2012 in Review

I'm fairly sure that this is the kind of post that should be pre-written to be posted on the last day of the year, not typed out after a couple of glasses of fizzy vino while you spend a cosy NYE at home...again.

This year I have been a dreadful blogger. I really have. The giveaway was the fact that if you scrolled to the bottom of the first page, there was still a blog post from 2011 sitting there.

Shocker.

I'd say I'll try harder next year, and it might not actually be a fib. I still heart my Twitter, but I just don't get to use it the same way at the moment, no time for immediate tweeting of thoughts, so they may start coming out as blog posts again.

They may.

(no guarantees)

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2012 - and what I was doing when I should have been blogging.

January
After 10 weeks on bed rest, I went back to work. Despite being under doctors orders to take things easy, which meant sitting on a stool at the till for 7 hours a day and not a lot of actual working, I was consistently knackered. I had a look at my iPhone pictures to see if I actually did anything, and they are all either pictures of food or screenshots of Twitter. So that'll be a no then.

February
This is when I went to stay with my Mama for a week, successfully accidentally (sort of) met @kayels and @jayegan at Westfield Stratford, and came home to a newly decorated living room. Then had a bit of a rant about carpet.Also, @sarahanngreen had her lovely Michael which made me very grateful to be pregnant so that I could be properly happy for her rather than very jealous and tearful.

March
The F1 season started again after what had felt like a very long break, and we visited my Mama again. This was also the first month of my pregnancy where I didn't have a single scan! (I did have two in February though).

April
This is the month where you start getting pictures! (you lucky lucky things)Not exciting pictures though, just my starting to swell feet.

April was also the month we attended NCT classes, one of the best decisions I've ever made. There were eight couples in my class, and seven of us have met up every couple of weeks since our babies started turning up. As I don't know many people in Wolves outside of work, and no one with a baby, these ladies have been a proper lifeline.

May
My last day of work was supposed to be the 25th, it turned out to be the 6th. At my midwife appointment on the 8th she was concerned about my blood pressure and so dispatched me to the hospital. I was told to stop work and start taking medication.

On the 15th of May my feet looked like this:

while my stomach looked like this (Esme storing up cuddles):

This meant that I finished my Midnight Moggies cross-stitch in record time.

In fact I finished it just in time to get a good start on the second one when I spent the last weekend of May in the hospital due to worries about bleeding.

Before the hospital stay (above) and afterwards (below)

June
By the 1st of June, my ankles had vanished.

This meant that I got to enjoy biweekly hospital visits where I would spend an hour or so hooked up to a foetal monitor before being dispatched home again. This cost a bloody fortune as I not only had to get taxis both ways (no way could I manage the bus), I also bought an iPad at 2.30am one morning when I was convinced I was going into labour.
By the 11th of June the swelling was getting more and more silly. You could tell which side I'd slept on by my cauliflower ear!

On the 16th they gave up on my blood pressure and admitted me to hospital. I spent three peaceful days on a ward (single room, own tv), and three hellish days on triage (communal tv stuck on ITV and the two other beds in my room having new occupants every few hours as they went off and delivered their babies), the new iPad saved me on triage as I just played DiscWorld audiobooks constantly to drown out Jeremy Kyle.

On the 19th Megan looked like this:

On the 22nd she looked like this!

We finally got to go home on the 27th, after they changed my blood pressure meds and my systolic blood pressure finally dropped below 100!

July
Mostly a haze to be honest. Various visits from my Mama and sister and lots and lots from A's parents.
I spent a lot of time curled up in the armchair with a feeding/sleeping/feeding Megan. This meant I got to watch all of the Olympics with zero guilt unlike poor @unkn0wnvariable, who had to put up with an unpatriotic hedgehog!

August
More Olympics, visits to NCT ladies, and Michael Green's christening.

September
We spent a lovely week in the Cotswolds with Mama, Emily, and Pete (her new(ish) man) and I optimistically bought the new WoW expansion, Mists of Pandaria, and then promptly didn't play it for two months.

October
Megan and I gave Anthony a week of peace by visiting my Mama again. I spent a very enjoyable evening in a pub with the NCT ladies, and Megan started Tiny Talk and Baby Sensory classes with much assistance from Kate from the NCT classes who helpfully kept giving us lifts!

