Am I ready for this?

2 more days of school. I feel I am ready for the 'break' I love not having a rigid routine, no packed lunches to make, no uniforms to iron, no having to be here and go there at certain times.
I don't like the chaos though. Especially trapped in this house, I dread it. I have been pining for the barn and it's acre of land, for the wilderness and the trampoline. Fr days of not going anywhere but out in the garden....friends spending the day and having feasts outside.
Oh well, tough nuts, we're here and we have to come up with a plan.
I do have a plan of sorts. More and more I am horrified by the waste in our lives, the endless shopping and consuming of crappy foods.
We eat so may crisps and snacks in this house, no matter how many I buy and hide, they get eaten at a ridiculously fast and greedy rate and I am so sick of it.
So, today I decided that I am not buying any easy snacks in the 6 weeks we have no school. That sounds like an easy thing but I don't think it will be. When the boys are at home, they graze all day long, especially Isaac.
The thing is all of us really love good food, really good food. We all love fruit and vegetables, the boys would choose olives and pickles given the choice. So I am going to give them the choice.
For 6 weeks we will have a fridge stocked with carrots and cucumbers, grapes, melon, apple slices, strawberries.
They can eat cheese cubes and pineapple. Red and green peppers, beetroot.
I know that they will be completely happy, which makes me feel bad for opting for the easy route most days. It's so quick to throw crisps and a cheese string in their lunch box. Who wants to stand for hours chopping peppers and carrots when their are school shirts to iron? So, while we don't have shirts and schedules, we can have time to try a new road.
I am bored with the shopping too, wandering around Asda buying the same old stuff week in week out, I shall try the markets and stalls, buy fresh and let the boys chop and scrape.
I have been so tired lately, pathetically weary, waking up tired, sleeping more than I ever have.
Sleeping is great but being awake and having energy to enjoy being awake is great too.
I am nearly 46.....somehow that number bothers me. I remember being that bothered by becoming 30. Ha!
Imagine being worried about being 30. A baby.
So I must make myself think about how, in many years time, 46 will seem young and fresh to me. I shall grasp the joy of being 46. When you think of the alternative...being 46 is pretty great!
I feel a bizarre kind of excitement about a change, we are all in a grizzly rut lately, I know the boys are ready to have a change. They are so grumpy and whiney it's untrue.
Poor Eli is on his last legs, he falls over fresh air and by 6 o'clock every evening he is so floor flingingly fed up with the world. This evening at bath time, brought forward a bit because he was falling asleep at 6pm, we had Little Richard blaring on H's super duper bribe iPod dock deal, we were dancing and washing and singing and he climbed on the side of the bath and somehow he fell and bit through his bottom lip, 3 teeth went right through. Poor little boy. Try being beside yourself tired, so ready to sleep but can't suck that beloved thumb because your lip bleeds every time you try. Big old fatter than usual kissy lip, leaky brown eyes plopping tears like nobody's business and the world is just a rotten old place to be.
He is fast asleep and looking comfy. He was awake again in the night. I can't work out what is going on with him, still happy enough in the day but having trouble sleeping and fractious at night. He needs a few weeks of taking it easy and having a nap with mummy in the afternoon. My littlest boy. I cant believe he is almost 5. Still a baby to me though.
The weather is glorious here at the moment, how I hope it stays like this for saturday so that Eli can have his picnic in the park with friends and all his cousins and a high school musical cake. Please don't let it rain.

Isaac came home from school today with 2 go go crazy bones. He went to school with 23 and a new case for them. I want to storm into that school and find the snotty little oiks that took his bones and make them cry. He seemed unconcerned and said he swapped them, trouble is the revolting brats didn't give him anything in return. When I think of H and his sojourns to W.H Smiths and the excitement when we got some go go crazy bones, whooppie!
Ack, H says it is a lesson learned and when his stash from ebay arrives ( hopefully after school finishes so we don't have to endure weeping because he is NOT taking them to school to give to little shites that take advantage of his not being able to say no to them) he will have a new stash to play with and they will NOT be taken anywhere that some horrible Henry can take them away.
H and I are good for each other because we always seem to balance each other out, I am ready to punch any kid who looks like they might be thinking about Isaac and his crazy bones, H calmly says that Isaac now knows that he either has to say no, keep his toys at home or lose them.
Another time, H will be about to blow and I will tut and say no big deal, let it go.
Heaven help the world if we ever get up in arms about the same thing, perish the thought.

