Please don't take your health for granted!

What does it feel like to be healthy?  I genuinely don't remember  :-(

When I first moved to Gloucester, I was happy, sane and healthy.  I had 2 jobs that I loved and was walking about 5 miles a day, had my favourite food (jacket potato with cheese and baked beans) for lunch every day during the week, I could eat what I liked, when I liked and I could leave the house and socialise and go window shopping etc etc - I so wish I hadn't taken that for granted now!

Now though, I'm pretty much house-bound and I hate it!  :-(

I'm saving up for an electric wheelchair to hopefully get me out of the house and give me back some independence but it's slow going!  I've got £300 saved up so far so I'm less than half way there  :-( 

I just want my health and independence back!

I'm just a grumpy cow tonight so I'm going to bed now and hope that I wake up in a better mood tomorrow!

Nite nite orl!

What a great start to 2013!

Just had to share something that I've achieved in the last 18ish hours!

I'm a member of a thyroid forum and I worked out how to add a photo to my profile at about 1am but couldn't work out how to get an Avatar to show up to the left of each of my posts... not any more though! 

I've now got an Avatar and a profile picture of our Westie, Mitzi, from soon after we re-homed her and she's looking straight at you in both pictures!  So adorable!  I'm so glad she chose us back in 2010!

Happy New Year everyone!

My Next Big Thing blog hop

I'd like to say a huge thank you to Terri Dryden at http://tdryden1.wordpress.com/ for getting me involved in this!

Here are my answers to the ten questions  :-)


What is the working title of your book?  Unsuitable for adults over 16 years old

Where did the idea come from for the book?  I’ve had the inkling to write my first fantasy novel for a while but NaNo provided the ideal opportunity to write it this year (2012) and I’m glad I did… I could let my imagination run free for 25 days!

What genre does your book fall under?  Teen fantasy

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?  I’ll leave that up to the casting people!  It would be interesting to see how they created the Humirrels!

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?  Step into Cloudland and let Ishy introduce you to adventures into places deep within your imagination!

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?  I’m hoping an Agent will be willing to take me by the hand and lead me in the right direction!

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? 25 days

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?  Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree books – I loved them as a child and the book has been quietly whispering to me ever since!

Who or What inspired you to write this book?  I read a fantasy book on the Writer’s Bureau’s Writing For Children course and ideas have been popping up ever since then!

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?  If you’re a teen who is into gentle fantasy then pick up this book and have a read of it!

Next up in the blog hop are:

Kate Warren - www.katewarren.weebly.com
Melanie Winrow - http://writing4oneandall.weebly.com/melanie---blogs.html

Fed up of being ill/disabled

I used to be really healthy, walked 5 miles a day alone and could eat whatever I wanted without putting weight on.  Now though, I can't even get to the end of the street without help from a quad cane on my best days and I can't leave the house at all on bad days  :-(

I'm the exact opposite of how I used to be and I don't like it one little bit  :-(

I've asked my GP to refer me to an Endocrinologist to see if I'm hypothyroid and for an electric wheelchair too... don't hold your breath about either of those though!

All I want is a diagnosis so that I don't feel so alone with this c**p and the wheelchair would mean that I could take Mitzi for longer and more interesting walks too.  There's a park that I reckon she will love exploring and it will do me good to get out of the house too!

Ho hum!

I guess I should put something positive here as well as the whining... it's not a big deal to most people but it's a huge step forward for me... I can now swallow medium sized pills without crunching them up - you watch, I  won't be able to do it now!  lol

Our little puppy is amazing!

We've just had the shopping delivered again and Mitzi was an incredible little girl the whole time!

After her running out of the door several months ago I've been paranoid about her doing it again so I hold on to her collar while Steven moves the bags into the house then closes the door and I take the fridge and freezer stuff into the kitchen.

Spectacular moment number 1 was that she jumped off the sofa and went down the hall when the food arrived so Steven asked her to go back into the living room, which she did, then jumped onto the sofa and sat down.

The second spectacular moment was even better than that... Steven asked me to take some rubbish out to the bin while he put the shopping away so I asked Mitzi to stay and opened the door while I put the rubbish in the bin. The door was wide open and there is no way that either of us could have stopped her if she'd made a run for it but the wonderful little girl stayed exactly where she was until I came in and closed the door!

She's just such a special little girl and I'm so glad she is ours!

I'm getting impatient lol

It's only been three days since I emailed an independent publisher about the books I'm writing and first off I was nervous then realised I'd made a mistake in the email so I sent another one apologising but I still haven't heard from them so I'm thinking I'm in their slush pile (or whatever it's called) before even sending one of my manuscripts!

I told you I was getting impatient! lol

OK, so it's been less than a week but I just want to know that they are willing to do a bit of hand-holding is all. I'm tempted to find their phone number and try calling them tomorrow but I don't want to get on their bad side so I probably won't

How long should I wait though? I just want to know if they are interested in reading the manuscripts or not!

Mitzi is...

Mitzi is our little pup... a Westie that we re-homed from Dogs Trust back in July last year and she is wonderful! Our food shopping has just been delivered and our little Mitzi just sat there watching TV - the thought of running out of the open front door didn't even cross her mind!

Not many dogs would do that even if they'd been trained but Mitz has only been trained to obey "stay" and she is amazingly obedient considering she's only 20 months old!

I gave her a biscuit as a reward for being so obedient and we'll need to get her another box of biscuits soon! lol

Everyone should have a Mitzi in their lives!

U ready for this?

It's been a few months since my last message in here so thought I would update you all on me... don't run away too fast! lol

I'm pretty much always walking down the stairs in the house now... the only time I bump down on me bum is when I'm bringing the Doggington babe down after she's come up here and refuses to go down the stairs on her own... she can do it when she doesn't think about it but as soon as the paranoia cogs start whirring she just won't go down on her own for some reason!

I'm still gloomy about not having a name for what is wrong with me but that's nothing new.

I'm writing 2 books and a short story that I'm hoping to have published in the not-too-distant future... I've got to finish writing them first though! lol I emailed a publisher that sounds ideal a few days ago about my Toni book - keep your fingers crossed for me! I'm also doing a creative writing for children course which is why I'm writing a short story, not 3 novels! lol Everything is going well with that I think... my memory is letting me down though :(

Ho hum... enough of that!

OK, so it was slow going but I did it again!

I’ve just walked down the stairs without holding on to the rail again! It took 5 minutes (as opposed to a few seconds that anyone else could have got down the stairs in) and the top couple of steps were hard until I got into the swing of things but this time 6 months ago I was still bumping down the stairs on my bum with the occasional walk down them holding onto both the wall *and* the rail when I felt brave. OK, so I’ve only done it twice but even the tallest mountain is climbed after a few smaller mountains have previously been climbed!

I’m on my way up now! Yay for me!

I only went and did it!

I know this may not sound like a big thing to be proud of but it's a big deal to me so go somewhere else if you don't want to hear me blowing my own trumpet! :-)

I've just walked downstairs without holding onto the rail... I haven't been able to do that since before I went into hospital so it's a huge deal to me!

I've been slowly talking myself into trying it for a few days but I did it! It's a major achievement and it's given a huge boost to my confidence to such a degree that I don't think it'll be too much longer before I can walk into town alone again! I'll be able to take our little girl for proper walks instead of just up and down the street!

I know I'm probably talking months or years before I can do it but an hour ago I had to cling on to both the rail and the wall to get downstairs so I think I've got every right to feel proud of myself!

I'm going to take my pills and head to bed with a huge smile on my face now! :-D