Well talk about Weird Mondays and I think the one I had today was just so totally utterly bizarre that it's just ... well, wow!!! It started off as a very stressful monday morning, but as the day went on ... despite some really sad news, my day was very definitely un-stressed!!
Today was my first proper day back in the workshop after the h*ll that is half term and I even felt really sick this morning for no real reason at all. I didn't actually throw up, and I could only put it down to feeling nervous about going back into the workshop after a few enforced days off (also for reasons other than half term, but that's not a story for public viewing!!)
Anyway, I got into the workshop and it was all actually okay! I spent the entire day pouring and cleared off eleven orders so I was very chuffed with myself!!! Tomorrow is a "top up" and package day where I will literally be topping up stuff that I made today ... and sending it out.
Through circumstances and no fault of my own I've ended up sooooo far behind with orders, but it was really good to spend a day just playing in the wax and making candles today!! I've had a ton of orders in over the last few days, so I'll get everything I've made sent tomorrow so I should have happy customers again :D
Then this afternoon, about half an hour after getting in from work, I got a text from a really good friend - L, to ask if I fancied popping over for a chat! Thing is, hub was unusually working from home on a Monday, so I took FULL advantage and went over to L's place! What was supposed to only be popping out for an hour or so ended up with me being out for hours and just about getting home at dinner time to say hi to the kids after their first day back at school!
A thoroughly worthy afternoon though *grin* - I have a smile on my face that won't quit and that's all I'll say!!
I actually feel a little disrespectful here today because after the great and terrific afternoon I've vaguely talked about, I haven't mentioned ANYTHING about C today and I feel truly bad for that.
PLEASE forgive me ... I have always sworn never to delete anything I write here (unless it's a typo!) and that will never change, but I feel I should have mentioned this at the start of today and it is SO tempting to go back and change how I have started this entry, but I won't...
C was the wife of R who has the unit along the coridoor from me. I found out this morning that C sadly passed away on Friday. It wasn't totally unexpected as she had been ill for quite some time (cancer), and to be honest, every time I had seen C, I'd been surprised that she was still around because she looked so ill and had been so ill for so long. That sounds callous doesn't it ... I truly don't mean to be... I just say it how I see it.
My friend Lou that works for R had been a friend of C & R's for years and I know that she had taken it harder than she made out when I saw her today. C died of cancer and Lou has breast cancer - for the second time and is right in the middle of treatment, so it has been soooo hard on them all over there. Lou is also a really good friend of mine and it's been really hard to see her go through her own personal battle as well as deal with C's illness and now her passing. I just wish there was more that I could do
I almost feel guilty for having a good day today after finding out about C passing away. I KNOW that's silly and that C would probably tell me off for it! I said to R today that I knew there was nothing I could say but that he would be in my thoughts.
It's been a tough time for them all over that end of the coridoor.
... I just have to add that this has been one of the weirdest blog entries I have ever made. To have had such a sad day combined with such a totally chilled out and fantastic afternoon has been utterly weird! Thank you L for one of the best afternoons I've had in a LONG time!!!
Monday, 25 February 2008
The weirdest Monday on record yet!!!
Sunday, 24 February 2008
New shoe lust
They are just so SEXY!!!Oooops the days got away with me!!
Yeah ... that's my girl!!!
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Wow ... the things I learned about my son tonight!!!
Wow, the things I have learned about my little boy tonight have truly astounded me!
It's been a weird day really. I woke up this morning and I really just didn't want to drag the kids into the workshop with me! I turned the alarm clock off and allowed myself the indulgence of a lay in until 9.30am! I could hear the kids downstairs but there were no sounds of screaming, so I just huddled myself under my duvet until I FELT like getting up!
This evening at hub's suggestion, we all went out for a "family" meal ... the kids have been so well behaved recently and it was hub's payday - plus the freezer is pretty much totally empty, and with me clearing out the kitchen cupboards yesterday ... well there wasn't much in the house!!
Anyway, after trudging around a few different places, trying to find somewhere that didn't have a 20-30 min wait for a table for four ... we finally got seated back at the first place we went too!
The kids were impeccable with their behaviour! I was proud of the pair of them! We went to a family friendly restaurant that provides colouring pens and activity sheets
That's the background ... but the thing is ... after a few glasses of wine I was feeling decidedly squiffy so we weren't exactly hugely forthcoming about getting the kids in bed! Hub was doing some work and I was watching Dawn Porter do her lesbian thang (so gotta post about that separately!) when it occurred to me to get them into bed!Fast forward past the whole go to bed, kisses & cuddles bit ... I'm sat here with another glass of wine and Nathan comes in telling me he has had a bad dream about colours!
THAT intruigued the crap out of me so I asked him to explain. He told me that his dream was yellow with a black hole in the middle but that sometimes it was colours other than yellow.
OMG it was fascinating. I got him to draw his dream for me and he drew a big circle (in biro) that he told me was yellow and then did a black circle in the middle of it. From there I got him to make me a list of happy and sad colours, but he re-named it colours he liked and colours he hated! Yellow was top of the hate list, followed by black and all kinds of dark colours. Top of his love list was red orange and pink together like a sunset... and that just blew my mind! He said blue is an okay colour as long as it isn't too dark, white and grey are in the middle and he absolutely loves ALL (his words) types of green.
It was fascinating and totally blew my mind. He took his list to bed with him but I plan on secreting it away later to look at properly. It smacks of being a very Aspergers thing ... and it reminded me a lot of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" ... I forget the author but it's about a boy with severe Aspergers (Nathan is mild to mid) and it was just wow ... because that boy saw yellow as a bad luck colour too. It is definitely worth mentioning to his specialist at the hospital when he's seen again.
Utterly fascinating. I saw an insight into my little man tonight that I have never EVER had before.
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
Half term H*LL
Monday, 18 February 2008
I should NOT still be cleaning up sh*t with no babies in the house!!!!
Major, huge .. no fucking ENORMOUS vent about to happen here ... avert your eyes if you are offended by the word POOH.
Nathan has ADHD and Aspergers. Although I've mentioned it here before, I've not really blogged a huge amount about his diagnosis and what it means to "us" as a family group.
ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - it basically means that he is like a constant live wire with energy free flowing 24 hours a day. He cannot sit still without fidgeting or bouncing and nothing (except the computer, Nintendo DS or playstation) will hold his interest for more than a few minutes. He can run off without warning in a busy street or supermarket, talks incessantly … and basically is constantly exhausting. It’s easier to say he has basically no concept of self preservation!
