Sarah's Blog

Happy Birthday!

xx To Timofee xx

38 Today!

I'm SO lucky :)

.... and I did make him a cake .... and it was a Victoria Sponge!

Sweet 6

April Honey turned 6 today .... aaah! Time flies! She's such a cutey - capable of throwing terrible wobblies when she wants to and does a pretty good line in being a bad loser in games but you can SO ignore those things! This is because, on the flipside, she's massively caring (when I was ill a while ago, she comes up to me and puts her arm round me and rests her little head on my arm and says "why mummy sad?" She'll just sit there and hug you on and on. She'll draw you the cutest pictures, tell the daftest jokes and is always, always full of sunshine.

She did enjoy herself today I think - she had balloons, pass the parcel, books, DVD's and Zhu Zhu Pets (oh how she has longed for Zhu Zhu Pets!) I even made her cake to her exact specification - pink icing with Zhu Zhu Pets on!

Happy birthday little Honey-bunny ... Happy Birthday!

On a different note, a couple more snowy pics for you (are you bored yet?). First, Tim's TINY snowman - wheelie-bin-man! This poor thing got crash-landed on by a pigeon this morning and squashed!

Icicles! It was so cold that we actually had icicles hanging off our roof today ALL day!

Footprints in the snow. This is gorgeous .... April coaxed Tim outside to play yesterday afternoon and this is his big boot-print next to her little wellie print... so sweet :) As an added bonus we also got bird prints!

Mum back

Tim's mum is home from the hospital! :) We went to visit her this afternoon and it was SO nice to see her back again - she isn't very mobile yet and needs a lot of help but, you can tell, she's just so happy to be home :)

Oooo! and they have a new cat - she's called Mia and she's very cute and extremely chunky!

I really must be getting old!

Aaaah! Sunday! At one point my most hated day of the week (school on Monday!) now .... I'm starting to feel a strange contentment when Sunday rolls round. We've got the radio on (Nicholas Parsons doing "Just a Minute"), the gentle hum of the washing machine, April quietly playing Starfox Adventures on the Gamecube (a game I love as much for it's atmospheric music as much as anything), slightly steamed up windows because it's a cold day and the smell of Sunday lunch cooking (roast beef and yorkshire puddings). It's all "nice" and reassuring and gentle and homely and ..... right.

I need reassuring and gentle at this moment in time. Had to make an excruciatingly difficult decision about a member of my family (my brother) today that filled me with sadness. Not a decision I really wanted to make but one I felt I HAD to make based on circumstances and what is best for me and Tim and the kids. I found out something yesterday that made me feel like I was being sucked back into a whirlpool that, a few years ago, I climbed out of and felt relief. Yesterday I felt panicky and stressed again ....... the decision had to be made, however painful.

Tim and I are a lot different from pretty much everyone else in my family (although, thankfully, not HIS family). We're terribly old fashioned really - keeping to "traditional" routines, joining in with our kids and getting madly excited at Christmas and birthdays, bringing them up on a diet of "family traditions" (like me going out at the crack of dawn EVERY Easter to hide eggs for them to look for!) We try (go out of our way) to bring up our kids in a way which is peaceful ..... childhood is short, fleeting, it shouldn't be anything less than idyllic (or at least as much as we can make it) - the kids deserve nothing less. More than that though, LIFE is fleeting - I want MY life and Tim's life and the kids life to be HAPPY and relaxed. It can't be that way if things are stressing us and, so, hard decisions have to be made.

We've got our "way" of doing things and we're happy with that ... Nicholas Parsons and steamed up windows on a cold day and roast beef and all that ............. today is a little sad but that shall pass ....

Work avoidance post

Got stuff to do - can't be bothered (bad me!), so I'm blogging about yesterday to get out of doing anything else.

Tim was at work in the morning and so I just did "homey" stuff and the boiler man came round to give our boiler it's annual service. He was quite surprised because it normally takes him about half an hour to go round and bleed the HUGE amounts of air out of our system but there was hardly any!

