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!

 

Hiding under the covers

Not because I am scared. Having my face under the covers makes me feel suffocated so I'm more likely to cry if scared of monsters and boogymen. I'm under the covers with a gap so I feel I can breathe. 

It's 4.16am and I'm wide awake so I thought I'd write to u lovely folks and update my To Do list. Except now that Apple, in their wisdom, made their latest update white there is a risk of waking Hubby. So I'm under the covers with the phone. 

Not that he would go mad, angry mad, more that he would worry. Yes we all know he is not himself if not worrying about something, but I have given him cause this weekend. 

You see I'm still recovering from the trauma of returning to work post-Christmas and I arranged 3 nights of catch-ups with best friends back-to-back in my first week. That is never a good idea when your brain is reeling from having to think about hard stuff after spending 3 weeks worrying only about where the next piece of Turkey or satsuma is coming from. So by Thursday I was exhausted and by Friday I resembled something from The Walking Dead. 

Saturday and Sunday should have been days for chores but after the weekly shop they became days for game playing and, in Sarurday's case, an afternoon snooze of 2 hours. Saturday evening was a Sky Planner evening with my latest cross-stitch. All well and good, plenty of relaxation except I stitched away catching up all of the weeks programmes until 4.15am. 

As you can guess after turning over and finding an empty space, well more accurately 2 dogs making the most of the extra room, Hubby came downstairs asking if I knew what time it was at 3am - cue his worrying. 

I slept in on Sunday morning until 11am, understandable really, while Hubby prepared stuffed potatoes for lunch. Chores should have been commenced but Hubby believes in Sunday being a day of rest and sport. It's rare I will spend an extended period of sport watching if it isn't the Olympics, so I played a game, one game for over 10 hours obsessed with getting a gold cup on each level. By 9pm I was telling myself 'just 1 more level' but after a break while I listened to Beautiful B talk through a very stressful day and reminding her how good she is at her job (while massaging a numb 3 fingers) I went back to the game.  No-one ever said I wasn't dedicated when I wanted to be....

I came to bed at 1am and slept for 3 hours but despite Tramadol for the self inflicted pain, for which I will suffer the rest of the week, I was wide awake at 4am thinking of things to add to the To Do list and things that must get done today. Experience tells me I have to update that list or sleep with continue to be elusive. Yet, I am still awake. 

So I will now try reading my book and see if that sends me back to the land of nod for the last hour before I get up and help Hubby get ready for work. 

Today I will see how much of that To Do list I can clear around yet another GP appointment for blood tests and an ECG. 

Have a great Monday everyone x

10 hours and counting

 

10 hours is how long I have left before I get on a train with this beautiful but equally as nutty person as me.....

 to go to London and we are leaving this wonderful and sensible man.....

 

to look after these babies.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having already laughed at how excited I was this morning I am not sure he will be able to cope with the level of excitement he experiences when he gets home and finds me packing my suitcase now that all of the chores are.  I am convinced he will be secretly relieved when I go to bed early in a bid to avoid what could be an inevitable crash at around 5pm tomorrow night....After all, I already know the minions have how I am going to feel at the beginning of the trip and how I am going to feel after I get home just after midnight on Monday night after walking around London for 4 full days and nights.

 

 

Worth it?  Most Definitely!  Thank you my darling Beautiful B for such a wonderful birthday gift.  Please don't spend as much on me next year....a lovely card and a kiss will be great.

 



Excited....much

I'm easily excited and as it was my birthday on Tuesday I was allowed more than usual.  I was spoilt as I spent Monday evening with my 4 best friends drinking cocktails and having a lovely meal and Tuesday evening at the cinema with Beautiful B, Hubby and Ry.  Yesterday was a 12 hour day at work but we won't dwell on that.  Today I am off work.

 

It is 6.41am and this time tomorrow Beautiful B and I will have been on a train nearly 2 hours travelling to our capital, London to see the sites and spend some quality mother/daughter time together.  My daughter spends far to much on me and does not understand the concept of a birthday card and a small gift and this year she visited various members of my family asking for their birthday gift to be money that she could put towards the trip.