Gemma commented that H looks like Pop Larkin in Darling buds of May, indeed he does! How marvellous. I loved that show and it is my idea of a heavenly life. Glorious Pop with his love for his family and adoration for Ma, who is twice his size, country life with their children and chickens in the garden. If H and his sideburns are to appear like anyone, I shall vote for Pop Larkin everytime!
I wish that would come back on, on sunday evenings, from start to finish. I might try and find the DVDs because I really think that was my favourite show in the whole world ever.
H is about ready to lose the sideburns, as soon as we have taken a glorious picture akin to the one he has of great great grandpa Greenhaulgh, they can go. I will be happy to see all of his lovely face but somehow the whole eccentric idea of them has been very touching and along with his sandals and socks and his floppy hat, he is altogether quite delicious.

Did I tell you about my dream? I keep meaning to.
I once had a dream ( when pregnant with Isaac) that I could see 2 little boys playing and another watching, the one on his own said that he was going to be a brother to the other 2 and that he couldn't wait to be with them. A 'man' told him that he wasn't going to be with them now, that the family had chosen not to have more children and so he would be going to another family. He cried and cried and said that he had chosen THAT family and that those 2 boys were his brothers, he begged to be with that family.
I knew then that H and I were to have another baby and every day I am glad that we made that decision. He is our joy.
Anyway, 2 weeks ago I had another dream, just as vivid.
I was walking along a street and saw a small boy sitting on a wall, he was looking at the ground and was swinging his legs. I walked past and felt that he was waiting for someone, that maybe he had been left behind or forgotten. I took a few steps back and asked him if he was waiting for someone.
"yes, I am waiting for you"
"For me?"
"Yes, I have been waiting a long time."
"what's your name?"
"Solomon"
Well, well.
Unless there is a miracle, I won't be having another baby. I am sure that I had all the babies that were waiting for me.
I was stunned for a day or two about this dream because it was so real.
Now I feel OK with it because lately, since Eli has been at school and no longer a baby, I have been thinking a lot about the babies I lost. Especially the one that I lost right before Eli. I was so sad when we lost that baby, I was so sure that it was meant to be, that this baby was the one that had cried in my dream, I couldn't understand why, if this was a good thing to do, the right thing, to have this baby that we had no idea how we would manage to look after ( H had no job, we had no home, were about to move back in with H's dad) I couldn't grasp why we would then lose the baby.
I got my answers, I learned that sometimes a baby needs only to get a body, no matter how small and that's it, that life is complete, sometimes the baby doesn't need to be born into this world to fulfill it's purpose. I believe that we will raise those babies, we will be a family, just not here, not now.
I wonder if my dream was that baby, telling me that he is waiting and just letting me know that he will be mine.
Solomon is a pretty good name, fits with the other boys names too and is certainly a name I would use.
If you ever come here and read a long running sentence about how even though H had a vasectomy and even though I am so OLD and even though this was not planned or even thought about but OH MY LIFE I am pregnant.....the baby will be called Solomon, unless it is a girl in which case she will be called um.......who knows, I will be in some lunatic asylum rocking back and forth just at the thought of having a teenaged girl in my 60's. I am pretty sure her name could be anything, I won't be in any state to choose it.

For Julie Bo because she is my friend.

And 12 times checking in deserves a post just for you!

Even though I have little to say today.
I can tell you that today I accepted that I just do not 'get' ice cream. How do people ( like everyone else in my family) love it so and feel able to eat it every night at 7pm as though life will just not be complete unless this ritual is observed.
It hurts me, no kidding, I try to eat it sometimes, just to join in, I put some in a bowl and sometimes add strawberries or pie and then I put it in my mouth and it just hurts me, a big old head full of ice cream headache. Then I try to shuffle it about my mouth to warm it up and stop it hurting me, all that does is spread the hurt...I can eat it in a cone, when I just lick it but a spoonful? Why do I keep forgetting that a bowl of ice cream is no more than a quick trip to brain freeze via the big hurt route?

Or, I could tell you that even though it is July, July 9th even, Summer...I have just had to go and find my fluffy thick socks because it is COLD..and be darned if I am firing up the central heating in July, so thick socks it is then and a cardi if I can't warm up soon.
It has rained since I got home from Boston ( which seems oh so long ago now, I think maybe we had a day of sunshine but I forget because certainly for the past week it has rained, persistently, solid, cold, beating down rain.
I have whined on my blog about it, obviously to such a degree that some precious soul sent me these....



