Find the SecondStar and soar, and then straight on till the morning…

SecondStar

The rest of my week off was in much better spirits, helped a lot by the fact that it finally stopped raining on Thursday!

My partner was off all weekend too, so we spent Thursday evening - Sunday afternoon together.

I picked up 3 more frames for my living room gallery wall; and a 4th square frame with flowers painted on it, which fits perfectly around my light switch plate and looks adorable - all for £2. I also got a porcelain bud vase and matching small bowl in a floral pattern, for the bathroom to use as toothbrush holder and soap dish, respectively - £4.

I treated us to a board game for £30, which can be played with 2 players - Escape the Dark Castle. It’s a spooky, gothic, co-operative dice rolling game, where you work through a set of story cards to escape the castle by defeating monsters, overcoming obstacles, and tracking your HP to make sure you don’t die! It’s sort of part way between a board game and a tabletop roleplaying game, and it’s a great introduction to the mechanics of roleplay.

We played 3 times over a couple of hours, and didn’t manage to beat the game! We kept getting killed off by the last bosses, but it was great fun, and because each game was made up of 15 random chapter cards out of the 60 odd cards available, it felt like a different game each time. Great value for money!



On Saturday we took a quick spin around the charity shops, and in our local animal rescue shop I found a dog buggy. It was half retail price at £60, and the manager let me leave a deposit and take it on trial for a couple of days.

My lad is 13.5 now, and is managing a 20 minute walk each day on a pavement and grass verge route around the houses. He’s having a pain flare up at the moment which we’re trying to get on top of, between his vet physio, general vet, and hydro therapists, and I’ve been thinking and researching buggies on and off for a while.

He is still able to walk, trot, get up and down from a sit or lie down, enjoy his walks, and play. His body just gets sore after a while, and he can’t go as far or as fast as his brain would like him to. I’m hopeful that with lots of practice and slow starts, the buggy will mean he can come on more, and longer, walks with us as he will be able to rest in between walking.

My lovely partner encouraged me when I was fretting over the decision in the shop, paid the deposit down, and joined me in exclaiming how weird it felt to be pushing a ‘pram’ around the town centre! Neither of us had ever pushed a child pram, let alone a dog buggy, and so it took a bit of getting used to! It wasn’t a bad feeling though, it felt exciting and full of opportunity.

When we got home it was apparent that the buggy was too high off the ground for my lad to get in and out without jumping (jumping is a strict no-no for his sore legs!). We took the wheels off to lower it a good bit, and then did some training going in and out of the buggy, lying down with the top open, and lying down and then zipping it closed. Once he was confident and happy with that we took it outside and put the wheels back on, and used his car ramp to train walking up the ramp and into the buggy with the top closed, lying down, and then exiting the buggy down the ramp. He was mostly just overjoyed to be getting plied with his favourite treats!

Once we’d established that the buggy was probably a good idea, with some more exposure and positive reinforcement, then I showed my partner an example of someone else’s buggy where they had made a transportable ramp which was carried underneath the buggy, for loading and unloading whilst on walks. We nipped out to Homebase for supplies, and my partner cut the ply down to size, and attached hooks to clip it onto the back bar so we now have an on the go ramp! I need to pick up either some grip tape, or some non-slip matting to cover the ramp, and then we’ll be able to slowly start practicing and working up to test walks.



On the not so good side, I was back at work today and had planned to go into the office. Alarm went off at 5:45am and I got up and got ready, but I didn’t even make it to the end of the road before the STOP light came on my dashboard. A quick check showed a bloody nail in my tyre, and the local tyre garage was closed today, so I have to wait till tomorrow to get it fixed or replaced. Not an ideal start to the week!



One of the people I quoted for a dress came back and said it was out of budget right now, which is a polite way of saying no thank you, but that’s OK! Not heard from the 2nd, and probably not expecting to. I managed to slice the end of my left thumb when hanging my frames earlier today, so I’ve been wearing a plaster which means I’ve not been able to nalbind or sew all day. I’m hoping it can take it off tomorrow and keep working on projects.

I still have to start my partner’s anniversary tunic for August - though I’m still undecided about leaving the linen light blue, or dyeing it a darker blue.

We’ve both been talking about winter projects, and planning ahead for the big events next year. If we can both start producing a steady amount of stock each month from September onwards, then we’ll be in a solid position by the time March comes around. It’s easier to get through winter when you’re focused on next spring!



