The Slippery Slip

I had to concede defeat ... on the hair, rebellion was beaten by reports! And cakes (guiltily) bit the dust too. But managed the rest, plus nine jars of blackcurrant jam...

And now am contemplating the Slippery Slip - have I mentioned The Faraway Tree before - the slow starting, but gathering speed, descent into holidayness! In two weeks time I shall be sitting next to a barbecue outside a caravan in Cornwall with a glass of wine and a book ...

But before that ... work, well, it's a school, so the normal excess of things to do. Brownies, climbing, swimming, choir - still rolling ... Performing Arts has finished: Grease last night and the Miracle Girl was fab - v. proud.

Need to get organised:

1) invitations for Christening to sort
2) send back booking forms for Village Hall
3) holiday shopping list
4) holiday packing list
5) make blackcurrant compote/ ice cream
6) pick more blackcurrants
7) make blackcurrant cordial??
8) make cakes for climbing
9) BOOK HAIR APPOINTMENT 
10) buy new collapsible BBQ from Go Outdoors
11) book surf school for Daisyfay
12) make gooseberry compote
13) order Tesco vouchers for days out in Cornwall 
14) find National Trust 2014 car sticker which I have somehow mislaid...

Life - a series of events with no gaps - good job it's fun ...

The stretchiness of time

I have added up the hours I need this week. I have added up the hours I have this week. They do not match. I have significantly less hours than I need. It's that gap thing again...

This week is bonkersly busy, so was last week, and the one before ... it should calm down a bit after this weekend ... a bit...

Daisyfay has Grease this weekend ( my mum is coming - no hours allocated for cleaning - eek!) - dress rehearsal Friday (clashing with Summer Fair at my school) - two performances Saturday (clashing with Summer Fair at her school ... I promised cakes in lieu of presence ... not holding out great hopes at present, but am determined to try...). Tomorrow is Parents' Night for her, she should be at swimming for her assessment and it is Brownie Entertainments Evening, for which she is supposed to be half an hour early ...swimming is biting the dust ... hopefully we will get away from Parents Night in time to drop her at Brownies, so we can then arrive half an hour later to be entertained! I also have to finish my reports - getting there, but the hour count, compared with my typing speed, slightly worrying. Then let's add in the normal time slots for : school choir, community choir, climbing, athletics, tutoring ... oh bugger!!

But, you know what, in the middle of my chaos, I am revolting!! On Thursday instead I could gain hours, but I am not, I am having my bi-annual hair-do, hopefully - and I do not care...
...ish!

Next week - many things, but less, especially on the clashing front - but still ... things can only get better... can't they ...?

Yoghurt

Very into yoghurt at the moment - generally for breakfast - and have entered the featured competition to win a campervan several times - you never know - serendipity and all that...!

Been making more money too. Have sorted the Miracle Girl's clothes - her drawers and wardrobe are a place of beauty - the piles of sorted stuff are huge! We have tip, pass on, could we sell ...
Plus window-that-resides-in-the-garden is on ebay and has bids!

And the tax man payeth ... at last... we have paid for the caravan in Cornwall... I can't wait!

Still not truly solvent, certainly not steady, but, you know, we're getting somewhere... slowly ...

For the first time in forever ...

... there'll be music, there'll be light!
Well not quite, but there will be a sort of balanced bank account at the end of the month - which I have to say is cheering me up more than music and light could probably manage...

(Have you seen Frozen? We have, it was good, the music was excellent! But you can have too much of a good thing - the Miracle Girl loves it - she knows all the songs off by heart - and sings them very dramatically at top volume - all the time ...)

So - the epiphany ... I feel I can't really keep going with it as a theme - it's stretched out far too far to be classed as an epiphany any more ... more a slow ascent into changing things - it's not such a catchy title though! Anyway, so far, I have:
* beaten my cup-a-soup habit and started drinking fizzy water in school instead
* had prunes and yoghurt or grapefruit for breakfast most days
* whooshed fresh beetroot, orange and carrot juice most mornings
* cut down processed carbohydrates (especially bread - no "bought" bread, only from the proper bakery or homemade - and only at the weekends... )
* made healthy salads with lots of nice stuff in for lunch, and taken nuts and dried fruit for snacks
* eaten more fish
* been running ...
* been for walks and just got outside more
         
Next I am planning to:
* go to bed earlier to get more sleep ... so that I could contemplate getting up earlier, and then go running ...
* drink less wine (repetitive refrain ...)


