Thursday 4 December 2014

Are you hanging up your stocking on the wall?

Well, are you?

Apparently, we are not.

Inevitably December's arrival has heralded the moment to dig out the six - yup, I said six - boxes of Christmas tat from the back of the garage. And today my 2 year old witnessed the rediscovery of many items; both the treasured and the tired!

The red and green baubles had been sifted, those missing their ties cast aside to make way for those managing to remain intact for the last 11 months whilst lying dormant in a cardboard box. How do they get in to such a pickle? I blame the fairy lights.

Eventually, he happened upon several handmade decorations given to us in recent years by a very clever crafting friend. A cupcake. A gkittery Christmas tree. And what he instantly declared, with a somewhat scrunched up nose, to be q "smelly sock".

That boy makes me chuckle.

Wednesday 3 December 2014

How early is too early?


I'm all for easing in gently - taking your time and getting prepared without all the hustle and bustle. Otherwise, the stress takes away from the fun that can be had.

But I have my limits!

I took this photo in ASDA on...wait for it...5th August!

That's the middle of the summer holidays - in fact, it was before we'd even been on our family summer holiday.

What's that all about?!

When do you start preparing for Chrimbo? Where is the line between getting a head start and ruining the whole season by making it last half the bloody year?

Don't be that guy, ASDA. #GetYourFestiveOn but not until your tan has faded!

#GetYourFestiveOn       #PondersNeverEnd

Tuesday 2 December 2014

Lights! Camera! CHRISTMAS!

It would seem that not everyone realises there are still some 23 days until Christmas. Take Rio de Janeiro for example. Not at all easing into the season - oh no - they just leapt in with both feet.

And it was spectacular!



If you can't see the embedded clip, click here http://youtu.be/F55mhaCYxXg


As you stand in the drizzle around a spindly fir, waiting for the mayor/minor local celeb/local newspaper competition winner to switch on the much-anticipated 27 fairy lights, try not to be jealous.

#GetYourFestiveOn however you can. We can't all be Rio!


#GetYourFestiveOn       #PondersNeverEnd

Monday 1 December 2014

Wo! Ho! Ho!

I'm doing it. I'm going to attempt another month of daily posts and, as it's December, things are about to get festive.

Today I put together an afternoon snack to combat my incredible sleep deprivation. And it looked like this. All I needed was a sprig of holly on my tea and it'd be Christmas on a plate.

Epic.

Join me for a ride on Santa's sleigh straight to Christmas Day and #GetYourFestiveOn
 
Easing you into the season, one mince pie at a time


#GetYourFestiveOn       #PondersNeverEnd

Posts

Friday 21 November 2014

Activity vs. Achievement

Do you ever wonder what you did with your day?

I do.

It's quite common for me to be awoken at 6:30 and not to return to the comfortable dent in my pillow until midnight. And yet, I struggle to see what it is I have achieved with those 18.5 waking hours!

That's not to say I am participating in some experiment to test the 'lady-of-leisure' title to breaking point by lollopping on the sofa all day - far from it. My time is occupied by a plethora of roles, responsibilities and tasks. I wear so many different hats, I often can't keep track of them all. But being busy doesn't necessarily mean you've achieved anything.

I think the difference for me is satisfaction. That's the missing element required to convert 'busy'ness to 'achievement'. And when you go for long enough without feeling like you've got anything to show for your efforts, it is soul-destroying. Yes, I have managed to keep the children alive, the washing in its constant clean-dirty-wet-dry-clean cycle, the dishwasher churning. I have even maintained some standard of personal hygiene, playful affection with my partner and  optimism that life won't always feel like this! But these things have to be done again, and again, and again without moving life forwards in any way. If I didn't do them one day, we wouldn't move backwards, life would merely hiccup.

My partner can't always see what I'm whinging about. He can see how busy I've been and thinks I'm knitting with only one needle when I suggest at 11pm I might go and unpack some boxes (from our house move in July)/audit the kids toy collection/hoover the ground floor. He doesn't realise that these are things on the other list of stuff I want to get done and that will make me feel a sense of achievement. I can tick them off life's 'To Do' list. No-one has 'Provide breakfast/lunch/dinner' on their list. 'Breastfeed the baby'. 'Put the shopping away'.

