Running and falling and being a bit happier

Since I last wrote there has been a rainbow in my life. The sun is piercing through the clouds and I have many silver linings.  Thank goodness. It was all getting a little bit too depressing for my liking. 


Of course, this is due several gnawing factors. The return of my hero soldier husband; the cusping between past poor behaviour and future normal and happy behaviour of my middle child; the upturn in my career and the imminent house move.  It has been a long time coming. I shall not miss this year.


So Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. Actually, it's not the goose I need to worry about. It's my progressively widening posterior. I started a new exercise regime of running and Wii fit plus. It was going so well! I ran the length of the beach at Newgale in Wales with my friend I havent seen in about 3 years.  It was brilliant. She gave me such confidence about running, even though I had left my sports bra at home and had to wear a lacey underwire one, and hold my chest as I ran along. I don't know how I did it. We had been running for ages in little bursts of fast and slower, and then I got this sudden craving to stop. I was so upset at myself and then got mad and told myself if I could give birth to 3 boys of above average weights (10lb 5 oz, 10lb 4 oz and 8lb 10oz) that I could run another 100 meters, and so I did. I ran as hard as I could. It was amazing. And when I got the the end my boobs were still inside my bra and I still had a heart beat so it was very rewarding. She was running still and clapping my efforts. I think that's the first time I ever ran with someone without them laughing at me!!!!!!!


Anyway, I got home and with the first sprinkling of snow, slipped on the ice on my footpath, tore something in my knee and ended up in casualty.


That's the end of the running then. 


In the meantime I am sticking with the wii fit plus now.  There's no ice to slip on in my living room and who cares if my boobs wobble out of my bra? I know one person who might actually find it preferable!


I shall let you know how the reunion went with my husband another time.  It takes a while for the men to settle back in at home and getting used to each other again is a bit like moving in with a stranger for a while. So, as to avoid writing how much he generally annopys me, I shall leave it til another time. There are many of you who have been asking on Twitter. It shall be my next entry. 


Until next time, I shall leave you in the knowledge that I am a much happier person.  My children are not at present being bullied and i am getting there with the job.


Jog on!

Straight from the heart

Since I last wrote I have had many many problems and so I have found it really difficult to express myself on my blog.  What with constant paranoia about what people think of me, and the complete lack of respect I have had for myself.  But, things are recovering and my mind is not in such a desolate place. 

I am not a completely confident person.  Not when it comes to how I am perceived.  Mostly, I have a negative view.   I am alone. Not just alone, but lonely.  The strength it takes to carry on when your husband / partner is away for long periods of time can strip you of strength in other areas. That can leave you feeling very vulnerable. Some have taken advantage of this.  It hurts when you discover that you have been duped.

I am not alone in my self loathing.  It is extremely hard to carry on when you feel the world is against you and that if you step out of your door, that people might be staring at you and pointing fingers.  Some have got through it by hiding, some by facing it head on and some have not actually made it through at all. Not all are women.  I wish I could have helped them but it is hard to see people's pain when they hide it under a smile.   To those people I want to say I love you.  I understand your pain even though it is difficult to talk about it and I am here if you need to. 

It has also been very difficult to write when we have lost four young heroes from our regiment.  All were either friends or acquaintances of my husband.  They were therefore dear to me and all of us have been shocked by it. Not much more I can say about that. 

"And so he stood upon the hill and turned to face his brothers, sword in hand and with a heavy heart. We shall not forget his sacrifice."

My marriage is getting better.  We have many things to work on but the love we have, and the family have built is worth staying together.  Our time apart is nearly at an end and I just wait to hear that he is safe.  When he returns I hope that we have not grown apart.  That the experience of the last 8 months has not pushed us in different directions.  That we can still talk.  That we still have things to talk about.  I will be here and will probably tell you more than I really want to.  I do hope it wont make me run and hide away.

Having my cake

When I was little, I decided that I wanted my Mummy to stay at home and be there for me when I came home from school. That didn't happen. What did happen was that she went back to work as a teacher at the school I went to and then she was there all day for me.

Lucky me.

I loved my childhood. Of course, I want the same thing for my children also. I just haven't got the passion to become a teacher and so my kids are going to have a very different childhood than I did. Not that this could be avoided anyway; my husband is in the Armed Forces and so he is away much of the time.  Very different again to my experience. My dad was also a Teacher until I left school and so School Holidays were always very centered around home and family.

I started work last Monday. It was amazing to be able to feel the freedom of being myself. To use my brain again. To leave the family home and do something only I knew about. Wow. How liberated it felt. It still does.

People (friends and family) have very varied opinions about whether I should be working rather than looking after the children. Fine. Whatever they think is up to them but I was actually becoming a destructive person to be around. I was cross and upset and my confidence in my abilities had bottomed out.  It is GOOD for me to be back at work and if people don't agree then tough luck.

I have three fabulous children and an incredibly supportive husband. We have problems, of course we do, but they are becoming less and less now that I have my own identity again.

Deciding on childcare for Moo was not difficult. I did not have a choice. It was actually an emergency procedure. I had to take the first place I found with available space. I made the right choice there too. He LOVES everything about his creche. He does not cry when I leave him, he eats all his food and he is in an outstandingly good mood every evening when I go to collect him. i haven't seen him this satisfied in a while. It is of course expensive but I would do it for my entire wage as long as he is happy.

My oler two boys are experiencing new things too with my being at work.  They are given much more space and time to choose what they want to do without coming to mummy to ask what they should do (I hate that).  Time together with them will be, and already is, much more precious and I appreciate it so much more.

I may not sit down until 10pm every night of the week but that will probably improve as I let myself take it easier about what I need to achieve each day. I am getting my ability to 'REMEMBER things' back.