Quite pleased with myself...

Epiphany on the horizon

It is - I've made a plan - and we all know how well that usually works ...

* house - pretty okay - even stretched to a bit of gardening...

* exercise - chest infection improved  (but not gone sadly) - been walking ...

* positivity in place - have created a plan!

Tuesday is the day - new me and all that ... I have a menu plan sorted for a couple of weeks, into May ... Primal, sort of  - still can't get my head round the legumes, and potatoes ... but it's a start... And I have timetabled exercise - again not tons but it's a start... And wine - Primal eating approves (!) - but I'm intending a reduction...

Starting slow - hoping to up the running rather than walking once I feel better - and yoga, I want yoga back ... and I'm contemplating early get ups and going out then ... now it's light and sunny ...

I want it to be achievable, I'm aiming at 21 days, then I can review it ... but if, if (!), I can get that far I should be on a roll ...

Heading for the horizon, full of the joys of spring ...

Trying to epiph

I promised epiphanies, I think. Rather a long time ago. I'm having lots of good intentions in the direction of the aforementioned epiphany, just need my willpower to co-ordinate...

Steps needed for an epiphany:
1) get house into a fit state so that you can think...

2) get going with some fitness stuff...

3) feel all positive...

The sun is shining - that's helping too. I have been for a long walk on two mornings this week. I was going to run but, as always seems to happen when it's the holidays, I've not been well - chest infection - antibiotics - dodgy breathing - hence walking not running!
Step 2 is getting there.

Today the seesaw tipped and I glimpsed the end of the cleaning tunnel - the house is starting to look like I'm in control...well, almost! I have sorted most of the craft stuff, to the point of sorting sequins into separate compartments in a hobby box ... there's something telling me that's probably not good...!  The downstairs is basically fit to allow other people in, and I feel better ...
Step 1 is getting there.

And positivity - I've always been okay at that ( although I wasn't last weekend, feeling all ill and self-pitying) - and with sun and tidy house and a fair wind behind me ...

So, an epiphany ... running - less wine ( yes, again!) - less wheat - more fruit and veg - fresh air ...

And this will lead to feeling good and saving money - which will in turn lead to savings - which may yet, one day, in a post-epiphany life, lead to a campervan ...

Please ...

Keeping up appearances...

A comment recently - about the importance of ... keeping up appearances, no matter what - really made me wonder...

Is appearances hair, and nails, and make-up...? Is it expensive ( or anything above basic, to be honest), designer clothes...? Is it really all about this superficial stuff...?

Oh dear, I hope not, Otherwise I've really lost the plot!

And the campervan, seeing as how that is the point, wouldn't be even a figment of my imagination if I had an appearance to worry about ... not that it's much more than that still!

For the last eight years plus all that has come so far down the list, and Daisyfay has come so much farther up - am I wrong?

Feeling a bit inferior ...

Cannons to the right of them ...

... cannons to the left of them, Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred ... At least I think it was six hundred, not so sure now I look at it ...

Told you I was restarting, you didn't believe me, did you?

Cannons - today is the day - I've cleared all the things that normally happen on Thursday out - head start on the washing last night, no reading at school this afternoon (they've got a spelling bee), general    

tidying is shoved to the sidelines ... and now battle can commence - the Battle of the Bedroom! Daisyfay's bedroom that is. It is a tip. Not just normally hideous, but truly dreadful, and I've been putting it off in the spirit of not zigzagging ( I have dented the living room, but then ruined it by having a big sort of school stuff, but it's sort of getting there...) - today I will conquer the bedroom! By the time we go to climbing it will be, whilst probably not a vision of tidy organisation, at least manageable ... 

This is not backsliding into a zigzag - more of an asymmetrical decoration on the edge of the pattern!

