I need a haircut

(And yes, that is a flying pig on our dining room wall. Two of them in actual fact.)

Blast from the past

Today

It's raining.
I'm coughing
and aching
but taking painkillers.
This afternoon I'm
having a meeting in a school
about potential job possibilities.

I should be in bed and asleep already, but I'm not

I've just been thinking about life, as you do when it's coming up to midnight and you're still not in bed yet. (My sleeping schedule is totally messed up at the moment. Once I'm better I'll try to get myself into a better routine, but in the meanwhile I'm liable to be awake at odd hours)

I got to talk to blest this evening, which was fantastic. Just hearing her voice, and the boys in the background, can transport me back to El Paso, back where my mind keeps trying to take me. And let's face it, my mind does wander there a lot at the moment. I miss them all so much, and also I miss the sense of purpose that I felt when I was there. I knew where I was, and I knew what I was doing. Now that I'm home again I'm not sure I kno either what I'm doing or what my purpose is.

I've been reluctant to make plans, although I know I'm not going back to Texas anytime soon, the unpreparedness of knowing just how much I would miss them and the constant questioning of people (some of whom still think I was meant to be gone for a year) asking me when I'm going back have led me to not want any fixed plans, so that I still had the freedom to jump on a plane at a moments notice, should the opportunity arise.

However, life happens, plans have to be made, and life is getting filled up. I'll be looking after Little one and his sister two days a week for the foreseeable future. I've been invited to weddings in April and June, and I've booked to go to the New Frontiers churches conference in Brighton in July. I'm back on the rota for kids work at church. All of these things need be and my attention to be focused here. And yet eveyday the question in my head and mind has been "When can I go back? When can I escape again?"

It's not that I don't love my family. It's not that I don't have friends here. It's not even like I met a guy over there and started going out. It's just that my heart doesn't seem to be in living here. And that's what I was thinking about, that's what I realised this evening. I will get to see blest and co again, that's a fact - as Andrew put it "I'm one of the family now". However, it ain't happening just yet, and I need to put my heart and mind into living here. I need to face the fact that I am here, and this is where my life is taking place right now, and I need to put my heart and soul into living here, and not just existing.

And to be honest it scares me. Going to live in the States changed me. I'm not the same person I was back in Novemeber, and I don't exactly know yet how this person fits back in to life here, but that's what I've gotta do. So that's what I am going to do. My life is here, in London, and I need to stop just existing and start living it.

Tomorrow I'm going to meet with a lady at a local school to talk about the possibility of working there. I don't know exactly what the job is, or whether it will be possible to work it around child-minding, but I'm going to give that door a jolly good push and see what comes of it. And after that, well, I'll let you know what happened tomorrow evening. But if that doesn't work out then I'll keep actively looking. Cos this isn't just a holding zone until I can go back to Texas, this is my life, so I ought to be living it.

I have no idea what day it is today

and I'm still really deaf in my right ear, and can't hear much in my left. And I've got a nasty cough and wheeze. And I really really really want to go on my treadmill, but I'm not going to, cos if going on it didn't kill me, then blest would come over here and kill me herself.

I got me some drugs

I've got a throat infection and a right ear that probably has an infection, so the doctor's given me a course of antibiotics.
I just hope they start to kick in quick, cos I'm fed up of being ill.

Mama just killed a man

I don't know how many times I've heard Bohemian Rhapsody, but it was only when I was driving home from Exeter with my Dad the other day, and turned on the radio to keep myself awake, that I realised that that line has a comma in it.

It doesn't mean that Mama just killed a man, it's the guy telling his Mama he just killed a man. I always wondered why if his Mama had killed the man, his life would be over. Now it makes so much more sense.

What a difference a little comma makes.

Rang the doctors

I'm going at 4.30 this afternoon.

Still Icky

The ear pain is less, but now everything I hear is really muffled, which is actually very disorientating. My throat is still sore, and my nose and head feel all bunged up.
I tried to make an appointment to see a doctor, but they're all full today. I can ring at 8.30am tomorrow and they may be able to fit me in in one of the 'emergency' appointment slots that they allocate on the day. Otherwise, it'll be Thursday at the earliest that they can see me.

Pain with a capital P

Last night I spent several hours being awake with the worse earache pain I've had in a very long time. I'd taken painkillers sometime after 11, but by 1 the pain had got bad enough to wake me up again, and from then until about 4.30am I lay in bed crying because of the pain, and doing a bit of talking\prayer requesting to my friends on the etsy forums and OWOA.

I took more paracetamol sometime around 3.30am (I didn't want to take it any sooner than that because I wasn't sure exactly when after 11 I'd taken the last lot). It wasn't until 4.30am that I'd got drowsy enough and the pain had subsided a little that I was able to get back to sleep.

