Amy J. Hamilton's Blog, page 4

Half Term Woohoo

I know some mums might dread half term, but I really look forward to it. Then again I have teenagers who only venture out of their bedrooms to scavenge for food or feed a random pet. What I really like about half term is that I don't have the stress of worrying if I can roll out of bed in the morning to make sure they get to school in time. Even when they were little I preferred the school holidays. Not that I'm up for the challenge of home schooling you understand!

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. Our plan to buy each other the same card went tits up again this year, although we did pick a similar theme:



Both cards are very accurate! I still think the best Valentine's card I ever saw was on a simple red background with the words "You'll do" on the front.

So what are your plans for this week? I'm sitting here with my feet up about to continue writing a chapter of my book. Sam the degu is running in his wheel. Wherever he's going he's not getting any closer. Crunch the tortoise is busy scraping away at her home trying to dig her way though wood which also isn't going to happen.

I feel a large coffee is in my immediate future. I hope I remember to sweeten this one, the last one was rank!

Head meet brick wall.

It's Thursday. (Well I can't speak for when you got around to reading this, I wrote it on a Thursday, if you're reading it on a Tuesday, that's your problem! Do try to keep up.)

More accurately to quote Arthur Dent created by the brilliant Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays."

Apply that sentiment to my entire week and it'll be about right.

I have started a few things and have been distracted and waylaid by even more. I will eternally cling to the fact that yesterday I did at least achieve cake. Cake was made and boxed up ready to go into my son's school for the bake sale tomorrow. I don't envisage any weird mutations occurring as a result of ingesting my culinary endeavours. I even listed the ingredients on the box I put the cake in because we live in this era:



£500 scales for my business broke and were deemed, by me, uneconomically viable to pay a massive call out charge to just look at them. I did that for free and determined that they were busted. Cheaper scales were investigated at length, shortlisted, ordered out of frustration, delivered and sent back when I realised that they didn't weigh in stones and pounds. (Really not useful for the majority of the people I see who do not work in kilos.) A second set of cheap scales were then ordered due for delivery tomorrow. Meanwhile my husband has fixed the £500 set of scales because he is a genius. Naively I really was expecting them to last more than 6 years.

I had high hopes for getting some writing done this week, but the scales event meant that I lost a chunk of time to the other business on my writing day.

Highlight of my week so far alongside the achievement of cake is that the supermarket did not reject my online review of their appalling own brand mixed spice. Yay me!

How many of me are there?

This morning I either had to remove my right eyeball or sort out my new contact lens. Luckily eyeball removal was not necessary-I'd managed to put my contact in inside out. Easily remedied. Just as well, I'm not sure I have the right implements to remove my eyeballs. I imagine it might be quite complicated.

Yesterday I had the misfortune to be infiltrated by a sloth. I don't know how the sloth got in, but it wasn't very useful. As well as falling asleep throughout the day I felt like this cat:

https://youtu.be/mDQbma9VXDk

To be honest I feel like that cat most days, but I'm very good at hiding it.

Today I've woken up a completely different person-although probably still suffering from "mood of cat". The sloth is no longer in residence. I can't actually tell where he's gone, but he's not in the house. I have achieved a few small things. One thing is this graphic for a competition I've entered. (You may praise me on my skills-yes I did take the actual graphic off the web-I write, I do not do graphics-frankly I should have teams of people to do these things for me.)



I did a bit of work for the day job. I also sorted out the banging noise from one of the bedrooms upstairs. The noise was caused by Cossie the bearded dragon trying to break her way out of her vivarium. Usually that means she's about to lay eggs. I brought her downstairs so I could sit on the sofa with her and stroke her back for a bit. Clearly I am a lizard whisperer because she calmed down. (This is her at a younger age, but you get the idea-up on back legs scratching at the glass.)



And now for my next trick I'll post this blog entry and spend the rest of my life trying to get the photos and the video to work. Like I said-I require teams of people to do these things for me.

Where did they go?

