The things I do for my best friend!

I have just realised that today is my 400th post.  I don't think I have ever done 400 of anything unless you could drink cans of pop or eating chocolate bars.....

It is only fitting therefore that today's post was is one I wrote that week and scheduled and just happens to be about one of my best friends.  The fact that it is about Angel is just by pure chance - that and the fact that she has a huge birthday coming up.

One of my best friends, Angel, who I have known since I was 12 years old is 40 in August.  When she was asked by her Hubby what she wanted to do for her birthday she said that she wanted to spend it with those that she loved and that loved her.

Her Hubby sent out a text message explaining what she wanted to 38 of her closest family and friends telling us that he had booked and paid for a lodge big enough for us all to spend the weekend and celebrate Angel’s birthday with her – yes, she is that loved, wonderful in every way that she has 38 people who love her.  I certainly could not make such a list for myself.

Anyhoo, Angel’s Hubby surprised her with his plan and since then she and her family have been planning what the weekend will consist of.  She told me that the Saturday night will be devoted to a fancy dress party.

My heart sank!  For me and for my Hubby.  I am very much an introvert and the idea of having to dress up is terrifying and more so because I am at my biggest weight ever.  I somehow had in my head that the theme was ‘What you wanted to be when you grew up’ so that was easy – nursing scrubs for me and football shorts for Hubby as a) he is obsessed with football and b) he already has Lord knows how many football shirts.  Unfortunately, I think the theme was just wishful thinking on my part!

When the finalised plans were sent out I discovered that the theme is ‘Stars of stage and screen.’  Great, so I had to find a fat role and no idea what for Hubby.

Eventually, I discovered that I could go as the Scream character as I could get an outfit in my size and it would hide it somewhat.  Hubby could go as Bruce Willis in Die Hard; that way he could still where his jeans and all I had to get was a white vest and muddy it up a bit.  I thought that would mean he was as comfortable as he could be.

However, Hubby appears to have blanked the fancy dress out of his mind considering it too terrifying to recall.  I am convinced he was nearly in tears when I told him what the theme was and what I thought we could go as.

I felt so sorry for him because he hates fancy dress as I do, he would prefer to blend in with people and hates calling any attention to himself.  Regardless of the fact that everyone else will be in fancy dress he will still feel that too much attention is on him.  I feel the same way but unlike me, the only people he knows are Angel, her Hubby and her kids.  At least I will know, even if on a very small measure, about 10 people there. 

So Hubby told me to leave it with him.  He knows he can’t refuse to go and he knows that he cannot refuse to do fancy dress as that would call even more attention to him and he would not dream of refusing Angel’s request. 

Two days later, in the car on the way to work, he said that he had been thinking about it and thought it better for he and I to go as a linked theme.  When he said that he thought that I could go as a minion and he could go as the main male character I nearly crashed the car!

So, wait!  Instead of just having to wear a dirty white vest he thinks that it would be better for me to have to go out and find him a black jacket and a scarf and a top?!  Hubby didn’t even wear a jacket for our wedding! 

I’m confused.  Angel thinks it is a brilliant idea especially because she thinks I am crazy enough to be a minion and therefore it suits my character.  I would prefer the Scream fancy dress as I can hide.  There is no hiding as a minion.

Shopping for the required clothing is going to be a damn nightmare!  I don't think they do the outfit in my size.

Shopping will also include the acquisition of a lot of vodka and beer so that we can get drunk very quickly in the hopes that we won’t care what we are dressed as.

I wonder if I could get yellow body paint anywhere……

This Human of Worth - Brittany Herself

I read a lot of blogs, probably less than other bloggers do, but none the less I have a list of my favourites.  I found Brittany maybe 18 months or so and I not only love the way she writes but also the topics that she choses to write about.  She is a much better blogger than I will ever be.  Her blog Brittany Herself can be found here.

Today I read Brittany's post and was so very touched by it.  Everything she said in it hit a nerve and it was like she was reading my mind.  She has written a blog post that should go viral because of it's importance and because it has the capacity to help others undertsand how overweight people feel.

This topic has always been important to be me because my weight has yo-yo'ed for years.  I have been super thin (though could not see that at the time - numpty), thin, overweight, and obese.  Now I would be categorised as morbidly obese.  I am the biggest I have ever been and I hate myself for it and yet I continue to eat.

Half of the problem is that I seem to be an all or nothing person when it comes to weight loss.  When I lose a lot it is because I have flipped a switch, a switch that determines that I will succeed at weight loss.  The first time I lost a lot of weight was after divorcing my first husband; I went from 14 stone 6 to 9 stone 2 and now I can look at the few photos I have and think that I looked amazing; such a pity I did not see it at the time.  I put that weight back on....and more.

