Day Three - Oh, This Should Be Good...

What are your top three pet peeves?

On my transition to the end goal of being a curmudgeonly old dear, which I realise it isn't too far a stretch from my current frame of mind, now I have to whittle it down to three pet peeves.  Only three!

Again, in no particular order of getting on my frazzled nerves we have:

Manners - and lack thereof.  Seriously, it doesn't have to be all "please" and "thank you" but a smile when someone opens the door, a sorry when you bump into someone, giving someone a hand where needed, costs nothing.  Despite this society becoming even more "I'm alright Jack" (see the attitude of No voters in the Scottish referendum last year for a prime example) there really is no need.  This idea of it being all to do with the young is utter rot as there are plenty of mean-spirits amongst the baby boomer age.  It's not about deference but makes for a kinder life to show some respect to each other.

Snobbery - not to be mistaken with lack of manners but there is a definite link.  You are not better by the amount in your bank, by the house you live in or by the car you drive and yet so many believe it to be so.  Living in a town with a large middle-class population I see it quite often, I see it in the adults and I see it in how they raise their children.  Strangely those with very little and those with an awful lot seem not to be affected by this smugness - it's just the middle, terrified of being seen as being anything less than what they want to think they are and completely missing the point.  Take the person on their actions, not the façade they present.

Exclusion - and here I'm going to get a little more specific.  If all the kids in a class are invited to a party except for one, if friends go out on a night out but don't bother contacting one of the group, if family members have a get together and purposefully exclude just one - it's just not nice.  Of course that person being excluded might be a horror or utter pain in the neck, in which case there are ways to deal with it but it often isn't the case.  I've seen it happen, it does annoy me when it is none of my business and drives me crazy when it does.  

So, those are my three peeves that will have me chewing my gums in annoyance when I see them happen. I could have gone for things like tail-gating motorists, littering and "expats" but I shall leave them for another day.

Day 2 - Where I Realise I'm In Danger Of Forming A Habit

Yes, on day two, not to get over excited but still...

My sons were off at school music camp this weekend so I spent most of last night organising my Pinterest boards.  You heard that right.  And I loved every single minute of it.  All those lovely images, ideas, inspiration.

Write something someone once told you about yourself that you never forgot.

Now this is something I think on often even though, in the twenty plus years since, I've done nothing about it as such.  Without wishing to procrastinate brooding moodily over past events let's just say that ambition was not encouraged in my family, on my mum's side at least.  It is one of the things that when I start talking about it my sons roll their eyes as they hear it all the time - don't let anyone throw crap on your dreams.

Anywhatisshewafflingonabout: this ties in with a quote from my 4th Year English teacher my mother did tell me.  At a parents evening, she had told my mother and dad I had a talent for writing stories.  Now most parents, especially now, would perhaps spur their child on but it had already been decided on advice from the careers office that I would do nursing or become a secretary and that was that.  Despite being an avid reader my mother did not consider writing as a job for the likes of us.

This was not said to me directly though so doesn't count.

What does is what my dad's eldest sister said.  Now my dad's side of the family was very much "get on with it" and I wish I had taken that attitude on board more!  Yet during one of the many gatherings at her house my late aunt spoke as though it was already set that I would one day write books and it was a generally accepted idea amongst the others there that this would happen.

This was a few years after the teacher's comment, when I was languishing in jobs I hated and it took me aback.

But I remembered it.  Remembered so clearly I could tell you where she was standing in her living room when she said it and what she was wearing.

I never have written a book but, in that moment, someone whose opinion I valued, indicated that I might be worth something more.

Strangely enough, soon after that I quit nursing and went off to the US for a year - my first ever act of rebellion against what was expected of me!

And So It Begins - Day One

List 10 Things That Make You Really Happy

Now for a regular Eeyore type like myself this is not as easy as it probably should be but let's persevere, especially as this is the first challenge and all:

In no particular order:

These two boys - it may sound infuriating to others to admit this but if all I accomplish in my life is raising my sons then I will be satisfied.  In a two-finger salute to the Establishment this "single parent on a low income" has, so far, plenty to be proud of and there is no sign of that stopping.

