The "Tabs" free hospital, hunger games and other ramblings...

*BASED ON MY FB RESPONSE THIS POST HAS TOES*

Last night... I thought I was actually going to die... I appreciate that I am both a hypochondriac and a wuss, but ermergerd does not even begin to cover it. At approximatly 9pm or as hubby would have it known after the fifth episode of toddlers and tiaras (I have no shame, plus it gives me something to yell at the telly for) the eye headache set in. I don't have this often but when I do the best thing is to give in and go to bed... which I did because I am now medical expert and also any excuse to sleep is going to be met by my own personal agreement.., so I crawled up the stairs and lay in my bed feeling sorry for myself, at the height of this I tried to cajole myself out of being a big wuss by reminding myself what girl child has recently been through and the lack of complaining she has done about it.. did not work or make me feel any better. As many of you know I am an self centered, ego centric person and as Freud would have it my ID, EGO and SUPEREGO are always at war with one another (I only put this in to show that I still know stuff) and if its not about me I'm not interested. I lay there for a further half hour working out what I wanted my funeral to be like, my final last words and what I could possibly be dying from since the pain was so bad. If it wasn't for the not tolerating any kind of noise or light I would have googled it, as it was using my own knowledge I could only predict: Swine Flu, Eye Cancer, MRSA, Toxoplasmosis, self pity or acts of god. This as you can imagine caused even more distress when I heard my mother fall through the door possibly cussing. I have to say possibly cussing because by this point I had convinced myself that both of my ears had also dropped off as a result of whatever fatal disease I was suffering from. Hubby yelled at me to get downstairs because he wanted a second opinion on a broken toe.... WHAT? I spend a week in a children's hospital and now I'm some kind of medical expert. I staggered through the bright lights yelling something about who dropped what on what (trust me I was in pain I couldn't be expected to make sense) and that I couldn't drive anyone anywhere... amazing the effect that a bright purple toe has on an eye headache... you do not have to be an expert to look at mothers toes and recognize a broken one.. I couldn't do sympathy or empathy at this point I wanted to die, so I went back upstairs feeling even more pathetic that people had broken livers and toes and I just had a headache... which lasted all of about 5 minutes when I had to take off all of my clothes and lie on the bathroom floor just to feel better. For about 30 seconds of this I thought about how I didn't want to die naked and then got to a point where I didn't care anymore... which is when the pain hurt so much that well there is no nice way of putting it I had to become acquaintances with the toilet.. I have no idea when or how I made it to bed, but I do know that hubby clearly ministered to me in the night based on the flood of water and flannels I woke up to this morning. Was mildly disappointed that for all that pain I hadn't actually died but woke up feeling not dead which was an improvement.


Mother's toes were twice the size this morning, so I find not only the wounded Girl child on the sofa but also my mother..

Since we were due a hospital appointment anyway it made sense to do the whole A n E thing at the same time. Now my mother will kill me but I figure that since I spent the majority of my annual leave in one hospital or another that its OK (most people go on holiday and visit exotic lands, I visit and sample the local hospitals) Mum has recently been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and as a sufferer myself I know this is not funny.. however certain aspects of it are, maybe this shows a lack of my own maturity (and I'm comfortable with it) but I found it hilarious that after all the guidance they give her about looking after her joints that they hand her an information pack that weighs more than a bible. (don't worry I'm not that selfish I did carry it for her)



So we hobbled around to A&E in which mum who had understandably refused to wear shoes then complains that her slippers are wet. As is the way we arrive to find disgruntled people banging on about waiting times and should they just die on the spot to get some attention and I knew we were in for a long wait. Fortunately I had planned ahead and had a copy of Catching Fire (new behind the times hunger games obsessions as inspired by girl child) however it turns out if you have to wait 2 hours it's rude to ignore your long suffering mother so I offered to read some of her literature to her...


Me being me of course found the most appropriate leaflet from the bunch....






According to my mum it's not appropriate to read such things in public but then I remember who I was and did so anyway, was a bit worried half way through that I was making my mum laugh so much and having a good time that they might throw us out for having to much fun and not really having an injury...

Turns out there is a lot I don't know about sex and arthritis such as; sex doesn't cause arthritis and arthritis doesn't cause sex. Also I love to exaggerate but this leaflet didn't require it, some of my favorite parts being: "what should I do if sex is difficult?" the answer "change position" - even I don't need to make that funny it just is... I also enjoyed the section on "if all else fails vibrators are excellent for stimulation, not just your genital areas but aching joints" - it was at this point I was worried that mum would die of humiliation or wet herself but I carried on regardless. Of course I was only kidding when I said any minute now there's going to be a karma sutra for arthritis...