In the afternoon, when Tim got back, we had a few errands to run. First, we had to go and collect a little treat courtesy of one of my lovely blog readers Amanda :) She'd emailed me to say that they had some tickets for Liberty's Owl and Raptor Centre which they couldn't use because of being ill and they had to be used by the end of Sunday and would I like them? Ooo! yeah! We only went there a few months ago but I do love those birds :) So, we stopped round her place and picked them up and then went shopping. We got a pumpkin (oh my god, just WAIT for my yearly pumpkin carving effort - all mine ALWAYS end up looking like they've been at the Bailey's while we were out), sweeties, a witches hat for Rosie (she's making her own costume this year!) and general foody stuff. We then also went to visit Tim's mum - it's been a few days because the ward was closed to visitors due to a virus. She's been moved to another bed (every flipping time we go there we have to play hunt-for-Jill because she's been moved!) She's insanely bored now but is doing loads of physio so hopefully (fingers crossed!) she could be coming home quite soon. However, she also got to have another brain scan first though to make sure the bleeding has definately stopped.

Then, in the evening, it was my weekly dose of Autumnwatch - fabulous programme. Not sure what Kate Humble was wearing last night though - obviously some kind of coat but looked more like she'd been doing some decorating and came out with her paint-splattered smock on by accident! Best bit for me was right at the end in Unsprung where they had a Hooper Swan brought in by someone - it was a tame one. Now, I'm terrified of swans and always give them a wide berth when we go into Christchurch for a walk but this was one I wouldn't mind meeting - it was cute! Very funny when it was eating a bunch of grapes and showering poor Chris Packham in juice and squishy bits! :)

So that's that. Guess I'd better get on with something!

Just a day

Going to blog quickly as dinner is nearly ready! Actually, it's a rather nice lamb casserole which I made (and bunged in the slow cooker) waaay back at 8.30 this morning. We visited Tim's mum in hospital this evening (more on that in a sec) so wanted something that would be ready when we got back.

Anyway so I did that, did a load of washing and got it outside to dry (wow! still drying washing outside at this time of year!), did some work with the kids, made lunch and then phoned Tim to get him to bring me some plastic boxes back from work. These are like sort of ice cream tubs that they use at his work to put stuff like bicarb in - he can get empty ones really cheap. I needed them because I was absolutely sick of the appalling mess in our craft cupboard and wanted to sort it out. So, Tim gets back with my boxes and I sorted it and now I've got paint brushes in one box, collage stuff in another, tissue paper in another and so on - they're all labelled and stacked neatly. I am in tidy heaven :)

Tim's sister came over to sit for us (April has had a cold so we didn't want to inflict that on the poor hospital patients) and we went to visit mum. She is REALLY getting there! Her face is pretty much normal, she is gaining some mobility back - she can use her phone and text and stuff now. She was very chatty and seemed quite perky :) They have this goal for her that when she can get up, into a wheelchair, to the loo, back in a wheelchair and back into bed by herself then she can go home (obviously she'll have help still when she gets home). Anyway, she's really going for it - very determined :)

Ha ha ha

Hemmy: "What ya lookin' at? Well? Huh? Oh, SO I've forgotten to put my tongue away have I? Is that ANY reason to stand there pointing and laughing?! Sheesh! Humans!"

Hem does this a lot lately - we put it down to his advancing years *laughs*

Had a nice little surprise today - Tim went to church (twice no less!) and, this morning, came back with a large gift bag. Oooo! What could it be? Turns out that one of the elderly ladies at the church had, sadly, passed away but that she'd been very into crafts and card making. Anyway it was remembered that we homeschool and do a lot of crafts and some of her bits and bobs were passed on to us. I thought it was such a lovely thing to do! :) We got some really nice fancy edged scissors, loads of glue and glitter and different types of paper and card. There also card making stamps and stencils - what a great surprise!

