Taking time for myself

Normally I don't make myself promises to do things for me, because, well, at the end of the day, doing things for myself is something that seems to lack importance (as opposed to doing things for other people - which I know has led to me being told on several occasions that I am a doormat, who should only expect to get walked all over.... but I can't help it, it's just me, I like to do things for other people, hells I even like to look after other people, cook for them and stuff .... I don't consider myself a doormat, it's just the way I am).

So anyway, I made some decisions whilst I was off work over Christmas, part of which was that I was going to take time this year to do some things for myself.... the main one being to pluck up courage to go to the UK GLBT fiction meet in July....... as I posted a few days ago, the time off is now booked and I've realised that because I pay my Council Tax over 10 months rather than 12 I have a spare £90 in the budget in February and March..... £90 being the cost of the tickets for both days, but without a stay over (thank goodness it's only in Manchester!)...... So, come pay day at the end of this month (or the end of February if I bottle it) I am going to book myself a place..... and then have a good few months to psych myself up to go (or panic myself until I am completely grey!)..... I am terrible at meeting new groups of people - the last time I was a newbie at a meeting of internet people I managed to get myself into the kitchen to help out and could thankfully hide in there for most of the time on the pretext of being helpful - so not an option this time ....

Other things I am doing for myself include switching off at 4.00 pm when I leave work and trying to put it out my mind till the next day - which I have failed at big time so far.

I am also going to have a couple of evenings a week where I don't answer the phone - unless it's a pre-planned phone call (my counsellor really liked this idea!) or an emergency.

I am going to try and make more of an effort with the house - and look for a gardener that can at least come and tidy things up for me.

I am also going to spend at least three nights a week having a couple of hours playing with yarn, whether at home or when I am out (knitting after all does like to go to the pub and socialise)...... though I suppose this is really only partially for me as I don't knit for myself but love to knit for other people.  I don't like to promise to make things for people (okay so I do have 2 pairs of socks to knit for other people where they've given me the yarn so I must do those) but I like to surprise people with things.... my current project is one of these things.... then there are imminent new arrivals to knit something for....

This is dangerous though, because I find myself surfing Ravelry...... which resulted in me finding the perfect knitting project to do for a friend, as from recent conversation (which primarily involved a mission to the gutters to rescue my now very dented and tarnished halo, and for her to go hunting a pocket demon to train) I think this little chap would like to go live on her desk and help guard her pencils!  I wonder what colour she'd like??

Stone the Gargoyle
(www.devonmonk.com/knitting-gallery)

A weekend with minor excitements.....

Sunday night with work looming over the horizon comes round far far to quickly!

This weekend has been one of doing things.... mainly because I promised myself I wouldn't spend my weekends just reading (well, okay, there might be the odd weekend) and instead I would make myself do something productive.....

Which means that this weekend I have....

- tortured all four of the dogs by savagely maiming them with excruciatingly sharp object so that they are no longer able to walk without severe pain and injury......... or in other words, I cut their nails..... they only thing they can no longer do is making tappy noises on the hard kitchen floor which means that Hope can stealth attack and arrive on my lap without warning......

- cleaned up, trimmed the grass edge and bleached the hell out of the kennel run.... it needed doing and there was a dry day on Saturday so grabbing the opportunity before the next week of rain, or heaven forbid, snow arrives.

- Combed out fully the fur ball known as Gretchen....... by the time I had done I could almost grow a spare spitz out of the undercoat I'd removed from her....... I have plans to do the others, don't tell them!

- Visited mother to carry out daughterly duties (and use the washing machine).... which was quite complicated as I arrived to find her having a complete tizzy because the flat roof in the attic was leaking water into the house..... my mother bless her is a drama queen at times and you'd have thought the world was ending....... when I told her to find her insurance documents and ring them she got quite snappy as apparently when she'd phoned my sister at goodness only knows what time this morning to stress at her about it she'd been told the same thing......I am not sure what else she was expecting from me... possibly to join her in her dramatic moment...... instead she got a small lecture on learning to act proportionately and that a leaking roof was not in fact a life and death situation...... apparently at nearly 75 she feels that if she wishes to be dramatic she will be....... mind you the roof now has a tarp on it and a temporary fix until she can get two quotes for the insurers.