Turns out there is (Hubby asked mum if we could borrow this later) but I was more amused at my mother's rage that there are five positions for women and four for men, but that the only reason there were any at all was because all men think about is sex. Also that she wondered if the figures were grey to represent 50 shades or some kind of equality drive. Found myself a little concerned that my concentration was focused on where I could get a trolley and pillows from...

Eventually we saw a nurse who said yup its broken here is some tape and sent us home, to find hubby had done the wound care for the girl child (thank god) and had everything under control.





I have officially turned my living room into ward two and am currently accepting patients...

ADDENDUM - My mother having nearly wet herself laughing reading this blog post (because she knows its true) has requested that I inform my readers that she is not in fact a dirty be-atch (bitch) and that that white stuff is not foot fungus or narcotics but talcum powder.

A hospital guide for parents -part 1

We are on day 5 of being in the high dependency unit at BCH, girl child is finally recovering from surgery and on her way to looking like a human being again, so this is the first opportunity I have had to log my thoughts on the whole experience thus far....

It occurred to me last night that while the ward and nurses are lovely and take spiffing (it's been that kind if stay I need to exercise my extensive vocabulary!) good care of my baby girl that what they really need to include in the welcome pack amongst the smiley cartoons, stickers and other related child friendly stuff is a guide for parents so that we can understand the hints and tips of the trade of being a hospital parents and most essentially an etiquette guide. Don't get me wrong I haven't suddenly become a lady or completed finishing school, there's just some things I've had to learn the hard way...

1. Sleeping...

Do not expect to get any solid sleep in the ward, not even when your child has made significant progress and you can finally relax. Firstly if you are lucky enough to acquire a sleeping vessel (more on vessels later) in the HDU they do not allow camp beds, but recliner chairs in case of emergency, understandable but do not be fooled by the term recliner chair. Once you have sat and attempted to sleep in it after the first day you begin to hate it's very existence with more and more furosity  as the days go by. It does recline indeed but only to a certain extent which unless you are shaped like a W does not suit or fit anyone's actual body shape. This is even worse if like me you have never slept on your back a day in your life, although I did try sleeping on my front in this baby the thought of my ass in the air for the whole ward to see was just too much. You can also rule out the foetal position because trust me on this it just isn't happening.

In addition to the bleeping and shuffling and noises of pain (that's just the parents not the patients) obviously regular observations have to occur which means that while you are not sleeping in the recliner chair you have to leave a gangway for the staff to walk down in the night to check monitors etc... This often leads to having a bum or two in your face in the early hours of the morning, also if you don't leave a gangway, you are at risk of waking up to find a nurse on your face, trust me when I say these blighters are both determined and acrobats, I wonder if it comes with the training.

And as for the air con you can be guaranteed that wherever you sleep in this ward you will be under the air con unit that has a mind entirely of its own, and it makes the most amazing noises throughout the night, causing me to feel that I may never be able to sleep without it's rumbling when we make it home. Also the plumbing has this system where all the sinks turn themselves on for cleaning purposes and this is normally around 1am making every parent on the ward need the toilet (of which there is only one of) and have to fight their way out of recliner blanket hell (see below) to fight for the toilet.

1a Sleeping equipment

This required its own sub section because firstly the time to get your basic sleeping essentials, pillow/ blankets and sheets is as soon as you spot he laundry lady (around 7am) noted by her greeny blue outfit. Trust me when I tell you that blankets and pillows in this ward have monetary value, there are days when I would swap my soul for an extra blanket. As for pillows it's a dead mans shoes position, you have it swipe them from the last discharged patient if you actually want to acquire one... Think the hunger games only for pillows.

The blankets in themselves are of an odd nature, neither one thing or the other, initially all folded up they are like dumb bells these things weigh a ton, so you can't actually use them doubled up unless you have sensory issues and enjoy deep touch, if you are like me and don't like to feel like you can't move/ are being suffocated in your sleep then you have to unfold them all the way, which makes them into an enigma because then they become the thinnest blankets in the world and you require at least 3 of them.. Thus getting you back to the being smothered to death problem. Somewhere throughout the not sleeping night when the air con really has at it you will find your self hoarding these blankets like some kind of blanket whore despite how much you hate the damn things. Also here blankets do not cover the entire body of an average sized person, so you have to invent this crazy patchwork system, which when you have a nurse on your face in the middle of the night all falls apart.

Basically expect to miss sleep while you are here...