November
Anthony got made redundant and was unemployed for a whole week before taking a temporary (permanent if he wants it) job. Classes and NCT hangouts continued and the lovely @kayels and @jayegan came to visit while Mama was staying too.

December
I finally got a SPD diagnosis, as well as it being confirmed that I'm suffering from over granulation (seriously, don't google it) so need an operation at some point early next year. (Although not too early, I start jury service on the 7th of Jan!)
Christmas was spent in Essex for the first time since 2007, and it was lovely.

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2013 is really going to have to be good to outdo 2012.

I'm all prepared for it though: I've bought my usual diary (and aim to fill more than 3 weeks in) and a brand new calendar for organising us all.

I'm due to go back to work around about the end of March (I think), and so Megan will be going to a child minder, probably full time. This makes me horribly sad, but financially is the only thing to do at the moment. I'm comforting myself with the knowledge that since her fees are more than half my wages, when we have number two (WHEN, NOT IF!!) it won't make financial sense then ;-)

So that was my 2012. I hope yours was equally exciting, and that your 2013 is even better.

In writing this post (for two hours) I have come up with a cunning plan for blogging more. If it doesn't work, I'll see you back here same time next year. xxx

Who's a...

...dreadful blogger then? (Obviously that is a rhetorical question, you don't need to answer it in the comments!)

Partly it's due to having a long stretch of time where life was just "get up - work - sleep", then it has become "get up - sit on sofa with feet up - sleep".

This is because I have the most amazing inflatable feet and ankles, to the point where yesterday I gave in and bought some flip flops (Union Flag design of course) because the sandals I have been wearing will no longer do up, even if I try to put them on straight after getting out of bed.

The amazing feet and a sudden attack of high blood pressure has meant that I've been in and out of the hospital twice a week for the last three weeks (hence giving up work earlier that planned) for blood pressure checks as they're a bit worried about me developing pre-eclampsia. Currently this does appear to be the case, as although the meds they've put me on seem to be keeping my BP stable, my hands have now started swelling up at night, and urine protein levels seem to be slowly creeping up.

Sitting on the sofa is rather in conducive to blogging, since I am not a laptop owner and haven't been able to get it working properly on my phone (new app just downloaded though).

Also, the temptation is to moan about my achy hips and sore feet and not sleeping and constant heartburn/acid reflux and and and... which quite frankly is all bloody boring and would mask the fact that despite everything I am still bloody joyful to be in this situation and would much rather be in it than not!

It's now less than 4 weeks til my official due date, but I have been told by my consultant (first time I'd seen him since September! (although I've seen a bajillion others in between)) that he "likes to induce high BP ladies between 38 and 40 weeks" so baba will be here before the 24th from the look of things. At the moment I have a final (probably) scan and assessment due for next Tuesday (Jubilee Bank Holiday day) which is when I should find out when I'll be induced.

That means you can probably expect another post from me round about baba's 4th month of outside existence ;-)

Ok, cannot now bend my ankles, so retreating back to the sofa and my cross-stitching (new one, have a peek on Flickr).

Love you all oodles you lovely patient people xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When I was little...

...apparently my grandmother told my mum that I was "her comeuppance".

I suspect that this wee thing may be mine.

I had my anomaly scan on the 7th of February, and got to see lots of a very cute wiggly baby. Lovely close-up view of its mouth and nose (while the sonographer was doing the cleft palate checks), and watching it trying to grab at its feet was very sweet.

But since it was in a breech position, spine to my spine, and very low in my pelvis, the sonographer was unable to get a good shot of the length of its spine and its coccyx. After all the angles I'd been holding myself at in order to try to get a clear shot, it also was no longer in a great position for photographs so we decided not to get any taken.

My second anomaly scan was yesterday, and this time the obliging little bugger was lying head to my left, feet to my right and lying on its stomach.

Perfect spinal viewing. The final check shot took seconds to get.

Then the fun of trying to spot the sex and get a decent picture started.

Thanks to the umbilical cord running down between its legs, and it helpfully squashing the cord against itself while doing a can-can high kick, the sonographer made a guess as to the sex, but couldn't tell for sure.