Which isn’t to say that the rest of the summer and early autumn will be neglected. There are still plans for painting, picnics, beach days, car drives, car boot sales, and napping outside; and I’m looking forward to all of it.

linz

Hi, ref your dogs joints, when my old boy was still here we had some of this powder we used to mix up with his food. It really helped and gave him a new lease of life for a good 12+ months more IIRC. A fellow dog walker recommended it and we found it on Amazon. Apparently its only available from Germany so it may be on Amazon.de

Collagile® dog - Bioactive Collagen Peptide in Food Quality 225g https://amzn.eu/d/0eD3vR6G

or

Aniforte Collamove Dog Marine Collagen Peptide 250g – Natural product for Dogs https://amzn.eu/d/04f4UbC1

KajiKita

The care and love you are showing for your dog is so sweet - he’s a lucky old boy 😊❤️
Bad luck on the tyre! Argh ….
Re the fabric colour for your OH, does he normally wear light or dark colours, which does he seem to prefer? 

KK

SecondStar

Well my £15 puncture repair turned into a £53 new tyre, when I had not only a nail but also a a thorn in it! £53 that I would’ve rather not spent, but I made it work.

I also needed to pick up some anti slip tape for the new buggy ramp, and a waterproof cover for it, so that it can live outside and not take up half of my kitchen - £21.

I got myself up and out to the car boot sale this morning, and picked up 4 more picture frames for my gallery wall (1 rectangle and 1 square fancy gilt frames, and 2 matching round bronze frames), as well as a salt glazed pot, which will suit as a drinking vessel for reenactment. I have a small wooden cup, and a small pottery cup, but both are around the size of a teacup and require a lot of refilling - when you have to hid your large plastic water containers, this isn’t ideal! The larger pot will enable me to have more water to hand and also to make cups of tea in it - I’m terrible for not drinking enough liquids at events.



It feels like it’s been a ‘spendy’ month. Not helped by the fact that it’s almost 5 weeks between last month’s pay and this month.

I’ve got £15 left in misc. spending, and £13 left for groceries. I did my weekly shop today, and have all of my other bills and essential expenses (petrol, physio appointments, bus fare) covered for the month, so I should be OK.

It’s been difficult to get into a rhythm of budgeting and saving these past few months, with unexpected expenses cropping up like mushrooms.



I’ll be revising my budget sheet (again!) this month, and adjusting my sinking funds - I had been saving separately for my partner’s birthday in May, and also a weekend trip away around the same time; but it looks like these will both roll into one, and will likely cut down to either a day trip, or he will fund half the cost of the trip now that he’s in steady employment. That’ll take the cost down from around £900 to around £300.

I understand that a ‘budget’ isn’t just the numbers on the page - it’s about what you’re actually, regularly spending. Your numbers-on-the-page-budget have to reflect your money-going-out-budget, or else you’re just making things up.

90% of the time, my page budget matches up with my money budget; but there are sticking points where it doesn’t - like the £60 buggy, or the £53 tyre, or the £50 physio appointment in place of the £45 hydro appointment.

I’m trying to let my brain be flexible with this knowledge, without letting it slip into the ‘well, we took £60 from x-savings pot for the buggy, maybe we could skim a little off of y-savings pot for *insert unnecessary frivolous purchase here*’. I am still only 7 months into taking my spending and my saving seriously. The habits are forming, but they’ve not solidified yet.

I remind myself that this is a season of life - that again, the reality of my very tight page budget and money budget comes down to my senior pets, and that their season won’t be forever. There will come a time when my budgets are looser and more open, but it will be for devastating reasons. I am not in a rush to hurry that a long, at all.



In other news, I was able to borrow a drop spindle and some wool tops from my friend - between both of us, we have pretty much any art and craft materials you could think of!

I couldn’t practice until my thumb had healed, but I’m really enjoying experimenting with it. It is definitely difficult, but I’m getting better which is rewarding. I’m looking forward to practicing with fibre from different sheep breeds, and I’m hoping to become passably proficient enough to do a bit of demonstrating at events!

SecondStar

Impatiently waiting for pay day on Wednesday. It’s been a long 4.5 weeks since I was last paid.

