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!

 

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.

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.

A plan to sleep

Doesn't that sound fabulous?!

I'm not the consistent of sleepers, as any of my friends will testify. I rarely sleep beyond 5am in the morning and the ability to wake early for work during the week and have a lie in at the weekend is something my head and body point blank refuse to do:

H&B:   MORNING! GET UP! GET UP! GET UP!
Me:     Please let me have a lie in!  Everyone else can!  I only went to bed 3 hours ago.
H&B:   DON'T CARE. DON'T CARE. GET UP! GET UP! GET UP!
Me:     I think I am going to ignore you.
H&B:   Really, well here, let me make you want to turn over every 2-3 minutes because as you are only drifting through a light sleep it will wake you up each and every time.
Me:     Ggggrrr, stop it!
H&B:   Mmmmmm, she is in one of those moods.  Here Mrs Ribenaberry, realise your shoulder is sore and your hand is numb - with special thanks to Mr Slipped Disc for nipping the nerve again.
Mr SD: You are welcome, anytime.  In fact, I intend to send pain right to the middle of her hand later today regardless of whether she wakes now or later.
H&B:  Ooooh, you are such a tease.
Me:    Look, I will just turn over so I am not lying on the shoulder.  Oooh, Hubby is breathing in my face and as usual, there is no reason for it, but I can't breathe properly then. 
H&B:  If you go back to sleep I will give you a headache! Granted I cannot cause a migraine now but imagine how you are going to feel doing your cleaning and accounts with a headache. 
Me:   That is what my migraine drugs are for, they will shift it in an hour. (Snooze)
Cala: Yoo hoo, I am awake and my mission in life is to lick you to death and stand on your chest jiggling about until you me cuddles.  It does not matter that you are still sleepy.  I need to go bathroom in the back garden and when done trot back off to bed and snooze for another 3 hours while you are sufficiently awake to decide to start your jobs early.
Me:   GGGGGGGRRRRRRRR!

See what I mean!

If you ask me if I am a morning or night person there is no easy answer ('Really?'  I hear you say 'I would never have guessed')  I think I might be both - I am up early in a morning and prefer to stay up until 1-2am in the morning.  I do that for 4-5 days and then I crash.

Take this week for example:   After long days of 7am - 7pm in front of a PC for all of it except a 1/2 hour lunch I arrived home at 7.30pm on Friday, apparently looking like a zombie to find Hubby cooking my tea.  


After asking for a big bear hug and eating my tea I took myself to bed and was asleep by 8.15pm.  I woke at 5am on Saturday, watched TV until 9am and then took myself back to bed to catch up on some Bizarre ER.  I couldn't stay awake so giving in I set the alarm at 10am for 12.30pm so I could take the fluff bags to the groomers and went back to the land of nod.

I was back in bed by 9pm that night, awake at 5am (thanks to Abi fluff) on Sunday morning and in bed again by 9pm on Sunday night. My normal routine is to stay awake until stupid o'clock Monday to Thursday night but I am hoping that by the time you are reading this I have listened to common sense and decided to sleep well because THE PLAN for the weekend looks like this:

On Friday, although a short day at work Hubby and I have the Snooker League Presentation Night to attend; Hubby is in one of the teams and I am obliged to go as I am their Treasurer.  It helps that I know Hubby's team well but it makes for a long and drunken night where a migraine pill is beneficial before I go to sleep to ensure a non-hangover the next morning.  

Saturday I am at work on overtime - a bid to get the first draft of the accounts to the auditors in time so lots and lots of concentration on words and numbers doing sense checks (Yes, I did fall about laughing when they asked if I, of all people, could do a sense check).

I MUST go home at 4pm to have some tea and go straight to bed without passing go or switching a TV on because I must be awake at 3am in the morning.  No I am not going to rob graves but I may well feel like I belong in one by 5am. 

Beautiful B and Ry are off to Greece.  They have to get on a plane at 6.30am and some risk averse bright spark decided that you have to be at the airport a whole 2 hours before you board the plane in England.  Being a mum I decided that it would be cheaper to drive them to the airport and back rather than the cost of a taxi.  As it is an 11/2  hours away I will be driving the car at 4am with eyes that resemble those of the mass murderer from Scream.

My intention is to get home after 6am and go back to bed until mid-day.  Here's hoping my mind, body and fluffers let me do that.

Gold Cup Day 2013; a blow by blow account

For those of you who are not of UK origin Gold Cup Day is the biggest horse-racing day of the Cheltenham Racing Festival week.  Historically Hubby and my brother C (who might as well be twins!) have spend the Friday afternoon each year in the pub watching the racing, screaming at the TV, spending copious amounts of money on beer and racing – though I am eternally grateful that Hubby can restrict himself to smaller bets than my brother even if it does my for smaller winnings.