Rosie also got a surprise today in the form of a gift voucher for Amazon from her Aunty Sarah and Uncle Rob - it was a late birfday pressie. She's excited because she's can now look for more DS games! She's been having great fun with hers and has been happily sharing with me (she's more generous than I would have been at that age I'm ashamed to say!), so that we can both play animal crossing. We've also both got into Lego Harry Potter although she's waaaay ahead of me in the game! :)

Right, must go, Tim's back from the church evening service and it's nearly dinner time!

Teenager

Today, my first born turned 13 :) My special girl was THRILLED to get a Nintendo DS (oh! she's wanted one forever!) and lots of games and a nice new home for her stick insects (who'd grown much to big for their accommodation!) Wow! What a milestone ... I can really, hardly believe that 13 years have gone by since she came into the world and was plopped on a pillow in front of me. I am, and always will be, SO happy to be her mum :)

In utero :)

A few minutes old (when I had the most hideous hairstyle ever!)

Today .... aged 13

She spent most of the day playing with this!

see!

Her stickies, happy in their new home

Her cake - as ever, she asked for mummy's homemade lemon cake. I iced it this morning - a Boo (with a banana like in Mario Kart!)

HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROSIE NICOLE! :)

Come to Bournemouth and HEAR some planes! Yay!

The Bournemouth airshow was, literally, a wash out this year. Heavy rain and low cloud meant it would have been pretty much impossible to SEE anything! Oh dear. We did, however, get to see the Red Arrows flying over our house (quite some distance from Bournemouth Beach!) - in fact they flew so low that they made April and I scream (and Tim laugh at us!) Anyway, it was, according to Tim, utterly dead down the beach thus rendering his stupid early starts completely pointless. This whole month has been really screwed up by his overtime - we had loads of things planned which we've had to scrub altogether or move to another time - it's been a rather disjointed month.

Anyway, one happy person this month is Rosie Nicole :) We picked her up from her 4 day Guide camp yesterday and she was FULL of chatter about what she'd done. The rain hadn't effected them too badly (apart from the last night when someone didn't put the side of their tent down properly and the rain got in and soaked their sleeping bags!) According to the Guide leader, Rosie and a friend had got into hysterics one evening over some rice pudding ... Rosie, however, will not share the joke with me ... I dread to think! *laughs*.

She took loads of piccies and she said I could share some of then with you so here goes ...she went on daytrips to Monkey World, Marwell and some place in Ringwood where she did air rifle shooting and archery.

Soggy Rosie, as taken by a friend

She took this from inside her tent

a monkey!

I love these pengys - especially the 2 on the right hand side that look like a sweet little old married couple out for a shuffly walk!

Giraffe!

Grrrr!

Finally, a bird which landed on the table next to her when she was eating lunch - not sure if this is a crow or a jackdaw ....

So that's that. The long awaited camping trip is over and I'm now ploughing through a mountain of washing (stinky campfire smell washing). August is nearly over - Tim has nearly finished with his vast amounts of overtime and will soon, once again, be home more to exert some manly authority (ha! ha!) on a house-load of females who are (frankly) digging their heels in at the thought of "back to school" (even back to HOME school!) Oh god, work *sigh* ... maths!! *sigh, SIGH* ... paperwork *GROAN!!!!* I'm just feeling too damn lazy ... I know what he will say - "pull yourself together woman!"

Pah! Go 'way!

*************

PS - Now the airshow is done, today is fairly sunny and cloud free. Obviously.

See you soon!

Rosie that is. We loaded up the car this morning with various bits of camping stuff and took our eldest offspring to her first ever Guide camp. She found a girl called Helen that she gets on well with pretty much as soon as we got there and went off with her so we left and came on home. She's going to be gone for 4 days - the longest time she's ever been away from us and, to be honest, I'm finding it harder to deal with than her (I don't think she's finding it that hard at all!) I've been going around all day constantly worried about her!

