Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻

KajiKita

Maybe the maybe the thing to do is set goals when feeling not so good - they will inevitably be very realistic! 😉 You have achieved a lot 👏
One thing that strikes me as I read your list is how big a job some of these passing comments are - such as rearranging and making the living room more sociable / usable if I recall correctly involved taking a sofa for a walk around the outside of the house … ! Or have I misremembered? 🤔😊

I will be interested to see your garden ambitions for 2025. I’m cogitating on mine currently… 😊

KK

Watty1

When it is all put out like that, awesome list, especially as some of that was big stuff to do.

I remember hearing once most people over estimate what they can do in a year and under estimate what they can do in 10 years.  I am thinking in my life that is very relevant right now, as it is for so many of us.

Elisheba

Oh, I hope you start feeling properly better soon, Cheery! At least you can just relax in this betwix and between time 🤗

Cheery_Daff

KajiKita said:

Maybe the maybe the thing to do is set goals when feeling not so good - they will inevitably be very realistic! 😉 You have achieved a lot 👏
One thing that strikes me as I read your list is how big a job some of these passing comments are - such as rearranging and making the living room more sociable / usable if I recall correctly involved taking a sofa for a walk around the outside of the house … ! Or have I misremembered? 🤔😊

I will be interested to see your garden ambitions for 2025. I’m cogitating on mine currently… 😊

KK

Thank you! Love the idea of setting super realistic goals when you're ill, but for the rest of the year. Currently they would say things like 'get out of bed before lunchtime' 😂

And yes, rearranging the living room did involve the sofa bed taking a trip round the garden 😂 and it involved getting rid of some huge bits of furniture, and cleaning up quite a bit of mould... doesn't feel like a 'big' job because it's not finished, the whole room needs decorating, but it's definitely made things better. 

Watty1 said:

When it is all put out like that, awesome list, especially as some of that was big stuff to do.

I remember hearing once most people over estimate what they can do in a year and under estimate what they can do in 10 years.  I am thinking in my life that is very relevant right now, as it is for so many of us.

Ooh, that's interesting! I definitely overestimate what's possible in any given time frame, whether that's 10 mins (i think I can drive to town in 10 mins, even though ot's 6 miles away, so I'm always late) or a year. Maybe I should only plan on a 10 year scale 😂 I'll have a look back over the last 10 years or so and see what's happened, maybe that will be more realistic...

Elisheba said:

Oh, I hope you start feeling properly better soon, Cheery! At least you can just relax in this betwix and between time 🤗

Thanks Elisheba 😊 the sun is at least shining again today 😊 I'm not up yet, and still coughing... but I slept pretty well and am about to foray downstairs... wish me luck! 

Cheery_Daff

Before I get up though... thinking about the ten years... I did find a bit of a run down on an old diary...

2015-2024

2015 - decided to move house, started sorting our (many, many) possessions into plastic tubs and started decorating

2016 - started new job (full time rather than 4 days, but local rather than commuting to another city). LOTS of DIY

2017 - finished house, sold in July, lots of stress waiting for paperwork. Family schisms caused a lot of stress, nan died. Not a nice year.

2018 - moved house, secretly got married 😊 finally got chickens 😊😊

2019 - a largely uneventful resting year 😂 did have a bit of building work done

2020 - well... peaceful in that I could work at home, no kids, not ill ourselves, but work quite stressful

2021 - Mr C quite ill, major building work (builders here for 4 months). Stressful year. Dropped to 4 days a week

2022 - work busy, big new project, got promoted

2023 - lots of chicken related stress, and the end of our little chicken flock 😕 did start to do a bit more travelling though

2024 - not really sure how I'd describe thi year yet. Quite a sociable one, better attitude and overall less stress than some recently

So, is that a lot of achievement in the last decade?? It's been quite DIY-heavy!! 

The 10 years before that??

2005-2014
Gosh.

Split up with alcoholic ex-boyfriend at the start of 2005, had quite an eventful year and ended up meeting Mr C towards the end of it 🥰 

Moved in with Mr C in 2007. Put me on the house deeds after the mortgage was paid off (2008, I think?) He left his job in 2008 too.

PhD dragged on, finally awarded in 2011

Started first 'big' job in 2010 - 4 hour round trip commute twice a week

Quite a bit of running, couple of marathons, couple of triathlons, lots of shorter races

Lots of voluntary work in this period, quite a bit with a local community garden

Did quite a bit of crafting during this time I think

Had quite a bit of spare cash after mortgage was paid off and I started working full time. Had a lot of holidays during this time! Nothing fancy, but a couple of weeks away at once each year, often Orkney, and plenty of weekend cottages in the UK too. 

Before that?? 😂

1995-2004

Er, high school 😂 A levels, left university in 2001, started masters 2003 then PhD 2004. 

Worked my way through a couple of boyfriends before meeting alcoholic ex Mr C in 2003.

Had about a million different jobs, moved house a lot, quite an eventful few years! 

Ha, interesting how looking at things a decade at a time gives a different perspective. This last 10 years has definitely had a house/DIY/admin/work flavour to things, not surprising that it's felt a bit 'heavy' at times. 

The decade before definitely had a 'lighter' feel to it, more 'frivolous' stuff (running, crafting, volunteering) rather than 'responsibilities' (house, garden, admin). 

Interesting that it feels like that - these were all choices, after all! DIY has definitely taken on a feeling in my head of 'something that has to be done so I can get back on with my REAL life' which is not helpful. Definitely need to do a bit of reframing...

Right, definitely time to get up, I think!

rtandon27

Wow Cheery - that really was food for thought - how far we've all come not only in the past 10, but also in the past 20 years!  I'm off to formulate some reflections of my own!

LadyWithAPlan

Loving the 10yearly run downs !! 

You had a great 2024 as well 

glad you both feeling better 

Cheery_Daff

Thanks RT and La Plan 😊 Blame Watty for the 10 year idea! 

Wonder what the next 10 years will bring?! It's hard to plan that far ahead with so many things uncertain. Mr C will have his state pension (less than 5 years to go now) so hopefully I'll be working less. Hopefully we'll both still be pretty fit and active (hopefully considerably MORE fit and active than we've been this week!!)

Will we still be living out here in the middle of nowhere? That I'm not sure about. I love it here but it does have its trials. The decision will be entirely health related, I think. If either of us can't drive, it becomes more of an inconvenience than we want to deal with (plenty of older people living out here who don't drive, but it's not what we'd want).

Work? Can't imagine I'll be retired before 54, although I definitely want to be down to 3 days by that point. Although if we sell up and move somewhere without a mortgage, it's more of a possibility, especially once Mr C has his state pension. So maybe that's what would make the house decision, who knows.

So I suppose the focus for the next 10 years is to maintain/improve our health, enjoy everything we can about living here, and concentrate on getting all the little annoying jobs finished so if we ever do want to move, we're not going to have to spend 2 or 3 years getting the house ready like we did last time 😮🙈

Cheery_Daff

Oh, and I popped in to say I'm delighted to have been on MSE all these years - it helped no end when I had to make a tricky financial decision between two bags of reduced sprouts in Mr M's earlier this evening 😂😂

teapot2

Bet you had to mull that decision over for a while Cheery 🤔🤔