As for the pictures, the first one was obtained by me rolling onto my left and the sonographer getting a quick screengrab before the little bugger rolled back over. In fact she got it just as it was rolling, hence the slightly strange head! The second shot is a blurry one that she captured just in case - which was a good job as baby really didn't want to pose.

I've got another scan at the beginning of April, when I also have my first Anti-d shot, so hopefully baba will want to pose and let us know if we need to keep on trying to choose a girls name!

No news...

...is good news. Right?

Well in terms of me not blogging it is. I have been actually busy having actual adventures... a whole two of them.

Plus after phoning the hospital every day for a week following @SarahAnnGreen's totally fabulous news, I was finally told that although I wouldn't be getting an appointment to see the consultant, I did have a letter in the post.

Cue four days of worriting (our post is crap).

The letter arrived, was hastily ripped open...and then I burst into tears.

Good tears, as you will know if you were on Twitter about 10 minutes later to read my joyous tweetlings.

I need to start taking folic acid and low-dose asprin as soon as I start trying to conceive again, then as soon as I get a positive test it's off to the doctors for a course of progesterone.

I get to choose between this and this.

I'm choosing the second one, I bruise far too easily even without the aspirin!

I'll keep you informed better in future... promise ;-)

History might just...

...repeat itself.

33 years ago, on the 14th of March 1978, a little football team called Leyton Orient won a sixth round FA Cup replay 2-1 against Middlesborough to get through to the semi-final of the FA Cup.

They had defeated Norwich City (1-1, replay 1-0), Blackburn Rovers (3-1), and Chelsea (0-0, replay 2-1) to get to the sixth round.

In the semi-final they unfortunately lost 3-0 to Arsenal.

But in winning against Middlesborough, the damage had already been done. I was born 9 months later.

In this years FA Cup, Leyton Orient have defeated Dagenham & Redbridge (1-1, replay 3-2), Droylesden (1-1, replay 8-2 aet), Norwich City (1-0) and Swansea City (2-1).

In the fifth round of this years FA Cup, Leyton Orient will be playing Arsenal for the first time since that 1978 match.

Here's hoping that allowing for prevailing winds and good luck and all that jazz, I can be embarrassing a child of mine with this story. Not quite in 9 months time (cos not pregnant yet, plus also, you can't embarrass a newborn) but hopefully within the next year.

Fingers crossed eh.

Merry Christmas...

...and Happy Birthday to me :-)

Right now...

...Anthony and his dad are thumping about in the master bedroom, attempting to hang some lining paper.

Esme is hiding behind the sewing chair, curled up on the bottom shelf of the bookshelf there, wishing all the noise would stop so she could have a relaxing snooze in the chair rather than behind it.

I have been sorting out oodles of paperwork & either putting it in piles for filing, or shredding it (sorry Esme) into cross-cut piles of fluff that I would quite like to just throw into the air.

But I just sat on the sofa to have a five minute rest while the shredder cooled down & FoleyCat appeared from her secret-hiding-from-noise-spot and curled up on my lap seeking fuss.

So I have sat here, fussing a cute kitty, serenading her with "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" (playing from the pc) and known that right here, right now there is no place I'd rather be.

Then Foley bit my finger & vanished again.

But it was worth making a note of. Too many perfect moments get lost or missed. This one didn't.

*Sent from my iPhone*

Has it really...

...been three months?!

Doesn't feel like it.

Anyways, I am here and I am fine (but since most of you follow me on Twitter anyway you all knew that...) I've just been busy and had nothing to blog about.

Well nothing to blog about is a bit of a fib, after all I have bought my first home and moved into it in the past few weeks, but I just had no urge to blog about anything, so I didn't.

About the only thing I did fancy blogging about were the AMAZING cupcakes that I baked a couple of weeks back. Since the last time I made a cupcake or anything that wasn't a packet mix was back before Miss Emily started school (19 years ago) it was a little scary.

Here are my beautiful tasty cupcakes:



Nom, nom, nom, nom...

Otherwise, the boxes are gradually getting unpacked, work is crazy (but will settle down after tomorrow), Esme has been not very well but is getting much better, Foley is a cute little Terror, Anthony is grumpy cos I keep coughing all night (stupid winter colds) but looks very nice in a tux...