The signs were there when he was about 2 years old that there was something not quite right about him. I’d already had Megan and although she was a girl and girls are different … there was just something I knew as a parent wasn’t quite right. I had real trouble toilet training him at 18 months … decided to wait till he was 2½ … then decided to wait till he was nearly 3 … and when he started pre-school at 3 and still wasn’t properly toilet trained we were pretty much told to either put him back in nappies or remove him because they didn’t have the staff to deal with it! He was also then held back for a term from starting school because he STILL wasn’t fully toilet trained and still having a lot of accidents. The GP was useless and said he’d “grow out of it” and that it was a typical toddler! I was told that they wouldn’t do anything about the toileting until he was 4 and I literally had him down there the day after his 4th birthday!
It took a LOT of pushing on my part to get an appointment through the child services department to get him seen by someone … ANYONE that would take me seriously and at that point it was a 9-12 month waiting list! It was literally by phoning at LEAST once a week to see if there was a cancellation and making myself known to the receptionist that we FINALLY got an appointment after about 3 months wait.
Ugh there were so many forms to fill in. We had to answer these pages and pages of questions about Nathan’s behaviour, and similar forms were sent to the school. To get a diagnosis for ADHD both the school and parents / caregivers have to respond similarly to the questionnaires (they are tailored differently for each of us)
We met with so many different doctors and people … and then the diagnosis was made, it was like the world made sense! When the doctor first mentioned autism I was really scared because my only “experience” of autism was watching the movie Rain Man and that is SO FAR from Nathan!
Aspergers (AS) is different though. Autism is a huge umbrella that Aspergers is only a small part of! Aspergers is generally classified as a delay in language and cognitive development, motor ‘clumsiness’ and “atypical” use of language. That’s the technical description anyway. AS is different though … people with autism don’t generally like people invading their personal space, but Nathan LOVES being cuddled, held and we always have our “snuggles” before he goes to bed at night. He is very affectionate and loves nothing more than personal contact.
Here’s the Wikipedia description of Aspergers ….
“Unlike those with autism, people with AS are not usually withdrawn around others; they approach others, even if awkwardly, for example by engaging in a one-sided, long-winded speech about a favorite topic while being oblivious to the listener's feelings or reactions, such as signs of boredom or haste to leave.”
See, I read that and thought OMG that is SOOOOO Nathan!!! When he plays his fave Pokemon game on his Nintendo DS, he’ll literally narrate everything he’s doing and tell you all about which Pokemon is which, what their skill levels are, who they can beat and everything that is going on in his game at the time! You sit here and say “oh really, uhuh ….. yeah they can do that? Cool!” whilst really not listening to a word that he is saying! He'll contine talking well past the fourth or fifth time you have told him NATHAN SHUT THE FUCK UP! OMG how awful do I feel saying that? Especially knowing that he could read this at any time in the future!
Nathan, if you are reading this … sweetie I KNOW it isn’t your fault. I love you SO much, and I will ALWAYS love you no matter how much sh*t you smear all over my walls, but PLEASE you really have to understand that it pisses me off to STILL be cleaning up your sh*t at nearly 8 years old!
Even NOW he is 7 years old (8 in May) and although the accidents are fewer and far between, he still shits himself.
This evening I found my stairway walls and carpet smeared literally in Nathan’s cr*p. I smelled it before I saw it and the maddening thing is … when I called for him to get his butt there right now … and I said to him “I’ve just found something on the stairs Nathan … what could I have found?” He looked at me, then looked at the floor and very quietly (and I KNEW he was ashamed and embarrassed!) he said “pooh.”
Yeah umm you could say that. Smeared all over the walls AND the carpet up the stairs.
He got yelled at, told no computer tomorrow and was sent to bed early.
At the time of writing this (10.40pm) he is asleep in the hallway in a pile under his duvet. I made an executive decision to just leave him there and I’ll put him to bed after I take him to the toilet in half an hour or so.
*sigh*
I REALLY don’t know how to handle this sometimes. It’s NOT his fault and I KNOW that. Christ, life since prescription medication for Nathan has been bloody fantastic compared to what he is like without the drugs, but I hate that he could turn around to me in the future and be angry with me for medicating him. He’s 7½ years old and is on 30mg equasym XL a day which is a fair dose considering his age / build.
Still, what are you supposed to do when your son smears excrement all over the walls and carpet? He still has to be punished no matter what….
So why do I feel so guilty?
First craft show of the year ...
Saturday, 16 February 2008
I LOVE last.fm
I joined this website in September last year and I swear it is probably my most USED website!! It was my friend M that recommended it to me and I have been hooked ever since!
Last.fm is basically a radio station ... but of music YOU like! You search by artist or by "tag" (hip hop, dance, reggae, classical etc) and it brings up other music like that ... so if you put in UB40 you'd come up with lots of other reggae groups. I love it!
It also tells you who you’ve been listening to most, etc.. and I’m such a HUGE fan of annoying pointless stats and stalking myself! Unfortunately this also means that when I'm having an 80s retro throwback night that shows up all the really shite tunes I used to listen to in my youth! Admittedly there are a lot of tracks that I really love because they bring back memories, but other people in the world think that the tune is crap. Ok in fact the rest of the world does!!!
Anyway,
I have spent soooo long sorting out all of my tunes and then all of a sudden Erasure, or the Pet Shop Boys from one of my 80s fest sessions pops up on my profile! I can hear all the younguns going "who??" LOL
It's worrying. People are going to be looking at this saying ‘OMG she sounded okay on the outside, but how SHITE is her music taste?'. It could affect my whole life. My future friendships. My chance of ever having more children!!
All I can say is - people, please don’t judge me. I think pixies are doing it when i’m not around. Sneaky wee buggers.
Prep for my first craft fair of the year
I don't know if you can even call it a craft fair really! I am in Oving, Chichester tomorrow and it's only a little local one 1-4pm so I am not expecting huge amounts, but it's the first one of the year and I'm taking slightly different stuff so I am a little unsure! LOL
To a certain extent I have stopped doing shows and fairs because you have to stand there all day with a false smile on your face as people pick stuff up, tell you how wonderful it smells, how they've never smelled anything as good ... and then they walk off without buying anything! It can be incredibly frustrating!
So, I'm being pretty picky now about the events I will attend. I wouldn't normally do something just for 3 hours, but I figure it's a local one, it's in aid of a really good charity, and getting out there making SOME money has to be better than being sat on my ass at home!!
So anyway I've got stacks of 3 votives, break away melts and my "just say it" slim pillars. I spent most of today in the workshop re-packaging the soaps that are now "to clear" and organising all of the labels and making sure I have everything I need. Megan is going to come with me so it will be a nice girlie day for us too :-)
The Anti-Valentine
I HATE Valentines Day. Hate loathe and despise it. I meant to post about this on Thursday but got sidetracked (and a lil drunk!) Nope, no Valentines for this girl this year!
