theFIREstarter

A very apt beer can given my lack of posting since “retiring”

Hi all!

I hope everyone is getting on OK as we gradually emerge from lockdown?

It certainly feels like we are over the hump now and hopefully won’t get a second wave of the damn thing!

Apologies in advance for the formless and no doubt rambling blog post that is coming up but I haven’t really thought about anything to write for a while now so thought I’d just do an update of what we’ve been up to with some random thoughts (same as usual really then!). Also I started writing this about a month ago and couldn’t really be bothered to edit it much so if some of it seems out of date then that’s why. I’ve also added a few “Update” paragraphs, which doesn’t make much sense for a brand new post, but this hopefully explains why.

So far my lockdown has consisted of:

• Spending lots of time with Mrs T and Jr (obvs!)
• Doing lots of DIY jobs around the house
• Ticking off lots of small annoying admin tasks and “clearing out” tasks – been essential with new bubba on the way to get the house in order and get some new storage space!

A picture paints a thousand words so here are some pics of the DIY stuff.

Painted kitchen cupboards and got new handles

Old look

New colour and handles

Barring the extra mess in the second picture I think it looks a lot better 🙂

We also cleared out the cupboards, reorganised everything, gave away loads of bits (glasses, mugs, utensils) on facebook that we don’t use any more, and gave them a good old fashioned scrub.

This all took blooming ages! But now I can open our mug cupboard without risk of one falling out and hitting me on the head, so it was entirely worth it.

The painting also required 3 coats plus a top coat of clear lacquer to protect, so this was a pretty big job even though it probably doesn’t look it.

Aquired and “upcycled” an old set of drawers for the new baby’s room

Installed the trampoline properly

I removed the awning from the shed as it was never really doing anything, and moved it to the back/side instead, and so now that’s covered can store a few bits round the back without them getting soaked every time it rains. Also means we reclaimed about 50cm back of our garden as I could move the trampoline further back!

Made a “fence bar” and installed a small bit of decking

My sister lives directly over the back of us so thought it would be fun to cut a hole in the fence so we could have a chat without getting a step ladder out!

TFS Jr has named this “The Unicorn Bar”.

I installed some decking below it to save us getting muddy shoes when we’re standing there 🙂

What’s better, I got the decking tile on the left hand side free from Wickes, I went down there and they said they had no decking in stock, “OK, well I’ll go check anyway” and they had this one left. Got to till, the lady said she can’t sell it to me. Very odd! She said it was discontinued. I said well it seems silly to throw it away, so she bashed the computer a little while longer, and said I could have it for 1p(!!!). Then a few seconds later just said screw it you can have it for free 🙂

I nabbed the other decking on the right hand side from my Dad and the other wood was just offcuts from the new fencing at the front (see below), so basically did it all “for free” barring a few hours of sweaty work on one of the hottest days of the year 😀

Sourced some fancy bar stools on eBay for cheap. The tomatoes and lettuce not looking too bad now either!

New driveway sorted and installed

Obviously I didn’t do this myself, but it took a while to get all the quotes and sort out exactly what we wanted etc…

We went with a quote on the cheaper side which was £4400 for block paving and a dropped kerb (inc. council licence). We were a bit worried about not going with one of the more professional sounding companies, but it turned out to be a great decision as they got it all done with minimal fuss and in good time. Really happy with the end result as well! Here are a few pics:

I’ve since repainted that white front room as well so that looks a lot fresher as well now. I was going to paint the fence but we’re not sure whether to bother or what colour now, so just leaving it for now.

The next thing to get is a bike shed so I can finally get a bike, and I will eventually build a custom bin tidy with a “green roof” on it (like a flower bed or something) but that may well be a project for next year now as time is running short before the baby arrives.

We’ve also:

• Cleared out tonnes of old girls baby clothes
• Acquired tonnes of new boy baby clothes (for free from friends/family) which we’ve sorted through and given the rest to charity ¹
• Sold some old bits and pieces
• Cleared out and re-organised other areas of storage to make better use of the limited space we have.
• A few bits around the garden

I feel like we are better prepared for baby #2 than we were the first time round!

