The removal vans have been loaded. The fantastic interior designer has been at work (credit to follow!) and I have a new home!
Come and see me here.
May 12, 2008
I’m still trying to catch up with my Bloglines posts as well as try and sort out my new blog host. I’m working on moving over to a wordpress blog I host myself. It’s ok, I’m learning a lot but it’ll take more time and energy to get going.
I know I’ve been tagged by Vic so I’ll hopefully get to that soon as well.
May 9, 2008
I’ve spent most of this week with internet access that at best was intermittant and slow, and at worst just not working.
It’s been really frustrating. The ISP weren’t answering their phone and when we did get home of them by email (the only thing that vaguely stayed working throughout) they referred us to their status page. Yes, that’s helpful, we can’t access your site! They claimed they had no way or knowing who was or wasn’t affected so couldn’t contact anyone, but I’m sure they must have kown somehow.
Anyway, we’re now considering moving somewhere else. We’re on an old tariff with our current ISP though and we get unlimited (though not high speed) downloads for not a huge amount of money. We’re not sure anyone else would be able to compete with that. We’ll have a look anyway.
My task is now to catch up on blogs I’ve missed. I was already behind after being away for the weekend. Bloglines currently shows 236 unread posts! I didn’t even use the lack of internet to help tidy the house, the munchkin and I went shopping yesterday (didn’t buy much though, don’t want to spend too much on clothes in case I get this whole diet lark sorted) and Wednesday was spent out at fitness class and playing with friends in the sunshine. I’m hoping the weather stays nice this afternoon, in which case the munchkin and I will be found out in the garden with the laptop and the ball pit…
May 6, 2008
That was definitely a busy and tiring few days.
Saturday was supposed to be a quiet day as we knew once we set of to L&T’s we wouldn’t get much rest. It didn’t happen that way though. The morning was spent searching for the photo album’s mum had lent us (me aged 0-4), and the afternoon was packing and Mr H fixing up his bike to take up so he could go out with T yesterday. We didn’t get to bed until 11:30. Not nice when we were up at 5:30!
The munchkin slept on until 6 but woke for the potty and with us up wouldn’t go back to sleep. We managed to get the car packed and us all breakfasted reay to leave at 7. For what I think is the first time ever we didn’t have any delays or slow sections of the motorway to contend with. We were up at L&T’s just before 10. We had time for a cuppa and for Mr H and the munchkin to change before we all headed off to the church. The service was lovely, though I spent most of it following the munchkin around the church and taking her out to use the potty! Back at L&T’s L put on a fantastic spread. Salads, bread, meat, hot nibbles, dips, gorgeous cakes and biscuits. It was great to see the family, only one of my uncles and a couple of my male cousins were missing. Sadly the weather, while dry most of the day, was quite grey. We did sit outside under the gazebos as it was fairly warm, but we did need jackets by about 5. The munchkin loved running around the garden and trying to play with baby J. She did manage to get her foot soaked in the pond. Thankfully she didn’t get any further! Most people left by about 6. We put the munchkin and baby J in the bath together and then put the munchkin down to sleep in L&T’s bed.
That was not our best plan. We though she’d sleep well there and then when we got her up to move her to the hotel she’d settle well again there….but no! She settled to sleep fine, we got her into the car at about 9:30 without too much fuss but when we got to the hotel….oh dear… Even though they knew there were three of us in the room the single bed hadn’t been made. So off we go, get the sheets out of the wardrobe, make the bed. All the while the munchkin is wandering round waking up more and more. We get the bed made and get her settled down. Mr H and I go and sit in the en suite to try and give the munchkin some peace and quiet to go to sleep in. 15 mins later I admit defeat and go into the room to go to bed. The munchkin’s still not asleep, it’s now 11pm. She clambers in with us for a hug. Mr H complains about the mattress on his side of the bed. The munchkin is almost asleep in the double bed. Mr H gets into the single, he’s comfy, then he decides he wants to share the bed with me. Due to him needing a decent night’s sleep since he’ll have to drive home the next day we swap sides of the bed and put the munchkin back into the single. I can understand why he didn’t want to sleep on ‘his’ side of the bed, it was awful! We all eventually got to sleep at arond midnight. Mr H was awake and reading just after 7, I woke then as well as he was using his torch and facing me. The munchkin managed to sleep until just after 8. We had a leisurely get up, we put a dvd on the laptop to keep the munchkin entertained and relaxed a bit more.
