Honestly, when it came to writing this post yesterday (I’m posting it today because I ran out of steam last night) I reeeaaallly didn’t feel like it; being happy for people I don’t know about things that mean a lot to me: it just seemed a little too much to ask. We’ve been suffering from the attack of even more germs this past week and just as the air was clearing,yesterday happened. It was ‘one of those days’ but on an epic scale. It began with the new carpet being fitted in the hallway, stairs and landing. YIPEE! I had been looking forward to this for months and working very hard to reach this point. But when the fitter unrolled it I was a little shocked; was this really what I had ordered? He checked, it was. Um. Ok, carry on…? I had another look half way though. No, not sure about this now. Worrying begins, heart beats a little stronger, and I put on my positive voice to convince myself its all ok.
Once the job is done
and the man has gone (he was soooo nice about it, but even he couldn’t come up
with anything more reassuring than ‘…but it’s really hardwearing’), I am left
alone with the carpet, face to face, and its horrible. It looks like a tweed
jacket threw up all over my staircase. Crap. What do I do? What would you do? I
rang my mother, she’s brilliant at a time like this, she wont feed you any old
crap to try and make you feel better, she’ll just listen and be with you in it.
Her advice was to eat cake, so that was my next move.
Little H and I enjoyed
warm croissants and coffee (He had a hot chocolate), and I felt much better by
having him share my grief. I was amazed at how sympathetic he was and how
emotionally intelligent he seemed. I explained to him that I was a little upset
about the ugly carpet, but before I could even finish he said ‘I know mummy…..I
know…’ and just left it at that. It felt nice….until the hot chocolate was
thrown all over the wall and soaking itself into the crevices of the wallpaper.
Oh. Great.
Could it get worse?
Yes it could, but thankfully not too much worse, only extracting a piece of
pizza out of one of Little H’s nostrils during dinner! I have only recently had
to get a raisin out of there, and I thought he’d learnt his lesson but clearly
not. Tweezers are my secret weapon.
To top it off, Little
A then did a poo in the bath. Once he realised that I’d seen he dived down into
it as an attempt to get away from me (duh?) and just made the whole thing
worse.
All of this on the
night that Hubby wouldn’t be home until very late.
HOWEVER, having said
all of that (sorry, wallowing over) as I sat down to upload the photos on my
camera and see what we have been up to that we might share some with you, I
found many things that reminded me why I really ought to be happy. And here
they are…
Jamie Oliver Magazine;
oh boy, I do love good food and when this little number arrived on my door mat
I couldn’t wait to dive in and begin my Christmas meal planning. This year I
even have my Nan on board to work together on an epic Christmas dessert….YES!!!
I’ll try and remember to take a picture, but it will be hard as it won’t take
long to be devoured!
We began decorating by
pimping the cactus in the kitchen; easy and instantly satisfying!
We baked dinosaur
biscuits; a bit of a double whammy because not only were we using dino cutters
but I had recently discovered that Morrisons sell dinosaur shaped sprinkles for
cakes….WOW! Things like this make me really glad that I have boys!
We cut paper
snowflakes; Little H REALLY enjoyed this, but the only ones that I had to photograph
were my own as he enjoyed the cutting process so much he reduced his to
confetti.
We have a growing
collection of nativity themed decorations made by Little H (with a lot of help
from various other people!).
We put our tree up and
decorated the dresser. This felt super good!
I enjoyed a few quiet
moments writing Christmas cards to people that I really love and some that I
really miss. This had been one of my favourite parts of Christmas this year; I
am blessed with some lovely friends and enjoyed taking time to think about them
as I sent them Christmas messages.
We filled some plastic
baubles to decorate the kitchen. This was an interesting process as Little H
wanted to fill them, and empty them, and fill them etc. but we got there in the
end.
My personal favourite
is the melted snowman (which of course was made by me so no wonder it’s my
favourite!).
I received the best
gift ever: a box of home baked goodies. I truly love getting things like this,
it means so much to know that someone has spent time creating something for me. Its so much better than just
spending money on something for the sake of it, its all about the thought for
me at Christmas.
We made some Christmas
cards, well, we tried. Little H was far more interested in using the ribbon to
disguise Buzz Lightyear; can you see him?
And, amazingly, I got to go and have lunch all on my own (yep, no children!!) in our local bus cafe. It was sooo peaceful and the light was so beautiful, I thoroughly enjoyed over an hour by myself reading my book and sipping good hot coffee.
So, after all that I’m
not too sad about the carpet. It’s just a carpet, a really ugly one, but still
just a carpet!
Have you been up to
anything exciting on the lead up to Christmas? Have you had any days like mine?
If you have, or even if you haven’t, I strongly recommend taking time to count
up all of the good things you’ve got going on and I guarantee you’ll feel
better.....
....only Five More Sleeps
Merry Christmas
everyone!
Hayley
xx
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