2. Dress code

You can gauge how long a parent has been here by their clothing, we all naively come in here dressed like rational human beings with clean clothes and matching underwear... The longer you are here the more mismatched you become. Pack what you like in preparation by the end of the stay you won't give a crap who sees you wearing what, and or when. I know this because in a I need comfy hospital clothes I had hubby buy me some jogging bottoms with the word geek on them in tardis blue (natch) well when I first put them on and discovered that these were indeed the chav pants to end all chav pants in that they highlighted my ass and lady garden but sagged everywhere else, that there was no way in hell I was wearing those in public. Turns out by day 5 the public don't care and I can hug my ass and lady parts and no one bats an eyelid...

Also do not bother with make up or hair spray or any of that because you won't care and the just out of bed look is the fashion. In fact us long stay parents will sneer at you and feel pity for you when you first come in all clean and fresh faced, knowing what is in store for you...

3. Food / parents room.

Apparently amongst the not sleeping and worry and dressing like a chav you have to eat food, like real food. There is a few schools of thoughts about this and the food situation is not unlike the food situations in an office

- no matter how much you love it, it is not acceptable to eat liver and bacon on a liver ward.. It's just wrong 

- you can label your food and store it in the fridge but someone will still eat it, so if it's storable keep it in your bed locker

- if you really can't be bothered to make a sandwich and have to eat take away for the love of god don't eat it on the ward with the nil by mouth kids... Also makes the rest of wish we had what you did rather than our pathetic turkey sandwich

- additionally if you do decide to have a Chinese banquet in the parents room, complete with candles and romance please be aware that when I am in there I am likely to drool and watch you shovel MSG into your mouth as the candles flicker (true story) Also this makes the room smell like Chinese food for three days so everyone ends up with cravings

- don't bother with any diet, the day consists of munching your way through your body weight in junk because it whiles the hours away. If secret eaters were to come in here they would have a field day, except that there is no secret to the fact that is perfectly acceptable to eat an entire box of donuts in an hour..

4. The bathroom

There is one bathroom for parents on the entire ward, therefore you must observe the timings of other parents to ensure that there are no conflicts in others schedules or bowel movements (trust me this ward is obsessed with bowels). If you break into anyone elses routine by trying to sneak in a wee outside of your allotted hours the rest of the parents will give you stink eye for the rest of the day.

Showering is okay provided that you have no objections to being stoned in the shower at a rate of knots and you don't mind not being able to adjust the temperature. It is a pot luck of an experience as to whether today's shower will be bolts of ice or scalding meteorites. The ward provides towels and when I first got here I made the mistake of using only one, unless you are the size of a matchstick always take 3 into the shower. Also towels are as rare as pillows due to I suspect the nature of the size of the towels. Last night I foolishly got excited and thought I had lost weight as when we first  arrived I could not fit the towel all the way around, last night I could so I did a little naked bathroom dance before realising that I had got my hands on one of the fabled adult towels. This brought me down to earth with a bump but I have refused to put said towel in the laundry for fear I may never see it again!

5 Other parents.

In order to prevent yourself from going mad it is necessary to make allies while on the ward. Even though I have spent my entire parenting life avoiding other parents and not making friends in the playground (not dissimilar to my childhood) it is an evil necessity with this ward. There are right and wrong ways of doing this..

- when you first arrive avoid eye contact, otherwise this invites the ward gossip to introduce herself tell you her life story and pump you for information that she can share amongst the other parents. This gives her status and allows her to retain her position as head parent. Additionally this allows her a sense of over inflated ego and she will spend the rest of the stay giving you the advice of how to be a liver parent and how to do it "her way"

- There are two types of liver parents, the competitive and the non competitive. Competitive parents children have far worse conditions than your child regardless of diagnosis, have the most amount of hospital stays (and wear these like trophies) and speak fluent hospital. They are also the ones that us other parents know that the staff have nicknames for and the most irritating. Non competitive parents just get on with their children's disease and can have a conversation that isn't purely about them. 

- the parents room is a tricky one, some parents go to have parent adult talk and others go for just some alone time, you have to gauge this by whether they have their face buried in technology or are glancing around the room looking for conversation. 

- it is okay to talk about stuff other than livers and poos and bowels and farting, but don't expect the conversation to veer to far away from these topics, as this are what we have in common. Shared knowledge is an important tool in dealing with other parents..., knowledge (not unlike towels and blankets) is power..