I woke up around 9 this morning, and had to sponge my right eye in order to get rid of the gunk that was sticking it down. This morning my ear hasn't been hurting so much, but my hearing is really muffled and it feels like it needs to pop. It does pop every so often, but it doesn't seem to help the hearing, or it might come back for a few seconds and then goes muffled again.

Since it's a bank holiday I couldn't go to the doctors today, but we rang NHS direct, and they ask you some questions and then get a qualified nurse to ring you back. She asked me lots of questions, and doesn't think that I've got an ear infection, instead she suggests that it's probably deferred pain from my throat. (My mum says that when I was younger I used to complain of earache, and when they took me to the doctor they'd say I had a throat infection, so I guess nothing much had changed!)

The nurse told me the name of some stronger painkillers I can take, and we went and got those at the pharmacy at sainsburys this morning. All I can do now is stay warm and keep taking the pills. If I continue to be poorly I'll make an appoinment to see a doctor once they're open again.

In other news, it keeps snowing here, but it's pretty wet snow, and it's not settling, just melting straight away.

Happy Easter

Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

I am suffering with a nasty cold, including a beautifully sore throat, earache, and swollen glands, so I didn't go to church this morning.
However, I can still celebrate the resurruction of my Lord, Jesus Christ, and to beautifully illustrate the fact that Jesus had to die because there was no way I could do things right in God's eyes, here are some out-take photos I've taken over the last week or so.

This was whilst taking photos to put on e-bay.
I think I moved the camera by mistake.

The little lambs all ran outside as soon as I got the camera out.

My uncle Jon stuck his head in the way when I was taking a picture
when we were waiting for HP at the end of the Mikado.

Little one moved.

I really like this one.
Little flower was trying to tap on the camera.

Not exactly an out-take, just the fact that you can't really see

us because there's a window behind us.This was at Rach Wibbs' house, but I'm not entirely
sure who or what this was meant to be!

Finally, Rach Wibbs hereself, but the camera was on the wrong setting!

(See Rach, I told you I'd blog about my visit to your house eventually ;-) )

One a penny, two a penny, hot cross loaf?

Apparantly you can now buy a hot-cross loaf from Tesco. It's a loaf of fruit laden bread with the typical hot cross bun cross on the top.
(Here's a picture, it's not the original one I saw, but it's similar)

Conversation

I'm about to go out for the evening and was deciding what to wear. I thought about putting on a denim skirt (that I discovered earlier is almost too big for me) but then remembered I haven't shaved my legs for a while(!)
I said, out loud, but half to myself "I wish I'd shaved my legs this morning"
To which my Mum replied (or so I thought) "I know, we're looking forward to it"



(She was actually replying to my Dad, who had told her that a new seris of House starts on Thursday, but I didn't hear him say that!)

Wordless Wednesday

My Mummy's Mothers' Day Present

(I think it must have been to Timbuktu on it's way from Texas to London because it took long enough for it to arrive!)

I commissioned blest to make a necklace for my Mum for Mother's Day (which was actually two and a half weeks ago). And it finally arrived today. For Bekki, who couldn't be here to witness it, here's Mummy opening it.(We'll take another picture when she's wearing a different top so that you can see it properly. You can see it here if you want to see it closeup)

'Allo Chickens

I'm looking after Little One and Little Flower again now that their Mum's gone back to work two days a week. Today we went to the farm in Leyton (same place I went several times last spring and summer). They both had a whale of a time...

We spent a lot of time by the 'chickens' (yes, I know that they're actually hens, and chicken is the meat we eat, but try explaining that to someone who's not yet three).
Little one loves saying " 'Allo Chickens".

Although she doesn't look incredibly excited here, she was actually
laughing and giggling most of the time.

We followed these two rogue ducks geese turkeys birds around for a while.

Little one kept watch over them from a safe vantage point (behind the buggy)

There were cute little lambs

And piglets too.HP (my sister)came with usIt was very cold, so we were all thankful to get back in the car.
When we got back to my house we played with the duplo animals.I couldn't find the farm set, so it was actually the circus animals, but who's to say you wouldn't find an elephant on the farm. After all, we saw a hippo and a giant frog while we were at the farm.
(The trash cans were in the shapes of animals!)
(Oh my, I just typed trash cans. What has happened to my vocabulary lately? And I was teaching Little one to say 'good job')

Lots of things to tell you all

but I just got a parking ticket, and now I'm not in the mood. Maybe later. Perhaps I'll go take out the crossness on the treadmill.

Flowers in the window

This is the Amaryllis which was originally meant to be given to HP as a Christmas present back in 2006. My Mum found it about a month later, stuck in the bottom of her wardrobe (it was one of the ones that you start growing from a bulb, you see lot of them around at Christmas time).
It has started to grow in the box, in the dark, in the bottom of the wardrobe (must have been pretty determined!) but had obviously met with some resistance from the box. We got it out and set it on the windowsill, and it did do a fair amount of growing, but we never saw any flowers.

