The Madness in Me

A number of contributing factors conspired to bring on a clear out frenzy in me today...first I did battle with our garden, cutting the grass, weeding areas, and using the hoe to clear the grass verges from the paving slabs. Boy was that an exhausting task, like many people I want a spectularly beautiful and groomed garden but am a bit of a weekend monthly warrior and always underestimate how much hard work keeping a neat and tidy garden is.

Then, not content with that battle I went to war on various boxes of academic files. Boxes I might add that still haven't been unpacked from when we moved over two years ago. What can I say, it seemed like a good idea and I reasoned there was no time like the present. Apparently. I ruthlessly gutted lever arch folder and file after file, setting aside nostalgia and telling myself if you haven't used this stuff in the last three months and don't envision using it in the next three, it goes in the bin. Yes, including that card little A gave you on one of your placements during teacher training.

Why oh why am I torturing myself with a spring clean on the last day of a half term holiday?...I anticipate us moving anytime between now and January. Plus, I'm restless, pensive, sorting through things that refuse to reconcile themselves, and like I said, apparently this is as good a time as any to roll my sleeves up and waste a perfectly beautiful sunny day, which is probably going to be of the few hot days we're going to get, in the spare room with dust and the dead bodies of spiders. Brilliant!

Oh, the joy of having things on your mind that you can't process and deal with.

Wednesday Wonderings

It's been an absolute age since I posted one of these, so here are the things I've been philosophising about lately.

1) What happened to summer? It's pretty much rained for 7 weeks. Summer's on holiday apparently.

2) What purpose do slugs serve? To enrage you by eating everything you haven't yet killed.

3) Why do so many women pluck their eyebrows to virtual non-existence and then draw them back on? Too much time on their hands and access to a mirror, at a guess.

4) Where has my mojo gone? AWOL apparently. Check with summer, it might be with him.

5) What happened to my plan to start writing my novel over summer? It's probably in the same place as summer and your mojo.

6) Is is safe to admit that I am SO proud of myself for learning how to use a sewing machine? Not out loud nor in public.

7) Should I be alarmed that I'm sarcastically answering myself? Why start being alarmed now? You've always had this habit.

8) Why can't my neighbours communicate with their children at a decent volume? How else would they so thoughtfully keep you abreast of their latest drama?

9) Will L be offered a job in Dubai? Yes, if he gets his CV together and applies rather than just talking about it.

10) If life is short why do meetings, the last day of school and flights to holiday destinations take so long? Because old Father Time has a sense of humour and likes it to be at your expense.

11) When am I going to realise I'm not a Stepford wife? Knowing you, not any time or baked goods attempt soon.

12) Did my year 6 teacher really ball out a classmate for reading Enid Blighton Malory Towers with the criticism 'it's not real'? Yeah because during both my childhood and adult life I can't move for losing things to Borrowers, or opening my wardrobe door and inadvertedly finding myself in Narnia and boy is it annoying just how often I tumble down a rabbit hole whilst propped up against a tree.

Better the Devil You Know

As the new school year approaches and I go back to agency work I find I have a whole host of niggerling anxieties, like:

1) Will I be able to teach in a main stream environment?
2) Will I get regular enough work?
3) What if in my first temp role the sea of 30+ faces makes me panic?
4) What if all my behaviour strategies/management go out of the window and I can't control the class?
5) What if I have to drive on the motorway to get to one of my temp roles?
6) What if the school doesn't like me and they complain?

Right now I can safely say I have a deeper understanding of the saying 'better the devil you know' and why some are tempted to go with it.

Wednesday Wonderings

It's been a while since I entertained you with my random yet plausible musings, life has conspired against me to chain my thoughts to less whimsical meanderings.

Without further ado and better late than never, enjoy...

Are doctors only now realising that the effects of being bullied in childhood can and do reach into adulthood?...did they need to conduct an empirical study for that?!

Are you sure there isn't a manual for women...my birds of a feather 'friends' confuse the hell out of me and increasingly of late make me ashamed to be a woman.

When is spring going to get here?

Isn't it more a case of great expectations being great assumptions? Admittedly it doesn't sound as impressive but thinking about it the latter really is more applicable. From my point of view.

Is is possible to combust with the pressure of other people's expect...assumptions?

If you're the type of person who has this 'to do' list in life is there a chance of knowing peace and the pace slowing?

Why are some emotions thought of and perceived as negative when emotions are just emotions? I only ask because of something in a university lecture on Child Development.

Will L get promoted?