Cranks, training and general yerking

soooo despite the amazing moment of wow which lasted all of a day turns out hubby and mum are both right its a simple one off...

so far this week I've felt yerk.... I use yerk because I dont have an elequont enough or real word for the feeling nothing or everything that is occuring. I realise that NOT feeling worse ranks as ok in my GP world, but I'm stupidly sick of I feel the same..... and even though because I am both a hypocrite and hypochonriac when I am whatever happy is i will still find something to moan about.... but the good hyper days just feel too far behind right now...

stupidly booked a lot of stuff to do today in the hope that it would beat my agrophobia that is kicking in.... as I tried to explain its not big wide open spaces or leaving the house I have an issue with but being around people that I dont even know but want to gag / main / other fantasy here....

So after running around like a loon (and there was a small / large McDonalds involved mmmm sour cream dip) I had MANDATORY training this afternoon. Mandtory already gets my back up like being back at school and having to do religious studies or heaven forbid PE.... plus without being arrogant why do I have to learn to suck eggs again when I already have a degree in egg sucking? Thats probably not really fair....but afternoon training when I already used up my being around people reserves just means I want to sleep no matter how interesting you and your subject are. For the first time since I am usually the geek at the front going ME ME ME I know I know (see Hermione / Harry Potter) I finally know how it feels to be stuck between the two "GEEKS" in the class who draw attention to the fact you are asleep in the back row (or doodlling see later pics) and they know the answer to everything and it makes them mad that you dont care (Sorry geeks who normally I collude with)

In other news (which is a recurring faction with me) my XCUT came which is MEGA MEGA amaxzing even if I do want to put my head in it (a little bit). Both BSGG and hubby say I can't use it in my current state of mind because I will lose a vital body organ.... they are probably right....

also looked up this ZENTANGLE STUFF... turns out everyone is a snob about everything... but also that I have been "tangling" for like forever but without an actual name (purists would disagree but quite frankly I DONT CARE) I think its kind of pretty.....

Boy child remains a walking disaster.... during a poetry slam (nope I'm still that crap that I don't know what that is) he decides to fall on the not broken wrist, gouge open his elbow, sprain not broken wrist and basically be the equivalent of calamity jane..... because I was snoozing  errrr training in a random basement I didn't get the "your son could have slammed poetry but bascially slammed his own body you terrible oerson and oarent call" so mum had to deal with oozing blody child when school brought him home (parenting fail 10001)

Girl child via the skype generation (god I hate how constantly dated I am) has decided to invite boys who she "is not dating... god mum you are so embarrasing" into her room. Hubby and I had a bit of a debate about if this was appropiate while girl child curled up and died in the corner.... feels a bit odd that i can totally relate but can't because apparently i'm a total dinosaur....we (to girl child's disgust) stuck with the real world rule.... boy in your bedroom wireless or no... door open....

she hates me.... wish mum had kept a diary of me at my age... even if I was mainly worried about my thunder thighs and ducks in a bucket...

Something New.... Fugly Fairies and Depression Fringes...

Before I even start with this weekend's report on the crazy world that is me, I have (if you read my previous posts) agreed to humor hubby and use the "tablet" or "ipear" to attempt to improve my drawing skills... since if I have to illustrate apparently I have to do it well... Therefore because I haven't found a decent APP with text as well as drawing I thought I should produce a reference guide (above) so that I don't have to keep telling you who is who.. also because I am lazy and because it amused me.... Bombshell grey girl has asked me to protect her identity, even though anyone who knows me can probably work out who she is... but I am nothing if not respectful so in the style of an essay

*all names (except my own, hubbys, mums, girl child's, boy childs and infact anyone who hasn't as yet slapped me with a restraining order) have been changed to protect identity's... Bombshell grey girl may occasionally be referred to as BSGG for clarity sake...

SO..... YES IT's another one of my new year, bloody miserable everything sucks and I'm the miserable one no one wants to hang out with entry... but I am nothing if not consistent and still can find the funny side.... and FOR the record the funniest people are the most miserable... it takes a skill to be funny and sad all at the same time... anyway something weird happened this weekend...

See above for accurate description of how I feel.... if I could draw better there would have been daemons, scenes from SAW, doom and gloom.... actually there would have been this...

Also if you were of my ERA and a bit of a girl nerd / geek / totes depressive emo (even though we didn't have them then) you'd know that the whole raining on me thing is a TRAVIS thing (I may have had no friends but I knew how to pick a depressing sound track to hang out on my own with)

WHY DOES IT ALWAYS RAIN ON ME

Oh and for the record YES I did lie more than a few times when I was 17... mainly about being or not being a virgin and other associated peer pressure subjects...