...and I'm getting bookshelves for my birthday.

Have a truly lovely Christmas folks, I'm not going to promise to post more in the New Year, let's just see what happens.

xxx

This day...

...two years ago was crap.

This day last year was pretty cool.

This day this year was bloody brilliant.

Firstly my Anthony's visor finally arrived (it got lost in the post and bounced back to Monaco)



Then a bit later on Jane came up to me and said "A lady's just walked in who looks exactly like Michaela Strachan, but it can't be her, can it?"

But it was.

And she was lovely.

And we all ended up so totally giggly and star-struck that it's almost unimaginable. (we nearly had to send Richie-Fingers upstairs to have a little lie down).

Then when it was time to go home my very lovely man came and picked me up so I didn't have to walk the mean streets of Wolverhampton with his precious visor.

At home there was a large parcel under the doormat that turned out to be my prize from Lovely Caroline. I won a signed limited edition copy of The Equivoque Principle by Darren Craske that I am really really looking forward to reading.

So today was a very very good day and I enjoyed myself very very much.

Thank you universe for lovely friends and lovely people and meeting childhood idols and discovering they're just as lovely as you thought they were.

(apologies for the overuse of the word lovely in this post. But it is lovely and I do love it)

Once again...

...Richie Fingers made me laugh today.

There I am reserving a copy of The Magical Adventures of the Wishing Chair for a customer and vaguely aware that there is a lady waiting behind him.

The lady waiting was holding a gorgeous bouquet of flowers.

Flowers for me.



Flowers with a card...



...and what did Richie say?

"Does your Anthony know that you're getting flowers from a bloke called Nelson?"

When I stopped going scarlet and gasping for air I explained a little.

Then Richie took over the book reservation for me, explaining to the customer "she just got flowers from a F1 driver, yeah."

There is a fundamental...

...difference between love and romance that often gets confused.

Romance is things like buying flowers/chocolates for your loved one, love is buying them Marmite when you loathe the stuff.


***

Romance is cooking them a nice meal or taking them out for dinner, love is regularly doing the washing-up because they hate it.


***

Romance is presents at unexpected times, love is completely unexpected presents at expected times.


(love is also cropping huge cheesy grins out of pictures)

***

Today I smiled all day, a big twinkly smile that became infectious. I smiled because of something I was given yesterday, a gesture of love laced with a hearty dose of romance.

But when I came home tonight and the kitchen was tidy and the litter tray had been changed - then I smiled with love love LOVE.

***

Here's to clean litter trays, to washing-up, to Marmite, to Michael Schumacher 7-star caps...

...and here's to a rather perfect symbol of romance and love.


(and to a cat that must be in every single photograph ever taken while sat at this desk)

As you all know...

...I'm a big fan of Twitter. (When used responsibly that is, anyone who just tweets rubbish at me will be blocked, k thanx bai).

Recently, as well as the collection of FakeF1 Drivers a few real ones have joined in the fun.

Nelson Piquet Jr joined back on the 5th of June and started quite a few people learning Portuguese (although he dual tweets in English too) and made a lot of people smile with his photographs.

Then Rubens Barrichello turned up on the 23rd of June (possibly converted by Nelson?) and also posted amusing photographs (especially this one).

Recently Nelson decided to give away a signed visor to one of his followers if he reached 20,000 followers before the German GP.

On Friday he hit that target and asked people to tweet him what they would do with the visor if they won it.

So I sent him a message that said:

@NelsonPiquet I'll give the visor to my fiance, in exchange for the engagement ring he's been promising me for the last 6 months. 6:46 PM Jul 3rd from TweetDeck

(Quite a few of my Twitter buddies loved it, but I didn't mention it to Anthony...)

The competition closed tonight, and then I got this tweet...

@Petronella won the visor! @pedrorq and @D_Broka, the other 2 prizes! about 2 hours ago from web

OH. MY. GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*ahem*

So I'm shaking like crazy and then Anthony wanders in.

Me "So guess what, I won @NelsonPiquet's visor!" Him "Brilliant!" Me "But you should see what won it for me" Him *reads screen* silence...! about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

(He still hasn't said anything, he's gone out for a smoke...) about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

He's come back in... about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

Him: "Well then. I guess we're going to the Jewellery Quarter tomorrow then?" Me: "If that's ok?" Him: "Silly girl, I love you!" about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

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

He's a happy bunny, I'm a happy bunny.

