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.

Why self diagnosis is not so good an idea

I could have sworn that I had written a post title similar to this before but I must have dreamt about doing such a post because a previous one does not exist.  I really should stop assuming I know what I am doing or have done.  Which leads me nicely into today's title.....

For those people that one person who reads this blog regularly you will know I have a history of severe migraine.  So much so that I begged for an operation and eventually got one...it only took 10 years of trying to convince doctors that I knew what I needed.  Anyhoo, after said operation the days of severe blinding pain, twice a week on average, were mostly a thing of the past.  

I may be the only person on the planet to be happy the day I got a headache, a normal headache, because it was the first I had experienced since I was 13 years old.  Good old paracetamol but that baby to rest and my life improved tremendously.  No longer did I have to wear sunglasses during a cloudy day when driving the car and no longer did the LED headlights in cars blind me at night.  It sounds silly to those that have never experienced a migraine but it was like being born anew. 

I still get migraines but in the main I do not get the pain but still experience some other warnings such as a heightened sense of smell, dizziness, feeling sick and aversion to bright light and no, alas it doesn't mean that I have been bitten by vampire.  Damon, where for art thou Damon?

Again, those side effects take much longer to make themselves known and so it has taken me a while to recognise a migraine a number of times and my trusty pills get rid of them swiftly.  Life is good.

So, where am I going with this long winded tail?  

I took myself off to London on the train two weeks ago for a work meeting with suppliers.  Although being the scribe is not normally the most important job in the room, it was this time as I was the only one available to do it.  I had an early night but struggled to sleep, in part due to noisy teenage girls falling in their bedrooms at 3.30am.  I woke at 6am with the most blinding pain I have had since I was 27 years old.  My migraines were making a comeback with a vengence.  I was dizzy, I felt like I wanted to throw up and all I wanted to do was take a wonder drug and snuggle up back in bed.  

I deduced 2 hours later that there was no way I was going to make it to the supplier meeting on the tube without doing a wonderful impression of the girl from The Exocist and paid £20 for a cab ride to the venue.  Overpriced yes but at that time it took 45 minutes to move what must have been 3 miles.  I could have walked faster had I not been in danger of wandering dizzily into the road.  I promised the driver I wouldn't throw up in his Mercedes and had my head almost out of the window like an over-excited dog most of the time. 

My manager arrived at the venue, took one look at me and promptly ordered me onto a train and home.  Alas, if I hadn't been able to handle a taxi ride all to well then I wasn't going to make a 4 hour train journey home.  I felt mildly better than I had when I first woke up and spend the day scribing away hoping that I would continue to improve during the day.

I made it to the end of the day and to the train station on the tube no less but all I will say is that I am lucky there was an escalator waiting to take me to the surface becuase I may well have looked slightly drunk when exiting the train carriage.

Obviously, it had to be close to 30 degrees celcius on the tube and the first thing I ordered was a large drink with ice and knowing I needed to eat something and not being able to face anything else I ordered some fries.  Darn WH Smith for having run out of bananas!  I managed 3 of those fries while telling Hubby how sick and dizzy I felt.  Yes, it worked he had everything ready to tuck me up in bed when I arrived home at 10pm that night.  What had started out as a bad journey was horrendous by the time I got nearer to home; fast trains rocking from side to side did not help.

I took another migraine wonder drug the following day after calling into work sick and stayed in bed and slept most of the day.  By the end of the day I was fed up and although having not eaten a tremendous amount the thought of food was enough to have been running to the bathroom.  

The following day the migraine pain had gone but I was left with the dizziness and sickness.  There was no way that I could do much of anything and even reading a book made me feel ill.  Although feeling as sick as a dog I was bored.  So I slept, a lot...for 4 days.  I hardly ate because every time I tried I felt even sicker.

I started moving around more on Monday last week and during a trip to the doctors to collect a prescription I made the mistake of getting into a lift and almost losing what little food I had eaten.  Then I had an epiphany.  I know, right!  It only took a week.  Maybe this migraine wasn't a migraine after all.

So I asked to see a GP and by some miracle I could see one in an hour.  Maybe it wasn't a miricle, maybe it was because the receptionist saw that I was a nice shade of green.

