Tired

I am tired, more than my usual low level tiredness because I am a middle aged mummy, that I live with. This tiredness is bone deep, not quite at lie down and cry level but approaching it scarily fast.

Main reasons are kids, work, house and self in no particular order.

The children are fine but keeping them fine requires huge amounts of emotional input from me, I am weary of being an emotional cheerleader, my pom poms have wilted and my rah rahs are all rah rahed out. I know this will pass but I am being stretched mightily thin at present.

I am not the world's leading expert in my work field and I am pissed off at myself for not being so, I've been there for nearly 4 months now, what is wrong with me? I hate this feeling, I spent the last 10 years in childcare and schools and I was really, really comfortable there, I knew lots. I have moved back into the medical field that I left and I don't know everything. I am running to catch up, constantly researching/ reading/asking questions and I hate my lack of knowledge. There is so much to learn and I want to know it all right now. I want to feel that when I am training people I know my subject inside out and I don't yet. I can't begin to tell you how uncomfortable I am with this.

The house is, quite frankly, a tip. It hasn't been cleaned properly for weeks and I can't summon up the energy to tackle it. My recent attempts to redecorate the bedroom caused Hot Boy to remark that I had taken refugee chic to the next level. It is not pretty and as decisions still haven't been made, the end is still not in sight.

I am beginning to loathe the way I look. I haven't ever felt like this before, I used to be really comfortable in my own skin and now because of my weight I'm not. I am eating and drinking far too much, my running is almost non existent. I am bloated and puffy and I lack the impetus to change. I know how to fix this, I know I need to eat less and move around more, it is so incredibly simple but so incredibly difficult for me at present. It doesn't make the slightest bit of difference that the people who love me think I look beautiful, I don't feel it and I need to feel at ease with the woman who looks back at me from the mirror.

And I am not even going to begin on Scotland's 6 nations.

Thankfully February is nearly over, tomorrow is March and in my head the beginning of spring. I look forward to it.

My skill set.

There are very few useful skills in my set. I could list the stuff I'm crap at and it would keep the blog going for weeks, Hell, if you read regularly you'll know I am fairly ineffective at most things that don't include me laying on a sofa eating biscuits. Thankfully I am good at laying on a sofa eating biscuits. And procrastination, I am ace at procrastination.

A few months ago I broke my bed.

Probably because I lay around on the sofa and eat biscuits. A lot.

So I broke my bed and had to choose a new one. It's harder than choosing shoes. Or underwear, I am good at choosing and co-ordinating underwear. Bedroom decor not so much.

However after many, many months of procrastination I actually chose a bed. The bed is the wrong colour for the rest of the bedroom furniture. Even I know this is wrong, I now need to replace everything. Bugger.

I have lived in my house for 11 years now and have lived with the decor. Every house I have ever bought I have lived with the previous owners decor, I am piss poor at decorating. So I learned to adapt to what I had. I most probably needed to decorate several years ago but I procrastinated. Partly due to my can't be arsed gene but partly due to my complete inability to make decisions (very well blogged about.) One of the many things that I lack is artistic flair. I have none. It's a pity.

This house was the ex show house for this estate and came fully furnished and co-ordinated out the wazoo. It's not really to my taste, much too fancy but it was new and I am ace at procrastination. The only rooms I have touched have been painted Biscotti which I believe is magnolia in a fancy tin and priced up accordingly. So I live in an ex show house stuck in a late 1990's time warp. Pale yellow, green and blue everywhere. Laaverly.

On Thursday I chose the new bed and bedroom furniture. I feel smug for about 10 minutes, decision making, nae bother to yer auntie.

Now, on Sunday I am in flitters, I have 2 weeks before the furniture is delivered to get the rest of the room ready. I have looked at house porn on the telly, house porn on t'internet, house porn in magazines. I have been to show homes for inspiration. I really want to lay on the sofa and eat biscuits.

I decide on a feature wall, I select many wallpaper samples and pin them up, all the children, Hot Boy and even the window cleaner who's come to collect his money all like a different one. I like them all. I have full control over every last detail. I don't want it.

I try and find a wall colour that will tone in (is that the proper lingo?) with the wallpaper. I need a taup ey, grey ey, beige ey shade. It is the exact shade of the sky in the painting I was bought for Christmas. A Glasgow winter sky. Feck, it's hard. To match the wallpaper samples I have hanging up I now have several squares of none of them quite right taupey/greyey/beigey paint.

The bed canopy has gone along with most of the ceiling and the pelmets from both the windows are now blocking access to the wardrobes (which will also have to be changed from their 1990's white to a 2011 very dark acacia stain, I have not a baldy how to do that) When taking down the pelmets the curtain rail decided to follow and now it's being held up by a ribbon that says Merry Christmas.

