Life Update: A Wedding and A Bad Back

Big fat fail on the blogging front so far in 2011!! I'm so annoyed!

In my defence I've had the dreaded lurgy which lasted for two weeks and left me sounding like Mutley with a tres annoying barking cough, and then I put my back out on Sunday.

"How did you do that?" I hear you ask..... well it pains me (ha!) to admit that I fell out of bed. Which would be embarrassing enough in itself, but I was actually dreaming of being at the Zoo. It was one of those vivid dreams that makes you feel really involved and emotional. The Zoo then flooded and I was trying to rescue the animals... a split second later I was on the floor and the "elephant" that I was clinging onto actually turned out to be the bedsheets! I have to admit that it is quite funny.

The verdict is that I've torn the ligaments in my lower back (from trying to hold onto the elephant I expect!) and my gosh it hurts. My GP wanted to sign me off work for a week so that I can rest it, but I honestly can't afford to lose a week's pay this soon after Christmas so I've been dosing myself up with tablets and going into the office - on the condition that I sit at my desk and stay there!

I know that I must be mad going into work feeling like this. My long-suffering colleagues deserve a gold star this week too!

In between the Mutley illness and the Bad Back I went to my good friend Jenny's wedding. My best friend Louise and her hubby came over from Germany for the occassion and so the old gang of us were all together again. The whole day was wonderful from start to finish and I was honoured to have been asked by Jen and Adrian to read a beautiful text during the ceremony. I almost started crying after making the mistake of catching Jen's eye but took a deep breath and got to the end... aaaand I didn't trip over my floor-length dress! I was very proud of myself :)

Jen and Ade had the fantastic idea of planning some games inbetween Afternoon Tea and traditional speeches etc, and the "evening" part of the day. Afternoon Tea was amazing btw. Home-made cakes, cupcakes, jam tarts and scones sitting on shabby-chic cakestands with little pots of various home-made jam, and beautiful tea and coffee pots dotted along the tables... I was in heaven!

The children had a little games room just off the main reception room so they were happy (although it wasn't long before they discovered the balloons. One of my worst fears is a child plus balloon!) and we had a wine tasting game followed by a charity quiz.

Our team won the quiz!!! Jen and Ade kindly donated £50.00 towards a charity of the winning team's choice, and we chose the Cystic Fibrosis Unit at Papworth Hospital in memory of my cousin Mike. Another wedding guest donated another £25.00 which was an unexpected and wonderful gesture. I was quite emotional at that point. I'm so pleased that the unit at Papworth will benefit from their generosity.

This is what I wore:

from asos

Don't you just love it when you go back in to look and it's in the bloody sale?!

I haven't included a photo of myself wearing it because I don't have any photos of myself that don't include other people, and I didn't want to upload wedding photos without asking Jen and Adrian first - hopefully I'll edit this later or create a separate post and show you some pictures!

Am I rambling? Yes. As usual a massive post! Is this even making any sense? It really is the tablets :(

xx

MIA for so long! A little (rambling) update...

Hello my dears! I'm so sorry I've been MIA for a while, I've been busy, busy, busy with work and life in general and just haven't had the time to blog myself or catch up with everyone else's... I've really missed you all :(

The main reason for my absence is because I've started swimming again. I used to swim a LOT because it's fab for my CP (cerebral palsy), which can make my lower leg muscles really painful and tense, especially if I am stressed or tired - it basically feels like permanent cramp, which sucks! When I was struck down (!) with depression last year, I lost ALL of my confidence and stopped socialising, my physio, swimming... and even had problems looking in the mirror at myself. I won't bore you with all of the details now, however a few of my older posts address that time in my life if you're at all interested :)

I'm slowly making good progress (yay!!) with the help of counselling and fantastic support from family and friends, and started swimming again about 4 weeks ago. I'm so proud of myself as this was a huge thing for me to do - not the swimming itself - but to put myself in a situation where people can see my legs, and lets face it it's scary enough for all of us girls to put on a swimming cossie!! I'm also annoyed at myself for giving up on it in the first place when it's so important to keep active, so am trying to win myself some brownie points back ;)

I swim with my Aunty Sue, who is sooo funny, I love her. She keeps me motivated too which is what I need. She's nearly drowned me through laughing at least six times!! We both love swimming and managed 60 lengths on Thursday evening (when we started we could barely swim 20) ... I REALLY ache and feel pretty exhausted for a couple of days afterwards but already feel that my balance and general fitness has improved :)

I'm going to start my hydrotherapy programme again in the next couple of weeks too, which will help to build up my core stability etc again. The plan is to swim once a week and do my hydro on the other pool visit - Aunty Sue is keen to give it a go too... go Aunty Sue!!!

