Tuesday 24 December 2013

Even the dog is getting into the Christmas spirit

Hubby loves Christmas.  What he doesn't love is the run up to Christmas.  Fortunately he married me and I have enough for the both of us and more. 
 
It's Christmas Eve, the decorations are up, the food is bought, the turkey is defrosting and I have finished work to go into cleaning mode.  After a full day of it yesterday, today I have the Christmas table to set, the living room to polish, sweep and mop, the stairs to hoover and the bathroom to blitz.  Then I can go and get my hair and nails done to save me a much needed job tomorrow morning. 
 
Beautiful B is working nights so disappears to work at 9pm tonight and again tomorrow night doing the much needed job of caring for our sick and elderly in hospital during the holiday nights while we all sleep snuggly in our beds.
 
As Hubby is working today I sent him an email to help him start to get into the Christmas spirit.  It was simply this:
 
Abi rocking Christmas doggy attire

 
 
Now if that doesn't get him in the Christmas spirit I don't know what will!
 
Merry Christmas everyone.  Hope you and yours have a fabulous time.
 
See you on the other side.


 

Friday 20 December 2013

2 days and counting

This year I am taking two weeks off work for the holiday season.  Okay, I may have one day less than that as a workmate needs some help and despite her saying it can wait until the new year I want to help so she can relax over Christmas.  I know, I am soft.

I am particularly stressed this year because I like having everything sorted for Christmas on the 1st December; the Christmas decorations go up that day with lots of Christmas music and bah humbug moments from Hubby, the presents are bought and lovingly wrapped and the cards are written and posted.  

Despite starting out well by ordering all of my wrapping and pretty tape, tags and bows as early as March and the presents bought that is about all I have done.  The sitting room decorations only went up on the 9th of December due to travelling and illness and so the stress level started racheting up.  The dining room decorations were up on the 15th by which time I was that stressed I was wandering about doing things that were little more than useless despite having an organised list to follow.  

The cards are written and those that need posting around and out of the country are posted but that is all; the rest need to be delivered.  The presents still need to be wrapped.  I work from my dining room most of the week and so the Christmas table cannot be done until Monday and I have still got some of the 'stuff' to move from the dining room - our house is that small some of our possessions are just stored there.

I know this all sounds silly because seriously the world is not going to end if it all doesn't get done - well okay, important things like present wrapping is essential as are card deliveries because Beautiful B would just cry if she got unwrapped presents.

Except that we are hosting Christmer dinner this year which means that I also need to go into Operation clean mode.  My OCDish nature is not going to allow me to have guests in the house for an extended period of time without it being cleaned from top to bottom.

So, with delight I know I have two days to go and then I can get down to business.  There is much to do with haste.  There is a turkey to buy with all of the trimmings which is a trip with Hubby as he is the cook, a Christmas table to design and crackers to lay next to the tablewear, there are silly Santa hats to wear, and a special bah humbug apron for Hubby to wear and a special doggy suit for Abi so we can annoy Hubby.

There are Christmas films to watch, popcorn and Christmas sweets to be eaten, beer and alcohol to be bought for guests, visits on Christmas day to family to organise, a doggy cut for Lily so she looks pretty for Christmas, a party gel nail to fix after a mishap on a drunken work party, stuffing to make, a starter to prepare, afternoon entertainment to arrange to avoid the after-Christmas dinner snoozes and the list goes on.

All of this stress will be worth it and I will look at my family and thank my lucky stars for the bright lights in my life, for the happiness they all provide me and the love they give.


Thursday 19 December 2013

The bra that doesn't want chocolate

The only time I listen to the news, and by that I mean, put the TV on and listen to it while wandering aimlessly round a room, is when I am in a hotel and working away from home.  This morning a news item reminded me why I don't watch the news.....

.....a news item of a bra that doesn't like chocolate.

Now I know you are all thinking I have lost more than the one usual marble but hear me out.

Apparently scientists have devised a bra that detects when a woman is going to want to eat chocolate.  Now as I was wandering around the hotel room packing all the sweets and chocolate I didn't eat last night because I was too busy downing double vodka, lime and lemonades at the rate of at least 4 an hour I didn't fully catch how it does this.  Something about a raised heart rate or body temperature or some such thing.  Anyhoo, it registers whatever and texts the wearer to tell them they are likely to eat chocolate.

Lets ignore the fact that we are talking about women and we tend to know when we want chocolate, or are working up to being unable to resist those delicious morsals, and concentrate on who could possibly have decided it would be a great help to society if women were alerted to such danger.

I am not providing a blanket opinion here but I suspect it was a man.  Firstly, women know they want chocolate, secondly a man is more likely than a woman to suspect that women are not aware of such desire increasing and thirdly if a woman wants chocolate she is probably going to eat it regardless of the reminder.

I have to admit the bra was very pretty and immediately after thinking that I thought randomly 'bet they don't do that design for women with huge boobs.'

My next thought was that it was a rather dangerous product - and here is why I think it registers body temperature or increased heart rate - because it could be sending random text messages just as the woman is about to get hot and heavy with a man.  After all, increased body temperature and heart rate are both increased at that time.  






Wednesday 18 December 2013

What I learned this week



Let us see what I have learned this week


Work gets in the way of posting what I have learned this week

Despite it feeling like the dentist left part of a back molar in when removing a tooth for a good few weeks I should have faith because eventually what was evidently a small part of (non) removed tooth will fall out on it’s own.

I am rather proud of how well my nails are growing; okay, just my left hand because despite having ‘gel’ nails to make them stronger I still manage to break the ones on my right hand when doing things. 

Randomly finding a broken, you guessed it, right thumb nail during an extremely drunken Christmas work party will mean that you can’t even visit the bathroom safely.

Over the last few years Fredster has learnt that it is quite enjoyable to stand at the patio door and wagging his tail and watch all the pretty fireworks.  It appears he has worked out that it is much more enjoyable than throwing up in fear like he did when he was a youngster.

