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

SecondStar

New_in_the_fens said:

I’m interested in how you house your rabbit. I have my two ( a silver fox and a french lop) in an aviary / chicken coop. They sleep in the shed at one end during the night, then have free run of the outside area during the day. I always put down turf during the summer, but it only lasts so long with rabbits and is mainly compacted dirt the rest of the time (when they aren’t digging to Australia!) 

At my previous house, I rabbit proofed our whole back garden and they lived in a Wendy house, but that just isn’t feasible here! 

I currently only have 1 bun - plans to get him a friend, but bonding during the winter is hard! He is currently outdoors in an 8ft x 8ft run, with enclosed sleeping places included, and the whole area is bedded down with straw and waterproofed by a large tarp. Unfortunately after 8 years and 2 house moves, the run is rather worse for wear. Over the years I’ve patched the wire and reinforced the frame in places, but it really needs replacing - I would love a converted shed & fixed, full-height, run. In the new year I’ll be looking out for secondhand sheds, and then my partner has offered to build the run if I provide him with sizes and a rough sketch!

New_in_the_fens

Having a full height run really does make it easier to clean out! Even though my buns do have plenty of space to run, binky and climb on boxes etc, I still have a pang of guilt that they used to have a whole garden to play in 😞

But, it’s safer for them being enclosed here and I do have plans to add on a bit more space, maybe via a tunnel to some grass nearby in the spring 🐰🐰

SecondStar

Life seems to be busy lately!

My pet sitter had to reschedule our initial meeting for this coming Tuesday instead, and I’ll need to make sure that we have plenty of food and supplies in for the weekend. I can’t believe our trip to Glasgow has come around so quickly. There has been so much in between which has needed my energy and concentration, and I can only take things one at a time these days. I’ll need to sit down and make a plan for things to buy / pack.

The storm over Friday - Saturday was bloody awful. I arrived home on Friday to find that there was water coming into my living room from around the window! And a lot of it, at that! I’ve no idea if it’s a roof issue or if it’s something else, but it was brought on by the combination of heavy wind and heavy rain, and the angle of which it was hitting the house. The leak lasted just a few minutes, but none wants water IN the house. My roofer is booked till the new year, but I’ll be getting him back in for a look.

Add to that, part of the fence blew over on Saturday. My neighbour believes it may be his fence, and judging from the position of the posts I’m inclined to agree. He’ll be contacting his letting agent tomorrow and will let me know the outcome re. repair / replace. One of my other posts has snapped also, so my partner is coming to take a look at repairing that today.

Having taken a good long look at the rest of my fencing, it does seem like a full replacement is on the horizon. It is vertical fence boards, and the boards are all rotten at the bottom. We already had to shore up a couple of posts which have rotted, and the whole thing wobbles rather alarmingly. All together there would be 41m of 6ft fencing to replace, plus a back gate. I dread to think how much that will cost, but once it’s done then it’ll last a long time, I hope. I wonder what the scope for DIYing that much fencing would be? One to research, I think.

I had been on the rota to work on Saturday, but had to withdraw due to the bad weather. So I’ll only have 1 shift rather than 2 before the December cut off, which isn’t ideal but can’t be helped. I’ve got my name down for 2 days in January, and will offer time in February too if they need me. There’s also an internal opportunity which has become available - 2 days a week, for 3 months, but it’s a part of the industry which I’m desperate to work in. I think I’ll put my application in, and then figure out the details if it goes any further.

I finished my Christmas shopping yesterday! Everything has been ordered, I just need to get some wrapping paper and a couple of gift bags. The month is coming in desperately fast, I only have 8 working days till I’m off for the holidays.

I did have time yesterday to alter a skirt and a dress which I got for £1 each - the skirt was 3 sizes too big, so I added box pleats to the waistband; and the dress bodice was too tight, so I turned it into a skirt instead. Very pleased to now have 2 very wearable pieces, and it was nice to have the sewing machine out again. I also nipped into the charity shops after work on Friday, and found a hand knit Aran cardigan for £7, and a zip up pure wool jacket for £6.

I do need another pair of tights, and have been going back and forth over buying a set of pure merino wool base layers - leggings and a long sleeved top. My reasoning is that they would be used when working outside at my second job, and could also be used under reenactment kit during the season, and for under skirts and dresses for work in the colder months. But the ones I’m looking at are £80 a set, and I’ve been practicing frugality all year now, and I’m having real difficulty pressing ‘buy now’. I’ve got more to say on that fascinating subject, but I have to run!

SecondStar

Didn’t mean to go so long between posts, but December is just flying in.



My partner and I had a lovely weekend in Glasgow visiting my bff and her partner for their Christmas party. It was really nice to get away, although between the travelling, the socialising, and the activities, we were both completely knackered at the end of each day.

I had originally just taken the Friday off, but at the last minute I took the Monday off too - a very good thing too, as the flight home on Sunday evening was delayed by an hour, and it would’ve been horrid having to make the hour drive home at gone midnight, and to get up for work the next day! I was also very glad to see my cat and bunny, and to get back into my own bed. I had a wonderful time, but I am such a homebird at heart! After 3 or 4 days I really start to pine for my routines and familiar surroundings.



I hadn’t missed work though! We’re being scooted along at a rapid pace in our new role at my primary work, and I’m still not sure what I’m doing, but I’m doing it as best as I can. I had been getting very stressed about not knowing everything right away, and worrying about doing things wrong, but I can only do what I can manage, and all of my colleagues are feeling the same. I’m trying not to let it get me down, and just taking it a day at a time.

Only 2 more working days till the New Year, and I can’t wait to be off for a while!



This time of year is always so strange feeling. It isn’t exactly celebratory, and it comes wrapped up in a lot of grief.

