Stresshead? Moi?

I can't believe it's been almost a month to the day since I wrote my last post. It honestly doesn't feel that long and I'm quite annoyed with myself for letting it go that far. The blame lies totally with OH for coming home and distracting me!


OH is back at HMS Sultan now and the kids and I are starting to settle back into our routine. One thing I am finding harder this time is not being able to do a countdown as we don't know for definite when OH will be back again. All being well he will be allowed weekend leave from next week but actually coming home is very much dependent on funds being available from our household budget for his travel as the Navy don't do travel warrants any more.


He will be getting a monthly travel allowance but this obviously has to be declared for Housing Benefit and Tax Credit purposes so chances are we will end up with exactly the same amount of spare money at the end of it all - nothing. 


Train fare is obscenely expensive so OH will be hoping to car share with other people who happen to be driving up this way, hence us not knowing for sure when this will be. All being well, we should be in a position by next summer to get him his own car which will make life an awful lot easier and enable me to actually plan things. 


I'm a bit of a control freak and feel very uneasy when I can't plan ahead. I like knowing exactly what I am doing and when and I don't do spontaneity very easily. This drives people around me slightly insane. For instance, I am struggling at the moment with our budget as OH has been paid different amounts each month so far and I have the nagging feeling that something is a bit wrong somewhere. 


I have our budget on a very pretty Excel spreadsheet with fields that change automatically when different values are entered (this may sound very basic to most people but I'm not great with Excel and am still massively proud of being able to create this) but I have given up using it for the time being and have gone back to basics with a tally on an envelope in the kitchen drawer.


I'm not very good at putting nagging worries to the back of my mind and forgetting them. I tend to prod away at small niggles until they have opened up into great big festering, screaming traumas. When DD was little she was obsessed with the Mr Men and I felt a kindred spirit in Mr Worry - when the wizard took away his worries he worried about not having anything to worry about! My inability to chill out has driven people barmy for many a year and although this is a personality fault I am well aware of, I really am incapable of changing at this stage of my life.


OH is very laid back and I feel that we compliment each other well. I kick him into action every so often and he calms me down and talks me off the proverbial ledge on a much more frequent basis. The difficulty is times like this when he isn't here and I am sometimes in danger of losing the plot completely. 


At times like that the only real solution is to eat cheese, watch some wrestling and try and remember where I put my marbles. Think I may go and do that now.