I digress as normal (nothing new there peeps) so anyway THIS REALLY weird thing happened when I woke up on Saturday.... I woke up undisturbed, no boy child showering, no insistent beep beep of crappy alarm clocks that I usually smash into the wall.... did have very weird dreams about my hubby being cold all night because he had no duvet (turns out I didn't dream that and it was true but that is a whole other story) I just woke up... BEST SLEEP EVER and sort of best wake up ever... (YES I still did the whole body limb check only the CRAP I'm still alive part was missing).. so I kind of sprung out of bed... feeling a bit unsure about who I was and why I existed.... I sang (admittedly BADLY) songs for two hours straight... okay I didn't manage a whole song because as hubby likes to continually point out I don't have the attention span to learn a whole song or for my mind not to get distract... OOOH SHINY! but I did produce what can only be described as a medley of songs that I do think I know.. which included; (some of)

- morning is broken, (well it was)
-Loving you is easy cos your beautiful (but I only remembered the screechy part)
-Private Dancer (which involved me gyrating all over the front room - girl child said she would pay me to stop)
- It's all about you (or me in my version because I am egocentric)
- Shalom (except hubby said there was no peace that morning)
- The whole of the CHER album (but in a one sentence at random from each song but to the theme of do you believe in love)
- I've been to the year 3000 (but I could only remember that your great great great granddaughter... is pretty fine)
- I know a song that'll get on your nerves (which is when I got a bit nervy that hubby was going to have a breakdown)
-100 green bottles (but I got bored after 98 and went back to private dancing... "I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money and any old money will do..." I'll let you work that one out for yourself)

and well anything else that my brain decided was cool..... because people SINGING (even badly) is cool...





Hubby and mum didn't quite know what to make of all the singing and what can probably be described as nervous energy, I couldn't sit still for love nor god, I didn't want to use the PC or watch telly... I just wanted to do stuff and I wanted to do it right now... NOW NOW NOW... they had whispered conversations (in which they really need to practice their stage whispering because its way too loud) about what the pay back was going to be to all this happy?.... I ignored them and began on a series of sunshiny songs (think walking on sunshine, the sun has got his hat on...)


Decided I needed to drink an insane amount of apple juice (your going to get where this is going because. ... apple juice like singing and bow ties is.... ----------------- YES COOL) so dragged hubby to shop to buy munchies and stuff.... got into weird conversation about rudeness because he now has achieved level whatever more than a geek is with his new gaming in the car music... got home and then discussed smiling, which is a weird new concept since I can't smile because I think I have horrible teeth, but turns out when you actually pay attention to your hubby he can't smile either... so I taught him how to smile and he spent the rest of the time pissing himself (laughter not literally don't want people getting the wrong impression)

How to smile (c) T King (Tab.it.HA) 2014

After all this fun and also hubby getting a bit cross and not really knowing to cope with me and asking if Bombshell Grey Girl was coming over anytime soon so he could have a break... I decided that I couldn't be this.... I have no actual word for this feeling.... and be all manky looking with the crazy hair... again I wanted to be pretty and I needed to be pretty right now.... hubby said (I think purely for respite purposes) how about a hair cut.... and I decided that what with the crazy mad afro hair of late that it wasn't a bad idea.... TRUE one of my 33 things is to not cut / faff / screw with my hair but a trim is like ok right...?

DA NA I have a fringe (explanation about fringes up coming) and actually you know what, I am kind of pretty now, and even better the weird demented trying to be a pond ginger that I had going on, looks so much better now.... I am definitely Amelia worthy..., it's like I should always have had a fringe to make things right.... came home and admired self well quite a lot, made mum and hubby admire me too, till they got fed up and then I went and disturbed the boy and girl child. Girl child threw strop about how she always wanted a fringe (SINCE WHEN?) and how unfair the whole world was and Boy child said "what have you done with my mum?" which I am still unclear over whether this was a compliment or insult....

So by this point of the day (2pm) I was pretty knackered with all the singing and the not being able to sit down or do anything that didn't involve excessively waving my arms around, rocking and just being active... Hubby was concerned I was going to have a coronary so I tried to explain that I felt like I had too much body to know what to do with it and it was like it all wanted to do stuff all at the same time... he said I should think about a diet if I had that much body... I gave him the death stare and sang "she *&(*&*&^ hates me" ((puddle of mud if you want the rude word)) with my hands on my hips in retaliation...

I decided the best way to explain it to him was in terms of The Doctor... it was like being all David Tennant... "I don't want to go" (sob) and then being all Matt Smith if I had been a time lord on Saturday I would have totally been experiencing regeneration... He finally got it when I said you remember how a few weekends ago you threw yourself around the house pretending to be Matt Smith and trying to work out how he doesn't have back ache? I feel like that....

