carpetgate 2009

Asa xmas present from my dad, he's paid for me to have happy new living/dining room carpet :D
This however meant I've had to gut the room and take up the old carpet ready for it to be fitted tomorrow afternoon.
So began 2 hours or carnage and near death experiences...



Supervisor cat is supervising..



The incredibly odd list of baby girl names my mum wrote. Found UNDER my carpet. I moved in in October 2005. My mum DIED in sept 05 and my eldest daughter was born march 05.... wtf?



Never trust a woman high on prescription pills with a bread knife... uh oh.. too late. Speaking of prescription pills..



..the carrier bag mine came in.... lol. God bless wisdom teeth...





For some reason I painted that when we moved in and decorated. Who DOESN'T want to find "hi" in yellow paint on the floor?





Got to love the council's answer to flooring. "I know, lets stick thin slate tiles on tarmac!" Expected to find my own private parking space..

No rest for the wicked

Hello strangers :D (If anyone actually reads this thing.. lol)

So much has happened since I last posted and my life has gone into crazy hyper overdrive mode. I rarely get time to myself at the moment, in fact, I'm actually writing this from work! Lol Oh the irony..

Anyway.. after all my money worries and problems and gripes about being on benefits, guess what. I'm back at work! A new contract came through at work a few weeks ago and I am now working a whole 18 hours a week! The wage is pretty nice too :D, but more importantly, I'm now off benefits! Well ok, not entirely, but I'm now not on income support at all, and I just get a tiny amount of council tax benefit and housing benefit as I'm a single mum, and of course my tax credits/child benefit and whatnot.. but the main thing is that I'm not longer completely reliant on benefits to get by! It feels great! However I am now a proper little busy bee, as my new role Advisor/money advice assistant essentially means I'm a trainee debt caseworker, dealing with the smaller cases on my own and helping the qualified caseworkers. :D I love it! Only problem is this new contact is for 6 months only. So come March I'm going to start having to look elsewhere if no other funding comes up as I am NOT going back on benefits. No bloody way am I going back to that hell.

It's funny. This has been such an up and down year. I've caught myself on a few occasions thinking about just how much has changed. It's insane. The first half of the year was an utter mess in every way shape and form. But the second half has just gone strength to strength. It's still had it's ups and downs granted, you can never escape those really. That's life. There'll always be little issues and bumps in the road. My divorce is still going through for example, and I've had various problems with my ex, but now I've pretty much stopped regular contact with him things are getting easier. Still not perfect by any means and I'm still not happy with certain arrangements, but I won't go into detail on here. I love my girls and they're happy. That's all that matters and all I care about.

Things between me and the beef are great. Scary to think that come Christmas we'll have been together 7 months though. Where has this year gone??? For the first time in a long long time I'm actually happy with someone, I love him and it's most importantly reciprocated, and I'm actually ENJOYING being with someone, without NEEDING them. It sounds daft, but we have our individual lives and we meet in the middle, which is nice as we don't drive each other crazy (yet lol!) and I think on a personal level that's something I've not had in a long time. A life of my own that I have WILLINGLY shared with someone. Prior to this I've basically been dictated by everyone else. I can finally say, that for the first time in a looooooooong time, I'm truly happy :). Which is nice :D

The girls are both great, Ash is doing really well at school and KK is as cheeky and eeeevil as ever. Typical 2 year old. Lol. Ash is really coming into her own and really growing up fast. It's really blink and you miss it with them at the moment. They're both coming on and my babies are definitely well and truly gone. I can't believe they're nearly 5 and 3 respectively. Scary.... :\ I have to keep snapping myself out of flits of broodiness recently, which is crazy, seeing as I've only just started to regain my sanity. Lol! That and I'm pretty sure the beef would run a mile if I ever mentioned such suggestions to him..lmao! “Let's try for a baby!!.... wait... come back!! Where are you going?!?!....” lol :D How to put the frighteners up someone in one easy step :D I may be insane, but I'm not THAT insane.

Divorce wise things have been pretty straight forward so nothing really to tell. Applying for the Decree absolute on the 9th December, so you never know, may have it in time for Christmas. Lol Happy Christmas! Should come through pretty quick after I apply so just depends how busy the court is really. How exciting... not. Lol

Anyway, I should really quit rambling. But that's where I am now.. busy.. but very very happy :D Will try and keep writing as much as possible. But what with work, the girls, the house, the beef, the lbfs, the ou course and trying to have a social life it's all a bit manic! lol

Things to be grateful for.

I've had an awful week for a variety of reasons. But rather than a self pitying, depressing post I thought I'd look on the bright side...

so here we are. The yin and yang of emotional stress..
things to be grateful for.

I have little money - but the money I do have is under my control

I have debts - but it's manageable and not causing me a problem

I'm up to my eyeballs in work - but it means I have a job and I enjoy it

My girls are really stressing me out of late - but they're healthy, happy and loved

My exhusband is STILL treating me like shit - but I'll soon have a decree absolute lol

My house is a shittip - but I have my own house to actually have mess in

My car needs repairs doing to it - but it gets me from A to B and is my biggest asset

My heart has been broken more times than I care to think about - but at least I have known what it is to love someone so much it hurts

Most men I have known have been bastards at least part of the time - but my boyfriend loves me and shows it

I don't have many close friends - but the ones I have MORE than make up for it

I don't get chance to play bass as much as I would like - but at least I have a talent

I'm overemotional most of the time - but at least I'm brave enough to show emotion

and most of all...

My life has been very very hard - but I've still come out the other side to tell the tale smiling.


It's just sometimes we forget.

Metrosexual is in now... along with smoking?

An article in today’s Daily Mail (I know I know, I can hear to booing and hissing from here…) has sparked great debate on a forum I frequent. Now, normally I’d just add my own little witty retort to the mix and be done with it, but this article in particular is linked to something I feel very strongly about.

Smoking.

My hatred of smoking is pretty well known by those who’ve known me longer than 5 minutes. I hate it. It makes me feel sick to be around it, I hate the smell, and I get close to wanting to kick the living crap out of anyone who blows smoke at me or my girls or we‘re forced to breathe it in because they‘re too god damn selfish to realise the concept of personal breathing space.

For the record, I have never actually tried smoking. I‘ve never wanted to as I have hated it for as long as I can remember. But this isn’t a hatred without reason, I spent 16 years of my life surrounded by it constantly with my mum and dad both being very heavy smokers. I was constantly ill, have a cough myself like I smoked 40 a day, I was bullied for the smell of it on me and constantly told my parents were going to die because of it.

Well.. They were right. My mum died from lung cancer in 2005. After 40 odd years of addiction. I watched her slowly die from something that she had no control over. It was awful and I’m beyond understanding as to why ANYONE would willingly smoke. You know it’s bad for you, you know one day it will eventually kill you and you will leave behind a huge great gaping hole in the lives of the people you left behind that will never, ever heal.

Ok, so admittedly I’m a bit militant about it because of my mum dying. But yet, my boyfriend is a smoker. I dated a smoker for 18 months when I was 14/15. I hated it. It was disgusting, mainly because he was one of these ‘I don’t care what you think I’m going to do what I like how and when I like’ types, that and being a complete and utter cock, but I digress. I always said from that day on I wouldn’t date another smoker. And I didn’t. Up until May this year that is. Pretty much 10 years of being a good girl and sticking to my smoke-free guns.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not the lie down and take it type (There is a joke, but no, I won’t do it :D), and my boyfriend is fully aware of how much I hate it. Thankfully, he’s the courteous type. He won’t force me or the girls to be around it and knows that if he did we’d be over faster than a man who suffers from premature ejaculation in the Ann Summers bondage section. As much as I hate it and am pretty vocal about it, I can’t and wouldn’t ask him to stop. Simply because it’s not my choice. If he wants to slowly commit suicide that’s his choice as much as it upsets me to think he could end up like my mum… (ooh there I go being all militant again!). I’m not the type of person to force ultimatums on people, “I hate smoking, quit or we’re through”. I just couldn’t do that. As much as I think smokers are selfish for not considering the effects on others, I’m not selfish enough to ask someone to change the way they are to be with me. If they’re special enough, then I just put up and shut up. Ok, less so of the shut up part..

I suppose the sad fact is that as non smokers we kind of HAVE to ‘put up and shut up’. Mainly because it’s not our choice and we have no real say in what smokers do. When the smoking ban was brought out a few years back, non smokers rejoiced in the fact we’d now be able to enjoy a night out or a meal without stinking like an ashtray the next morning and waking up with that god awful smell in our hair. But now we have another problem. People still smoke, and they do it in groups where they CAN smoke. i.e. outside of entrances and in beer gardens, and speaking as a non smoker who has a lot of friends who smoke, unless you’re going to be Little Miss Social Outcast and stay indoors while all of your friends are outside lighting up then again, you have no choice. It’s a catch 22, so even with the smoking ban, we STILL get to wake up stinking, kiss guys who taste like ashtrays and put up with the wonder that is 2nd hand smoke.