Oh yes, parenting alone can be the epitome of frustration but whenever they get an award at school or are happy with what they've done then my heart sings.  For all my failings I am at least doing this a little bit right and that has to be good.



Art - see previous post as to why this is increasingly important to me. Whether it is via painting, pastel, drawing or some other medium - no matter the outcome I feel an enormous sense of contentment and a sense of self.  I have still, annoyingly, to find a style I am happy with.  I'm working on being freer with what I do, trying new genres whether I like them or not and it is liberating.  It's probably twenty plus years too late but I'm finally doing what makes me happy.

Writing - I don't do enough of it.  Again, this ties in with the last point.  I need to write for me more; I have ideas that have done nothing but swirl around, changing shape and forming into stories for the past few years.

This place (Millport) - the fact it hasn't changed much in all the time I've been coming here is part of the charm.  I've often thought about moving there permanently after the boys leave school and it's just me but that would probably spoil it.

And this place too (Lanzarote) - I don't know what it is. Until a few years ago I hadn't even thought of going there on holiday.  Again with the holiday places but when I go there I feel calm, maybe not to live there but I'd always had an itch to live in Spain.  Not in a "Brit abroad" way (especially as I don't have and never will consider myself "British") but actually enjoy the Spanish culture, speak the language until I forget the word in English.  Now Scotland isn't going to be independent any time soon I feel further and further away from wanting to remain here, it feels strange and unwelcoming so who knows what the future will bring.

In fact let's continue the theme as what makes me really happy is the possibilities of where to go next.  The only thing holding us back is the fact we have no money!  I have a Pinterest board full of wish list destinations that may just come true.

My other boy.  There's one of those internet memes that says "I want to be the person my dog thinks I am". If only we all were then the world would be a much better place.  I should also give an honorary mention to the cats who don't get on the list as I feel they only tolerate me!

Days out.  Again another thing we're not doing enough of lately.  The boys are busy with their lives so our Sunday train ride into Edinburgh for a wander around the museums and galleries don't happen as much.  Whether it's by train or by car just heading out somewhere, (add castles and parks or beaches to the list of things that make a good day out) is the best of fun.

Time.  Just time to do the things I want; time to sit and enjoy a sunny afternoon or finish reading that book or painting or sewing. Having some spare time makes me ridiculously happy.

Books. Not a hand held machine but real, honest, books.  It might make my bag heavy but it's a welcome weight.  Just to get lost for a few hours in the pages of a story, that feeling of reaching the end of a book and wishing there were more, that the tale could continue.  I have bookshelves full and I know I should pare them down but I can't.  Whenever there is a book sale, forget the clothes shopping, that is true happiness and bliss.  A good rummage and bonus if there are a few gems amongst them.

Oh look, there's ten things. It wasn't that hard after all or is the fact that three of my choices are to do with travel a cheat?  Ach, who cares, it's my list and I'll do as I like!  See, changing from a people-pleaser already - braw!

The Learning Process

This I need to do...

And why would this be difficult? Because, according to the same motivational speaker I am an "Obliger".

I don't usually have time for such people, they tend to talk in the air; grand ideas that don't really make sense or have much substance.  Then I came across this idea of knowing yourself from the artist Anna Mason  and suddenly it clicked.  I am a people-pleaser and I resent it so much it is harming all parts of my life.

It needs to stop.

For future reference, as the artist's blog I mentioned is about to change, here is a longer talk discussing all types and the test to take which is scarily accurate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5LyTqCfj6E

https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/1950137/Four-Tendencies-January-2015

I subscribed to Rubin's YouTube channel as she talks about organising and decluttering and I really need to pay attention to that.  I may be 43 years old but it's time to find out if you really can teach an old dog new tricks - case in point the previous post about the challenge.  Finger out, girlie!

30 Day Challenge...erm...Challenge

The muscle not used becomes flabby and wasted.

With that in mind, for my own entertainment I'll be doing this soon -


Bet you can't wait.