I lost weight again and met my second husband but my weight ballooned again during our marriage; he controlled what he ate and drank and I used to sneak food and hide Coca Cola in the wardrobes as a way of defying him.

I lost weight again during the divorce and met my now husband.  He met me thin, he saw me thinner, he saw me gain weight and eventually I reached 16 stone 8 and I hated myself.  Hubby told me every day he loved me (and he still does) but I couldn't see why.  I flipped that switch and dropped 79 lbs and I felt amazing!  I knew I would look great for our wedding.  Yet by the time our wedding arrived i weighed near to 13 stone.  Now you can add over 5 stone on top of that; I hate myself and yet I still eat.

So yes, Brittany's post is important.  Because people only see the exterior and yet they form their opinion of that person on that exterior and they comment to others and make jokes and they do not see that an overweight person may well already hate themselves.  More jokes and comments hurt more and so we eat more and so the everlasting circle continues.

I urge any one reading this blog - please visit Brittany Herself!  I commented because I felt compelled to; in the hope that one person who has formed opinions on an overweight person without getting to know them should at least be able to read how it makes people feel.

...and I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down

Living in little 'ole England we don't suffer hurricanes and tornadoes and consider ourselves very lucky.  We had what some USA citizens may consider a slight breeze a month or so ago with winds of up to 80mph.  Living on the coast the town I live in was at risk of suffering worse than some.  We got away lightly for all intents and purposes.  

Nevertheless, Hubby decided that while having a new front gate made, which had needed a replacement for nearly a year, he wanted the fence panels in the back garden strengthened.  Now, I laughed and scoffed at this idea. After all, the fence panels between us and our neighbour to the right were strong and although nearly 10 years old they stood all sorts of weather.  The fence panels to the left of the garden were bought last year and while they rattled and sang all sorts of songs in the wind and while that scared the hell out of Fredster dog they were at little risk of breaking.

Nevertheless, I let Hubby have them reinforced and stupidly, have sat in the chair in the last month and kind of missed the rattle, moan and song of the fences.  

This week we had an amber alert for wind.  I ignored it; after all last months same warning only caused my then, un-reinforced fence panels to sing even louder.  As the days went on the warnings were increasing and on Tuesday our area was given a red alert.  Watching the weather the swirl of the cloud was right over our part of the country.

Now, Beautiful B who spends her spare time between a full time job, 3 days of college and her almost constant writing of assignments and research watching the news had somehow missed all of these warnings because as I sat in my cross-stitching chair opposite the patio door yesterday morning while settling down to watch the Olympics I noticed that her bike had disappeared.

Really, on the one day that the weather was going to get severe from lunch time she decides to ride her bike instead of get a taxi?!  So all sorts of texts were sent from a very concerned mum to her daughter insisting that she leave her bike at work and get a taxi home.  After all, I still wasn't convinced that the winds were going to be 'all that' but still a little gust of wind could blow my very talented and beautiful child into the path of an oncoming car.  

Feeling much more settled when I received a text confirmed a taxi would be used I settled down to the Olympics and as the day went on watched the tree in a neighbours garden slowly start to move, increasing it's movement by the hour.

When I ventured outside mid-afternoon to put some recycling in the bins the wind decided it wanted to help my keep the bin lid open.  

Texts were received from Hubby telling me to drive carefully to Angel's house that night and texts from Angels telling me to be extra careful.  I ventured out to the car and even at my weight I had to fight the wind to the car and I sat in the car at traffic lights while the wind buffeted the car from left to right watching the street lights sway quickly in the wind.  I saw telephone cables struggling to stay attached and when I reached Angels the wind helped me to close the car door.

Angel and I sat in her house listening to the wind while she told me all about her surprise trip to San Francisco for her Hubby's 40th birthday and periodically she told me she didn't like wind because it is the one weather phenomenon that can cause serious damage.  I reminded her that she doesn't like thunder and lightening and lightening can cause serious damage too.  We laughed at how she can forget that when in the middle of another type of storm.

Buses and trams were stopped, roads were closed, news of garage roofs sitting in the middle of a road just around the corner from my house reminded me just how my house may be affected.  Illuminations were down, the promenade was closed, siding from businesses on the promenade were being blown away.  Truly, the red alert warned of exactly what it predicted.

This morning the wind is still high but not as severe as last night.  Buses and trams are running again, though slower than normal I noticed when taking Hubby to work. Roads are closed, workmen are up and down the promenade assessing the damage to the illuminations and making it safe for cars.  Work has begun to move felled trees and building parts to open roads as soon as possible.

