Blah blah blah

 So tired I don't know where to put myself. I'm going to bed early - every night is disrupted though. But I wake up every morning shattered. It's beginning to take it's toll and I feel like I'm acting the life I should have. Going through the motions as such.

But like Pollyanna, let's look on the bright side (I hate Pollyanna). We had our first weekend without loads on this weekend. By 'without loads on' I mean socially. 

On Friday we did see a friend, our friend that was widowed last year has had another death in their circle and it's hit them really hard. On Friday I got a call during day asking if he could take dog out as he wanted company. Broke my heart. So when he came back we invited him to spend the evening with us and got a takeaway in. All I really wanted to do was sleep, but there are times when your personal needs have to be set aside for friends. This was one of those times. I think we managed to cheer him up a bit, though you could see he was visibly upset. Heart breaking.

On Saturday I got up and went to butcher - walking dog as I went (that's the photo). It's very autumnal and rather lovely at the moment. I always love kicking my way through winter leaves. On way back home bumped into local lady with dog (you know how you make random friends with dog people). They'd just spent 2 hours in the woods trying to find their dog who had gone off rabbiting. Made me feel lucky that my dog was just lollaping along. She's still changing colour and I am interested to see what colour she ends up as (my dog that is, not the dog lady!).

Dog is beginning to look a bit more like a labradoodle and less like a Bedlington terrier, though I still get asked if she's a Bedlington every time I go out. I have to admit I'm not a Bedlington fan and so it's a bit like somebody asking why your baby is ugly! Though I'm now very in love with dog and so if she turns out to be a Bedlington - or to look like a Bedlington I can live with it. Not that I have much choice.....

I got back from walk and normally I proceed to do Saturday chores, washing ironing and cooking. But I was on my last legs already so just went to bed for a couple of hours to sleep. Whilst I was asleep husband and son went off to the football. It was lovely to wake to a quiet house. Though had to get the cooking done. I've done what I did last week and have pre-prepared food until Thursday. It's going to be great not to have to cook when I finish work - especially whilst I'm so shattered.

Sunday was basically horrible, for the first time in months we didn't have any socials. It's been absolute chaos because everybody wants to catch up because we didn't see each other for about a year and a half. But I'm on my knees because it means I haven't had a chance to sit down. I know some people are really social, but I find any social activity incredibly draining. I love my friends to pieces, but I think that I'd be better off being a hermit in a cave, with my best friend being a stick with a face drawn on it. At least I wouldn't offend sticky and if I was lucky sticky would laugh at my jokes.

That was interesting - I just typed down 'he' for sticky (and deleted it) - I wonder if that says something about the way my brain works. Why would sticky be a he I wonder? (What's small and brown and sticky..... a stick). There you go, that explains the level of my jokes and why nobody laughs - they've all heard them before!!!! (Sticky would though, I know he would)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway...... Due to time being at a premium and the fact that it's going to piddle down with rain for the next 2 weeks I decided I would do the Christmas lights. Normally I get down all the Christmas decorations from the attic and put them in the spare room. They sit there for a few weeks and then we actually put them up. This breaks up the arduous task. This year we've decided to keep in house decorations to a minimum to avoid costly vet bills. Hopefully dog, will be less chewy by the time we hit next Christmas.

The upside of this was there was less to bring down. The downside was that normally the different decorations sort of appear as things come down from the attic. No matter how hard I looked I couldn't find the Christmas lights. A few would appear here and there, but somewhere in this house is a huge pile of fairy lights (see last years photos). I can't find any of them. I found a few and the light up Christmas tree and brought them down. 

Every single light was in a knot like you wouldn't believe - like they had been put together by somebody that designed chinese puzzles for a living. I ended up spending hours unravelling them, but the lights for the outdoor light up tree defeated me completely. 

My wonderful husband proceeded to sit down and spend 2 hours unravelling them. Bless his cottons. Whilst I put the rest of the lights up.

We hit a stumbling block with the outdoor tree. Last year we had a small patch of flat ground in the front garden where the tree went. We've just had the garden done and now there are bushes on that flat ground. Every time I put the tree up on the slope it just toppled over. 

The lights husband had unravelled are blue and they are for around the tree (all other garden lights are white). In the end I decided that the tree was a bad omen and was going to cause Christmas to be horrible and hard work. So I packed it up and put it in the bike shed - hopefully somebody will steal it and take it away - as it will not fit in the car. 

Then I had the issue of the blue lights. I couldn't possibly just roll them up and pack them away as husband had spent so much time working on them. So I've strung them around the garden - which is going to ruin the whole 'look', but I feel I owe him after that much effort.

Would you believe that those few actions ended up taking up the whole of the day. With a short reprieve in the middle when whole family took dog to see the ducks in Falmer for the first time and then go through a walk through the woods over by the university. Absolutely bonkers that she's been with us for 4 months and it's the first chance we've had to take her on this - as it's one of our favourite walks. It just goes to show how flipping busy we've been.

Only other decorations we're putting up this year are sons Christmas tree and the decorations in his room. Though I realise the room decorations didn't come out of the attic - so I've got another hunt for them. We've been so busy his halloween decorations are still up. I'll have to take them down to put the Christmas ones up.

If dog doesn't eat sons tree then I may put mine up - I love my tree to bits and it breaks my heart to take it down. But we'll experiment with sons first just to see how goes. That's going to be next weekends activity - that's if I'm not asleep.

Anyway, back to work now....... work sucks at the moment - so much going on. Too much going on. I'm still working on this project that should have been somebody elses - not enjoying a second of it. And last week one of my team said they wanted to start working as job share. I really think this member of the team is great and so if that's what I need to keep them so be it - but I'm back into the cycle of looking for a new team member, which just chews up so many hours of time. Yet another thing to keep me away from what my job actually is - I'm beginning to despair I'm ever going to have the chance. I'm 10 months into this job now and so far have only spent about 5 weeks of that doing my day job.

I think one of my issues with being social at the moment is the world seems to be falling apart. I don't have millions of friends, but those I have are dear to me - one friend has just had stem cell replacement and I wish I could be more there for her, another friends husband has left her after 20 odd years (in fact these are the friends that set me up with husband - I'm devastated as they are like brother and sister), another friends dad has jut had a heart attack, another friends husband just died, plus the friend I mentioned above whose wife died last year - and on top of all of this dad's dementia is racing ahead.

I feel like I should be spending loads of time supporting these people, but right now I don't have the energy to get myself through the day - let alone other people. Sucks huh! And I can't tell my friends and family about what's happening with my other friends - or my own personal struggles - as that will just put more pressure on them in their lives. I'm feeling utterly overwhelmed by the misery there seems to be orbiting me right now.

So, not in a good place right now - did you notice?