One of my regular readers is back! Yay!

Whoever you are, you were missed and I appreciate you reading what I post... you were missed!

Does it sound weird to say...

that I enjoy tidying up when I've got going?

It's the starting off bit that's hard for me, but when I've made a start I really enjoy it!

Wish I'd worn a t-shirt instead of a tunic though... I'm really hot now!  lol

Just sorted out my little corner

There's no excuse not to get M to change the lightbulb in here now.  Just got to sort out my clothes to go into the wash and my part of the room is ready for Steve's chair to come in now!

Hello? Are you all OK?

I'm starting to get worried about my regular readers 'cos nobody has read since 28th but usually there is at least 1 reader every day!

Whoever you are, I hope you're OK!

Oh arsenuts!

Steve was kindly making me a coffee and asked me to get the box of apple pies over by the freezer.

No problem.

I thought.

Until I accidentally put my foot into Mitzi's food bowl and knocked it over!

She's got enough to last her for the rest of the day, but tomorrow and Monday she'll have to have her pink food and I'm hoping that Marie will bring Mitzi's food with her on Monday evening.

Ho hum!

*sigh*

Ordered what I thought were USB headphones yesterday.

Paid extra for next day delivery.

They arrived this morning and they aren't USB, they are jack things that you use on walkmans and stuff!

I've just put them on Freegle but that's money wasted that I really can't afford!

I had my wheelchair insurer on the phone this morning too.  That's another £140 for another year's cover too.

Thankfully I'm paid on Monday so that's come just in time!

Just seen this on Facebook

The virus scan has just finished, so...

I'm going to review my new landline phone on Amazon then turn off my laptop for a few hours to give the battery a break!

Steve's been chatting to Mitzi overnight, and...

she's starting to persuade him to move into the sheltered housing!  Yay!

Steve wants a dining room, I want a bath and Mitzi wants a garden in the house if we decide to move into it.

Steve's getting the PIP forms sent to him to fill in and I'm trying not to pressure him, but moving into sheltered housing could be great for all three of us!

My favourite meals

I like Butternut Squash lightly sprinkled with a small amount of sugar when it's available in Autumn and Winter.

When Butternut Squash isn't available, spinach and ricotta canaloni is my favourite!

They is both yummy, scrummy in my tummy!

Naughty girl!

Just took Mitzi for her walk and she was a good girl for the first third of it, but the rest of the time she either tried to pull me over forwards or dragged her body and refused to move!

She's a wonderful pup usually, but when she being a PITA like this morning, she can be so frustrating!

Another three prayers answered today!

The first was to get Jess to come and do Steve's legs nice and early so that I could have a bath.

She came at 9.30am and was gone by 10am so I got in the bath.

Second was that I didn't need to go to see the doc today after all.  The doc called just as I was getting dressed after me bath.  She said I didn't need to see her after all because my coil is for the Endometriosis instead of contraception.

The third was that the OT lady didn't come when I was trying to put the cover on the duvet so that I wasn't half naked.  I'd literally just put my arms through the top and pulled it over my head and she came to the door... literally 30 seconds earlier and I wouldn't have had a top on!

There really are Higher Powers out there and they really do listen to what you're thinking about even when you aren't praying to them... they listen to your desires and act on them!

Thank you to the Green Man, Mother Nature and Gaia for helping me out this afternoon even though I wasn't expecting it!

I've given up now

Just tried to put the duvet cover on for the last time and all I achieved was making myself feel sick so I've given up until tomorrow now.

One more chance then that's it

Been trying to put the duvet cover on all afternoon and I now feel sick so I'm going to give it one last try then give up until tomorrow... wish me luck!

Can all my regular readers, please...

follow my blog.  You don't have to comment on anything unless you want to, I just want to know who you are is all... I'm nosey by nature! lol

Steve forgot...

to put orange squash on the groceries order that's being delivered tonight!

Oops!

2002nd post now!

That'll be my OCD happy until it gets to 2112 posts now... only 110 posts to go!  lol

Just taken the pup for her walk, and...

Other than wanting to get underneath the car outside our house every time we walked past it (six times) she was a good little girl!

Steve's carer hasn't turned up so Steve doesn't think she will come now

Also, Steve asked me how I'd feel about moving to the supported housing and we're both still pondering on it.  We can see the benefits of it, but it's only for those on benefits so if Steve doesn't get approved we'll be on the streets if we go for it, which worries us both!

Knackered now!