Our damage?  The patio table cover has blown off despite being held down by huge sealed packets of Fredsters food.  That is it.  What of the fence panels? - not one of them moved last night.  While the wind blew all around us those fence panels held strong.  Hubby was right.

I shall scoff no more.

Does westernised exhaustion exist?

shattered.com

 

If there is, I have it!  It is the end of my first full week of work and I am so tired I have been awake 2 hours and could happily go back to bed and sleep for another 5.  I am so tired I am yearning for Saturday to arrive so that I can go back to bed for a couple of hours after taking mum-in-law shopping at 8am.

The house needs cleaning and the closest to getting the house back to normal now the Christmas decorations are down (booooo, hiss) is basically taking them down because none of the normal trinkets and ornaments are back in their usual places.  For once, I am too tired to care.  

Like a true office person I am maintaining that brain power is more hard work than physical labour though if I had to test that theory I would probably die for real or spend my time wishing I was.

Strange, the gas fire has just turned itself off.  Now it either has a fail safe on it that I haven't known about for the past 9 years or we have a ghost.....I had a moment of panic that it was broken, I have to admit.  After all, it is what keeps me warm when working from home without the need to heat the whole house.  It seems to be switching back on so I can breathe a huge sigh of relief; the credit card lives to see another day.

Hmmm, now that woke me up a little bit.  The thought of being cold, yep that did it.  Not quite sure what the fluff bags would have done either because they have taken to lying on their beds in the office/dining room now all snuggled up near the fire in one big puppy pile. 

I have managed to book Hubby and I into a visit with K and M tonight.  I have already had a night at the cinema with A (the new Paranormal Activity film - don't bother) and an evening with Angel (with a bit of Beautiful B thrown in for good measure who turned up carol singing at A's house during the evening - yes, it is January) in the past 2 evenings.  It's only my bright spark that can arrange 3 visits on consecutive nights and then decide it may not have been the brightest of ideas on the first week back at work.

Maybe I am unwittingly trying to book myself early retirement on health grounds because I may well just give myself an early heart attack at this rate. I also volunteered to taxi Beautiful B around today too - glutton for punishment!

As an aside while searching the web for today's caption competition with the search word "exhaustion", I came across one that had a picture of a yawning baby that said "Anyone whoever said that they slept like a baby has obviously never had one" - now that's the truth.  That and random photos of Demi Moore, looking as unexhausted as she can so that appeared quite random.  There may well be a perfectly reasonable explanation; I just don't know it.  Answers on a postcard....

Have a great weekend everyone.

Mmmmmm, what to buy with my Christmas money.....?

I'm not the easiest person to buy for.  If you ask me what I would like my response would be 'nothing'.  Because I have everything I could want at home; ignoring the debt - a win on the lottery would be nice to clear my debts and mortgage but other than that I have a fantastic husband, a beautiful daughter, brilliant woofs and the greatest friends (shout out to Angel, Rachel, Kirst and Amanda...).  So yes, these days I find it difficult to say that I want anything.

Okay, you can buy me shoes because I love those and Beautiful B and Ry did just that on my 40th....

You can buy me perfume (Kenzo's Flower is my favourite) but I currently have 3 bottles.

and you can buy me pocket dragons....

These little rascals were collection pieces when I was in my late teens and early 20's.  By the time I moved in with Beautiful B's dad I had about 50 of them but after being burgled I was left with 6.  That hurt and I didn't start collecting them again until recently.  Now they are unavailable in shops and that is where Ebay is brilliant!

You see everyone is selling them now but I am still a child and they make me smile because they are so cute and I guess they take me back to a time when I didn't have bills and a mortgage to think about. 

So, as even I have no idea what I wanted for Christmas my family members gave me money and as a result, these babies have been ordered today.....

'Scribbles'

The first two are limited edition sets and I didn't partciularly buy them because they are limited sets but because it meant I got 6 dragons for a much cheaper price than buying them separately.  Admittedly they aren't everyones cup of tea but I don't care.....

I also collect Tusker's Elephants and any giraffe's so I don't discriminate.  If the post man arrives on a day I am working I can see there being a random break in my work day while I make room for them in my display cabinet.  

I am sure Hubby won't mind if his snooker tropies are put somewhere else.

What I learned this week

As you know I have been house and fluffer sitting at my brothers this week.  His house is huge and I have just cleaned it from top to bottom and am now resting my tired feet - here is a question: Why are my feet tired?

