Notes to self

Now I am rocketing on (!) with my JYC, having done day 1, thought I'd better get down some thoughts on the days in between then and now, before it is all un-rescuable (is that a word?). A notable thought is the 'festive menu' I 'enjoyed' at McDonalds last Friday. Yes, yes, I know - Capitalist gits and all that, but I have a kid and therefore it is just obligatory. It's the law.

Anyway, the 'festive menu' seemed to consist of the addition of a strip of pseudo bacon onto a burger and adding some cheese-type sauce. And I use the term 'cheese' loosely as I am not convinced there was ever any dairy intervention there. BUT the piece de resistance - the gourmet delight of delights was cheese melts with an caremelised onion sauce. Bollocks. Now this I am sure about - the cheese melts were deep-fried Dairylea triangles. The whole 'meal' (definately a word used loosely here) left me feeling ever so slightly ill, surprisingly. Oliver got off lightly with a 'happy' meal. (yeah, yeah, another loosely used word lol). Those Dairylea triangles felt as if they went straight from my mouth to my arse cheeks to join their cellulite buddies.

There was Oliver's Carol service with the Beavers last Wednesday - mercifully short (I am not being mean - he didn't enjoy it much) and we went to Bickleigh Mill with Mum & my brother the Friday before the Festive Menu debacle. Actually think that was still in November... pity, it was very Christmassy....my brother spent £3 on a box of festive matches, but that's another story.

On Sunday Oliver went to his Judo Fun afternoon (their equivalent of a Christmas do I suppose) and tomorrow we are going to go to the Garden Centre to see Father Christmas. I am going to a Christmas crop on Saturday (can't wait) AND Mark and I are going out with friends for a meal! Almost unheard of.

We did get the Christmas biscuits onto the tree (no small achievement I can tell you) and I have now started feeding (drowning) my Christmas cakes in brandy. I hate brandy as a drink but think it rather spiffing soaked into a cake..... soon it will be time to watch Scrooge and wrap pressies - usually reserved for an evening when Mark is out and I can soak up Christmas in solitude....

Feeling very virtuous...

as this morning I have cleaned the bathroom, hamster (it's living quarters obviously ha ha), cat's bowls and mat, kitchen (ish), hoovered AND emptied said hoover (not difficult but worth a mention), got Oliver to complete some of his workbooks with no shouting or resentment AND played two games with him. And it's not even lunchtime. OH - AND finished off page 1 of my Christmas Journal. Ta DAH!

See what getting up early can lead to.

Falling behind by the second

Well, no change there then. Made biscuits with Oliver on Tuesday with the promise of hanging them on the tree. It is now Saturday and they are sitting reproachfully in an 'airtight' tub waiting for their hanging. By the time I get round to it, doubtless they will be mouldy and inedible. I also wanted to do Journal Your Christmas (as per my previous claims) but didn't even give it a moments thought until hours before it all kicked off, so am playing catch up and am now 6 days behind. Time management my speciality NOT.

Check out this blog: Choice words and tasteful doings. It's bloody hilarious. Also, I use it help motivate me to get going on the JYC. Clearly not quite working yet though.

On the first day of Christmas

Well, the first day of OUR Christmas anyway. I like to get the tree up on December 1st, since the Advent box starts, but over the weekend I got the tree up, and Mark has also put up the ceiling decs, so it is very Christmassy here! I got to open the first of my UKScrappers Advent parcels, which was 2 packs of Herma refills - very exciting if you are a scrapper believe me, but to you non-scrappers - well you must think so what....

I sent this off on Friday-

I made a net of beads around this bauble for a 'Handmade Secret Santa Present' swap on UKS, so hope my swappee likes it. Will report back.

On another scrappy note, I am going to go for the Banana Frog DT - very prestigious in my eyes - so probably out of my league, but certainly a bit more of a chance getting in if I actually enter than if I don't! Trouble is - don't think my current output reflects my commitment or ability. For sure I am more motivated to scrap when I have DT stuff to work with - but haven't had SBS stuff for AGES now.

Anyway, my main reason for posting is to keep up with the theme 'Journal Your Christmas'. Shimelle is doing a class throughout December - daily prompts/ideas etc to your inbox to create a journal of your Christmas - sounds basic I know, but it is actually quite hard work to create an interesting record of any period of time. Jen, from my blog links on the left, has a link to one she did last year and it is lovely. I think it would be great to produce an annual journal of Christmases, since in MY memory, they have all kind of blended into one big Christmassy blur. A good blur, but I would be hard pushed to remember gifts/guests/food/family reactions from specific years, and I think it would have been lovely to have that now. That's my life in a nutshell really - after the event.