Hiroshima Nagasaki - 70 Years On

I'm beginning to realise that most of my politics and beliefs stem from time spent in my Modern Studies class during high school.  One of the textbooks I distinctly remember, to the point where I could probably quite accurately reproduce some of the graphics, was about the nuclear holocaust and described what happened on those fateful days at the end of WWII.

Growing up the Cold War was an ever present threat; nuclear arsenals reaching ridiculously catastrophic proportions with weapons so powerful they made Little Boy just that.  Yet twenty years since the supposed end of the posturing and Scotland still has obscene amounts of these monsters buried deep into the Clydeside hills.

We need them as a deterrent the Establishment and their supporters cry.  The thing is with a deterrent, it only works if you have the capacity to actually use it if needed.  There's a thought to chew on for a while for those who think there is still a place in civilisation for nuclear weapons.

That textbook, the stories and images within, chilled me to the bone.  It still has that power thinking back on it now.  I had hoped that my own children would never know the horror of how depraved humanity can be against the world and all within.

Seventy years on and those in charge still think this an acceptable, we will all be reduced to shadows on the pavement.

On Father's Day

Again with the memories, those lifebelts to cling to when you want to ignore the present. On this day however, acknowledging that all those times I want to tell him something; from silly news articles and stories to the boys' achievements. Knowing that they won't go away but imagining how he'd react, quiet pride in his beloved grandsons, wanting to read up on what is happening, is some comfort after all these passing years.

Funny that when I was looking through old photos I found this - unlike most of my friends dads he would have one drink then stop.  It was taken when on holiday to Italy when I was 12.  He'd been stationed there for a time during WWII.

For No Other Reason...

...than I read an article on olive oil (yes, really) and remembered a joke that, as far as I'm aware, is still in play.

Once I told my (now thankfully) ex-husband that tradition had meant olives were to be picked only by virgins from the local villages.  When they had a bumper crop then they would need to hire these "extra virgins" from towns and therefore it was more expensive as the oil was purer.

Yes that makes no economic sense but it went down as yet another thing I knew about and I know he told at least one other person this amazing fact.

Unlike the Corrs* prank I never did come clean, that is to say I forgot to do so. Simple things for simple minds, eh?

*On remarking how alike the Corrs were (they're siblings) and wondering if they were from the same family, I told him that they'd just had plastic surgery so they would resemble each other. Again, completely forgot about it until a few years later when he mentioned something about it and I had to admit to having him on about the whole thing. Back when we could joke around and didn't want each other to disappear in a puff of smoke.

::wash::rinse::repeat::

This is ME/CFS/SEID/Whatever-new-name-they-want-to-call-it Awareness Day.

All this and more could be yours!

Something I didn't know is that this particular date was chosen as it is Florence Nightingale's birthday and there is a theory that the illness blighting her life after the Crimea was very possibly, maybe, could well have been the very same one I have.  So, tenuous link with a famous person established.

It does show how desperate those of us who suffer this are, that we look to history for examples of this most definitely not being of our imagination.  Despite what fancy pants name they think of that is what most people believe - we've made it up.

In the four years since I've had this (and that includes the two years it took to whittle it down to actually being this) I've heard the following at least once:

- But you look well

- Oh I get really tired too

- You should just get on with things and not dwell on it

- Oh is *that* what is wrong, uhuh

- Isn't that the thing they can't *prove* you have (knowing glance)

- You're just feeling a little blue, you should ask the doctor for some pills and snap out of it

- You'd feel better if you just (enter exercise/diet regime of the month here)

I could make an ME bingo card to play every time someone finds out, because of the above I rarely tell people why I'm not out working my socks off as once I did.  There is almost a determination in people to deliberately downplay any illness that doesn't have a "proper" test and cure.  I can't think of many, if any, who would gladly swap everything they do and everything they enjoy to spend every day feeling as though they've just run a marathon.

For those who scoff how happy they'd be if they could stay in bed for a day I wonder if they really mean it, do they honestly want to write off days at a time just because they dared use up what little energy they have left?

There are so many sides to this disease.  So many ways it can ebb away at life until you end up like a husk just hoping that maybe tomorrow is the day you wake up and feel as though you've slept.  Oh yes, that is a choice many would want if it meant they didn't have to work full-time - and note that is dripping with sarcasm there.