Here are my top lessons for this week:

• As my brother has a small dyson hoover, and the fluff collector is smaller than a standard hoover, you only just manage to hoover every room in this house once before you need to empty said fluff collector.
• As long as I stay focussed it doesn't take much longer to clean such a big house than mine; impressive when there are 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a downstairs loo, 2 reception rooms, a huge conservatory, large kitchen and utility room to clean - compared to my 2 bedroom, 1 small bathroom, 2 reception rooms and a kitchen just about big enough to swing a cat in. 
• The last week on leave before you go back to work goes by very quickly.
• Despite trying my getting in a normal sleep routine in preparation for work it hasn't worked very well.
• I can dream about Hubby waking me up out of a horrendous nightmare - so I have a bad dream about me having a bad dream!  I just haven't worked out why....
• I can take all the accounts to my brothers to do during the week and they would get done if I didn't also pack a cross-stitch, 3 books and 5 films and lets not forget setting the Sky planner so I can still watch all my favourite TV shows.
• It is much easier to give fluffers tablets if you hide them in ham. I already knew that but I did learn that it is an amazingly short time before I decide it isn't fair to force tablets down a fluffers neck twice a day times 2 fluffers.
• In a house that is newly built the insulation in the walls and loft will result in the hottest house in the world!  
• As expected, my Beautiful B told me there was 'no food' to eat in our house within the week. Not a lesson for me but she learnt something when I started instructing Beautiful B how to cook some meals by looking in the cupboard she forgot about for ingredients as that usually helps.
• I really should get someone else to return the clothes I bought that don't suit me because if I go to the shop to do it I will walk out with two new handbags.
• I discovered Ry does not even know how to use a tumble dryer - oh dear, Beautiful B has a lot of lessons to teach him before they buy a new house together.
• There are days that I should just stay in bed - an initial request to buy two things, with a text reminder doesn't mean I will remember to do it when I go to town to do some banking and have have a fabulous two hour catch up with Beautiful B. Nor does it mean that when I go to the supermarket to pick the two things up later that day I will remember to come out of the supermarket with both items, thereby having to avoid getting back out of the car to go and buy that one item.
• I should go into a Supermarket firmly focussed on what I need so I don't get distracted by the bottles of pop that would be handy for the cinema later that day.
• Spending the day with Angel and keeping her company while she waits at the hospital is great fun.  Watching 6 1/2 hours of house related programmes may result in you never wanting to watch another house related programme again.
• In 1837 Charles Goodyear discovered that if you removed the sulfur from rubber and then heated it would retain it's elasticity. This process, called Vulcanisation, made rubber water proof and winter proof to make things such as tyres.  I did not know that the company making Goodyear tyres originated because he discovered this!
• Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II (husband and wife) are third cousins because Philip is descented from Victoria's daughter Alice and Elizabeth II from Victoria's son Edward VII.  Erm okay.....not sure I agree with that....
• I would like to send my warmest wishes and love to the family and co-stars of Lee Thompson Young (stars in Rizzoli and Isles as Detective Barry Frost) who tragically took his own life at age 29.  

So what have you learned this week.  Join in the fun by following the instructions below.  Have a great week everyone!

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.

Eyes open, wide awake

No I am not doing an impression of Paul McKenna’s hypnotism act but rather an indication that I may have been up at stupid o’clock – otherwise known as 1.30am. 

After getting home from work at 7.30pm last night, I decided to be responsible and have an early night knowing a long day is ahead today.  After nagging him apparently, (good job he was joking) about looking at garden furniture he went to watch football.  In my defence, he did promise to have a look at the internet links when I got home – I was home.

Angel and I waxed lyrical about both being successful for 2 job vacancies in the same school, what mischief we could get up to and how we would take them by storm.  After watching TV for 2 ½ hours, a miracle in itself as I am normally asleep within 30 minutes, I woke at 1.30am with a headache.  Pills were in order and being wide awake I led under the covers reading a blog archive on my iPhone so as to not wake Hubby waiting for sleep to overtake me; unfortunately it didn’t, it ran in the other direction.

I can only assume that I am so wide awake at the moment because I am Tramadol assisted. Hubby thinks I woke up at 4am and I will continue to let him believe that so he doesn’t have a coronary.  Working until 8pm tonight I have a valid reason for looking like a zombie when I return home.

My day will be nicely broken up with a trip to the garden centre where I can oooh and aaah over garden furniture and hopefully return to work with a fire pit. 

On a completely different note:

Beautiful B is due home on Sunday and as I am getting more and more excited each day I suspect I will be unable to keep still when driving to collect her.

