Survival

I made it.  I managed a day (albeit a shorter one than normal) at work and came out the other side relatively unscathed.  I did it.

I dropped the Boy at school at 8:50am and got to the office by 9:30am as agreed.  It felt good to do the school run still; a chance to take a bit longer to get ready in the morning, unrushed and complete with a cup of tea – unheard of previously.

I can’t say it was plain sailing but my colleagues made it as easy as possible for me.  They greeted me as though I hadn’t been away apart from generic “nice to see you” type platitudes (which was what I wanted) and apart from a couple of instances where I had to ask what had happened for a few things I was working on I just got on my with tasks without a hitch.

My boss wasn’t in first thing but had left me a list of tasks which at first glance when I arrived made me panic slightly but actually it made it simpler – I knew what she wanted me to do and it was clear and concise and not taxing.  Things I would be comfortable completing.  I wrote some instructions for things they didn’t know how to do and had struggled with while I was off, I reconciled the bank accounts.  I made some calls, sent some emails.  I felt almost normal.

I had a wobble just after lunch; mainly because I realised that if I left at that moment I would have been in time to pick the Boy up from school, but in actual fact my boss said shortly after that she was happy for me to work “school hours” at least till my holiday at the end of next week, so I left at 3:30pm and picked the Boy up from the childminder which was two hours earlier than normal so I still got to spend extra time with him.  I’m investigating the possibility of After School Club and Holiday Club rather than the childminder if and when I go down the route of permanent shorter hours – this might save us money and mean I don’t have to reduce my hours by quite so much, but this is still very much at idea stage.

I’ve sorted out a Debt Management Plan today, so we have a proper, official end in sight, even if it is almost two years away.  Any extra cash we get in the meantime we can put towards it to bring that goal forward anyway.  It makes our budget much more manageable and so much less stressful – one of my triggers is that I deal with ALL the household bills except our rent which the Husband pays and I got ourselves into a bit of a mess for one reason or another and then couldn’t handle the fallout.  Now I’ve negotiated a solution rather than just ignoring the issue which is how I ended up trying to deal (or not) with it.

I spoke to my parents this evening who both sounded tearful and said over and over again how proud of me they are.  They’ve made me go from feeling like a total failure to warm and fuzzy that I am wanted and needed.  I am amazingly lucky to have my parents, albeit a long way away geographically, looking after me emotionally (and financially at the moment).  I owe them so much and without their love and support I don’t know how I would have got through the last few months.

I think I might actually be able to do this.

The Return

I am going back to work tomorrow.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m terrified.

I don’t want to.

I don’t feel ready.

This evening I picked fights with the Husband, broke down in tears and then rushed out of the house and drove blindly around the local area before pulling over, calling my parents and sobbing to them that I couldn’t do it.

I don’t really know what it is that I’m so scared of.

I think I’m frightened that I’m going back to how things were 5 or 6 weeks ago.  I don’t feel that anything has really changed.  I’ve had a month off work because I couldn’t cope with basic everyday life, but I’m still on the same medication, I still have the same stresses and fears, I don’t feel I’m any further on than I was at Easter.  What’s to stop the same thing happening all over again?

I’ve grown accustomed to doing the school run.  I really enjoy it.  The Boy and I have re-bonded in a way.  I have loved our afternoons together.  There is a possibility I could work shorter hours in the future but financially not for at least six months and for now it feels a huge upheaval to hand my boy back over to the childminder every day.  I miss him with every ounce of my being already.

I know I need to get a good night’s sleep.  I know that there is zero chance of that.  I want to stay up, to stop tomorrow arriving.

I know this is all irrelevant.

Tomorrow will be here in just two short hours.

I’ll be back at work in 11 hours.

I feel sick.

Meal Planning Monday

I’m heading back to work on Thursday.  Trying to feel positive about it, but it feels like a Big Thing after a whole month away.

This week I’m slow cooking as much as possible again.  I love that it takes so little preparation and the house smells amazing all day.  With only one exception the recipes I’ve tried lately have been fabulous and we now have firm favourites that everyone is happy to eat week after week (let’s see how long that lasts…).  Yesterday I cooked a joint of beef brisket in the slow cooker and it was quite possibly the best roast dinner I’ve cooked in a long time and will soon become another regular I think.

So without further ado, our meals this week are:

Slow Cooked Chinese Chicken with Cashew Nuts and Rice
Home-made Chicken Kievs and Chips
Slow Cooked Chicken Korma and Rice
Home-made Pizzas
Portuguese Pork and Chorizo Stew

Pretty straightforward menu.  The Boy has discovered a love of chicken kievs so in an effort to be economic and a bit healthier I make them from scratch and we have them with oven chips and whatever veg I happen to have bought this week (broccoli and carrots).

