Category Archives: Designed To A Tee

Finding My Writer Again

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If you had asked me when I was growing up what I wanted to be I would have told you, no hesitation, a writer.

Well, until I discovered the theatre. Then it would have been a scene designer.

I am a designer, not of the scene, but haven’t really written, except in this blog, in ages and ages. I can’t even seem to write in my journal any more, partly because my hands are so bad I have a hard time holding a pen for longer than a few lines.

But yesterday I started to write. (Yes, I tried NaNoWriMo last year and failed)

It’s fan fiction, and I won’t be linking to it because it’s adult fan fiction and my mother reads this blog. And I am not sure who else, but maybe my niece. It’s not work for either of them. 🙂

It’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction. I think I was inspired by the fact that Buffy premièred 15 years ago this past week. Without that show my life would be very very different. I wouldn’t live in Belfast. I wouldn’t be married. I wouldn’t have Adam.

And so I started to write a story that’s been floating in my head for awhile. It’s a cross over with the show Supernatural. It’s slash with Xander and Dean. It is most definitely NC-17/FR21.

If that’s something that interests you, send me an email. I’d be happy to link you up to the site it’s on. tee @ leyser dot org. Usual formatting.

If it’s something that’s going to offend you, ignore this whole post. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Counting My Blessings – Blog Hop

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So I am joining in with Salt and Carmel‘s Blog Hop this week and counting my blessings.
They include:

  • A fantastic husband
  • A fantastic son who, while has constant colds and such, is relatively healthy
  • A career I love
  • A warm place to live
  • Enough food to eat
  • Great friends, near and far
  • A loving family
  • And, most of all, recently some fantastically pain free and productive days

I wish, very badly, that this was just another Blog Hop that I thought would be fun and/or inspiring. But it’s so much more than that.

Because this Blog Hop was started off because of this:

Source: http://saltandcaramel.com

This picture was drawn by Aillidh. She is 8 years old and has Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. She’s just started her third round of chemo and is desperately praying for a bone marrow donor. She is the daughter of a fellow Mumsnetter, which is how I, and many others, heard of her. She also has Facebook Page asking for help and encouraging people to register for or donate to the Bone Marrow Register.

That picture inspired this post at Salt and Carmel, the Twitter Tag #makemebetter, and this Blog Hop.

Everyone has problems and no ones problems are better or worse than anyone else’s.

But Aillidh needs a donor. So I am counting my blessings and helping to spread the word.

If you are eligible, please consider signing up to donate. Since Aillidh is of mixed race, finding a donor for her is harder, and actually most likely to come from the US as she is of white Scottish and meztizo – the mix of European and indigenous N. American peoples (Native American/Indian) descent.

In the UK you can contact the Anthony Nolan Trust.

In the US there is the Be The Match Donor Register website.

If like me, due to poor health and/or age you can do neither, please spread the word. ‘Like’ Aillidh’s Facebook page. Tweet using the #makemebetter tag. Pray.

It’s not just for Aillidh. But for all the ill children and adults who are looking for a miracle.

Let’s spread the word and use the power we have to help all of them live long and healthy lives.

Fighting The Black Dog

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Today is the launch of a Mental Health Blogging Carnival here at Bundance.

The timing is interesting as I am currently fighting the Black Dog myself today. After feeling really well for ages today I’m just not. No idea why.

Do take a look at the carnival. Lots of great blogs by lots of great bloggers.

Let’s get talking. Let’s fight the Black Dog.

So…Yeah…NaNoWriMo…

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As predicted, I have failed. I think I wrote around 2,000 words and then just sort of…stopped.

To be completely honest, I forgot all about it, between hand injuries and sick babies and too much work people actually pay me to do.

I guess I am suppose to feel bad or like a failure or something. Sorry to disappoint. It was something to try, not something to circle my entire life around for the month. I don’t have that kind of free time or, really, ambition.

Good luck to all those going for it. 9 days to go.

Maybe I’ll try again next year.

Maybe I won’t.

So, As I Said, It’s Been a Long Week…

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This was due to me working over 13 hours for my main client, over an hour for another client as well as my usual ‘mother to a toddler’ type activities.