But this is where I come to my original point… the article which has caused so much debate on a forum I frequent.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-566351/The-electric-cigarette-gives-nicotine-hit-gets-round-smoking-ban.html

Electronic cigarettes, smoke free, and carcinogen/health effect free (subject to further testing obviously). You simply charge them up and off you go. Pure nicotine without any of the nasties, and a realistic look and ‘smoke’ effect for the Malboro Gestapo. So now us non smokers can rejoice in having to inhale nothing other than steam produced from vapourised liquid nitrogen.. Huzzah!

I have a small problem with this however. It’s glamourising smoking by portraying itself as a fashion accessory. It’s being sold as a ‘fashionable way to get around the smoking ban for all you hip young cool cats’. Fantastic. So instead of having ‘proper’ hardcore smokers with all their ‘RAWR! WE HAVE A RIGHT TO BREATHE IN CARCINOGENIC POISONOUS AIR AND MAKE EVERYONE BREATHE OUR 2ND HAND SMOKE AND YOU CAN’T STOP US! RAWR!’, we’ll have a bunch of metrosexuals and wannabe fashionistas flouncing about with the next generation of fashionable gadgetry. In my personal opinion, NOTHING looks more common than smoking, and nothing looks more tacky than someone smoking thinking they look ‘cool’. But I digress…

So then what happens… “I’ve forgotten to charge my cigarettes, but hang on, I’m addicted to the nicotine.. Oh god oh god oh god” *goes out and buys normal cigarettes, aforementioned catch 22 resumes, person dies an untimely death a few decades later*

I personally think they’re marketing this all wrong. These could be used as a really successful quit smoking aid, and personally, I think they’re going to end up doing more harm than good. They should be trying to help people quit altogether, not glamourise it and make it ‘cool’ again. How long would it be until they find out that these are harmful, and people start dropping dead from their internal organs being frozen by the liquid nitrogen vapour they THOUGHT was steam?

“Would you like an Icepop Johnny? Sure! Here, have my lung on a stick…”

fan-fucking-tastic.

"We hold these truths to be self evident..

...that all men are created equal.."

Uh, no. Sorry Mr Jefferson. While you may have been well intentioned when you decided to include that little ditty in the Declaration of Independence. You are, in fact, wrong. I'm making the general assumption here that by referring to 'men', he was in fact referring to man as in the human race, rather than men. For all we know Mr Jefferson could've been a sexist bigot, but hey, who are we to judge colonial America.. I'm sure they MEANT well when they stole all the Native Americans' land for their own and burned thousands of women in the Salem Witch Trials.. but hey... let's not digress.

My point is simple. We are not equal. Whilst we may all share the same basic genetic structure and we are all of course the same species (although even that is debatable considering SOME of the 'specimens' of the human race I've had the misfortune of knowing..) we are in no way equal. All people are humans. That is where the similarity stops. While the media may enjoy force feeding us the whole crock of crap that is women are now equal to men and all that bullshit, the realism of it is in fact, rubbish. Women still earn less on average than their male counterparts, and men still see women as the 'good little wifeys' as characterised by the 1950's etc. Women cook, women clean, we pop out the next generation of their super egotiscial empire, but we can't be smarter, or more successful, or wealthier, or happier, or more talented, etc etc etc, than men.

But it doesn't end there. Sex, religion, race, age, intelligence, personality, humour, dress sense, complete and utter mental retardation.. we are not equal.

A little exercise for you, simply to prove my point.

Think of someone you know. Now, name 5 things that they share the exact same characteristic as you. For example, income, job, family circumstances, intelligence, qualifications.. just to give you some ideas. Can you? No. Exactly.

Fundamentally to all be equal, we would all have to be the same. We're not, and we never will be, and therefore we will never be equal.

Ok, so admittedly maybe this is a small rant, and the trigger of this rant was something that happened to me the other day. I was basically the victim of ageism/sexism at work. I saw a client, and was basically told that I couldn't know anything because I was young, and therefore he didn't believe me. Fair enough. I also picked up on him feeling threatened by the fact a (young) woman knew more than him.

Now, I'm not petty. But I have to admit, that if I ever come across anything like this, it's always men feeling inferior or threatened. Maybe our old traditions from past generations are struggling to be killed off, who knows, but it sucks to be on the receiving end of it.

I think it's just a male ego thing.

And yes, I am being slightly (if tongue in cheek) sexist here. Where men and women are concerned we are definitely not equals. I doubt sometimes we are even the same species. The men are from Mars women are from Venus stuff? Bullcrap. That would mean that mean have some kind of similar link, if on a very rudimentary level. Martians and Venusians (I have NO idea if that's what we would be called..) would mean that we are both species of alien. And therefore would be linked, in the being an alien aspect.

I seriously doubt we are that closely linked. I believe that it is more something like... women are oxygen (Essential for all of life, provider of sustenance and energy, and also potential of great destruction if combined with the right elements.) and men are like..... toenail clippings. ie useless and hurt if you come across them on accident. THAT is more like how Men and Women are related. ie WE'RE NOT. Men are just an entity unto themselves (Pretty sure they say the same about us too.. but we know the truth... they don't. The 'tards.). They're a weird breed. Painfully simple, and yet impossible to figure out. Like... painting by numbers, but you have to mix all the colours yourself, you're missing the colours black and white, and your paintbrush is, infact, a chicken nugget.

I've given up trying to understand them. As soon as I think I've figured them out, they change. Like if you finally figure out how to play basketball, but then the court changes to an ice hockey rink. It's impossible.

So ladies, I have one piece of advice for you.

Accept the fact that we'll never understand how they work, but also gloat in the knowledge that we will always, always, be the superior race. ;)

Past experience is not always a good thing.

Just when I thought I'd gotten over my irational fear of being in relationships, I have an "Eeeeeeeeeek!" moment. No reason, no rationalisation, just a fleeting feeling of 'Oh my god I'm in deep and that's scary!'. I should clarify that this is in no way because of him. I love my boyfriend. More than even I probably think about. It's taken a fair while to get to here, as he knows. Not because of him, he's wonderful and one of the few men I've met who is just himself and doesn't put on this false facade to try and attract women. The real reason is because of my past, well, 'experiences' with men. These admittedly have been mostly within the past year, and I basically became afraid of falling in love. To me Love = Pain, hurt, heartache, tears... and so I shut off. I didn't trust any man, didn't believe their intentions, their motives, I didn't actually think that any man can be worthy of putting my heart on the line again.

And then I got closer to my now-boyfriend. We'd been friends for ages. A good 1 1/2 - 2 years before we got together. He's had a thing for me for a fair while before we did eventually get together. He wasn't exactly subtle thinking about it, even if he meant to be, but at it actually took him telling me to realise it, at which point I was going through a whole load of shit with someone else and couldn't really take it in properly. That shit took me a long long time to get over. Or should I say it took me a long time to get over him and what happened, and because of that I wasn't myself for a long time. Earlier in the year he (my now boyfriend) and I actually fell out because of all the shit that was going on. So I had a spell of about 2-3 months where I had very little contact from either the guy who caused me the heartache, and my now-boyfriend. In this couple of months I sorted myself out. And then when I started talking to my now-boyfriend and we got closer and eventually started dating. However, I was still scarred by the previous events which left me really hesitant to take the chance again.

But, I gave it a shot, and here I am. :) Happily in love with my boyfriend, and bar a couple of clashes of stubborness (we're faaar too similar in that.. lol) things have been great. We've now been together nearly 5 months, and for the first time in a loooong time I'm feeling much better about myself and less blinded by fear of the whole 'L' word.

The odd thing being that today I had a fleeting 'eeeeeeeeek' moment. Out of the blue. For no real reason other than I think I scared myself with how much I've let go of the whole fear thing. The fear was my safety blanket. The fear was going to stop me getting hurt and heartbroken again. But now I'm relinquished that, I'm running on blind faith in him not breaking my heart, which is a scary concept for me. I feel out of sorts when I can't control situations. Ok, that sounds bad, I mean control as in it's my responsibility for my own happiness and security, and to essentially hand that over to someone else is rather daunting.

And yes, I'm fully aware that I overanalyse things. It's just how I am. I think too much. This is more just a general musing about how much I've changed emotionally in the past 5 months. I'm only blogging about it because I've finally realised that I've crossed a huuuuge step for me. I've let myself fall in love again and put my heart on the line. THAT'S whats scary. I'm back to the old me of taking chances and 'feeling' again, instead of shutting off my heart to the world. And finally back to the thinking of even if it does go wrong and I get heartbroken, all of this will have still been worth it, because right now I'm feeling great, very much in love and very, very happy. :)

What a difference a day/month/year makes..

Wow, it's beena fair while since I last blogged. But there's been so much change. I suppose part of me not blogging has simply because things have been so busy and I've had my mind so focused on other things.