Where will we moving to?

When will we be moving?

Will I have to sofa surf for the last month of this course?

Why is hindsight so bittersweet?

Will L and I get to immigrate to the States?

Why can I ignore an unopened bag of sweets or anything which is bad for me but an opened one?...Forget it, those calories are mine!

Why is it when you are giving something all that you've got and some, does someone come along and act like they're disappointed in your effort and capable of so much more?

How do you stop putting people on pedestals and thus setting yourself up for disappointment?

Why am not surprised the chocolate Easter bunny my sister got me didn't last 24 hours in my company?

What's happened to story in my head to make it so flat/

Escapism

Riding home from a day on placement the other day I had this overwhelming need and urge to pour myself into the pages of a book and to lose myself amongst the text. I don't mean to just pick up a book and to catapult myself into it, I wanted to literally be someone else and somewhere else. I had this vision of my essence being poured from a jug out and in between the lines, my surroundings morphing into somewhere else and suddenly finding myself in another world, living someone else's reality in some make-believe world.

Unsurprisingly Alice in Wonderland made a whole lot more sense.

It's true I really miss reading for pleasure and I miss creative writing too, I'm just not sure that my desire to escape is only about recharging my batteries by hiding away in a book for a while.

Tiredness, nightmares and stress has a lot to answer to.

One Without the Other

I love the warmer weather that's hit us here in the UK.

It is fab-u-lous!

My windows are open (all day and night), the birds are singing, its light until nearly eight in the evening (not much to brag about yet but wait till Summer) and I've even got my legs out (definitely NOT something to brag about now - at present they look like two pints of skimmed milk BUT by the end of Summer they will look like two pints of Jersey Cream and that WILL BE something to brag about)  I think I love that the most.

What I don't love and can't stand are the chavs.

Puny, porcelain white, pigeon chested, scrawny young men strutting around the place like they are an Adonis.  Or - and this really makes me grit my teeth - driving around in suspension lowered cars, with a sound system worth more than the car blaring some awful noise that masquerades as music topless.  Classy boys.  Very classy.  Boy do us gals fancy you.

If only I could have one without the other.

Wednesday Wonderings

Hello again.  I've had another busy week since last posting...the in-laws flew in from the States so I've been playing host, plus had to do LOADS of cleaning, tidying, sprucing etc before they arrived, (they've been so entertaining I've had face ache from laughing!), L's about to go away for a few days, I've been trying to find something to wear to pudding's christening which is very soon, am back on the exercising wagon after I fell off it spectacularly....So just to reiterate I've been busy.

Not too busy to have moments where I go off on a tangent though and think about random things.  To cut to the chase here's what I've been musing on...

What I'm going to get my mum for Mother's Day?

If the dust and dirt fairy visits anyone else's house as often as she does mine?

Why people have to park on the grass outside their house when they could just as easily park their second car over their drive and not make the place look chavvy and trash the grass in the process?

If L knows how frustrating it is when he disagrees with just about EVERYTHING that I say?

Where the bin men are this morning?

Why all my underwear suddenly look like rags and like I've worn them to death?

What I'm going to do with myself during the four nights and days that I have to myself when L is away?  (stay up late and eat bad food I imagine just like I usually do)

Why for a person who has control issues I seem to wing a lot of things?

Why I have the concentration span and patience of a butterfly at the best of times?

My excellent memory - blessing or curse?

How I manage to pretty much go through 2 bottle of bleach a month?

Why I find it hilarious to watch a nature programme and make up conversations in funny accents for the animals?

What is wrong with cake, or chocolate for that matter, for breakfast?

If I'll ever get over my fear of heights? (probably a good job I'm only 5ft, can you imagine if I was 6ft?...I'd probably never stand up!)

What I've done to my bent thumb to make it swell and be very sore? (feel free to be sympathetic people L doesn't do sympathy as we all know)

And off the back of the one above why I wasted my time going to the Drs to be told exactly what I knew I'd be told?  Huh wonder if they went to the same 'listening school' as L?

Why I feel the need to allow people to place their own dirty dishes etc in the dishwasher only to go back out to the kitchen and rearrange them?

Why things in the house only decide to break when L goes away?

Where all that water came from that I found around my dishwasher and washing machine?

How L can manage to fall asleep at the drop of a hat and just about anywhere?

How the slugs from this time last year managed to get in the house?

Why the birds are avoiding the fat ball that I've put out for them?  Fat balls in my garden usually last about a day this one has been there for a week!