With a card that hoped they would help chase the rain away...and they did, indeed. Not literally, we have still be hounded by heavy downpours that have not relented for even a moment today, but in my heart and soul the sun shone all day.
I know that my husband didn't send these flowers, he has been known to look askance at anyone carrying flowers, so sure is he that such a gesture is for the recently departed ( although he did actually bring me carnations in the midst of our latest Sophie debacle) So, H is out.
I think I know who it is but I am so hopeless at guessing games I shan't mention who I suspect, just that I am sure it is someone who reads my blog and maybe could be accused of being obsessive in her checking in for updates!
Whoever sent them, what a kind and thoughtful thing to do, what a precious and heartwarming way to start my day, thankyou. Really, thankyou.

I am gratified and reassured, when reading blogs of the other Boston visitors that everyone is as flummoxed and speechless as I am about the whole experience.
I am beginning to come out of the fog, being able to stay awake longer and focus when I am up and about. I am also feeling a sort of desperation to know when we can meet again, not necessarily soon but just to know that it will happen again. I dream of it being here and make little plans of where and how...and may even have thought out some little ideas that would make it splendid and less expensive to do. I wonder if I can make it all sound so intriguing and inviting that certain people begin to ponder and dream? Oh what a cunning plan that would be!
It may include castles and ancient spas, winding old streets and a hotel run by my son....enough..for now!

My mind is full of things to do in my home, my mind and my body however have yet to chat and get in sync, so nothing is actually getting done you understand, but Oh how my head has changed things around here. Anyday now, I will do what I think through. T'will be a miracle.

I think this is it for today..pathetic I know, good though that there isn't a newsworthy message for me to share, no news is good news they say and I will run with that for now, I shall also keep my eyes open for blog fodder, preferab;y of the hilarious and side splitting kind, we like those ones, don't we? Yes, we do.

So, not so bad. Or is it?

We got the keys to the next house. ( is it me or are just those 2 words frightening all on their own? Next. House. simple words yet holding so much meaning and work and STRESS and moving and cleaning and .......) We went and had a good old wander around without anyone else there.

So, good that it isn't as filthy as I first saw, painted magnolia and not too many dints and holes.

Bad that it is still filthy.

Good that it isn't so huge that it will take way too much to run.
Bad that the bedrooms are smaller than I am used to and our bed is BIG and COMFY and nothing, absolutely nothing will make me get a smaller bed. We may have our bed scrunched in the bedroom without anything else, or it will be under a window ( good in summer, can cope with that).

Good that, um.........hmmmmmm, er, let me see.......

Bad that the cooker has probably never been cleaned and has been used a LOT to cook saucy and dribbling and oozing and black things. Also is very close to the floor, in fact when you open the door, it rests on the floor, how extraordinary and stupid.

Very bad that the shower seems not to work and bizarre in its similarity to the cooker in that it appears to have many dribbley, oozing and black things in it, black is the colour scheme for kitchen and bathroom in a dirty, slimy sort of way.

You know ( and a whine coming here, brace yourselves, I am weeping, it could get depressing) I get moments where looking on the bright side is so bloody hard.
I CAN see the potential this house has and if we were moving there forever, if it was ours or long term, I would scarcely blink at the work that is ahead of us but we will be there just long enough to do the work for someone else and then we have to move to a house that I would never choose in a million years. Another house that is being trashed by the madman that lives there right now. That will need work, that we will inevitably have to do because we have no choice.
We walked around and enthused to the boys and I won't lie, I did see the good and it has a pretty nice feel to it, the cleaning and the scrubbing will be a bugger but we can get help and it will be done before we move in.
Repairs have been made in true our landlady fashion, walloping lumps of wood stuck over gaping holes in doors, a bit of a wipe over with some cheap paint, or not, and we're good to go.
I want, for once in my life, to feel worth something.
When we moved here I felt that.
Look at me!!
I can have something nice and even better than nice.
12 days. That's how long that lasted and it cost us £1.000 to move here, has cost a lot to live here but it has been worth every penny, just to have the feeling that we are indeed deserving of the niceties of life.
I am ill again and that makes me sad. Being sad makes me sad. I have medicines to take and we hope that I can feel better and be able to deal with the enormous load that I feel I am having to bear right now.
I am so proud of Sophie, it is such early days and she is doing so well. The proof that she is doing well is tough for me though. For example...today she called and was steaming mad.