The main thing of course being the car/money situation. Well I'm happy to report now that I have my car! :D After 4 long months of heartache and saving I finally have a car. I have to admit that possibly about 70% of it was thanks to help from my dad, and I'll remain ever grateful to him for everything that he's done since my ex screwed me over back in May. But now I have my car. I've had it exactly a week today. :) And in that week I've possibly driven nearly 250 miles and used nearly a whole tank of petrol enjoying my new found freedom lol. I've been to see friends, I've done proper food shopping at tesco instead of being ripped off by my local village store, I've done things with the girls.. it's been such a lifeline I can't even begin to describe it. Finally I can do things of my terms and it will eventually (I hope) open up new prospects for employment and just generally lead me to a more successful life.

As cheesy as that sounds, you don't realise how much you need a car until A) you lose it and B) you get it back again! :)

Money wise the situation is going to have a few iffy patches coming up. Obviously adjusting to having the additional running costs of car ownership, plus my ex has decided to cut my child maintenance. I won't go into that on here. You never know who is reading but it's going to make things potentially very difficult for me for the interim. The joys of the benefits system and no doubt I'll end up with another overpayment and blah blah blah yadda yadda. Just wish things could be agreed and then stuck to. Save messing me and the girls around. *sigh* But of course I have no control over it... but aaaaaaaaaanyway, I digress.

Job wise I'm still doing the same as I was, it's getting a lot of work now. and it's difficult juggling general advice and debt casework but I'm slowly getting used to accepting that sometimes you can't do everything at once and it's helping me start prioritising and reorganising myself.

Along with work I've now starting my Open University Social Sciences course, the first essay of which is du the 3rd Nov :eek: but I'm currently a couple of weeks ahead with that :) Tis interesting so far but not really linked to economics etc at the mo but it's all good and will link in eventually :)

The girls are well, Ashli is LOVING school, she can't wait to go each day, and KK is happy as a clam. Individually theya re wonderful angels capable of no evil.. but when they're togeeeeeeether... :\ lol

So although my current life is non stop, chaotic, busy and generally stressful, I still wouldn't change a thing. It may not be perfect, but where's the fun in perfection? It's the little oddities and the things that crop up which inevitably make us remember what's so great about the good things that happen. It enhances our appreciation for when things go well.

Funny old world we live in.. this time last year I'd split up with my husband and started becoming properly involved with my ex best friend ie 'theguyIwaswithbutwasn'twithbutwasbutonlyonhistermsbutwasiwithhimornot' guy. I still haven't blogged on that properly.. but I'm getting to the point where I don't think about it anymore. I'm sad I lost the friendship, as he now won't speak to me at all. I'd like to think that he'd like to be adult about it and at least talk to me, rather than doing the current thing of pretending I don't exist... but ho hum. Whatever helps him sleep at night. I'm not losing sleep over it. The live I have now is better than anything I had this time last year, all bar a few ups and downs. I have wonderful children, wonderful friends, a truly wonderful boyfriend who means the world to me (AND who hasn't broken my heart or treated me like shit, but there's still time on that one! lol /end cyniscism) and generally life is good.

Now... if I could just get a full time job, and more financial security I'd be laughing.

You hear me karma? Hello?...... helloooooooooooooo?? ....

God damn it.

My own worst enemy

I certainly didn't gain the Emotard title for nothing. I have no idea what's wrong with me tonight but I'm all over the place so I have taken a step back from civilised society and just sat and moped. Hence the blog title. I guess I'm just having one of those overthinking nights. I'm worried about my health issues... I'm not sure if I've gone into detail on here considering the personal nature, but to cut a long story short I'm now awaiting an appointment with a specialist to try and figure out what's going on. The more I wait, the more my mind goes AWOL and the more I worry. I'm lying awake at night thinking all sorts, I'm panicking at any kind of 'symptoms'. I have crossed the line into full blown hypochondria. It's ridiculous and I know it's irrational. But all I can think is, what if?

Admittedly, this is a very bad time of year for this to be happening. VERY bad. On the 14th September it's the anniversary of my mum's death. 4 years to the day. Not that the 4 years makes it easier. Tonight for example I just sat and cried for a while about it. Thinking about how much I missed her and how much I wish she was around at times like this. She died of lung cancer, and my grandad had cancer, although he survived. So the family history isn't helping the paranoias and hypochondria. Also when I saw the doctor last week she mentioned about something to do with a family history of strokes, and a possible inherent blood clotting problem? Which of course could mean anything. Frankly I've no idea anymore. I'm sick of worrying and getting upset about it. My head is blowing everything out of proportion. I'm fully aware of that. But I can't help it. It's not me I'm worried about really. It's the girls. The worry has sparked off thoughts of 'what if... what would happen to them' and of course it escalates from there. Thoughts of not seeing them grow up etc, I suppose perfectly natural for a parent and not exactly something I've not thought about before. I think every parent has. Being a parent makes you very aware of your own mortality.

I need to get a grip. I need to get a grip and stop stressing about things I can't control and overthinking. Yes, I've got a problem. It could be something, it could be nothing. All I can do is wait, and concentrate on getting past the anniversary of my mum's death without breaking down too much.

Time is a healer, but sometimes it hurts just as bad.

it's oh so quiet... do do do doooo...

... do do do dooo.. do do do doooo dooo dooo.. ssssssssssssssh...


This morning is one of those mornings that are milestones in the whole journey of parenthood. This morning I sent my first born to school for the first time. Ash of course took it in her stride, I don't think I've ever SEEN a child so excited. This morning my alarm went off and I was greeted by a rumbling thunder of stampeding hooves running into my room...

"MUMMY!!! IT'S TIME FOR BIG SCHOOL!!!!! GET DRESSED FOR BIG SCHOOOL MUMMMMMMMMMMYYYY GET UUUUUUUUUUP!!!"

So through bleary eyes I lay in bed and watched her get herself dressed, then brush her teeth, without me having to help once. It was almost like being in a time warp, all I can remember is when I used to be able to cradle her in one arm and she was completely and utterly helpless. Now she was getting herself ready to go to school for the first time.

My god I feel old. lol!

I met up with one of my LBF's Fee who's daughter is in the year above. Ash and Tiff got on like a house on fire and as soon as we got into the school gates they ran off and started playing. Of course KK wanted to join in, and she got quite upset when the whistle went and all the children lined up and went in, as she wanted to go too, bless her.

So now we're home after a quick trip to the shops. It's so quiet it's unbelievable. If anything it's making me realise how much harder it is having 2 compared to 1. It's far more than double the work. KK is quite happily entertaining herself, occasionally asking after Ash and wanting to get her from school. It's quite sweet and it's obvious she misses her. Even though they sometimes fight like cat and dog they love each other really. I think it's just a sister thing to pretend they hate each other sometimes. lol

So here we are. A new era I suppose, officially a school run mum, quieter days and finally able to be able to go back to work once I get a car and find a job.

Still strange though... it's not quite the same without the same chaos that 2 children bring...

Saving Suckiness

Saving for something sucks. Big time.

I'm doing really well with my car savings. But at the moment I'm in that crappy position of 'so close but yet so far'. I currently have £820.07 plus £92.52 to come from work expenses. I should've had the cheque by now but still haven't... very frustrating but hopefully I'll get it tomorrow. Fingers crossed anyway. That'll mean I have £910ish. Woo! I've been looking at a lot of KAs for sale locally and on ebay and am definitely set on getting one. Theoretically I could get one with the money I have. I've seen quite a few. But if I can hold out a bit longer and get to £1500 then I'd be able to be a bit pickier and get something that isn't ancient with tonnes of miles on it. It's just a question of patience and putting up with being skint and unable to really go anywhere except work at the moment.

Today some more things have gone into the paper, so fingers crossed they sell. I haven't heard anything yet. But there's still time. Still hoping for that lottery win too.. fat chance of that though lol. Have also been doing some things to cut down my monthly expenditure. Have switched my gas and electric, saving approx £6 a month, and gone through quidco for £62 cashback. Have also written to Orange complaining, as they agreed to drop my tariff back in April when I renewed and it STILL hasn't been swapped, so I've complained asking for them to correct it and reduce the tariff to £15 from £30 plus give me a refund of the extra charges since april.. so that'll be a nice little amount if I win. Fingers crossed! I just need to look into my phone/broadband now and see if I can find anyone cheaper. Have also cut my spending budget in half for the time being. I'm rarely going out. If I buy anything it's for the girls or housekeeping stuff. I'm just not spending any money on myself at the moment as I can't justify it as the need for a car is greater. So at the moment I'm just going without and the money saved is going towards a car basically.