Valentines Day is about commercialism and forcing people to make declarations that they may not be ready to make!! It's the new couples that really suffer. They are only just in a relationship and getting to know each other and ooopsie look it's Valentine's Day! They may be feeling things for each other, but not ready to say those three scary words yet ... but the shops are full of cards saying "I love you" and the woman is damned well gonna be expecting something!
Thing is, I would MUCH rather have on-going romance. Somebody leaving me little notes on my pillow or stuck to the inside of the cupboard, making me a cup of coffee, snuggling up together on the sofa, holding hands, being intimate with each other (NOT all about sex!) ... it's those things that show true romance rather than a card!
Having said that, it's not like I don't appreciate the thought on Valentines Day from a guy!! I'm just saying that Valentines isn't the be all and end all and that it's the little on-going things that really show how you feel! *sigh*I miss that :-(
Thursday, 14 February 2008
I love Dawn Porter!! (not in a pervy sexual way tho!)
I watched "Dawn Get Naked" tonight ... completely by accident as it was on just after something else I was watching and I couldn't be bothered to change the channel as I was working on the website and the TV was just background! Thing is, it was the best decision I have ever not actually made!! Needless to say I didn't get far on the website because this TV prog had me HOOKED!!
I have seen Dawn Porter on TV before, and I have always thought she is totally awesome!!! She looks a bit like Lilly Allen (who I also totally love in a non pervy sexual way!) Dawn Porter is totally funny and 100% female real WOMAN. She is very easy to identify with because she is so real. I watched this TV program and god it was like my self confidence went through the roof!! I WISH I had known about this at the time of filming because I would have SO SO been there, supported her and got naked on her bus!!!
My favourite thing she said was "Life is so much better when you don't give yourself a hard time." I am definitely going to adopt that philosophy!! I am just GUTTED that I hadn't actually HEARD about this before considering how online my life is!!! I would have SO been there to support her and support this cause!
OMG I actually feel so incredible right now. My body image has been something I have struggled with for so long ... but ... and this is the thing I have learned this evening!!!! .... I am beautiful! I have a FEMALE FIGURE with lumpy bumpy bits in all their glory ... and you know what? THAT'S OKAY!!!
Dawn did a photo shoot and had a photo of herself taken with no makeup on ... she was then sent off for hair & makeup and looked lovely as she was normally ... but THEN she was photoshopped and made PERFECT... and I literally mean perfect. They even took one of her slightly squinty eyes and replaced it with a mirror image of the other! She was shaved down, her nose was altered and her whole face was given a glow.
The thing was ... when you actually compared this perfect photo to what Dawn actually REALLY looked like ... although you could see it was her, it really wasn't her ... if that makes sense! The two images were such extremes that it was crazy! All of a sudden things just made sense to me. The "perfection" that she was striving for just simply doesn't exist!
One thing that really struck me was that ... I would actually LOVE to have Dawn's figure! Part of me felt that if *I* looked like SHE did then I would be sooooo happy ... yet, there she was with SO many insecurities about her own body! It really did open my eyes about the truth behind REAL women!!
The biggest thing I have learned tonight is ... and I am quoting Dawn directly here .... "why on EARTH would we WANT to aspire to be something that doesn't exist!?"
Normal looking girls are made to feel crap about themselves because they are confronted with these false images of what is so called perfect! The thing is ... it just doesn't actually REALLY exist! I have no doubt that the models used in magazines are classically true beautiful women... but what Dawn's show tonight taught me is that the representation of these women that we see in the magazines is SO FALSE!!! It truly doesn't actually exist
Is it any wonder that girls grow up self conscious about their bodies? OMG I have learned so much about myself tonight. In just an hour of watching this TV prog, I am no longer AFRAID of what I actually am. I know now that not being perfect is not only OKAY, but that it's actually what 99.9% of the population are!!
So yeah, what started out as a bit of a blah day, actually ended up being quite inspirational! All hail Dawn Porter! LOL It did actually inspire me for my next photography challenge too ... I want to photograph REAL WOMEN. It wouldn't matter if they are a size 8 or a size 24 ... they would be REAL women and that's something that I feel very affilliated with from my own body and self confidence issues, and it's also something I very much want to support! I also think that the local papers would be very interested in it.
With the whole "eat healthy", "must exercise lots" and "must look good" that is pushed on people (and women in general) these days ... it was just so enlightening and empowering to watch an hours worth of TV about a REAL woman with REAL insecurities and to learn that although SHE had a body I would love to have myself ... that she had the exact same fears and worries about HER body ... as I do about mine!
I definitely feel my next personal photography challenge has to be along those lines - but I need to aim for 150 rather than 25 :-)
Feeling very empowered, very inspired ... and very WOMAN!!!
What's so special about Thursday?!
Wellll I've been painting? LOL Mum gave me a big tub of magnolia and as you would expect ... if Dee is left in the house alone with a tub of paint then you can pretty much guarantee she'll be a paintin'! Sooooo I have a 3/4 finished nicely cream bedroom! It is a huge improvement on the dirty lilac that it was before!! I have to move the wardrobe to get to the last bit and have to admit defeat and will need to ask the hub for help with that! That can wait a few days though.
Once the bedroom is done I'll tackle the stairs, then the hallway and then I'll start on the lounge! The ceilings, coving and all need re-doing in white as well - I can already see me procariously balancing on a chair, trying not to fall off as I paint the ceilings!!
.... Magnolia *sigh*
I do LOVE colour, and if it were just ME living here by myself (and if I had the MONEY!!!), each room in the house would be a different colour and style to reflect my personality and what I use each space for.
BUT admittedly the magnolia is nice and easy, it's fresh - oh yeah, and it's FREE! Sooo I'll just use colour with accents instead :-)
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
I found where the spare minutes hide!!!
Okay so anyone who reads my blog often enough will know that I often complain about how I am convinced there is some kind of time pixie out there that pinches minutes out of my day, because somehow I never seem to have enough time for everything!!
Well .... It SUDDENLY occurred to me that it's a leap year this year and it all made sense! There are 29 days in February this year which means there are a whole extra 1440 minutes at the end of this month that we wouldn't normally get if it wasn't a leap year! Feb 29th is a Friday this year too - soooo that's gonna be Dee's catch up day!! Whatever it is that REALLY needs to be done on Friday 29th Feb is what I will do! Whether it's catching up on things I am behind with at work, or doing the things around the house that really need doing (like re-painting EVERY single damned room in the house!) or clearing out the garden ... both of which NEED to be done soon!