Life is good and Twitter rocks!

Twitter is suddenly...

...the in thing, which is a little bit scary for me since I first signed up to it back in March 2007. I never usually discover the cool things early on, I'm always late to the party.

I started tweeting again back in December when I was after a new thing to take my mind off other things. It certainly helped...

Tweetdeck is my interface of choice, if I ever get a phone I can tweet from then that might change but at the moment it works perfectly for me.

I have all sorts of people filtered off into groups...

There is the Perfect group, consisting of lovely lovely people like Caroline_S, Keris, emmaj1983, threeleggedcat, antoniajane and of course Miss EmLah.

There is my Groupie group which features stephenfry, neilhimself, bobbyllew and alandavies1 (he's a secret Leyton Orient supporter y'know), among others.

Other contacts are split into book/blog/F1/randomly interesting related groups.

Then I have a new group that I added just today.

This one makes me giggle.

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

Please put your hands together for the Fake F1 Drivers!!!

* fakejenson * FakeAlonso * fakefelipemassa * FakeKazNakajima * fakemarkwebber * FakeSebVettel * fakehamilton *

All bossed about by fakemaxmosley and all bitched about by fakejuanmontoya.

Now we just need a FakeKimi to turn up and it'll all be good. (Not that I expect a FakeKimi to turn up, we all know he's too busy drinking/sleeping/eating icecreams to Tweet).

Basically...Twitter rocks.

I really am...

...the luckiest girl in the world.

I had a really bad day at work today. We were short-staffed, every customer had an idiotic question that took ten minutes to answer/explain to them that we couldn't order them a book that went out of print in 1983. I also had to explain to three people that we didn't have any job vacancies and could they now please move along so that I can serve the queue behind them as I have no colleagues free to help.

Instead of my usual hour and 30 minute breaks, I had three 30 minute breaks. This did chop the day up amazingly well, but also meant that although I wasn't hungry on my first break, by my second and third ones I'd gone past hungry to feeling like death.

This meant that today was fuelled by chocolate and coke.

Then I came home.

I came home to my beautiful bunches of red roses and red tulips and my limited edition pack of Marmite containing a Paddington Bear.

I came home to a fridgeful of food, all the laundry put away and a load ready to start.

I came home to a house that won't have my man back in it until 2am Friday night (silly 5-1 shift), but he is here all the time in the things he does for me.

I am the luckiest girl in the whole wide world and that is why today has been a VERY GOOD DAY.

Lazy Sunday...

...Afternoon.

Well lazy entire weekend to be honest. But oh my goodness I NEEDED it!

Last week was one of those weeks where nothing is simple and every task takes 15 times longer than it was supposed to.

Anthony was back on the 5-1 shift for the first time in ages which meant that up until Thursday night I only got to see him at 3am when he came up to bed, and at 7am when I got up. The whole balance between wanting to see him and wanting an unbroken night of sleep made me rather ratty I must confess.

At work everything was very stop-start. By Friday I reduced my To-Do list to one thing - Rearrange the 3 for 2 tables. It took me all flipping day!

(and I didn't blog in the week because I didn't want it to turn into one big moan...oops!)

So, a Saturday with Anthony sleeping in (his night shift meant he got in at 8.30am) and me pottering about doing laundry and ptootling. Saturday evening spent sewing and watching CSI:NY while Anthony kicked ass on WoW.

Today I have been kicking ass on WoW (haven't played for ages) and got myself up to level 75. Anthony has been in charge of the TV remote and also prodded me into tidying up the bathroom and throwing out all sorts of bottles of stuff that were never gonna get used.

This weekend was very much needed. Now it's February and that's always a better month. Plus, it's only four weeks until I'm off to Center Parcs again for a week family holidayness.

Ohhh, and I'm managing to keep my list of books read in 2009 up to date - last week was a real slow reading week!

Champagne...

...this evening I think.



WAHHHHHHOOOOOOOOO!!!

*ahem*

I am a happy bunny.

Yesterday was supposed to be...

...Blue Monday.

(At least it was according to some strange formula which made the news full of it)

The most depressing day of the year.

