Memories, miles and millions of boxes

After a long period of wondering and waiting things are starting to happen at the Peapod Patch. We've finally got a buyer for our house - hurrah! Things are not done and dusted till we sign on that dotted line, but (dare I say it*) things are looking promising and it looks like we will be on the move. Once we have got ourselves into rented accomodation we can then be much more flexible about re-locating further north, once the right career move comes along of course.

*I'm working against my natural pessimism by actually stating in the open that we have a buyer for this place!

Unfortunately, things are not looking quite so rosy on the jobs front with another turn down this last week. Oh well - everyone says keep at it and the right one will turn up eventually. I sure do hope so. The process of applying for jobs, doing all the thinking and preparation and then driving miles and miles to be interviewed is completely draining ... especially when you don't get the job after all that effort :)

The up side of the long journey to attend the job interview was a lovely few days spent with my Mum. One evening we fished out a box of family photos and trawled through them ... ah the memories. Not to mention the terrible fashions and the even more terrible haircuts! Makes me very determined not to do home cut hair for my little monster. I will have to dust off the scanner when I get chance and share a few of the best ones :)

So that is the miles and the memories covered. Just the millions of boxes to tell you about. The prospect of moving sends the better half into a frenzy of happy packing madness - he just loves boxing up and he has to be physically restrained from boxing up all the essentials far too soon. We are heading out on daily scavenging missions to acquire cardboard boxes ... bins, skips, back of shops ... beg, borrow, steal - you name it we'll be there jamming them into the car. My late Dad who was king at the art of 'acquiring' would be proud! The house is disappearing under piles of brown flat pack and acquiring that strange smell that only cardboard can provide ... lovely!



The haul from today!

Toodle pip
J
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I seem to have misplaced my mojo

Crumbs, it has been a while. I seem to have lost my mojo. Not just my blogging mojo either, life in general seems to have got really hard recently. Nothing bad has happened, and when I look at it I have nothing at all to complain about and a hell of a lot to be thankful for, so I feel really shallow wallowing like this. It just seems like everything is getting me down at the moment and all I want to do is curl up and sleep for a very long time.

Time to find some new energy and turn over a new leaf. Here is my plan of action:

Work stresses. I need to stop working extra hours for no extra money and acknowledge that when I have a 16 hours per week contract, then all that work get out of me is 16 hours worth of effort. Plus, I need to double up the effort to look out a new job. I've actually already done this and I submitted two job applications just yesterday.

Family stresses. Once we all get over our sickies and stop feeling sorry for ourselves (we've had a family cold doing the rounds for the last 10 days now and him indoors has a bad back again) then me and the skinny one need to up the effort to spend more quality time together. We are going to ask for some help from the rellies and try having the odd night out/afternoon off from the little man. We adore our little family unit of three but we're getting very insular of late and we have starting being very very crabby with one another. Case in point one night this week where I just about wanted to wallop him (hard) for the way he was breathing. Unreasonable ... moi?

Health stresses. Now I am no longer breastfeeding (sniff) my waistline seems to have ballooned instantly, and just when I thought I'd got away with not piling on stones after having a baby, my metabolism goes into hibernation while my appetite still rages on expecting those extra 500 calories per day, preferably in the form of saturated fat. So I'm going to have to stop making trips to lovely cafes for tea and cakes just to pass the time and get me through the day and start exercising more. I need to do this to be around to see my little lad grow up and offer him the energy he deserves. Sounds heavy but I really need a kick up the proverbial for this one.

House stresses. We need to get our house sold to allow us the flexibility and financial release to relocate should the new job situation go my way. We've been on the market for almost 12 months now and have had 30 plus viewings but still na da. Not much we can do here really given the current financial woes ... want to buy a pretty Welsh cottage anyone? Any reasonable offer condsidered. But in the mean time I must commit to keeping on top of the housework and invest some time in doing those little DIY/tidying jobs that would make the place look even more presentable. Plus, I think renewed energy going into the veggie plot and garden would be no bad thing. Knowing our luck we might just be here to harvest all those veggies in a few months time!