The GP told me my blood pressure was a bit high but she put that down to the fact that we were experiencing what we would affectionately call a heatwave that day (everyone else would consider it mildly warm) and the fact that I felt like throwing up breakfast.

She asked me questions about the dizziness and during the conversation asked more pertinent questions than I had managed to ask myself in the week that I felt like the world was spinning such as; 'What happens when you move your head left or right?  What about up and down?  Does you feel sick and dizzy all the time?  Do those feelings get worse when you move your head?'

My responses: I want to throw up and I feel drunk.  The same as when I move my head left and right. No, it comes in waves and is not as bad as it was when I had the worst of the migraine. Yes.

To which her response was 'You do not have a migraine; you have vertigo.'  Whoops!  Apparently I did have a migraine, however, likely brought on by the onset of vertigo.  Likely brought on by a virus experienced in the last few months or being run down.  Rachel is putting it down the latter and my flexi hours sheet for work would tend to back that up.  So far I could have nearly 2 weeks leave off without having to take any annual leave.

 The residual feelings were not still a migraine but the symptoms of what is a milder case of vertigo than some people do.  I would hate to be one of those people that suffer it worse than I am because OH MY WORD!  I am sick of feeling drunk all the time.  And to make it worse the sun is shining, it is hot and I should be in the garden sunbathing but that makes me feel urgh at the moment for some reason.  

Worst of all, the GP signed me off work for a week and a whole week later I still cannot return to work because I am still feeling drunk but not as drunk as I was.  The sickness isn't as bad but again, it still comes in waves.  Saturday I felt awful and I slept 16 hours.

So there we have it.  Vertigo not a migraine and self diagnosis is a pretty stupid thing to do.  As is buying plants for the hanging baskets and needing to pot them but that is what I am going to do.   If I feel sick afterwards I will lie on the sunlounger and rest.

 

 

 

Dozy moments

If there is one thing that I have managed to pass onto my daughter it is my ability to say dozy things before I have engaged my brain and thought about it.

Latest examples of my genes being passed to my Beautiful B:

R:     Just received a text from my aunty.  She says she just saw a mouse run across the room so she is going to get a cat.

BB:  What is a cat going to do?!

After doing a 12 mile bike ride in training for a 60 mile bike challenge:

BB:  My bum feels heavy.

Me:  So your bum muscles don't feel tight then, just heavy?

Watching a quiz show on TV with a question about Opera:

BB:  Is Opera it's own language?

No response, just laughing with her.

I love my Beautiful B so much.  She is so cute and comments such as this aren't because she isn't clever, just that she is dizzy and doesn't think before asking a question.  Having said that I can't tell what Operatic singers are saying and as I don't listen to that kind of music she would never have had the opportunity to discover that they sing in all languages.

Similarly we have dogs not cats and I have obviously neglected to tell her a lot when she was growing up including how cats chase mice (and birds) and leave them as presents on the doorstop for you (don't they Rachel...).

She is obviously in a world of her own and our latest conversation proves it!  Beautiful B is 20 years old next month and yes, I have absolutely no idea where the last 20 years have gone.  Her boyfriend has finally been sensible and instead of buying used cars from an auctioneer he has decided to buy a brand new car, to which Beautiful B and I breathed a sigh of relief after the last one set itself on fire. 

His purchase of a vehicle has, however, prompted Beautiful B to decide to take up her driving lessons again which she put on hold last year.  She came in the room I work in this morning and told me she was going to book driving lessons and had a question about her birthday present.

I am expecting a request of money to put towards some driving lessons for her and thinking to myself about whether to tell her we had intended to buy her something different.  Different being a pair of proper cycling shorts, amongst other bike related things, so her bum does not get heavy so quickly.

Instead I was asked for a car!  Makes sense now that her boyfriend has bought one; after all, his will be on finance but will cost him less each month than a procession of old and knackered cars constantly requiring mechanical help.  Luckily he has gone for a small economical car so I don't have to worry about any drag racing. And of course, if he has one then Beautiful B will obviously start thinking how great it would be to have a little run around.

Today's kids seem to want everything immediately don't they?