I try to look on the positive, I don't wallow in what I can't do, instead I enjoy what I can.

What did I want to achieve with this post?  It's just another of my ramblings really.  Maybe I'll mention it again, maybe you'll see me dancing down the street when a cure is found or if I'm one of the lucky ones who really does wake up one morning to find it gone, maybe I'll do as in real life and pretend it isn't happening.  In the meantime it is very real, very annoying and very there, I don't expect sympathy, empathy or acknowledgement but I do expect people to remember that it can happen to anyone at any point and for that to be respected.

All The Single Parents

On parents evening:

That moment when you've heard all the teacher's opinions, you've seen all the exam/assessment results and you're like...

My work here is done!

Bright futures and remember your auld mither!

When The Sun Shines

All feels right with the world so let's go for a walk. 

The fresh, Spring air, nature dotted with human rubbish every so often.

Bonus if you can see my sons, this could be like the old "Spot The Ball" competitions but no prize, sorry. They did get down, no broken bones, thankfully.

The peaceful, man made loch. The man (company) who made the loch now wants to turn the area into yet more housing, no doubt luxury housing so screw you nature. For now enjoy the quiet, the birds swimming by; I recognise ducks, coots, moorhens and, um, sadly that's as far as my wildlife knowledge goes. No swans, they're off bothering tourists at the Palace loch.

Happy dog had a spring in his step, being able to go for a paddle in not quite so freezing cold water.  Except when he launched himself into water too deep for his liking.  Then he wasn't such a happy dog.

And that was our afternoon.  I'm working on the "spoon theory", or as I prefer to use pebbles in my explanation then the "pebble theory" so I have borrowed heavily for today but as the Easter holiday stretches out then I can take time for a CFS crash without worrying about the boys getting to school or coming back from school.

When the sun is shining, drink it in, take a moment, enjoy the blue skies.

I have never...

eaten this delicacy, I don't think I can quite tolerate it.  Prefer something with a little more bite, more wit I think.

One Year On

Yesterday was the first anniversary of my mother dying.  Six years (at the end of the month) on from my dad passing and you'd think I'd be used to it.  Yet there is a strange difference that doesn't sit quite comfortably with me.

While we all still miss and mourn my dad it sounds almost callous to say that we don't miss mum that much.  No, that's not quite right, it isn't about missing her I think it has to do with how she died.

Dad was ill for three months in hospital, his dying seemed inevitable but because his illness pushed his dementia to the front it felt like we weren't able to say goodbye properly.  I felt cheated, that despite his age (89) I wasn't quite ready to see him go.  Even now there are moments I want to share with him, especially when the boys achieve something.

With mum her downward spiral started in the year after dad died.  She gave up, we weren't enough for her to hold on for and in the last few years she unclipped herself from daily life, ending up in the care home thanks in part to my ME/CFS and thanks in part to the level of care she needed.  I just couldn't carry her any more mentally or physically.  When someone does give up it is extremely hard, impossible even, to help them and once you help them with something you find yourself doing that for them from then on.

Does that sound selfish?  Maybe, but I've spent so long worrying about others, doing everything for them, grinding myself down in the meantime that perhaps I need that sliver of selfishness.

The last week, when mum was taken in to hospital for the umpteenth time, I admit to having been blasé about it.  I'd gotten in to a routine of planning my life around visits, demands, taking her to and from the place.  Realising this was the final time was a shock but in a way I was so well prepared that I was completely ready for what happened next.

That made the difference.

We were used to her no longer paying attention, of being withdrawn and uninterested.  It is still hard to walk past the care home knowing someone else is in her little flat, I think it would be harder if we were to see the flat, all those memories from that last few years.  Does this mean that at some point it will hit me and I will grieve properly?  Who knows.

I don't chose to remember my mother from that time, our relationship had been a roller-coaster and I select the best memories from that but I don't feel the wish to talk to her again like I do for my dad.

Remembering her properly, not as the person she became.  We were on our way to Millport, to pay tribute to my dad, this is the person I miss.