So I was in a bloody good all round mood (Hubby says if its the vitamin D already then that was the best £1 he ever spent but does pound-land do downers too?) which is when BSGG came to play... She wasn't really sure of what to make of regenerating talking 200 miles an hour waving my arms around Tabs, but she did bring her own tea bags, craft stuff and awesomeness (I made her leave the bombshell grey paint at home). AND the most AWESOME (and lose a finger) guillotine in the whole world (for paper not heads)... I was a bit frightened by it at first and completely massacred all of her pretty card until I got the hang of it and demanded my own X-CUT (big up hubby for being awesome)

I've been swap-botting for a while now and really enjoy making prettys and sending them off and getting pretty mail back, so I managed to enthuse BSGG into this whole fad, but because she needed the points for a good reputation she signed up to the single most ugly swaps ever! Like a button fairy which I am sorry is the creepiest thing ever.... She's quite crafty my mate and well she has quite good taste, but jeez she makes some fugly fairies, I think her heart wasn't really in it. In fact she said, when hers arrived she wasn't going to open it, it's so creepy she's just going to send it straight to my house... (seems a bit harsh). It was bad to start off with, and then in her attempt to make it errrm better it just got fuglier.... some how she thinks sticking a feather out of it's head would make things better (WRONG)

BSGG considered writing an apologetic note along with the fugly (I mean fairy) about how she was new at this and she was sorry it was so hideous, but then hubby and I pointed out that what if the recipient thought it was the raddest (god is that even still a word?) thing ever and loved it and there she was slagging it off... She decided to "improve" it with a hanging hook so the new owner could hang it in her room of clearly demented and ugly things...Hubby pointed out that all he could now envisage was that scene from Se7en with the guy with all the air fresheners.... some woman somewhere with a room full of freaky fairy's.... this was enough to set BSGG into the kind of hysteria she gets into where other people want to wet themselves and she has to grope around for her inhaler

Anyhoo despite the fugly's a good time was had by all until MUM pointed out the time and said it was time for bed. I didn't clean up the mess because I am a grown up and don't have to...

And finally because I do like a good theory... I am proud to present.... DEPRESSION HAIR (c) T King (Tab.it.HA) 2014...

Mum says (and she is wise) that people with fringes are not happy people, or at least not secure people because they need something to hide behind (or words to that effect) however throughout my periods of low mood / depression / mania my hair has been decidedly crap....

 AFRO hair = pissed of and miserable, but to apathetic to deal with it also eats hair brushes and makes me feel even worse about everything

Cousin IT hair  = Awesome for hiding behind, bit obvious that I am feeling anti-social, hate people and the world... also after not washing is a bit gross it all hanging in my face all limp and pathetic (like said mood)

Didn't sleep for a WEEK hair = mildly amusing now but not then. Like I had been dragged through an bunch of really angry bushes with teeth and claws, barely survived a zombie apocalypse... still shows off crappy old person bald spot  adding to funk

Fringe Hair = acceptable length in which to hide behind as required but also enhancing of totes awesome cheek bones and goes well with a bow tie...

ALL this time I thought I was depressed... I simply needed a fringe... and yes I will be writing to the NHS to give them hair therapy advice or as I like to refer to it as

Fringerapathy... (c) T King (Tab.it.HA) 2014

Friday round up (depressive badly drawn drawings warning!)

So most of my entry's this year have been pretty depressing but that's kind of how I'm  feeling and since its my blog why should I hide how I feel? I feel ridiculous that I am the point of not functioning that I try to go to work (and I do try really I do) and yet the effort of being around people is just too much.... so I'm doing the hedge-pig thing and hibernating...

After some canvassing so mum and hubby about adding drawings as well as photos they both voted a huge yes because apparently my artistic skills are as good as my singing (totes awesome for the record) which apparently adds to the charm of said blog...

Hubby (tech head / nerd / geek / technological genius) said maybe my drawing would be better with a tablet app (see below to know he was again WRONGER than a wrong thing) but I am nothing if not easily influenced (see peer pressure) so I foolishly agreed...

See above, can't draw / won't draw

Hubbys ridiculous suggestion that the drawing might be better... (see I still love him enough to draw a superhero cloak on him!)

Turns out as usual I am right.... but am willing to test drawing skills on tablet for a week,..... you know just to be like TOTES AWESOME RIGHT AMAZEBALLS... (apologies for remainder of blog... but this is my test "told you so" blog piece...