Spring is coming so EARLY this year! The weather has been (dare I say it ...?) warm recently! Okay maybe WARM is an exaggeration, but it's definitely been open windows and not necessarily wear a coat type weather. You'd normally expect it to still be really cold at this time in February... yet there are already daffs and tulips out and they've been out a while already!
It's REALLY made me want to get out there and start doing something with the garden too. Last year was a bit of an experiment in the garden ... I grew herbs, red chillis, jalepeno chillis, cherry tomatoes and a few other bits, but it really was just an experiment. I know what I can be like and I'll throw myself into something then lose interest after a couple of weeks!! Soooo I hadn't wanted to spend too much money.
Also part of it is that I am GOOOOOOD at everything I do ... purely because I don't do things I am not good at!! Soooo I hadn't wanted to invest a lot of money into it ... but this year I am seeing TONS of cherry tomatoes, runner beans, aubergines and hopefully some soft fruits too!!!
I WANT a polytunnel!!
Ok I've been drinking while I've been writing the last part of this and now can;'t concentrate on the screen, so err time for bed said Zebedee!!!
Monday, 11 February 2008
If it feels like a Monday, then it probably is!!!
Ooops I didn't get around to writing anything yesterday because I spent most of the day packaging up a whole bunch of these 3 stacks of votives to take to a craft show this coming weekend! It's only a small local one for 3 hours ... so I didn't want to invest too much time into building stock for it and I don't want to be carting all of the stock votives and baskets out just for a few short hours!!! Sooo I'm taking as many of these votive stacks as I can in different scent combos - some florals, some fruits, perfumes, bakery & spice, fresh/feminine etc. The idea is that each set has different fragrances in and they are only £3.75 for a stack, so it's AFFORDABLE and I'm hoping that if people actually stop to look at what is on my table then they should be able to put their hand in their pocket for £3.75 and take something away!!
Saturday, 9 February 2008
Friday Five on err Saturday 9th Feb
Yeah okay so I am a day late with my Friday Five, but I know I forgot last week so I figure I'm okay!! This week is interesting - it's all about school supplies!
When did you last use graphing paper? OMG that literally WOULD have been when I was at school, so ummm err, around 1991 when I was 16 and probably for my maths GCSE exam (which I passed btw!!)
When did you last use a highlighter? Today! Hah! I have highlighters in the packing area in the workshop so that if there is a special delivery note the customer has given me (leave with neighbour, leave over fence etc), I can highlight it on the paperwork to make it obvious!
When did you last cover a book? Ummm actually not that long ago! I embellish cover the front of my notepads, journals and albums if that counts! If we're talking text books and shiny wrapping paper then it's gonna haven been back at school again! Why were text books always such boring colours anyway?! LOL
When did you last wear an apron or smock?
I wear overalls to work EVERY day! It's the only way to stop the wax from totally ruining my clothes!
When did you last use glue? Hahah a couple of days ago. I live in a house with two children and a hub. It's unsurprising that it is always MY stuff that gets broken so I have glue in the kitchen drawer!
A perfect Saturday Morning
I had such a nice start to my day today! I had no immediate hurry to get out of bed as I hadn't planned on going to work until late morning. The kids didn't have anywhere to be either, so I got to wake up peacefully by myself!! Ohh heaven!!
Once I'd unearthed myself from the true comfort and bliss that is a body form mattress (seriously, you HAVE to get one!!) and come downstairs, I felt ... well, content I guess!!!
I sat on the sofa with my laptop and a pot of coffee knowing that I had a solid list of things to do, but none of them needed to be done right then. I was listening to music on Last FM … and just chilling out to some really good music before going to pour candles for the rest of the day.
It occurred to me that my life was actually perfect for that brief moment!!
Sadly life is never perfect for that long ... and true enough, my peace & quiet was soon shattered! LOL
BUT on the upside, the weather today has been unreal for the start of February. I'm not sure what the temp was, but it actually felt WARM out there. It's a sure fire sign that Spring is coming soon!!
Friday, 8 February 2008
I'm FRONT PAGE NEWS!!!
This is sooooo cool! What started out as just something to do purely just for fun with my 25 smiles project and I day where I simply needed something to do has resulted in me being on the FRONT PAGE of the newspaper! There's a small pic of me and it says "what's got all these people smiling? Find out on page 4" - then a half page article with a bigger photo of me holding my camera next to a large pic of the montage!!
In town this morning there was also an ad board about my project!! Ohh the grin on my face was enormous! I couldn't resist taking a photograph of it! Chuffed to bits I was! LOL Turned out a really nice pic too with the florist in the background!!
Click Here for the link to the article online!!
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
Sad News :-(
So yeah I'm pretty sad
Photographing the photographer!!
Well the photographer for the local paper has been to take my picture to go alongside the article about my montage! He took a few shots outside of me holding my camera so fingers crossed I have a decent smile on my face in one of them! I'm not used to posing for pictures myself! HAH
I am not sure when the article will be published, but the paper is Worthing Herald, and I'll post a link to the article directly if it's on their website too!!
Tuesday, 5 February 2008
Proud Mum Moments (and a Nathan ADHD backtrack!)
Well YEAH I am one proud mum! Today was parent / teacher consultations up at the school and both of them got excellent reports!! I am never really that worried about Megan at school because she is highly motivated in herself and she's a sponge for learning. I mean seriously, I catch this girl singing multiplication tables along to a CD on the weekends!!! She is 9 and just generally great! Her teacher couldn't say enough nice things about her! Funny thing is that she said to me afterwards that she had actually been nervous about it and worried about what her teacher might say about her.
I do worry that my daughter is setting herself standards that are waaaay to high for herself and that she'll end up just like me and battling with herself to achieve. She is such a great kid - thoughtful, respectful and popular ... okay so she has a mouth on her and can seriously backchat, but hey she's a 9 year old girl and she's allowed occasionally!!
My 7 year old Nathan has ADHD and Aspergers and the school are very good and support him really well. I can't say enough how great their school has been! Funnily enough this has been the very FIRST time that I've not gone up for a parent / teacher chat with a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach about what Nathan's teacher would say!! The thing is, Nathan has made such MAJOR improvements in his behaviour at home. He's had merits, stickers and headteacher awards at school, his toilet accidents are - well there haven't been any for weeks, and the fact that he has made such vast improvements at home could only mean a positive chat at school! I wasn't disappointed! His teacher gave me lots of positive feedback on him and his progress and yep generally it's all good!!!
Her biggest "beef" with him was to do with his handwriting and I have to agree. Part of the Aspergers side of things means he has trouble with fine motor control ie doing up buttons, laces, zips, pen control etc. In that respect he tends to "draw" his letters rather than write them and his hand writing is very messy. BUT she did also point out that his spelling was actually very good for his age, that he liked to write and writes a LOT for news writing etc, and that if he could just neaten up his work then he could actually be a very good writer. That was soooo encouraging, it really was!! He's having no trouble with maths or anything really, the main problems seem to be neatness in his work and the battle of wills that he has with his teacher when he wants to do things his way!!