Obviously not having as much of a life at the moment... haven't been out for lunches/dates with my boyfriend in ages, although he has also been ill. But I suppose one of the big factors is that as much as I want to, it just comes down to me feel guilty at not being able to contribute to the cost. I'm very stubborn and want to support myself, so sometimes I'm very begrudging in letting others pay for things. I'm sure Ian will back me up on that. I have a real problem with wanting to be sefl sufficient and if I can't be or can't pay my share of something it really knocks my self esteem. But at the mo I've got no choice which I suppose is one of the reasons I've not been suggesting going out etc to Ian and Cel or other friends. If I've gone out with friends I've barely spent anything unless it was necessary. The last money I spent going out was £1.05 for a whole weekend and that was for a donation to the hospice in which my mum was cared for when she was dying. Although not an essential expense, one i felt was justified. But even then I felt guilty when friends were buying me water or something. It's quite sad really. Hell, I've even stopped buying breakfast on the way to work simply to save the £3.38. I think the last time I spent proper money was on a cinema trip with my best friend Cel. Even then I felt bad for spending the money but it was very much worth it for a bit of an escape from frugalness. Plus it was a great movie.. lol

It does get to a point where I think it's quite sad. That I've been resorted to basically giving up having money, simply to be able to get something I need. It does get me down a little bit I'll be honest. Having to scrimp and save so much in the vain hope that it'll allow me to get out of this rut and get back into a normal life and off benefits. It's very demoralising. But for the moment I'm doing well with my saving and putting aside literally every spare penny. Hopefully it'll be worth it in the end and I'll be able to get back on track and start living again without having to think whether it'll cost me money I can't afford...

Oh well. Let's just hope it all pays off.

I often wonder though, when I do have the money and am able to get a car... will I find it hard to actually hand over the savings which I've scrimped and saved and sacrificed everything to be able to attain?

Guess only time will tell on that one.

*phew* what a weekend.

This is possibly going to sound really harsh, but I love my weekends without the girls. I equally love my weekends WITH the girls for different reasons don't get me wrong... but it's nice to have 'me' time and recharge the batteries.

Hmm.. maybe recharge the batteries is a bad choice of phrase.. as I'm usually out on friday and saturday nights til late enjoying time with my friends, and recently because I've been so skint and saving every penny for a car I have had to take my dad's car back to him early in the morning.. so no lie ins either. But it's all good. In total this weekend I have spent £1.59. lol The benefits of driving and not drinking :D No hangover.... physically OR financially. lol

Financially I'm all good. After my minor (ok major) moan the other day I actually realised that my child support had gone in late, so all was well in the end and I managed to save some extra money towards my car fund. I also managed to adjust my budget to save some MORE spare cash. Tonight I have my ebay winner collecting my old bass guitar for another £50.. one of my friends Fee has bought a full tin of paint off me for £10, so that's gone in the car fund..

So at the moment it currently stands at...
*drumroll*

£530.34 in the bank
£10 from Fee
£50 from my bass buyer
£92.52 CAB expenses which I should get the cheque for in the coming week.
= £682.86

Woohoo :D

Today I also put 6 items on to go in this weeks local paper ater having a massive sort out of the girls' room, so that should be about another £60 if they all sell. My dad has also promised to give me another £100 on wednesday, but I don't hold my breath with any of his promises, so it's always a bonus if he does come good :)

Planning on also having a big sort out of my room, and also my store room. I can almost guarantee there will be sellable things in the store room. It's piled high with crap that I just have nowhere else to store them.

Also yesterday I opened a savings account and set up a Direct debit to put £10 a week in it. Almost a forced savings plan :D It's higher interest and not directly linked to my current account so will be much better to prevent me frittering money away. :D

All in all a very successful weekened.. full of fun but still making actual progress with the car fund too.

It's nice to have a target to work towards... I'm going to be sooooooo thrilled when I finally get there after all this hard work. It's been tough but it's slowly but surely paying off :D

Good times :)

Who'd want an easy life...

ME that's who.

Ok.. I will warn you this may turn into another self indulgent rant, in which case I whole heartily apologise. But I'm fairly sure that my friends and loved ones are sick to death of hearing about it.. so I thought I'd rant on here instead. Sorted.

As is well documented, I'm currently in a shite situation with regard to money. If I'm honest I'm just scraping by at the minute alright. I can pay my bills, I'm not in arrears with anything, meeting my commitments and generally managing to have an alright life really all things considering. But things are tight. Very tight. Mainly, admittedly, because I am trying my damned hardest to save every spare penny towards a car. Ok, ok... so this hardship is possibly fairly majorly self induced. At the moment, literally EVERY spare penny is going towards my car fund. This has meant I've sacrificed pretty much all of my spending money other than essentials and very very veeery occasion small treats... like my usual Mcdonalds breakfast before work. But even that is going to have to go now for reasons I'll explain in a bit.

But... I'm happy to say it's slowly but surely paying off. Car savings currently stand at..

£360.58 in the bank
£51.01 to come from an ebay sale (end of the week hopefully)
£92.52 work expenses (should get the cheque in the next week)
£46.58 transferring over from paypal as we speak, should clear by end of the week..
= £550.69

:D

But... I have a small problem. My previous budgets that I'd worked out to be able to save as much as I have over the past couple of weeks have not included one minor detail. The fact that I have the majority of my household bills going on at the beginning on September. *sigh*

If I can get past this coming week I'll be ok. Just about anyway. I just need to get to next friday. God this sucks. I have approximately £120 worth of bills going out before then. And guess how much income I have.. £150. Joy. So I have to go... *counts* 10 days, on £30. That's £3 a day. ooooooooooh fun! Considering I can easily spent £30 on a night out... and half that on ONE trip to the cinema... I'm going to be spending bugger all on anything for me. Food and the girls come first and it's tight as it is so it's going to have to be a case of I go without. Simple as.

Until next tuesday I actually don't have any spare money at all. I'm actually about 40p in debt to my savings at the moment because I had to but some essential food earlier. So I'm fairly screwed in that sense if anything comes up.


*Sar listens to the faint murmuring in the background...*

Yea. I know. I know exactly what you're thinking.

"Why the hell doesn't she use her savings?"

Well... simple (although maybe illogical) reason really. I don't want to. I have worked my ass off scrimping and saving to get the money that I have saved. It's been really, really really hard and to have as much as I do has been a massive achievement for me personally. I know it's not much by anyone's standards but it's a lot to me. Having nothing makes you value what you do have even more. If I use my savings now, it'll easily be frittered away, with a 'promise' to replace it....

I don't want that. I NEED a car. It's the only way I'm going to be able to drive (pun unintended) myself forward and get out of this rut. To give in now and use my savings will just put me further back. And god knows it's been difficult enough as it is. I'm not giving in now. Not now I've finally started making some headway.

Please don't get me wrong. If I need to, I will. But, if I can manage on what I have for the time being til things get better then that's what I'm going to do. I'm not giving up when I've come this far.

It's been really difficult up to now. So what's a little bit longer?

The Birth Stories of my girls.

When both my girls were born I posted 'Birth Stories' on a website called Babyworld.co.uk which I used at the time... I found them today.. and thought I would blog them :)

Ashli

"Little one's EDD was 7th March 2005, of course it came and went, and little one decided to be a fashionably late, 10 days over. We went in at 8.30am on Thursday 17th March (St patricks day of all days..) to be induced at Stafford General Hospital. We were checked over on arrival and a trace done of Ashli which showed everything was fine. I'd been having period type pains all morning and hadn't thought anything of them and just put them down to eating something bad, but the trace showed that it looked like they were early labour contractions so I was given an internal to see what was happening. Turned out that I was already 2-3cms dilated which amazed me as I'd only been feeling the pains since I woke up that morning! So anyway, they decided I didn't need the pitocin gel to start things off as they'd already started, and so opted to break my waters instead.

I was taken down to delivery suite and they were broken in quite spectacular fashion at 1.10 pm. Let's just say that a tidal wave had nothing on me and even the midwife had to dodge the torrent of water that came out..lol. If I remember right she described it as 'fishing boots time' lol. I was suprised how much there was and that it didn't seem to want to stop!
I was monitored for the rest of the afternoon til 5, by which point the contractions were getting quite bad but weren't regular, so I was having gas and air which made me temporarily insane and laugh for about 15 mins straight. (at the end me and Steve were both sat on the bed with tears streaming down our faces it was that funny..).

At 5ish I had another internal to check things and I was only 'a good 3 cms' dilated, so it was decided that they'd hook me up to a oxytocin drips to get things moving properly and having that put it was actually more brutal than the contractions I was feeling! Apparently I have 'bendy' veins??

The pain was getting bad and things were starting to get worse very quickly so I asked for an epidural only to be told I couldn't have one for another hours or so due to staffing so I had to have some pethidine, which didn't do much apart from make me a zombie inbetween. When the epidural finally arrived I was in so much agony I just wanted it to be all over. I think I had the epidural about 9/10 oclock. I can't remember that well as my mind was pretty blurred from the pain and I don't remember much from about 7 oclock because things were happening so quickly.