" I HAVE HAD IT. ENOUGH.
IWANNASCREAMINHERFACEFUCKYOU!ANDGETTHEHELLOUTOFHERE...
but then, I would get the sack."

CONSEQUENCES, she GETS IT! She is learning but my poor heart when my ears here that screaming and ranting and temper. She was tired and had been working a long day, her immediate boss had taken her back to some rooms to show her what she hadn't done ( uh oh).

~*breathe in*~
I explained that if she were to walk into a room and think to herself " if this was my room , if I had just arrived for a stay and paid £90 for a night, what would I want it to be like?" and then make the room look like that. To try and remember that these people were paying a considerable sum to stay there and that every one of them wanted to walk into a room and be wowed. If the free shampoo is missing, if the bin doesn't have a bag in it.....well it does matter to that guest.
I wonder if she heard me. I called her back later and she was happier.
~*exhale*~

My blood pressure is 135/115, my skin is one big itching welt, with a few blisters thrown in.
I have been having what the Dr thinks are Esophageal spasms. Not fun, sudden, tight pains in my chest that make me retch and my head goes light ( if only it would work on my arse and hips) my hands go numb and when that happens at 70 miles per hour on a motorway......bit scary really. She ( my doctor) held my hands today and scooted her chair so that her knees were touching mine and she said, " Please, will you please look after yourself" and you know, I really would, except when should I do that? What can I put down, so that I can be kind to myself and make me all better? It isn't as though I don't want to look after myself. I really do, but if I let one thing go, we could have that domino effect and then life would really be a barrel of laughs.
I did book the holiday ( did I tell you that? I would go and check but really......can't be bothered) so I did, and I paid everything stupid girl quoted me, trouble is she did her sums all wrong and darn it if she shouldn't have said £3265 plus insurance ( £228) not £2450. I still booked it because it is the one single thing that is keeping me this side of plucking my hair out with clenched fingers and humming with my lips pinched together.
So now I have to find that extra £1043, minus insurance ( £228) because I paid that ( Happy birthday H) and pay back mum, which is fine, I can do it and don't tell too many people, but I already squirreled some of that way already. It will all be paid and paid back, I hope by the middle of October. It will be very hard but somehow, I think that will make the holiday even more glorious.
Lets face it, by the time we have moved again, twice, faced whatever the next 4 months has to throw at us, the very idea of 3 weeks of sunshine, having my bed made every day, no cooking, no dull shopping for bread and toilet paper....the holiday will be glorious. I absolutely plan on holding my doctors hand and having her understand how terrified I am of flying and watching her print off a script for lovely, mellowing, don't give a monkeys nuts drugs, that I will hug and not share and take 30 minutes before we board. Fly me.

Oh, I have stopped weeping by the way, just in case you were worrying, I have cleaned my glasses that were spotty from tears and am feeling fuzzy and relaxed ( medicine, prescribed and quite marvellous, even itching has stopped. H and I have our meds in a plastic ice cream tub, up high in a cupboard even Eli the ape can't reach. I told him with not a little pride that if I am prescribed one more drug, I shall need my very own ice cream tub.)
Ha. Giddy heights at the age of 45.
At least I don't have one of those weekly meds deals that you have to sit and dole all your tablets into so you don't forget any ( H does, but he is so much older than me, 48 today, although he says he doesn't go in for all that birthday malarky anymore, which is handy because he means it, as long as he has a nice dinner he is birthdayed and happy, ideal especially as Isaac is 6 tomorrow, we saved all our singing and cards for him. Hooray.)
I think the new tablets might be a good thing, I called the boys little shits yesterday and said if they stood on the bloody table once more I would have to break their legs.
Not good in itself, the fact that they looked at me as if I was a perfidious headcase and carried on about their business ( standing on the table and making fart noises) made me realise that perhaps I have been making too many idle threats lately and should work on getting with some programme or other ( nanny 911 or super nanny? who can tell, much of a muchness in my honest opinion, wonder what Nanny Deb would make of me and my empty threats of extreme violence? Jo from super nanny would, I strongly suspect, sit me in a corner, get down on my level and tell me that this is not asseptable behaviour, to which I would have to reply that when she had actually given birth to 6 kids, stayed at home with them 24 hours a day for 22 years, without ever tasting an alcoholic drink and then learned to say ACCEPTABLE, instead of asseptable I might listen to her so shut up. Thankyou. )

Oh blast, forgot to have some toast with tablets, now feel a bit sick and heartburny. Always something to spoil the fun.
Still, not so bad after all. Is it?