Ready for 5am … again!

Sooo after working my proverbial behind off for the last few days, I REALLY hope that the weather holds off for me to have a good day at Ford market tomorrow! The forecast is for rain … lots and lots of rain, but with clear intervals so I’m gonna suck it and see – my alarm is set for 5am and I’m going anyway! I’m happy enough that I went up there a couple of weeks ago when it wasn’t just rain and wind but thunderstorms … and there were still people walking around the market. At any rate it’s got to be better than Worthing market on a Wednesday!!!

I made the most of my oh so comfortable bed until gone 10am this morning. I was fully aware that with the kids back at school and Ford Market on Sundays now … that Saturday morning is literally my ONLY chance to enjoy the sanctuary of my bed – and ohhhh I took advantage of it this morning. It was almost delicious waking up at 8am, looking at the clock with a smile and pulling the duvet back around me and snuggling in deep for another couple of hours snoozing!!!

I’ve had SUCH a good day today and got so much done. It’s always a good day in the workshop for me when I can be productive!! I was a lean mean packaging machine and pretty much spent the day solidly shrink wrapping and labelling votives! LOL I don’t have nearly enough stock for tomorrow, but I also know that I ALWAYS think that no matter how much I take! Megan is coming with me too … I didn’t know until today when I’d got the car packed up whether there would actually be room for her or not … so I’ll have to see how it all goes and if I do sell a lot … then I’ll have to sacrifice my daughter in the car in favour of more stock! LOL

I SO want a van to cart all my crap clutter stock in! This is a Vauxhall combo van and I know I can get one for £500 cash from “the van man” near my workshop. I just don’t have £500! Grrrrrrr

They are SO adorable … ever heard a van described as cute? Well this is it! I love these vans! They are CUTE and the perfect size. They aren’t massively huge, so I’d be able to drive one without being paranoid about crashing it or pissing my neighbours off too much with taking up lots of space in the road! I can just see this with my company logo all over the side of it … permanent advertising for the business.

I love days like this. Work … well, I had a big smile on my face – I’ve still got a smile on my face for reasons I can’t possibly write about *grin* and I’m hoping & praying that the weather is on my side tomorrow!!!

Apparently “perfect”?!

I’ve lost a fair bit of weight recently (11bs to be exact) - I wasn’t fat before, but my wobbly bits wobbled a lot more than they do now,, and I’ve tried to lose weight before so it’s not as if I couldn’t afford to lose it! The thing is, when I’ve tried diets in the past, I’ve lost a few pounds in the beginning and then spent the rest of the time HUNGRY! Recently though I have just lost my appetite, and the weight has dropped off me. I’m not starving myself or anything stupid and I actually FORCE myself to eat when I’m not feeling hungry because I know I need to keep my energy levels up!

Anyway, I went to the doctor today for a couple of reasons … firstly I’ve noticed a mole on the back of my neck that is itchy, so she has recorded the measurements of it on my records … and secondly to mention about my loss of appetite. She measured and weighed me … and then pronounced me absolutely perfect for my height!!

It was a phenomenal thing to hear! For somebody who has struggled with weight issues her whole life to be told that your body IS in fact “perfect” … well it was a nice ego boost put it that way! My weight is bang slap in the middle of the ideal weight for my height, my body fat percentage is okay, my BMI is okay and I am looking better than I have looked in years! I have to admit though that I do still have huge body image issues but that is an on going battle!

Still, she was concerned about my loss of appetite so sent me off for blood tests. I HATE having blood tests … not because I’m scared of needles or anything like that (although who LIKES being poked with a needle! LOL) but because my veins are nonexistant (and I mean nonexistant!!) The nurse had two attempts to stab me before calling the doctor in to do it!!!

Sooo butchered and bruised … the blood results are back in a week!

Tag you’re it

I was tagged by Jean at Not Super Mum Tagging is a bit like Chinese Whispers with questions! Someone “tags” you from their blog with a set of questions or something to ponder … and you then tag someone else!!

Here goes!

1. Where was I 10 years ago? Ooooh oooh I know the answer to that almost exactly!! Megan was a 6 week old baby and we had all moved in with my parents temporarily while we looked for somewhere to rent. They were away on a 6 week holiday to the USA and by the time they got back we were moving out. So yep this is exactly where I was 10 years ago … with a teeny weeny tiny baby and moving house!