- Unwound and balled up 3 skeins of new and exciting yarn (well these particular ones were new to me, it's one of my favourites to play with) and am now about 1/4 of the way through a new and fun knitting project (erm, which  was actually on my to knit for Christmas list, but hey, you know, surprise gifts throughout the year are welcome I'm sure)

- Had one of those special moments involving melting plastic, glass fragments and flames....... okay, it goes like this.... I have some really nice glass candle holders that sit inside little metal pots on the kitchen window ledge.  On Saturday I had had one alight for a while and as I was sitting at the kitchen table reading (yeah, I did do some of that this weekend too) I caught rather more flame than I would have expected out the corner of my eye.  On closer investigation, namely walking up to it and leaning over the sink to look, I noticed that all the wax residue on the glass holder was burning and the wick itself had burnt out.  On tiptoes I leant further forward to blow it out but it wouldn't go out.  So I picked it up........ which would be my first mistake..... cos the pot it sits in is metal, and was hot, and there were flames, and I dropped it into the plastic washing up bowl in the sink........ where it started to quite happily melt the plastic as I blew at it quite dramatically..... giving up I turned the tap on to put it out..... and the shock of the cold water on hot glass, well, exploded it quite dramatically........ I managed to get the water out the bowl, leave the glass bits in and then carry the whole thing to the outside bin without further incident...... and then went back to run my hand under the tap cos I realised my fingers were a bit warm.........

- and that's about it for my weekend, oh save having only changed the bedding 2 days ago, I now have to go and change the sheets again because Gina has thrown up in the middle of the bed...... why when she has the whole of upstairs to chose from does she always manage to do this just after I've changed the bedding??

The week in one post....

So that's the first week of October over with.... and what a boring and miserable week it has been....Autumn is definitely here and I have an over-riding wish to go into hibernation and come out again in the spring.

I have at least now got my replacement Kindle charger... which is in a safe place where evil hell hounds cannot get it (and where the cats cannot nibble on it either)... I might also have blown the book buying budget for the whole month as well....  The rest of the week mainly involved working - which is boring and tedious.  There was a visit to my counsellor on Wednesday, who is pleased with my progress and is moving me to fortnightly appointments... I have homework again though, for next time she wants a list of positive things in my life ...... humm, that could be quite a short list right now ...

Tonight I got home to find two cards from the post man through the door to tell me I had parcels... for some reason though they've taken them to different places to hold onto them till I can collect them..... I am pretty sure I know one is some yarn I bought the other day when I was given a brilliant excuse for visiting the Colinette site .... the other I think maybe a little parcel from Austria which I am very excited about... I shall be going to collect as early as I can tomorrow....

I did have other plans for this weekend ... though they mainly involved heavy duty housework as I was expecting visitors next week.... in fact there was plotting and planning on Wednesday night for the visit.... and then there was a phone call this evening and now there is no visit.... She said she felt guilty for letting me down, but really, it's not her fault, in fact it's really nobody's fault, just sometimes life gets in the way and complicates the hell out of everything - in this case a potential move of residence for my friend and her family which is much needed and if all goes to plan will be fantastic for them.

Now I could potentially have a moment of self pity and wailing as all my plans fall apart.... after all I see this friend twice a year, we've been planning this visit since May, I probably won't see her now till next May as there is a new baby due at the end of March..... but you know what.... the world doesn't revolve around me..... and to be honest, the potential new home sounds so brilliant for them I'd rather just keep my fingers crossed that everything goes well and that rather than being with me next weekend they are busily packing.... not to mention that the saving in terms of the cost of petrol to drive to mine will buy them a new carpet....... I feel that this should be known as my carpet in future ...

I might still do housework...  or I may break into the new yarn and curl up on the sofa to watch TV... after all the new series of Merlin starts tomorrow and the slash possibilities are endless...

Erm... ah... oops?

Well it had been a while, in fact almost four months, but I suppose it had to happen sooner or later....

yep my magical powers struck again ........

Saturday night I was up far too late (well into Sunday morning really) because I got sucked into a chat room on a new website I joined (though I didn't actually join in the chatter, I just lurked with intent)..... So, being a bit tired after the 5 am dog walk and feeding routine I decided sod it, it's Sunday, I am going read for a while, so I made myself comfortable in my corner of the sofa and must have drifted off because the next thing I knew was that there were protest songs coming from the stairs where the cats had wondered if I expected them to somehow feed themselves....

Having apologised to them profusely, well, filled their dishes up after which they promptly ignored me I decided it was actually time to get my backside into gear and get organised.....