Possibly the under statement of the year, considering this is how our kitchen looked a week before TFS Jr was born:

 She was 5 weeks early, just in case you were thinking we are actually clinically insane and deliberately started a kitchen revamp a week before the proper due date!

Not to mention the extremely baby unfriendly garden you can see in the background there!

And I’d built a cat sun lounging deck in the front garden as well 🙂

hustling

You know me, I can’t just sit around and not try to make a buck or two on the side. So with most sports sidelined, I’ve been trying some High Risk casino offer larking about.

I am not going to write anything else about it as it’s in the name, HIGH RISK. I would not want to encourage anyone to get into this and end up losing money (you could quite easily in theory bust out of 20 offers in a row and end up losing say £2K for example), as well as you need a big bank and lot’s of “friends” to make it even remotely viable. Also getting them to pay out on winnings is in the main a horrendous task. Fun times! (UPDATE: Most of them aren’t too bad actually but avoid all “Genesis” group casino’s (unless you want to wait 3 months for the withdrawal) and DEFINITELY AVOID CASUMO – they are absolute shysters. There may be others as well, but see my point about Bonus Accumulator below if you want a list of the better ones)

If anyone is interested despite what I’ve said above, I would point you to sign up to, as always, Oddsmonkey ² and checkout the HR Casino forum thread. It’s only 8000+ posts long so a pretty easy read 😀

UPDATE: If you want even more hand holding, a more complete list of casinos and offers to hit, and perhaps more importantly what ones to avoid (there are some utter cowboys out there, which I have learned the hard way!!!!) the guys over at Profit Accumulator have a shiny new product called Bonus Accumulator*** ³. I’ve only had a quick spin around it so far but from I can see it look great and well worth the money.

It’s a shame OddsMonkey is not as on the ball with the Casino stuff, they need to up their game here compared to the PA/BA folks!

other lockdown thoughts

I was lamenting the fact that I didn’t seem to have any extra free time in previous posts and while that certainly still feels true, it’s clear looking at the above we have been fairly productive, all things considered.

We’d have no doubt done all/most of the above anyway seeing as I wouldn’t have been working, and I probably would have had a bit more “me time” to do things like blogging or work on other projects, but that can all come later when things are back to normal in the world.

It has been lovely to spend a lot of time all together as this will (hopefully!) never happen again.

Having said that, it is clear to me now more than ever that balance is needed in life. If you end up just doing the same thing over and over again every day, be that a 9-5 job, or looking after your kids, it just becomes monotonous and not as enjoyable as if you mixed it up with doing other stuff. I know some people might baulk at that and love spending every single day/hour/minute with their kids but I think most people do need a variety of things to do in life to keep them truly happy.

To be fair I already knew this fact anyway but the lockdown has bought it into sharp focus for sure.

Anyway, this current situation is clearly not what I signed up for when I quit my job, so it’s not fair to judge my first few months of “retirement” ⁴ on how it might be long term.

Things are already starting to open up a bit and we can meet other people etc… I even went for a round of golf (2 ball, obvs!) last Sunday and it was bloody glorious, although really weird not shaking hands before and after the game etc…! (Update: have since played 4 more rounds, excellent!)

I am not running as much as I’d like or you might expect either, and obviously squash has been totally out of the window. I look forward to picking up on both of those activities as lockdown eases further.

We are also eating pretty naughtily at the moment. There is something about being stuck at home for most of the day that really promotes wanting to eat lots of cakes, chocolate and ice cream for some reason! 🙂

Maybe it’s just one big really bad excuse for all of this slacking, but I am hoping we’ll lean back towards a healthier palate again as things continue to ease up!

One positive thing I would say is my alcohol consumption has dropped. I’m more of a social drinker so Mrs T-Total for obvious reasons and only the occasional Video chat/quiz I am only having maybe 2 nights a week where I crack open a beer, and drinking less per “session” as well. UPDATE: I’ve since had a couple of pretty heavy hangovers, so maybe I’m not doing quite as well as I originally though on that one 🙂

fin

I’ve definitely rambled enough already so we’ll call it a day there!!!

Hopefully it won’t be so long until the next update!

Oh also the blog turned 7 on July 3rd so Happy blog birthday to me for that 😀