Now, I am well aware that plenty of women work 40+ hours plus their usual ‘mother to a child/ren’ type activities. But most, if not all, of them do not have my health problems.

And what not getting any rest Monday (worked, then headed to get my new varifocals

Emperio Armani EA9774 from Specsuperstore.com

My new glasses.

and do some errands) or Wednesday (lovely morning with a good friend from England, then worked starting at 2pm, getting home at about 10pm) led to was my being flat on my back all day Friday and most of today. I was in so much pain yesterday I was in tears at dinner and Simon had to do some of bedtime.

I then had a lie in today and then went back to bed for 3 more hours while Simon and Adam headed to the park and get some groceries. And then had lunch and a very hot bath and finally feel about 95% of well.

And this is why I no longer have a full time job and doubt I ever will again. Or at least not a full time job that is 8 hours in a row 5 days a week. I could see me working that many hours, but stretched out over 7 days, in fits and starts, so I have time to rest as well.

It does make me wonder how I would be if I had been working full time when my fibromayalgia started. Would I have had to quit my job? Probably.

So no matter how much I hurt sometimes and how tired I can be, being the mummy of a toddler, I have another reason to be grateful for my son. His birth gave me the strength to strike out, open Designed To A Tee and work for myself, as and when I can.

So, thanks Adam. You rock!

Nobody Gets My Humour

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for the second time in just about a month someone has taken something I have said as a joke as serious. Both times the person became angry with me. One of them happened face to face and I apologized right away and we worked it out. The other one was through email and the apology I sent has not been acknowledged so I have no idea what’s happening with that.

The thing is, I know I can have an odd sense of humour and I am very careful to not crack wise with people who don’t know me. Not until we’ve had a few interactions and I know they get it when I am joking.

Which is what makes both of these instances odd. Because these are both people I have made the same sort of jokes with previously and they have joked right back. Until these two times.

One of the people I have worked with for, literally, years. The other one just a few months, but we have certainly joked around together.

So I just don’t get it. Did I hit too close to home both times? Get them both on bad days?

Or maybe it’s just time for me to find that deserted island and take only people I actually can stand to be around for more than a few hours with me. The island would have a population of about 10.

Sounds perfect.

Oh God, What Have I Done?!?!

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Every year I think about doing National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWrMo to those in the know) and every year I chicken out citing lack of time/inspiration/don’t need the pressure.

What did I just do?

Signed up for NaNoWrMo.

Why? Not sure. I have less time than ever. But I have had a novel in the back of my head for, at least, 20 years. Maybe the pressure of 50,000 words in one month will be enough to get me to actually sit and write.

After all, just after I signed up I wrote 23 words.

It’s a start…

The Baby That Wasn’t

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Mumsnet is having a campaign to improve the care of women having miscarriages during and after the miscarriage occurs. One of my fellow MN Bloggers, @mmelindor, suggested that the members of the MN Bloggers Network blog about their own experiences or allow guest bloggers to use their blogs to spread the word.

And I paused and thought.

Because it is one thing I don’t think I have ever blogged about. My miscarriage.

You see, my medical notes do not ‘officially’ refer to it as a miscarriage as the first GP I saw, with the heaviest period and the most severe menstrual cramps of my life, dismissed the notion that it was anything more than a heavy period with severe cramps. Even though I have never bled that heavily before (or since) or hurt that badly. So badly I was doubled over in pain.

My GP wasn’t available when I made the appointment as she was on holiday so I saw a partner in her practice. This partner, who I usually like and is fantastic when he sees Adam, wouldn’t even listen to me explain that we had most definitely been trying to conceive and I had never hurt like that before and shouldn’t I have a scan or something? He deliberately waved his hand and dismissed it, handing me some sort of pain killer and giving me a sick note for work until I felt I could go back, once he heard my period had most definitely been due.

Once I got to see my GP, about a week later, and I told her about it she said, and I quote, “I think you’re right. It was a miscarriage.” Which made me feel a bit better but she still didn’t think I needed a scan or anything.

That happened about 2 years before we conceived Adam. Just a month or so after we started trying.

And sometimes I think about it. If that baby that wasn’t had been a baby that was, would we have two children now? Would I have been willing to do it again at 39 in a way I am not willing to do it again at 42?

