Here we can all be heard for a little while

Birdie85

Wow, that's a great list Code! :T I think some of the ones have been used by others before (Master Bakers and Flour Power spring to mind!) but some of the others are definite options! Will have to see what my team mates think! I had been playing with 'Bitten off more than we can choux' but it's a bit wordy.

Wellyboots6

It's a bit warm for log cutting really. I've done some but am having a break now.

Had a rather eventful night last night!

Was just dozing off and had a tickling face. Thought it was my hair, but it kept doing it. Turned the light on and it was the BIGGEST spider you have ever seen!
I screamed and it ran off behind the bed. Hubby came running up and spent ages poking around but couldn't find it.
I ended up taking my duvet downstairs and sleeping on the floor (Little Sod had already claimed the sofa). Escapee wasn't impressed however so I went back up after a couple of hours and saw the huge spider sat on the radiator looking at me. Hubby managed to catch it in the hoover, he was going to get a glass and paper but even he wouldn't go near it as it was so big!
I managed to doze off in bed, but then got woken up again by more tickling. It was another one on my arm!!!
Not as big luckily, and it shot off up the wall so managed to catch it quick.

Didn't sleep well after that...

Birdie85

OMG!!! :eek: :eek: I'm really scared of spiders, I think I'd have run away from home if that happened to me! DH is a big scaredy-cat too so we have to tackle them together... then have a brandy to calm down afterwards! :rotfl:

codemonkey

I'm quite fond of spiders. They help keep the house pest free and don't harm anything. DH is afraid of them so if he insists, I take them outside. He's not allowed to kill them.

I am craving a lunchtime Dominos. Bad code. I am ignoring the craving.

DA dog is in the huff and is sighing and throwing me sad looks because I won't let him on the couch. Whoever said dogs don't huff has never met DA. He's like a stroppy teenager.

Solarjunkie

Bake District
Bake Superior
For Goodness' Bake
Cake Quake
Flour Garden
Mad as a Batter
Little Mix
Lovin' Spoonful
Miss - stir - ees

Well done on the new dress!

Wellyboots6

I don't like killing them, but i couldn't have caught it and hubby wouldn't. I don't mind smaller ones, but I draw the line at ones bigger than my face with hairier legs than me!!

Waves_and_Smiles

Aww, I would have saved you Katy! I currently have a pet spider (not really) I have named Harold who lives in the corner of the room. I wave at him...

Well done on the letter, Melly. Hang in there.

Yay, Code! You did it! Enjoy that beautiful dress!

Today is a sad day for me. It is the anniversary of a friend's death. I am going to penguin this as it talks about suicide briefly but it is mostly about mental health. I don't blame myself for my friend's death because she knew me well enough to make sure that I didn't. I miss her.

Penguin

I met P on a site for other people with MPD and it turned out we lived near to each other. We met up and got on incredibly well. She would tell me about her others and how she was agoraphobic with severe depression, had had cancer and never left the house. She had a 7 year old daughter and her neighbours across the road did most of her babysitting and took her daughter out daily. I began meeting with P regularly, we would have meals at her house and her daughter was fascinated with my long hair and would make it into strange styles at every visit. We had a lot of fun together.

I saw P 3 days before she ended her life. She had prepared a huge chinese meal for me and we all decorated her flat in chinese lanterns and chinese writing. P seemed happy and upbeat with lots of plans for the future and told me she was starting to leave the house again. We had a thoroughly enjoyable evening with a lot laughter.

After her daughter went to bed she came and sat on the arm of my chair and touched my cheek and said "You are my lovely, beautiful friend". She told me that I always blamed myself for too much and I had only ever made her happy to be around and she was so glad that she had met me. She gave me a huge hug. She then brought out with 2 bin bags full of things she had sorted out while tidying her house, unworn clothes, cuddly toys, cute ornaments and told me to take them home with me. It was just things that she never wanted and I could throw them away if I wished. We said goodbye, had a another hug and she told me to stay beautiful.

Three days later P called her neighbours and asked if they could take her child overnight as she had a friend coming round for a sleepover and they wanted to drink. Her neighbours were thrilled that she was socialising more and happily agreed. After she dropped her child off P drove far out into the countryside and parked on a hill overlooking a town. She took every medication she had and was found next morning by another driver. They said she looked just as if she was asleep.