TO cut a long story short my labour was recorded as being 4 and a bit hours with Ashli being born after 26 mins of pushing at 23.51. I had gas and air, pethidine and an epidural, all of which did bugger all when things starting progressing because it was all happening so quickly. I didn't tear (amazingly as her head was 37cms! and she was 8lbs 4!) but I did have one stitch for a 'nick' in the vaginal wall. I bled quite a lot and had to have an extra injection to stop the bleeding, but everythings fine now.

The labour was horrific and I've never know so much pain. I turned into something out of the evil dead, screaming and shouting, saying I couldn't so it and I wanted to go home (What exactly was I going to do when I got there???) but in the end it's all worth it. Feeling Ashli come out was a bizarre experience but I'd go through it all again because she's just so perfect.


Next time I'll just make sure I ask for the damn epidural as soon as I get there.

It sounds cheesy but I really couldn't have done it without Steve. I literally had no control because of the pain and without him I probably wouldn't have handled it as well. He was my rock and the only one I could rely on. His support played a huge part in it and I'm so glad he was there. I don't know what I would've done without him. "




Kaitlyn -

"On Sunday 28th January I was woken at 5 am by regular strong braxton hicks. I'd also been having them every 10 mins the evening before so was convinced 'this was it'. Imagine my disappointment when at 7am they all stopped completely!!! Monday morning (29th jan) I was woken at 5am with exactly the same thing, except this time accompanied by strong period pains. They gradually went to 10 mins apart and we were so convinced it was proper labour Steve stayed off work and we called MIL and SIL to put them on red alert.
9am came..and they stopped again! Argh! Called my midwife who told me to go for a walk to see if they'd start again and that she'd come see me later to check out if anything was happening.
Got back from my walk at 10.50 to find the contractions had returned and were 20 mins apart. When the midwife showed up at 12ish they were 10 mins apart and she said to go for another walk and call the hospital if they carried on every 10 mins.
So we slapped on my tens machine, took 2 paracetamol and went down the village to get some lunch and when we got back at 2.45 the contractions were 6 mins apart, and with every one they were coming closer and closer until we called the hospital at 3 and they were 3 mins apart. They said to go in if I felt I needed more pain relief and I'm glad we did! SIL arrived at 3.25 to take us to hospital and the contractions were 2 mins apart. Got to the hospital at 4 and was booked in and checked out and everything was fine.
Was examined around 5.20 and found to be 7cm dilated so they broke my waters and I started gas and air as it was too late for anything else.From then on everything happened very quickly and they contractions were soon back to back and I felt an incredibly pressure and urge to push. At this point I was trembling terribly and sobbing uncontrolably as our wedding first dance song came on the cd player and I was inconsolable sayign I couldn't do it/screaming etc etc as the pain was unbearable as I was only on gas and air.
Kaitlyn was born at 6.02 after 20 mins of pushing (official labour time was 2 3/4 hours.) weighing 8lb 2 and 52cm long using just gas and air. No stitches and no problems and she had 2 good breastfeeds soon after so we were allowed to go home at 8.45. Kaitlyn's beautiful and I think I'm still in shock from the sheer speed of everything and I couldn't have done it without Steve, he really was my rock and I wouldn't have made it through sane without him.
Feeling exhausted but glad it's over and we've finally got our baby Kaitlyn! We won't be doing that again in a hurry though! Feeling very sore but very very happy.

Here's a pic, should be interesting introducing her to big sister Ashli tomorrow who is currently in bed none the wiser to the new arrival!!!"



[Funny how things work out.... oh well.. marriages come and go, but kids are forever! - Sar]

Much weirdness

Tonight is a new moon, so I did some 'new moon prayers'. Although I previously blogged about my beliefs and me being wiccan/pagan, I don't think I've even actually mentioned anything about my rituals. I could be wrong, my head's a bit mong at the mo for some reason. I often get weird feelings and things during rituals. It's hard to explain to anyone that hasn't actually felt it or thinks it's all a pile of new agey crap. I suppose the easiest way to describe it is 'zoning out'. I go into a bit of a blur, can't focus on sounds or images, I just kind of, it sounds crazy but, go into myself and it's not like I'm in my body anymore, like I'm floating just outside it. That's the best way I can describe it. When I get like that I tend to see, hear or feel things. Sometimes they're obvious sometimes they're not.

Tonight was no exception, although for some reason tonight was stranger than usual. I did my usual prayers and incantations, but then my chest went tight and it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. I carried on, but I went really really spaced out very quickly. Usually at this point I would see/hear and feel things and it usually takes a little while to get to that point, but this time was literally 10 mins i that. Then I saw a motorcycle. Just a random image that flashed up. But then nothing. I felt weird and I can't pinpoint how it felt or why, but I had a deep down feeling of something being different. Like something changed or was about to change but I have no idea what. Then I said aloud ''Is there anything you want me to see?'' and a horseshoe flashed up. I've seen a horseshoe before, the last time being on the 30th April according to my ritual book. Oddly enough, I just checked and the 30th April was also a thursday. I'd seen a fair few other things that ritual. Including hearing something that I've yet to figure out yet. "A tree grows up from the roots and down from the branches". I just wish I could figure out what it means. I remember at the time googling it and finding something but I can't remember what or whether it was relevant in the end. Will have to have another google I think. Or keep an eye out or anything that might help it make sense.

Anyway, I'm rambling..

I did my prayers asking for an end to my money worries and help to get a car, and for my boyfriend to get better (he's not been well)... and all throughout it felt like I wasn't in myself, it's very weird to explain. I was talking, but it was like I wasn't in my own body like I said earlier, and I felt like I was swaying from side to side even though I wasn't. Was very strange and although I get similar sometimes I don't get it to that degree.

Hmmmm interesting. Now I'm just mulling over everything. I feel fine now. Just tired (fairly standard after prayers) so think I'm going to have an early night. Maybe my dreams will reveal more..

Flashbacks

Wandering round an empty house, we looked over the objects and furniture within. These weren't just bog standard objects or bits of tat. They were memories, they had meanings and sentimentality. These things belonged to someone, so how can you just walk in and take them?

''Oh yes I'll have that table over there, that'll go lovely with my decor..''

Literally weeks earlier that table was being used by it's owner, possibly securely holding up a half full coffee cup, eavesdropping in on the cheerful banter as per normal... years of use and purpose... years of belonging and being taken for granted. Now reverted to just a 'thing' that'll do. It'll suffice... it isn't ugly, so ''Yea, I'll 'av that''.
If that table were alive and capable of emotion, it would be quietly sobbing where it stood. For this heartless new owner... pfft... what do they know. They don't care. They just want to lump their sweaty feet on it and abuse it. A mere 'thing'.. and another factor in the circle of life easily overlooked.

Today I was taken to my dad's ex-wife's house. In the past few weeks she has been taken permanently into a care home. She's lacking mental capability enough to look after herself, and they had no option but to put her into care and rent out her, now empty and unwillingly abandoned house. However renting out the house involved it being rented unfurnished, and with that, clearing out all of her belongings.

So my dad took me along. "you might find something you need for your house!" he said. So begrudgingly I agreed. I never knew her properly. I'd maybe spoken to her once or twice, never in great detail. She was my mum's predecessor. The love my dad had before he met my mum. To me she was like a rival, oddly. She was the 'other woman' in my dad's life. I didn't have any problem with her. I just... found it strange I suppose. I agreed to go as otherwise the stuff would end up in some 'man with a van' house clearance place, and I thought it better that things go to 'family' rather than some two bit white van man. So off we went to pick out anything we might want.

We arrived and I had a shock to see my sister was there, and my niece. Who I haven't seen in god knows how many years. I've never been close to my family. At all. I've always kept myself to myself and seeing as my family are spread as far and wide as Seattle and Germany it's hard to stay in contact. My sister lives in Derby so it made sense for her to be in change of sorting out her mum's belongings. I should explain that I have 3 brothers and a sister. My sister and one of my brothers are from my dad's marriage to his ex wife. My other 2 brothers are from my mum's marriage to her exhusband. Still with me? I'm the only devilspawn of my mum and my dad. But they have other children. So I suppose that would make my siblings half brothers and sisters really, but what's in a name? They may as well be strangers really. I never speak to them.

When I walked in I was really taken aback. My sister looked, just, empty I suppose. My immediate thought is that I must've looked similar when I was doing the same for my mum. And with that thought I started to think about my mum, and how I had been in my sister's shoes just under 4 years ago. Clearing out her mum's belongings and trying to keep yourself together while the rest of your world is falling apart. I mumbled a brief "Y'alright?" before concentrating my efforts on controlling the 3 children we had in tow with us. We wandered around the house. And all I could think about is the things this house and all these possessions had seen, and just how tragic it all was. Merely weeks ago she was at home, trying to carry on with life as best as she could with her failing health and mental state.
I walked around the house in a kind of blur. It was almost like walking through a memorial. Bed sheets untouched as they'd been she she left, half drunk bottles of wine on the side, DVD's by the tv lazily not returned to their boxes... it was almost as if she'd just popped out to the shops. Nothing apart from the gloomy atmosphere between the adults in the house suggested that this wasn't someones home anymore, and that she'd never be coming back.