So I told her no!  Asked her how much she thought we earned and whether she thought I would be driving round in a 6 year old car if I could afford a new one.  To which her response was that an old one would be fine.  I know this was tongue in cheek and she knew the answer before she asked the question but then she is a trier!

After 'negotiation' I have offered to discuss with Hubby whether we should contribute to driving lessons instead of buying her bicycle equipment that will help her training.  With a not so gentle reminder that as children get older the amount spent on them for Christmas and Birthdays reduces.

Or is it just my family that doesn't spend most of their savings on their children when they get older unless it is a 'special' birthday such as a 21st or 40th? 



Not that I am.....

stressed or anything but this looks appealing right now!  Oh and let's not forget it is Tired Thursday.  Yes I have been travelling again and I am almost sure that I am still recovering from a big drinking session on Saturday for the Grand National horse race.  That is what aging does to you - be warned.  No longer can I spring out of bed at noon after sleeping off a hangover and look as spritely as I did the day before.

I have a procurement where different stakeholders will not compromise with a Commercial Board meeting at 4pm and not much of an idea what to do.  I do need to get something sorted today but it is very unlikely and that is just plain depressing. So the lack of a compromise and the digging in of heels makes me want to tear my hair out.  This is why I didn't have more than 1 child!

In addition, I support on another procurement which is MASSIVE and that is about seriously ramp up.  I have been asked to upskill another team member who is new to the team and when I read that request I almost choked on my pepsi max because I have almost as little experience as he has.  The blind leading the blind springs to mind

So today, I am not sure where to start as I seem to be chasing my tail and not really getting anywhere.  If nothing else, I know how Freddy feels when he chases his tail and achieves nothing.

So, I am going to take a leaf out of Rachel's book and make a list and try and stick to it, hoping to avoid anything else jumping the queue unexpectedly.

As an aside the fact that I work from home and Hubby is at home watching The Masters only makes me want to take a day off and spend it with him reading a really good book.

I really should stop going into WH Smith when at a train station because I always decide to 'window shop' books and come away having bought at least 1.  Yesterday I bought 2 and have read half of one on the journey home.   It is that good I want to lie in bed and read the rest.....

Well, thanks for your advice Rachel, given to me a long time ago, I am going to see if it works for me today and if not then I want coaching tips over cocktails on Friday night!

Oh where for art thou, night?

My eyes are tired, a perfect start to a days work and all completely self inflicted.  

After a busy Saturday with mum-in-law weekly food shopping, cleaning, paying bills, collecting parcels, having the tumble dryer fixed I set about cooking dinner as some of our best friends Rachel and her hubby were coming round for tea and a good old catch-up, our first since Christmas.

Hubby, as usual, took himself off for an afternoon snooze as weekend nights are very late ones watching all manner of sport.  So I set about assembling all ingredients for the meal, a simple but tasty fare of Shepherds Pie.  Potatoes?  Check.  Cheese? Check.  Shepherds Pie Sauce?  Check.  Oh come on!  You have read this blog long enough, you know by now I don't have the culinary skills to make it from scratch! Mince?  Erm, sort of!  

On arriving home from the food shopping trip this morning Hubby casually mentioned that if the Tumble Dryer repair bill was going to be more than £100 then he was going to say thanks but no thanks and buy a new one.  What?!  That makes perfect sense now doesn't it?  Buy a new dryer for twice as much as the repair.  

Of course, Hubby was not convinced that dryers were that expensive so I set about googling the nearest electrical store to prove him wrong.  Which I did but that is by the by. Considering it more important to discover the price of a replacement tumble dryer I asked Hubby to put the frozen food shopping away.  Which he did, all the while telling me that although it would be more expensive, 'obviously', the current dryer would only break again should it be replaced.  

Yes, Hubby is an expert in tumble dryer DIY which is amazing considering he almost chopped the top of his thumb off removing a cable tie from around an electrical cable.  Anyhoo, as Hubby's brain was split between two tasks, none of which were related to sport, he wasn't really concentrating on what he was doing with his hands and put all of the chilled and frozen food in the freezer including, you guessed it, the mince.  

Having left it late in the day to make the dinner wanting to serve it fresh from the oven I was a little frazzled and went upstairs to talk to Hubby.  