So one of the lovely side effects of being a miserable bitch is not sleeping (which also goes with not smoking but I suck at that too... so we go (and by we I  mean hubby and I) go to bed at a respectable hour (10pm for the record) this next bit is going to require some seriously blah blah explanation (feel free to scroll)

1) Hubby loves criminal minds

2) so do I but I hate Mr Rossi... for purely discriminatory reasons

3) I hate rooster teeth even more than Mr Rossi... think geeks who are both smug and annoying and virgins

4) Hubby while awake makes me watch criminal minds.... in which Mr (I HATE HIM) Rossi is the hero (GAH) then I say "I'm going to bed" so  he says "me too" and then makes me watch Rooster teeth (now renamed in my head rooster tits)... after 30 full mins of him snoring do I realize I am still watching this shit so turn to my favorite viewing (the doctor.... really do you people not know me this well? ) which is when almost on auto hubby auto dream farts.... don't get me wrong, I have been particularly windy of late... so let he who is without sin cast the first stone (Checked this with mum blame her if wrong)but jeez he could have emptied the room....

to make matters worse (and I will give him the benefit of the doubt) when he work about around oooh 11.45 pm and said "whats that stink?" I didn't beat him to death mainly because I didn't have the oxygen to do so) I gently explained that since he fell asleep he was doing the bubbly farts.... I could have lived with this except for the sly smile and wink he gave me before lifting his *ahem* cheeks letting one rip and falling asleep....

Mum decided that today was the day to be able to see properly...which given on my day off in which boy child woke me up, not by showering but by having a funk and being deprived of sleep due to obnoxious man gases all night... so she strapped on her ass kicking pink boots and dragged me into town to try on an insane amount of glasses... to be honest readers for her height and weight she has a ridiculously tiny head (or pin head as she describes it)... but I got to the point where I didn't care if she looked like dame Edna eve-ridge or no....

see I'm so bad ass I don't care bout nuffink (or as mum says now days true dat innit)

decided that since am already pissed off and not wanting to do the do with mr mc fart pants (not his fault pre farting FYI ) that what they hey maybe the sunshine drug would help... have no solid evidence will let you know..

Kitten decided to be all cute...

this is the girl childs wall of notes.... oh god I made an exact clone of me...

Well at least she keeps EVERYTHING and I can go and swoon over 11 anytime I like....

Boy child...had a shower.... refused food.... must be sick

boy child's bedroom..... ugh

boy child announced he felt better... proved by raiding of fridge...

mum in her house pants "feeding the people" (Labour Party)

Girl child attempting to argue with dad child (real word people) about why Sherlock is cool and why 2 hours per night on the tinternet is not enough...

realising she has lost but posing anyhoo....

Mankiness, Turkey Hacking, Rollers and Crafting... guest featuring bombshell grey...

So I have been feeling pretty manky for the last few days it's been the kind of week where being around people is too much like effort so I've retreated and worked from home. I also have spent a ridiculous amount of time doing the sleep of the not sleeping, which has mainly involved hibernating under my duvet and waiting to feel better.... nothing doing yet so guessing my bath is still half empty.


Mum had to go to work yesterday which meant it was my turn to cook. Feeling miserable meant that actually I couldn't really summon up the effort, also since it is after all January frugal cooking is the name of the day, as in actually using up the stuff that no one wants to eat that is laying around in the bottom of the freezer. This left me with the worlds biggest turkey leg....

It was so huge that it would not fit in the slow cooker even though I attempted to fit this in, in a number of different ways. There may have been a small and very pathetic moment in which I lay on the kitchen floor with the turkey leg in my hand sobbing about the damn unfairness of it all. (I have not drawn this on the basis there is only so much humiliation that I am willing to own up to)

After one of my many recent pity party's I decided I was damned if I was going to be beaten by a turkey leg, so I devised a number of ways to fit said turkey leg in slow cooker..

this included but is not limited to, jumping up and down on it, throwing it out of the window, taking a blow torch to it and the more realistic poking it with a fork hoping it would get annoyed by the constant poking and change it's shape. Didn't happen

Hubby decided to intervene, I suspect this was in part because crying over a turkey leg and smacking it against random walls and cussing a lot is the equivalent of crying over spilled milk, only with a higher risk of salmonella poisoning. Mum who has clearly taken notes on my frustrations over the years stayed out of it but I could still here her chuckling from the front front room and I wasn't ready for turkey hacking to be funny right then.

 

Now I was slightly relieved to discover that it wasn't my puny pathetic self that couldn't deal with a damn turkey leg as after some thought he went and raided the contents of his tool box. The hammer technique was not in all a big success unless you were the cat who got a random bit of turkey skin hurled across the kitchen at him. Also I had to stop hubby as the kitchen sink looked in danger of falling through. This is when he came up with the highly logical rusty saw technique; never mind the salmonella I was originally worried about we are all going to die of rust poisoning. He was one step away from putting his foot on the actual turkey leg and adding to its now grimy state before I pointed out that clearly this plan wasn't going to work either. He got a bit snotty at this point and asked what exactly I thought I was going to achieve by poking it with a fork. He got the crossed arms and furrowed brow answer. 