Was up before 7am this morning because I thought I heard someone knocking loudly on the front door, so I came down and Steve said the noise was probably him!

Men!

This is also my 2,000th post to this here blog too!  Yay!

Bath or shower?

I prolly stink so need a bath or shower but can't decide between them!

6 years

It's been six years since I last saw me mum.

Steve sees his sister every Monday.

His brother whenever there's sport on the telly.

His mum and dad every 6 weeks and every Christmas.

So why aren't I allowed to go and see my mum occasionally?

Getting nervous now

Just had my GP surgery back on the phone.  They need to see me next week and it needs to be with a female doctor.

It's either the ultrasound results or something totally new that I haven't got the first clue about!  I'm guessing it's the ultrasound though because of the ultrasound I had showing that my coil had moved... why did they want to see me so quickly though?  What couldn't have waited for another week?

Just had my GP surgery on the phone

I've got to see my GP for some reason, so I've got an appointment on 2nd August to see him.  The only thing I can think of as the reason they need to see me, is about the ultrasound I had a week or so ago!  I can't think of any other reason he needs to see me!

O2 are ace!

One of O2s guru's fixed the problem with me not being able to send or receive text messages.  I can now make use of my previous number and my newest number on my newest smartphone so I just need to take one instead of two everywhere with me!  lol

That's everything been delivered now

Just gotta sort out the bathroom bin then I can relax for the rest of the day.

Just waiting for one more delivery now

Steve's t-shirts and the fans are here now so I'm just waiting for my Vistaprint order then that's it.  Gotta clear up the bathroom ready for Steve's supportive toilet seat to come this afternoon then we can relax for the rest of the day!

Keyboard symbols

Something M should read from FB

Posted by my sister in law in law on FB

Such a spectacular puppy!

Just had the Zooplus order come to the door and one of the things I ordered were claw cutters.

Her dew claws were growing almost into her paws so I clipped them for her just now for what seemingly was the first time in her life, but she did amazingly well bless her!  She didn't wriggle too much or growl or yelp or anything like that!

She doesn't like being put on her back so she just sat on the sofa next to Steve while he held her still for me!

I'm so proud of our little girl!

Just found out, why...

Steve's not applying for benefit's... he doesn't want to be seen as a scronger!  :-(  He's been paying contributions towards it since he was 16 and it could really help him to pay all his monthly bills!

Just bought...

a large fan for in here and a personal fan for myself that'll be here on Thursday which will cool us down for the rest of Summer hopefully!

The pup made a new friend on her walk this morning!

Just got back from taking the pup out for her walk and she met someone parked right outside our living room window.  Bless her!  She's such a friendly girl and I couldn't be without her any more!

Also, it's so hot out there that my forehead is sweating and I never sweat like that and it's going to go up to 32 degrees on Thursday!

Steve's definitely losing weight!

I bought him some t-shirts the next size down a few weeks ago because his usual size was baggy on him.

He's just come in wearing one of the new t-shirts that has been through the wash and that's baggy on him too!

Not as much as the previous t-shirts, but it isn't tight on him either, so maybe he's dropped two sizes since we've drastically cut our take-aways!

You're wonderful, Steve!

Shopping has been and gone already!

Marie is helping with the shopping this week and it came nice and early too... I could get used to today's positivity!

Just won a tenner!

Just opened a letter and I've won a tenner on a charity's raffle!  Totally ace!

That's it done at last!

I managed to sort out my phone numbers on my new Android phone last night, so I can now officially stop using my Windows phone!  Yay!

I just hope my second sim card turns up so that I can get the code to transfer the number from my Windows phone and onto the Android now!

Last chance now

Been trying to transfer my contact's phone numbers to my Android phone and it's not working!  Aaarrrggghhh!

The reading tree books have just arrived, so...

...I'm going to read through them all, making lots of notes and hopefully getting lots of inspiration from them!

Wish me luck!

Oxford reading tree books

I'm considering writing educational reading books for children, just to see how I get on with them like I did with the sci-fi a couple of weeks ago.

The sci-fi novella was pretty much a no from the start... I think I'll stick to writing realistic fiction and fantasy but what about educational stuff for young children... when they are first starting to learn to read sorta thing?

I've just bought meself 69 Oxford Reading Tree books from Amazon that'll be here tomorrow that I can see what I'm up against and how they are set out and written and stuff.

is for levels 1, 2 and 3 and there are 33 books in the pack.


is for levels 1-6 and there are 36 books in that pack.  I figure it's a good way to get started on my research into it all!