This year, not only did I take the afternoon off work to spend with the boys I took the week off with Hubby – because he is worth it (not really an apt slogan seen as he has very little hair to speak of……)

So here goes:

• Thursday night we arrive at C’s house to spend time with his fiancée A.   Hubby loves their company but dreads their open fire place – I would spend my life in front of it if I could get away with it. 
• Hubby goes to bed muttering under his breath about nightmares after being subjected to ‘American Horror Story Asylum’ out of the corner of his eye while playing on line poker while A and I catch up on some episodes.
• A leaves me at 11pm watching more episodes as I was hooked – 3am came and went requiring a lie in the next morning.
• A swift dash home after dropping the boys off at the pub on realising that the admission tickets for the evenings charity event were safely tucked away in a drawer meant I had some alcoholic catching up to do when I eventually arrived at the pub.
• A quick dash for A and I to the charity shop to pick up some Comic Relief noses (a set of 3 meant we had to have them all) so we could mess about with them all afternoon.
• By 3pm the race winnings score was Hubby 1 – Ribena 3 – enough said.
• By 4.30pm A and I commiserate with C and Hubby after they narrowly miss scooping up winnings of £440 and £75 respectively as a result of jockey’s who forgot to put Velcro on the seat of their pants. 
• I’m guessing that commiserating by saying “C, you never had the money in the first place” wasn’t that helpful on reflection.
• After discussing all things wedding with A in preparation for being her matron of honour and making random videos of Comic Relief Red Nose getting drunk on vodka and filling up on chips we took off for cocktails (vodka count = 7).
• After being presented with a strawberry mojito an apology was in order after berating Hubby for not arguing with the barmaid over the absence of strawberry daiquiris when they were clearly on the menu.  After all, the mojito was beautiful even if it did have too many green leaves in the glass for my liking.
• Onwards and upwards to the charity evening raising funds for an operation to enable a special little girl to walk.  I walked more than well enough into that bar despite 7 vodka’s and a strawberry mojito, if I do say so myself.
• Swiftly followed by R and her hubby D, the bar beckoned as did crisps and unfortunately for me Pork Scratchings for Hubby – eugh!
• Brother C was ‘wasted’ for want of a better word; I knew he should have been eating more of those chips with me at dinner time and after selling the benefits of home made mashed potato and burgers he had to go home and lie down.
• Many trips to the sensible women selling pretend horse sponsorships and bets between copious amounts of lager (can you tell I was sending Hubby to the sensible women – I needed the drinking time…) and at the end of the evening we had won a grand total of £20 despite spending about £100 in total but were all the merrier for it all going to a great cause.
• Arriving back at C and A’s with a stomach filling 10 vodkas to my name both Hubby and I declared that we managed to have drank ourselves sober and fell into a blissful sleep until the next morning.
• Another lie in for me having realised that the lack of a lie in at home is the result of 4 very insistent fluff bags only to arrive downstairs to see Hubby getting excited at being 1 of 40 left in an online poker tournament he had been playing for 2 hours.  Even I had to get interested the more he kept throwing his arms up in the air with excitement.  A 2^nd place netted me us a nice £130 which would pay nicely for the basin and taps I wanted – who said you had to work for money.

I was just about to do that

Having spent most of the night before last doing accounts for the snooker club playing on a computer game I got hooked on Hubby came downstairs at half past midnight and told me off.  After all, the night before I had been crying in agony with pain radiating into my arms and into my hands as a result of aggravating the slipped disc in my neck.  So much so that I had required his help to pop pills from a packet and get undressed.  Grudgingly I admitted that it probably wasn’t a good idea to carry on building a pretend city and promptly went to bed and read a book about murder, mayhem and a serial killer on my iPad until half past 2 in the morning.

Other than feeling a little tired after lunch yesterday I was wide awake all day……until 8pm when I woke up after dozing off in front of the TV.  How old am I?! 40 but acting more like 60 it would appear.  Being sensible for a change I took myself off to bed and snuggled up to Hubby who was, predictably, watching the most boring sport on TV  cricket.

At half past 11 Hubby woke me up snoring like a foghorn a small noise woke me.  It would appear said small noise was so loud that it woke up Abi Fluff who decided to dance around the bed telling me to let her out immediately or we were going to have a repeat performance of “mummy you need to change the bedding because I just peed on it in excitement.”

Why was Abi Fluff dancing about I hear you say.  Having read so many thrillers and books about serial killers I think I have become quite a good detective.  Noticing that the TV was on stand by, Hubby was still snoring like a foghorns life depended on it softly and the living room side lamp was still shining I deduced that Hubby had predictably gotten bored of cricket started snoozing and switched the TV onto standby while half awake without closing up the house for the evening.