It was far too easy to put myself back 4 years. Doing exactly the same walking round my mum's house. Picking up objects with tears in my eyes remembering fragments of memories and bleary flashbacks to happier times. It's just so heartless and cruel, to pick up an object and decide whether it's worthy of surviving the cull. I could've taken everything from my mum's. But I'd never have had the room. So having to go through wave after wave of memory and decide what to take and what to clear out was agonising. All the time you're having to deal with the grief of your loss, and the memories making everything a million times harder, as well as the guilt of having to get rid of things that you know your mum cherished and took pride in, and built the foundations for her life on. And there you were, just chucking them into a bin bag because they didn't fit the 'suitability criteria'...

When I left my dad's ex-wife's house I couldn't even look at my sister. Or anyone for that matter. I just felt numb. I just kept seeing my mum, and the empty shell of a house that I left after I'd had to clear out her house.

The circle of life is a bitch. A cruel, heartless, unmerciful bitch.

A confession.

Wow... so my intention WAS to blog about my 'grand financial plan' but seeing as that was about a week ago it seems that I've been a touch busy! I've been working hard taking on my first debt case at work which is very exciting, and also having a busy social life since I last wrote.. it's nice to be busy. I really enjoy it. Considering I have spent the past.... *count* 4 years, basically, as a stay at home mum, being 'work busy' is a welcome change and I revel in it. I'm no good as a stay at home mum. I NEED adult contact. I need conversation. I need stimulation (fnaaaaaaaaar...!) and more than anything I need a 'me' life. I am not just 'mum' and when I start to feel like that I get very depressed and angsty. When it comes down to it?

I hate being a stay at home mum.

There, I said it. I just can't do it. I know a few people who are stay at home mums and they are amazing at it. They take the ups and the downs, not neccesarily with a smile but always with utter devotion to the 'stay at home mum cause'. I have SO much respect for people like that. I find it astonishing that people can essentially sacrifice a part of themselves and become 'mum' 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

But I just can't do it. Please don't get me wrong, I love my children beyond words, I would do anything for them. But that's exactly the reason I HAVE been a stay at home mum. If it were up to me I'd be at work full time now. I did it for them. They were my driving force and the reason I have sacrificed so much. It comes with the territory when you're a mother. It's unquestionable. Infallable.

I have no regrets of anything up to now. My children are 2 and 4, and I have given them the best start in life that I could possibly could. It's not been easy by any stretch of the imagination, and there's plenty I'd change if I could. But I don't think I've done too badly up to now. I'll make up the sacrifices to them one day. But for the moment they're happy, healthy, and (generally) loving well rounded kids. I like to think I've done an ok job, albeit not perfect.

Not they're older I'm trying to reclaim 'me'. I've been working hard towards a career and financial stability, as well as a life for myself away from the 'mum' tag. And so far it's going pretty well.. I have some wonderful friends, the best social life I've had for years and am in a much much better position that I have been. Things are still hard, especially where money is concerned, but on the whole life is good. Earlier in the year I put together a plan for coming year. I wish I could find it, but I'm fairly sure I'd be able to tick a fair few things off now. :) Sometimes I really don't think about how lucky I am, and only focus on the difficulties. Admittedly it's hard not to when life has a penchant for biting you in the ass, as this year has proven.

One of the positives to report is that, by the end of August (Bar any nasty suprises.. I may be optimistic, but I'm not unrealistic..) I'll have £415 saved towards a car minimum. I have put some items on ebay, so we shall see if that brings in any extra, but so long as I stick to my budget I'll have £415 towards my freedommobile. It's not much.. and it's a long hard slog... but even the smallest steps get you where you're going eventually.

Whatever happens I'm proud of myself for managing as I have been. When you're faced with so much adversity sometimes you need to sit back and be thankful for the little achievements, no matter how small, and to remember that even the little changes add up to a big change eventually. And patience is a virtue.

Better be anyway... else I'll be rather cheesed off!

;)

More frugal than a frugal thing..

Gah. I hate money. Or should I say, I hate LACK of money. For years now I have been forced to live my life counting every penny and sacrficing most treats and things, either for the girls, or to repay debt, or just generally because money is tight. It's shit and makes life really hard.
I budget, I count LITERALLY every penny, I can tell you, to the nearest £1, how much my monthly bills are, and I hate it. But at the moment I'm caught in a complete catch 22.

I haven't got a car.
The work I do requires a car to cover local outreaches and get to our main office a good 17 miles away.
Because I haven't got a car I can't take on more hours at work.
Because I can't take on more hours at work I can't afford to buy a car....

and so the cycle continues.. and it sucks. Fairly officially.

I want nothing more than to go to work more. Ideally I want to do between 16 and 25 hours to fit around my eldet starting school, this will enable me to get off benefits completely, regain my feeling of self worth and self sufficiency, and because of the nature of the job I do (and it's rather nice salary) it would allow me to get rid of 'frugal' and be able to relax financially.

But... I can't.

BECAUSE I CAN'T AFFORD A FECKING CAR......

*sigh*

I try my hardest to save. I REALLY do. But considering I'm living off benefits, and have a large nursery bill to pay in full to be able to work as much as I do, I'm fairly screwed.

So at the moment I'm making a conscious effort to save every spare penny. I've trawled the house looking for sellable items, but because in my old debt busting days I regularly sold life and limb to claw every spare penny to repay debt, and my exhusband took a fair bit with him when he left, I have hardly anything of value.

So in a house wide search of saleable items I found...

My engagement ring..(Pfft, THAT can definately go..)
A faulty 'Guitar Hero: World Tour' Drum kit.
2 bin bags of the girls' old clothes.
An old bass guitar that I no longer use.

Approximate value if it all sells for asking price?.. £395

The adverts went into a local paper today, and so far the girls's clothes have gone. Netting me a nice £15 towards cardom.

Add that to the £40 I had in cash saved and also expenses from work to come of about £70ish... that's... £125.

Not much but it's a start. As I speak I am formulating a *plan*. A plan to save the money and get me out of this viscious cycle. Will update later...

The past has a nasty set of teeth

The past has a nasty habit of coming back and biting people on the ass.

In my experience, when it does, it usually always ends badly and makes for prime ‘I told you so’ territory. The trouble is, people are naïve. “If I ignore it, it’ll all go away!” So they brush it under the carpet and lo and behold it vanishes, for a few weeks, months…. And each day that goes by stirs a little celebratory voice inside going ‘’Yeeea I got away with it..’’

But you haven’t.

That bomb is still very much ticking and is ready to blow, and is just missing the vital ingredient to make it explode.

I have never known any kind of lie, or deceit or secret, stay hidden for longer than 6 months. 6 months is the metaphorical fuse on the bomb in my world… so you’ve got 6 months to run like hell and get as far away as possible because when that sucker blows it’s taking you and everything you know out with it.

And it’s going to be you picking up the pieces. Sorry, but it’s true.

I’ve never understood why people feel the need to hide things they know damn well could pretty much demolish people or things they care about. I am the ONE PERSON out there who thinks that being straight up front and honest with people from the offset saves a lot of heartache down the line? I’m always brutally honest. I tell people how I feel if need be even if they may not like it. How else can stuff get sorted and you not spend god knows how long paranoid and not giving your all to something because you’re too worried about x,y and z coming out?

My advice? Be honest. The truth may hurt, but it’ll be a LOT less painful that if it comes out 6 months down the line and it’s proven that you’ve lied all that time.

Common sense? I think so…. Feel free to ignore me should you wish…. But don’t say I didn’t warn you…

… and expect to hear the phrase, “ I told you so.”

The birth of Emotard

I’ve just realised I’ve never actually explained the significance of ‘’Emotard’’ or indeed which I now affectionately call myself it…

“Emotard”
Definition- A combination of “Emotional” and “Retard”, may or may not bare relevance to the “Emo” style genre of the early 2000’s. Generally characterised by over emotion, sentimentality and general extreme displays of feelings and fuckwittedness.