Now, here I should explain, I live in a reasonably modern house, that is to say it was built in the 1980's, but it has the original boiler/heating system and a horrible electric shower which goes over the bath .....  So this morning I switched on said shower, got in (after having my feet attacked by Hugo who likes to wait for me to get one leg into the bath before attacking the other foot.... it's strange what amuses a cat)... there I was midway through my ablutions (shower gel of choice this morning was tea tree and mint) when suddenly, there was a bang, quite a loud bang, from the vicinity of just behind me on the wall, where the shower unit is... and then the water went cold.... the dogs started barking and the house alarm went off...

Now the house alarm going off like that signals that the electricity trip switch on the fuse box has switched itself off.... so I tentatively reached out and switched the water off .. before legging it downstairs to tell Ivan that the world wasn't coming to an end (bless him, he doesn't half over react at times) and to switch off the alarm, once I'd flipped the trip switch...... could I remember the alarm code as I am standing in the cupboard (which doubles as the downstairs toilet) staring blankly at the alarm panel.... whilst naked and dripping water and soap all over the place......

At which point my neighbour's teenage son knocks on the front door... his mother having sent him round to check I was okay.....

Luckily, I managed to remember the alarm code, reassured the child through the closed door that I was fine, and get myself organised enough to go finish washing..... albeit without using the shower...

Seems I'll be calling the plumber this week to get myself a nice new shower..... but why do these things always happen to me?

Sometimes nothing actually happens....

Which would be more or less the case this weekend.

I think, having dealt with the whole work fiasco, stuck 5 days work into 4 working days and with my sleep pattern being somewhere on another planet I was probably due a break from, well everything really.

So, this weekend there was housework (when isn't there), a little light dash round the supermarket (seriously, I must remember not to do this (a) without at least one large coffee first and (b) at a time when small children will with zero manners will be being forced to shop with uninterested parents - cos I love being followed round by the little sods whilst they point and laugh), some laundry (with the bonus of being early enough to mother's with said laundry that she made me breakfast) and a whole lot of reading and falling asleep at inappropriate times at the kitchen table.

So whilst I felt like I had had a weekend and a break from work I had done, well, bugger all really...... except possibly buy more books for the Kindle... bad me!

I have the housework to do list from hell as I have less than 2 weeks before my friend and the half daughter invade (yes, invade, not come to stay, that implies having to be polite and make them cups of tea etc... invade is much better - the half daughter takes over the guest room and plans world domination with the cats whilst her other half mother (ok, well her real mother if you want to get technical) and I put the worlds to right over tea, pepsi max and possibly vodka whilst knitting, reading and writing....... we know how to have fun)

I also have a short story to write for the May photo prompt on the YA GLBT Goodreads group - the bunny has spoken and is now just waiting for me to get my finger out and write it...... I also want to see if I can plot out a possible adult M/M story - no idea how long - whose main character showed up in my head last week and refuses to go away.

Who knows, at some point, I may actually find something interesting to blog about....

Long, lazy weekend....

Well thank goodness that this week, as far as working goes, is safely at an end..... I don't think I've ever been more pleased to see 4 pm on a Friday arrive as I was this afternoon.  I have a formal meeting to tie up some loose ends of the whole fiasco on Tuesday - when I fully intend to have my 5 minutes to get my side of things on record - after which I intend to put the lot behind me and move on.

So, we have a bank holiday weekend this weekend.... and of course the weather is forecast to be miserable - highs of 6C and lows of -1C... with potential winter showers.. great!  I fear that this will result in one or two things happening this weekend.... there will be a major outbreak of domesticity and, shock horror, the overdue assignments might actually get done.

Now, the first is more than a definite possibility as so far this evening I have made a chilli for tomorrow in the slow cooker and baked bread rolls and cookies (chocolate and ginger one).  Aside from the boring things that happen every weekend (laundry, housework etc) I am in the mood to bake...... which means that I will either go mad and fill the freezer or I will blow something up with the first thing I bake and give it all up as a bad idea.

The assignments I really need to get done....... but I am really not feeling the love for the joys of family law right now...... actually I am not sure that it's a subject I will ever come to love....... Mind you, the criminal law assignment gave me a plot bunny that is currently refusing to go away and a couple of potential characters keep jumping up and down just in my field of vision whilst waving their arms about and shouting at me... humm, that might make for more interesting writing than the assignments.....

Right, I am now going to go undertake the most dangerous and challenging domestic task that it's possible to do in this house........... yes, I am going to, with the aide of Gina and Hugo...... try and change the king size duvet cover....... wish me luck!

