OS Singlies - We Do It Our Way!

LavenderBees

Morning, All!

Hope you are all having a good start to the long weekend. I am at the start of a lovely long week off work :j; have had a lazy morning after falling back to sleep at my normal waking up time. Bliss!

It's been an absolutely hectic week with long working hours, a fostering first aid course miraculously fitted in somehow, and I've finalised plans for the builder/joiner for the work on my house in a couple of weeks time. So, productive but completely knackering :rotfl:

On the subject of feeling like everything goes wrong at the same time, I can also relate to that. Not so long ago, every time I woke up, I got hit by another crisis/problem, and none of them were small things

But I also think we notice it more because we seem pre-programmed to notice negatives more. We remember negatives long after memories of positives have faded, I find. That doesn't mean that tough things haven't happened together, they do! But good things happen together, too.

I'm a long way from Pollyanna, but I don't want to be unhappy. I want to be happy (fleeting, I find) and content (more achievable, hopefully), so I have made a conscious effort for almost a year now to use legitimate worries to help me focus on an action plan, and also to focus on positives. There is always a positive, sometimes hard to find, but always there. It takes more effort to focus on positives, I think, but it's worth the effort.

I'd be tempted to take that list of 15 issues, and write an action plan to help deal with the most important of them...and then also make myself pick out 15 positive things and list those...and focus on those.

As I say, I'm not Pollyanna, but focusing on negatives is not going to be for me from now on. I am slowly teaching myself to accept the unacceptable and move on. And I have seen a difference in my life quality...slowly but surely, I'm making things happen that are more positive, and some are coming out of the negatives I felt engulfed in not so long ago.

Life is unfortunately all about how we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down, and keep on keeping on. I believe it was Churchill who said and I'm paraphrasing here, but it was long the lines of ...when you are going through hell, keep on going...Sounds like good advice to me!

What I need to also learn to do more of is taking time to smell the roses I've planted...

How philosophical am I for a Saturday morning? :rotfl:

I think a few hours at lottie is called for today ...better get moving...I'll be coming back with huge bundles of rhubarb...and I don't really like it ...using my new positive philosophy, I'd better learn to like it ....



Have a lovely day, All

LB xx

mothernerd

Can you not barter with the rhubarb lavender Bees. Also the first rule of growing your own is to grow things you like, isn't it.

I think I am fairly positive most of the time. I always think of three things to be grateful for at the end of the day and take pleasure in lots of little things.

I only wrote down the 15 things (triggers) to work out why I had reached that point. We were warned at the pre-op education day that we needed to be mentally tough (I said I suffered from depression but was also resilient, I bounce back) and I thought I was doing okay. The three big things were money, health and negative people.

I don't have any money until the other house is sold and I'm paying bills on two houses out of a miniscule amount of money (filled in a stepchange form last week but now hope I have come up with an alternative strategy). The money from the energy company would make a difference (better still if they hadn't taken money they weren't entitled to in the first place, I might not have had to recover from major surgery wearing five layers of clothes because I was scared to put on the central heating). The lack of money is affecting my sleep.

I had problems a few weeks ago when I went to put one of the cheques I had received into the bank. It's an 8 mile bus ride and then currently takes me half an hour to get to the bank (normally 10 minutes). As on a previous occasion, I took lunch and lots of water with me and sat facing the bank before attempting the walk back to the bus station. On the way back I had to stop and sit down (+ buy over the counter painkillers) four times.

That knocked my confidence a lot. I think that at the back of my mind I assumed that once I was back to walking I would progress rapidly and that isn't happening. It's all going to be long and slow. I am now back to noticing all the little improvements (I can look under the bed, I have to stand bent double supporting myself with my hands and turn my head but it's doable) and am delighted that I have managed my regular short walk round town twice this week without any crutches.

For the moment I am avoiding the negative people. Unfortunately one of them is my mother. I have tried to deflect her complaints but not had any success. She's nasty to me but I am in good company as she pours bile on the wives of every vicar they have ever had, other members of the congregation and large sections of the community (frequently parroting the ill-informed views of her partner's offspring). By accident I didn't go for a few weeks and noticed how much better I felt but I need to find a longer term solution.

So back to being positive. Filled in the Stepchange form and I don't have enough money. read through their handy budget hints and the things they suggested cutting down were the things they had told me to put in - I actually spend a third of their suggested monthly food allowance and am beating myself up because I haven't got it as low as I want. Could I suspend the 'emergency fund' (£8 a month) for a while? Well I don't actually have one, but they suggested it. If I can't fix it, I'll have to do with out hence the panic over the boiler. In fact I am already doing without most of the categories in their budget (I do realise it's for everybody). Always find humour in any situation.