This year, we didn't force it back into a box, but instead allowed it to sit in the light and grow as it wished, and boy did it grow! I kept meaning to take pictures as it was growing, but it just went too quick! I finally remembered yesterday to capture a few shots of it in it's flowering glory. I think there are more flowers yet to come, so perhaps I will manage to take some more pictures, but in case I don't, here it is as it looked yesterday.

Blog blog bloggity blog

Well, blest is back blogging again, so in a minute you can all head over to see her. Hang on, just a minute, you could at least wait for me to get to the end of the sentence.

Tomorrow I am going to see Rachel again, so hopefully that'll give me some good blog fodder, because I don't feel like I've been very inspired recently!
Ok, now you can go see blest or Rachel, I'm done.

In case anyone was wondering...

... my ears are STILL popping all the time. I'm beginning to to wonder if they will ever stop, and if I would miss it if they did!

It's a good good good good good good morning*

I've got yummy baked beans cooking in the oven.

The sun is shining.

I've got several items to pack up and take to the post office (I sold some clothes on e-bay and a book on amazon)

I'm got some photos to take to list some more clothes on e-bay (because they're too big for me !)

I'm going to get on my treadmill a bit later.

My weigh-in this morning was down. (only a bit, and still up 3lb from my lowest last week, but down is down!)

I've got some fantastic fantastic.

I'm listening to Rockapella.


* Line from 'Good Morning' a song by Phil Joel, as reviewed by blest here. I'm not sure my mood is quite as good as all that, but the sun is shinning and things feel brighter.

Life's a see-saw

Is it to do with hormones?

Is it because I'm exhausted from helping out in sunday school this morning?

Is it cos that's how life goes, one week of happiness and then back to gloom?

Is it becasue I still haven't found myself a job, or created a long term plan for my life (meaning something longer than taking a week or evena day at a time)

It is because my weight has been fluctuating this week? (it seemed like I was losing too much weight this week, so I made a concerted effort to eat more, and now I'm really bloated, and feel really fat)

I don't know why it is, but it seems my life is a see-saw and I'm stuck back at the bottom.

Oh treadmill, how I love thee

let me count the ways...

But first, I'd probably better have a shower cos I'm a tad bit* sweaty after my work out.



*tad bit may be a slight understatement. Lets put it this way, I won't be going out anywhere this evening before I've jumped in the shower.

Ten importants facts about Debs

1. If you lie on your back with your legs stretched it is impossible to sink in Debs.
2. In Vermont, the ratio of cows to Debs is 10:1.
3. The book of Esther in the Bible is the only book which does not mention Debs!
4. Without its lining of Debs, your stomach would digest itself!
5. If a snake is born with two heads, the heads will fight over who gets Debs!
6. Japan provides over thirty percent of the world's Debs supply.
7. Without Debs, we would have to pollinate apple trees by hand.
8. Dolphins sleep at night just below the surface of Debs, and frequently rise to the surface for air.
9. Twenty-eight percent of Microsoft's employees are Debs!
10. Plato believed that the souls of melancholy people would be reincarnated into Debs.

Hat-tip to blest and you can get your own version here

I'm alive

Just amazingly busy for someone who isn't really doing anything at the moment.
That makes no sense, but I guess I just mean for someone who doesn't have a job. Yeasterday I was out from about 1.30pm until almost 11pm. I was tired.

I've been on my treadmill lots and lots and am still loving it. I've also been losing more weight, in fact I'm keeping any eye on it because although I feel like I spend all the hours in the day eating, I'm still down several pounds on what I was when I weighed on Sunday morning.

Gotta rush off again, as I'm spending the afternoon with my friend Jenny.

Here are a few more pics from the girls weekend away. These are from Sania Peak, after going up the worlds longest tramway.

Throwing snowballs (actually, I don't think I did throw it in the end, cos blest was so cold I'm not sure she'd have forgiven me if I had)Blest looking lovely, as ever (and this was the last picture I took before the battery died)And just because I saw this sign, I had to share it with you all (I didn't actually see any bears or anything, but, you know, we might have done..!)

Bowled over with love

Right now I'm not in the most brilliant of places mentally. This past week has been so so hard, and it's been tough just getting out of bed some days. However, I know that the are people ALL OVER THE WORLD who love me and want me to feel better, and who really really do care about me.
And that just bowls me over.

When I'm feeling like I don't even like me, there are people who've just been there for more, and surrounded me with their love. And most importantly of all, God loves me, and wants me to know that I am loved.

I was just struck again, reading this post by Boo (will have to fix the link later cos it's telling me there's an error every time I try to go on her blog!) just how many people know me, and even seem excited to want to see me. It blows my mind, but in a good way!