Some Day I’ll Realize

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that I really can’t keep going and going and going and going. Because I’ll end up in tears sitting on the step stool in the kitchen with my son sobbing as well as Daddy walks in the door from work.

And then I’ll need to take a taxi the next day for school pick up and to get Adam home.

And I’ll get nothing accomplished during my Adam free time except eating too much chocolate, drinking too much coffee and reading MN (you can never read too much MN).

No more long wanders through City Centre on days that I am picking up and dropping off Adam from school/day care. I probably walked 10 miles yesterday between the school run and shopping.

And I paid for it last night and I’m paying for it today.

So instead of working on the new website or folding the laundry or uploading stuff to Mumsnet Belfast I’m sitting here.

Eating too much chocolate and drinking too much coffee.

And the taxi back to school is booked.

My Newest Acquisition

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So my lovely parents in laws gave me a voucher to Debenham’s for Christmas. Today I set off to spend it.

As has been recently discussed on Facebook, us mummies have a hard time spending money on ourselves. Even a gift card tends to be used for school shoes or sports equipment or a new pot to cook in. Our families always come first.

But I was bound and determined to spend my voucher on me. And realized the one thing I really wanted was a tea pot. A proper put tea bags or leaves in and let it steep and drink it properly tea pot.

And so I found one:

Tea tastes better from a pot. Even into a mug.

I adore this pot with an unholy love. Nearly as much as I love my husband and son, who will never be allowed to touch it. 😀

Actually, that’s not true. This is a Denby pot, from their Halo range. I love the whole range and would buy it if I had the money. Since it’s Denby, it’s dishwasher, oven, freezer and stove top safe. So Simon may be allowed to wash it. If he’s very very careful. He may even be allowed to drink tea out of it. If he ever drank tea.

So that’s my new acquisition  It looks like it’s for the family, except, really, no one else in the family drinks tea. 😀

Why I Really Want To Go Home

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So we are heading off to Berkeley in July for 2 weeks.

My family think I’m dying to see them. Oh how wrong they are. 😀

Okay, I am, but I also have a long, and getting longer, list of things I really, really need to do while there: –

  • Shop at Target. Twice.
  • Eat my weight in summer fruit.
  • Ditto vegetables.
  • California Pizza Kitchen.
  • Black Angus Steak House.
  • Cold Stone Creamery.

I’m sensing a theme here

  • Shop at a real mall.
  • Eat real Chinese.
  • Peets!!!! (I almost forgot! My brother will faint.)
  • Applebees.
  • Real bagels. Well, more real than Tesco’s own. Sort of.
  • Fuddruckers

Okay, mostly food related. But it really is the stuff I miss as much as I miss my family. My food.

Five months to go.

My God, Where Have I Been?

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I have no idea. Just not writing, I guess. Sorry.

So, what’s the craic…we had snow and ice. Adam managed to go to school for an entire week after missing at least one day a week since Christmas. Some illness, some weather related.

My family, except us, got together to celebrate my step dad’s 80th birthday, which is actually next Thursday. A good time was, apparently, had by all.

I’m 44 this coming Tuesday. Adam thinks my birthday cake should be blue. We are going out to dinner tonight to celebrate said birthday.

And Adam has started insisted he’s not a baby. He’s Adam.

Indeed.

After Slipping And Sliding To Adam’s School Today

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I headed to City Centre to run some errands.

I have what is know as Mummy’s Never Ending Shopping List. It gets added to all the time and never completely goes away. Today it included stuff we needed from Boots and some groceries along with a handbag, a sauce pan, a train, modelling glue, wine glasses and an ice cream maker.

Interesting list, no?

The handbag has been on my list since The Great Banana Incident of 2012. You see, one day on the way home from school Adam handed me his half eaten banana. Which I stashed in my handbag. And found four days later. I had been using my Fossil Cross Body bag, as I usually do, which is 100% fabric with leather trim. I contacted Fossil to see if it could be cleaned and their answer was yes, but no. In other words, sure, try it, but they sure as heck don’t recommend it!

So I turned it inside out, put it in a pillow case and washed it in the machine while spinning my prayer wheel and praying.

It actually came out usable, but hardly in the best shape and the seams started to wear away. So the hunt for a handbag began.

It should be noted that I am picky picky picky about my handbags. For one thing, I won’t spend more than about £60 on one. For another it has to be a cross body bag as I hate shoulder bags. It has to have at least one inner zipped pocket for my passports (yes, plural) and these days my Kindle Fire HD must fit into it. It has to zip closed. And it would be nice if it was water resistant, if not waterproof.

So The Great Banana Incident of 2012 was in October, I think it was. My mom came to visit not long after it and she gave me my birthday money (even though my birthday isn’t until two weeks from now) and I knew I would spend it on a new handbag.

So I started looking. And looking. And looking. Too small, no pocket, only a snap closure. Handbag after handbag.

Well today I bit the bullet and headed to House of Fraser (no relation) and Handbag Mecca. And lo and behold it’s their Blue Cross Sale and up to 75% off.

So I’m wandering Handbag Mecca and looking and peering and feeling and zipping and get to Radley.

Now anyone who knows me knows I couldn’t give two figs about brands, fashion or otherwise. I buy what I like that I can afford. But it did occur to me that I bought a Radley purse about a year ago because I loved the way it was designed. So I started to look at their sale rack. And found it:

New Handbag

My new handbag, by Radley. Ya know, the ones with the dog? Them.