I have ventured out twice today. Newsflash-it's cold outside. There was a delay in getting back as I searched the pavement for my lips which I was sure had frozen off my face. I am also quite convinced that there is now a gaping chasm where my nose used to live. Maybe that's a good thing. I wouldn't feel the need to blow it every five minutes. My nose. Blow my nose. Honestly some people!

So having possibly lost facial features to the season, the other thing that's gone missing is named containers that my son used this week to take ingredients into school. He's got the end result of the cooking class that he forgot to bring home yesterday, but not the really handy sized pots that I use for the minuscule amounts of ingredients necessary to make 6-12 coconut pyramids! Where do these things go? How many kids are there at the school with the exact same name as my son?

I'd say that the only other thing I'm in danger of losing today is the plot, however I think I lost touch with that years ago. Now if you'll excuse me my day job beckons, I have boxes of stock to unpack ready for the next week of business.

FFF...Cold

My husband is working from home today wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I'm sitting here shivering in two jumpers and contemplating a third pair of socks and a coat. Maybe a hat...I've just upped the temperature on the central heating. Looking forward to him changing into swimming trunks later as a result!

I am currently refusing to leave the house on foot until the pavements have ceased morphing into ice rinks because I'm quite keen on avoiding a gushing head wound and possibly a dislocated hip. Even my usually wonderful walking boots didn't help last night on the way to the osteopath where I was lucky to arrive without adding any more injuries to the ones I already have. It was a close run thing-I must have slipped about 4 times. Why doesn't anyone else have this problem?

We've got a few different things going on this year. One of them is visiting university open days for our daughter who I swear was only 6 years old about a year ago. I'm looking forward to the days out. Even if I'm not looking forward to the ones that cannot supply adequate parking and who are insisting that three guests is one too many. Sorry (not sorry) we won't be leaving our son at home on his own. And I'm good, but even I can't resurrect my parents to stay with him.

Another thing I started this week was an online course in Psychology and Mental Health. It's very interesting. I won't have any form of qualification at the end of it and I should hope not-it's only a couple of hours a week for 6 weeks. Can you imagine being qualified to deal with someone's mental health after that short a time! It was however a course that I could do at the same time as my daughter who has been encouraged to complete a course alongside her A Level studies. Because clearly there just isn't enough work involved in studying four A Levels.

Cossie the fire breathing bearded dragon has come out of hibernation. I have asked her to rearrange the furniture in her home so I can climb inside with her and sit under her heat lamp for a while. For some reason she just looked at me...

Greetings from Planet Mucus

Don't get too close, apparently it's annual head cold week. Or as I have asked on previous platforms-how many packets of tissues do you think this cold will last for? I'm currently up to about 50 tissues. I am so far resisting the urge to just use a towel, the furniture, carpet, my clothes, a random passing human.

Yes I've read the thing about how Vicks Vapour Rub on the soles of your feet can stop a cough. No I'm not convinced that works. I know exactly when the next dose of decongestant is due as my Barry White impression surpasses the man himself. I have the thin upper lip of an ancient woman with a thin upper lip-you know the type.

I am thrilled to be able to report that the right side of my face no longer feels the size of a watermelon and my ears have stopped buzzing.

I bet you're glad it's not one of these gastric flu things, aren't you? Imagine the details I could give you about that.

That other sense of achievement...

...when it's been snowing outside, there's no evidence of grit and even if there was, as a pedestrian it's pointless because they don't grit pavements. Yet you manage to keep an appointment outside of the house despite having a lifelong fear of falling over on icy footpaths. Yeah, did that. Took a bit of time to get over, my hands have stopped shaking. I am back inside now having had my hair cut and coloured violet. Pats self on back.

Below freezing this morning. Icy pavements. Two kids. Younger one with almost a 2 mile walk, left first thing wearing boots with spikes in the heel for grip, uniform, coat, gloves and hat. Older one with over a mile to walk goes out in fashions boots, trousers, shirt and suit jacket. Oh and a pair of gloves, lets not forget to mention the gloves. It makes all the difference. Still, it's over 5C out there now. Practically summer. And no, there will not be any snow left on the grass by the time they get home. Should have made the most of it last night rather than trying to "save it for tomorrow when the schools are closed."