It's a far cry from this time a couple of years ago before he was medicated. When we had the parent / teacher chat when he was in year 1 (he's in year 3 now) I came out of there pretty much in tears because his teacher that year didn't have one single academic nice word to say about him!! She told me that she couldn't even get started with the academic side of things until his behaviour was under control!
I did understand what she meant though, I do have to be honest there! At that time, I was pushing for the diagnosis process for Nathan and constantly on the phone to try to get him to the top of the waiting list for appointments. This is a child who, in the middle of a school assembly would start doing forward rolls or stand up and start spinning around. He was bouncing off of the walls and family outings were just complete nightmares because you just couldn't keep track of him from one second to the next! He never stood still and he had the concentration span of a .... "ooooooh look at that shiny thing"
Yeah exactly!!
When Nathan was first diagnosed I was so firmly against medication. I felt it was WRONG to medicate a child for behavioural problems and thus the battle began. Although I did "give in" and take him back to the doctor to say, ask for eventually beg that he be medicated because I had officially given up .... I don't regret trying the behavioural methods first! Besides, we (home and school) still use behavioural methods with him anyway. It was then a rocky road even finding the right drug for him, then when we found the right drug, the dosage had to be altered ... then he went through a real growth spurt and the medication had to be increased because his body capacity had increased!! I just hope that one day he can reduce down and come off the medication.
I seem to have got a bit sidetracked from my original reason for this particular post, but hey it obviously needed to come out and I'm never one for deleting anything I ever put in a journal. If my head thinks it - my fingers type it!
I guess what I was trying to say - the point I was trying so badly to make ... is that the drugs have allowed him enough concentration to let the world slow down enough for him to focus on it and start noticing things! It's turned Nathan from a boy I would worry about every where I took ... to a little boy (and his big sister) that I am exceptionally proud of!
Monday, 4 February 2008
OMG!! OMG!! Mondays are officially fantastic!!!
... well THIS Monday is anyway!!
Came into the workshop this morning feeling a little achy and a bit worse for wear as I didn't sleep well last night. Mondays are usually always so BLAH but today when I sat down in front of my work PC with my pot of coffee ... I found a huuuuuuuuge number of orders had come in over the weekend! The pile is so thick that stacked together it is almost a half an inch stack of orders JUST from the weekend! That also includes a couple of nice wholesale orders too :D
THEN .... I got a call from the local paper in response to the email I had sent them with a copy of my 25 Smiles montage just incase it was of local interest ... and they want to publish it!!! He did an interview over the phone and a photographer is coming to the workshop on Wednesday morning to take photos of me with the candles and with my camera!! He said they would give me a plug for my websites too - so there is the chance to bring in a lot of extra business!!!
Such a damned good day .... and it's not even quite lunchtime!!!
Sunday, 3 February 2008
Yeah!!! Passed my grading!!!
The whole grading took about an hr and 15 minutes ... and this is a pic of me when I got home afterwards looking all "funny scary" for the camera wearing my new belt!!!!
For those not in the know, you start of with a red belt at 11th kyu status. My brown and white belt puts me at 2nd kyu. There is now just ONE MORE BELT to go until I start working towards my black
Yeah ... I'm that good!!!
Saturday, 2 February 2008
New site is live!!
Wooohoo!!! In less than a week I managed to come up with the idea, design and build the site and it tis done!
This is the biz card I've designed - it's a low quality image as it's a screen print from my software, but I LOVE it and think it totally sums me up!!
Coooooooooooooooool huh!! Sometimes I am so good I surprise myself! hahahaaaa
Friday, 1 February 2008
** Photo Challenge - 25 Smiles
I woke up this morning and decided to go get out there with my camera and have some fun... and I set myself the challenge of 25 smiles from strangers! I was really nervous when I first started out ... I walked into town and let so many people walk past me until I plucked up the courage to ask the first person! From there it was really easy and people were SO nice to me.
I said to people "Excuse me, I'm doing a photography project called 25 Smiles and I wondered if you would like to be one of my smiles?" They were all so lovely to me - asked me about what I was doing and why I was doing it! People seemed surprised that I was just doing it for fun - for no real other reason, and most of them had a chat with me too!
There were only two people that said no - one was a woman who was in a rush somewhere, and the other was an older lady who thought she was too ugly to be photographed! She was such a lovely soul and stopped and chatted to me for quite some time and went off with a tear in her eye that somebody had actually wanted to take her picture!!
I really had a good time doing it! I am definitely going to have to set myself some more challenges! This is the finished montage of 25 smiles!!!
Thursday, 31 January 2008
I could actually fail this .............
I went training again tonight and I put as much into it as I could, but I am worried about my fitness levels. Shihan said I am okay to grade as long as I can get the power into it and last through the stamina.
Gonna say me a mantra from now until the end of grading.... "I AM SHE-RA PRINCESS OF POWER AND I CAN DO THIS!"
This is actually the first time I've been worried about FAILING a grade ... but, in my defence (I'm defending myself TO myself here! LOL) Shihan would have said to wait until next time around if he didn't think I could do it. He won't ever set us up to fail ... it's just down to me on the day!
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Still a genius :-)
Today started off as a bit of a "non day" really ... work this morning was "okay" - got some orders boxed up and sent out, and poured what I could - I just wasn't in a "lets pour candles" mood and I know when I'm in that kind of mood I am best off OUT of the workshop! Those are the days I end up throwing wax over myself or having a silly accident!
Soooo I came home an hour earlier than I should have ... and have been working on the new website. All the changes are still offline, and I'm not uploading anything else now until the site is completely ready! BUT it's all going really well. I've got the photography page done and am working on my website design service page right now.
I NEED some more stuff in my portfolio though ... I have terrific photographs of MY kids ... but I need MORE! Same with the websites too - I've built sites for other people in the past and I have several of my own .... but I need a bigger portfolio!!!
Sooooooooo ......... if anyone reading this (c'mon I know there are a couple of you at LEAST who read this LOL) who would like a free single page website (hosted on my domain or a free site of your choice) to go into my portfolio then email me!! LOL Oh I should add that just incase there are like hundreds / thousands of you reading this then the offer is limited to the first three people! LOL
I really REALLY want to get out with my camera! I am filled with this URGE and DESIRE to just go take pictures of anything and everything right now! I feel so full of inspiration and motivation. It's a good place to be :-)
Ok I've checked in - back to the websites ... that's if the wine don't get me on the floor first!!
