me though!)

MS things:
* Clicks done
* Cat visit last night went OK - lady was quite nervous about the whole thing and is very particular about her cat's routine. Hopefully she'll relax once she realises I'm reliable.
* Have bought a mini greenhouse from Ebay for £12 - had only been used to store food in a garage, so in good condition. Will need to collect from a nearby town.
* We had shakshuka for dinner at last, last night! Amazingly the peppers were still in excellent condition - good ol' Riverford. Decided to have bread and butter with it as a) we had fresh bread and b) it saved on the energy to cook the rice (in the IP or on the stove). 

Gratitudes:
* DH has just tested negative!!! I'm still negative (I'm so looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tomorrow night, sans cats!)
* Sunshine (and sunshine forecast for the wedding on Saturday!)
* Headache tablets - they've kicked in while I've been typing and I'm feeling a bit better

Have a good day all!

themadvix

Hmm.. going to collect greenhouse at 11.30 - better get a shift on!

themadvix

Morning all,

Greenhouse collected yesterday morning, in excellent condition but still in the car, so I need to retrieve that. I think it will live in the back garden for now, rather than at the allotment - so I keep a closer eye on my seedlings. I've never had a greenhouse (as an adult), so it will be novel to be able to do stuff before the last frost. Need to get down to the allotment shop, but that will have to be next weekend as we're at the wedding this one. 

I did manage to mow the lawn quickly and sort the litter trays out. My afternoon at the beauty salon at the college was excellent. Very professional, a lovely girl did my treatments and I got to give feedback too. I will definitely return there and recommend it to others. I still haven't got over how cheap it was - I was there from 1.30 to 4 and it only cost £22 and I am super happy with the results. There's a training restaurant on site - that's next on my list!

While I was out yesterday, Dad called round with a whole bag of seed potatoes and a pot of red onion sets. While I'm very grateful for the thought, I probably wasn't going to grow potatoes as a) they're cheap and b) we really don't eat that many (my bag from Riverford is usually sprouting and I have to make a conscious decision to use them). The onions are great though, although I'm not quite ready to plant yet. I think Dad saw the space (by photo) and thought 'there's loads of room, she'll need to fill it', which is definitely not the plan I had for this year. He didn't seem perturbed by the fact that I don't actually want them.... He has offered to help. Just got to persuade him that we're doing it my way!

DH has tested negative again this morning, so finally I can move back into my own bed! And get my outfit ready for tomorrow etc. etc. 

Today I *must* finish the card for BIL and fiancee! Also need to pack, write cheques for their card and niece's birthday card (it's her 5th birthday tomorrow so we're singing Happy Birthday at the wedding (this is the spoilt, unpleasant child we saw the other week), tidy and clean the house as Dad is cat sitting, and do some work too!

We started looking at options for our ten-year anniversary trip last night - but I think we've decided we might do a last-minute adventure as our only criteria is that it's somewhere new (and preferably no flying). That and the fact that Eastern Europe is quite appealing (obviously plane required there), but it feels too early to make decisions about flying to Hungary or Romania at the moment... 😔

MS things:
* Applied for a focus group on pet ownership
* YG survey done
* Dinner last night was freezer curries cooked in microwave (note to self, defrost them in advance in future!), rice in IP and microwave sponge pud with custard, also in microwave. Trying to maximise microwave/IP use in preference to hob and oven to save energy.

Gratitudes:
* DH is testing negative. I won't say he's well as he's still coughing and at times breathless, but he's on the way.
* Great experience yesterday
* Lovely Ebay lady who sold me the greenhouse

Have a good day all!