Getting out of bed as quietly as possible so as not to disturb Hubby, who by this time was led on his back like a baby, I motioned for the fluff bags to follow me downstairs for their late night sabbatical in the garden.  As a detective in training I deduced from Abi’s running about and wagging of tail at 20 mph that Hubby had neglected to let the dogs out before he started snoozing. 

I am convinced Hubby has a motion sensor permanently attached from my side of the bed to his hip.  As I got of the bed as carefully as possible Hubby turns to me clearly still mostly asleep and mumbles “I was just about to do that darling.”  Were you really Hubby, really? Were you going to wake up and think “Oooh, I had best safe the doglets from having to cross their legs all night by letting them out and then lock the house up to ensure that we are not murdered in our bed?  I mean, lets face it, Fred would run off with his tail between his legs, Lily would lie on Beautiful B’s bed and sleep through the whole thing and Abi and Cala would high five the burglars and bathe them in sloppy kisses. 

Semi-organised and semi-confused

…..can be a complete pain in the behind;

I am usually unable to switch off and relax very well, in fact; I drive Hubby mad because I am incapable of sitting anywhere for more than half an hour unless I am able to physically and mentally do something – even if it is 2 different things.  Though I must turn off for what is a short time because I do get some sleep. 

After waking 4 times on Monday night after a particularly angry stressful day at work I gave it up as a bad job (ribenaism) and got up at 3.30am. 

Before I returned upstairs at 5.30 am, doing the house-wifey bit by taking Hubby a cup of Cappuccino (no less…oooeerr get her!) in bed I had done the following:

§         made a batch of spaghetti bolognaise;

§         made a batch of chilli-con-carne;

§         all the washing up and dried it;

§         made the packed lunches;

§         weighed the girls dog food out (and yes it is a necessity*);

§         cleaned all the counters;

§         packed all my paperwork for the day; and

§         vick’d** the furniture (another ribenaism)

*  I am do not have OCD, well other than a very mild version but I have to weigh out the 3 girls dog food because otherwise the other peeps in the house seem to think that they are really golden retrievers and not tiny Bichons and before long I would be overrun (or rather over-weebled) with fat dogs.

** Baba fluff chews things, only when we are out because she is not totally stupid – after baba fluff damage on the rocking chair, carpets, doors, table corners (yes seriously, she led on the settee and chewed the corner of a table off!) and now corners of a new leather suite and trying bitter apple spray (liked that), chilli flakes (ignored that it should be distasteful and licked that off) we are now onto Vicks Vapour Rub; you know the foul smelling and even more foul tasting stuff you put on your chest to keep your nasal passages open……she keeps attempting it but so far she hasn’t overcome her aversion!

           

After thanking me for the coffee cappuccino the resulting conversation was, even I have to admit a bit of an eye opener:

Me:      “Something strange happened last night.”

Hubby: “mmmm”

(sport was on the TV, no more explanation is required)

Me:      “I don’t remember going to sleep.  I don’t remember more than 5 minutes into Grimm, let alone going to sleep.”

(it normally requires an hour of TV at least and a good few pages of a novel to knock me out, hence the not unreasonable and fantastic excuse to go and snuggle up under the covers at 9pm)

Hubby: “You said you were tired.”

(one eye on his coffee, one eye still on the TV – I should just be grateful he was semi-listening!)

Me:      “Yes, but I don’t remember turning the TV off or even removing my glasses and my phone wasn’t on the charger.”

(The light goes on for Hubby – either that or he figures I am not going to shut up and his half listening is going to be discovered any minute)

Hubby: “Well you didn’t have your glasses on but you hadn’t put your phone down.”

Me:      “Huh?”

(I’m not the most eloquent of people….)

Hubby: “In fact, you kind of looked like all you needed was a white chalk outline minus the blood which I can be eternally grateful for based on your normal literature choice. Your phone even looked like it had just fallen out of your hand.”

Me:       “Are you saying that I fell asleep while texting someone?”

Hubby: “That or smooching around your nosybooking site.”

Me:      “That is impossible!  How can I either be watching TV and/or texting/nosybooking without my glasses on; I am almost registered blind without the trusty assistance of glasses.”

Hubby:  “I gave up trying to work you out years ago.”

Me:      “I don’t believe you.”

Hubby: “Would I lie to you?”

Me:      “No, but we don’t have ghosts so if you didn’t remove my glasses then who did?  And why, pray tell, would my glasses be removed but my phone left to look as though I had spontaneously regained my sight?”

Hubby: “Maybe you took your glasses off but fell asleep between that and putting your phone down.”

Me:      “I would remember that surely!”

Hubby: “Would you?  Would you really?”

Me:      “…….”