The Chinese chicken recipe is in the slow cooker as I type and smells delicious – but then I said that about the Peanut Chicken I made last week and that was quite possibly the most disgusting meal I’ve ever made!

For lunches this week I’ve gone for bagels with a choice of fillings – today I had hummus, watercress and red peppers from a jar.  Really tasty and I think I’ll be having that a lot this week!  Other things I bought include eggs to make egg mayo and various salad veggies, and tuna to make tuna mayo but I think the hummous might win out!

Why not join in with Meal Planning Monday over at Mrs M’s place?

Musical Monday

The Boy calls this the “Uncle Dave Song”.  Get to 5:45 and listen to it with your eyes closed and you’ll understand why.

I love Melody Gardot and can’t wait for her new album at the end of the month.  This is my all time favourite of hers and I hope you like it too – let me know what you think.

Melody Gardot /ɡɑrˈdoʊ/ (born February 2, 1985) is a Grammy nominated American singer, writer and musician in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, though she considers herself a “citizen of the world”.  She has been influenced by such blues and jazz artists as Judy Garland, Janis Joplin, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Stan Getz and George Gershwin as well as Latin music artists such as Caetano Veloso.  Her music has been compared to that of Nina Simone.

~ Wikipedia

Petrolhead

The Boy has developed a new obsession, this time with one of these:

Image Credit: eBay

That, my friends, is a toy Honda Civic.  But he’s not obsessed with the toy one, oh no.  He actually wants to buy one of these:

Image credit: Wikipedia

Yep, that’s a REAL (top of the range, of course) Honda Civic. It costs around £26,000.  He’s saving his pocket money.

Apparently Honda Civics are COOL.  Black ones are COOLER.  They are COOLER than Mummy’s car, which up to now has been the COOLEST.  Apparently when (!) my car breaks down he will come and pick me up in his COOL black Honda Civic.

We cannot go anywhere without the request to drive past the nearest Honda forecourt or the playing of the popular travel game “I Spy (With My Little Eye) a Honda Civic”. He studies SubHub’s car magazines and tells anyone who will listen (and those who didn’t want to but are kind of forced into it) that he’s saving to buy one.  Long gone is the obsession with the Monster Truck game on my iPhone; now he likes to customise his own Civic on the Honda app.

We actually had tears before school on Friday because he didn’t want to be taken in a lowly Ford Fiesta Titanium, even though it is black and has automatic fold-in mirrors (previously his favourite thing).  Oh no, I was instructed to go out and buy a Civic before breakfast so he could turn up in a COOL car and not an EMBARRASSING car (charming!).

If he asks me one more time how many months it is before he can learn to drive or tells me life’s not fair because he can’t do it right now, I think I might cry.  He’s gone all Kevin the Teenager on me.

By the way, this is not a sponsored post.  But if Honda would like to provide me with a Civic, preferably a top of the range one in black, I know one member of my family who will be happy to accept.

Review: Harvesting the Heart

Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult

A young woman who was abandoned by her mother when she was 5, left her father behind in Chicago to pursue art school. She marries an ambitious doctor and soon becomes a mother herself. She cannot forget her mother’s absence and the shameful memories of her past, which make her doubt herself. Out of Paige’s struggle to find wholeness, Jodi crafts an absorbing novel that explores issues and emotions we can all relate to.

I’m a huge fan of Jodi Picoult but this book just didn’t do it for me. What I love about her novels are the twists and turns of the plots, the dilemmas the characters have to face and the ability she has of making you imagine yourself in the protagonist’s situation. I just didn’t get that with this book at all. I found the characters unlikeable and their relationship sterile and not very believable. Normally I could read a Jodi Picoult novel several times over but this won’t be one of them unfortunately.

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

View all my reviews

Saturday at the Caravan

We spent Saturday afternoon with the in-laws visiting Wray Scarecrow Festival which was celebrating its 25th anniversary.  Pretty much every house in the village puts on a display of at least one scarecrow.  The themes this year seemed to be the Diamond Jubilee, the anniversary of the Titanic, the anniversary of the Pendle Witch Trials and the Olympics.  Here are a few of my favourites.

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Afterwards we stopped at Bridge House Farm for a lovely cup of tea and slice of cake and the Boy got to run through the maze and play on the other play equipment (and use up some energy!).  Wray is a lovely little village and definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area, even if not at May Day bank holiday for the scarecrow festival!

We had a fab Chinese takeaway back at the caravan courtesy of my FIL and watched my beloved Chelsea win the FA Cup Final.  Despite the Chinese coming from a takeaway called “Red Luck”!