If I decide that they aren't for me, I'll give them to H or give them to a local school or put them on Freegle or something so that they don't go to waste!

Wish me luck!

Chocolate

Because it's a vegetable it counts as one of your 5 a day and milk chocolate provides calcium too!

I knew there was a good reason to stuff myself with chocolate at every opportunity!  lol

That was a waste of time then!

When I came down this morning the machine was stuck saying "Restarting..." so Steve said to use the power button to turn it off, wait for 10 seconds then turn it back on again.

I did that and everything seems to be where I left it on my machine last night, thankfully, so I'm going to turn the whole machine off when I go to bed today so that the battery has a chance to cool down, then I'll be ready for Wednesday morning when it scans the whole machine for viruses again.

I just hope it doesn't hang on me again!  lol

Scheduled scan set up now

Just set up a scan to automatically run every Wednesday now... just got to remember that now!  lol

Author torture

Mitzi's having...

one heckuva vocal dream on the sofa right now!  She's growling then barking and yapping all while running after whatever it is in her dream! 

So sweet!

She's been with us for six years and 1 day... it's things like this that make me love her so much!

Virus scanning

My virus scanner has just started up and apparently I can keep using my laptop as normal while it's running!

Didn't know that!

It means that I can quite happily carry on with what I'm doing, without being forced to watch the cricket!

Apparently it's good that 2 of PAK are out for 57 runs... I haven't got a clue what that means though!  lol

Just taken the pup for her walk and I think...

the weather is too hot for her because when we got home, I washed out her water bowl and refilled it and she drank half a litre without stopping, bless her!

That was easier than before my bath!

That's my email and Facebook set up and it only took a few minutes!

The steam in the bathroom obviously cleared my head!  lol

Just need to set up my email and Facebook now then that's it!

I worked out this morning that neither of the smartphones were working because I hadn't installed the phone company's app.

Got to have an ultrasound this afternoon so I'm going to jump in the bath and get ready for that, then I'll sort the email and FB accounts when I get home :-)

My new smartphone has just arrived...

got the back off it by using a screwdriver in one of the holes at the bottom, twisted it, put the sim card into it, closed it up and it's now charging up seemingly quite happily!

I saved £65 on it too yesterday!

I just hope this one works!  lol

Another one for M from Facebook

Bloody cat!

There's a ginger cat that lives a couple of doors down from us.

It walked in our front door, ran upstairs and jumped onto the bed a few months back.

It tried to come in through the window just now!

Just venting again

I just need to let this out otherwise I'll explode.

I gave up everything for Steve back in 1998 - 2 jobs that I loved, friends, the only home I'd ever known, my health etc.

What has he given up for me?

Fuck all.

He sees his family more in a week than I've seen my mum in half a decade.

My mum isn't getting any younger (72 years old), she can't drive and the buses to her village have now stopped so she's totally stranded in the middle of nowhere.

I haven't seen my mum since August 2010.

Steve sees his sister every Monday, his brother when there's motor racing or rugby on the telly and his parents every 6 weeks when we get our hair cut.

When he lost his job at the end of his contract I immediately started looking for jobs for him and sent him the URLs on Skype, taken messages on the phone for him, answer the front door whenever someone knocks on it and I've encouraged him to apply for benefits because his savings are below the threshold now and it takes 6-8 weeks for the decision to be made and even longer if you appeal.

What has he done for me?

Fuck all.

He's my carer but I'm not his.

I'm disabled, he isn't.

Yet it's me that does everything for him without even him saying "thank you" occasionally.  He just expects me to look after him and do everything for him... he wants me to be his secretary and carer while he just lays on the bloody sofa fast a fucking sleep.

He expects me to tidy up after him, praise his occasional cooking, put the rubbish in the wheelie bin, take the recycling out every week and expects me to enjoy it.

Not any more.

I'm going to walk Mitzi every morning and feed her but that's it.  If the door goes, he can answer it.  If the phone goes I'm not going to take any more messages for him.  I'm not going to take his rubbish or recycling out and just for one week I'll do exactly what he does.  I'll concentrate on my writing and he'll just have to learn the hard way for the next week.

I get £400 a month in benefit money... that's less than a third of what he earns when he's got a job.  He's expecting me to pay for the groceries until he finds a new job which means I'll have less than nothing left for myself and he'll still expect me to be his carer while he just lounges on the fucking sofa fast asleep then wonders why he hasn't got a job yet!