She has found a stray dog on her travels.  There are lots on the Greek Islands and it is just like Beth to stumble across one.  Being a dog lover and well, Beautiful B she has been taking it ham to eat each day.  On Tuesday night I received a text to say she had discovered the dog had 9 small puppies and by the text I could tell she was crying as she typed it.  I found her an animal shelters phone number using the wonders of google and they will take care of the dogs, feeding them each day until they have room in the shelter and they will sterilise the mum so she cannot struggle to feed babies in the future.

This is typical of Beautiful B and you can guarantee that she and Ry will scout all stores to try and find a way of feeding them proper dog food until they come home.  What she has done is exactly what I would have done and it is yet more evidence of how caring she is. She has taken lots of photos to show me because she knows that I would have been just as distraught at having to leave the fluff bags to sleep on the street.  If she could find a way to fetch all 10 dogs home she would.  I would wager that if I would let her she would quarantine all 10 dogs and then fetch them home. 

I know I have to wait for her to come home but I so don’t want to.  Both she and Ry are going to have to ensure they breathe deeply before I get hold of them because I may just squish them so tightly they lose the ability to breathe.

Tired Thursday…..a day late

After my first non-working day (testing a different working pattern) on Wednesday, which was fabulous as was the Tuesday because I knew I would be off on the Wednesday, I returned to work on Thursday raring to go.  Pity then that I never got to go or at least that is what it felt like.

Having said that I had a great time as my boss’s boss, who is based half way up the country travelled to see me for our usual monthly face-to-face get together.  Not literally face-to-face because how would we get anything done? I enjoy these visits because she is very down to earth, isn’t afraid to admit her work insecurities and is a genuinely nice person.  

Having suggested a formal work plan for the team I’ve had to put a lot of work into ‘additional’ activities to set it all up for the team and so time is needed each visit to go through it and generally add things to it!  What with that, joke telling, discussions around date nights and babies 5pm had arrived and I only had 2½ hours to go before I was OUTTA THERE!. 

A fly on the wall would have watched me jiggle around in my seat for the next 2½ hours in excitement because I was visiting Angel straight after work.  We haven’t physically met up for 3 weeks as we have both been flitting around like butterflies and quite frankly quick texts and emails just ain’t going to cut it because I am very demanding and get withdrawal symptoms if I don’t see my best friends often enough.

I mean, quite frankly, it’s bad enough that my best friend Rachel has deemed it necessary to go on holiday with her family, abroad no less, to somewhere that is likely to have intermittent WIFI unless you are willing to chop off a leg or donate a kidney to pay for the fees they charge.  It has to be the cost because I am sure that if it weren’t for that she would deem it much more important to chat to me via email than spend time with her beloved family.  After all, who is she going to discuss all things related to OCDishness with if not me?

Angel greeted me at the door in her PJs and a lack of direction to her hair and still, as ever, managed to look gorgeous.  Having been out for a run and returned home wet enough to wring a full jug of water from her person as the heavens had dumped a weeks worth of rain on her, her Hubby looked at her as though she had gone mad as she passed him on the way to the shower.  Don’t you just love it when you can slob around in PJs in front of your best friends and know they just don’t care?  I sat there admiring the dressing gown, after all, I did purchase it for her one Christmas and I do have such good taste.

As usual, we put the world to rights and she had me in hysterics.  Besides having a wonderful story telling ability I couldn't help but laugh at the mental picture of Angel screaming so loud at the cinema, when watching a horror film with her hubby, that she scared another woman enough to make her drop her popcorn. 

I arrived home at 11pm to Hubby falling asleep.  Having a day off work and doing some ironing he had obviously tired himself out.  Seen as he deemed it more important to snore than catch up on the day with me I watched an episode of Bizarre ER which was not that bizarre to be fair before falling asleep and leaving the Sky machine to turn itself onto standby.

My unconscious mind pricked me awake at just before 5am.  See!  Even when asleep my little aliens still whirls those little motors to move thoughts in and out of their filing cupboards (obviously organised by year, category and level of importance).  There is probably a little alien walking around with a little clipboard, pen and paper on which they are frantically adding things to do, randomly telling people to pull things out of cabinets and then happily checking of each task as it is complete....as long as they remember to look at the list.  In fact, maybe it is not my fault that I forget to update or check my list - maybe, it is the symptom of a forgetful alien! 

It is no wonder I wake up tired.  They were obviously reminding me that I hadn’t set the alarm which begs the question do I actually need an alarm? 

I must sleep on a motion sensor that electrocutes Hubby when it senses I have risen from the bed because he woke up and despite having another day off work (for golf watching of all things) the beautiful man got out of bed and made my lunch before convincing me I needed another hour in bed before getting ready for work.  He is either very thoughtful or I looked so scary that he thought only another hour would reduce eye bags big enough to scare even the bravest person at work.