2. What’s on my to do list today? Actually an awful lot. I need to get into the workshop and finish off the orders that I have in at the moment. I did all the prep last night so it’s only about two hours work which is why I’m not in a hurry to get there just yet (till I’ve had another coffee anyway!!) I then need to shrink wrap and label a ton of votive candles, reply to a gazillion emails and get back home in time to get at least an hours worth of accounts done while I have an empty house before I pick the kids up! After that … housework, get dinner ready, get kids in bed and back to working on the website this evening! Yeah that should do it!

3. What if I was a billionaire? I have thought about this a lot and the most important thing in the world to me is security and a roof over my head that I know is mine. I would buy the house of my dreams and decorate it entirely to my own tastes and live happily in it for ever after! I would make absolutely sure that all of my friends and family were financially secure for the rest of their lives too… and I’d give as much as I could do the charities that really deserve it to help other people. It would be nice to know that I could help to make the world a better place.

4. Five Places I have lived - My parents first house was in Shoreham, Sussex. I don’t remember much about the house except really scary carpets and a black & white tiled floor in the kitchen because I walked into the glass door and I remember how bright red my blood looked on the kitchen floor (I was 6 years old and still have a scar on my forehead!) We then moved to the house in Lancing that my mum still has. I grew up in this house until I was 16 and moved in with a boyfriend. I moved quite a few times with that boyfriend until we split up and I got my own bedsit. This was I think - my favourite place out of all the places I ever lived because it was all MINE! I had no money, could barely afford the rent let alone any food, but it was ALL MINE!! After that I met Hub, moved to Cornwall (err I think that’s more than five already!) then we came back up to Lancing and have lived in two places since that move.

5. Three bad habits I have – Only three? I smoke, I drink, I crack my knuckles! LOL That’s what I’m admitting to anyway!

6. Snacks I like - I don’t really tend to snack … if I am hungry I will eat something!! But, if I need a lil boost then it’s something like a banana or a piece of cheese.

7. Who am I tagging? I’ll have to update this in a bit … I really should get to work! LOL

Hi ho hi ho it’s off to school they go …

Well it was a tad more stressful than I had planned! My alarm went off and hub had already got the kids up and sorted breakfast – he up at 7 and out of the house by 8am, so I take over when I get up at half seven.

Hub’s clothes were all over the floor – where they’ve been for the past few days and I’ve refused to pick them up for him. I tripped over his pile of crap this morning and hurt my foot. Made it to the bathroom and it was stinking like only a bloke can leave it with dribbles of – well, use your imagination over the toilet seat and before I had even started my day I was throwing up. Great! So yeah, by the time I faced the family I was in a foul mood. Hub immediately started on me with the “Oh you’re so cheerful in the mornings” crap – which of course only serves to make the mood worse!! Needless to say he scuttled out of the house pretty quickly and I dealt with the fallout.

Nathan had a complete and utter refusal to get dressed. He wanted to go and play on his computer – his computer that Hub was SUPPOSED to have put a time lock on a few days ago – but errr apparently Hub has been “too busy” to do that (too busy playing PC games all evening) Megan was dressed and ready with her coat on half an hour before we needed to even go anywhere!!!

Finally got out of the house and thank you thank you to the god of rain for allowing us parents to be able to chuck them straight through the school doors instead of hanging around in the playground!

I’d wanted to get a photo of them before they went off on their first day … but the rain was too much outside and I couldn’t get a decent shot indoors because it was so DARK! Autumn is definitely gone!!

So I am having a very well deserved cup of coffee before I go to work!

A rite of passage

Today marked a real rite of passage for Megan!! She was both petrified and excited at the same time - the look on her face as she gingerly holds a razor for the first time with shaving gel smeared all over her legs – haaahaaha well she knew I was going to take a photo!

The “once you’ve started, you can’t ever stop” journey into shaving your body hair has now begun! Megan has been unhappy about her leg hair for a while … and although I think ten years old is a little too young to start shaving or waxing or whatever – I DO understand the need inside a young girl to be happy with her body.