I've also started socialising again with my lovely friends... not as much as I used to because I still feel pretty anxious about it, but baby steps and all that... it's been great to get myself glammed up for a night out on the tiles and feel like the old me.

So although I only swim on two weeknights per week, the rest of the time has been swallowed up by domestic drudgery, seeing friends and family etc etc, but as I said I've missed the whole Blogger community so I'm going to try harder to blog/comment etc.

Thanks for sticking with me, I really, really appreciate you all following/reading my musings. Big hugs :) xxxx

Nostalgic for NYC...

Wow, 3 posts in one day!!

Two years ago today, my friend Lisa and I flew to New York for a week. I've been longing to go again from the minute we arrived back in the UK. In fact I actually cried on the way to JFK Airport on the way back, how tragic is that?!

I can still remember it like yesterday. When we arrived at our hotel we dumped our cases because we  needed food, fast. Did we do the sensible thing and mooch around the neighbourhood for somewhere nice to eat? No. We thought like overexcited tourists. Hungry? WE'RE IN NEW YORK!!!! Lets go to Times Square!!

Looking back it was crazyness, honestly. But we had been awake for almost 48 hours by this point, and you know, logical thinking left the building. Times Square seemed like the place to go, to validate where we actually were, after all of the YEARS of wishing and all the months of waiting.

This photo was taken on 08/11/07 when we saw Times Square for the first time. We literally stopped at the top of the Subway steps and stood staring open mouthed while everybody bustled past us. We were rooted to the spot for at least two minutes, no joke. (OMG the Subway!! Our first time was rush hour and we were totally freaked out. We came to LOVE the Subway)

And this is the video that Lisa shot next to me while we stood: It won't mean anything to you guys, but to me, it was one of those spine tingling moments that I'll never forget - you'll need to pause my music player to hear the authentic sounds of NYC :)

Birthday countdown has begun!!

Hello my dears! I hope everyone is well?

I cannot believe that Birthday Time is almost upon me again - it's frightening how quickly this last year has passed. The fact that I'm going to be 32 is beyond scary :|

Now that I'm getting older I find myself re-assessing my life and everything in it and to be honest it scares me a little as I never feel as if I have achieved anything from one year to the next.

My mood wasn't lifted by my Dad's partner, who thought it helpful to state "oh, you won't be having children will you, now that you're going to be 32" I replied that I had plenty of time yet but she just laughed and told me that she doubted it as I am still single. It's no secret that she hates me so I took it with a pinch of salt, but still, thanks a bunch.

Anyway, for some reason I haven't given much thought to my birthday this year - maybe because I usually go away. Well I say "usually" but to be honest it's only been the last couple of birthdays that I've jetted off somewhere. Last year I was staying with my best friend Lisa, who emigrated to Malta earlier in 2008, and for my 30th in 2007 Lisa and I were in my beloved New York (oh, how I miss that city).

I know that I'm going out for a belated meal next weekend with my Mum, Step-Dad and sister but I haven't even made any concrete plans with friends this year... how sad is that?! I'm sure that we will end up celebrating somehow though...!

Today my lovely Dad and his partner came over to see me and bring some presents. My Dad lives about an hour away and sadly I won't see him on Tuesday.

On their way to my house, Dad and his partner stopped off to browse at a car boot sale, and Dad found this and thought of me - and it only cost 20p!! I LOVE Ant and Dec, so am very pleased! It isn't a birthday present, but co-incidentally I did ask Dad for their new autobiography, Ooh What A Lovely Pair!

The three presents at the back are from Dad and his partner (I'm being polite. To be honest, I know that they are just from Dad really), and the little one at the front is from two of Dad's friends. And I have a few cards already! My Grandma always sends mine early so it's sure to get to me on time - she's adorable. I miss her awfully and wish that she didn't live so far away.