We made it to L&T’s for a late breakfast before Mr H and T packed their mountain bikes into the car and headed off for some boy time. I sat and played with baby J and the munchkin (and was reminded how hard it is to butter bread while carrying a wriggly 6 month old) until L returned from shopping for more food for the afternoon’s BBQ. T was in charge of the BBQ as L had sorted the family party on Sunday. By 12:30 L was getting very stressed as the boys hadn’t returned and T still needed to clean the BBQ. The boys returned tired and sweaty at 1 with enough time left for showers and BBQ cleaning before the party started at 2. This was a party for all their friends as they wanted to celebrate J’s christening with them as well and there wasn’t space for everyone on Sunday. There were lots of little people and lots of bumps. At one point I was the only woman out of the 5 outside not sporting a bump! I was a little jealous but I know our time will come againa t some point. Most of L’s friends from her NCT group came along. All the babies are 5/6 months old. One of them is 5 1/2 months and weighs 20 lbs! The munchkin only weighs 24 lbs and she was 2 1/2 last week…
People trickled in and out as the afternoon went on. The last ones left at about 6:30, which left Mr H, the munchkin and I. We left at 7 (hoping to miss the worst of the bank holiday traffic returning to the London area), with a parting gift of lots of biscuits (L&T had a lot of left over food yesterday). Amazingly the return journey was as clear as the journey up and we were home by 10. The munchkin slept for the first 2 1/2 hours and went straight to bed when we got home, not waking until after 7 today.
It was a fantastic weekend. L and I got on better than we often do, which was lovely. It was great to see my parents again. They’d been staying with L&T for part of last week so left yesterday morning. Dad is now suffering with facial paralysis (it developed as the drove down to L&T’s). The doctor in L’s village thinks it is Bell’s Palsy though Mum thinks it may be another stroke. He’s been given steriods to take, but he’s not really wanting to take more medication, Mum has a hard time reminding him to take his cholesterol and blood pressure tablets everyday. It wasn’t as noticeable as Mum and L had lead me to believe (they said his face was quite droopy) until Dad blinked when only one eye closed. He was even more subdued and just sat quietly with my gran, his brother, nephew and niece for most of the party on Sunday. He’s lost so much confidence over the past year. It’s not nice seeing him like this, and knowing he’s not going to get better, only worse. It’s just something we have to live with now.
We did eat a lot over the weekend, but my hard work on the diet last week definitely paid off, I lost 1/2lb this week! I just need to keep the momentum going now.
May 1, 2008
I’m feeling sad today.
There’s another article in the local paper about someone killing themselves at the local train station. Someone has died on the rails in the town more than once a fortnight over the past 2 months. From what I understand (through what’s been written in the press) all but one of them wanted to die, that one was apparently trying to pull someone else from the tracks.
I can’t imagine feeling so low that death is the only option. At least one of those people has school age children. How do they cope? Will they ever understand why their parent chose to die and leave them?
What is it about my town that’s doing this to people? The paper implies that the tracks on this town have the highest rate of deaths in the whole country.
These people are doing this in front of other people, how do they feel seeing someone standing on the platform at one moment and then jumping off in front of a train the next?
I know there’s no answers to these questions. I wish that these people had been able to get help and support. I’m sure there must be help around, maybe these people didn’t know where to look.