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
I'm getting good at this not procrastinating lark!!
I've had such a fucking good day!! A seriously really good day!
Okay so my brand spanking new accountant turned up at 3pm today for a first initial consultation and I liked him the minute I saw him. He wasn't at all put off by how far behind I am and we talked through exactly what I need to do and get prepared so that he can then get started. I have a list of things to do and things to put together and he's coming back next week for an action plan!
It's far from over and far from sorted, but it's a big weight off my mind.
So anyway back to my bloody good day! As the meeting with the accountant wasn't until last thing in the afternoon, I had enough time to get lots done during the day ... and I had my laptop with me, so I've been doing some bits and pieces to the website etc. I showed Louise at work and she was ooohing and ahhhing over it! She has tons of people who she says would love a photo shoot, a website designed ..... networking really is my friend!!
I just feel really motivated at the moment. It all feels achievable and do-able. I just hope I can pull it all together!!!!!
AND after not going kickboxing since before Christmas ... I stopped procrastinating on that one too! Went training tonight and it was brilliant. My combos were spot on, I did okay in sparring and stamina ... AND talk about perfect timing - it's grading this weekend!!!! Shihan said that if I train on Thursday and my fitness is up to it then I can grade ... so I could be 2nd brown by Sunday ... OMG that means just 1st kyu to go before I reach black belt! AAAAHHHH!!!! Heheheeeeee I really timed that one perfectly!!
The only thing that potentially worries me is my level of fitness and getting through the stamina rounds. It's something like 10 rounds of stamina for 2nd brown. I haven't trained in a while, but I am still fairly active in my job and as long as I pace myself I should be okay!
So yeah ... a fucking good day, a tiring evening that my muscles will hate me for tomorrow ... and now to shower, THEN bath and sleep!
I really AM a creative genius!!!
Okay well there is a VERY good reason why I've not blogged for a couple of days ... I've been working on yet ANOTHER project! Yeah, see I think I found some of that time that I lost last week, and when Dee finds herself with nothing to do ... oh well life gets really really awful for anyone in her path!
Hence ... even though I haven't even finished the updates on the candlemaking website, and I'm still playing around with the format of the forums and moderating that, plus working a LOT as orders are really coming in at the moment, plus the whole domestic goddess bit, plus (ah well you get the idea!) ... I found myself thinking "Hmmmm deestapleton.co.uk .... now THAT sounds like a GREAT idea!"
Within a few minutes the domain was registered, and by the time it had the 24 hours to propagate throughout the Internet, I'd designed the main page and got the format for the sub pages done! So uhuhuh I've been a very busy bunny!!
www.deestapleton.co.uk - it's there and it's live but very MUCH under construction so I haven't "officially" launched it yet ... I just wanted to share it with the 2 or 3 of you that may actually read my daily mutterings and rambles!! HAHA!
It's going to be a site to house information about ALL that I do and I'll have all my sites linking to each other anyway, so hopefully if someone gets in touch for a candle order, they'll see I do photography, handmade cards, scrapbooking --- plus all the other things I do ... and they might want to commission me for something else!
Dee is gonna make money this year! I am going to HAVE that shop this year even if I have to work all the hours under the sun to achieve it!!!!
Saturday, 26 January 2008
If it doesn't move ... tidy it up!
Seeing as I took the day "off" yesterday with Nathan at home for "Insect Day", I spent most of the day in the workshop today. I'm pretty pleased with my progress too ...
A huge part of what I have been doing has been about sorting out and re-arranging the stock room so that I can easily see at a glance exactly what stock I have got. I keep my votive stock in these nifty baskets and there's around 18 in each basket so that when I get orders that are "1 of this, 2 of that" for votives, all I need to do is go into the stock room and they are all there laid out ready. It also means that when customers come to pick up orders, they can browse and buy more stuff while they are there!! I have been trying to work on getting every single fragrance that I have into votives and ready on display in the stock room. I have over 100 scents so it's not an easy task!!
This is what WILL eventually be my new office and what USED to be the "rubbish room!" It has turned out a bit more complicated than planned to get my old antiquated office PC wireless so I need to either buy some really long cables or buy a new PC! LOL Both can wait - it's not essential for now, and in the meantime this is my chill-out room where I can actually sit down and take a proper break!!! This room is opposite the stock room so it will be perfect to take customers into the stock room, then sit down in my office while I prepare their invoices!! And that's how I spent my day today!!!
Friday, 25 January 2008
Friday Five - 25th January 2008
It's been a while since I answered the friday five! If anyone is interested they come from http://www.friday5.org This week it's all about lateness!
What was the last important thing you were late for? I am actually VERY rarely late. Lateness is a big pet peeve of mine and it irritates me when other people are late ... hence I always try to be early!
What was the last important thing you were late with? Ah, see this is a different question. I am sometimes late with customer orders and have to admit that! I work as quickly as I can, but am only one person and can only do so much! LOL
What (or who!) is the most frequent cause of your lateness? There just isn't enough hours in the day ... seriously! I often settle down in the evening for bed and know that I haven't ticked everything off of my to do list for that day! I swear somebody sneaks up behind me and steals hours out of my day!
Which of your close friends or relatives can you expect almost always to be inconveniently late? My mother! I love her dearly I really do but she is KNOWN for being late! It's to a point that if I need her somewhere at 2.30pm I'd tell her to be there by 2.15 because she'd have a hope of being there by then!!
What’s most likely to cause you to stay up too late before bed? Simply not having got everything done! I'm always working on something whether it's website, catalogue, promotions .... there's always something on the go, and when I take a break from that I've got the new forums that are taking up a fair bit of my time, plus I spend waaay too much time on Facebook and eBay! I'm either in bed ridiculously early like 9pm because I'm shattered from the day ... or I'm up till stupid o'clock in the morning!!
A week hardly worthy of note!!!
LOL well it's true! It's been pretty much a "non week" really. I was a bit unwell at the start of this week .... not "ill" - just wasn't feeling right and had a few cold type symptoms that had me feeling under the weather. I guess it made me just kinda un-motivated and a bit crappy really! LOL
Orders at work have been slow but still coming in at the moment, and considering a recent stock market crash in the USA and talk of recession very much over the news ... I'm still fairly confident that things are going okay!
I have organised a new accountant as well. They are coming in on Tuesday next week to look things over and hopefully I can just hand over my boxes of paperwork and they will get me all nicely up to date!! That will actually then be the LAST thing off of my worry list when the tax man is off my back!
Talking of my worry list -- I have noticed that some of my stress symptoms are coming back again ... the "bubbling" in the pit of my stomach and the way it starts to rush all the way throughout my body. I CAN control it though, and I'm sure that's down to my happy pills! As soon as I feel it start, I am aware of it and I can control it until it reduces and fades away. This is a very good thing!