This week I seem to be maintaining the feeling that my bone marrow has turned to ice and that all of my clothes have been stored in the chest freezer for the fortnight prior to wearing. I put more layers on only to have to take them off in half an hour because I'm sweating. Then within minutes I feel like my abdomen has been filled with iced water again. I take all my clothes off and get into bed and sweat my way through the night. This is not what I signed up for in the factory when I decided I'd try the human female option. I would like a refund or the option to come back as a man.

Midweek Special

That's a blatant lie, there is literally nothing special about this post.

I had some free time on my hands yesterday and spent it writing Modified Book 2. Well, I actually wrote the short story that is the basis of book 2 before I even thought about writing book 1, because, you know, I'm weird, it's the sort of thing I do. So I wrote the build up to a point in the book yesterday and then cut and pasted the next scene from the original short story into book 2 and gained an instant extra 2000 words. Very pleased with that-my kind of effort! I also formatted book 1 with a view to doing a print on demand paperback version. However the author only gets a tiny percentage of the cover price of the book-so maybe not. I can't decide.

I haven't checked all news outlets but I've been led to believe that I'm at risk of being snowed on this week. I remain unconvinced, I believe you need clouds for that kind of thing and it's blue sky out there. I am however quite sure that it's probably warmer outside than I feel in the damn house.

Cossie the bearded dragon, currently not breathing fire, has emerged from her cave again. I think she's eaten a locust, there's one left. Do I buy more or is she going to go back to sleep again? She was not at all interested in eating worms. Her communication skills require attention. Might buy her a book to study.

Initiating Firing Squad...

You can spend hours a day on a specific project and make real headway on it. Knowing that for various reasons, you need to be organised about certain things and can't leave anything to chance, or til later. Today was a day like that. I did really well. I spent my hours researching and organising and felt that I'd done the leg work I needed to do at a time of year when I was able to fit it in. Before work picked up, before ongoing fatigue set in. With regards to fatigue-unless you've experienced it, don't try to dismiss it as a bit of tiredness. It's just not the same thing. You wake up in the morning tired and get progressively more exhausted as the day goes on, to the point where mentally focusing on things is nigh on impossible. Then you go to bed to experience un-refreshing sleep. It's a complete blast.

So, having felt exhausted, but relieved that I'd accomplished what I set out to you can imagine how disappointed I was to have my evening disrupted by a currently ongoing situation that I have no control over. The result, however is a life changing situation. Even though I have no control over it, I am constantly being asked my opinion. Why bother? They're going to make their own decisions anyway and ignore me, so why involve me? I would usually say that I suspect certain sectors of society enjoy causing distress to other people. However I think the reality is that they simply don't care how their actions affect other people. It is not their concern. The only thing that matters is their bottom line.

One thing I am grateful for is that when I go to bed at night I know that one of my jobs is about helping people, not stitching them up. Yes it's a business and as such I expect to make a profit at it, but I do help people. I'm glad I'm not a member of one of those sectors who have, probably unknowingly, caused me stress for the weekend.

That sense of achievement when...

...you finally finish up the last of the pumpkin and ginger soup that has been in the freezer for the past year and a bit. Still alive.

Next on the list of things to sort out are:

-Open days for universities, which universities to short list and arranging time off to attend said open days.

-Formatting a book for the purpose of being a print on demand paperback. Possibly for the one person who expressed an interest in buying one in that format who probably won't in the long run. A step forward in this process will be confidence that the words aren't all dropping off the right hand side of the right hand page.

-Working-got another business to run and I'm not sure I'm entirely ready for the four clients I've already seen today. I may have got away with that. Just as well as my attempts to turn back time and be ready have thus far failed.

-Figuring out what else I'm having for my birthday. I've got a Himalayan salt lamp and I'm not afraid to use it.

Two exciting things happened today. My box of hair colours ranging from dark pinks through to dark blues arrived. (I'm currently violet. No, not violent, violet. Although if that noise outside the window keeps up who knows.) As did, wait for it, my new Qwerty keyboard labelling machine for work. *squeeee* I now need to put sticky printed labels on...everything.