Grief for memories of Christmases past, of families I’ve had and been involved with previously, grief for my own family members no longer here, grief for myself and things I have endured.

But it is also a lot of reflection, and with reflection comes gratitude.

Gratitude that I was able to love my dog for as long as I did, that I was able to provide for him, and eventually give him the last kindness. Gratitude for the job which keeps the roof over my head and food on the table; gratitude for the roof over my head! That I have a house to live in, a bed to sleep in, a working car, heat, hot water, and electric. Gratitude for my health, and the health of my pets.

Gratitude for the people in my life - my friends, my family, my partner, his family, my colleagues, my neighbours.

Gratitude that I am able to put a bit of money away each month. That I am learning to be satisfied and fulfilled in new ways.



It will be my 34th birthday at the end of the month. I would usually buy myself either a Christmas or a birthday present, around £100, of something that I fancied but knew I wasn’t going to be receiving from someone else.

This year though, after beginning my low-buy, frugal, ‘for the love of god, stop spending money from your savings’, mindset back in January, I’ve noticed a few things.

For a start, I’ve become far more conscious of my spending. Most of the time this has been good - less impulse buying, identifying where I find quality and value, spending money on things which get used and cherished. Sometimes this hasn’t been so good - a lot of stress about not spending ‘too much’ even when I’ve budgeted money for spending, some guilt and shame creeping in about not ‘needing’ something even though I want it and have budgeted for it, some self-doubt about whether I’m ‘allowed’ to spend, again even though I’ve budgeted.

There has been a lot of back and forth with myself when considering purchases, and I’ve learnt a lot about myself and how I value Stuff and Things.

This year, in the back of 12 months of frugaldom and intention, I hadn’t planned on buying myself a present. However, I had budgeted £300 of spending money for the trip away to Glasgow, and came home with £265 spare! A lot of the things we did were free, and my gracious and generous partner paid for most meals and tickets.

I dithered over that £265. I have my main emergency fund, which I put into each month, and don’t withdraw from unless strictly necessary; but I also have a miscellaneous saving fund too - this is where I put any leftover spending money each month, or where I save a bit of my spending money into at the start of each month. The idea being that I can save up for bigger spending items (more expensive reenactment things, other larger hobby materials, more expensive DIY supplies etc.).

That £265 was budgeted for as spending money, so it didn’t need to go to the emergency fund, but I still felt those prickles of guilt, not being ‘allowed’ now that I was back at home, wasn’t it ‘frivolous’ to spend that money on myself?, shouldn’t I save it for something ‘practical’?, how will I get the most use out of it?, etc.



In the end, I decided to buy myself a secondhand Nintendo Switch from CEX for £150, and I used some of my Argos gift voucher from the refund I got ages ago to get a copy of Red Dead Redemption. I’ll pick them up after work today.

If that sounds a bit left field, it’s because it is! The last console I owned was a PlayStation 2, and then I fell out of enjoying games regularly as an adult. But I e joyed playing RDR on an old Xbox years ago, and I desperately need some sort of entertainment for the winter evenings - when I don’t want to do craft projects, there’s nothing I want to watch, and I’m liable to fall into doomscrolling for hours until it’s bedtime. I’m hoping that this will provide some distraction and relaxation, outside of scrolling on my phone for so many hours.

SecondStar

Found a bit of downtime this evening, before going back to work for 1 day tomorrow, and then off again till the 2nd.



I spent a couple of days before Christmas being ill, and not moving from the sofa - it was a Lite version of that nasty flu/cold that’s going around, but thankfully felt better after 48 hours.

Spent Christmas Day at my partner’s parent’s house, and the two of them were in the throes of that nasty flu/cold, and they’re feeling even more rotten today. But everyone rallied, and it was a really lovely, chilled out day. My partner loved his gifts of noise cancelling headphones, a new necklace, a proper welding jacket, and a ridiculous amount of Tunnocks tea cakes. He spoilt me completely rotten, and I got a book I’d been wanting, a bottle of my favourite perfume, a refill on my favourite candle, a reproduction glass oil lamp, and a pair of *very* expensive, solid brass, viking age dress brooches, which are a museum-quality reproduction of a pair found in a grave site semi-locally. I had an inkling that brooches might’ve been my present, but I didn’t know that I was going to get that specific set, and I’m incredibly pleased! They’re so, so beautiful.

2nd best present goes to my bff, who bought me a Sylvanian Families cottage play set, because I’d told her I wanted a miniature version of my house, and that I was sad that my cousin’s daughter was a teen now and had grown out of the SF toys and sets I used to buy for her. It was very healing and delightful for my inner child to unbox a new toy for the first time in years, and have fun setting it up and thinking about how I could customise it and make furniture for it.



It’s my 34th(!) birthday on the 30th - rotten time of the year to have a birthday - and we’ll be going out for some shopping and dinner, and then there’s a Surprise booked for January which I have no idea about!

KajiKita

That sounds like a lovely Christmas and the Viking brooches sound stunning ❤️ Well done Mr SecondStar 👏

Happy birthday for the 30th - I’m looking forward to hearing about what the surprise is … 🤔😊

KK

Egoberry

What lovely Christmas presents, glad you had such a good time! Happy upcoming birthday as well

I was going to say maybe worth having a look at the merino stuff in the boxing day sales? And then see if there are any cashback offers on top etc? I've gotten a few merino items from Sp0rtPursuit for a food price during the years, maybe check that out.

tjp70

Happy Birthday 🥳 

KajiKita

Happy  🎉🥳🤩💐❤️
Hope you have a lovely day and a wonderful year ahead 😊

KK

dawnybabes

Happy birthday xx