It is far too easy to pick up a takeaway on the way home from work and if I have 3 takeaways in a week Beautiful B will talk to me about how scared she is of losing me because she has already lost her dad.  Oooops.

Making ‘hard’ decisions about what series I have to forgoe on the TV so that I can have some spare time isn’t as hard as I thought.

Co-Codalmol 50/300g don’t make me as cuckoo as Tramadol even if I have to pop more of them to keep the pain at bay though they do give me migraines.

Thankfully, the severe operation I had 2 years ago to reduce the migraines has resulted in a lack of head pain during a migraine but it will take me 2 days of feeling sick, dizzy and having sore eyes to realise that I still have most of the other ‘effects’ of a migraine.

I am still giddy about the change of direction in my career 4 weeks after starting on the team. 

If I talk for more than 30 seconds in an air-conditioned room my voice gets quite gravely. 

After failing to find a Christmas stall to get my annual personalised Christmas tree ornament and ordering one from the intranet I will randomly find a stall in Sheffield.  So this year, we have two 2013 ornaments.

Reserving train tickets to return home on the 6.11pm train the day after the team’s work Christmas night out seemed like a good idea….until today when I am counting the minutes to catch that train after downing I do not know how many glasses of double vodka, lime and lemonades. 

So what have you learned this week?Usual rules apply - see below. I would love to hear from you if you also leave comments on my blog.


To join in Julie's What I Learned This Week carnival, simply follow these steps:


1. Any time this week, publish your What I Learned This Week post on your blog and comment on my blog hyper linking to your blog.


2. Then go and visit Julie’s blog at From Inmates to Playdates, find her latest “What I learned this week” and link up with the Mr. Linky form at the bottom of the post. Please put the link to your POST, not the front page of your blog.


3. Then visit the other participants and see what they learned this week.

Wednesday 4 December 2013

On the road again

I'm travelling more than I did when I was completing my accountancy training at the moment. Take this week as an example:  on Friday I travelled the Yorkshire, Saturday to Manchester and back to Yorkshire, Sunday back home, Tuesday to Sheffield and then to Leeds and I will travel back home on Thursday night. By the time I get home Hubby will be used to having the entire bed to himself! 

At least I have managed to keep track of which train I needed to be on at which time and trust me that no mean feat for me. 

This week I am staying in a budget hotel and despite the requirement to be a contortionist to stay wet in the shower while the faucet took a 360 degree turn on its own accord it is worth losing some comforts for the memory foam mattress. After all a good nights sleep is key. 

I can't get my work laptop to connect to the internet let alone the work intranet so there is plenty of time to read or watch I'm a Celebrity.

Though I am only on my first episode of the latter I found myself twittering at the stupidity of some celebrities. Comments such as "The stick insect looks like a stick but it has a brain and everything" don't really help one look more than stupid. Mind you, this is a 26 year old that was proud of learning how to tell the time "on a clock with hands and everything" so I really shouldn't expect much. 

I brought some club accounts to do tonight after my lean training course so I intend to keep myself busy. After all, important things such as decorating the house for Christmas must take priority this weekend!  

Beautiful B will be decorating the dining room on Friday while I am working in there. At least we can laugh and enjoy it together with Christmas music playing in the background and of course, I can supervise. On Saturday I can decorate the living room while Beautiful B is at work. 

I was going to fetch my Christmas cards with me to Leeds so I could write them in the evening. Having printed out my Christmas card list, however, I need to being 70 cards and for that I had to lose important things from the suitcase....like clothes. Therefore, I will write them on Saturday when I catch up with The X Factor as I have just realised that I haven't caught up with last weeks episodes. You see all this travelling is affecting my ability to catch up with all the programmes I record. 

Back to travelling. On the upside the benefit of working in Leeds is that there may be late shopping hours in force so I may just have a mooch around the shops  tonight. After all, I still haven't been able to find a store where I can obtain this years personalised family Christmas tree decoration. 2012's family decoration takes pride of place on the tree and it's lonely and needs a friend! 

Yes, that is what I will do before I sit down to do some snooker accounts tonight. 

Have a great day everyone. 



Wednesday 27 November 2013

Sunday is the new Wednesday

It is today anyway as I am having, what is lately, a rare moment of attempting organisation.  You see, on Wednesday I will be in Sheffield for a long day at work and then a long train journey home 
 
I may very well be putting off doing accounts again right now but I like to think that I am making sure I post at least more than once this week, unlike last week. 
 
This caption says what I may well be feeling like when I return home later this evening(see, now I have slipped into Wednesday speak).
 
 

Yes I am very well be making certain assumptions of what my mood may resemble 5 minutes after walking through the front door but if last Wednesday was anything to go by....you see, I came home to a house that appears to have stood still in time from the moment I left the house very early on Monday morning. 
 
Having had more than a mountain of packing to do because I am one of the worst examples of a woman who packs lightly I left the Sunday dinner pots for Hubby or Beautiful B to do; I know I was being optimistic.  On Monday morning they were still there but as I was already late setting off on my journey I left them safe in the knowledge that they would be done when I returned to the house on Wednesday. 
 
Yes, you guessed it folks...they weren't.  In fact, the pile had simply been added to and the left over spaghetti bolognaise which would have made a nice meal for 1 person had it just been frozen was still in the pan.  Seriously!  Seriously!
 
Now, I am not silly; I know that I am more than a little obsessive when it comes to cleaning, though little less so of late but this was beyond measure.  I did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, threw the left over food away and went to bed.  I was a prime example of restraint when I did not mention it to Beautiful B or Hubby that night or the day after.  
 
I did, however, mention it in passing to Hubby on Friday to which his response was "I have hardly been in."  Oh that's okay then because it takes all of 5 minutes to wash pots and tidy the kitchen in what is obviously such a busy schedule.  I did not grace him with a response which is universal female speak (or lack thereof) for "If I speak now I am so going to regret it". 
 