Today (Friday) is an inset day at school - Nathan made me laugh hysterically when he called it "insect day!" LOL .... visions of creepy crawlies and bugs! We did agree that it should forever more be called insect day though! LOL
I've taken the day off work as hub is in London and the kids are off school with "insect day" .... soooo I am in the middle of a mass house clean - Dee always feels better when she lives in a shiny sparkly world! :-)
Monday, 21 January 2008
pregnant women should cut down on coffee??
Not that it affects ME as I'm highly unlikely to have any more babies LOL ... but it was on the news this morning that a new study has shown drinking more than 2 cups of coffee while pregnant gives expectant mothers a much bigger risk of miscarriage.
I think it's utter madness! I should add that it was only a relatively small sample, but I still think it's crazy. They didn't even mention that there is caffeine in tea as well!
Talk about instilling fear into people - especially first time mums. I've lost two pregnancies to miscarriage but at the end of the day you CANNOT cover yourself in bubble wrap for 9 months (although I'd actually like to try wrapping myself in bubble wrap for a laugh! Anyway I digress....) If you try to avoid everything that you "shouldn't have" and take all the vitamins in the world, you can still have a miscarriage.
It isn't only that ... it's .... well picture a pregnant woman who has had her 2 cup limit of coffee. She's had a really bad day and needs a drink of something! The vodka is calling her but she opts for a cup of coffee instead. What if a few days later that woman miscarries due to something completely unrelated? She'd blame herself and that cup of coffee for the rest of her life.
Ok got that off my chest now!!
Sunday, 20 January 2008
And on the 7th day she did rest!
I was going to go into the workshop for a bit today but instead I spent the day working on the wholesale website. It's soooooooo almost finished! I have literally just one more page to attack with the revamped look and then I can upload it.... trouble is I left the worst one till last! It's the custom option page so it involves writing code for every product and every fragrance grrrr it'll take me some time, but I should get it done tonight if I crack on with it!!
So technically I've been sat on my ass all day ... but I've been beavering away and working!!!!
Saturday, 19 January 2008
And she procrastinates no more!!!
Oh it's been a bloody good Saturday! In fact, it's been a damn good week all round!!! Quick run down on the last few days I didn't blog ....
Thursday evening I went over to my mate Lisa's for a girlie chit chat over a couple bottles of wine... Lisa and I have known each other years and we know most of each other's deep dark secrets! We had a great night picking to pieces the men in our lives and generally plotting to take over the world *grin* like ya do .... LOL Got home pretty late - damned good night though!
Friday morning I did another dump run at work to get rid of the rubbish I cleared out of what will be my new office - it's looking soooo much better, but I reckon I've still got around 3 more trips to the dump to go yet :-( Ah well - at least I'm getting there!!! Then all I need is the wi-fi sorted and I can move my PC into there too - wooohooo!!
Nathan proudly showed me a HEAD TEACHER'S AWARD when he got out of school on Friday!!! Not just a merit from the teacher - but a headteacher's award. A handful of these are given every week to students but they are hard to get! Nathan said it was for work that he did, but until I speak to the head to confirm it, I will assume it's also for a general improvement in his overall behaviour recently too. He really has come on in leaps and bounds recently - and the head had commented on that when we spoke a week or so ago. Whatever it was for - I'm very proud of him! Of both of them :-) Megan is just generally well behaved anyway! LOL
Anyway after school on Friday Megan went off to play at Zara's house, and Nathan had his friend Oliver over here. It was only the 2nd or 3rd time that he's had someone over to play because of his behaviour problems, but he'd been really excited about this and apparently Oliver had too. They played really nicely together and it's always really good for me to spend time with other boys Nathan's age because it reassures me that some things are just "small boy" things and not just Nathan! LOL
Oliver was picked up at 6.30... and at 7.30, Adele brought Megan back home ... Megan and Zara disappeared into her room and I basically handed Adele a wine glass! LOL She and I ended up sitting chatting and smoking while the girls played ... and was around 11pm she went home!!!
Today ... well I didn't stir until 10am!! 10am?!?!?!! Crikey it's been a long time since I slept in that late! The kids were quiet in their rooms and Dee slept in!! When I got up - sorted breakfast for the minions, had a leisurely shower and I've pretty much had my backside planted on the sofa with my laptop for the rest of the day!!
I've almost completed the updates to the face lift on the wholesale site. I'm going to leave it for the evening now and finish off tomorrow with a view to having it uploaded by tomorrow night!
I've spent a fair amount of time on my new candlemaking forums too - it all seems to be going really well! 263 members currently and I only launched it a few days ago!! As soon as I finish the trade site I need to work on the candlemaking site!
It's never ending LOL but I love it!!
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
New projects and a new forum!
I’ve been working on a new forum for candlemakers – a web based forum to almost replace the email group that I have run since oooh around 2000-2001!
I’ve been working on it for a few days sorting out all the admin, creating the categories and sub forums etc, then I launched it last night on my candlemaking email group. By the time I’d sent the email, made a coffee and refreshed the forum main page, people had already started joining!! When I woke up this morning and checked, there were 165 members … that is just in twelve hours!!! I anticipate this is going to be huge!!
http://candlemaking.hyperboards.com/
DeeLights Candles is on Facebook!
Gawd what a damned fine idea this one was!! I was just idly tapping away on my laptop between working on the website and “facebooking” and I just happened to be in the “groups” section doing a search for ‘candles’ just to see what was about, and I noticed quite a few corporate candle companies had their own groups … so I created my own group too! LOL
Basically I’ll treat it just like I do with my customer email newsletter and offer extra discounts to members of the facebook group and keep it updated with new products and info about what is going on!
The BEST kettle in the world!!!!
Okay it sounds silly I know, but I REALLY got excited over this kettle!!!!!
It was a complete catastrophe when I got into work the other day!! As soon as I walk in to the workshop I switch the kettle on, hang my coat up, dump my bags and then go switch the wax on and fire things up. By the time I’ve done all that, the kettle has usually boiled.
Errrr water still cold – kettle still switched on!!!! Kettle deader than a big dead thing! I’d bought it years ago from Wizard (discount shop) for a fiver and it had lasted years … but then it sadly died a death!! Dee without a ton of coffee in the morning is like Britney Spears acting her age rather than her shoe size … it just never happens!
Sooooo I had no choice – HAD to go into town! Co-op was closest and I knew they would have something … but the only one they had was £17.99. I hadn’t wanted to pay that much considering how cheap my last one was … but I figured it was either that or go trudging around town looking and probably only save a few quid but waste time!
So I bought it … and it wasn’t until I plugged it in and switched it on that I realised ….