Wednesday will be my partner’s first pay day as well! He’s asked me to help him with his budget and his savings plans, and so I’ve put together a mini version of my own budget book with the essentials in it - budget-to-zero pages, and a couple of sinking fund trackers.

He’s only got 1 current account, which scares and confuses me! I personally work my money through 3 current accounts with Nationwide (fixed expenses) and Monzo (variable expenses), 6 different savings accounts (sinking funds and emergency fund), 14 Monzo ‘pots’ (used for separating out monthly spending categories), and my stocks and shares ISA.

I use a zero-pound budget method, which assigns every £ a job, so all of my money gets put in its place on pay day. I couldn’t have the bulk of my income just rolling about in 1 account, I’d never be able to keep track of anything! He’s expressed interest in my method, and is keen to have a bit more control over his money, so I’m sure we’ll find a balance between his habits and mine and find something which works for him.



There has been a new shop open in my village, which supports local artists and makers - you can rent shelf space for selling products, and there’s space available for hosting workshops too. They try not to have duplicates of crafts, in the interest of fairness, and whilst there’s woven and knitted items available there isn’t any nalbinding.

I’m planning on speaking to the owner over the next week, and seeing if I’d be able to stock some items with them, and to enquire about their workshop space as well.



In the spirit of looking ahead, I was trying to produce some business cards and was playing around with SquareSpace to create a website, but I’m not getting very far!

Neither of these are very intuitive on a mobile device - I have my iPad for 95% of my usage - and I don’t have my Mac mini set up right now. I picked up a small monitor from the free pages, but it needs a power cable. After that, I’ll have another crack at the website from the computer instead.

The goal is to have a fully branded and coherent website, which would offer info about myself and my business; an online buying platform for pre-made items; explanations and ordering info for custom items; a range of bookable, in-person workshops; online classes; and maybe a blog or a newsletter.

Right now though, I’d settle for a nice landing page with some links to my socials!



Emergency fund update - £2,796.04 / £4,347.
64% to my goal, £1,550.96 to go!

SecondStar

An eventful weekend!

After getting the date wrong last month, it was my partner’s mum’s *actual* birthday on Friday! It was a very large family gathering of people I’d never met and whose names I forgot as soon as they were said to me. But everyone I spoke to was lovely, we both got dressed up nicely, and his mum was very surprised!



On Saturday we took a spin around the charity shops (nothing to be had), and got brownies and doughnuts(!) at the little local gluten free bakery. It’s the only place which does fresh gluten free doughnuts, and so it’s always a treat.

We also got shelves put up above my desk, in the alcove in the other side of the living room chimney breast. I say ‘we’ - I bought the wood and picked the shelf height, and my lovely partner cut them to size, stained them, and put them up for me! They still need to be properly dressed and arranged, but they look great already, and it’s wonderful to have the additional storage.

I’m hoping to get the bookshelves up before my friend visits in September, and then that’s the living room almost complete.

The living room still needs the bookshelves; a shelf above the kitchen entry way; a rod and a dividing curtain put up; some arrangement of textiles in the window (not sure what type yet); fake beams on the ceiling; the built in cupboard doors painted (again, unsure on colour/design); and to continue extending my gallery wall. Just a few things still to tick off - it’s been very exciting to see it slowly come out of my mind and onto the walls.



And for balance in the universe, on Sunday we got a flat tyre on the motorway, and had to stand behind the barrier on the hard shoulder for 2 hours to be rescued!

My partner’s brother came by with some repair gel, but the front driver’s tyre had a huge slice in it, and so we had to wait for recovery.

My partner had been talking about a new-to-him car for about 6 months, whilst his current car slowly crumbles around our ears. The tyre got replaced today, but when he gets paid on Wednesday then it’ll be time to go out and get something else.

SecondStar

Oh, and there’s potential talk of a 5% pay uplift for civil servants in the works.

Nothing that’s been confirmed by our department yet, but that would be very welcomed. A rough go through an online salary calculator would put a 5% increase at around £80 per month, after deductions.

That might look like pennies to some people, but when you’re working off of the lower end of a UK salary, that’d make a big difference to my budget each month. Hoping for confirmation in the next couple of months, so fingers crossed.

SecondStar

I’d forgotten that August is going to be a spendy month, so when I got paid yesterday I’ve had to budget accordingly. I’m giving myself grace that this month will be more expensive, and that there’ll be more saving opportunity between September and Christmas.