Things done whilst on my holiday....

Tomorrow is the last day of my holiday *sob* ....... I seriously don't want to go back to work on Tuesday!

So in the last 10 days I have....

- completely spring cleaned the house

- entertained visitors for 4 days which was much fun..... looking forward to the end of May when there will be a repeat performance, including visitations from my co-consipriator in chaos and the half daughter.

- slept on the sofa whilst said visitors were here - not through lack of bed space but rather to prevent rent a mob waking them when they decide at some godforsaken hour I need to get out of bed and attend to them

- fallen off the sofa at 4 am when I forgot where I was sleeping and cracked my head on the coffee table (there had to be one muppet moment)

- become another year older.... but we will try not to dwell on this one

- been attacked by my own cat who managed to put a two centimetre hole in the bottom of my shin

- failed entirely to catch up with what are now two overdue assignments

- completed my story for LiAW and sent it to the kind people who have volunteered to beta read/edit for me - am waiting to hear back which is turning out to be quite nerve racking

- spent a serious amount of time chilling out and reading - the books read in April list needed a head start due to the comments above regarding assignments and editing (this is my excuse and I'm sticking to it)

- eaten too much chocolate...... not because it is Easter or anything, but just because, you know sometimes you have to!

I hope anyone passing by reading has had a nice Easter break too!

Busy little bee....

Oh my, these days off sure are filled with things to do!

Yesterday I spent the morning cleaning and tidying... proper scary spring cleaning... the sort where you move furniture around and find things that you couldn't remember losing in the first place..... in my case, also mixed with far too much stray dog hairs... hells I could have probably knitted another spitz with the amount that was hoovered up in the end.... and I only did a full clean less than a month ago, with mini cleans in between, but it's that time of year where the girls drop the glamorous full fluffy knickers coats and go short for summer!  Thank goodness the cats are bald and I don't have this problem upstairs!

My visitor arrived in the afternoon and since then there has been much fun and frivolity, far too much chocolate, some gossip and general silliness......... but no alcohol as we are both currently taking medication (dammit)

Web time has been limited, but my visitor has spent a great deal of time nagging me to finish my LiAW story... including taking it off me earlier on and proof reading what I'd written so far to make sure it makes some sort of sense (I'll get her reading M/M stories one way or another!)  She's threatened to take my Kindle and phone off me tomorrow if I don't get it finished!!

So anyway, I have visitors till Thursday or Friday... depending entirely on how much snow we get dumped on us in the next day or so... yes, it was stupidly warm, almost May weather last week... to the point that the trees are all in blossom and my hayfever is causing merry hell... but temperatures are dropping and we are forecast snow very soon!  (and it's not even a special birthday this year... it snowed when I was born, when I turned 18, 21 and 30....)

Ok, off to entertain my visitor... or no, in fact, possibly to go read as she appears to have fallen asleep whilst I've been typing :)

Disjointed mumbling & stoned cats

I have Kindle the Third!!... it is charged and my books are back where they are meant to be... but I have been good and not turned it on to read them as I have been trying to write... trying being the operative word as for some reason the words would not come as I wanted them to today and I spent a goodly part of this afternoon sitting in front of a fairly blank screen saying "I can't do this".... which is stupid because I know I can and what's more I will, today was just not a day for writing apparently

Nor was it a day for trimming the beech hedge that fronts my property....... apparently I should never have been and never will be trusted with the hedge trimmer again as long as my sister lives (it's her hedge trimmer)..... I kept the neighbours amused for a bit (whilst making sure the children stayed well back!).  There was no blood involved, and the house alarm only went off once whilst I was trying to do it... but I might, possibly, have taken a chunk out the wheelie bin, and the gate post... which isn't even near the beech hedge..... erm....

Thank goodness one of my friends is loaning me her husband to come up and finish the trimming in a few weeks!!


Thanks to a conversation yesterday, I am craving chocolate, not just any chocolate, I want chocolate covered coffee beans.... but alas I have none... actually there is no chocolate in the house at all, which I am not sure how this happened as I went shopping today, but it appears that I walked past all the chocolate and didn't buy any!

I did buy cat treats.... sadly cats noticed where I had hidden them and I've just come upstairs to discover they've eaten a month's worth of cat nip filled treats......... They've done a fair bit of racing about and now Hugo is wobbling a bit, and has fallen off the bannister rail, Gina keeps trying to sit on my shoulder and head-butt me... she's being far far more affectionate than usual..... I wonder if they are going to be hyper or chilled out so I can go to bed.... oh no, Hugo is now trying to..... erm, no... that didn't work... must go rescue the laundry as he's just managed to collapse the clothes airer with himself inside it.......