P had begun getting her affairs in order 3 weeks earlier. She had left a letter for daughter, transferred her savings into a trust fund for her and made sure that all of her bills were paid. Even her rent was paid two months in advance so that no one had to worry about that while dealing with her belongings. She had arranged for her cats to be adopted by a friend, to be picked up two days after she died. There was no doubt that P had planned this for quite a while.

Her neighbours were the ones who told me and invited me round to see them. It turned out they weren't her neighbours, they were her mother and father. She had told me that she grew up in a care home after the age of 10 and that her parents were dead. I also discovered P didn't have MPD or Agoraphobia, she did have Chronic Depression and Borderline Personality Disorder. She had never had cancer. Many things that she told me about her life were lies but I never told her parents, they would have blamed themselves and that would have been terribly sad and helped no one.

Her parents were both social workers and couldn't figure out what had happened. They had fostered over 30 difficult to place children while P was a child. They recalled how funny P used to be in that she would copy whatever conditions the children had when they arrived. Once they had to take her to the doctors because they adopted a girl who was deaf and P acted as if she was deaf for a month. Another time she developed a limp to copy another child.

P used to tell me how she was taken into care because her parents neglected her, they never had time for her and were always too busy with their own lives. She said one died when she was 8 and the other when she was 10. She was always very angry when she spoke about them, she felt that they hadn't loved or made time for her and I believe that that was the actual truth of what she felt. I felt so bad for P that no one had recognised the warning signs when she had tried to copy the other fostered children so that she could get her parents attention, too. Her parents were very loving and kind people, it just felt as if while they were having to give their attention to children who desperately needed it P somehow was forgotten. They said she was a quiet and independent child who played alone, she never caused them any problems and would pretty much ignore the children that they fostered other than copying their conditions. It is clear that P felt she, too had to be unwell to be cared for. There were many other, smaller lies, all implying that she was unwanted and had battled alone all of her life.

It wasn't just me that P fantasised with, all of her friends were told the same story and were never allowed to meet the 'neighbours' across the road. It must have been a tremendous pressure keeping up her lies for everyone and she must have felt very alone. Some friends were angry with her for lying for so long. I wasn't, I just thought how incredibly unhappy she must have been to do that.

I remember her with love, she did everything she could to make our last meeting perfect, gave me things to remember her by and told me I mustn't blame myself. She was a good person with a huge heart, a great sense of humour, and was a loving mother. I miss her, but today I will smile at the happy times we shared.

End penguin

Pyxis

Solarjunkie wrote: »

Bake District
Bake Superior
For Goodness' Bake
Cake Quake
Flour Garden
Mad as a Batter
Little Mix
Lovin' Spoonful
Miss - stir - ees
!

Everyone's minds are in the creative zone today!




WaS, thank you for sharing that penguin with us.

It just goes to show, that behind every compulsive behaviour is a person crying out. We have to try hard to read between the lines, but also not to beat ourselves up if we fail to see the signs. We are all imperfect and misjudge things, and so we can only do our best at the time.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, if only it weren't late in coming!

Wellyboots6

Whatever her problems WaS, it sounds like she cared for you a great deal and valued your friendship.
You are fulfilling her wishes by remembering her the way she wanted, and if it helps you even just a tiny bit by knowing you are not responsible then it really was a great and positive friendship for you both.
Maybe treat yourself to something nice today to celebrate the positives you gave each other?

Waves_and_Smiles

That is so true, Pyxis and Katy. It is one of the few deaths I don't blame myself for and I have my friend to thank for that. She did everything she could to make sure that I didn't do so. She had an incredibly kind heart, she just couldn't share with anyone what was really wrong and was so accomplished at fantasising that it was impossible to see through without all of the facts. I am glad that I got the chance to know her. She was only 33.

She was the person who gave me my little pencil topper Clanger that now sits by my TV. I have quite a few of her things because she gave me so much the last time we met.

I look back and wonder if there were signs? The answer is yes, she gave me two huge bags of things that meant a lot to her and also held my cheek in her hand and told me how much I meant to her and that I have to stop blaming myself for things. But there is still no way I could have guessed what she had planned or even have stopped her if I did. She had planned it for weeks and was clearly determined but she didn't come across as sad? She was quite calm and and contented the last time we met. I am hugely comforted that she valued our friendship enough to do her best to make sure that I was as ok as I could be, we both cared about each other a lot so I remember our friendship with a smile on my face.

I think I might treat myself to a chocolate cake, we always had chocolate cake after dinner because we both loved it. P would like that.