THIS IS THE BEST KETTLE IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!
Making a kettle sound exciting is a pretty tall order –or so you’d think! I mean, it’s just a kettle …. A means to an end to get a cuppa, right? Wrong! The Breville Lightning Kettle is like a fairground ride! It is not only a very cool stainless steel colour, but it has cool LED lights and eerie glowing colours through the spout! When it’s just sat on its base in standby, it glows LED blue … then when you switch it on, it glows LED red! Seriously it’s so exciting!! Ohhh and it boils water too!!!! It has a big window either side so you can see the glow and watch the water boil (it looks so cool in the dark!)
It didn’t say any of this on the box!! If the box had pictures of a shiny kettle with changing LED lights I would have bought it without any hesitation!!!! It boils MEGA fast too!!!
People laugh at me for getting excited over a kettle … then they SEE it and want one too!!!
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Where do all the hours go?????????
You know those times when you look at the clock and think "ahhh fabulous, I have five minutes to myself ...." Then, before you know it, an hour has passed! WHAT HAPPENED to those other fifty five minutes? Where did they go? It only felt like five!!
I've had two full on days like that so far this week and ooops it's only Tuesday!
When I got into work on Monday, I looked through the door at what has affectionately been termed (by me!) as "the rubbish room" and decided that enough is enough ... time to actually get off my arse and get rid of it all!! It's my fault - I haven't stayed on top of it and instead of doing a dump run once every couple of weeks and clearing out ALL the rubbish ... nooo, Dee decided to stash it all in an unused room and worry about it "eventually."
Well - yesterday was eventually!! I wish I'd taken a "before" pic because it's not a huge room - but easily a single bedroom size and it was FULL and I mean FULL of rubbish to the point you couldn't even get in the door, and it was piled up too.
I did three dump runs yesterday and another two today - I am absolutely knucking fackered but I feel really smug and chuffed with myself for it! I cleared the room out completely and I've sorted the rest of the bags/boxes of crap outside the door into what I think should be another 3-4 dump runs. There is some stuff that's simply too heavy for me to move so I need to plead girl on that and get a couple strong men up there to help with those bits!! Any offers? LOL
I'm going to turn the room into my office!!! My desk is currently just in the main packing area and it's a nightmare where it is. If I move into that room I'll be closer to the stock room and it means that when customers come in to the workshop, the office and stock room are almost opposite each other and no need for them to go up the other end where it's messy!!
I moved the sofa in there today and have got a desk ready to move the PC over, but before I can do that I need more help! Gawd I hate being a girl sometimes! I am definitely computer savvy, but when it comes to moving my PC away from the phone line ... I know I'm going to need help with sorting out turning it wireless before I can officially move in there! Thankfully DH has said he'll help me with that! Phew!
I want my office to be more of a comfy and warm place to be when I have paperwork to do! The other downside of where my desk currently is ... is that there are absolutely no radiators up that end because of false walls ... so it's Brrrrrrr cold when the temperature outside drops!!! I want to be able to take proper breaks and have somewhere comfortable to sit and also somewhere for my choccie biccies to live that isn't too far from the kettle! Hehehe
So yeah today and yesterday I have been doing hard manual graft! Up and down those sodding stairs with heavy bags, lifting & shifting furniture and now I is knackered! By the time I've looked at the clock both days ... it's been pretty much time to run and go pick the kids up!
All work and no play makes Dee a very dull girl!!!
I'm going to have me a nice bath and hit the sack early!
Saturday, 5 January 2008
what a difference a few days make!!
Well after being all depressed and melancholy I have had a blinding couple of days!! It's been a weird week really and I put it all down to New Years Day being on a Tuesday!!! The week is all ass about face!
It's been a good week though and the last couple of days in particular have been really great. Yesterday was a motivating day at work, and then today everything just fell into place without any planning!!
Put it this way - I have a very big grin on my face!! It's been a really good day!
Been thinking more and more about a shop again. I need to really pull it out of my arse this year and get it sorted - and SOON! I need a good amount of cash to buy some wax in bulk and get started on serious stock preparation and try to build up some reserve cash in the account... as well as promoting and trying to gain new business and staying on top of the website!!
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
The good news is .... (you mean there IS some?)
Well it's 11.30pm, I'm more than a little drunk and melancholy so I am looking for silver linings in all of the big black clouds that are my life!!!
- When I went into work yesterday there were no emails or voicemail messages to say that anything hadn't arrived, so I HAVE to assume that Christmas 2007 was a success!!
- Nathan's room was "Dee Cleaned" today and is now prolly the cleanest room in the house!!
- I'm pretty drunk.
Yeah ummm that's about it.
2008 HAS to be a good year ... it HAS to.
If I buy new shoes on eBay .....
it won't actually make me feel any better! Doesn't stop me looking though! It's 10.24pm and I am not drunk enough yet.
Resolutions?? Nope, not me!!
I never make New Years Resolutions. EVER.
I am a firm believer that if there is something you need to change about yourself then you need to just DO IT instead of waiting for a date on the calendar. What's the point of overeating at Christmas and promising yourself you will diet/join a gym in the new year?
Sooo many people use today - 1st January as an excuse to give up things like smoking and drinking .... but as the bumper sticker on the back of my car says "I gave up smoking, drinking and sex - it was the worst 15 mins of my life!" Nope, I don't actually have ANYTHING that I want to give up for the new year!
There are changes I want to make in my life for sure, but these have been on-going changes that I have been working on for a while - things like trying to be less stressed (not working when I've fallen out with someone I am close to) and eating better (again not working when I have no appetite due to stress!) but I didn't suddenly wait until new year to make the changes! Funnily enough I did feel nauseous today and it was when I was getting myself wound up about the person I'd fallen out with. More proof that the throwing up was due to stress!!
2008 HAS to be a better year. It has to - or I quit!!!
Not such a happy new year
I can't believe my first post of 2008 is such a depressing one!
I can't go into detail as it would create more hassle than it's worth ... but I have been extremely upset by somebody I am close to. It happened on Boxing Day and I am still waiting for this person to apologise to me. It's New Years Day today and I had really hoped that I would get a call or text message to apologise and clear the air - but nothing.
As I said, I can't go into detail with the who or what, but what I can say is that I have been really upset by this person.
Thing is, it's not the first time that this person and I have fallen out, and in the past where I have been half responsible for the fallout, I am usually the one to get in touch and say "hey, you know what, let's not spoil our friendship and lets just move past this - agree to disagree" ...
Not this time. The last text I sent a few days ago said that I was ready to listen when they were ready to apologise and I have still heard nothing. I'd been hoping that the new year could be a fresh start.
More fool me. Saddens me really.