Crazy though this behaviour might seem, it can make a real difference. Anyone who has experienced depression will be familiar with the negativity surrounding a feeling of not being in control of one's life, being on auto-pilot, marking time. It's a slippery slope and allowing days to trickle by without so much as a teeny step being taken in the right direction can be the first step on that slope which will have you on your arse before you can say bugger.

I started a list today. Actually, I created a group on a messaging app for just me and my partner. It's called Achievements. We have plenty of lists around with umpteen tasks we should have done before we moved. They do work for us. But I wanted somewhere we could go to remind us what we've got done rather than haven't even looked at yet. Some days it will only be something little - I realise that. ubt at least it's something. Today, my achievements are [just checking my messaging group with a smug grin in place] enquiring about nursery places for our toddler (and ending up with an appointment for Monday morning!), sourcing this year's real Christmas tree (IKEA from 26th November and only £30 for 6-7ft!) and WRITING THIS POST! Genius!

I'm not going to cure cancer, end famine or achieve world peace. But it might make me feel better about staying at home all day wiping up sick, snot and skids!

#PondersNeverEnd   #CrazyStupidDepression

Monday 6 January 2014

Memories

They are funny old things. I often worry about just how much the brain retains, largely without my knowledge let alone blessing. Old phone numbers for houses we moved from when I was 7. Birthdays for almost anyone I don't like. Song lyrics - dear lord - the song lyrics. As soon as you hear the opening bar, that's it, your brain produces all of the lyrics that 5 seconds earlier you would have sworn you didn't know.

However annoying or inefficient our brains may seem at retaining rubbish and forgetting the important neural Post-Its, just occassionally it digs up a gem. Like yesterday. I was out in the car and I was hungry. Decided to get a McDriveThru on my way home and, having wrongly recalled the location of one McShits', I found myself almost home, parked in the 'local' with the radio on. With trepidation I had plumped for the Radio 1 Chart Show (a risky selection for a 30-something these days but it treated me relatively kindly).

So there I was. Intrigued to hear that James Blunt was back in the charts - who knew? - and unsurprised by the volume of well-known, well-trodden paths through Memory Lane my brain was trying to direct me towards. I wasn't in the mood. There was a guy, a break-up, tears, and James Blunt's first album on repeat for many months of 2005...(and 2006, to be honest). But then two worlds - or at least cranial continents - collided. The combination of already having connected to 'that' chapter of my past, fused with the taste of my Big Tasty (or McNasty as one of my friend's calls it.) You see, I thought to myself just how delicious (not a word I EVER usually associate with burgers of said calibre) the Big Tasty sauce is. And it is. Creamy, the colour of thousand island, the taste of, erm, Big Tasty sauce.

Suddenly, there he was. I was sat in my car back in 2005 with the James Blunt guy. Outside McDonald's in Tonypandy (yes, non-Welshies, that's a real place. You're thinking of Pontypandy where Fireman Sam lives). And I was being told I simply had to lose my virginity - I had to try my first ever Big Tasty and discover the wonder that is the sauce.

From then until now, I have never recalled that tiny and insignificant fact - he was responsible for me trying that burger, way back when. Regardless of how many I've had since (almost none, obviously, as my body is a temple). Regardless of the number of conversations I've had with my boyfriend about how incredible I find his choice to always have his burgers plain - even the Big Tasty! Can you imagine choosing NOT to have the only yummy part of the whole menu?!

Nope. My brain chose that moment, 9 years later, when I was alone, in my car, listening to James Blunt and eating a burger to poke at me with a 'new' memory stick, probably to see if it could make me cry. I, thus, conclude that our memory has a mind of its own (ironically?) and behaves like a bigger boy in the playground, just waiting for the perfect moment to pull a girl's pigtails and make her cry.
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I would like to point out that a) I didn't cry but was more 'well bugger me' about the whole thing and b), this post was in no way endorsed by McD's or any of their affiliates in the sauce-making arena (although I am open to free Big Tasty sauce for life as some kind of sponsorship deal).