Suffice to say if that happens again this week I will almost dare him to use the same excuse again but as he has never wished me to be the proverbial housewife he had better hope that he understood that my silence was more deadly than any words I could have chosen to say to him at that time.
 
That being said, I am more optimistic than not that Beautiful B and Hubby will not make the same mistake again.











Tuesday 26 November 2013

What I learned this week

It's been a funny old week and I have learned a lot.....

  • You feel cold when your hair is wet even when the fire is roaring (okay, switched on - I want a roaring fire but it isn't going to happen and I couldn't be bothered with the trouble getting it started and cleaning out a real fire anyhoo);
  • It is possible to go away with work on a Monday morning and to return on the Wednesday evening to find that Hubby and Beautiful B have not dried or put the pots you washed away.
  • Likewise, and even worse, the spaghetti bolognaise will still be sat in the pan because both are too lazy/busy (take your pick which one) to put it in a container and freeze it.
  • I thought my dining table was huge.  Turns out when you are using it as a desk it isn't.
  • You shouldn't put a brand new wireless keyboard on your lecturn because when the lecturn randomly collapes the top, it will bounce off onto the floor and smash one of the keys beyond use.
  • It takes all day to wash and dry the families clothes when you have been away two days.
  • The fluff bags will bark and dance around in circles for nearly 10 minutes when you return from a 2 day trip.  Assuming they do age 7 years to each human year I have been away 2 weeks so it is small wonder really.
  • If you inexplicably get a small spot/pimple on the side of your face underneath the arm of your glasses it is damn hard to get rid of it.
  • Gel nails may be strong for everyone else and help stop nails breaking; not so much for me.
  • Despite best intentions when Hubby is away overnight it is far too tempting to order pizza.
  • You can wash all of the washing from the laundry basket on a Thursday and it will be full again on Friday night despite only 3 adults living in the house.
  • Beautiful b will tell you the graphics on Jurassic Park 2 are rubbish and then you will need to explain to her that it was released in 1996 when she was just about 3 years old.
  • It is entirely possible to cry your eyes out at Bonnie's funeral on The Vampire Diaries which may suggest that you have become much more emotionally invested in the programme than you thought.
  • You realise how ridiculous you are being when you catch yourself thinking that you wouldn't be overly enthusiastic at visiting New Orleans because there may well be real vampires there! Yes, that did require an exclamation mark. 
  • You can arrange a night at the cinema with your baby and another night to visit one of your best friends around the nights you are working away only to realise that as you are away next weekend you won't get to spend an evening with your husband for a week - oooops.
  • Hubby will refuse to cook Christmas dinner if you insist on him wearing a Christmas Santa hat. 
As you can see a rather mixed bag of lessons this week.  So what did you guys learn?
 
Usual rules apply - see below. I would love to hear from you if you also leave comments on my blog.
To join in on the What I Learned This Week carnival, simply follow these steps:

1. Any time this week, publish your What I Learned This Week post on your blog and comment on my blog hyper linking to your blog.

2. Then go and visit Julie’s blog at From Inmates to Playdates, find her latest “What I learned this week” and link up with the Mr. Linky form at the bottom of the post. Please put the link to your POST, not the front page of your blog.

3. Then visit the other participants and see what they learned this week.

Monday 25 November 2013

400 pages and counting


It's Friday and therefore my non-working day.

Having sat with my head in my hands going around and around in circles looking at private sector accounts most of yesterday and this morning I have found myself wondering why any company thinks that it is helpful to put together annual report and accounts that run in excess of 400 pages let alone employ what must be more than a small army of people to draw them up.  

Granted these businesses are huge and they have subsiduaries all over the globe but seriously, would it not be easy to say, I don't know provide a simple note to the account that summarises total assets and which of those are current assets and then the same for liabilities? It would certainly save me having to jump all over the account looking for the information to make up those figures.

I wondered this as I was also wondering if I had bitten off more than I could chew when deciding to train as an accountant (again) and then realised I was being a pessimist and that I should give myself a break - it is, after all, more than 7 years since I have had to look at anything other than government accounts that are for this big a company.  

Some, and in that I mean my husband, would tell me that I am trying to run before I can walk in a new job again but I am having an attack of 'I don't know what the hell I am doing and I should have just requested a move to operations'itis.

Taking into account how long it has taken me to do one job (and spectacuarly fail at it) I am thinking that I should spend the rest of the day getting ahead in the other job that I have to do on Monday in case it happens again, especially as I need to draft myself a strategic key work objective around promoting and teaching VAT to the commercial directorate masses by our team meeting on Wednesday.

If hubby knew I was even contemplating doing that he would want to shoot me with something light and fluffy, so as not to upset my sensibilities any more than they already are, so lets all just keep that a secret....Rachel.

On a completely different note as I have just looked out the window the skys are blue, not a cloud in the sky and yet I am sat here with the fire on and still thinking I am cold.  If I wasn't waiting for a man to come round and determine (for the second time) whether the replacement leather for my suite is a good match I would be tempted to put my dressing gown over my clothes.

I've set my office up in the dining room because I do not have a spare room, not until Beautiful B moves out, and it is untidy and that is making me restless.  Azamingly so.  I have an overflowing basket of ironing which is staring at me and driving me nuts, a spare kettle and toaster provided by mum and dad (not that mine aren't working; I am just unable to say 'no' to them when they ask if I need something), various Christmas presents waiting to be wrapped for Christmas, the requisitite treasury accounts (and I intend on off-loading one of them sooner rather than later now I have started this new job), 3 board games, a ton of accountancy stuff I need to read for my 'continuing professional development' amongst other things that are driving me mental.  