I give up.  I'm about ready to jump under a bus right now.

If you're anything like I am atm...

...get your tissues ready then read this page!

This is so true!

Blimey Charlie!

Just checked my bank account and realised that I've moved over £250 last month to my secondary account!

No wonder I haven't got much money in my main account!  lol

90% on module 5

I really wasn't sure about the answer of one of the questions on the test at the end that I got wrong so I'm still happy with the 90%!

100% on module 4 as well

Just got another 100% which is surprising 'cos someone came to read our electric metre when I was half way through reading the module!  lol

1 down, 19 to go!

Started off my rejection target with my first rejection of the year.

It was a publisher instead of an agent, so I'm not too worried about it  :-)

100% on Module 3!

Yay!

I'm hoping that it's charging up now

The step counter/heartrate monitor/alarm thing that I bought on eBay yesterday is hopefully charging up now!

Apparently it goes to sleep between 6pm and 10am though, so I'll try and work out a way to turn that up when it's finished charging otherwise it won't wake me up or monitor my sleep record or count the steps that I walk with Mitzi!  *sigh*

That's the anti-malware finished too

As of right now, I'm free of viruses and malware!  Yay!

Good job I started running the virus scan yesterday, because...

I set my anti-virus and anti-malware software going yesterday and I'm glad I did!

Why?

Because my anti-virus programme picked up 1 threat last night and another 3 this morning on my laptop!

I'm guessing they came from downloading my YoCW email the other day because I deleted several virus emails while it was downloading so maybe I didn't delete them from my laptop, just from my email programme!

I'm definitely going to make it into a regular thing now though, just to be sure I'm protected!

That was a nice surprise!

Just emailed Namehog about not receiving two invoices I was expecting yesterday.

Apparently they auto renewed at the end of June so don't need to worry about them for another year now!

It also means that I could renew my SCBWI membership for another year and still have enough left over to pay my direct debits comfortably too!

I could get used to this!

From Facebook

In case nobody has told you recently...

Really have got to stop spending now!

Ordered a pulse, sleep cycle and distance walked on eBay a couple of hours ago as well as the Dogs Trust pedometre thing that is attached to my clothes.  It's supposed to wake you up and record your sleep pattern or something too, but I'm just getting it to find out what my pulse is like and how soundly I sleep and stuff like that.

I'm aiming to walk 500 steps a day while I get used to it, but it'll be interesting to see how many steps I walk with the pup tomorrow morning!

It only cost me 90p because I used some of my Nectar points to pay for most of it!  These loyalty schemes and cashback sites are so worth it for things like that!

I've got £90 tracked cashback on Quidco too thanks to the insurance cover I bought!

83 steps

The Dogs Trust pedometre arrived this morning and I've just clipped it on to my trousers and measured how many steps I did between the living room and bathroom and back again.

83 steps!

That means I'll easily do 1,000 steps a day just doing what I always do!

Thank you Dogs Trust!

Downloading my YoCW mail now

Downloading it all, but WLM keeps stopping responding on me so I'm stuck in the "Quick View" with every single flippin' email in it which just slows the whole thing down even more!

Olives

I'd forgotten how sharp/sour olives were so got a shock when I had me lunch!  lol

Lost another clothes size around my bum!

When I went to pick the post up off the floor this morning and while I picked up Mitzi's poo from the back yard just now, the back of me trousers started slipping down!  Yay!

Something else from Facebook

*6* times up and down this morning!

I usually walk the pup up and down the street 3 times on her walk, but she doubled that this morning and did 6... wanted to keep going too!  lol

Another one from Facebook

Another one for M from Facebook

Something I've just seen on Facebook that describes M to a tee!

Just sent off for entry into SCBWI's slushpile challenge!

Just sent off the synopsis and first chapter of one of my MG novels for SCBWI's slushpile challenge... wish me luck!

Inspiring video

A must see video from Facebook

I'm aiming to get 20 rejections before the end of the year lol

I read something on the SCBWI FB page last night saying that you should aim to get 100 rejections a year for your MSs.

We're half way through the year and I've only just seen it, so I'm going to try submitting to childrens magasines as well as agents and publishers for my books.

Wish me luck!

Just about to submit to another publisher!

SCBWI BI retweeted about a publisher looking for MG and YA novels to add to their list.

I've just got to come up with a query letter for Disability Roolz then I'll send it off!

Wish me luck!  lol