Finally he attacked that sucker with a Stanley knife, which I will give him showed his commitment and dedication to turkey leg abuse as he sliced off layer by layer until we could cram the lid shut on the damn thing. There were several moments when I was worried that he would lose a finger and we would have to go to yet another a & e department!

Also demonstrated in photo's ^^^^ because it was a serious achievement!

In other news girl child has decided to embrace the world of being a girl and decided to start sleeping in rollers, in hindsight I should have warned her about the crazy afro gene that appears to run in our family and I probably should have got mum to explain about how one wears rollers; I say mum because this is exactly the kind of thing I avoid since the whole hairbrush stuck in my head disaster. Lets just say that I didn't hear the actual screams of dismay in the morning when she tried to remove them in time for school but I did witness the evidence and loss of hair in the bathroom when I finally made it out of bed.

Friend invited me to her house at the weekend and I really didn't want to go, I kind of wanted to hide under the duvet and wallow in my own self pity but she employed two tactics. The "lets craft and touch all our papers and make envelopes" approach and the The "if I don't go she would make me feel bad about it for a year and probably beat me" approach. (In fairness she didn't apply the second approach it's just how I imagined it in my head) Both worked plus she's the kind of friend who doesn't attempt to cheer me up and is happy for me to wallow all over her sofa. 

Turns out after a whole evening of crafting, that we are not very good at card making, what we are good at is cutting lots of bits of paper into different sizes and shapes. This had us in hysteria at 1am in the morning when there were bits of paper all over the place but no actual successful crafting as it were had actually taken place. Don't get me wrong we watched a heck of a lot of tutorials on how to make beautiful cards and then we tried to recreate these "easy" and "fun" to do cards. When I discovered that this whole thing was a complete farce and turned out to be secret maths and secret origami I was more than a bit miffed...

Now my friend who talks almost as much as I do and has a generalized but logical hatred of all of humanity, people and the wider community decides that it's bed time. I'm all up for that so I'm snuggled up in bed when she decides to do what I can only describe as an impression of me. There I am all drowsy and snugly when she decides now is the perfect time for a 2 hour chat, like we didn't just spend the entire night talking and crafting (or anti crafting) and having fun.. NOW she wants to have a chat. (I finally know now what hubby has been banging on about all these years) I think its interesting to work out what goes through a persons mind when they are all relaxed and talking bed shit at you when your trying to sleep. Her topics of conversation were diverse to say the least but my favorite topic was when she got round to the subject of her bedroom.

Her: "What do you think of this colour?" (please note that I realized this was rhetorical because she doesn't actually care what other people think once she has made her mind up) 

Me: "Well it's grey, you know how I feel about grey"

Her: "yes but what do you think about it?" 

Me: (trying to think of what the answer she is looking for) "it's grey innit"

Her: "Don't you think it's romantic..."

Me: "Well it kind of reminds me of institutions"

Her: (affronted) "Institution? you think my bedroom is like an institution?"

Me: "well I'm just saying I've been in mental health facilities and prisons with the same kind of colour"

Her: SILENCE

Me: "Well you asked"

Her: "mmm maybe it could be seen as institutionalized but that wasn't what I was going for"

Me: "you know what would be cool?"

Her: What?

Me: "A bomb shelter, we could use it as a craft room it would be epic"

Her: "but we couldn't smoke in there"

Me: "yer but it'd be cool"

Her: "bomb shelters are grey you know"

Me "ERMERGERD that's what colour this room is... bomb shelter grey"

Her: "No it's romantic you know like those films.. you know film  noir and all that, with the lace patterns, I thought it would be girly"

Me: *snorts* "hang on you wanted a romantic girly room and you decided not only to paint it bomb shelter grey with no lace or anything and then you put that picture up over there (indicates black and white picture  with a bright red umbrella) I think you went past romantic film noir movies and went straight to Schindler's List Grey" (Insert inappropriate laughter)

Her: "Well I think its romantic...." she then tailed off on her remaining two hour discussion most of which I hazed out...

The following morning we spent the whole day cutting up more paper and making prettys:

In other news as much as I would like to crawl under a rock and hibernate for the rest of the evening I am not allowed since boy child has gone to the young voices concert (yes he had two showers this morning!) in Birmingham to sing with Stacy Solomon (very proud... or well jel). He is due back at 10.30 so I have to stay up to pick him up... He left this morning in a white t-shirt for the concert.... 50p says it is anything but white when I collect him!