The fluff bags are thankfully quiet but I am not kidding myself, I know that is only because I am sat in one position and being relatively quiet.  As soon as they hear the chair move they think I am up and about and ready to play with them or to let them snog me to death.  

You know what, I am going to go and have some breakfast; it is already lunch time to see if I can shut my head up.  I have no idea who I am kidding, I know I am coming back in this room in 30 minutes time to get ahead of the work I need to do on Monday.  And this, dear folks, is why hubby feared me working from home.  As he told me at 8pm last night; I have no idea when to shut the computer down and start again the next day.

Friday 22 November 2013

Two ways in and out of Sheffield and one was closed

It sounds like the beginning of a joke, I know.  The hire company were supposed to deliver a car on Sunday evening except it never arrived.  Having no choice but to give my new manager a headache on my first week in the job I had to drive my own car to Sheffield which is pretty much against the rules.  At least I knew how to use the controls in my car and didn't have to worry about whether an automatic locking system was working or not.  

Yes, I would seriously have tried to work out if that was the case and I would hope that I would have remembered not to walk towards the car with the fob in my pocket wondering why the car was not locked when in fact it was until I started walking towards the car.  I don't overthink things at all, honestly!

Sheffield is over the hills and far away....literally; it's over the Pennines.  This means you have to drive over them trying to get the car to hug the side of the hill/mountain.  All very well when it is Summer but in Winter you tend to drive into a lot of fog.  And the world and his wife think it is safe to drive over them at 60 mph because that is the speed limit whether there be fog or not.  Except me.  

I plugged the iPhone into the car radio before I set off so I could listen to an audio book; shut up!  It's the only way I ensure I don't get sleepy on a long journey and I am sure the other motorists on the road were more than grateful for that.  Quite happy, I stopped at McD's for a spot of breakfast and then drove over the pennines.   I arrived at the outskirts of Sheffield to find a diversion.   Okay, no need to panic, I could ignore the sat nav and follow diversion signs and I did quite easily and was at the office safely by 10.30am.  It had taken me 4 hours instead of the expected 2 and half but that's my fault for setting off at 6.30am instead of some godforsaken time of the morning to miss the 7 mile tailback on the motorway that peak traffic creates anytime after 5.30am these days.

All went well in Sheffield, the hotel was gorgeous and the air conditioning blasted out lots of very warm air when I asked it to instead of the usual poor mans substitute. I stayed awake until stupid o'clock the first night almost giddy at the idea of no cooking, cleaning, washing etc. only to be away with the sandman by 8.30pm the following evening.  I was even sensible enough to set off at a reasonable time to travel home knowing that I had a diversion to follow to find my way back out of Sheffield.

Silly me; I forgot that it gets dark at 4pm these days and I stupidly did not take account of the ridiculous amount of traffic on the Sheffield roads at that time.  Not being able to find the diversion signs I drove the way sat nav directed me back to the road closure and doubled back following the diversion signs.  

Obviously, Sheffield council deemed that diversion signs are for people who live in Sheffield and not for people who live in what can be described as a reasonably small town that I lived in for 35 years and therefore know reasonably well.  The diversion signs were placed approximately every 4 miles apart and were of no help if you were in the right hand lane as they were placed on the left side of the road.  So I shook my fist at the world more than once or twice and may have had a slight panic attack at the idea of driving around Sheffield looking for a police station so they could direct me out of Sheffield before I decided to follow the signs for the MI motorway to the south - after all, surely there had to be a turn off for the M1 north? (Update: as my mother reminded me yesterday Sheffield is higher up the country than my home town so I did actually need to M1 South - doh).

Judging by the fact that the world and his wife were trying to follow that same road I deduced I had finally found the way I was looking for - it had only taken me 45 minutes.  I then sat in traffic creeping along for another 45 minutes but by that time I was quite happy listening to my audio book about the aquisition (from very shady and dangerous characters) and sale (to unsuspecting naive housewives) of fake handbags (have these people never heard of the downfall of legitimate businesses) and the murder and mayhem that ensued safe in the knowledge that I was not going to have to find an unsuspecting policeman to help me find my way back to those rolling hills I had driven over merely 2 days before.

Having found my way out of Sheffield I can only say that if what I drove down was a motorway then fine, but it didn't look like any motorway near my hometown.  Then again, I guess they cannot really plough a 6 lane motorway through the gorgeous pennines without some people throwing a fit or two.  

I didn't care that the speed limits were 60-70 miles per hour - it was pitch black and while I may not have been able to see the perilous drop which was now immediately to my left past that flimsy barrier I knew it was there, damn it.  So me and my car started the mechanical equivalent of the conga across the peninnes.

Suddenly, I noticed that my fuel gauge was getting lower and lower.  Okay, technically I already knew this was happening but the first flutterings of panic were starting.  I did have plenty of fuel to get me across the pennines so I could stop for petrol before I got to the motorway originally but remember I had driven aimlessly around Sheffield and then sat in idling traffic for 90 minutes.  Being a relatively new car I did not have the 8 years of experience I had with my previous car to know it would get me another 30 miles once the petrol guage started blinking at me begging for petrol.   

Breathing a sigh of relief I thought I was approaching the small village of Glossop only to rachet that panic up a bit more when we started climbing again. As much as they dared, my eyes flicked from the road to the dashboard like they had a nervous twitch.  Honestly, when I realised I was approaching Glossop and therefore that beaon of light otherwise known as a petrol station I actually sang out "Hallelujah" in the car.

From there the rest of the drive was a breeze and I could once again concentrate on just the road and the audio book; with a brief interlude at the same McD's I stopped at 2 days before to grab some McBites coupled with a side of a bump on the top of my head from the top of the door sill.

I know some of you are asking why I did not go by train and you would be right in wondering but bulky IT equipment does not bode well on a train nor can my cabbage hands cope with the weight of the equipment.  You can be rest assured, however, that next weeks journey (and the weekly/fortnightly ones thereafter) will be made by train.  I may be cold stood on a station platform but at least if I fall off the edge of a platform I only have 4 feet to fall instead of the hundreds me and my car would have over Snake Pass.