I remember going through the exact same thing, and my mum turning around to me and telling me it would only grow back twice as thick and that she’d never shaved her legs and …. well to be honest I never was going to listen. She was my mother telling me not to do something, so of course I went ahead and did it anyway! I was around 14 or 15 though!! Anyway, I sneaked my dad’s razor and ended up making a huge bloody (literally) mess of my knees.

Eventually they bought me an electric lady shave thingy … and … well, the point of that lil story was because I’d rather my daughter NOT end up with knees like mine! She wants to shave her legs – then okay, I’ll show her how!! I gave her a lesson in softening the skin with water before putting the foam on, about the different angles you have to use to get all the hairs, about rinsing the razor off and banging it on the sink to get the hairs out, about the delicate parts of the skin at the behind the knee and the back of the foot … and the whole navigation involved in successfully shaving a knee without bleeding! I did most of it for her, but I did also tell her that I wouldn’t be shaving her legs for her forever! She did have a go herself on an “easy” bit … but next time she’ll be doing the majority of it herself!

Ack, yet another sign that my little girl (who will ALWAYS be my little girl) aint so little anymore!!!

Can I mention Christmas yet?

1st September today and I spent a good part of my day planning the Christmas line for 2008! Man I can’t believe we didn’t even have a summer (weather wise) and here I am now on the first of September thinking about making Christmas tree candles, getting a cinnamon headache and trying to get in front for the Christmas scented votive candles in bulk! I’ve got the seasonal shop page already designed for the website – I have some bits and pieces I need to make tomorrow and photograph asap … but it’s all good right now!

The weather has changed too. The evenings are starting to get dark by 8pm … it’s coming!

Orders have picked up again … cash flow is … well, it’s flowing! OMG FINALLY it is flowing! I checked the bank account today and the first customer payment that I processed a week ago has actually been paid into the account within the seven days that NetBanx promised!! I’m in a MUCH better position than I was a week ago … and by this time next week it should be even better too!! By the time the real run up to Christmas gets here … fingers crossed that … well, just fingers crossed! LOL

Sometimes ya just need rescuing!

Sooo yeah they all came back home eventually! I had such a great weekend when they were away and I got SO much done – I’ve been working my proverbial butt off over the last few days as Hub had the rest of last week off so I took advantage to get into the workshop as much as possible!!

The kids are back at school in just a few days and I feel guilty that they haven’t had an awesome & amazing summer this year. Partly due to money – but also partly because the weather has been dreadful!! Finally we had a little inkling of some sunshine today, so after I’d done everything at work, we went to Brooklands park. I’d been promising them a ride on the boating lake for ages … and today we went for it!! Brooklands is right on our doorstep and there is no entrance fee – you just pay for whatever of the facilities you want to use and it isn’t expensive. Local stuff for local people

It was only £5 per boat for 15 mins to chill out on the lake. I swear I had more fun than Megan & Nathan did too! … well, once I’d figured out the reverse steering and narrowly avoided crashing a couple of times … well, until the boat engine cut out and we were left just floating …. into the reeds at the side of the bank! Ooops! Luckily the boat guys spotted us waving for help and came to rescue us!

Well …. I’m a girl who learned to drive in a brand new car just two years ago and who has never tinkered with engines! How was I supposed to know what a choke was … and my girlie wimpy arms couldn’t pull the cord chain thingy properly anyway!!!

Ahh well … sometimes a girl just needs rescuing eh!

Then we went and played in the park … well, they played and I tried hard not to watch as Nathan climbed to the very top of things and did what small boys do so well (scare their mothers!) 

I reckon he needs to start serious training for the next Olympics because he actually had a crowd around him as he was swinging on the monkey bars ooohing and ahhhing about how great he was at it! Nathan has always just had an uncanny knack for climbing and contorting his body into weird bizarre angles!

 

Megan is usually more sedate, but today even SHE wanted to just “hang around” LOL

It was a nice couple of hours just enjoying myself with the kids and not worrying about anything else in particular! I’m almost gutted that the summer holidays are nearly over … but I tell ya I can’t wait at the same time!!

I’m looking forward to it because I won’t have to worry about them between 9am-3pm 5 days a week again! I can get into the workshop and get things done without having to take them with me or play catch up in the evenings!

I’m NOT looking forward to it because 7am in the morning is such an ungodly hour that it should be banned … and because heck I actually do enjoy having my kids around! LOL