this week

this week I've

• put up the fairy lights. I couldn't stand the gloom and grey any longer. by calling them fairy lights and not Christmas lights I can avoid the no decorations till after the birthdays rule. (which I made so I can break)
• driven a 70 mile round trip for an outpatient appointment which I think lasted 2 minutes and 37 seconds. teenage boy is now cleared to play sports but he hasn't told his teacher yet.....
• ordered pink striped bags for the sweet making extravaganza, to ensure some of the sweets get taken away.
• made felt robins for a friends craft stall and wished I'd kept one for myself.
• been bought chocolate by a very sweet friend
• bought tickets for the local youth theatre production and driven teenage boy to and from rehearsals.
• drunk a lot of tea
• not eaten any cake............... this really needs remedying.........
• finally put some stock into my woefully neglected folksy shop
• drunk a lot of tea. oops did I say that already.....

party planned - the girl party.

I ordered this book for Miss K's party. My hope is that this is going to be secret weapon in entertaining the sixteen year old girls.

sweet sixteen!

think peppermint creams, coconut ice, chocolate fudge, honeycomb and caramel popcorn.

I have a few weeks to go through the recipes, and to calculate the ridiculous amounts of icing sugar I need to buy.

In case that won't be enough sugar there's a plan for a DIY ice cream sundae feast.

Think tall glasses, ice cream, whipped cream, hot fudge sauce, fresh fruit, grated chocolate, and the cutest ever striped straws you ever did see.

and cake. there'll be cake too. and because I'm not completely mad something with vegetables in......

now to plan the boy party.....

thanks for all the sympathy about the conjunctivitis, it's much better now thank you. 
tea is the cure. really it is. you can drink it, and bathe your eyes in it. 

who knew. tea really is magic.

friday random

this week.

amount of cake eaten at gluten free food fair/cake hunt - too much....
amount of hours that both children have been well this week - too few....
amount of pain it is possible to be in when you have conjunctivitis - too much....
amount of times someone can say to you "oh my, your eyes are red" - too many...
number of photos I've taken this week that I could put on this post to make it pretty/interesting/less dull - none....
number of times I've tried to think of something to post about and failed - several...
number of children's birthday parties I am trying to organize - two...
number of ideas for birthday parties - one...

I am going in search of inspiration, motivation and energy.

I may be some time.

if you think I am taking too long please send a search party.

and maybe one of those dogs with a barrel of whisky around it's neck.

seeing stars part 2

this week I have stolen a few moments to play with stars.

the more there are, the happier they make me.

other things coming up this weekend to make me happy; taking the stars to show a friend and going on a cake hunt.  I like cake hunts. They're less dangerous than bear hunts.

hope your weekend is lovely, and that you find cake too. x

lest we forget

To remember the past is to commit ourselves to the future.
To remember war is to commit ourselves to peace.
To remember violence and tyranny is to commit ourselves to love.
Let us promise to strive for peace in our world starting in our hearts and in our homes.
Let us promise to build peace into our community, our neighbourhoods, our county and our world.

an unexpected absence.

I took E to the doctors as he was complaining of stomach pain. Not long later we were at the Great North Children's Hospital 35 miles away. The doctor suggested that they'd probably keep him for observation for a few hours, so we went home to collect his dad, I grabbed him a bag with a teddy, book and pj's, told Miss K that hopefully we wouldn't be long, and off we went. 

and came home 4 days later.

E came home without his appendix.

I learnt a lot in this time. I learnt that if you say you are in pain then you get poked a lot which makes the pain worse. I have a new found respect for the kindness and patience of nurses. I learnt that you can cheer up a teenager quite a lot by taking ridiculous pictures of floppy playing with all the hospital equipment. This is the teenager that didn't fit in the bed on the children's ward, and the nurses extended the end and stuffed the gap with pillows so his feet didn't trail over the edge. I learnt  that if you have a room with an internal window it NEVER gets dark, so at 2.30am when you can't sleep you have enough light to read without turning on any lights.......I learnt which beeping machines you can ignore, and which you can't - morphine pump alarm when patient frantically tries to get more doses than he's allowed. I learnt that anti sickness drugs are essential after a general anaesthetic and morphine, and that the ward had a never ending supply of clean bedding, which we needed, several times.... Also that the combination of morphine and anti sickness drugs can cause hallucinations.

J came back and forth to the hospital in between going to work and looking after Miss K, and I slept on a fold out bed in the corner of the room. We watched a Lot of superhero films, and all of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, sometimes in the middle of the night with the sound turned down very very low. Also some truly dreadful daytime quiz shows. I may never turn the tv on in the day again. We watched people coming in and out of the lifts and if you looked down out of the window you could watch the people in the queue at the coffee shop. I spent a long time looking out at the people, the extremely frail old lady pushing her handbag in a wheelchair was the highlight I think.

I was extremely grateful for messages and support, and the kindness we were shown. E is recovering slowly and very happy to be back home. He is not at all sad that he missed going back to school after half term. He is also very happy that he still can't have a bath or shower and doesn't have to do games at school for weeks and weeks and weeks. Oh and he got bought lego as a treat. and sweets.

I am appreciating being and at home, drinking tea made in a teapot, and pondering why on earth when I realised that E would need overnight things did I never at any point think that I might need anything....

I hope you all have very quiet and uneventful weekends. That is definitely what I am hoping for.