Sometimes It Works Out Okay

A splodge of ink, a sweep and scribble of pastel and what initially was turning disastrous began to look acceptable.  Times two.

The Quiet Room

It has been an odd sort of weeks.  The lurgy came, visited Eldest, me, back to Eldest again.  I took a fantastically graceful (not) dive on the ice that managed to injure both hands, the right faring particularly badly.  Trying dressing without your dominant hand - now try put a bra on.  Yes, exactly.

In the midst of these trivial little daily dramas I got the call I dread at this time of year.  Another of my dad's sisters had died. 
While feeling deeply for what my cousin was going through I realised there is only one of the six sisters left.  Ironically the one who was forever complaining about ailments, as the old Scottish saying has it - the squeaky gate lasts the longest.

I remember being at one of the infamous family gatherings in my auntie Sheila's home.  We were in the kitchen laughing at the volume of noise coming from the living room.  Auntie Sheila remarked that it sounded like they were all speaking at once, they probably were to be honest.

It's too quiet now.

Start The New Year With Some Sad News

It's a blustery, wet, dark, dank day, the kind that lazy days indoors were made for so productivity here has been zero.  So online and messing around was the order for the day.  Meanwhile in my mind is whirring the cogs of creativity, where can I go that will give me the satisfaction I need.

Off I trot to read some crafty, artistic blogs and I was enjoying immersing myself in other people's inventiveness when I learned of this tragic news.  I had followed and really relished the inspiring influence of artist, illustrator, sculptor and crafter Vanessa of the Do You Mind If I Knit blog.  Many people linked to her crochet tutorials as the definitive way to learn the craft.

It's disheartening and, whatever happened, she will be missed by her readers.  She hadn't blogged in a long while and it was already a disappointment when clicking on her blog brought no new goodies.  I can only hope she knew how well thought of she was and how many people she encouraged.

Some of Vanessa's work:

Revolutions

• Paint more (or pastels, or drawing)
• Dance at least once a day
• Hold strong
• Be true to oneself
• Cross-stitch to relax
• Enjoy the surroundings
• Take happiness in seeing wildlife
• Go for long rambling walks
• Acknowledge the illness
• But don't surrender to it
• If it takes longer to do then it takes longer
• Don't be a people pleaser above all else
• Be kind
• Make a living and then some
• Be confident
• Write for myself every day
• Make a plan not a schedule

Well we're here again...

Those Handsome Boys Of Mine

I make no excuse for being proud of my boys.  We've been through so much and on this day when they've become teenagers, despite driving me mad sometimes, they have turned into a pair of fine young lads.  Unfortunately the behaviour of their father is a constant blight but we manage to get past the games and nonsense with barely a blip.

If I end my days know as a good mum and loved by my boys then that is all I can ask for.  This might be a tough few months ahead but I can think on that to get me through.

We three.

High School Never Stops

I find it curious that behaviours my sons' complain about in their classmates (and probably in themselves too) are still swilling around in people my age and older.

Was discussing a friend who hadn't been in touch for a while, one who had stopped speaking to me soon after my mother's death and had been posting unionist images on Facebook during the referendum while I was trying to put the ideals of independence across yet blanking my worried texts, I took on advice to close the book with an email.  Lord, it's like the letter writing of old only this time there is proof of what was written and when and to whom.

So I sent the email, apologising for any offence I had caused unknowingly.  Then today a reply, and not a nice one.  This from a woman I had been colleagues and then friends with for the past five years, a woman in her early 50s, we had both supported each other through illnesses so the abrupt halt had worried me.  Although I had hoped she was okay I was also hurt that she dropped me so soon after mother died.  Without actually answering what I had done so wrong to reap such a response the email was nasty to the point I am now glad not to have to contact her again.

Bizarre behaviour but perhaps I look too deeply in to why people do what they do - curiosity outweighing the fact I can be a sticky-beak in things not of my concern.  It's enough to drive a psychotherapist to distraction.

That is the end of that.  Now all we need is some hair pulling and playground cat calls with friends taking sides and it would be back to high school.  Some things never change.

I am 42 for only a day more and to be honest, not only do I not have the answers to life, I have more questions.