Waking much more refreshed at 6.15am, I was in work before 7am; I’m not even going to attempt to discuss what my hair looks like or why I have deemed that a Friday means foundation is not needed but still I am here if as not raring to go as yesterday. 

So I’m here for another long day.  I have to catch up the work that I could not get to yesterday.  I must make up flexible working hours to support the different working pattern I want so I can blitz the house mid-week.  Another 7am-7pm work day for me. 2 long days back to back – oooh get me!

I’m quite wide awake at the moment; one would hope that would be the case seen as it is lunch time and I have only been here 5 hours.  I would wager at least 10p on the fact that I will feel super tired by 2pm having eaten lunch. 

There is no hope of me having a earlier finish than 7pm tonight though.  Besides the obvious devotion to my job I have also deemed it necessary to book the last 2 weeks of May on annual leave.  After all, Beautiful B is off on a romantic holiday with Ry to Greece and a quiet household could be the perfect opportunity for some 'me' time. 

Note I said ‘opportunity’ and not ‘destination’.  That would be because as well as the additional benefits of sun, sea, sand, endless cocktails, food, sunsets and sunrises in the Maldives I would at least relax in the Maldives.  Hubby has it in his head that I won’t relax at home and will find every opportunity to find a job that needs doing.  He is of course wrong!  I am not, in any way, already thinking about buying exterior paint to paint the concrete panels under the fence to match the garden wall, nor hack down the tidy up the triffids hedges in the front garden…..

At the moment, I’m rather confident that I can ensure that the work I normally clear within 4 weeks can be done in ½ the time in preparation for my holiday at home.  One may wonder though whether that confidence is linked to how wide awake I am feeling at any given time.  Maybe by 5pm I will be crying into my Coca Cola can begging for a drop more energy from it’s caramel lovliness.

I am hoping that Hubby is going to continue his housewife type behaviour today and have my tea ready on the table when I get home.  He may have to prevent me from falling asleep in my gammon steak and chips or maybe he will prop my head up on a spatula so as to prevent the need for a shower to wash the sqished peas from my hair.  He may well just have to cut out the middle man and escort me upstairs, put me to bed and, having used a blender to the best of it’s ability, intravenously feed me my tea through a plastic tube while I snore all ladylike in bed.

 

Pain or pills; that is the question

Having given myself backache over the weekend, because let's face it that is what I did - lugging about heavy bin bags full of things for recycling and cleaning almost all weekend is not the best of ideas, I have suffered for 2 days (today is Wednesday and I am trying to be organised and get a post done for tomorrow).

I have some pills which are great.  I only take them intermittently and they are prescribed to help the pains I get in my arms and hands when the barrage of other pills I have for my condition aren't enough.  Luckily I don't have to take them very often but I do know that they are that strong if I take more than 4 I get a bit cuckoo.

On Monday night I took two as I was in agony with my back; they help the pain in my hand so it stands to reason they would help the back pain.  I woke up at silly o'clock on Tuesday morning courtesy of Cala Fluff and took another two.  We are looking, therefore, at a 6 hour time frame between doses.

I drove to work as normal and started work quite happily; gingerly but happily - pain, after all, doesn't affect my sense of humour.  I was passing sweets around work; after all if I am going to ruin my teeth others can share the fun.

By 10am I was feeling sleepy and I was suffering from some double vision.  I wasn't overly worried because I have had those side effects before.  However, they just continued to get worse and by the afternoon I was struggling to keep my eyes open at work.  The need to constantly try to adjust eye focus was tiring and more than a little frustrating.

I did actually nod off at one stage and I am not sure if anyone noticed but I was mortified none the less.  By 5pm I'd had enough and made an appointment at the GP to discuss the medication.

The need for medication, in my head, is simple.  I want medication that will take away (or at least take the edge) off the pain so I can stay at work and still do a half decent job.  Instead I have a pill that I cannot function with and I'd like to know how I would cope if ever need to take more than 4 pills!

I cannot take any pill that is codeine based as it can cause migraines (if only they had told me that prior to the operation because that was one of the medications they systematically provided me with - rant over.

I had arranged to see Angel last night and i wasn't about to postpone just because I was seeing 2 of everything.  She knew immediately that something was wrong and when I agreed to go home at 9am no other evidence was needed to demonstrate how tired i must have been.

Leaving Angel's house after insisting I did not need a taxi to get home she made me promise to call her when I got home.  That I did from my bed because on arriving home I took myself off to bed without passing go or collecting £200.  

