Dear Diary,

 I want to move!  And because we didn't win Euromillions yesteday (not even the £2-something prize) I should be resigned to the fact it isn't going to happen anytime soon.  And it is not helped that I keep torturing myself by looking at homes.  I have yet again, found some more homes that i would be more than happy to live in.  This time they're by Persimmon and I've looked at Persimmon's offers, and we still can't afford anything.  And, on top of it all, i'm starting to feel angry towards my parents (in my head, not in RL) for not having enough money to loan me the deposit.  One of the offers is a Parental Loan scheme, where the 'rents pay the deposit and earn 5%pa interest on the loan, which will be repaid after 2 years.  Not bad!  But mine, nor DH's parents have that kind of money.

And I'm feeling jealous of my sister.  She's getting married in 10 days, and her ILs have paid for their honeymoon - a cruise round the caribean. And the ILs paid the deposit on my sister's house.  And after around 3 years working (as a teacher) my sister is earning more that I was when I left employment; and probably more than I would've been earning now, even if I had stayed.

I feel like I have been sold a lie: that you can have it all.  Or that getting a good education (I went to Oxford uni, don't you know) means you'll have pick of the jobs.  Or that by working hard, you can work your way up within a company.  Definitely that we needed to get on the property ladder.  If we hadn't, and we were still renting, we would have by now a huge deposit and be in a much better position to move.  We could even move into a bigger/better rented property, if we didn't own this place.

This place, back in 2007, was a fantastic house for the price, and a really good 'first house'.  Now, we're stuck in one of the worst/poorest areas in the town we live in.  As I don't work anymore, there's no need for us to live here and we'd be much better off living closer to DH's work.  We're in negative equity, with zero deposit saved.  (Well, we probably could scrape together £3-4k, but that's nowhere near 5%, let alone the 15-20% you need for most mortgages these days.)

I sound really ungrateful and bitchy.  I don't mean to be.  I know there are a lot of people worse off than us.  I just wish I could be content with my lot, instead of always dreaming.  Thing is, I don't think dreams in themselves are bad things.  I think it is a good thing to always want to better yourself, or your environment, and to aim high.

"Aim for the moon, and even if you miss, you'll land amongst the stars." 

I just wish my dreams were slightly more realistic and achieveable.

On the positive side, though, my desperation to get more money in order to move, means i am actually moving stuff around my house myself, rather than waiting for DH.  Our study, is the small box room, and that's the room I intend to tutor in.  (My thoughts are that if I can tutor at home, I can get more people through the door so can make more money.  and even if i can't get more people through the door, at least I'll be at home and switched off for longer, rather than having up to an hour's drive there/back.)  However, atm there is zero space to tutor, as the desk in there is very small (only 2ft wide, I think) and you cannot even sit under it as it is a computer desk.  There is a sofa bed in there, and 3 book shelves, which are cram-packed with books, overflowing and messy.  And no room to swing a mouse, let alone a cat!  So, the plan is to move the bookshelves into our bedroom, move the sofabed to where the bookshelves were, and buy a folding, wall table from which I tutor.

That's all good in theory, but we have no space in our bedroom, so we're having to change everything round in there too.  As I've recently lost a lot of weight, i've been giving away all my size 16 and 18+ clothes (to my sister, mum and freecycle), so i can get rid of one of my two wardrobes.  Then, we're moving the two other wardrobes (mine and DH's) out of the cubbyhole, into the space where the first wardrobe was and where my chest of drawers were.  My chest of drawers have now been moved to next to my bed, where my bedside table and dirty clothes basket were.  These two have now been moved from beside my bed, to in front of our existing shelves.  In the space in the cubbyhole that has now been vacated, will be where the 3 bookcases from nextdoor will be moved to.  Phew!  Understand any of that? Hehe.

So far, I have moved my chest of drawers, emptied the wardrobe we're removing, and moved DH's wardrobe.  That's a lot more than I thought I would be able to do on my own, when I'm trying to entertain two children and ensure they don't get in the way or in trouble.

Whether it will work in practice, especially given that we have 2 preschoolers here and have to hope that they will be quiet or go to bed good, is another thing.  I'm still working on trying to get DD2 into some kind of bedtime routine.  Tonight she fell asleep in my arms after 8, and I went to put her upstairs at 8.30ish.  Unfortunately, DD1 who should've been in bed already, was screaming and woke her up.  Fortunately, though, the presence of DD2 seems to have a calming effect on DD1 (she's going through a phase atm of not liking being alone) and I managed to get them both settled in bed by 8.45.  DD2 was nearly back to sleep, and DD1 was reading to herself.

I can only hope.  Unless you, dear blog-reader, want to donate a few thousand pounds to me?

Yours,
LBP.