Hopscotch

Im a bit of a blogging virgin but Im learning stuff all the time.

One of the first things I discovered was the blog hop thanks to Allison over at the Pink Fibro http://lifeinapinkfibro.blogspot.com/

It's a great way to find new blogs and to share your own stories with others.

What I haven't quite got the hang of is linking back.  'Grab my button' they say, but I dont know how :(   I can see other people have and I've looked on the help but its all double Dutch to me!

The other day I posted on a great blog hop at Maxabellas and I thought Id linked back but obviously I'd done something wrong and it didn't appear.

Luckily I DO know how to cut and paste so, apologies Maxabella and thank you for your kind words and I hope that anyone who reads this post will pop over for a visit, I know I'll be back.

Sarah x
http://maxabellaloves.blogspot.com/

A Bear of Little Brain

With a coat of many colours.

I need an accident prone cat like I need a hole in the head, which incidentally is Bears latest affliction.



Bear in his brief black and white phase



In his very short life (Bear is only 4 months old) he has been black and white, (this is his original colour). Blue where the front-line took the dye out of his collar, orange where I foolishly emptied the leftover pasta sauce into the bin without checking for small cats first and yellow where I sprayed him with antiseptic after Tilly (18 months and mother to three beautiful kittens) took a chunk out of him for playing kitten skittles.



Tilly and her babies



He's also been shut in the door and extricated from behind the Merchants Chest in my dining room when I came home to find a vertical Bear wedged between it and the wall with just a little black and white bottom and a furiously thrashing tail on view.

I guess every household has their fair share of accidents well, EXCEPT the one who apparently doesn't have ANY because I have their share!

The only animal so far to escape this curse is Tilly, she is a sensible cat and doesn't stray far from home (or reside in the bin).

Even the hamster's had a op for a hernia!



My mate Gus



Gus (my border Collie) like the dramatic gesture. At just over a year old he ran full pelt into the goalpost at the park damaging his shoulder, he still walks with a slight limp. Last year he got a bone the size and shape of an arrow head stuck in his throat necessitating a call out from the vets and an 80 quid call out charge BEFORE he even did anything!

I do kind of feel I got my moneys worth with that one though.

I was crouching down holding Gus while the vet administered the aesthetic before removing the bone. As I stood up my knee dislocated, a not uncommon occurrence since I snapped my knee cap while trying to …...... (well, THAT'S another story!). The vet was somewhat surprise when I collapsed on the floor whimpering in agony. Well, to be honest, I actually collapsed onto his lap as we were all on the floor at that stage.

I'm not sure if his first thought wasn't that this was my slightly strange way of trying to proposition him in an attempt to have the bill reduced.

Anyway, he sorted us both out and waved us off at the door. Poor old Gus staggering about like he'd had one over the eight as the aesthetic wore off. Me trying to hold him up as I hobbled up the road cursing my damn knee. I can only imagine the sight we made for any passers by but frankly, at the time, I really didn't care.

My trips to A&E have been fairly frequent over the years too.

I have two children with matching scars over their left eyebrows and one who's been rushed in with two BB pellet related incidents.

Just in case you think I'm in the habit of shooting Master Mac, neither one was as a result of over zealous parental discipline. I actually have an aversion to all forms of firearm, toy or otherwise (NOT that I categorise BB guns as toys!)

The first time was when Master Mac found a BB pellet, god knows where it had come from. He was about 4 at the time so Miss Mac must have been three.

The first I knew of it was when Miss Mac said her brother had wanted to put it up her nose but she didn't want him too. Good girl I said, so where is it now? He put it in his ear Mummy she replied and it wont come out!

The second time was a couple of months ago at a friends house when he was shot in the eye! Fortunately there hasn't been any permanent damage but we did spend a couple of days in hospital and many weeks of eye drops and visits to the eye clinic.

The waiting around at the hospital tended to get a bit boring so, as a JOKE I suggested we play i spy. I know, not very caring of me ….

Well, it backfired on me, instead of being able to read all the beautiful back issues of House and Home thoughtfully provided by the lovely hospital staff I spent a total of 6 hours trying to guess what it was that began with the letters PS (it was the lady who had walked through the eye clinic wearing purple sandles!).