 

Like I said truly spoiled!

 

To say I am excited is a slight understatement and although I have drawn up a list of chores to do I have added little extras like a full list of what I need to pack, transferring money to another account to spend in London.....you know, just as a reminder so I can get giddy...okay, in reality I have OCD and live by lists.

 

I want to get through all the mundane chores this morning so that I can get to the important things such as packing this afternoon and have that done before Hubby comes home from work.

 

An early night is called for as our first train is at 4.30am so we will be awake from 3am if we get any sleep at all because it is a bit like Christmas Eve when I was 5 years old and I might just not sleep because I can't wait for morning to come.

 

I kind of need someone to do this....but it's not gooing to work even if someone said it. (My apologises if anyone is offended by the language).

On a completely different note IOS 7 was downloaded for the new iPhone 5 last night.  Beautiful B and I said "Ooooooh" at the same time once we saw the new look. 

I'm now downloading ALL of my music from the iCloud as the computer has been cleaned up and can store that much data and I may have gotten a bit carried away with having a 64gb iPhone because I can now put ALL my music on it and it has 124 items still to download and has been doing it's business for a good 15 minutes already. Is that the longest running sentance I have ever done?  Maybe.  iTunes may well have to carry on doing it's business on it's own while I am taking my mum-in-law food shopping.

Hubby has just rang; having been out overnight at my brothers as it is closer to his snooker veneu, he is now at work.  So far, I have asked if he is at work; yes, can he start work at 7am; yes, even on a Saturday; cue laughing, it's not Saturday, oh yes, it's friday; no it isn't Ribena, it is Thursday, Ha ha, I'm a bit excited; yes you are aren't you?

On that note I am off now to get dressed, drag a brush through my hair and wash my face to go food shopping, then I can rush through my chores to start the all important packing, crossing things off lists, double checking everything is in the suitcase, going through drawers and the bathroom to check I haven't missed anything.....note, must add iPhone charger to the packing list.

You may or may not get random comments and pictures uploaded over the weekend; or I may just be trying to keep up with Beautiful B and her stuffed full itinery.....

 

 

 

All Change

This week my computer decided that it was going to be as ill as I have been these last few weeks - it doesn't like feeling left out and is clearly a copy cat. At the same time I got to the end of my tether with it acting like a 100 year old person and running (more like hobbling along) far too slowly. After sitting in front of it waiting not so patiently for it to open an application I gave up, after all who wants to spend an afternoon doing accounts that should take 2 hours? 

The PC is in the PC hospital to have an overhaul and Clean up.  And by clean up I mean blowing out all off Fredster's hair remnants as well as ridding it of sny viruses.  So I did think you guys woud have to put up with the untidiness of my posts as the blogger iPad application doesn't let me do half as much as it should. However, my A came to my rescue and has a new laptop that she wasn't taking on holiday.  My OCDishness when it comes to the font, colour and format of the blog is intact.  

Beautiful B will be happy when the PC returns healthy and raring to go.  After all, she wants to use up much more memory and RAM than i would like her playing Zoo Tycoon 2. 

So posting on the iPad is a change as is where I am posting from. Hubby and I are house sitting for my brother C and his fiancé A.  In reality we are doggie rather than house sitting as I decided it was silly to put them in kennels.  I wouldn't want to spend a week in a metal cage and sleeping on concrete. So that's the second change. 

It is Saturday and I'm sat on the couch while Hubby is sat on the other one playing on-line golf and watching cricket.  There is the third change as I do not like cricket and i normally spend the afternoon cleaning or accounts or playing computer games. In cricket they do a lot of nothing between runs and it bores me. 

I'm not sure I can cope any more with cricket so I'm going to snuggle down on the settee and lose myself in a world of vampires. After all, I am sure football will be on later too and that is one sport I really don't like watching.  

It is great to spend time with Hubby even if we are doing two different things. It is not often we get to just sit and enjoy our hobbies together. I like asking him if he wants another beer or a snack every 20 minutes or so.  I like looking after him although anything requiring preparation as a snack he would have to do as my fingers still don't play ball with knives and vegetables or cheese graters.

