4 Days to go.

With only 4 days to Christmas, I wish I felt more organised. Mind you, when I think about it, I have sent off my cards and I have got my Christmas cake made,(although not yet marzipanned or iced), but that will come. 
Sausage rolls are in the freezer, as are the mince pies, and the Turkey (with a capital 'T') will be coming out to defrost, along with the ham.  My father is coming to us on Christmas day, and my son on Boxing day. My son has finally got a flat and has been lucky enough to find some employment starting after Christmas, so with luck, 2015 will be a good year for all of us.

Since my son has moved out, my daughter has been able to have her room back as she has been bunking in with me for the last 17 months. A situation neither of us was very happy about, but we have our own space again now. We are both feeling a hundred times better now, and although it's only been a month, we feel much more relaxed.

We've also rushed and got the living room decorated now the boxes and extra furniture have gone from the space. It felt a bit like living in a storage facility to be honest, and of course only having been here a fortnight ourselves before my son arrived, we hadn't done any decorating ourselves. In fact we still had unpacked boxes of books etc. Now we can get to them, we can slowly get this house right.  Who knows, I might even get the stairwell decorated, and carpet on the stairs by next Christmas! 

Before

After

After

 I've set myself a couple of challenges for next year. 


First off, I want to try to get rid of a lot of 'stuff'........You know, the sort of things you look at and think 'it might come in handy' or ' Auntie X bought me that in 19 oh dot so I have to keep it'  I've decided, I really  DON'T........especially as Auntie X probably passed on years ago!  So I'm minimising, less
tat means less dust, and I hate dusting.

Secondly, I've grossly overspent this last year. I don't have a huge amount on my credit card, but it's virtually maxed out. So I have to stop spending, and to aid that, I'm going to stop watching Create & Craft on the TV for a while. I also have to pay off a cooker and a dining table on my catalogue. I got them a couple of weeks ago, ( I gave my son my old ones as he had nothing in the way of white goods).   Long story short...........I've got debt I need to clear swiftly. I was going to save for a polytunnel this summer, but that has to go on hold for another year, and my holiday is cancelled. I have to get my priorities straight.

Jo and I have decided we are going to see how long we can live out of the cupboards after Xmas. We'll have plenty of leftovers, and then we will work our way through the cupboards and freezers. the only shopping will be for fresh veg and milk, eggs etc I've limited my money even for these things. As pure chance would have it, my next pension day is Jan 1st, so from that date we're being very careful. I'm pretty sure we can get through to the end of February, and I'd like to see if we can extend through to the end of March. After that any extra time is a bonus, and any housekeeping saved during this time will be paid off the debts.

So, feeling much more hopeful about life all the time. Looking forward to Christmas for the first time in several years, and to cap it all I sold my first card on Etsy. I'm hoping that's a good omen too!