Tuesday 24 May 2011

What's this feeling again?.....oh yes, pressure

You know when you have just had enough, of well.....everything?  yeah, well right now me too.

Why?  Well I could list them but then it would be a pity party and I don't like them.  It's not really what I am about, I like being laid back. Yes I worry, not incessently, but not enough to let it bother me on a normal day.

Yet, lately, that pressure has been mounting both at work and at home and today I blew.  Now folks, it takes a lot, it really really does - some have commented that I am that laid back I am horizontal most of the time and that I ask very little, if nothing, for myself.  I lead what I consider to be a charmed life - I adore my daughter, I adore my hubby, yes we have the normal run of the mill issues but nothing that I consider anything major stress wise to write home about. So I am very very lucky to have what I have and I feel content and loved up 99.99% of the time and very very few folks have that.

Yet, if I actually laid it on the table, some would say, and have in the past that it is a lot, a huge amount and yet I carry on as though nothing is happening.  Now that I will admit.....

I have a habit of compartmentalizing - will worrying about it change anything?  No, well put it in a box and ignore it then.  Will I still be worrying about it in 3 months?  No, well put it in another box and ignore it then.  I am good at that - I learnt to do that around the time that I realised my first ex-husband had to realise for himself that I wasn't taking his daughter away from him (oh at around the same time that the second husband who was very good at mental control told me he didn't love me, but refused to move out and quit his job so I could keep him in a means he was accustomed to) and then again when Beautiful B started to come out of what was, for all of us, a very dark hole about 2 years ago.

Except....every now and again, somethings get too big to stuff in a box and leave to get musty.  Invariably, those things tend to be family related things - you know, those things that affect your most loved and cherished ones! 

Surfice to say, Beautiful B is struggling - we are at the stage where I cannot shield Beautiful B from the hurtful things that her dad struggles with iin his life and it her and it affects her day after day because I have worked hard to ensure she maintains a relationship with her dad.  I can't change his life, his choices for his partners and so I watch my baby get hurt day after day by the person he is currently with and she struggles more and more each day but is unable to detach her feelings about them the way I can (or the way I put it in a box)/

Then Hubby is struggling.  Hubby lost his dad 7 years ago on the 28th of May and he struggles every time this year.  Well okay, he struggles the whole year but more so at this time of year.  He has never grieved for his dad and feels that counsellors or therapy would not help.  To compound that I found out about another issue he has tried to keep from me to protect me and to stop me worrying.  Pity then, that he didn't realise I was already worrying about it because when you are so intune with someone you know when something is wrong even if you don't know what it is.  

.....and so, you ask where has this wonderful communication disappeared to - well, that disappeared under the "we must protect our loved ones at all cost" cloud apparently - which, whilst I understand the need to do that, has driven me insane today. 

Because....truly when you are so in tune with those you love they become like books - books that you can read very easily and books you want to delve into - but they have become books that purposely don't want to be read - you know a bit like accountancy text books written by the unnamed company I cannot mention......

Little do they know (or if they do they really don't get the extent of it), that I worry every day about them and that I bottle that up and that I feel responsible for their happiness and as much as my brain tells me that I cannot help them and make them completely happy and that I am not responsible for the reason they feel as they do...I am a mum and a wife and I do feel responsible....and so today, I am sad, today I am lost and today I feel like the box lids are flapping about in my brain and the tiny aliens are busy trying to stuff the contents back in the box to no avail.

Oh....and the publication of the accounts is full throttle and I have been stressing that much about getting a document ready for the finance director general when I am not wholly comfortable that I know what I am talking about and only when I clicked the send button on that email did the heaviness in my chest subside.....

Is it just me, by the way, that gets that feeling - like your heart suddenly weighs a stone and has doubled in size and is sat pressed right against the back of your rib cage......

Maybe it is a good job I don't get that feeling very often then....

Tuesday 10 May 2011

All Gone......Nearly

Now, I can't be on long because I am doing that pesky procastinating thing and should really be making work lunches and getting ready for work.  However, quick update......all the puppies are sold.  Why I ever got anxious about them not being sold within a day is beyond me....maybe I just needed something to worry about!  As per.....

Anyhoo, the last two to be sold:  Meet grey collar - now called Joey - Why I ask you was little Joey sold last when he is so adorably cute?  Probably because this photo was only taken on the 4th May - when that when up on the web he was sold within a day.