Have a great day everyone. On Monday when you read this Hubby and I will be celebrating 9 years together. 

When you begin to wonder if annual leave is a good thing

Yes, I know?!  Who would have thought I would ever think that?  If I am honest, I am not truly seriously thinking that because it would warrant people saying I am crazy for starters and I don't think I have much of a leg to stand on at this point.  

 

Yet I find myself, on the first day into my second week of annual leave ,wondering who will have gotten more out of this bout of annual leave - me or Beautiful B.  Yes, it is always great to be off work, it has to be only a workoholic that would say otherwise, but I was awake and fully dressed by 7am every morning last week because Beautiful B took my annual leave as an opportunity to have her room decorated.  Before you say it, yes I know I am usually up by that time anyway but it would have been nice to be lazy and not get dressed until later in the day.

 

While we all joke about how workmen have more breaks than they work, this one didn't.  He turned up here almost at the crack of dawn every day and worked almost solidly through the day and he has done an excellent job.  It has been difficult to relax though and it seemed a little unfair to be soaking up the sun in the garden while he worked so very hard. 

 

This morning I am sat at home waiting for the carpet fitter to arrive so I daren't go out into the back garden because I fear I may not hear the doorbell, which I should really take off the front door as people assume it works when in fact there is neither a ding nor a dong to be heard in the house when it is pressed.

 

So as I have been off work all week and I am the queen of clean, my house is spotless, right?  No, no, no....because I also worship the sun and so I have been torn.  To be fair to those of you who thought you might know me so well, had it been left entirely to me, yes the house would still be spotless but remember it is Monday which means Hubby has been at home all weekend. 

 

Yes, ALL weekend and no I didn't give him a week off overtime, work did.  The computer systems were having some maintenance completed so he spent all of the hottest weekend in at least 2 years at home with us.  Though, if he had said he needed a weekend off work I would have been more than happy for him to do so, honest!

 

Momentarily, back to the reason the house isn't spotless - would you believe that Hubby told me I was to do no cleaning and relax?!  Yes, well me too.  When I did attempt to paint the back gate on Sunday I was told once again to sit down in the sun and read a book. 

 

So what did we do instead?  The garden furniture had arrived just in time for the sun because we have spent most of the weekend sat on it, soaking up the sun and drinking much more alcohol than a person should really be able and still stay sober (in Hubby's case).

 

Hubby had taught me to play Bezique on Saturday morning which I really enjoy even if I am rubbish at it.  The need to be able to recall what cards have previously been used in the game dictates that I will never get much better either because I have the memory of a goldfish.  

 

We played the card games Black Jack and Uno with Beautiful B on Saturday afternoon, the latter of which I was quite good at because it is very much like Snap and almost as easy.  A gorgeous BBQ in the evening finished of the day fantastically well. 

 

On Sunday, after picking up some fresh meat and being trapped in a car park for an hour in 30 degrees celcius Hubby and I spent the afternoon in the garden reading (in my case) and playing online golf (in Hubby's case) until Beautiful B and Ry arrived later that day.  Two hours of the board game Taboo later which Hubby and I lost thanks to my goldfish brain and we wrapped up another excellent day.

 

So....essentially I am saying that the house is a mess because I did very little. I have a great excuse to get some done today, once the carpet fitter has disappeared (he is currently hammering away upstairs as I type) becasue the sun hasn't burnt through what clouds there are yet.  

 

I wonder if I could whizz very quickly around the house while he is hammering and fitting away.....?  No point hoovering until he is gone as there will be bits of carpet flying everywhere but I could get some other jobs completed. 

 

The jobs don't end there though because Beautiful B has put a lot of the belongings she no longer wants in my car boot so that I can take them to the rubbish tip on the way to picking Hubby up from work because  because 'it is on the way to collecting him.'  In fact, it is past his workplace but there really is no point splitting hairs with her at this point, is there?  

 

After all, I don't have dinner to make tonight as Hubby and I are off to my mum and dad's as mum is lovingly making my favourite home cooked meal of all time - homemade meat and potato pie!