And sometimes I still get angry at that first GP, for dismissing my concerns. For not listening.

And that’s nothing compared to what some women go through when they have a miscarriage. Put on wards, when the miscarriage needs medical intervention, with people who are having live babies next to them. Sent for scans at antenatal clinics and sitting next to hugely pregnant woman, as their own baby leaves them.

Receiving calls, weeks after the miscarriage, from the community midwife team, wondering why they had missed antenatal appointments as no one had informed them of the miscarriage.

And Mumsnet is trying to change this and other aspects of care for women who are losing their babies. Better staff training, better resources, better help.

And so the bloggers network is jumping on the bandwagon, getting the word out. We are Tweeting and Facebooking and yelling at the top of our internet lungs ‘Listen to us! The service is horrid! Help us!’

Help our sisters. Please.

Bucket List

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So there’s a meme, started by @Ellen27, about bucket lists. She was inspired by the film of the same name which starred Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. A bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket.

So I’ve been thinking about what to put on my bucket list. And I can’t think of a single thing.

Sure, there are things I want; more money, more time, more clients. But nothing that I feel I have to or need to do before I die.

Sure there are places I want to visit; Paris springs to mind. But, again, not something I feel I absolutely need to do before I die.

I’ve seen lists of things like ‘be a kinder person every day’ and ‘spend more time with my family’. That’s not what I call a ‘do it before you die’ thing.

So I guess it means I’m content. I have the big things I want: a husband I love, a son who is becoming more wonderful every day, I am my own boss. My health could be better but there isn’t much I can do about that.

So I guess my Bucket List is to just…live.

And I’m okay with that.

The House Is Falling To Bits

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As I sit here sipping sugary tea and nibbling (mostly) dry toast, it is day 8 of the hell that began last Thursday night with our trip to A&E with Adam puking blood.

It continued with Simon throwing up on Sunday and Adam cranky and pulling his ear.

It went further on Wednesday with Adam back at nursery but me at my biggest clients for meetings all day.

And then yesterday I woke up feeling achy and tired and with a headache. Simon had to go to work for Open Days, when the 6th Formers (7th years? What are they called now?!) come to see the University. So I was at home with an active 2 year old and find myself vomiting. Things compounded when said 2 year old was just falling asleep after lunch and I had to basically throw him into bed to go puke. Yeah. He didn’t sleep. Luckily Simon got home by 230 and I headed to bed. And spent the evening and part of the night throwing up.

And so the house is falling to bits.

You see, I have a schedule for cleaning. I hate cleaning, as most people do, so if I don’t put it into my phone with a reminder and a day to do it, it won’t get done. Or it will get done only on weekends which leaves no family time.

So I set a schedule. This past Monday I was suppose to clean the bathrooms, for example. Adam was home from nursery and, as I recall, napped for about 10 minutes, so that didn’t happen.

Wednesday I was suppose to change the beds, catch up on my laundry folding and hoover the bedrooms and hallway. I was at my client site all day.

Today, Friday, I should be running (toddler free!) errands and tidying and hoovering the front rooms and finishing laundry.

Instead, I’m sipping sweet tea, eating (mostly) dry toast and am about to head back to bed.

So the bathrooms need a wipe. The floors need a hoover.  And you can’t get into the spare bedroom for all the clothes piled up to be folded. We are almost out of nappies, I need to put 2 cheques into the bank, my finally repaired jeans need to be picked up from the tailor, we are nearly out of juice and milk. It’s Friday night so pudding and wine need to be bought.

Instead, I’m sipping sweet tea, eating (mostly) dry toast and am about to head back to bed.

Adam threw a major strop about going to nursery, I imagine because he basically didn’t see me from about 230 yesterday until 730 this morning and this whole week has been weird. So he’s been promised a trip to the museum on Sunday; a cross my heart, pinky swear, high five promise that I wouldn’t go back on if you held a gun to my head.

Oh and I think I have some emails to send for my biggest client.

So the house is falling to bits and I really should do something about some of this stuff.

Instead, I’m sipping sweet tea, eating (mostly) dry toast and am about to head back to bed.