And now meet: no collar - now Max:  Again, who can resist.  Though I think it had more to do with him playing like a nutter when he was being viewed and then wising up and snuggling up as close to the woman who bought him as he could while Joey continued to run around like a froot loop.

5 are going to their new homes on the 22nd May - each will leave with a little piece of my heart.

Joey stays with us until the 4th of June.  Now you just know that him and Abi are going to tag team us for two weeks, don't ya?

Meet Abi:  Not the best photo but one of the cutest.  Now she barks for attention, ALL THE TIME.......  She is into everything so you just know that I am going to find things chewed.  She is inquisitive so you just know I am going to be following her around for the first few weeks of her life to limit the mischief......but she has the same temprement as her mum so it was a given really wasn't it.

Yes, I will give them a piece of my heart to take away with them.  I'll think of them often and I have more pictures of them than anything else (trying getting Beautiful B to stand still long enough to get lots of pictures - nightmare).  So why do it?  There's a theory.  Being big on reflective thoughts I think I was made for it.  I don't make money in the long term because I refuse to breed my babies every year, nor do I sell them when they get to 8 years old, so it ends up costing us over their lifetimes. But.......

.....seeing the joy on peoples faces, especially the young ones, when they first choose a puppy and then come to take them home makes giving that little piece of my heart away worthwhile.  Knowing they will be loved and will fetch more joy to those who buy the puppy than they gave me for 8 short weeks is the best feeling in the world. 

I'm in the wrong job!  Accounting gives satisfaction.  Knowing that I am helping lay accounts, some very important ones, and that I am learning something new every day gives me a bit of a kick.  But to be able to bring happiness to others every day, or even once a week, would make my life more complete......

So, I'm on a mission, to clear some large bills over the next 5 or 6 years and then given the opportunity I may just switch careers.  Life is too short to not do something that you feel you were made to do.

Beautiful B, however, is one of the lucky few.  She knows, she just knows that she was made to be a nurse.  Moreover, I knew she was made to be a nurse and waited and waited until the day she came to me and told me that was what she wanted to do.  I can see the joy in her eyes when she is caring for others. She is one of the most empathetic people I know and I hope that she gets to reach for and meet her dreams because, I'll tell you something, she will make the lifes of those she nurses back to health, happy and she will care for them with love and empathy - she will give more of herself than a lot of others and for that, her life will feel more complete than ever.

She is my sunshine, my reason for breathing and although I may question some of the decisions I have made on her behalf in the past, some of them have helped shape her into the person she is today and she makes me feel incredibly proud to be called her mum. 

Wow, now that post went somewhere I wasn't expecting......

TTFN peeps.

Monday 2 May 2011

Confused.com

Note:  This should have been posted in October - I only just found it - kinda proves the point about being dizzy below.  So I've updated it.....

I know it doesn't take much to confuse me, I am a bit dizzy.  I sometimes need to be reminded where I am going if not directly home.  Hubby asked for chewing gum some day in October as I was going to the shop - he asked for the green packet.  In the amount of time it took to get from the car, into the shop, pick up the pepsi max (priorities peeps!!) and get to the counter with the chewing gum my brain had decided I needed a blue packet......

I seriously would have to argue the point though, that one does not need to be scatty to be confused by computers.  If we ignore the pain and suffering I have gone  went through for 4 weeks to try and get a consistent connection (let alone a decent one) using a dongle on the main PC we must still discuss how confusing it is to work out why pages or games can be slow.

I am was a Facebook fiend - I am always on there outside of work.  Well, okay...it says I am on but what is actually happening is that I opened up a game (usually a cooking or farming one), set something off to cook or grow and left it running while I do other jobs in the house.  I don't purposely ignore people who want to talk to me on Facebook; I'm just "not sitting still" as Hubby puts it. 

I am was (on account of that plus other games have been deleted since I started going to the gym and realised these games take up WAY too much of my time) obsessed with a game called Cafe World - don't ask me why; it's not the most exciting of games - no snakes to bob on the head for a start.  I may have deveoped an affinity with it as it kept me sane during those long dark hours of studying.  So, when I couldn't play it I got annoyed frustrated.  Hubby had to take over talking to the "techie" (a loose term seen as they still don't know why we are having problems with the dongle after 10 phone calls!!!!) from Sky as I nearly shouted at one point.

