Making me HAPPY this week

Ooh it's a toughy this week.  There have been highlights but there has also been low lights and yesterday I was completely fed up.   Can I please have some more highlights this week without the downers - talk about being tested.

My good things for this week:

1) Helping in the wool shop yesterday morning.  The reason I was helping isn't so great, but all was sorted and it feels good to be helping out someone in need.  I am also working tomorrow and I am hoping it's helping C's life a little easier.

2) Dad was 70 this week.  I think he was very happy with the bottle of something special we gave him.  Mum's birthday was yesterday (I have a zillion January birthdays).  To celebrate my brother, girlfriend, Mum, Dad, H and I went for a drink and then a meal at a fab Turkish restaurant.  There is just one large step to get in and they put a ramp down and help push H up the ramp (it's pretty steep).  There was a 70 balloon - which neither Mum nor Dad saw!!!!!, good company and fab food.  It even tried to snow whilst we were out.

With Dad

H and I

Mum & Dad

Bro and G/F - taken in the pub, a converted chapel.

3) Cake making- it didn't make me smile yesterday let me tell you, but it made my Dad smile and he started stealing the licorice allsorts straight away.

It was meant to be 2 layers of pink at the top and then 2 layers of red on the bottom but I failed big time with the red!!!  I also didn't buy enough of the vanilla topping as I thought too much would make it sickly, which I maintain it would be sickly, however, I didn't have enough to make the cake pretty........  still it tasted nice (topping excluded).

4) Finishing the blanket for my s-i-l.  So happy to be finished with this - start making one for myself tomorrow.  Whoop.  So excited.

5)  New boiler parts- who would have thought that would be a cause for celebration!!!!!  Sadly the heating does not seem to be working so well yet.  I am hoping it's just taking time to warm up but I have a feeling something is not well with it all - ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH.  Still I am thankful for the heaters Dad found and brought down (apparently Mum's idea- before she moans!!!).

Not making me happy this week?????

H was not hurt thankfully but is unsure about driving again - hopefully he'll change his mind.  He's had to miss 2 days of work (so far) whilst we sort out another car.  We'll see if he'll drive it when it gets sorted out.

Another conquering post

This time conquering my over whelmed ness feeling!!!  I am not a natural cleaner/tidier upper.  AT ALL.  I can happily find other things I'd rather do.  Except since taking redundancy I have found that I don't find other things to do.  I feel so over whelmed that I don't do - at all.  This does not make me a happy bunny.  It's as though I feel guilty that I can't have fun, but I look at the piles of stuff and don't know where to start.  So I go to bed disappointed that I didn't achieve more.  I know many of you won't get this, I don't want help - the anxiety when people offer is way over the top (I get this, but can't change it at this time), I need to do it myself.  I CONFESS I AM A HOARDER (I blame Grandma B- I got her hoarder tendencies and her love of the seaside).

Now I know what I am about to tell you will make some of you smile, scoff or be unbelieving but you know what- So be it.  I am about to tackle myself.  I have a plan, to be explained in a moment.

You may or may not know (you should as most of my followers are my friends in real life) my Hubby has MS.  He's just turned 40 and we've been aware of it for 10 years (oh, Happy Anniversary love!).  In fact it's probably 10 years to the week - wow.  Now, my feelings of MS are complicated.  We both agree that if he'd not had MS and lost his job (he worked away at sea on board a ship) we doubt we'd still be married.  We hated being apart and I struggled to adapt when he was away and when he got home (oh, the hindsight of the problems we thought we had!).  So on the one hand I can't hate his MS but on the other, god I hate it.  I hate what it's taken from us.  I miss walking the dog together (though he quite happily likes this when it's raining, heh love!), hate not being able to walk side by side holding hands, hate that we can't plan anything as he might be too tired to do it - and breathe..........., so my point here, is that I have do everything by myself- now again, nothing new to many of you, but I am doing it myself for 2 people, when I struggle to do it for myself only (If you are sitting there tutting to yourself then please keep it to yourself, I am being honest about me).  So all of H's stuff will be piled up so he can sort it when he's sat in his chair (Yes, we each have a set spot to sit in the living room - please tell me this is the norm!).  So I need to learn that I am allowed to have fun and spend time doing things I love, without the guilt I should be doing something else.

Anyway, this is not an MS bashing post ( I could do oodles of those if I fancied it :-)).  It's a taking me in hand post.  I am now working on a 20 min breakups of my day.  I figure I can focus on one thing for 20 mins until the overwhelmness has gone and I feel on top of things again.  So my day is broken down into 20 min chunks.  20 mins of housework/20mins of doing something fun/housework etc.  I have made a start (albeit later in the day than I would have done if I had thought of it earlier :-))

So here goes

10.00-10.40 Placing a Internet Shopping Order
10.40 - 11.00 Playing with Anni B
11.00-11.20 Washing Up (there is still a mountain)
11.20-11.40 Blog post writing (this one, 2 mins left)
11.40-12.0 0 one pile of stuff/junk/treasures in living room
12.03-1.00 Lunch hour
1.00-1.40 Ironing
1.40-2.00 Blogging (reading and adding to mine)
2.00- 3.00 Catching up with a friend
3.00 - 3.30  Dog Walking
3.30- 4.00 Ok, I admit, I then vegged out for 30 minutes
4.00-  Washing up, making tea, playing with Anni, spending time with H.

and RELAX - well I need to pack up some parcels, wrap some presents, make some cards, crochet a blanket for Anni B so it's not a sitting on sofa kind of evening!

Not again

Earlier this year, I got a phone call from my bank telling me that my debit card may have been cloned and they had put a stop to it.  I nearly ignored the bank as initially they sent me a text asking me to get in touch -when did banks start texting??????  Anyway, when I finally got in contact I had to speak to the security centre in India.  Now the 2 men in India were trying to be helpful but were so heavily accented that after 10 minutes I just kept saying no whenever a question was asked and there was a pause- I have no idea what was being asked but felt too bad to keep asking what he had asked.  In the end I heard the words cosmetics and since I don't often use make up etc then I said no (and I hadn't spent on them).  Turns out someone in America was trying to buy cosmetics on my card (I so don't use cosmetics usually!) so easy to say it wasn't me.  Card was cancelled and a new one arrived.

Then this Summer, my hubby's credit card was cancelled due to a security alert.  New card eventually arrived.  This morning I received a phone call saying mine needed to be cancelled.  Is it just me or is 3 times in a year a little excessive.  I am grateful that the card companies have caught the problem and would rather have a cancelled card than a huge bill for things we haven't bought, but I am shocked to have been hit 3 times this year.  Is the problem getting worse or are the companies getting better at catching the toe rags?  Any thoughts?