Me:        Hubby, will do you me a favour and nip out and get some mince?

Hubby:   We have mince.

Me:        Yes, I know we have mince but I cannot use it.

Hubby:    Why not?

Me:         You put it in the freezer.

Pause while Hubby's brain gets into gear.

Hubby:     Oh shit, I put it in the freezer when I was talking to you about the dryer.

Me:          Yep.

So Hubby disappeared to the shop during which time I nipped upstairs for a shower (having left that until the last minute too).  Just about to get out of the shower and cue barking.  Not just any barking, the symphony of dog barking that tells me that someone is at the front door and isn't taking no answer for an answer.

So I am legging it downstairs after skidding along the wooden floor in the bathroom with wet feet doing my best impression of Tod Carty in Dancing on Ice because the rugs were in the wash.  I dripped all the way down the stairs to find out Hubby had locked himself out in the rain.  No mince at the butchers.

My choice then?  To get dressed and go to the supermarket because Hubby doesn't feel the need to learn to drive and so cannot help me out in that area or order in. 

Consdering that Rachel and her hubby were arriving in less than an hour I knew I didn't have time to shop, get home, cook tea and try and have a meaningful conversation with our guests from in front of the stove so we ordered in.

Do I feel guilty that the dinner cost us over 3 times what the Shepherds Pie would have done?  Hell no, it wasn't my fault unless we consider the need to either supervise Hubby and/or start to prepare meals earlier than the last minute. 

So that was Saturday's fun and games.

Sunday was a christening as one of Hubby's snooker buddies was christening his two beautiful children.  After watching the daughter, who is 3, drink Froot Shoots, cake with lots of frosting and much her way through whole handfuls of Wotsits I can only imagine her crash later in the day bless her.  

We had a peaceful late afternoon and evening catching up on sport and the sky planner.  I decided to do a little bit of cross-stitch...which is never a little bit.....which leads to me watching programme after programme as I don't get tired....which leads to late nights....or early mornings....as in 2am......as in the reason my eyes are tired.....as in self-inflicted.

Awake at 5.30 to do a full day of work and the cinema tonight to watch The Devil Inside.  Yes, my crash will be late tonight.  Tonight I will join our friends daughter in what it means to have too much of a good thing.

Happy Monday 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.

......and a Happy New Year!

Sorry, couldn't resist!  I know we are past Christmas but she looks soooo cute!

Anyhoo, a Happy New Year to you all.  I know you haven't missed me over the festive period but you really all needed a rest from my drivel.

Not much has happened while I have been away and by that I mean almost nothing at all.  We have all been very slovenly in this household.  Hubby had a bad cold (by that I mean man flu) just before Christmas and I was panicking because I am the worst wife in history and seriously began to wonder how I could cook a Christmas dinner without him.  

I can safely feel worse about my lack of culinary talent because the exertion required to drag himself out of his sick bed to cook Christmas Dinner and then to spend Boxing Day (afternoon and evening!) drinking at our brothers took it out of him and he has only roused himself out of his sick bed this morning to go to work.

I have to say I got quite fed up of taking his dinner upstairs and finding him asleep and having to holler "Hubby!!!!!" repeatedly at the top of my voice.

In other news I have been meaning, day after day, to catch up to the football accounts, but Big Fish Games kept distracting me, as did Dexter Season 1, and my cross-stitch (pain be damned), and numerous books.  I can't say Christmas TV as it was mostly regurgitated fare from every Christmas since my childhood.

Of course, Beautiful B was brilliant in her bid to allow her colleagues with children to have Christmas off work and worked night shifts to cover for them.  She has since had 4 days off, slept most of them with a bit of caring for Ry mixed in after he drank far too much rum on New Years Eve for one person.  The faint knock on the dining room door from him preceded the question "You wouldn't happen to have any pills to get rid of sickness would you?" - oh dear......