I am now me again. I love it. I think I might even start to love myself again too.  I hope it doesn't end too quickly or I may be here typing a rather different story next time.

Being a person of conviction. Or not.

Happy 2010 everyone. Really, seriously, I mean it. I sometimes feel as though I am being pushed to say it out of politeness but I could not mean it more this time.  A friend of mine lives in the USA and she has four beautiful children. She and her family are very religious people and she is one of the most wonderful people you could ever wish to meet. She is smart, funny, beautiful, fit and healthy, has a wonderful husband and has found her way in life even though she is miles away from her family and moves on a regular basis.  I envy her. She messaged me the other day to say how much she wishes me to have a wonderful new year with more success than I could handle. She thanks God in everything she does. It is really special to see how her faith has brought her happiness and success.

It got me to thinking; why do we let other people influence the way we think so much? This friend of mine believes what she believes no matter what, and is not afraid to tell people about it. No matter what you think about the subject itself, that is a very special quality to have. I don't have that. I am easily swayed to be less than vocal about my beliefs. I know that this is a very British trait. It's a shame to have to be like that. There is nothing wrong about having religion. It is important to believe in something. And I think I do, but that is hardly a conviction is it?  My husband is Agnostic. He refuses to believe anything that cannot be proven, even if it cannot be disproven.  God and Dinosaurs (argues about what we know about them) are big obstacles for him. (I know, the whole Dinosaurs issue is a bit mad but he does make some good points!).

I WANT to believe in God and Jesus (if I could travel back in time I would definately choose Jesus as my person I most want to meet) and be the person I want to be but actually, I am lacking the evidence and think I have rather let myself down along the way too.  I have been very disappointing.  I have made enough bad decisions to appear to be a complete hypocrit. 

I don't know what my point is today other than, I wish I had a bit more conviction. I didn't send any Christmas Cards this year because i don't like doing it and didn't want to be forced into it because it is the done thing. I want this year to be my year of change. I want to be better at making decisions for myself and not having people make my mind up for me. For goodness sakes, i am a grown woman. And I will wish you a Happy New Year because I actually want you to have a good year too. but don't ask me to say it again until 2011 because I don't want to.  

Missing Friends

Now, I'm not the biggest Social Butterfly in the world but I do love to talk to friends and just chill. I don't go out much, and relish in staying at home with the ones I love, hearing the laughs of children playing, watching my husband enter a state of unparalleled competitiveness while he tries in vain to beat my 'Bejewelled Blitz' score (never gonna happen btw).
Going to clubs never totally turned my head and since I followed my husband's lead to Germany I have not had the need to go to my local pub on a weekly basis. I have definately lost some of the sparkle that was my social life. I used to be in Public Relations you know!
However, friends mean more to me now than ever before. They become an integral part of my life and I take it to heart if the friendship doesn't work. This is bad. I put everything I have into the bonding process. I find that female friends become more like sisters than ever before.
These women are amazing. The job our husbands do means we are alone for the majority of the time. And, we give up so much for them to keep the home fires burning. We have waved goodbye to our careers, spent hours waiting for calls that never came, and changed plans at last minute for things that never materialise. We've waited for weeks for our loved ones to come home, only to have our hopes dashed at the last minute. We've given birth without our husbands in the same country, had operations and come home to empty houses, and endless disappointments over Christmases, Anniversaries and Birthdays alone. Our friends are the ones who fill our men's boots and they become an integral part of our families.
Then one day, news comes of a Posting and we wave goodbye to the ones we have depended upon through thick and thin but have no way of going with them.
We come from all over the world. Canada, Scotland, Fiji, Australia, USA, Germany. England is a big place too when you lose a friend to the South (ever tried buying a train ticket these days??). It's like you just had your arm cut off. 
This is when Social Networking comes into its own. IM services are a life saver. They open the world up to us. What would we do without emails and Facebook? Those babies we helped friends to rock to sleep at night, are taken away from our lives. The photos we post are so important. It helps us keep a link to each other so that when we come back into each others' lives, the gulf is not so huge.
Well to all my friends I have loved, I miss you all. I would give anything to have a glass of wine with you today. I'd relish every second of playing with your children and making them laugh. But I am here. I am on this laptop every single day in one way or another. I check to see how you are and what you have been doing, even if you don't know it. I look at your pictures of family events and make sure I can see you smiling. It just makes things that little bit more tolerable knowing you are happy where you are. One day, we might even see each other again. It will never be the same but we will have the knowledge that if ever we needed each other, we'd drop everything.
Friends. May we never forget each other.

Life seems to be getting faster

My middle son turned 8 today and although I do feel like the time has been spent doing good things, I do feel like I have been robbed of him. Where did that sweet little boy go to? He has given me lots of laughs and smiles and equal amounts of heartache and frustration. It just seems as though they grow quicker every day.
I cling on to the moments when he thinks a house costs about £1000 and a car costs about £2000. Still no clue. Thank goodness his innocence is still intact.
I counted my grey hairs the other day and had to give up. It was taking too long and it was straining my eyes. Had to put my glasses on. That made me feel even older.
I have never understood why people go under the knife for vanity's sake but I am very close to seeing how some might be swayed.
Actually I am quite looking forward to being older but the transformation in getting there seems to be rapid and shocking. I think if we just went from youthful to 'oldful' in one swoop it might be easier to accept. You know, wake up one morning and just 'be' old. I think its the dread and the unknown that scares us into being vain.
As for my son, he's happy with his gappy smile and his skinny legs. Good on him. I hope he stays happy with his lot. I might even take a page out of his book and start to enjoy the time I'm given instead of wasting it away worrying and causing even more grey hairs.
Happy Birthday Jack Oliver xxxxxxxxxxxx