So today I am grateful for the sunshine (washing out and have done more work on clearing soil from the paved areas), that I could stand confidently on the fourth rung of the step-ladder to mend the leaking pipe (gently hammering a rubber bung back into it's slot, feeding a side pipe into the main one) and for inventiveness to avoid spending (wanted a sandwich and remembered there was bacon in the freezer, bought for DS3's birthday sleepover: wanted cake and settled for some samosas with hm yoghurt and mint dip - yoghurt was dated sixth May but perfectly okay).

Have a lovely weekend everyone and Lavender Bees have a great week.

LavenderBees

mothernerd wrote: »

The three big things were money, health and negative people.

Yep, they'd be my 3 big things, too

Sorry you are having such a tough time - you sound very resilient, though, shame we singlies have to be all the time, but we'd go under if we weren't!

But for gawd's sake be careful up that bloomin ladder!

As for the rhubarb, it's a little bit of a sad story, but I grow it because my lovely Dad asked me to grow it for him as he loved rhubarb. He only lived long enough to have one wee rhubarb crumble that I made for him, but he did enjoy it . Now I grow it in his memory, and it makes me smile that he would have laughed and teased me about it basically being the one vege I can grow without any problem...:o. Bloomin typical it would be the one vege I don't love. I usually give it away to people I like or love....they generally don't realise it, but it's a gift of love from me.



I have loads of the bloomin stuff :rotfl:

So, who is avoiding the Eurovision tonight then?....Me, me, me!

:rotfl:

LB xx

mum2one

Hope everyone has a gd weekend and some gd weather for the bank hol, I'm escaping with Dd to the sun 2 weeks in Tunisia - can not wait - just treated the legs and underarms to a veet - keep them smooth - it did look I was trying to grow a carpet!

Some gd news I got discharged from the breast clinic everything has healed perfectly there's a scar about size of a 10p but I can live with that, touch wood it just be a call for when should be due a mammogram.
Double gd news - this sounds daft but my smear results came back clear - 3 yr recall. Again is a massive relief as back in 2000 I had precancerous cells and following treatment it was meant to be 3 x 6 mths smears then yearly for 5 yrs I only got to 2 of the 6 mths - and never had another - did try but I have a prolapse which means couldn't be done by nurse / gp so referred to gyne - that and few issues - all clear.

Hoping things are finally starting to look up..... Xx

mum2one

Ps - rhubarb I love it from pies, crumble even make rhubarb and orange jAm - going to see if we can get a cutting and start it off in a bucket the back garden now half slab half grass xx

ellie99

Lots of good news mum2one :T

Very quiet this weekend, hope you've all been doing lovely things!

I've had a whole day off the chores...a friend picked me up, drove me about, and he even treated me to lunch.
There was a yearly event on in our area, where lots of art studios open up to the public and sell their art. We saw some weird stuff and some really lovely stuff, unfortunately too expensive for me to consider buying any. Very interesting to talk to some of the artists though...we chatted with 2 young lads (I'd guess early 20s) whose talent and enthusiasm was impressive.
I'm no artist, but it made me feel I'd like to be enthusiastic about a hobby again.

And we finished off the day by buying cake to bring home to have with our tea...what could be better?

LB, I find nowadays that being contented actually makes me happy, so it's all good :rotfl:

LavenderBees

Yes, Ellie, I agree. Being contented is the way forward, definitely!

What I want to know is why there are less hours in a day off work, than there are in work days?! How an it already be nearly 4pm?! If I was at work, it would only be quarter past 10 :rotfl:

I'm not sure what I've been doing to fill in the time...just the usual stuff, lottie, shopping, lottie...not exciting, but soothing and enjoyable. I'm having a rest before going to clean the hen house.

Your day yesterday sounds nice, Ellie. Is this a wee romance? :heartpuls

...if not....can we pretend it is? :rotfl:

LB xx

ellie99

LavenderBees wrote: »

Your day yesterday sounds nice, Ellie. Is this a wee romance? :heartpuls

...if not....can we pretend it is? :rotfl:

LB xx

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

You can pretend if you like LB, but no, there's no romance, that particular ship sailed about 20 years ago :rotfl: ...just shared interests, but definitely in the "friend-zone".

He would drive me crazy if he was around all the time!

LavenderBees

Shame

It would be nice to think there was a teeny bit of romance in someone's life ...:eek:

I'm cooking my "Sunday lunch"...:D

LB xx

3forholidays

No holiday for me today....just a normal working day. Enjoy your 'Sunday lunch' LB!