So, the school run beckons, then off to dodge the cannonballs ...

Restarting again

Yes, I know, I'm pants!
Where has time gone - climbing competitions, musical theatre exams, Joseph, OFSTED...!!!

I'm still dreaming, still not decluttered, still not financed by the sale of my junk, still running round like a lunatic.

Back looking forward, with my butt in gear - I will try to blog more often ...

Zigzagging

I am a zigzag declutterer. It explains a lot - like why my house is not decluttered. Now I know this, the decluttering can commence, and soon my house shall be a place of beauty!

So, how did I discover this? A friend writes a much more grown up blog than mine and posted this:
http://lifestylebycaroline.com/expert-advice-to-declutter-your-home/ - it struck a chord - zigzagging is exactly me, in most things really - and I wonder why the Miracle Girl has a butterfly brain ...

So ... I have begun ... I am focussing on the living room ... however small the job, it shall be a living room job, until the living room is done ... I am sorting craft alongside, on the basis that there is much crafty stuff, between me and Daisyfay ... and much of it is in the living room, as well as everywhere else!

I have a new mini-plan ... I am feeling purposeful ... Zigzag away, zigzag away, zigzag away ...

Wonderment

I am in a state of wonder.

Or is it shock?

I am nonetheless very happy ... though bemused by my own stupidity ...

I am at climbing - nothing unusual there! Not our normal night so no-one to chat to ... brought the iPad to occupy myself in a gainful way ... decided to try and sort out my emails, as I tend to stockpile them, over months and months... did lots of deleting ... and reading of the unread ... and discovered a wonderful thing ... I paid off a credit card last August! Now you would think I would remember this, but, for some reason I hadn't, and, what is more, thought I still owed a rather hefty amount on it.

Wonderment. Oh happy day! Makes up a bit for the debacle of the car and the phone.

Not sure it's exactly a grassy plateau, but I'm not complaining ...

Hurdles

I am thinking that the Miracle Girl and I have more in common than I would like to admit. It's like Sports Day - give her a perfectly good flat race and she's in her element - point her in the right direction and shout go, and she's off like a ... I was going to say ferret, not sure why! ... let's go with gazelle, much more graceful image ... hurtling headlong towards the finish line. But then, the flat race is always followed by the obstacle race ... never her forte, engaging brain and legs at the same time! She's still pretty quick, but you can see her thinking why? Why mess up a perfectly good race with ... stuff!?

I have to admit, at this precise moment, I agree with her. I was thinking about hurdle races, who came  up with that idea ...? Let's just chuck a wooden fence every 10/20m to add to the fun! Paff!! It's like life, who needs the complications, why can't it all be a nice grassy, green flat race - I'm thinking I don't need mountains to climb, rivers to ford, chasms to cross - I just want my nice grassy plateau - excitement is overrated!

So why am I rambling on about hurdles and ferrets and grassy plateaus? The campervan  - it doesn't seem to be getting any closer, no sooner do I think we may be getting somewhere in the ongoing battle to conquer our finances than some other emergency pops up and sucks up everything!

Hurdles, you see.

This week, a week of hurdles ... First there was my phone, apparently it is not my excessive storage of stuff on it that is causing problems, oh no: it is a "software" problem. Fixing it involves sending it away and updating it with all the latest software, which will take 10 - 14 days, and which will also wipe all my contacts, apps, navigation routes, etc, etc. On the plus side they think my Christmas photos will still be there when I put the memory card back in. Okay, not good, in fact damned annoying, but that's what you get when you rely on the Technofairies of Doom.  Then there was the car - it started making a noise during the holidays, which got progressively worse, until it turned into a continuous howl ... apparently this is a very expensive noise - a very, very expensive noise - which involves copious time in the garage to fix. We live opposite the garage, they are very lovely people - Heatons Bridge Garage, would link but no website, but another very nice people recommendation. More reliance on technology that rises up to scupper you ... They say it comes in threes, the tin opener broke - really hoping that's the third - had enough now!!

So, hurdles, had enough of jumping - a bit of grassy plateau, please ...