I R Emotard. *waves*

I’ve always been the same, I don’t DO normal feelings, I go to the next level with them. ESPECIALLY when it comes to negative emotions like sadness. I don’t just mope.. I mope BIG STYLE. I don’t just fall for someone, I fall HARD. And When I get hurt? I hurt bad. Which is where my ‘title’ was born. Over the past year I got hurt, and I suffered for a looooooooooong long time. A ridiculously long time. Granted it wasn’t really my fault as there were other things which dragged it out, but when push came to shove I couldn’t let go and after the ‘final time’ (I’ll explain all about this another time, sorry if it doesn’t make sense at the moment..) it took me a long time before I could even feel that putting my heart on the line again was worth the risk. A new version of Emotard was born, cynical, untrusting, hurt, cold and who expected to have her heart ripped to shreds again if she put it on the line. That ‘last time’ was March, and I can say that it took until at LEAST the end of June to be able to say “Yea, it’s worth the risk” again. It’s now August and I’m glad I ‘took the plunge’ back into the world of love again, as it’s paying off. I’m still fully expecting to get hurt again, but that’s part of the inevitable cynicism I’m developed from being fucked over so many times. It’s unavoidable. But at least now I’m willing to give it a chance again. The benefit of hurting so bad and so intensely is that it gets it out of your system quicker in the most cases. Unless history repeats itself, THAT’S when you get fucked over… *rolls eyes @ the memory*

I also cry. A lot. Although thankfully not as much recently as I have done in a while. I cry when I’m happy, I cry when I’m sad, I cry when I’m embarrassed, I cry when I’m stressed, I cry when I’m angry and I cry when I’m hurt. I don’t, however, cry when I’m bored, now that really WOULD be retarded.

I guess you could just say I’m very very empathic, and very in tune with my own emotions, and not afraid of showing them. Nothing wrong with that… but crying in public is just downright embarrassing.. lol

I wouldn’t change me though, being an Emotard is part of who I am, even if people do think I go to extremes sometimes. I just FEEL things. It also crosses over into my spirituality too and I’m more open to feeling things and sensing things, even if a few people do think I’m crazy, or a hapless victim of my own imagination. I believe what I believe, I feel what I feel, and feck ye if you don’t like it. :)

Stop knocking on death's door mummy, we want Dora on!

7am...

''Muuuuuummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy..... muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummy''

*Sar opens her bleary, aching eyes, and blinded by the sun which sends searing pain through her head, stumbles half concious to her daughters' room...*

''Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?''

''I want Dora on.....''

*Sar struggles with the stair gate, her aching joints shooting needle like pains through her limbs with every movement.... she hobbles over to the tv and puts Dora on for her ever so beloved children...''

''D-D-D-D-DOOOOORA!!! D-D-D-D-D-DOOOOOORA!!!! DOOOOOOOORA DOOOOOOOOOOORA DOOOOOOOOORA THE EXPLOREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!....''

*Each syllable of the hell that is Nickolodeon's finest export echoes around her head with the force of Hurricane Andrew, tearing down her immune system like a picket fence, and leaving what small amount of sanity she had left, a scattered field of primary coloured and educational debris....*

*Sar staggers across the hall, the creak of the floorboards tearing at her ears and collapses into bed, muttering faint prays to whatever the hell god is responsible for easing the pain of swine flu.. *

''............ muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummy.....''


Welcome to the world of single parenthood. When you're a single parent, you are simply BANNED from being ill.

Ever. At all.

Never.

Cold? Awww shame... where's my breakfast..

Appendicitis? That much hurt! Change my nappy!

Swine flu? Oooh piggy! I'm going to have a tantrum now!

Dying? Not before you put a movie on for me.. THEN you can die..

No matter how ill you are, no matter how grave your circumstances or how rough you feel. Life HAS to go on. You can't just forgo any duties around the house or to look after them, even if the only thing that'll help you get better is 24 hour bed rest....
Yea. good LUCK. In 24 SECONDS they'll have destroyed the house, set themselves on fire, defurred the cat and eaten the entire contents of the fridge/freezer, frozen/consumable or not..

If you think about it seriously it's quite scary. There has been a few times since my exhusband and I seperated, where I have been so ill I've been on the verge of being physically unable to look after the girls, but I've had to struggle on... food poisoning was one where I demanded that my ex have time off work and had the girls for the morning as I had been up for 36 hours and spend 12 of those vomiting violently.. but that was back when we were still on speaking terms, presumably because he thought there was some hope of us getting back together.
Another time was when my health really suffered because of the hell and upset of the whole 'best friend romantic involvement' incident. In the end the stress and I guess mild depression affected my health and I became really ill, could hardly breath, had chest pains, palpitations, could hardly stand without needing to lie down.. but I had to carry on regardless. In the end after a few weeks I got better and all was well.. but at the time it was horrendous.
The most recent time being this bloody swine flu.

Still quite scary to think about... even if I keeled over seriously ill.... and I needed to go to hospital and was literally at death's door.. I'd STILL have to sort the girls out even before that.... now that's a chilling thought.... :\

An ode to swine flu in song..

*cough* oink *cough*

Emotard officially becomes a UK swine flu pandemic statistic... yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.
*cough*

Yesterday I woke up with a slight cough, so presumed that either
A)Being in a room full of smokers the night before had wreaked havoc on my respiratory system
or
B) I had a cold coming.

By midday I was starting to feel really awful, blinding headache, deep chesty cough, aches and pains, COMPLETE loss of appetite and general lethargy, however I still went to meet the fella for lunch. He seemed to be quickly going down the same slippery slope of health I'd been going down, and had similar symptoms. Didn't think anything of it at the time, but come early afternoon I was pretty much confined to lying on the sofa or bed, feeling weak, sensitive to light and with a gradually worsening cough and headache. Other than getting up to see to the girls I don't think I moved at all. It hurt too much!
The fella an I had been joking about it being swine flu and out of interest I googled the symptoms and eventually came across the Flu Pandemic website which said that

''Congratulations! You have swine flu, and your prize is a special one off code to take to a special collection point to claim your prize... a course of Tamiflu!!''

*rolls eyes*

by 6pm I was pretty much unable to get off the sofa without serious amounts of pain, and when I was up, I had to walk around with my eyes closed because the light was agony to my head. Once I'd put the girls to bed I set up basecamp on the sofa, and kept drifting in and out of dozy consciousness until I was woken by my boyfriend who'd text me as he was worried he'd not heard from me in maybe 1-2 hours. After that I just slobbed, avoiding the light and any major movements until I could summon up the energy to go to bed about 10pm.

Armed with water, paracetamol I stumbled up to bed.. numb and very much looking forward to collapsing into bed. Little did I know I'd end up with around about an hours sleep in all, after spending all night tossing and turning through waves of pain and intense fever, nearly passing out a couple of times from it. Looooovely.
One of those nights where you're glad to see sunrise!

Thankfully, this morning, with some paracetamol and continued slobbing on the sofa in front of the tv/laptop I'm feeling a little bit better this morning. The paracetamol I had first thing has tamed the fever and headache for now, so just having to deal with the cough and general lethargy but fingers crossed the worst is over. Apparently I'm supposed to stay in the house until the symptoms are gone, and the symptoms can last anything up to 7 days apparently. I've not gone down the road of the Tamiflu as I've heard bad things about it and would rather just let me body get on with it. Also hoping the kids don't get it but will see how it goes I suppose.

And to quote my boyfriend, ''I'm having a big sausage and bacon sandwich when this is over, REVEEEEEEEEEEEEENGE!''

Had to do my food shopping online and have it delivered (poor tesco.com man's probably going yo get swine flu... oops..) and on my shopping list? Bacon and pork chops... the go with the sausages I already have.... revenge is a dish best served with red sauce.... :D

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh...

I think I may get this once this is over....

clicky..

Mum.

I remember doing a blog on myspace about my mum and how she came to be taken from me... instead of upsetting myself typing out a new one, I've decided to copy and paste it.
This was written the day of the 3 year anniversary of my mum's death.
____________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, September 14, 2008

And so another year passes.
Firstly.. apologies to anyone who may be reading this... as I fear it's a bit of a rant/self indulgent ramble... but then again today is a funny kind of day and maybe by putting it all down in writing it'll help ease it a bit. A word of forewarning though, this has turned into a bit of a longwinded and depressing spillage of emotions and memories and some people would be best avoiding reading it. Especially if you've lost someone you love recently. But if you still want to read... then carry on, but don't say I didn't warn you.


Unfortunately today is the one day each year I dread. Maybe dread is a harsh word but I suppose it's the closest I can get to, as 3 years ago today my mum died. Couldn't even bring myself to go down the cemetary today... so feeling decidely shit with myself at the moment. Maybe I'm just pathetic. on the one day a year that it matters.. I couldn't bring myself to go. How much of a bitch must that make me.


For those who don't know my mum died of lung cancer on september 14th 2005. I didn't even get to see her on the day she died. The unit called me in the morning (as they had done quite a few times in the run up to all this, as due to the nature of her illness we had many 'false alarms'..) to say that mum was going downhill again and they thought I should go in... but selfishly, as I'd had so much time off work in her last weeks I just said to them that I'd be in after and to ''Tell her I'll see her later....''
I had another call at work about 4pm to say things were getting serious and to go in.... but me... I guess in fear of asking to leave work early again, put off telling my boss and asking to go...
I finally left work at 4.30ish, went to pick up Ste and Ste's mum and then finally got to the residential home at 5ish...

God.... why am I writing this... *sigh*... oh well...as they say on mastermind.. I've started so I'll finish..

