A Mother's Ramblings

I've been feeling a little underwater the last couple of weeks. I haven't been able to work out why but I was acutely aware of everything just seeming a little out of my control, life was speeding by and causing me to feel like I was constantly chasing my tail and unable to catch up with all the things I need to do, like feed my family and shop and clean and get ready for Christmas and then I took the last two pills of my medication and realised they were the same size... I'd been taking too small a dose of my thyroid medication for the last two weeks! No wonder I was feeling so underwater. Oh well, I'll be back to feeling normal in a week, but until I am feeling fully here it's just a quick run down on what we are eating this week, rather than my usual waffle! Saturday - Curry Sunday - Beef Pie Monday - Salmon and Crispy Potatoes Tuesday - Noodles Wednesday - Pizza Thursday - Fish Finger Sandwiches Friday - Breakfast Next weekend, we'll be putting up our Christ

Everything the A Mother's Ramblings family did last year over Christmas and the following New Years period was a little untraditional for us. We didn't decorate outside our home with lights. much to the disgust of one of our young neighbours. We didn't leave anything out for Santa, like Cookies and Milk and a carrot for the reindeer and yet he still came. We didn't worry too much about remembering to move the Elves every day, but they still moved and got into trouble.

I've been thinking about Remembrance Day and Armistice Day a lot over the last few weeks. Top Ender and I signed up to distribute poppies to our local neighbours as there weren't going to be as many collections in stores (although I've seen several) and of course, I get to help organise the collections at the school I work at too. I was walking to work one rainy morning a week or so before Remembrance Day when I saw something that caught my eye having been placed between two fence panels almost exactly at my eye level.

On Halloween, the family had decided that they didn't really want to do anything as a family. No watching spooky movies, no playing family card games or singing along to our favourite songs on the Halloween playlist. I was slightly grumpy about it, but only slightly because I'd been wearing my Halloween shirt and my costume all day (I was Damien in disguise at the assembly towards the end of Mean Girls), I was set up on the sofa with my laptop and I was in charge of the remote control which meant I could watch whatever my little heart desired. We had purposely not put up any decorations as we hadn't wanted to encourage Trick or Treaters so were surprised when the doorbell rang.

I thought I sounded a bit down last Saturday reading back, and yes I was a little but I reminded myself that there is no point in focusing on the negatives and so made sure to think of ten great things each day that I have achieved, or I am thankful for in order to keep myself not being sad about my leg! It's worked! I'm a lot more upbeat and after a few nights off and a few short walks, my muscle is repaired! Hoorah! Now, I have the new problem that yesterday I got drunk on sugar and emailed some work colleagues... yup they read the emails and responded. I feel I may need to avoid work for a while. Like I'm looking for a new job now kind of avoid! Who am I kidding? I love my job, I'll just have to learn to live with the jokes that are going to come at my expense. Luckily it's not the most embarrassing thing I've ever done!

Flyfour and I have got to the genius mind-melding point in our relationship, where one of us starts to verbalise a thought and the other knows where it is going almost immediately. It's not that we're psychic (although I really am), but more the sort of situation where we have grown so close over the last twenty-one years of knowing each other, that we're symbiotic!

I'm giving up being nice to Top Ender and random strangers, because every time I do something nice for them, something terrible happens to my car and I'm fed up of being nice and it costing me big bucks! I'm being serious! It started back in 2019 when I took Top Ender to a local shop to buy her a loom so that she could continue to make baby hats for the baby unit at the local hospital. That's a nice thing right?

A few weeks back, the youth had organised a Zoom game of guess the baby. I had said it was a little bit of a cheat, because these youth had grown up together and so knew what each other looked like and of course having known each other for years, having hung out in each other's homes, they knew what most of the parents looked like as children too, so adding some photos in of Youth Leaders (who are mostly parents of Youth) wasn't a confusion really either. However the youth, like me, love games like this and as it was a big giggle, I made sure to send in photographs of Top Ender and Dan Jon and me.