So you see, my first trip to visit my new team was not only interesting but eventful.

 

Monday 18 November 2013

What I learned this week.....the Sheffield edition

Monday was my first day in my new Commercial job. I am so very relieved to have a new job, so much so that when things didn't go right I just laughed it off.

*     Don't rely on the Enterprise car rental that your employer contracts with because the car you ordered may well not just be late but not appear at all. 

*      If you are like me and get sleepy from boredom on a motorway listen to an audio book while driving they keep you awake. 

*      You may find out that one of your new colleagues drinks more Coca Cola and eats more chocolate than you do and considering I can drink 2 litres of the stuff a day that is saying something. 

*      You can't do accounts during the evening alone in a hotel if you leave all the paperwork at home. 

*     At last a air conditioner that says it blows warm air actually does what it says on the tin. 

*      Finding You've Been Framed on TV when in a hotel with no jobs to do makes for 90 minutes of laughing. 

*     Being in a hotel where a film costs £2.50 may mean you are awake until 1am watching World War Z. 

*      Make sure when straightening your hair with GHD's, or any make of them, that you do not try and straighten your earlobe by accident. It's not the best decision I've ever made, even if it was an accident. Thankfully, it isn't red soi didn't have to try and match up the other earlobe. 

*    A hotel with trees on the wall can look rather posh! 
 

Friday 15 November 2013

The last day arrives

Today is my last day in Finance, Monday sees me in Commercial Finance. 

When I left my last role I cried. I cried because I loved the team, I loved the work and I loved that my manager trusted me to do a great job doing the really important stuff. 

Today, I leave but there will be no tears, no sadness and instead happiness, hope and excitement and while that may be sad I am more than okay with that. 

I am almost giddy. To be able to say that about work is good. 

Let the day begin. 

Thursday 14 November 2013

No work Thursday

Except of course it is because this is me and I have work to do at home of both the work that earns me a wage and the football treasury accounts. 

However.....



because I am not physically at work and I am happy about that. In fact, today's additional non-work that will be a work day is to get my files in order and sort out the paperwork I wish to keep for my new role which starts on Monday.  And we all know I am looking forward to that; new role, commercials and finance instead of just finance and a new boss.  Not forgetting the working from home malarky!
 
So yes I have chores and some work to do but not before a bit of a play on computer games because after all, I wouldn't be me if I didn't get a little distracted by computer games when I have real work to do.
 
Toodaloo folks, see you tomorrow!

 

Wednesday 13 November 2013

While I wait...

An unusual thing happened today and that is that I was home before everyone else and I have been able to do 'wife' things while I wait.  Hubby, Beautiful B and me are off to my mum's for tea - she is making me scrumptious home made meat and potato pie and as it is the only pie crust I will eat, I delight in arguing with Beautiful B to ensure we get equal amounts of crust - you know, because I can and it is insanely funny (and also not fair but meh) to see her get frustrated....but I digress so where was I?  Oh yes, wife things.

Ignoring the fact that I walked out of work with my handbag, bottles of Coca Cola, phone, car keys and laptop I did have everything but I guess as I was leaving earlier than I have done for weeks I felt like I was forgettting something when I was driving home.

We were supposed to be at mum's at 4.30pm.  It is now 5.05pm but Hubby did text to let me know so the required phone call to make sure mum had not put the crust on was made and the parents are happy.  Hubby has apologised, to me which is nice but it's to the wrong person.  Truly, mum and dad will find it amusing; after all I get told off each Sunday I appear at their house for a visit without Hubby because apparently it's my decision to send him to do overtime.

Beautiful B, however, no idea!  She hasn't arrived home.  She has texted to ask what time we are to be there and since the reply not a dicky bird to be heard.  I can only assume she has gone straight to my mum's but then again taking into account her accident proneness at the weekend she may well have tripped over her own feet and hurt the other shoulder...

So while I wait..the dogs have been fed, the house has been hoovered, the pots have been washed, dried and put away; a load of drying has been dried and put away, a load of washing has been washed and is now in the dryer, the beds made, the empty cans and cardboard/paper for recycling out, the dogs flea and worming treatment given (and the requisite treats for kindly allowing me to stick my fingers down their throat to make sure they swallow them, 3 blogs read and responded to and this one written so I have done so well.

And just in time, the dogs are going mental because Hubby has evidently arrived on his bike.  Time for tea....whoop.
 

Tuesday 12 November 2013

What I learned this week

Well, lots of things including how so alike my daughter and I are when it comes to being accident prone...even if that is because we are both incredibly stupid!  It's only right that she gets that from me right?
 
Here is a taster of some of my lessons this week:
 