I walked through the door and down the corridor headed towards mum's room to be met by the head nurse. She asked if she could talk to me privately for a minute... and how stupid of me.... not even thinking anything of it... what an idiot... but then again I guess I didn't want to think about what she had to say...

We went into her office and she left me in there on my own for a minute before returning with another of the nurses... looking back it was so obvious what they were going to say but at the time I just wanted to see my mum and wished they'd hurry up and get on with whatever they wanted to tell me before I went in to see her and have our usual chats about how Ashli was, work, the weather.. how god awful tv had been today... just the usual menial stuff that everyone takes for granted. No idea where Ste and his mum were at this point... or whether they knew... but as I sat in that office it didn't even cross my mind the possibility...
So there I was. Sat in a cramped little room with bog standard day to day shit like filing cabinets and paperwork... completely oblivious.. but this wasn't everyday... the nurses weren't giving me their usual chit chat... or their niceties of telling me things that mum had made them laugh about today... instead all they said was...

''I'm sorry Sarah, your mum passed away about 15 minutes ago.
''

....

I don't remember much in the minutes that passed... my first memory is walking back down the corridor towards Ste. The only thing I could say was a feeble ''Ste'' before collapsing into his arms in tears.
The next memory I have is of walking down the corridor towards her room... passing other people's mums and dads and grandparents and just looking at them. gathered round the communal tv..... at this point I was just numb... their faces said it all.... I caught eye contact with a couple of them... their faces were just emotionless and empty. They must've known.. all I could think about was that fact that because of my fear, and paranoia about what work would say.. I missed my last chance to say goodbye.


I then went in to see my mum. I guess part of me needed to see her to take it all in. Wasn't quite prepared for it though, but then again how could you be? I remember walking in as I'd normally do. If I remember right I even said 'Hello mum' as I went in as I'd do everytime... the only difference being that this time I got no answer... nothing... just silence... the room was dark and everything was just.... well.... still. Even if you hadn't have known about mum as soon as you walked in the room you'd have known. It was so surreal. My mum was there... but... she wasn't.I just sat on a chat at the end of her bed for ages... just... numb.....
I'd never seen a dead body before then. But that's it, it wasn't just a dead body. It was my mum. The one person who'd been there for me all my life and the one person who I expected to ALWAYS be there. Who now wasn't. The cruel cycle of life had claimed its next victim and taken her.

...... I'm going to stop there. The rest, is as they say, history. It is true that the pain eases as time goes on, but you never get used to it. So many times I've thought to myself, oh I'll give mum a call... and then had to go through the whole heartache again of the realisation of it.
*Sigh*
There's been soooo many times where I've needed her... but... I guess there's not a lot I can do.


I'm really sorry if anyone has gotten this far and wishes they hadn't read it. I guess this is more for my benefit than anyone elses.. but I've posted it to show to people that you can come from being so low... and rebuild your life. I'm not the same person that I was, I guess something like that is bound to change you..and I've had to do a lot of refinding myself and rediscovering the person that people know and love... and god knows whether I'm anywhere near to being that person again... but I guess here's to another year of moving onwards and upwards... and trying my best to make my mum proud.


Mum, if by some weird twist of fate you can read this. I love you, and I'm sorry.

x
___________________________________________________________________________________

3 years on...

3 years ago today I was getting married. I was 21, and 16 weeks pregnant with my second baby, and about to marry the guy I’d been with since I was 16. 5 whole years.

Today, I’m 24, and a lone parent to 2 children, on benefits and with a divorce petition that’s just gone to court.

Didn’t see THAT one coming 3 years ago… I’ll be the first to admit I got married too young. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, or didn’t want to marry him… but the one small thing I wish I’d known in hindsight was that, for all me saying ‘’I’ve always been mature for my age, and I’ve ‘done’ my youth, I’ve got kids and responsibilities, this is it for me. Time to settle down. I’m not going to change. This is me.’’, quite simply I was wrong. I have changed more in the past 4 years or so than even I think I realise. I’ve grown up. A lot. I’ve become a different person who has gone through utter hell and had to reassess and correct the course of my life on numerous occasions. Here’s a brief timeline of the past 5 years or so..

2004 -
June – Find out I’m pregnant and due March 2005
August – Get engaged
October – My mum is diagnosed with lung cancer
November/December – My mum undergoes radiotherapy, all the while claiming she was getting better and the doctors were saying she’d recover, but I’ll leave that for another blog. It’s the anniversary of her death next month…

2005
17th March – Ashli, my eldest is born.
May – I start work at a Nursery as a trainee nursery nurse.
June – My mum is taken into a hospice.
August – My mum goes into ‘Palliative care’ at a local residential home.
14th September – My mum passes away.

2006
14th September – approx hmmm….April/May 2006?? – Can’t remember any of it. At all. I guess it was the grief. I went onto autopilot for most of it. I can barely remember any of the wedding prep.
April/Mayish – Find out I’m pregnant again, due Jan 2007.
5th August– Get married
November – Go on early maternity leave due to Symphysis Pubis Disorder, in so much pain I could hardly move and relying on a special belt to essentially hold my pelvis together.

2007
29th January – Kaitlyn is born…. screaming…. Should’ve known we were in for trouble then!
Feb/March approx – Sink into postnatal depression.
May – Due to return to work but end up having to leave due to the depression and extortionate childcare fees.
August – Decide to turn my life around and get myself out of the depression, as the antidepressants were simply keeping me reliant on them and nothing else. I start playing bass again, join a band, and get a Saturday job to get me out of the house. Start reinventing my image and trying to get out and make friends again. I literally gave up all social life when I left work and was depressed. I had NO friends. Except online. I was determined to do something about it, and get me out of the depression a the same time.
September - Took myself off Antidepressants

2008 -
Jan - Started going out to pubs with my then best friend. Started making friends within his group of friends and slowly creating my own circle.
Feb - Decided to volunteer for the CAB, with a view to eventually having a career as a debt advisor. Started my general advisor training doing 2 mornings a week and
Apr - Started work at the CAB, and also became self employed working for Ann Summers, working around childcare home life so I could work 16hrs plus and get tax credits to help with the childcare while I was at CAB, and also just to get out of the house.
May - signed up for an open university course 'you and your money' on personal finance to supplement my CAB work.
Sept - Separated from my husband, forcing me to leave my saturday job, as well as Ann summers. But I carried on with my CAB and OU work. Focusing on it to be able to get me through the stress. My husband moved out, and I became a single parent and on benefits for the first time in my life. My husband took the car, so I was pretty much housebound apart from the 2 mornings a week he let me use it to continue my CAB work, (He doesn't know it, but even through all the stress I am eternally grateful that he let me use it, as at that point the only thing keeping me going was the kids and my job).
November - March 2009- Become romantically involved with my best friend. Who inevitably broke my heart numerous times and destroyed my self esteem and confidence at a time I was most vulnerable. This may be the subject of a blog in the future. I've not decided yet. It's a time I don't really like to think about, but either way I'm not naming anyone as you never know who reads these things. Plus that's not really the point of this blog post. For the record though, I've forgiven and forgotten the whole thing, although it did, and probably still does affect me to some degree. But life's too short to hold grudges. Just hope that maybe one day we can be friends again.

2009 -
April - Became a qualified CAB advisor and around the same time found out I'd passed my OU course.
May - After pestering and request from my ex husband I started divorce proceedings. Also was offered position as a paid advisor at CAB, running a newly weekly outreach, and finally got my foot on the employment ladder.
End May - Started dating my current boyfriend, who, full aware of everything inc the best friend stuff, was totally patient with me and just gave me space to be able to work out the kinks to allow me to put my heart on the line again. I'm still scared of having my heart broken again, but on the whole I'm slowly coming around and much more relaxed now.

.. and that... in not so great detail.. is how I came to be where I am today. In just over a month Ashli starts school, and I'll be looking to go into more hours at work and come off benefits completely, and pay my own way again. The divorce has gone to court and just waiting to hear from that. Work is great, and bar usual up and downs which frequent my life (My life wouldn't be mine without drama..) life is good in general.

I don't really want to go into the reasoning behind my separation. In the end, his behaviour, and me heaving myself up out of depression and moving on my life inevitably left him behind, and we grew apart. There are other factors which I won't go into on here. But the choice to leave was mine and there are times I still feel guilty for hurting him, but it's a 2 way thing and end of the day, we've both moved on and now getting on with our respective lives.

Everything happens for a reason, and I truly feel that the reasoning behind everything that has happened is to create a stronger me. I'm the strongest I've ever been, even when dealing with continual crap. I have wonderful children, my own (admittedly rented) home, and a decent career on the way. Just sometimes you kind of sit back and wonder what the hell happened. My best friend (female) said to me not long ago..

'' What with everything that's happened to you, how are you still standing?''

In all honesty?

Not...a....clue.




Note: This is too long for me to be bothered reading through for grammatical errors. There's bound to be some, but please ignore them.