Saturday's learning curve....

Yep, it's one of those "things I have learnt today" posts....

1.  Balancing between the kitchen chair and the worktop whilst trying to reach the top of the oven is not an easy task, particularly when not physically designed for such things;

2.  Melted plastic will not be shifted by bleached based cleaning products.... but it does have a really interesting chemical reaction;

3.  Always site your cooker under the extractor fan, just in case you decide to experiment with chemicals on your cooker hood whilst leaning over the top of it...sudden fits of coughing are not recommenced when in a precarious position, and if you do put your hand up to the top of the fridge freezer to steady yourself make sure that the blade from the mixer isn't sitting innocently where your hand lands;

4.  Do not leave the long handle broom in the hall way but put it away properly, as the cats will find a way to knock it over and lodge it against the front door so that getting in with your shopping becomes a sort of contortionist act

5.  Check what the tub of ointment you've pulled out the bathroom cupboard in the dark is before applying it... in my case, I've discovered that hair styling product is not good for psoriasis and I should stick with the aloe vera gel in future!

Further adventures in stupid...

Ah yes, well it had been a while since I'd set anything alight, or blown anything up, or fused various parts of the electrics on the house (ok, there was setting the house alarm off the other week but I swear that was not me.... no I am not sure what it was, but when I'd reset the master switches on the fuse box and switched it off it stopped)

Anyway... today I was a bit special..... in that sort of raised eyebrow way.... At some point last night I was sorting the recycling and because there are only certain types of plastic that they will take at the kerbside I'd put an old ice cream tub that would have to go into the take to the recycling centre pile on top of the eye level grill that hovers over the gas cooker so that I could clean down the work tops....

Fast forward to this evening when I get in from work very tired and hungry as in my usual state of disorganisation I'd forgotten to make myself any lunch (again.... I swear, I am actually sometimes organised, well I give off the impression anyway).  Investigations revealed that there was no bread in the bread bin, or in fact much at all in the fridge, but I did manage to locate a couple of pita breads in the bottom of the freezer, which I popped under the grill on a low setting to defrost/warm (you'll remember I have no microwave as after I blew up 3 within a year I didn't bother replacing the last one)

So, having done this, I nipped upstairs to placate the hell cats, who were protesting quite loudly, whilst balanced on the baby gate, that it was way past their dinner time thank you very much... with them fed and watered and me changed out of work clothes into dog walking kit I was about to head downstairs when I noticed a very strange smell......and then the smoke alarm went off ....

Oh grief, have you any idea how much mess an ice cream tub can make when it melts all over the top of your grill, down the vent and onto the grill pan, narrowly missing the actual (lit) grill plates.... and the smell!!!

Suffice to say my job tomorrow is going to involve balancing precariously on a chair/the work top to try and remove the mess of congealed melted plastic so that I can use my cooker again........

I might have had a couple of glasses of vodka this evening in preparation for the task...

Domesticity...

I have a fridge magnet (actually I have several but that's another story) that says "dull women have immaculate houses".... and it's safe to say from that that I am definitely not dull!

I have to admit to having some sort of antipathy towards housework, particularly since being on my own..... it may be in part rebellion as when with my ex I was the one responsible for the housework (and cooking, and cleaning, and the garden, and the kennels etc etc) and if it wasn't done properly or well enough I used to get pointed remarks and dramatic sighs.... anyway, I am not a complete slob and the kitchen and bathrooms are always sparkly clean, which given that I am in those rooms, well the kitchen anyway, the majority of the time I am home, is probably why.

Now normally it takes me forever to work myself up into hoovering and dusting the rest of the house (upstairs because carrying the hoover up is a complete faff and carrying it down is, for someone as accident prone as I am, an adventure!) but for some reason today I have cleaned, I have yet to work out why as it usually takes until I have visitors to stay to get it to this level of freakily clean and tidy.... I wonder if I've caught some sort of housework bug... if so I hope I've got it well and truly out my system!

Well tomorrow is the last day of the festive holidays, and I intend to spend it finishing off my short story for the YA GLBT Goodreads group January photo challenge ..... I may post it tomorrow on here again as a test run, though my beta reader is on holiday and so it will be very much a hunt the mistake, typo, continuity error kind of thing as I always find something wrong after I've posted it somewhere!