Our usual visit to my Aunty B's for a New Year's Day buffet was fun as ever with Abi fluff being spoiled rotten.  It still didn't stop her trying to take a standing leap onto the dining table after the pork pies though.  She is probably nursing her bruised ribs upstairs as I type - stupid dog!  Somehow a conversation about the age of some of my Aunty B's ornaments, passed down from my nanny, turned to wills and bequests which then turned to dead bodies.  Now only my mum and daughter can get onto that conversation, it even freaked me, the reader and watcher of all sorts of horror and serial killer books and films, out!  I had to tell them to shut up and quite right too!

So that brings us to today, when I had to set the alarm for 5.45am after 2 weeks on annual leave to take Hubby to work; even I had to admit there was no way his still sniffly self was going to manage to cycle to work, only to have to repeatedly tell him to get out of bed for 30 minutes afterwards.  I know I am getting old after 2 weeks of staying in bed until as late as 11.30am after a lifetime of being unable to sleep past 6am and had to take myself back to bed when I returned home after dropping Hubby at work.  Staying awake until 2am reading books may or may not have had something to do with it.

And to end this rambling post one of the funniest Facebook posts I saw this New Year was from my best friend Rachel who posted a caption of her New Years Day dinner table set for a lovely buffet with a soft furry ball in the forefront with the caption "Apparently we're having Watson (the cat) as part of our New Year's buffet!"

It all started with the best of intentions

Now, that one person who reads this blog regularly probably has an idea what I am going to say and not just because she is one of the cleverest people I know.

 

Yesterday was my first day back on anti-inflammatories...which reminds me I haven't taken them yet today; hold on.

 

Okay, done now followed with a shot of tramadol.  Anyhoo, I was going to take them but then A rang up and I am trying to make the house semi-presentable for her non-planned arrival this afternoon and bearing in mind that most of my time is spent updating this blog because I am going to do that pain or not as I can do little else and I need something to stop me going mental.....

 

Where was I?  Oh yes, semi-presentable because I cannot do a whole lot so having already decided to put some washing on because surely Hubby cannot complain that is too much for my hands (and lets not tell him about me updating this blog as he will despair...) I tidied the dogs toys away and dusted the TV - why oh why do flatscreen TVs collect so much dust and whose idea was it to make the surround and stand a shiny black colour!?  Obviously not a woman obsessed with cleaning.

 

This mornings intention was to get up early (which actually happened, 7am is my usual late but currently my early thanks to a lack of iron) and it was a good job I did get up early or Beautiful B would have been late for work (thank you for the thank you text my darling honey bunch, it was very much appreciated) and do a few hours of accounting.

As it turns out I play computer games, as some of you know, and being a little bit OCDish.  Therefore, I like to finish a game and it annoys me if I am near the end of the game.  So, I thought I would spend an hour clearing one game which I did but it took me 2 hours. 

 

On top of that....if you are slightly OCDish do not download games called Virtual Families or Virtual Families 2, both of which I downloaded at the same time and I now have 2 generations of families, both of which are based around my family and in one Beautiful B and her hubby Ry have sent their son off to college and she is about to pass away as she is 61 years old.

 

They do not like doing what I tell them and as they earn little money to start off with I have to get them to be workaholics but then the wife needs to have babies otherwise how do you continue to generations?  Of course, you cannot buy all the upgrades without lots of money and in Virtual Families 2 it is worse as you can only get house renovations and purchases certain goods for the house as you move along generations.  Unlike the Facebook games you don't have to spend any money other than what you use to buy the game but being a bit OCDish I am a bit addicted to clearing it.

 

So as you can tell, accounts haven't been started yet....Oops

If you are interested, I use a website called Big Fish Games and you join up and instead of a game costing you £19.99 or similar you pay just under £6 a month for PC games (not sure what it is US currency) and you get a game credit each month.  A game can be bought with one game credit and if you want to buy more during the month they all cost that reduced amount of money.  A bargain in my opinion.  What's more, if you buy 6 games in a month you get a game free.

 

Of course, this works out a cheap way of buying games if you play a lot of games, not so much if you wouldn't buy one a month.  However, the website has different genre of games, action, arcade, hidden object, time management, etc.   Definitely worth a look.

 

The website caters for PC, MAC, iPhone/Pad, instant, community and online games so if you play on any of those platforms you may want to take a quick peek.

