Mamabear, thanks for asking about my father.
We are suffering very much from the heatwave in Europe and thousands of people are dead in Paris. The heat got down a bit so I can function again. One of my nieces got really sick and was hospitalized.
My father seems to go on, but he is deteriorating slowly. A major break for me is that my mother accepted to take him home on weekends when he is able to, with army of nurses and a hospital bed. I cannot tell you how happy I was.
I decided to make deals with the tax. You can do that in Europe, so I´m paying what I can towards my back taxes. I also opened an account with interests and that is for paying down an overdraft. I put a sum of money every month on that account and when it hits 500 Euros I put it towards my overdraft.
I write down everything I spend and every week I calculate my spending. This stops me from spending more.
Then I have a special account for travelings and a certain amount of money goes there. This helps me to keep my spending down and PAY MYSELF FIRST. My motto from DA in Paris. I go to meetings regularily and if I´m scared about something or need to spend, I call a friend from DA. We discuss if I really need it and usually I don´t need to. It´s just the old compulsion fromn my gambling days.