Anyway, I shall have much to occupy me over the next few days as I'm using the time she's not here to decorate her bedroom - it hasn't been done since she was about 7! Gone is the dinosaur border (although she still loves her dinos) and (soon) will be gone the pink walls. Instead she's having - her choice - of a rather lovely soft apple green. I'm making her some cute accessories for the room to which I'll photograph when I'm done. I think it's going to look gorgeous :)

Taking advantage of her absence - we also went off to the shops and grabbed her birthday pressie as well .... can't say what it is yet because her birthday isn't until the end of September and she might see this!

So that was today. Tomorrow, Tim has to go to work STUPIDLY early (he has to get up just past 3.00 a.m!!!!!!!) because it's the Bournemouth Airshow and they are expecting to be busy. I shall be doing more painting - did the glossing today and starting on the apple walls - and trying to entertain April at the same time. April is, in fact, utterly desolate without Rosie .... poor child!

It rained!

It did! After a seemingly endless period of hot dryness, it finally rained .... and very welcome it was too :)

I've got to get on soon .... but here's a quick roundup of yesterday.

Tim went off out in the morning and did some "financial" related stuff then, later, he had to go and accompany someone for their grade 6 singing exam. Apparently, she can sing really well and wasn't nervous at all before she went in but then forgot the words to the song and went a bit "shaky". Oh dear :( Tim says he doesn't know how much of that will go against her but hopefully she did ok. Anyway, he went out first (I guess she still had some stuff to do in there) and spoke to her mum and singing teacher about what happened. Then, the singing teacher asked if he'd consider helping out her (gospel!) choir doing their singing practices once a week (and she'd pay him!) This, of course, is extremely tempting HOWEVER, once a month Tim plays for a church and that includes a Thursday evening practice. Thursday is also the day the gospel choir have their practice so I'm not sure what he's decided about it - I know he wouldn't want to let the church down, he's been playing for them for years.

How about my own tiny musical attempts? Well, still been practicing my recorder - coming on ok! The book I'm learning from is actually for kids (I should probably find something more grown up!) - I've got to the point where I'm playing proper little tunes and it says at the top of one page "ask an adult to accompany you on the piano". Ha! Ha! Ha! Tiiiim?! Anyway, he did and I think he thought it was quite sweet that we were making a little bit of music together for the first time :)

Yesterday evening we had to take Rosie to Branksome Dene Chine beach for her last Guides of the term. They were having a beach party (hot dogs, beach games etc). It was a lengthy trek from where we live so, as the meeting was only an hour and a half, we decided to hang around. Me and Tim took April for a play on the beach then got back in the car and went to Tesco and did a bit of shopping THEN went back to the beach for another play and by that time Rosie was done. Next time she sees some of the Guide people will be when she goes to camp in August for 4 days!

Right, I'm going to get on. We've borrowed Tim's mums carpet shampooing machine so we can do all the carpets in the house - they get very mucky with Hem and the kids tramping in and out all day!

Sarah the sloth

Having SUCH a lazy day today (feel terrible doing that when my hubby is off out working his butt off - YET AGAIN, it would seem, making up for someone else's mistake/error/forgetfullness). However, in my defence, I CAN chill out a bit today because there isn't actually much, in the way of housework, to do. I blitzed the house yesterday pulling out furniture, cleaning skirting boards, dusting everywhere. The whole damn thing :)

It's probably just as well - it's a really hot stuffy day today - not "nice" hot but sorta headachey.

Tomorrow, I've got to walk up to the local school with Rosie as she is taking part (with the Girl Guides) in our local carnival. Apparently, they've got hold of a load of guide uniforms from over the 100 years for the girls to wear (it's their centenary this year) .... as long as they aren't too moth-eaten and smelly (ewww!) April COULD have taken part in her Rainbow unit but it's a long event (especially if it's really hot) and I think, being only very ickle still, it might be a bit much. They do it every year so she'll get her chance.