April 30, 2008
Quick Wednesday ramblings
Posted by Hannah under Diet, Exercise, Holidays, Housework, ShoppingLeave a Comment
Good afternoon! Just a quick update here today. Diet going fine. Fitness class this morning was a killer. The munchkin’s movement class this afternoon wasn’t a lot better. I’m certainly going to ache tomorrow. Mr H is shattered, and he’s not even going to get much rest this weekend which my nephew’s baptism. We’re driving up oon Sunday morning for the service and then staying over for another party on the Monday afternoon. He’s only going to have Saturday as any downtime. He has agreed to me ordering in the shopping this week, it’ll be one less thing he needs to do on Saturday. It does mean I can have a very nice browse through the Ocado (more expensive, but better quality than the others – plus I have a discount voucher) website though! Mr H was too tired to think about the campsite last night hopefully tonight otherwise it’ll be Friday as one or other of us will be at church tomorrow evening for the Ascension day service. Having been out all day I now have to catch up on the housework…fun! So I’m off, will try and stop by some blogs later. Bye!
April 29, 2008
Hello!
I pulled myself together after writing all that yesterday. Sometimes I just need an outlet to vent and that’s what this blog is for me, I don’t keep a diary/journal other than this and I really didn’t want to take all my frustration out on Mr H when he got home.
I’m having another go at following the Slimming World ideas at home. I’ve printed out a food diary which is stuck to the fridge, so far (ok, so it’s just over 24 hours) I’ve filled it all in and I’m keep on track. Mr H has agreed to help me as much as he can. He’s accepted that if he’s late home from work I may have eaten and he’ll have to fend for himself and he’s agreed that spending more money on the food shopping is ok if it’s going to help us eat more healthily.
I’m glad he’s not the only one who leaves things around for someone else to clear up, thanks Chrisb, that did help me feel a bit better. Mr H does claim he usually does it and forgets occasionally…but I’d say it was the other way around! The house is still better than it has been, and I can get it how I want it just a little bit at a time.
I’ve had another campsite suggestion sent to me via Twitter (thanks zooarchaeologist!), I love the look of it and will be talking to Mr H about it tonight. Who knows, we may actually manage to book something by this weekend! (I’ll have jinxed it now by saying that….)
Well, I’m going to go and have a little bit of down time before cooking the munchkin’s dinner. Bye!
April 28, 2008
Stop reading here unless you can face a huge whinge/moan…..
I weighed myself this morning…I weigh more now than I did at the start of the year. Back in February I said that I wanted to lose weight for my nephew’s baptism….well that’s on Sunday…and I haven’t. So unless I wear a very padded bra my tummy is going to look big. I just don’t know what to do now to keep myself motivated and focussed. Every time I feel tired/low /bored/(insert any other emotion here) I find myself reaching for cake/chocolate/anything full of calories. Over on Suburban Mum‘s blog there has been a suggestion in the comments of a group of bloggers starting a weight loss blog. I love the idea, any accountability/support has to be good at the moment.
My tendonitis has also had another flare up at the moment. Out of the past 6 weeks more than 2 have been spent with my wrist strapped up and pain when I type/do housework/push the buggy… It’s not really helping my mood, or my weight since the munchkin is still too small to walk far (and too slow to help any weight loss) and I can’t do any of the exercises at the fitness class which involve putting weight through my wrist.
The house is looking more and more like a tip. Mr H is not really helping either. Every morning before work he makes his lunch then leaves me all the rubbish (ham packets, pepper/tomato cores/ grape stems/crumbs etc) to clear up, he always leaves his glass/mug in the bedroom from the night before and he never puts any of his paperwork/post away. I know it sounds pathetic, but I’ve been working really hard to try and get the house under control and he’s just not helping. Even though he says he loves having the surfaces clear in the kitchen and having space on the dining table he’s just doesn’t seem willing to help keep them clear.
We still haven’t got much further with the campsite hunting. Suburban Mum’s suggestion looks really good, but sadly it’s a bit too far. We can’t switch our church commitments so we won’t be able to leave until lunchtime. Anglesey is a good 5 hours from here on a good run, and that’s without counting toilet stops for the munchkin. Grrr… back to the drawing board. We’ll come up with somewhere, at least we’re not going in school holidays so there shouldn’t be too much difficulty booking a site as long as we do it fairly soon.
Well, thanks to my stupid wrist it’s taken me 2 hours on and off to get this typed so I’m going to give up my whinge there. Hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow in a better mood….