  • mmmm, the bullet point facility on blogger is playing up tonight so if there aren't any when this posts you know why, right?
  • Oh, has sorted itself out now - for a minute there the bullet points wanted to be superscript for absolutely no reason at all.
  • I really should stop over-thinking things before they happen and actually determine whether they are going to happen before they do because if they don't happen then I have wasted a miniscule of my time.
  • Beautiful B may very well take you up on the suggestion that your osteopath is very good but beware - if she has an appointment around the same time as you she will hang around for a lift home in the car
  • It is possible to break 4 nails in 3 days even with 'gel nails' on
  • When you hear 6 big bangs during the night that sound like someone is taking a hammer to a wall or door you should stay in bed and see if it continues instead of peeping out of windows to see if there is a very noisy intruder in the street because you won't be able to see anything, the noise will stop, you will read a book on your iphone in the dark in a bid to keep Hubby asleep only for him to accuse you of dreaming the noises when he does eventually wake up for work.
  • When seeing a counsellor about the need to accept that your hands are giving up on life before you do be prepared for her chin to hit the floor when she hears about your life to date and laugh out loud when she says that I am right to thank whoever is up there for Beautiful B and Hubby every single day.
  • If you haven't seen one of your best friends for a 'catch-up' for a couple of months don't pretend that you can go out for a couple of hours to 'catch up' - accept before you go out the door that it will take at least 3 and you will still run out of time.
  • Accept that when you remove all photos of the past 5 years of your life from the computer so it can be stripped down that you may the majority of them, there is after all no point crying over spilt milk and more memories can be made, but hope and pray that Rachel still has a copy of the wedding photosm on her hubby's computer at home because if not you will be scurrying around 24 hour hours from now with hair like Doc from Back to the Future after pulling it out intermittently while screaming "WHERE IS IT???!!!!"
  • And before I hyperventilate, today's facts which may or may not be wholly accurate for the last 2 are:
    • Goodbye is the word used to shorten the phrase 'God be with you'
    • Father Christmas has a post office address in the UK and it's postcode is SAN TA1
    • Facetious has all the vowels in the right order when spelling the word
    • Ducks have 3 eyelids on each eye
    • Coca cola would be reat if it didn't have colouring in it
So there we have it this week folks.  It may well have been longer but right now my brain is shouting 'weddingphotosweddingphotosweddingphotos' and I am off to text Beautiful B and hyperventilate quiety.
 
Tell me what you have learned this week....
 

Usual rules apply - see below. I would love to hear from you if you also leave comments on my blog.
To join in on the What I Learned This Week carnival, simply follow these steps:

1. Any time this week, publish your What I Learned This Week post on your blog and comment on my blog hyper linking to your blog.

2. Then go and visit Julie’s blog at From Inmates to Playdates, find her latest “What I learned this week” and link up with the Mr. Linky form at the bottom of the post. Please put the link to your POST, not the front page of your blog.

3. Then visit the other participants and see what they learned this week.
     
     



 

Monday 11 November 2013

A week and counting

So, this is it guys!  One more week and I start my new role in commercials.  As much as this move has been forced on me, because let's face it when the doctor asks you if you still want to be using your hands in 10 years it's a bit of an eyeopener and one really can't be like an ostrich any longer.
 
It has come at the right time and as commercial teams go it is the best I could go to as they do the financial aspect for contracts such as financial evalutions so I can maintein my accounting professional development and therefore qualification.  I already have a commercials qualification and as you may well have guessed I have worked in commercials before.  It's unlikely that someone has a commercials qualification if they haven't worked in that arena before after all.  I know I like the work and so a forced move doesn't feel as bad as it could have done.
 
I have also been a burden to my current management team, one woman in particular and it has reflected on my mid-year report.  I could raise a grievance and it would be won without a doubt, after all, there is an Equality Law for people like me but as my new team has to liaise with my current team I really don't want to rock the boat and ruin a working relationship. 
 
I think because of the latter it has made the forced move that much more difficult to accept.  No-one wants to accept that their disability is dictating their career path.  No-one wants to admit the pain they are in, let alone want to stand out as 'different' in the workplace because emotions sometimes rule the way you are treated.  We struggle enough, both at work and home, and we don't need to have to feel like we are fighting a battle every single day in the workplace.  Trust me, it is bad enough being reminded of how painful and weak my hands are every time I attempt to open a bottle or sqeeze conditioner out of a bottle; I don't need reminding of it by my management chain let alone have the lack of understanding reflected in my report.
 
However, having said all of that the move to commercials is a light at the end of what has been a very long and painful tunnel.  I am still seeing a counsellor to try and learn how to accept the lack of control I feel but my new manager is the completely different end of the spectrum to my current manager and has already arranged for duplicate equipment to be placed in my second work place and for me to work my hours around the worst of the medication side-effects.
 
So the sun is shining, I am training my replacement at work and then I am off to drive into the sunset that is Sheffield for the first 3 days of my new role. 
 
Life at work is about to get better, I am about to be treated to doggie cuddles regularly throughout the days I will work from home and I will be at home at least 2 days of next week to check that my Beautiful B, who has an arm in a sling and is popping painkillers 4 times a day after an accident, isn't doing any activity that can make her shoulder injury worse.  The pretend nursing bit I wasn't expecting but on the upside I get daughter snuggles throughout the day too.  Bonus!

Sunday 3 November 2013

A post from my dad

Well it isn't really.  Dad would not know what a blog is.  He did, however, discover email a few years ago and I randomly get some funny emails sent to me.  You know, mostly those that people like my Hubby would groan at - yes, the obvious ones.  This isn't one of the obvious ones and in some places I learnt something new.
 
In my defence, I find a lot of things funny and the more obvious the better - it is, after all, good to laugh and if some quarters are to be believed extends your life.
 
So here, without further ado is my dads post.......
 
Eating in the UK in the 1950's.
 
For those of you who are old enough to remember, for the rest - it's a history lesson!! 
 
Time and memory has taken its toll. Have things really changed this much in our time?
 