So, I'll walk Rosie up and then me and April might mooch around the fair before coming back for lunch. I'm hoping that Tim will be back in time to go collect Rosie but I SERIOUSLY doubt it. His work have developed a penchant for sending him out with huge morning deliveries and then, when he gets back, sending him out AGAIN with other huge deliveries meaning he doesn't get back till some ridiculous time in the afternoon. Last Saturday (the day when we were supposed to be leaving the house at 5.30 to go off out for our meal at the Alice Lisle), they sent him on a second delivery to SWANAGE (which involves not only getting from Christchurch to Poole but also a trip across the water on the car ferry then more driving and then the same thing all the way back - it takes AGES especially if the traffic is bad). Anyway, he didn't get back home until 5.00 - his mum had to phone the restaurant and put our meal back by half an hour to give him some extra time to get cleaned up and changed and stuff.

The funny thing is, Neil (the boss-type person who sent him out) said something along the lines of "would you mind" or "could you" (go out again). Tim laughed when he told me about it and said "wonder what he'd do if I said no?" He said it's really tempting to just stand there, totally deadpan, and say "no sorry, too busy, got to go". Since Neil, apparently, seems always a bit nervous of asking Tim, I expect the poor man would probably burst into tears *laughs*. Thing is, Tim pretty much NEVER says no - in fact, I can't remember when he last did and if he did, it would have been for a genuine reason.

.... short break to answer the door .... oooo! it's the postman ...... ooooo! another exciting package which I know contains a birthday present for me because I have been sternly forbidden by Tim to open ANYTHING which arrives. Now, it's sat (with the other packages that arrived the other day) tormenting me! My birthday is on Thursday .... big birthday y'know .... I was born in 1970  

Right, enough of this silly banter - got to go - kids lunch soon.... byee!

A break from the norm

Hello people ....

Tim's out doing the last performance of Seussical this evening. This afternoon he took me and the kids so we could watch the matinee and it was really, really fab - I was incredibly impressed! The kids loved it, especially April who enjoyed it hugely and clapped loudly at the end of every song and said she "loved the cat in the hat" but "why is Father Christmas (The Grinch!) there?" *laughs*. By the end of it she was jumping about in her seat and, I suspect, desperately wanted to get up and dance around! She definately IS the more musically minded and theatrical of the kids!

It's kind of sad that it's all over after tonight because I know Tim has enjoyed doing it and I'VE enjoyed watching him get into it and do something he loves and is wonderfully good at. On the way there in the car this afternoon we were talking about how, next week, he'd have to get back to normal - back to the normal delivering-boxes-of-food job. He sort of sighed a bit sadly and said "I'm worth so much more than that" and he is. My talented, yummy, scrummy hubby is worth much, much more than some scrubby little delivery job.

Don't get me wrong - it's good (very good!) that he has a job at all just incredibly sad that it's not doing something that he loves to bits (even working in the music shop a few years back was, at least, a nod in the right direction!) and is really good at.

Still, maybe the BOS will ask him to do something else for him again sometime now he's worked with them on one show :)

PS - added the next day! Tim brought April home one of the Cat in the Hat stripey hats that some of the band were wearing - she is massively happy! When he got home last night I was in bed reading and he came in and plonked it on my head! Anyway, here is the happy hat wearer - it's so big she can actually pull it right down and hide in it!

"All by myself"

Yes, cue the tragic music ... last night I sat and ate my lonely dinner while Tim was out at his rehersal. In fact, he'd been gone all afternoon and didn't get back to around 9.00 in the evening. It was weird - I can't remember the last time that I had dinner alone - must have been YEARS ago!

Anyway, there's more of that this week - Wednesday he has the dress rehersal at the Regents Centre starting at 6.30 (heaven only knows how long that will go on for!) and then the actual shows are Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

It's so great he's doing something like this - it's been a while and I know he's enjoying it :)

Sunday evening we're off round his mum's for dinner - it's uncle Rob's birthday (he's 43 I think - eeek!) and also daddy's day :)

Practising for his show - not!

This is what happens when Tim gets his keyboard out in order to practice for the show he's doing ... he gets April ... erm.. helping .... I think April is going to end up being the more musically inclined of our 2 kids :)

Very short and silly video clip - wish Tim had played properly so I could show off! :) Oh and it sounds very "tinny" because he was just running it through the headphones rather than the speakers!