I slept most of the night and when the dogs did look as though they were going to start insisting I get up I put them back at the bottom and thankfully they settled back down.  

So did I sleep well - yes, but I don't feel refreshed today.  I don't have any vision issues but I amd getting extremely tired at work.

Morral

Don't take any more Tramadol, put up with the pain at least until Friday morniing because i at least have to be able to work and important look like I am working.  I'm on leave tomorrow so I can lie in bed or potter about at lest so I don't have to struggle at work. 

In the meantime I have to get through today and at this rate it will be another day of trying to look like my eyes don't want to lose a battle and sleep and quietly remind myself that I can go straight to bed when I get homes.


 





 

Decisions decisions

This post isn’t funny, not that I am generally funny but just a forewarning – I am sounding out my thoughts thinking putting it on paper might help me make a decision.

Going to work is handy (as handy as going to work can be without a lottery win) at the moment as Hubby and I work in the same direction from home – I drop Hubby off on the way to my office so the only issue I have is convincing him that he has to work the additional ½ hour it takes me to travel to and from my office from his.

The Government are rationalising their estate and closing a site in Blackpool, naturally this is the one that I work at.  In their position I would do the same thing, it is the oldest and therefore most expensive to maintain and the best site to sell in terms of real estate.  However, this causes issues because the site I am being moved to is in the opposite direction from home.

As much as I love Hubby, who refuses to learn to drive on account of him ‘being too old’ now (how old does that make me seen as I am older than he), I have refused (and not that he expected it) to drive in one direction to drop him off, turn around and drive past our house and beyond to drive to the new office twice a day.

Luckily some are being financially compensated for the forced move of offices as their daily travelling distance will increase.  Unfortunately we are not one of them as my new office is nearer than the current one and our household increase in expenditure cannot be taken into account, only mine.

Despite the obvious increase in travelling cost it drastically increases Hubby’s travel time as he will have to catch 2 buses to work (and back) which will add 2 hours to his day or use a bike which will add an hour to his day.  It will be amusing to watch him on a bike, though not as amusing as watching him from behind while he attempted hula hooping on the Wii Fit……

All of this leaves me with a decision to make.

I have a tendancy to work longer hours when I do not have Hubby insisting it is time to go home and without the regiment of picking him up that tendancy will increase.  My manager is already not too impressed with the additional leave I accumulate as a result of increased work hours as it leaves her work uncovered at times (strange that, seen as mine is always uncovered when I am on leave and she is part-time which exacerbates the situation).

For a long time I have hankered after working 4 days a week instead of 5.  We cannot afford the drop in salary, especially with increased travel costs but as Hubby will be out of the house for longer I could do 5 days over 4 – essentially fitting 37 hours into 4 days instead of 5.  This should be easy for me to do as I have a tendancy to work longer days anyway and will help in the unwanted accumulation of work hours.  I would still be out of the office the same amount as Hubby as a result of the increased travelling time he will incur.

I also hanker after being more productive at home as a wife and mother – and I am almost sure (because my memory is sieve like and useful on most days) that I have twittered about this previously.  The opportunity to be at home earlier than Hubby gives me the time to clean daily and cook tea for the family to eat together and still have time in the evenings to spend with Hubby and Beautiful B.

As you can see, these options are a direct contradiction of each other – longer days for 4 days of the week means I won’t be home until Hubby is home.

Hubby thinks that doing 5 days over 4 will put me under pressure at home and he is saying this purely because he knows that I get stressed when I cannot get the cleaning done that I want and potentially for 4 days of the week I am going to have to make a decision between cleaning and spending time with the family.

That option is obvious – family should come first which they would but it also means that I will begin to fidget, twitter and all round get stressed because I find it difficult to relax (in fact, impossible) if there is cleaning to be done – I blame my dad and the only other person that understands this is my longest friend and one of my best friends, Angel because she is worse than me.

So I’m at a crossroads and have no idea which way to go.  Do I do 5 days over 4 and blitz the house one day a week so I still have the weekends for the family or do I become the housewife that I hanker to become……

Decisions decisions

A belated birthday cake

My 40th Birthday Cake

Well, it's not, because I did get this 2 days before my actual birthday but as you can tell I have somehow managed to find the link that allows me to upload photographs - I swear that it was not available up until 2-3 days ago!  

I figured I would record for posperity, you know in case Beautiful B ever stumbles upon this blog before I die or after she knows about it when I'm gone.  

Beautiful B and Angel were tasked with designing the cake.  I insisted actually; Hubby had looked like a scared rabbit between headlights so it was best to hand the mantle over to 2 people who know me better than anyone else in the world - after all, there was no way I was dealing with that on top of everything else and I wanted it to be a total surprise.

