On happy returns

I'm a terrible blogger. I always find a way to forget to record my thoughts. Come to think of it, routine is not my strong point (my physios' face let me in on that one when I mentioned I'd forgotten to do my exercises for five weeks - straight).

Now that part is over, on to things I have been doing, keeping up with and accomplishing!

Home


I'm steadily working towards making my little piece of land more useful. I've added four hanging pots to my front verandah. My two little garden beds have been joined by another small bed and an enormous bed thanks to some colourbond, metal flashing and some pop rivets. I've moved my compost bins to a new area (by the back fence) to make more effective use of my yard. J has been invaluable in doing more of the heavy lifting work (moving soil etc) and pruning the hedge in our front yard. I also (finally!) have two chickens now who I have been letting out for a few hours every day to poke around the backyard and help to reduce the local bug population (those girls will be happy when they find out how many spiders can live under a pair of oversized gum trees!).

Derby

Amonsgt these small home-based victories, I've also taken up derby again. This time I joined a new league at the outset of its existence which has a significant point of difference - it's a co-ed league. Women and men skating together. It doesn't seem so intense for the most part because a lot of people are unaware that men don't tend to have a strong playing role in roller derby. I've got several male friends who are great skaters and I love being able to skate with them as players. We've had a couple of new people start with us and it's amazing when you see the lightbulb moment of derby-understanding that hits them as soon as you do even the simplest scrimmage based drill.

Part of the reason that I'd stopped skating with my old league was because I'd been spending a lot of time on the sidelines due to a nagging lower back injury that wouldn't go away. This settled down considerably when I stopped skating and flared back up again quite severely when I resumed. I saw a group of excellent physiotherapists who created an improvement plan for me and I have now been cleared to discontinue regular visits. I can't even begin to explain how nice it is to know I can start working on my core muscles again (and no more pesky Saturday visits to the other side of town!).

Finances

I had a stunning realisation a few months ago on a drive home from derby practise with J.

"I am terrible with money. I have been terrible with money for years. There is a difference between being a scroogey tightarse (like myself) and being good with money (like other people)."

This stunning realisation was blurted out in a very excited manner (no one should even be that excited about realising their not good at life-management). J gave me his best "amusing Bunny is amusing" reply, but the following things really hit home at that stage;

1) I have let other people manipulate me into getting into debt for them (very stupid)
2) I have let my fear of taking control set me back vastly
3) To fix it, I would need to actually do it. Take control myself.

With this in mind, I have recently set up direct deposits for each of my bills (divided by the amount of pay periods in each cycle) so I only really have to worry about top up payments for things like electricity and water. I applied for and received a consolidation loan for my personal loan and two credit cards. One credit card was closed; the other I've kept for emergency purposes. I set up a Savings bank account for my car registration, and two more for saving (one with another bank so I can't see the balance increasing, the other as a buffer if I need additional cash). I'm about to pay out my oven so I don't have to worry about that any more.

I used to have a very head in the sand attitude when it came to my finances and cannot possibly explain the feeling of freedom that I have right now, which is amusing since I have a mortgage and those are supposed to make you feel trapped. I was frugal through necessity, not because of a desire to live as cheaply as possible. I'll never out-cheap others, but I can give it my best shot and try to reduce that mortgage so I can experience some real freedom. This also comes back to the Home-based gardening as I'd like to become even just a little bit more self-reliant. I'll never be one of those dedicated off the grid people living as I am in the middle of suburbia but I can take something back and turn this oversized for two people plot of land into something useful and engaging.