Monday 29 September 2014

New stash!



New stash! Who doesn't love new stash? The new Maggie Holmes range is gorgeous and coupled with the new Heidi Swapp goodies too! *gasp* it is really lush.

So I spent Saturday afternoon making this layout and watching Orphan Black. (And washing as our washing machine had caught fire last weekend!)

What is your fave new range (or old range)?

Wednesday 24 September 2014

A day in the life... of me.

06:30: First alarm goes off. Go back to sleep.

06:40: Second alarm goes off. Usually at this point, I will hear Ben scuttle downstairs for his iPad.

06:45: Get up. Shower, teeth. Get ready.

07:00: Get kiddos up. Breakfast for them.

07:20: Tell kiddos to hurry up eating. Usually they are fiddling with stuff left on the table or day dreaming.

07:30: Do hair, make up, make sure kiddos are getting dressed, doing teeth etc...

07:50: Leave for school drop off.

07:55: Drop at breakfast club.

08:05: Drive to work. During term time I sit in a lot of traffic.

08:15-08:45: Dependant on traffic, arrive at work. Let myself in and start my working day. I don't officially start until 9am but always start earlier. I often think I am a little foolish for doing this but still do.

13:45: Maybe try and get some lunch, workload permitting. Always at my desk, always still working.

16:55: Pack up and get ready to leave work.

17:00: Leave. As it's Wednesday the kiddos are at our child minders, so head over there to pick them up. Hope the traffic isn't bad.

17:25: Pick up kiddos from minders.

17:35: Home. Phew. Start tea, wash up breakfast pots if Kev isn't already home.

18:15: All eat tea.

18:45: Kiddos flop on the sofa, usually on their iPad or iPod. Sometimes Emily might read. Kev lays on the sofa.

19:15: Kiddos get ready for bed.

19:30: Kiddos ask for a treat before bed. We usually watch the Simpsons or you've been framed. Kev is still sprawled on the sofa.

20:00: Kiddos to bed. Toilet/teeths. Emily always take a fresh water bottle to bed with her. She never drinks it. Say goodnight to Em first. Then Ben. It's always the same routine.

20:15: Flop in front of the TV. Maybe wine. Yes, quiet often wine. Maybe some making, if I am not too tired. Kev usually is now asleep on the sofa. Often snoring.

22:00/23:00: Bedtime. Always later than planned and in the morning I always wish I had gone to bed earlier....

Monday 22 September 2014

20 Facts About Me!



1. I love anything creative. I sometimes would love to be able to make this my full time job!

2. I live in Essex. It isn't all TOWIE you know but a lot of it is!

3. I have two kiddos - Emily and Ben.

4. We have a dog called Betty, called after the TV programme Ugly Betty. She is a staff (which get bad press) and rather like her namesake - don't judge a book by it's cover. She is as soft as grease!

5. I love instagram. It has to be my favourite social media hangout.

6. I bought my first house in 2002, when I was still 21 years old for £52,000. It was a lovely three bed terraced in a small village in Derbyshire. It was on a street called Mount Pleasant Road.

7. I am studying an access course, with the hope of some day becoming a midwife.

8. I love TV. Like really love it. Favourite programmes of the minute are - Ray Donovan, Orange is the new black, the real housewives and don't be tardy for the party. (I love trash TV).

9. I love sleeping.

10. I would love to have eyelash extensions but know I would never keep up with the up keep of them.

11. I am often surprised on how resilient I am.

12. I am a crier. I cry at everything. Happy, sad, you name it... i'll probably cry!

13. Celeb crush at the moment is Live Schreiber and/or Dash Mihok.

14. I love diaries and note books.

15. As a child we had lots of animals, I love animals especially goats!

16. I work full time as a regional manager. I am not happy in my work, I feel that it's a glorified title for a dogs body job. I want to make a difference to peoples lives.

17. I love my middle sister so much. I really miss living near her. If anything, my dad dying has brought us even closer together. I love seeing her eldest Abbeygail and Emily together. They are like two peas in a pod!

18. I have a son who is obsessive like his mama. This week it's minecraft.

19. I love coffee. Especially with hazelnut syrup.

20. I drive a blue citreon c3. I love that car!



Sunday 21 September 2014

Procrastination

Hello.

I am not sure that anyone will read this, you know it has been so long since I blogged. Like YEARS. So I could just be talking to myself (and besides that it kept getting hacked, so someone had been blogging on my behalf... the type of stuff that usually fills your spam emails)...

What's new with me since 2011.. Well. I left L/C. I got a new job in the NHS, worked it for near on a year (for a pittance but I loved it nearly more than any job I have ever had) then I left to work where I am now for A's. I am not happy there BUT it's a job. There are points when I am happy. Like last Monday (I was on a weeks leave) but now (due back tomorrow) I am not so thrilled to be working there.

