An odd kind of day ....

I got a call from Mum this morning asking me if I'd go over to the dogs trust with her to look at a dog she'd fallen in love with! Her name is Lucy and she is a collie x spaniel - long haired, black and white and the most adorable face! Four years old with one careful lady owner and it looks like she'll be going to live with my mum soon! We both fell in love - she's a lovely sweet dog!

So why has the day been weird? Ugh ... well I can't explain properly because of certain little ears that I know read my blog. I just feel out of sorts, unhappy and a bit blah ... totally the wrong way to feel when we have such gorgeous weather at the moment!! There are things in my life that I KNOW are not working for me ... but I also know that the reality is fixing them will end up causing more problems than there are if I just let things stay as they are.

Isn't that always the case though? The cure is often worse than the disease.

What's a girl to do. Laugh? Cry? Or just consume enough alcohol to wipe it all out and make sleeping easier.

Is happiness overrated?

I have been discussing my "dilemma" that I can't post about here with a close friend. She said (and I quote directly!) "Its just mustering up the courage to admit to yourself what you really want with your life."

Damnit I hate it when my friends force me to THINK! Thinking is infinitely dangerous .... but the it is nearly 2am in the morning and I can't sleep ... so thinking may therefore be a GOOD thing.

... ack at any rate I'm thinking ... therefore I am blogging!!!

So ... it's just a case of admitting to yourself what you really want with your life? It's something you think you already know the answer to (especially as a 30 something mother of two!) BUT, the scary thing is, until you actually have to sit down and answer that question you don't necessarily know.

So .... what DO I want from my life?

• I want my children to be happy and for them to have the absolutely best life I can possibly give them, even when it means personal sacrifice.
• I want to wake up in the mornings with a smile on my face, knowing it's a brand new day with brand new opportunities just there for the taking.
• I want the freedom to get paid for something I love doing, while having flexible working hours to fit around my children.
• To live "comfortably." ie have the bills paid, food in the cupboards, clothes on my back and enough pennies leftover in my bank account to be able to buy a gorgeous pair of shoes when the odd occasional urge strikes me without fear of great debt or having to hide them and lie about the cost (not that I have EVER done that!)
• To live near the ocean ALWAYS. I need to be somewhere not far from the water but also somewhere that has countryside and nature so I can escape to solitude when I want to ... but it also has to be close enough "real life", meeting new people and decent shopping!! Basically I need a waterfront, countryside house in the middle of a thriving metropolis! That's not too much to ask, right?
• I want to live in a house where the kitchen is the heart and hub of the home. I want my kids to be there at the table doing their homework as I am cooking dinner, chatting to them and spending time with them.
• I desperately want to have time to stop and smell the flowers every now and again. Maybe photograph a few of them too!
• To spend more time scrapbooking, making cards and just being creative.
• Friends that I can 100% rely on to be there for me as I would be there for them.
• I want to be at least HALF the mother to my kids that my mother was to me. This could be a whole separate post on it's own ... LOL I mean that I want to be there for them - a friend as well as a parent and to have a mutually respectful relationship with them both.
• I want to be happy. Content isn't enough. I need to be happy.
• Another baby. I can't help it. It's on my want list.

What I DON'T want .....

• I don't want my children to suffer in any way, shape or form based on a bad decision that I make.
• I hate having to rely on prescription anti-depressants to reduce my anxiety attacks and the permanent feeling of "impending doom" that I currently live with on a daily basis.
• I don't want to be stressed anymore. These days I get stressed to the point that I can potentially have several panic attacks a day and it's affecting so many other areas of my life as well.
• I don't want to be constantly *and I do mean constantly* worried about money and debts. Everybody is entitled to the odd money worry (apart from the rich bastards!) but I know I probably worry TOO much and if I were just to bite the bullet ...
• I never want to lose touch with good friends. It occurred to me writing this that there is a really good friend - C who I have known for YEARS whose birthday it is tomorrow ... and who I haven't seen or spoken to in almost a year... I feel dreadful about that. She could have just as easily picked up the phone to me - but for whatever reason we've kinda lost touch. I need to re-kindle some old friendships to make sure they don't die.
• To make the wrong decision.
• To compromise for the sake of "an easy life".

There, that wasn't so hard - it's just a mega HUGE list that I could never achieve... that I could also keep adding to and adding to the more I think about it!! I'm going to stop now or I really could be here all night and it's late enough already!

Maybe happiness is over-rated after all.

Still dreaming ... ohh and a gardening update!

My head has been in a bit of a state most of the day today ... in a good way though. Part of me can't believe I am actually even contemplating taking such a huge enormous step. In fact it's not just huge or enormous ... it's frigging massive. Literally the end of everything that is currently "safe" and familiar to me and taking a jump into totally unchartered territory. Scary Mary. Okay well enough talking about things that I can't talk about yet ... LOL (moving swiftly on .....)

Anyway onto definitely happy stuff! I've been munching my way through my lettuces for the last couple of weeks and they are still going strong! They look and taste fabulous just on their own with olive oil and black pepper!! I take a few leaves from each plant and to be honest there is still loads of life left in that first batch!!! The first batch is on the right and the second batch (3 weeks behind) is on the left. Doing well huh!!

And check my tomatoes out too!!! God I am so proud of these!!! These are my original little seedlings that got attacked by something (thrip I *think* and I used Dee's organic method of bug warfare by just chopping the crap out of them, removing any diseased leaves and talking to them nicely (the plants not the diseased leaves!) every morning when I check on them! LOL and it's worked. They are thriving, healthy and ready for another re-pot soon! There is 3 plants in each pot at the moment and they need to go into their own individual pots. It's so exciting! LOL

I took some photos of my chilli pepper plant but I couldn't get a decent shot that really shows how well itis doing too! I bought my chilli plant as a baby plant from a garden centre last summer and nurtured it & loved it ... and it grew the most AWESOME kick ass chillis!! The info card led me to believe that it wouldn't last through the winter ... and I guess outdoors it may not have survived the frost .... but I kept it watered and then in February this year I chopped it right back - not really knowing what I was doing but took a chance on it!! I was fairly brutal - and over the last month it's been flowering and there are most definitely chillis growing again!!

Mad how such small little things make me so excited eh!

Dreams ... and what the fuck is normality anyway???

I've been moaning about how inconvenient it has been to have the kids off for the past two weeks, and now I am faced with the fact that they go back to school tomorrow and that normality must resume!

It's funny how on an evening when I am contemplating normality ... I have also had a discussion with somebody - and the outcome of said discussion could affect my entire life and make it all very UN normal indeed!!!

In traditional ME style, I'm not saying anything about what this "thing" could be in "public". Part of me doesn't want to jinx it until I have really thought about it. I need to chew it over and then regurgitate it and dissect it all again!! ... and part of me is already convinced it would never work anyway, but maybe that's just the eternal pessimist in me.

Is it possible to have a dream that you always thought was the one you really wanted - until an unexpected somebody makes a suggestion - completely out of the blue - of an alternative dream that somehow seems better than your original dream AND more achievable than your original dream ... even though that first dream has been your dream for as long as you remember?

Yeah I bet I'm not making sense to anyone reading this, but *I* know what I mean and that's what counts.

Damn now this isn't what I had expected on a Sunday evening!! I took photos of my lettuces and my chervill to post (all looking very fabby!) ... but that somehow seems a bit irrelevant now!

Okay ignore my waffling I'm done now - I need to go think seriously about totally changing my life! Hopefully normal service will resume by Monday morning when I realise it could never ever ACTUALLY work ...

... or could it??????