April 24, 2008
No sooner to I start to get over the cold I’ve had, and the munchkin begin to perk up from the cold she’s had, we get to last night and find that Mr H has yet another bug. This time a bit of a tummy one. It’s just been one thing after another with him. He’s not been properly well since February, he’s been fighting off the cold I’ve just had for the last 2 1/2 weeks and now this. He wasn’t helped by a long day at work on Tuesday, a meeting scheduled to last from 3-3:30 went on until 6:30 and it was at the office over 2 hours from home, on the other side of London. He worked from home yesterday (a bit less pressure than the office and a slave to make meals and drinks!) but was shattered anyway by 5.
Roll on nice summer weather. I’m sure that being able to spend more time out in the sunshine will help us all. I know that when Mr H can go out for regular rides on his bikes he feels a lot better (as long as he doesn’t fall off – last week’s trick while fording a river on his first ride in 7/8 weeks). We’ll be able to take the bikes away with us more easily now as well. The new car has mounting points inside it so that we can strap the bikes inside the car and they’ll be secure without us needing to surround them with bags etc. Hopefully that’ll encourage us to go riding as a family more as well, I can count on 2 hands the number of times we have used the trailer we bought for the munchkin in August 2006! I know that riding more will definitely do me good, the only real exercise I get is the fitness class on a Wednesday (which I couldn’t even go to yesterday thanks to the cold).
I was quite grateful that Mr H was home yesterday. As I was cooking lunch the munchkin grabbed some papers from the dining table and in the process managed to tip a full glass of squash over my new laptop! I was not impressed, and nor was Mr H when the juice spread over the table and also got his work laptop and phone. Thankfully Mr H was able to dry out the laptops (though my TV card is still out and drying). The fact that the battery was low and turned itself off just after the soaking did not help my worry. All seems fine now but I guess we’ll see over the next couple of days.
On another note, maybe while Mr H is home today we’ll manage to narrow down where we want to go camping in June (and confirm the date, church commitments are proving difficult to work around). So far the criteria includes decent showers/toilets (my request), fairly near good mountain bike trails (his request) and nice countryside nearby (for both of us). Does anyone know of any good campsites or have any suggestions of areas to go to? I know it’s a bit of a long shot, but hey, I can’t lose anything! We’re not really bothered where we go at the moment, though the North of Scotland is a bit too far this time!
Well, that’s the end of my slightly muddled catch up for today, time to go and get some housework done! Bye!
April 18, 2008
Mr H’s commute to work today entails leaving home at 7:15 driving to the nearest office (not the one he usually works at) to pick up a colleague, driving on to the airport, parking up, bussing to the check in and then a flight to Dublin before picking up a hire car and driving to a meeting! Then doing it all again in reverse to arrive home sometime (hopefully) not long after 11pm!
That’s one long day for him! And this meeting was only arranged on Monday. I think I may have a rather tired husband tomorrow…
Tomorrow’s not going to be that easy a day for him either. We need to be at the showroom at 9:30 tomorrow to pick up the new car before I am picked up by a friend to sing in a ‘Come and sing Messiah’. I’m being picked up at 12:45 for an afternoon of workshops before the sing through in the evening. I’m really looking forward to it, though I haven’t done any proper choral singing for years (6/7! which reminds me, I need to have a listen to the CD). Mr H is staying home with the munchkin, but will also have to head to the supermarket as we’ll need most of the weekly shop by then. He may manage to get some down time, but the munchkin does miss her Daddy when he’s away so may want to do a lot with him, especially as she won’t see him at all today.
I’m feeling a bit better today. I got myself up with Mr H, and by the time the munchkin woke up I’d loaded the washing machine and dishwasher and prepared our breakfasts. I’ve currently got an apple, sultana and cinnamon loaf on the go in the breadmaker (hope it works!) and I’m planning a nice dinner for myself tonight (might as well have something I enjoy and Mr H isn’t keen on!). I hope everyone reading has a good weekend. I’ll be back again next week. Bye!
It's a Mum's life! 