  • Pasta had not been invented.
  • Curry was a surname.
  • A takeaway was a mathematical problem.
  • A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.
  • Bananas and oranges only appeared at Christmas time.
  • All crisps were plain; the only choice we had was whether to put the salt on or not.
  • A Chinese chippy was a foreign carpenter.
  • Rice was a milk pudding and never ever part of our dinner.
  • A Big Mac was what we wore when it was raining.
  • Brown bread was something only poor people ate.
  • Oil was for lubricating, fat was for cooking.
  • Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves and never green.
  • Coffee was Camp, and came in a bottle. (I can only assume this is the name of the only coffee available at the time).
  • Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.
  • Only Heinz made beans.
  • Fish didn't have fingers in those days.
  • Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi.
  • None of us had ever heard of yoghurt.
  • Healthy food consisted of anything edible.
  • People who didn't peel potatoes were regarded as lazy.
  • Indian restaurants were only found in India.
  • Cooking outside was called camping.
  • Seaweed was not a recognised food.
  • "Kebab" was not even a word never mind a food.
  • Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded as being white gold. (This think this is because it was still rationed in the early 50's)
  • Prunes were medicinal.
  • Surprisingly muesli was readily available, it was called cattle feed.  (Still should be in my opinion).
  • Pineapples came in chunks in a tin; we had only ever seen a picture of a real one.
  • Water came out of the tap, if someone had suggested bottling it and charging more than petrol for it they would have become a laughing stock.   
  •  I am guessing this was originally written before the price of petrol started rocketing.  There aren't may bottles of water more than the price of a litre of petrol these days.
  • The one thing that we never ever had on our table in the fifties .. was elbows! (Or in my mum's house add shoes to the list because apparently it meant bad luck).
So there you go folks, evidence that not only have opinions changed but also that people are much lazier and the free market has enriched our diet by fetching an array of food from around the world.  

 I laughed loudest at "Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi."  What about you guys, what did you find funniest and/or what was new to you?

 

Friday 1 November 2013

Five things Friday

A random five things Friday this weeks folks as I am going to tell you about five things about today (Thursday and my non-working day.

1.     Whose bright idea is it with the supplier we use for IT to just send a laptop docking station in a box when you order a spare docking station?  Now I know some of you are wondering why I am moaning so I will tell you.  To use a docking station you need power; to get power you need a power pack that you can plug into a wall.  However, when you order a spare docking station with our suppliers all you get a the docking station!  Useless without power.  How stupid? Totally idiotic.  My new boss is going to love me telling him I need to order 'wires....'.

2.     Taking Hubby's mum on the weekly food shop today I saw a competition to win a 42" TV with every purchase of Pepsi max.  Well I am having some of that!  Being a bit of a control freak I stook in the aisle, having put 9 multi packs of Pepsi Max in the trolley, checking whether I got a chance to win for each purchase of a pack or packs.  What difference does it make I hear you say?  Well I will tell you - if all 9 multi packs went through the till at once I get one receipt and that equals one chance.  So you know what i did don't you?  Yep, I smiled sweetly at the lady at the till and explained my concern; 9 chances are better than 1.  She agreed, I am not wholly sure she was too happy about it but if I win the TV then I am sure that will compensate for the small feeling of guilt I have about the amount of work I caused her.

3.     The final episode of Castle Season 5 is great.  A true cliff hanger and reminded just why I love the series.  I am eagerly waiting for season 6!

4.      My eyebrows are no longer bushy, my nails are now a nice pink colour instead of the beige and the gel nails are working their magic on my controlling nature and have stopped me from nibbling my nails when I feel a bit stressed.  By the time I start my new job on the 18th of November they will be my wow factor because trust me, nothing else about me will!  Not until I lose 7 stone.

5.     I may have to buy 4 new dog beds for the dining room on the 18th November. You see I will be working from home and the only time we use the dining room at the moment is for me to sit and play SIMS 3; the baby is taking ages to grow up because I lengthened the time it takes the SIMS to age.  Now shut up, I know that is my fault but essentially it means that I have longer to train my sims so they are experts in everything including fishing.  See now I am rambling, so anyhoo as I will be working from home from the 18th and the baba dog especially likes sitting on my knee when I play on the computer I don't think they will cope if I shut them out of the dining room.  So I need 4 beds for them to lie in and I need to stop loving all the cuddle I get from baba dog quite so much.

Mind you, they have spent the last 2 hours periodically barking their heads off at people they feel may be daring to step foot on their turf.  I'm not sure why they bother, Fred will want to play with them, Cala will want to lick them to death, Abi will want cuddles and Lily will have a sniff and then walk off with her nose in the air so it's not like they are going to be proper guard dogs is it.  

The professional little alien in my brain is knocking on my skull reminding me to say that if I can get them to lie in their beds and sleep they may not see people randomly walking past the window; after all, how professional am I going to look on a telekit if four dogs suddenly start pretending to defend their castle?

So there you go.  There are my five things Friday.  Do any of you have any suggestions for future five things Friday?  If so, comment and let me know.

Have a great weekend everyone.

 

Thursday 31 October 2013

Non working day is a work day

I work 10 days worth of contracted hours over 9 days so I get an extra day off work every 2 weeks.  So far I have used it to do chores so I can have a full relaxed weekend.  On my last non working day I spent 5 hours having my hair done along with various beauty treatments. It was amazing!  Granted it would have been better had I tagged an Indian head massage onto my visit but a girl can't have everything.  The chores were left and I didn't care because like Damon in the Vampire Diaries I switched my cleaning emotion chip off.  

Now I have a work laptop that I can, and have brought home.  It's in preparation for my move to the Commercial Directorate in 2 weeks.  Little old me was impressed that it had no problem logging onto my home network as promised because although an optimist I hate IT.  If it goes wrong I have no idea his to fix it and that drives my need for control insane.  

In a very sad twist of events I have started to dream about work.  Yes I know, I am ashamed, after all dreaming about my new job may just well be evidence of how much I am looking forward to it.  Even I would much rather be dreaming about runny babbits, flutterbies, cute aliens, in a world where I an eat all the sweets and chocolate I want without ruining my teeth and getting fat. 

The latest work related dream had me leaving all the accounts until the last minute and my bosses, bosses, boss who sits next to me at work was getting just a tad upset,who am I kidding she was going mental, because I still had to count up all the money and balance it to the cash book and we were against the wire.  There is a reason for dreaming about that and normally it would drive me insane but as I am leaving the team, pppffff.

Being one to analyse dreams, and I will admit most of them are a direct result of programmes I have watched that night, this dream was because my bosses bosses boss is not my most favourite fan and my re-design of the teams webpage needs to be with the publication team on Friday as I start training my replacement on VAT next week. 