Money worries. These are just irrational and silly as we are actually doing alright money-wise at the moment. So, I just need to stop stressing about this one. In fact one of my resolutions ought to be a positive one to go out shopping and treat myself more often to some lovely things...not the edible stuff obviously. See point above!

Craft Overwhelm-i-ness . I need to review my list of things to make, prioritise them and spend some time actually enjoying making stuff again. I often think my making habit is a bit of an emotional barometer ... if it starts feeling like a chore to pick up the knitting or sewing then I'm heading towards a bad place emotionally. I think if I can get some stuff finished before starting anything else new then I'll get that sense of accomplishment I probably desperately need at the moment.

There that feels better. Ah, the power of the confessional blog post that virtually no one reads. I feel more positive having blurted this lot out and for having seen in black and white that I do actually have plans to address some of the stuff that has had me lurking in the doldrums these last few weeks.

Oh, and my final resolution to self must be to get back into doing this blogging lark. It might help if I learnt how to take a decent photo, looking back at some of my posts my photos are gawd awful!

Toodle pip
J
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Pasg Hapus!

Which means Happy Easter in Welsh!

I suspect we might have a few smeared happy faces this week ... little man has had his first tastes of choc choc.



Where's my Easter egg?

It has been a while since my last post and we have been busy bees here at the patch. Another trip up North was completed to see my family (which should have felt like a holiday but didn't as it was so tiring!), work has been a bit bonkers for me and to cap it all we've been sleep training the little man. The bags under my eyes are not a pretty sight!

Being away from home meant I was t'internet-less for the best part of a week and I got back to literally a gazillion blog posts to catch up on ... I hadn't quite realised how many I now follow. Have I mentioned that I'm totally obsessed with reading blogs these days! Most of them make my own efforts look rather pitiful and I'm often green with envy having had a little peek into these people's lives, homes and craft creations. Him indoors keeps threatening to ban me as he says it makes me seem very dissatisfied with my lot in life ... can I help it if I was meant to be more rich and talented than I actually am?

I think some general blog improvement is required round here. Having started out this thing as more of a personal record of stuff that goes on in my life, I now feel the urge to become more part of the community out there - it looks like a lovely friendly place to be. Any tips from fellow bloggers most welcome!

Toodle pip
J
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And the moral of the story is...

Never leave the house without your handbag! I popped out to fetch Dave from work this evening, a twenty minute round trip that I do one way or another on most days. I literally just scooped up baby and grabbed the car keys on my way out - as I normally do. Sometimes I do the run still in my slippers, not tonight - thank gawd!

20 minutes later and I'm sat in the supermarket car park just up the road from the Uni with a very poorly car :( A giant pop was heard while negotiating a dastardly speed bump, followed by grinding noises from beneath the beast and bits of car related debris scattered in the road - arghghghgh!

But without my handbag I didn't have my breakdown details on me, I didn't know the postcode of my location to tell the breakdown people where I was (lots of spelling of welsh road names required), and I didn't have identity on me to prove who I was when the recovery man eventually turned up - no boy scout award for me this evening, 'be prepared' ?? erm what!?

Thankfully Dave had his mobile on him so I was able to 'straight through' 118 118 and get the number for the AA to request a rescue. Simple enough you would think? Oh, no. My car insurance that I bought from the AA in December came with free breakdown cover - but the muppets couldn't find any of my details on their system (breakdown and insurance are two different sections who clearly don't communicate with one another). They wanted to charge me £120 just to come and take a look. What? No way hosay. By this time R was wailing, he was hungry and tired and wondered why his Mummy was getting all cross in the middle of a strange car park instead of taking him home to bed. A quick breast feed to shut the munchkin up and then onto plan B - ring the RAC. I knew there was a good reason I 'forgot' to cancel my old breakdown cover from my previous car! So finally we had someone willing to consider coming out and rescue us, just the usual hour and half wait to sit through - by this time we'd called in Dave's Dad to come and rescue the little man and get him home to bed.

So two and a half hours later I'm half frozen, starving and I apparently have a shattered coil on one of my front wheels which means the car had to be towed to the village garage to await what no doubt will be a hideously expensive repair.

Sigh. It has been quite an evening.

Toodle pip
J
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