 

I just want to state here that I have not been asked to plug this company in any way, nor am I receiving anything for mentioning it on my site.  I just think it is an excellent site for people that want to find a way of getting out of doing accounts or housework......

 

 

An ode to my 'bestie' Rachel

Today is Rachel's birthday and as I love her I thought I would do a post in her honour.  8 years ago Rachel and I met through our boyfriends who had known each other for years. We were the odd two out as the other 4 in the group had worked together and had so much in common; we laughed at their stories of old and started new ones of our own. 

Like me Rachel can be quite shy when first meeting new people and we initially bonded over our shared 'newness' to the group.  Over time our common traits have bonded us to become best friends.  Like me, Rachel likes cleanliness but she takes the ocdishness to another level!  I like things tidy and clean; Rachel is almost obsessive - I colour co-ordinate clothes in wardrobes - light to dark because it makes sense - Rachel colour co-ordinates the hangers too.

Rachel is TALL, well compared to us short girlies - see how she bends down to lean on my shoulder in the wedding photograph above? 

On my hen weekend we thought it would be funny to stand her next to Beautiful B, who as you know, is 4 foot nothing.......   As you can see from the photograph below - Beautiful B is highly impressed as our demonstation of height differences.

Rachel is extremely close to her mum and fiercely protective of her family and friends.  Not afraid to voice her opinion if she feels something is unjust is another reason that she and I bond so well.

Rachel has two kittens to my four dogs and what I love about her is that, unlike others, she is quite happy for Fredster to bound about like a puppy around her and lie on her knee (probably crushing a thigh in the process) and he doesn't feel left out. 

Hubby and I taught Rachel and her hubby to be how to play poker, which while highly stacked in our favour at the moment won't be for long as Rachel has an incredibly sharp mind which serves her well at work and provides me with a wealth of knowledge to store for any future promotions....

Rachel and I share a love of books though even I cannot compete with the number of books that she reads.  On the annual holiday with her mum Rachel can read 14 books in 14 days - that makes for an expensive hobby; albeit a great way of discovering new authors for me!

It is thanks to Rachel that my wedding went so well; not only did she organise people so that her hubby to be, who takes the most fantastic photographs, could take the wedding photos but she also got up at the crack of dawn to drive to the reception venue and lay out all of the tables and decorate the room.  Her stories of ensuring all the knives and forks were straight and the favours aligned identically had me in hysterics but I wouldn't have expected anything less.

Rachel tells me off for working too hard, in fact, even on her birthday today after discovering my intention to do accounts and ironing I have been reminded that I am on annual leave and should be relaxing especially as I am childless for two weeks.  Even on her birthday she concentrates on others more than herself.

For some reason Rachel thinks I am funny; I disagree.  The fact that I randomly say what is running through my head may provide comedy value it is purely unintentional.  However, all I know is that when we get together we spend the time laughing and that is priceless.

Rachel, thank you so much for being one of my best friends, thank you for listening to my woes, thank you for being there for me as I am for you, thank you for everything you do for me, thank you for your love. 

Have a fantabulous day and I hope the weather improves for your family BBQ.  If not, give hubby to be an umbrella to stand under while he cooks the burgers in the rain while the rest of you stand dry and warm indoors with a good glass of red!

See you soon sweetie.



 

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.

 

Introducing Rachel - sort off

Whoop, I have now started introducing my friends to my blog - it's only taken me 2 years.

Ignoring the fact that initially it was mainly to dump my somewhat crazy thoughts out of my brain (already overflowing with little aliens) I was super conscious about people thinking I may be looking for people to fall in love with my blog.  Being a bit of a wallflower I really don't care but I have to admit I did/do want my friends to like it now/when I introduce them to it.

So Angel was yesterday and today was R, A and K.  R got in touch almost straight away and said I could call her by her real name.  I feel like doing a jig but seen as I am at work people will wonder what the strange woman in the corner is doing so it's an inside jig and the aliens are bouncing about the inside of my skull and in danger of causing spots in my eyes from the vibrations.

I do not have a photo of her on this computer so that will have to wait and I am going to try and introduce them all together, in picture form if nothing else if some of my besties still want pseudonyms.   

Anyhoo, R is now formally Rachel - say hello all you none people who read this blog......