Yes I was caught with my arse in the air bending down to do this because
 Master Mac thought this would make an amusing photo!



We did find other ways to amuse ourselves though.

Who am I? (clue: I am NOT a Waitress) - The Lounge Edition

T

I'd Like to Present

Last night I was given the BEST present ever!!

Ok, 369 pouches of cat food might not be top of everyone's wish list but with 5 hungry feline mouths to feed it comes pretty close to the top of mine!

Not only will it save me a fortune but it will also stop me from dragging my knuckles along the floor after lugging home half a ton of Whiskers each week along with 4 bags of cat litter, a huge bag of dog food, sawdust for the hamster ect.

Anyway, it got me thinking about presents Id been bought in the past, the good and the NOT so good.

The first truly great present I remember was when I was six. We were living in Australia at the time and, on Christmas morning, outside my bedroom door was the most beautiful dolls house Id ever seen.

Looking back, it was probably quite an ordinary dolls house really, but to me it was my very own pretend little home ad I loved it.

Many years later and with my own daughter now I was lucky enough to see in the window of a Charity Shop a dolls house the like of which I haven't seen before or since.

It was completely furnished, decorated for Christmas with tiny paper chains, the works. I (ah hem, my Daughter HAD to have it!!!) It even has a little bay window on the side and electrics (I must get them fixed one day). It's a little bit battered these days, I never did get round to putting it in a glass case and forbidding her to play with it. One day I will find someone who knows about such things and get it restored.

Possibly the worst present I've ever received was from an ex boyfriend. He'd been on holiday (without me!!) and on his return handed me a beautifully wrapped gift complete with tissues paper, ribbons and bows.

I was SO excited. Partly because he'd been thinking of me while he was away but mostly because I LOVE presents.

I poked and prodded it for a while trying to guess what it was and then, unable to contain my excitement any longer ripped the covering off to reveal ….............

A sodding FLOWER PRESS!!!!!

I wonder what the best (and worst ) presents other people have received? (By the way, if it was something from me I only want to hear about the best. I still have that flower press and I'm not afraid to recycle!)

The Importance of Saying Sorry

Everybody gets it wrong sometime. We all have times in our lives when the stresses and strains of day to day life get us down. They make us unreasonable and behave in ways that hurt other people.

Sometimes it's in a relationship. We may feel undervalued or unimportant and so we do and say things either in a conscious desire to hurt or in a desperate attempt to make ourselves feel like we matter,

Sometimes we lash out at our friends or family. Often its as a result of well meaning advice. When you are so wrapped up in your own little bubble of unhappiness it can seem so patronising for someone else to say that they understand how you feel. To suggest ways that you could change things, to tell you you're getting it wrong.

Sometimes we hurt our children. When we are unhappy we are less tolerant, less able to deal with the day to day round of cooking, cleaning, homework and bickering. Sometimes even their love seems unbearably claustrophobic.

Sometimes, no matter how many people surround you, no matter how much love and kindness they show you. No matter how much you know you have to be grateful for, you feel alone, isolated and lost.

Sometimes you just have to be allowed to work through this and no amount of advice or cajoling and sometimes even well meaning bullying will make it happen any quicker.

Sometimes we need to make sense of it all.

Saying sorry doesn't change what's been said or done. Saying sorry doesn't take away the hurt that someone else has inflicted on you.

But saying sorry IS an acknowledgement, an acceptance that what has happened was wrong And SOMETIMES that can make all the difference.

I believe in saying sorry. If I snap at my children (which I often do), I tell them I'm sorry. I tell them I may not like the way they have behaved or something they have said but it's the action I dislike, not the child. The child I love.

Sometimes it's not them at all, it's me. I'm unhappy, worried, feeling stressed or upset at someone else's actions. Sometimes my children suffer because of this and I'm unreasonable, I'm short tempered. I'm not the mother I want to be

If I can teach my children one thing I would like it to be responsibility. I want them to understand that although sorry may just be a small word and although sometimes it feels like the hardest word to say. Its one of the most important word they will ever learn.

Telling someone you are sorry and genuinely meaning it is lifting a burden from that person. Allowing them to move forward without that feeling that somehow it's their fault that they deserved to be hurt.

