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Archive for May, 2014

My week so far

May 28th, 2014 at 03:58 pm

It's not been the most exciting of weeks. I was at the hospital on Monday and Tuesday. I seen my consultant. It's been decided that I won't have the baby at my local hospital because there's no surgeons there. Instead, I will be in the same hospital that I had my surgeries in, and there will be a surgeon on standby just in case. She made it clear that surgery is a last resort, they don't want to do it because I still haven't recovered internally from my last surgery.

Since I won't be in my local hospital, I'll be expecting less visitors since only my uncle lives near this hospital. Of course, I'm hoping I won't be in long enough to get visitors since it's my second.

I'm back at the hospital tomorrow. My consultant wants the baby to be monitored every week - either once or twice a week - until my due date.

With all of that time spent at the hospital, I was beginning to think that my aim to declutter was a lost cause. I'm feeling more hopeful now. This morning I set a timer for twenty minutes and me and hubby got to work. We kept on working after the timer went off, hubby more than me, and the living room is looking so much better.

No financial news, although it is payday this week. However since I only worked half my hours it won't be much. Also, my automatic savings transfers should start back up (I skipped the last four weeks because of money)

Productive Morning

May 25th, 2014 at 09:48 am

Based on my new definition of productive, which is: spending at least twenty minutes getting rid of clutter.

Yesterday morning I sorted out one of the shelves in the cabinet/display unit in the livingroom. Today I tackled the other two. Some of the things I had to do to tidy up/declutter were so simple: put the camcorder back in its case (I'm not sure when it was last used), throw away old receipts and bus tickets, put medicine in the bathroom.

It's not even 10am yet and I've got a beef casserole cooking in the slow cooker for tonight's dinner. I'm feeling really organised today.

I'm not sure how much I'll get done tomorrow; I've got a scan tomorrow morning so I will be out of the house for a few hours. At this point though - almost 36 weeks into my pregnancy - I'll be pleased if I am able to spend more than ten minutes getting rid of clutter.

The First Thirty Minutes

May 23rd, 2014 at 12:43 pm

Acting on the advice of others on my previous post, this morning I set the timer for thirty minutes and began to tackle the livingroom. There's one area in particular that is really bad. It's weeks of mail, toys and clothes that need putting away etc piling up. I attempted that area this morning. I was doing well until SG wanted my attention, so I probably only really spent twenty mins doing it. I was so tired afterwards that I went for a nap when SG went for hers and I slept for the whole time (an hour). I might tackle the rest of it today, or let hubby do it.

I completely underestimated how exhausted I would be, although I do like the idea of setting a timer.Tomorrow I will do the same; I'll let hubby know today when he comes home.

An Update

May 22nd, 2014 at 07:30 am

Baby #2 due in five weeks. I have an appointment to see the midwife today. Next week I've got three appointments at the hospital, although two of them are scans.

I borrowed thirty pounds from my mum. Payday is over a week away and I had less than five pounds in my account. I'm consoling myself with the fact that it was only thirty pounds, and not more.

I finished up at work yesterday. I'm taking holidays first then starting my maternity leave.

I found out that we have been overpaying our rent. It's my fault because I didn't understand the benefit letter that we got so I just kept paying the same amount. I really should have phoned them then but I didn't. The woman I spoke to said we could have a refund, or the council will just take our rent balance each month off the amount. I agreed to the latter then thought should I have re-considered? I will need to phone them soon anyway when my maternity pay starts because my circumstances have changed.

I want to start doing two things now that I've finished up at work: decluttering and freezing meals for when baby is here. Although I want to get a lot done I'm going to take things slowly. I can see myself writing lists, with small tasks to complete each day. I know for sure that I don't want to spend all day sorting out clutter because I can't manage to do that, so maybe a set amount of time each day? We'll see.

Back to Work

May 8th, 2014 at 08:15 am

I started back at work on Tuesday. No-one seems to know what to do with me, so they sent me back to my old department. I've only been working five hour shifts but I am coming home exhausted as though I've worked a full day. My other problem is that I'm hungry when I finish so I'm tempted to buy stuff. I finish at lunch time. When I finished yesterday I bought some milk and fruit. I was so hungry I started eating the fruit on the bus on the way home. I will probably start taking something with me to eat when I finish, other wise I'm going to end up spending money I don't have.

I still haven't officially worked out my maternity leave because the people manager is off, but I'm thinking in a few weeks I will finish up.

I paid CC1 this morning, just over the minimum. I look forward to the day when I'm back to paying loads extra.

Worse than I thought

May 3rd, 2014 at 08:53 am

Well, I phoned work yesterday to find out the reason for my low pay. The company only pays twelve weeks of sick pay; I've used all mine. My pay was government sick pay.

Hubby came home from work and checked his balance. His pay was worse than mine!! We worked it out and it's because he took sick days when I was first out of hospital. It was at that moment that I decided to withdraw one hundred pounds from the EF. Does this qualify as an emergency? To us at this point yes. I just want to make sure we can pay everything. I didn't want to withdraw the money but I can't see any other option. We've already borrowed money from family before so i don't want to do that again - although I suspect my mum might offer if I mentioned it but that would be 20-30 pounds and we need more. Goodbye goal of even reaching 200 pounds this year.

I'm trying to spend as little as possible on food shopping. I ordered from a website called Approved Foods to fill up our cupboards. They sell food that is close to or past its sell by date. It's all dry foods though. That was almost forty pounds but I ordered a lot. We should only need to buy some fresh meat and bread and milk. We go through a lot of milk, especially since I try to make sure that I drink a pint a day.

I also decided yesterday that I need to claim for my first hospital visit in December. I need to do it before next month when it's been six months. I can fill in the form today and get it sent. Hopefully they will process it this month.

Payday

May 2nd, 2014 at 09:55 am

Today is payday. I was so disappointed this morning when I checked my bank balance to see that I got half of what I was expecting. Hubby is at work so I don't know what he got paid yet.

The doctor approved me to go back to work next week as a phased return on reduced hours. So, my pay at the end of this month, will probably be about the same as this was.

Yesterday I bought a second hand lightweight pram. I noticed it was on one of the selling pages on Facebook. By chance, the woman selling it lives in my town. Her husband dropped it off last night, and, small world that it is, he used to work with hubby. It was fifty pounds. (I used the money I had claimed from my health plan from being in hospital) I checked online and it's RRP is 123.