I am doing something about it though. I am studying my access course (well should be but haven't done anything for this weeks assignment, due on Sunday the 28th). I am STILL toying with midwifery. I have been for years and so with something that happened recently it has made it possible. (If I pass my access with flying colours).

My dad died at the end of May. I am NOT sad at all. You know, he was a wicked man. I am not sure now why I call him dad. He wasn't one at all. He was abusive to us girls (me and my two half sisters, I was his only biological child), he was verbally abusive and controlling to my mum. He, no matter how hard I have tried to put the past and the dreadful things he did to me and my sisters behind me, it still impacts my life now. How I trust, how I live, how I view the world, how much it impacts on my parenting is immense. I have no trust for anyone with my kiddos. I have so much fear for anyone taking them from my sight. I know how easy it was for us to be so highly abused. How it often was done in plain sight and how no one noticed.
Him dying, brought that all up and it was something I thought I had put a tight lid on. Yes, it impacted how I felt about leaving my children and how I trust others BUT that fear for me, that dread in the pit of my stomach, those feelings of such fear, being so terrified and hurt were hidden away. I would manage the monthly or so nightmares, when i'd dream about being trapped in the house, knowing he was coming up the stairs. That was manageable. Him dying was not. It felt like he held all the control again.
If anything though, I have learned to protect myself emotionally. That day I found out (although the neighbour had called the night before and left me a voicemail asking me to call him. It had been about dad), I cried so hard. I was at work. I sat in our interview room and sobbed.
It brought me to the reality, I have always known, I knew I had no one. And I don't mean that in a horrible way. I mean it in the sense of, when you have been hurt by someone you should of been able to implicitly trust. You learn to only trust yourself. While you can hurt yourself, you can't hurt yourself in such a way another person can.
But to protect myself, I stayed at work. I worked that day. That week harder than I have ever worked. It was a superhuman amount of work that I achieved. It's funny how grief, I guess I was grieving for the father I never had, makes you superhuman at times. I didn't sleep much that week. I cried lots. I didn't drink, for fear I might not stop. I knew that, as his next of kin, I would have to sort it all out and I was so terrified of that house. The feelings I had about it. How can a place cause so much fear?
Well, I went to the house that Saturday. Nothing, NOTHING had changed since we left in 1987. Okay, maybe a paint in the lounge, wood floor in the hall and kitchen but it was the same. Same carpets throughout. Same darkness in the lounge. That same oppressive feeling in their. My bedroom curtains STILL up in the small bedroom. It was the same house. It stunk of smoke, wee, cat (there was a feral cat living there) and there was poop and wee and an enormous amount of grotty stuff everywhere! I felt a little creeped out at times but on the whole, I felt a small bit of comfort (comfort in that stink?!!). Maybe I had some of my childhood back?
And I found photographs of things I thought had been lost forever. I found my great grandmas photos, I found some of our photos. It made a small bit of me happy. It made the enormous task ahead of me seem a little easier to handle.
And now? Well, the solicitor is dealing with it all. I have a lot still to do. I feel comfortable in the house when I go back. The smell is getting better (we call it stink-house). We cleared the lounge of all furniture (apart from the three piece suite), carpets up, wood floor up (the smell reduced). We cleared the front garden (jungle) and I cleared the back garden somewhat (we need another skip). The two ponds are thriving. I chopped back the elderflower tree at the bottom of the garden. I cleared the weeds, thistles and made it look more live-able. There are frogs and newts and the most beautiful water lily in the ponds.
Emily and Ben came with me one weekend and I heard laughter in that house. Uninhibited, pure joy and laughter. It made me sit in the back garden and cry. I have never heard happiness in that house. It was the most simple, yet beautiful sound I think I have ever heard. It made me realise that this house was not what I feared at all. It was him. He was the fear, the hurt and the thing that made me terrified. He had gone. I let it go. I let that part of my life finally go. There is something strangely cathartic in facing what makes you so scared. In fact, I wasn't scared anymore.

It's now September. Three months or so later. The kiddos have just both had birthdays. Emily is now TEN. Ben is now EIGHT. Really? Where did that time go. Both are thriving. Both are turning into great people that I am proud of.

I am still making, which is of course why this blog was first set up! I love making, this love has never dwindled or left me. I always have loved making. It's something that makes me happy and I am happy I have passed this to Emily (and Ben sometimes). We made lots of shrinkies yesterday! And currently Emily is sat at the table drawing, she also asked for a desk for her birthday (so she could have a 'work-station' like me) and a spinny chair. She has used it every day since to make, draw and just be at. I hope the love of being creative stays with her forever.

Well, if you read that all. Well done! It was a long, rambly one. I hope to continue blogging and maybe next time with pictures?