Being sorry is important for you. Telling someone you are sorry is important for them.

I'll never be afraid to say I'm sorry and I'll always feel sad for those who don't value it's importance.

Seconds Away – Round Two!

The cups were soaking, the first load of washing was on the line, the second in the machine.

It was time to go BACK IN!!!

The trick is (I'm sure) to have some kind of method. An order in which you clean things which makes it all come together and gets it done in half the time.

Method and order are pretty much alien to me . I put it down to a low boredom threshold, I need variety.

No shortage of that here!

What needs doing most I thought and I'll start there. Well, the carpet, although now visible, was covered in bits of fluff, paper, string, buttons (you get the picture). Actually, I didn't really examine it THAT closely, it was just covered in a multitude of crap.

So, vacuuming it was to be.

I love my Henry, I've had him for about 20 years and he's still going strong. In all that time all I've ever had to replace is the hose last year. He's picked up everything from builders rubble to well, crap (although not ACUTAL crap you understand).

I have got a super duper Vax thingy with a light on the front but frankly, compared to Henry it's a real wimp.

Which was why when I turned Henry on and made a start I was horrified (and a little scared) when there were three loud bangs in quick succession! I hurriedly switched him off and went to investigate.

Again, BANG, BANG, by now I really WAS scared, Henry wasn't even switched on for god's sake!

Ah, it turned out to be the fun snaps that Master Mac and I had bought on April fools day. We'd spent an entertaining afternoon wandering round town dropping them in our wake making people jump.

I vacuumed one corner of the room before deciding that the skirting could do with a clean and then hmm, the walls needed a wipe down then there was this box full of 'stuff' that needed investigating.

Yes, I need a method, I need to be told which order to do things in ….....

I opted to opened the box. As I did a disembodied voice growled at me, 'You Will Not Survive'

Shit I though shutting it hurriedly, is that a SIGN??? May be I should get out while the going still relatively good.

Having just discovered a little pile of something that's either toenail clipping or rice, I kind of wish I had.

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Today I decided was THE day. A day Id been putting off for ….... well, for a VERY long time.

Today, I was going to muck out Master Macs bedroom!

I know, at aged 13 he IS old enough to do it himself. Either that or I should just let him live in his own squalor. The trouble is, Master Mac rather likes squalor.

I'm no domestic goddess myself but I have standards (pretty low ones I'll admit) but I like to occasionally be reminded what the carpet looks like (or had I stripped his floorboards? I can't remember).

Anyway, today I was feeling brave and so, armed with industrial strength bin bags, rubber gloves and a face mask, I opened the door.

I shut it again very quickly and stood outside breathing heavily for several minutes working up the courage to try again.

Slowly, with one eye closed, I gave the door a push, it promptly rebounded off the pile of dirty washing stacked behind it and smacked me in the face.

Now we were at WAR!!!

I squared my shoulders, assumed my best 'don't mess with me' expression and strode into the room. The FIRST thing I trod on was half an Easter Egg, the damn thing somehow managed to encase my foot like a chocolate foot glove, I hopped around trying to shake it of (a little like the cat when she's trodden in something unfortunate in the litter tray). That was when, with my other foot, I trod on John Cena (not the real one, that might have been a little softer and squidgier).

My scream of agony brought the dog pounding up the stairs only to be confronted with me (by now, face down on the bed), one foot sporting half a pound of Cadburys finest, the other the imprint of a WWE champions belt. He skidded to halt obviously unsure exactly what his role was in all of this.

Being a dog and being male he quickly hoovered up the shards of chocolate scattered over the floor and shot back downstairs again licking his lips.

I lay there for a while gathering my thoughts. Should I remove the egg from my foot and replace it in the foil for Master Mac to eat later??? Should I just shovel EVERYTHING into bin bags and tell him we were going for the minimalist look from now on?

I decided on the former, (I shall obviously tell him AFTER he's eaten the egg).

Master Mac's room is looking slightly emptier. That would be the removal of one and a half bin bags of rubbish, three loads of washing, seven cups, four glasses and a potato peeler.

I'm just taking a well earned break before round two, wish me luck …...................