It’s my 2 bff’s birthdays - the 3rd and the 14th - the big reenactment festival weekend, and our 1 year anniversary at the end of the month. There’s also busy weekends in between now and then!

I’ve paused paying in to my Christmas, partner’s birthday, and mini-break sinking funds this month; so that I can cover the birthdays, and the anniversary. I’ve also given myself a little extra miscellaneous spending, with the idea that it’ll cover any extra food/drinks/activities outside of my usual monthly budget.

It’s not an extravagant amount by any means, and I’ve still made sure to put £50 into my emergency fund, £10 into my car repair fund, and £10 into investments.

It’s good for my brain to stick to these 3 saving habits, at the very least, even if it’s just small amounts. The psychology behind allowing myself a slightly larger budget, and saving slightly less, so that I don’t touch my savings and that the emergency fund continues to grow, is very important for me.

I still sometimes think about dipping into my emergency fund for non-emergencies (but I don’t!), and so being able to foster a good relationship with putting away small amounts and not dipping in, is good for me.

Current emergency fund - £2,857.53 / £4,347.
65% of the way to my target, £1,489.47 to go!

SecondStar

Gosh, August already. That’s vaguely terrifying, and a little sad, because we’ve still not had much summer weather here.



It’s less than 3 weeks till our big reenactment weekend, and I’ve been so demotivated.

I might have time to finish my own light blue linen dress, but I don’t think I’ll have time to make my partner’s tunic - unless I run up the seams on the machine, and then finish it by hand. It’s not my preferred method of making our own kit, I much prefer to do all the work by hand, but there’s just not enough time.

He has 2 over tunics - 1 linen, and 1 wool - and if the weekend is hot then it would be beneficial for him to have a 2nd linen over tunic. His current one is also ancient, so it would be nice to gift him a nice new one!

I think I’ll need to look at small, quick projects between now and then.

Satchel bags, pillbox hats, simple apron dresses or wooden hoods - all run up on the machine, and hand finished. If I can get half a dozen bags and hats made, and a couple of dresses or hoods made, then that should do.

I also need to design and print some business cards, and at least make a basic landing page for my website.

I’ve ordered the adaptor cable I need to hook up the free monitor I got with my Mac mini, so I can work off of the computer rather than struggling on my iPad. That should make life much easier.



We got another shelf up! And it was ‘we’ this time, as I was up the ladder too to help hang it.

It’s the one above the kitchen archway - the same wood, stain, and bracket style to match the shelves above my desk - and it looks super cute. The living room is looking so homely now, I’m so pleased!

With the shelves going up, I dug out my boxes or ornaments and decorations and ‘bits’, which I’d packed up from my last house but hadn’t had anywhere to put them yet. It was interesting to go through and note my reaction to these objects. Some were an ‘of course you’re going to be displayed!’, and others were ‘eh, I don’t like I like you anymore’, or ‘I don’t know if I have the same attachment to you that I had 10 years ago’.

I’m not making any snap decisions, but it was interesting to really ask myself how I *feel* about these things - guilt? shame? embarrassment? anger? resentment?

Why am I keeping them? What do I think will happen if I don’t keep them? Who do I think is judging me for them? What do they bring me? How would I feel if they were to leave? What do they represent previously, and currently? Fascinating stuff, really.



I’ve also noticed that now I’m starting to have things ‘out’ on shelves, or hung on the walls, the more I want to declutter other things.

Surfaces, storage boxes, things on the floor, piles of stuff. It makes me itchy.

Seeing the room start to resemble my ideas makes me feel good; but then I have to temper the room getting ‘busier’ by then getting rid, or putting away, the things which now seem out of place or superfluous.

Funny how hanging shelves in the living room makes me want to declutter the face masks I’ll never use from the bathroom, or to downsize my Tupperware in the kitchen cupboard!

I think now that the space has almost fully met my expectations and anticipations, it’s providing a framework for what I want my whole home to feel like. And it’s such a small home, that the other areas are standing out more! So I’m off to see if I can fill a bag for life with things which don’t feel like they belong any more, and they can go off to charity.

KajiKita

I like the plans you have between now and the reenactment weekend. Hope you get it all done. 

I had the ‘what do I have you for?’ reaction, when opening boxes of gardening books that had been stuck in two storage locations for 5 years before we moved here … I got rid of two car boot loads full …! 

KK