I was only expecting one present from Dad, so I was really touched when he gave me the bag containing the others too. I am under strict orders not to open them until Tuesday :)

And if that wasn't enough, he also gave me this:

What an absolute darling my Dad is! He even thought to include a pink candle... I nearly melted! I adore anything with toffee / fudge so this is beyond perfect! Excuse the pun but it really was the icing on the cake :)

Oh, before I forget, I was heating up a lazy ready-made curry last night, and this REALLY made me laugh:

                                     

"Please cut open to serve"???? Oh please. This is insanity. What on earth do they think people are going to do, just sit and LOOK at it???

Have a good week everyone xx

The Spending Fairy has attacked me...

Wow, I haven't updated for ages... I hope that you are all well?

I thought it was time for a new background in honour of October - what do you think? I think it's really cute :)

I haven't had as much time as I'd like to blog as I have been busy at work and the weekends have been manic lately too, no rest for the wicked as they say!

I have been a very naughty girl though - I have spent a horrendous amount of money just lately. Well, not a MASSIVE amount, but an awful lot for me as I am usually quite frugal when it comes to spending money and treating myself, especially at this time of the year with Christmas approaching. Anyways, as usual Jo is talking far too much ;)

My lovely friend Gemma came over last Sunday to give me a pampering sesh (basically to force me to sit in front of a mirror and glam myself up!), and she brought her holy grail ghd straightners with her. (I'll really have to do a post on my friends. They are the best ever, especially Gem as we have SO much in common but I love them all loads!)

I have never owned straighteners costing over £25 and I have to admit I was absolutely blown away by the ghd's. They made my hair so soft, shiny and sleek that I couldn't stop touching it... and yes, I couldn't stop looking at it in the mirror! They made my old straighteners seem completely shoddy because they kind of snag on my hair... I just didn't realise how bad they were until I tried the ghd's :S

I did something totally out of character for me. I made the decision there and then to BUY SOME GHD's!! And I didn't just buy the regular ghd's... oh no. I bought the 2009 Limited Edition "Pretty In Pink" baby pink mk IV set! (They're BABY PINK, need I explain further?!) And with some cunning online homework consisting of joining Quidco, scouring price comparison sites and using a voucher code, Gem and I managed to get them for less than the regular mk IV's. RESULT!!!! I got them on Wednesday and they are fabulous! Gem justifies hers as an investment, and it sounds good to me too ;)The box is the cutest thing too, I'll have to post a pic!

I am totally useless and cackhanded when it comes to doing my own hair but even I managed to curl my hair with them on the first try... needs a LOT more practice before I'd leave the house avec curls, but it wasn't half bad! So that was the first purchase.

The second was a mobile phone upgrade as my BlackBerry has been temperemental for months - the phone book keeps freezing so I can't add or view numbers, and I have real problems sending/receiving text messages. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. All very frustrating! Added to that, my contract expired at the beginning of September and I completely forgot that this meant that I'd lose all of the contract allowances (durrrr). I was paying £25 per month for 600 minutes, 500 texts and unlimited web/email. Imagine my surprise at the end of September when the monthly bill was £84!!!! I nearly died. Apparently it's classed as a business phone and so is very expensive to use without any perks. So an upgrade has been very necessary!

I've had my eye on the new iPhone 3GS for ages, partly because I've been used to the email/web benefits on the BlackBerry, and partly because I think the iPhone looks pretty darn cool :D it has been out of stock with O2 for agesssss and in the end I decided to go with the Sony Ericsson W995. I went online to upgrade on Friday evening and made a last check on iPhone stock just in case - it must have been fate because they were back in stock!! So I ordered the 16gb in white :) it cost me £87.11... gulp :O which was the cheapest I could get it for without forking out a phenomenally stupid monthly amount but hopefully it'll be worth it!

So THIS IS IT with spending on myself now!! Anything else will have to wait because Christmas shopping beckons - can you believe it's almost that time of year again?!?!?! Where HAS this year gone??

I'm putting off going to bed (can you tell) as I'm not looking forward to tomorrow morning. I have to go to the dentist have an old filling replaced :( I haven't had to have anything done for a few years so I was pretty disappointed.

I hate going to the dentist. I get really anxious. I have to keep one foot on the floor when I'm in the chair as well as it stops me freaking out completely. I hate the thought of being submissive to the dentist and not being able to escape (not that I would, what with having a mouthful of tools etc, but it helps at the time! Lol!)

I can't tell that the filling needs doing as it's still intact and the tooth doesn't hurt or anything... the thing with dentists is that unless we are in agony with toothache and KNOW that something is wrong, we have to trust them when they say something needs doing!! Does anybody else think that or is it just me?!

xx