So...hubby sent me out to get a netbook. Bless him, ignore the cost because he just wanted me to be happy (could be that he also does not want to give up his laptop that is always on sport pages or poker sites for me to commence cooking or farming). 

I love it, I can blog on it and surf the net.  What I cannot do so fast is cook meals......

So I asked the Facebook community: Do I need a new graphics card, a faster internet connection or something else equally techie.  The answer appears to be that netbooks are designed for surfing the web not for gaming.  I need a faster processor - but according to google you cannot change those in netbooks.

Angel said it was Sky - they are rubbish - a girl after my own heart (especially as they have been little more than useless this last month).

Wait for this now....Hubby suggested I take it back and spend twice the money on getting a laptop as they have faster processors.  How fantastic is he????!!!!

I suggested that before we do that we strip the main computer back to it's essentials and get a wireless card built into it as I am assuming that will be cheaper than buying a laptop.  He asked whether the netbook serves it's purpose if I cannot play all my games on it - well not totally but I get to sit on the couch with him and cuddle while I cook and he plays poker or checks the golf scores instead of sitting in another room - worth every penny.

Update:  I did not go and get a laptop - I stripped the computer back to scratch (nearly - couldn't delete my itunes stuff), it still didn't work, I cried with frustration (because I am sad) and we gave up and moved the home computer next to the router - it's worked fine since......

Guess I should have done that in the first place....bygones.

You know when you should never have asked.....

Payday - a day I love but also hate.  I like that I get the money, naturally but then I hate how fast it goes.

Hubby travels a lot with work.  We have an agreement understanding that he pays for the trips upfront and then claims the expenses back from work.  It kinda drives me nuts.  I don't care that his travel arrangements can change at the drop of a hat, he should be more organised!  Or more bossy and insist that the date remains static rather than letting others change their minds (but maybe that is just me).

Anyhoo.... being helpful this morning I rang him at the office and asked what trips were planned this month.  As soon as he started rhyming them off the aliens said "You should never have asked...."

"£30 for each Burnley trip" - well that I can understand because some silly government type person in a suit thought it would be a good idea to put a building in the middle of an industrial estate where buses do not venture.  What I cannot understand is the need to buy the train tickets on the day.

We work for the government.  They have contracts with train company type bods who will let you order tickets days, weeks or even months in advance and charge the government direct so that my bank account can look larger than it is for a wee while longer.

Which takes us back to "well the meeting may get rearranged at the last minute" - yes, well the tickets can be sent back though to the government contracts.

I have given up arguing the point.....I will get pay back this weekend Christmas bauble hunting in York.

Sunday 1 May 2011

New Additions

So I alluded to new family members in Thursdays post.  We have new additions to the family, some only for a short while before they go to other homes that need them.

They are kinda cute aren't they.  Cala fluff had 7 babies four weeks ago.  We'll avoid the whole story of how I said she wouldn't have that many when the breeder of the male said that he'd had 2 litters of 8 before and how worried we were about her because she was the smallest of her litter when she was born and so 7 was probably too much for her body and she ended up having them a week early and before she popped - because, seriously, no kidding, she looked like she had swallowed a bowling ball WHOLE. 

Wait, there are only 5 - well yes, because that is the photograph for advertising - we are keeping a little girl, Abi (she needs a stud collar to emulate the NCIS character she is named after). 
See she is already trying to get out and investigate - in fact, the only problem with picking the one that is the most inquisitive is that you just know that all sorts of things are going to get chewed!  


And then there was 1 left.  Well meet Toby who has already been sold.  Wouldn't it be fun if I could teach him to sit and shake hands before his new owner came to pick him up at the end of May?
 
Now this, this is what I would do if I won the lottery.  There are very few better feelings than playing with puppies who give you pure love for nothing in return and to be able to pass that feeling onto a new family.  That is the one thing that I could do as a job and be totally content and happy to do forever.  Pity that the way I do it doesn't pay bills because I don't agree with the way some breeders use dogs as puppy making machines for 6 years and then sell them on.
 
Hubby and Beautiful B are fantastic for humouring me.  Hubby because he gets a kick out of seeing the unadulterated joy on my face for 8 weeks and Beautiful B....well, because she kinda has to.