SO - this morning I intend to get some pics onto my memory card - a couple for the CJ I am working on, some of Oliver and my niece's 5th birthday last year, which I want to make into a mini-book in time for her 6th birthday next week. Nice to keep abreast of events as they take place I say ha ha. We will walk over to Sainsburys to get them printed, thereby having our daily exercise/chat at the same time. On the walk we normally we play 'guess the Pokemon' using first letters and then the next letter etc, which I think helps Oliver with spelling/visualising words but I might try to con him into some geography today with capital cities and such like. Will it work? Doubt it, like most kids he can spot an educational opening a mile off.

I made two Christmas cakes over the weekend too, a little late as I like to douse them in brandy for a few weeks, sorry - feed them, and I am ever conscious of the pile of pickled onions I haven't done yet.....

Confessions of a sporadic blogger

Blimey, I am getting really crap at updating this blog. Anyway, I received a blog award! Got it from the Scrapbook Sisters. Surely very undeservingly, but hey, an award is an award....!

This award states that: This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY- nearness in space, time and relationships.These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends, they are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers.

Anyway, what news? Well, not much scrapping going on at the mo, got a nice kit from
Sarah's cards which I've just subscribed to, and still waiting for my Scrapbook Sisters kit (hint hint!) which usually kicks my ass into gear. I have signed up for a couple of swaps on UKS which I have bimbled around with for weeks, and now am under pressure to finish this week. One of them is the Advent Swap - basically you get allocated a swappee, get to 'know' them by means of viewing the polls completed by the people taking part and by surreptitious 'Secret Santa' messages to find out more info about your person, and then you buy/make gifts to go into a parcel for them - one pressie for every day in December until Christmas Day! It can be a little expensive, you are meant to work to approx £1 per pressie, but some have cost me considerably more, and some I 'got' for free. I have about 5 more pressies to sort, I think, and it must be with her by this Saturday...... Anyway, I will be getting a parcel too and have the joy of a little pressie every day! The Christmas Tree is going up on Sunday (I like to get full value out of Chrismas by starting it as early as humanely possible).

Yesterday I was suffering with a Corneal Erosion, which I have not had since April. Bloody painful and knocks a whole day into touch - I literally am grounded - it is too painful to contemplate doing anything. As it happened, this one has been the least painful/severe of the several I have had, but still needed a couple of codeine before bedtime. I am, however, always hugely impressed with the way the eye (being such an important 'organ' I suppose), starts to heal itself immediately. Going to bed last night in extreme pain I was able to comfort myself with the knowledge that by morning, I would be largely pain-free. And so I am. A little tender and puffy but - better. Good old eyeball.

Guy Fawkes Night

My brother and the kids came up as we have a fab view over the city and we had an evening of hot dogs and sparklers. It was simple, and nice. Would have been miles better with a bonfire though... Had a fairly good view of one of the best displays in the City too, very big bangs. Total cost £10. Not bad.

Going to be scrapping a few of these pics soon. Spent last night adding stickles to chip letters in preparation.

Anyway, cat-wise, we have made a decision to grit our teeth and get on with it - Oliver loves her and that does outweigh all the other things..... We have also said that if things get any worse, fungus-wise (!) then we will look again at the situation. On the plus side, the house has never been so clean.....

I don't know what to do.....

Well, bit of a downer at the mo..... we have picked up Ringworm.....NOT a worm at all - it is a fungal infection which comes from a fungus we all have co-existing happily on our skin apparently, but gets triggered off by certain things. One of them is pets, and as this has happened since Tabba has been with us, we have taken her to the vets and they have done a test to see if it has come from her. The results don't come back until next Monday. If she has Ringworm, it seems that there will be months of expensive treatment for her, not to mention the hygiene issues at home. It all seemed bearable until we suddenly noticed, out of the blue, a bald patch in Oliver's hair on Saturday. A visit to the Doctor confirms it is possibly the scalp version of Ringworm, and that feels like the last straw.

Now I am sat here after a sleepless night, in two minds what to do - Oliver has half-accepted that if she is responsible for causing him this, then it is impractical and unfair for her to stay here, but I know he is very attached to her, and he will be terribly upset for ages. If it is confirmed she doesn't have it then do we just accept it was picked up elsewhere (possibly abroad as that is another cause) and get on with it, knowing we could pass it on to her and it could be passed back to us, blah blah blah.......

I have, for the first time in God knows how many years written out a list of Pros and Cons about keeping her here, and on the Con side is a long list encompassing possible hygiene issues, stress, interminable vets bills, expense on top on expense and inconvenience, and on the Pro side is one thing: Oliver. And that one 'thing' carries as much if not more weight and makes this decision so, so painfully difficult. And I still don't know what to do...

Incidentally, if anyone is reading this who mixes socially with us - fear not - once treatment is underway, contact with other people is not forbidden. According to the Doctor, Ringworm is incredibly common. Funny how I never hear about these 'incredibly common' ailments until I bloody get one.