It could very easily have been.

It was the day before my payday - which used to mean 19p toast for lunch (except that the Tesco Value sliced loaf has rocketed up to 40p since I last bought it) - but as we had thought ahead I had lovely galettes filled with cheese and ham instead.

The shop was very very quiet - which could have meant us all worrying about our jobs - but instead we wrote reviews, pulled returns and made suggestions for Richie Fingers' display of adult picture books (sick puppies, this kind of book, not that kind of book).

I got incredibly broody over an adorable little girl - which could have ruined my whole afternoon - but instead I thought that although I don't have that right now, I will in the future and so it's something to look forward to, like a holiday is.

Oh yeah, did I mention? I'M GOING TO MONZA!!!!!

*ahem*

Today is also going to be a very good day.

I have just slathered Marilyn all over my hair so that it currently smells gorgeous, and in 5 minutes it will look gorgeous too (once dried anyway).

I have two houses to go and view just up the road. I still want to move and even if they're no good I like looking at houses.

I plan to do some nesting things and some bookish things and with any luck Keris might have Joe while I'm at home to read the updates! (although not looking promising so far)

I've gone online to do all my banking and remembered that I don't have to pay any Council Tax this month! That makes me £71 richer than I thought I was. I'm going to be good too and not just go straight to Etsy with it...I shall pay off my book club instead.

And Nie is posting again.

Life is good.

It's been...

...a very nice weekend.

Yesterday we did a bit of reorganising, had a visit from Alf (and his mum) and then I fell asleep on the sofa after Leyton Orient lost again.

Today we went on our annual trip to Merry Hell as I needed some more shampoo from Lush (got some I Love Juicy and some Daddy-O this time).

Of course we couldn't go to Merry Hell without stopping at Hotel Chocolat too...

I am now rubbing my hands in glee over as I have yummy Creamed Caramel Chocolate Drops and also some very exotic (and not on the website) peach, lemon and blueberry truffles (6 of each flavour).

Nom, nom, nom.

*smile*

Did you all...

...have a nice Christmas?

I had a very nice Christmas Day, a not so nice Boxing Day (due to being at work serving idiots who can't wait ONE MORE DAY to go shopping) and then a very very nice birthday.

I have TWO new Leyton Orient shirts (a team shirt and a polo shirt) to wear plus some very scary boot-style slippers that my mother sent me and assorted other lovely things. These include a very very posh handbag from my darling sister who is trying so hard to make me elegant and grown-up. Pictures of this will follow, because it's just too damn gorgeous not to share!

We also appear to have a breeding population of Terry's Chocolate Oranges since everywhere you turn there's another one!

This may conflict slightly with my goal reaching on my lovely shiny Wii Fit that I got for my birthday. Chocolate Oranges are not exactly healthy food after all.

Today is a day for chilling out even more, especially since Anthony is fighting off the lurgy. He's doing this by shooting people on his XBox (not a 360, he wouldn't let me get him one) while I work on my birthday playlist.

Very unimpressed that "Leyton" pops up on the spellchecker!

Fifteen...

...happy things for the 15th of December.

1. The squeaky noises that Foley makes when I get home. (Sounds like Broccoli Kitten).
2. Having a beer when I get home.
3. The smell of the pink lillies sent by Anthony's workmates.
4. The super-duper graphics card I got as a surprise early Christmas present yesterday.
5. The "care package" arriving for me at work sometime this week (containing Christmas presents sent all the way from deepest darkest Essex).
6. My sister moving into her lovely flat in Colchester and therefore no longer having to drive up and down the A12 every day.
7. Kettle Chips - like crisps tasted when I was little.
8. The Christmas edition of the Radio Times.
9. Hearing a good Christmas song I'd forgotten about (few and far between).
10. Having a clean and shiny kitchen after the broadband conked out yesterday and we got bored...
11. ...and having the broadband back this morning!
12. Anthony coming up with the idea to snuggle on the sofa under a soft red blanket while eating Ben & Jerry's (Phish Food for me, Caramel Chew Chew for him).
13. Looking through the new Waitrose wine list.
14. A big bowl full of Lindor chocs.
15. Buying broccoli for Foley...and watching Esme fight her for it.