Now, that is sad I admit but what is worse is forgetting you have a non working day tomorrow (now today) and you have all sorts of work plans for that day.  

Now you all know what I am going to say don't you? The laptop is dancing about in its bag downstairs as I type screaming 'Heeeellllllooooo, laptop to the rescue!  You know you want to press all my buttons......your need for control is knocking on the inside of your skull.  Come and play with me and all will be nice and fluffy tomorrow.  You will have everything organised ready for a telekit with the publication team tomorrow and your need for control will be nice and suitably in place.  Heeeeellllooooo, you know your not going to keep me in this stuffy bag for long.....'

Ignoring how my current management chain think they know my disability better than I do and will tell me that I was wrong to work today because after all, I have heard it all before and I'm leaving the team so go ahead and do your worst.......(rant over) I will do the weekly food shop with my mother in law today and then wire the laptop up to the docking station which will have a suitable keyboard and mouse attached to it as well as a headset for my own personal dragon who lives in the computer.  I will dock the laptop and silence its little cries for attention by writing Frequently Asked Questions and drawing up a much need flow chart on charging VAT in certain circumstances.  

After no doubt growling at the computer a number of times at the need for it to be much simpler to make flow chart boxes and arrows the same size and where I want them I will lovingly save the much slaved over work and dream of much more intense but fun time in my new Commercials team. On Monday I will ignore all telling off for working when I should be resting my hands and pretend they are thanking me for my diligence and dedication to my work because my need for order and control will be nice and sated. 

So yes today is a none non working day and I am happy with that.  After all, I can take a quick break and put a load of washing on or polish the furniture in a room or change the bedding.......I could even have tea ready in the oven for when Hubby comes home.  In a great twist of events though Hubby has decided we must splurge tonight and have a nice meal at the pub before going to watch a film at the cinema.  And that is one of the many reasons I love him. 

Happy Halloween folks!


Wednesday 30 October 2013

Happiness is......



Hubby and I are watching a programme called ‘Karl Pilkington – The Moaning of Life’ at the moment. 

Essentially Karl is a typical northern bloke who just happens to be friends with Ricky Gervais, who annoys some people with his strange laugh.  Karl originally agreed to take part in a series where Ricky essentially sent him all over the world to sample the culture but always sent him to do the horriblest (yes, this is a ribenaism) things and stay in the worst hotels.

This series has stemmed from that series. Karl says what he thinks and while he moans a lot he is incredibly funny with it.  This series sees him visit different parts of the world trying to find the meaning of life.

This week’s mission was to discover how different people find happiness.  In Mexico he met a group of people who use old used tyres with string and wire for shoes and a small wooden ball, the size of a tennis ball, to find happiness.  How?  Why, by kicking the ball as far as they can, over and over and running after it for miles and miles of course. 

Karl quickly determined he couldn’t cope with tyre flip flops after all, blisters in-between toes is never good a good thing.  He found a pair of boots (no idea where from) and deemed that while he couldn’t catch up he wouldn’t give up. 

The people who joined in this game from the tribe ran 28 miles, Karl managed 15 and I was quite impressed with that; especially as it was in a desert type area and no less than 32 degrees celcius.

One particular comment about how crazy it was to find happiness by running for miles after a wooden ball when the women and children were at home in a concrete square without a roof was particularly funny.  Reading this back it doesn’t sound funny at all so it’s obviously the way he tells it.

Anyhoo, to get to the point, some people have freaky, and I mean freaky ways to be happy. 

Karl met one man who finds happiness in how beautiful he is.  After 120 surgical procedures his face is triangular, he has bigger cheeks than a hamster storing dinner for later and the weirdest biceps in history.  I didn’t even know you could get bicep implants!  All well and good I guess if they are in proportion but when you have arms almost as thin as a skeleton and bicep implants that look like footballs that don’t move it just looks plain freaky!

It got worse!  Karl then went to visit a group of people who find happiness from pain.  One man had inserts in his ear lobes to make the piercing bigger.  There will be a name for them but as I am old I will call them earrings.  This man had holes in his ear lobes the size of door knobs.  Weird enough you may think until he showed you his arm which had strange hard implants up and down his forearm.  Yes, apparently they hurt but he gets happiness from it. 

I don’t judge people by the way they look, each to their own; after all I have four tattoos and he was prime evidence of that as he is a lawyer.  When Karl asked what he did about the ‘earrings’ during court appearances he showed how he twisted them and stuck them behind his ear with some duct tape.

The party progressed to people having meat hooks attached to their shoulders, back and knees to be hoisted up and suspended on them.  I have watched operations on the TV time and time again and never had a problem with anything I have seen but even I had to turn away from the TV.

I am still trying to wrap my head around why that causes people happiness, let alone wondering why the skin does not tear.

Enough of that, I am getting queasy again.

The last thing he did was visit a company that allow you to smash things up, to release your anger and frustrations on an inanimate object.  That I can understand! There are some days I could happily while away 30 minutes beating my frustrations out on a random piece of rubbish at a scrap merchants.

Karl found this somewhat confusing as he struggled to find something that he was frustrated or angry at.  His way of releasing tension is to moan about something at the time, not bottle it up.  By moaning he releases the tension and frustration and then just moves on.  A by-product of that is that he is quite funny while he is twittering about how stupid or useless something is.

He eventually decided to take his frustration of PPI cold calls out on a car….

The programme is definitely worth a watch and while I don’t think that moaning all of my frustrations out on those around me will help family life the idea of smashing something up would be rather liberating on some days.

Mind you, working from home I only have the 4 dogs during the day who can hear me moan at something so maybe I should give it a go.  After all, what’s the worst that can happen; the dogs get sick of hearing my voice or I give them depression.

I’m not sure moaning will make me happy, all I am going to need to do is pick up the nearest doglet and give them snuggles!