I need to choose a new carpet, new curtains and material to cover the pelmets. I need a duvet and bed linen as I stupidly bought a bigger bed than I had before. I need a throw for the bottom of the bed and dress pillows and cushions. I need new bedside lamps and vases and candles and a whole heap of other stuff. I need gin.

I have 2 weeks to source, select, paint, carpet and curtain, I have no hope.

Some people do this for fun.

Facebook envy

My mate Bill is a very fine fellow, the most amusing of amusing people. He has the best social life and the most understanding wife in the world. He has it sussed. His facebook statuses never cease to make me howl.

My personal faves from Bill in the last week have included

finished the night in the Port O Leith, watching fist fights and Smurfs dancing on the bar. Best pub in Edinburgh by a country mile!

made it back from Paris intact, with Monkey Boy fit and well. Highlights included a beggar with a rabbit, a tramp doing a jobby on a roundabout and touching a famous penis in Pere Lachaise cemetary!

I so wish I was living in Edinburgh again, how much fun would it be to be out with Bill on a regular basis? This blog would be so much more entertaining - Hot Boy and Bill on a night out? Quality.

Where is a Debretts guide when you need one?

I am pondering what would be an appropriate engagement gift for my not yet divorced from me husband.

Suggestions in the comments please.

Precariously balanced

At the moment life chez auntiegwen is a teeny tiny bit tense. The exmrauntiegwen got engaged and told the children on Saturday. He told my son a few weeks ago which caused him to be stressed silly, my son told my elder daughter whom I feel is also stressed about it but Beautiful Baby Daughter was told yesterday on return from her school ski trip.

My poor little one was so shocked and upset, she was actually shaking and couldn't understand why she felt so cold, she has cried her little heart out. She can't articulate why she isn't happy about it, she just doesn't feel right about it.

The exmrauntiegwen has lived with her for the last 4 and a half years so I am only surprised it didn't happen sooner but the children have been massively upset by this.

So yesterday the children didn't go to stay with their dad as planned, my youngest daughter won't speak to her dad and spent most of the day crying on and off, my eldest went to stay at her boyfriends and my son went to a party and got very drunk.

I imagine there will be more to come. Thank you to Adventures in Reality for letting me steal this lovely photo to illustrate a less than lovely situation.

In which we inflict our weirdness on the world, part deux

It's February so I must spend vast sums of money so one of The Beautiful Children can go to Switzerland to pursue all things Alpine, it's the law. We dropped Beautiful Baby Daughter off at school for her ski trip and the rest of the Family Von Strange went to a local cafe for brunch. It's a tradition, we drop the chosen child off at the school, the other children get to eat pancakes, not quite the same but always a good second. I have written before about how weird we are en masse to the general public, to read about our trip to the dentist click HERE

This time we have Hot Boy with us. Hot Boy can make us look well adjusted.

We love this place, it's always really busy and has a great mix, students with hangovers, parents with toddlers, ladies who lunch and us.

There is no category for us.

We are doing quite well, we order, we chit chat, we are bothering no one.

We are having conversation that wouldn't scare people in the main. Then The Beautiful Son tells me that when TBS was walking down the hall after his shower, Hot Boy tried to lick TBS's nipple.

I try and gloss over this, it's not big and it's not clever but I don't want TBS to start yelling in his old man Scottish voice that Hot Boy is grooming him. It's a nice cafe, we come here a lot. I don't want to have to stop.

Then Hot Boy informs us he can lick his own nipple and before we can stop him, he pulls his man vest to one side and does indeedily lick his own nipple, just in case we had a problem believing it. The family who had him directly in view were more than a little startled. They did leave very quickly afterwards too.

The worrying thing is that my daughter, his beloved, didn't turn a hair. Not a bother on her. I suppose there is a comfort to be had that my son isn't the strangest boy in the world. Not enough to make up for having to avoid the lovely cafe for a good while. But some comfort.

More FaceBook Fun

This was something The Beautiful Son posted on his wall yesterday

I really can hate my sister sometimes. This parents is why you only have one child.
23 hours ago


2 people like this.


"Fair play to the boy", you might be saying or "Poor lad, he must have an awful time, living in the house of perpetual pre menstrual tension"

For the readers who don't actually know The Beautiful Children...

My son was the second born child.

Things I don't understand the 2011 remix

I read on my friends FaceBook that she was going to the Doctors to have her contraceptive implant taken out.

I wondered firstly why she felt the need to tell us all.

Then I wondered why she needed one.

She's gay.