It is perfect, cross body, inner zipped compartment, holds my Kindle (of course I had it with me, don’t ask silly questions) and water resistant. I’m also pleased because it’s not obviously a Radley as the dogs are just a part of the fabric pattern and it has no hanging dog that needed to be removed.

So what else did I get from my list?

A train – Adam’s reward for going without his dummy during the day for 10 days. It’s Percy from the Mega Blocks Rail Road and also has a piece of track.

Wine glasses – Simon keeps breaking ours. It’s either a ploy to get out of doing the washing up (which isn’t going to work) or we had very fragile glasses. The new ones have titanium in them. No joke. They are also huge.

I did not get a sauce pan (because I forgot to put on the list what size I wanted) an ice cream maker (we aren’t exactly sure we want one) or modelling glue (the girl at the shop said the stuff we already had should fix the broken Lightening McQueen).

Also?

A haircut:

My haircut

I’ll be 44 in just about two weeks. I think the grey suits me.

My Week In Review:

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Monday: Usual day, Adam off to school, Simon off to work. I started to design the new Designed To A Tee Website.

Tuesday: Adam woke up with a horrible rash all over his face and a fever. Off to GP. Not impetigo, thank god, but not sure what. Put this cream on and send him back to school if fine on Wednesday.

Wednesday: Adam back to school as perfectly fine. I clean the house from top to bottom. It *so* needed it.

Thursday: I’m about 10 minutes from Adam’s school after dropping him off, heading for coffee and minor surgery when school calls. He’s pooed himself. I turn around and go clean him up. I then head straight to GP’s office to have the mole on my neck removed. Simon took the day to work from home so he could sort Adam after my procedure. Wasn’t too bad, but my neck ached and it wore me out.

Friday: Horrible weather. For the first time ever Adam and I take a taxi to school and it waits and brings me back. I had a horrid nights sleep thanks to my neck and my brain being stupid again. I spend the entire day doing *nothing*. Simon goes to get Adam, in the middle of a snowstorm!

By bedtime our back garden looks like this:

Saturday: Wake up to slightly melted snow. Get text from Adam’s coach that the physical education centre is closed because it’s flooded. YAYAY!

So we’re spending the day at home.

And that was my week.

Everyone Else Seems To Be Getting Snow

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This is Belfast today:

1100: raining so hard I start to dread the school walk.

1130: leave the house to blue skies

1215: comment to fellow parent waiting for playgroup door to open that it was suddenly a lovely day, if cold.

1220: skies open. The aforementioned blue sky is now grey from horizon to horizon in all directions.

1245: Sunny.

1315: Bucketing.

1345: fair

1440: aka right now? Bright sun and blue sky.

It’s a good thing I love Belfast.

Introducing: The Forgetful Cook

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Anyone who follows my Twitter knows that I often Tweet using the hash tag CookingForTheForgetful.

More than one person has suggested to me that I should write a book, as they find them quite funny. Nothing like a little memory loss in others to brighten the day. 😀

Instead of a book, I’ve given The Forgetful Cook it’s own Twitter at Forgetful Cook.

You can also follow it over there < on the left hand side of this blog, along with my regular Twitter, Tee Tweets.

I hope you enjoy it!

The Things I’ve Lost

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because of my chronic pain: –

  • Shopping all day long. Now shop ’till you drop means about an hour, two if I’m lucky.
  • Fountain pens. Can’t hold any sort of pen for long now. Writing on the computer just isn’t the same.
  • Beautiful notebooks. No point in having beautiful notebooks if you can’t write in them.
  •  FM heels. I haven’t worn a heel higher than about an inch in about a decade.
  • Dancing the night away. Only if I want to not move for two days afterwards.
  • Working full time. I do miss it, sometimes. Having an actual job in an actual office. Not that I don’t love working for myself, I do. But it would be nice to have more money. But that would mean more work. Which I can’t do.
  • Playing on the floor with my son. Lately my leg has been so bad (Ortho referral being waited on. Again.) that I can’t even sit in the bean bag chair for long. Makes it hard to help him lay out the 1,000 pieces of train track he got for Christmas.
  • A full nights sleep for more than one night in a row. I honestly don’t remember when I’ve felt rested for more than a few hours. I get one good night and then four or five bad in a row. And I can’t exactly nap in the afternoons. Except on the weekends.
  • The knowledge that doing something today won’t mean I can’t do anything tomorrow. Especially if I sleep badly.

What brought on this maudlin post? The fact that I’ve been awake since 0345, again, after several nights in a row when I appear to have slept all night but didn’t feel like I did, so I must have been at least partially waking up every night. Most likely brief bouts of awakeness, if not awareness, when I’ve rolled onto my bad leg.

And the fact that Simon is away to Dublin until very late tomorrow night. So no rest for me. Adam is at daycare for a half day today, I need to go get him in about 45 minutes and then, of course, tomorrow is Saturday. He has his class in the morning, so we’re out of the house by just before 10. I may get some ‘sitting around doing nothing’ rest if he sleeps tomorrow, but won’t get a sleep in the afternoon myself because the grocery order is due and I have some work to finish.

So I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself. Okay?