In no particular order:

Giraffe - I can only assume it has a Christmas hat on purposefully because I am as obsessed with Christmas as I am with giraffes and it killed 2 birds with one stone - giraffes are all over my house - I think they are so very strange looking but so very graceful with it.  Weird?  Probably but nothing new there.

Needle & thread - very boring of me but I love to do cross-stitch patterns.  It started when I got divorced the first time (don't ask) and moved back to mum and dad's with Beautiful B.  It was the one thing that allowed my mind to quiet.  I started and so far have yet to stop.  They make for fantastic presents - mum has 4 of them, all 4 of which she kept saying she liked when I started them for me - I soon saw a pattern emerging (see what I did there.....)

Pepsi Max - addicted.  It doesn't help that I don't drink coffee, tea, milk or anything similar (milk is only good for making cereal soggy - the remainder gets drained off and the dogs love me for it).  I stopped drinking milk when I was 6 months old (see!  awkward from almost the time I was born!) and mum had to make do with giving me milky puddings to top up the required calcium.  I drank pop and cordial throughout my childhood and have drank Pepsi as long as I can remember.  I prefer full fat Coca Cola but lets face it, the constant fluctuation in weight has a lot to do with the intake of that so Pepsi Max it has to be most of the time (though not at this precise moment in time when coca cola is back in favour but only for another few weeks before I tire of being so fat again).

I drink that much of the stuff that someone once took the time to count the number of cans I drank a day (admittedly Coca Cola at the time - shout out to Glenn).  In fact, if I recall he had a 5 bar gate going......

Anita Blake (Laurell K. Hamilton) books - I read copiously, admittedly usually murder, mayhem and serial killers (they ALWAYS get caught and the good guy always wins).  I found the Anita Blake books by accident and was hooked from book 16 (though I had to go back to book 1 to start the series) and have been hooked on that series ever since.  Her imagination is astounding and I don't know of many other authors who could spin a story out and extend the story line the way she has through 20 books.

Beautiful B wanted to know what my favourite books were.  Truthfully, I don't have one but as I had to name one (pretending I had no idea why she was asking) Anita Blake books are pretty much at the top. So these books signify my love of books. 

So there you have it, a cake that tells anyone what I am like mostly.  It weighed too much for one person to pick up as it was huge and the cake maker refused to add figurines of me, Hubby and Beautiful B, plus the 4 fluff bags and a cute alien (the other loves of my life) as she said it would look to busy.  I have to say I am quite disappointed, even Angel told her that was the point - I am always busy so the cake should be too.  Mind you, on the upside - it provides a great start for the 50th novelty cake!

The big 40

So I hit 40 and unlike my mum I celebrated being 40 because I am more comfortable in myself than ever before.  I have a loving family, a Hubby who adores me as much as I him and a daughter who has an inner strength to behold and does me more than proud every single day.

I bought a posh dress, I returned that dress to the shop as Hubby told me another suited me more.  I guess it is unusual for a Hubby to have such fashion sense - mind you, he needs to because without his help I would live in black and dark colours.

I arranged for Beautiful B and I to have our hair done - after all, its not every day I hit a milestone.  Then I spent 10 minutes moving the curled bits at the sides of my face up and down in front of Hubby going "Up or down, up or down, up or down."

The DJ arrived, Angel carried the cake in and I thought it was the best cake ever.  Angel and Beautiful B arranged for a novelty cake to describe me to a T and that is exactly what it did.  The buffet was arranged and I had a vodka to calm my nerves - after all, people may not come.

Except they did, and I worried I couldn't get round them all and they had all come to see me.  Angel told me to relax and enjoy it - the vodkas situated around the room bought for me helped; after all it would have been rude not to drink them all.

The buffet arrived and it took me 20 minutes to realise it had arrived; Hubby spent the evening with my purse to make sure everyone was paid because the vodka started taking effect and I was busy flitting around like a butterfly.

I was truly spoiled with the presents and very humbled by the amounts some people gave me.  It has enabled me to buy a new camera which has been broken in during the hen weekend and bought just in time for that, the wedding and the honeymoon.

But none of that mattered; what mattered was that my nearest and dearest and much loved friends took the time to come and celebrate with me.  I was humbled at the number of people who cared enough to come.  Cards and presents didn't matter, copious amounts of alcohol and food didn't matter.  What mattered was the time I spent talking to everyone, some of whom I had not seen in months or missed working with terribly.

Hubby even smiled for photographs; all great practice for the wedding photographs and I have some wonderful photos to frame and will cherish the memories and photographs for a long time.