The Best View Comes After the Hardest Climb.

mothernerd

Hugs Buffy. I'm very sad today, too. I think I'm just very very tired and just need to rest and let my body catch up. I am finally home and sleeping in my own bed but there's still lots of stuff at mum's. I'm being sensible, I've more or less reached the limit of what I can do. Dealing with the arrival of the new to us bed (DS3 did all the moving of bed bits but I had to make the bed, push stuff into place and set up my CPAP machine) has exhausted me - I'm walking vey slowly and my legs ache and my feet are sore.

So I'm trying to be very realistic about what I can and can't do. Yesterday I wrote a list and sorted the best order for approaching it. I went to the library for a couple of books (they close at 2 pm and I'd finished the book I was reading the night before), then to the bank because the stupid cash machine gave me the wrong amount and I needed it back in the bank so that I could buy under bed drawers (DS3 paid for the bed but it doesn't have storage, so he's got my old one, I went to B**ts to hand in some pills and bought 3 meal deals (one for yesterday and 2 for today in case I couldn't get as far as the food shop).

However I did make it as far as Icyland and there were no mile long queues and people fighting in the aisles. I did something rather clever with 2 baskets balanced on the seat of the walker (paused twice, had a sit down and rearranged the stuff in the baskets). My priorities were to buy a leg of lamb and some frozen veg (had to completely defrost and reset the freezer as someone had left the door open and the contents were encased in blocks of frost and ice and stuck to the sides of the drawers) but I picked up some things I like to eat along the way (including 3 frozen desserts). Sat on the walker at the till and let the 2 girls pack everything. If anyone doesn't like what I bought they can go and do their own shopping.

So I have food but everything is as easy as I can make it and apart from cooking the leg of lamb (defrosted in the fridge 24 hours so should be in the oven now) I'm going to go with the flow. If I only want a rice pudding, that's what I'll have, fancy cheese and pickles (lots of grab and go stuff in the fridge). If I feel like doing a lamb dinner I have lots of cheats - not enough energy or interest in cooking from scratch (especially as there are so many other things to do - like rearranging the front room furniture before DS3 turns it back into his workspace/ den).

It was quite late when I got back to mum's (I had phoned her to check on her - not terribly well but it's just the current bug working its' way out of her system). I packed more stuff (want my favourite books to hand) then sat with mum and asked if there was anything (food) she wanted and we didn't have in - no, did she need more money - no, did she want me to spend Christmas with her - please yourself, but then changed to no, stay with them (DS3 and Beloved). 

I feel a bit guilty about it but I've spent the last 7 Christmases with her (and her partner too in the earlier years), long before I was her principal carer. I've spent most of the last year feeling unwanted, unappreciated and a burden and quite frankly didn't want to spend my Christmas being resented. I will go tomorrow to pack as much as possible (I asked her to ask any visitors to put as much as they can in their cars and drop it off at my house - I've moved 16 bags in my last two home journeys). I also want to sort out Christmas presents as I think DS2 and his gf will still call (we were all going to DS1's but mum got me to cancel as I wasn't getting over the bug - first time she's admitted I was ill and now DS1 isn't speaking to me).

I didn't think it was safe when it was first posited but the 2 most at risk were fairly sanguine, so I didn't argue against it. Only token gifts and an Oxfam unwrapped card, but it would be a relief if DS2 takes them all (and his dvd player and 2 lots of bank statements still coming here and the insurance on the fridge freezer).

So once I've done that tomorrow I can relax and if I sleep for the next 3 days, well that is what my body needed. All I want is candles, twinkly lights, greenery and a pile of books. Don't worry about the lack of 'Christmas spirit'. For several years I was a churchwarden and I've still not been feeling the spirit at 4 pm on Christmas Eve at the children's crib service (and what we thought about the two wardens who booked skiing holidays/ stayed with family miles away so there were only 2 of us for the midnight service when the church was packed to the rafters and when I was on my own for the Christmas day service barely able to stand up with flu is not at all Christian). 

I hope you all get to spend at least some of this time however you want to and that life is better for us all in the coming year (we must get round to organising the revolution, after we've taken our library books back of course).

beanielou

If it is any consolation I have lost the champange glasses.........

beanielou

@mothernerd.
So sorry things are so tough for you.
Well done on doing the shopping balancing act.
Sorry that your DS is not speaking. Families!!

Buffythedebtslayer

Families are so stressful. I don't know how we are supposed to manage them I really don't. Mothernerd, you have been unwell for a while now. I do worry about you. I hope Ds1 comes to his senses. 

I am watching You don't know me. Really distressing. Be back in a minute. 

Buffythedebtslayer

It was a frustrating ending but the acting was amazing. 

For me I moved a lot of !!!!!! out of conservatory. I know what was "blocking" me from doing it, I need to move a cupboard from the living room to the conservatory. This is so I can move a table for the tree. Neither are easy to move and both are Mum's and full to bursting with her stuff. And I have moved them six or seven times, along with a sewing machine, a plastic box and a few bags that just constantly hang around. . I won't be doing it again. 

Tonight's list
1. Check off presents, 
2. Make list of what I need to buy 
3. Have a little tidy up 
4. Eat some chocolate. 
5. Have a drink 


Tomorrow list (mothernerd, am trying to be realistic.) 

1. Collect order from N3xt. 
2. Buy a Henry from Sainsbugs. I hate my hoovers!! both are blocked. both are stupid. 
3. Pick up anything I need. 
4. Buy bread. 
5. Wrap presents. 
6. Move the cupboard. Leave the table and use the little table
7. Put up the tree... 

Might get fish and chips for tea. Might covert to Judaism and sack Christmas off entirely! Who knows! 

mothernerd

I don't really want to get out of bed (been down once to collect my handbag and food - phone/ time is in the bag along with this week's pills) but mum is ill. Apparently she tried to get in touch with me yesterday, for me to get the doctor out to her. It's only diarrhoea (I know it makes you feel like carp) so I went through the nhs info and will go and try once again to get her to do what she should be doing. Resting, sleeping, eating if she can, drinking lots. Wiping handles, taps and toilet seat daily (Not wiping the kitchen with a cloth and then draping it over the taps - starting to turn into an 'how many relatives will not be speaking to me by Christmas' contest).

I can barely stand up so the easiest thing is to take the walker to little arseda, buy bread and scones, antiseptic gel, wipes and spray, get a taxi straight to hers and do what I can (spray is so I can just zap everything if I can't go round wiping stuff). Have a list of what I most want to bring back and am hoping to clear my freezer (was DS2's) and leave it surrounded by bedding that wants washing to soak up any defrost water. Won't have my planned shower and hair wash there -it will all work out in the end.

Then come home, crawl into bed and sleep until spring (hibernating through winter is the only sensible thing). Will have to try and have phone calls/ message exchanges with DS2 and others who might be planning to call at mum's. Beloved is being picked up by her parents at some point today, DS3 has been told his drawers will be arriving, if possible I will phone him when delivery time has been narrowed down (Beloved's phone so if she's already left?). 

No I'm doing what I can, followed by what I need, everything else is in a 'somebody else's problem' field.

mothernerd

I've phoned mum, told her what she should and shouldn't be doing (she's going to eat my yoghurts to put a lining on her stomach, she has paracetamol, she doesn't want more bread - told her to just give handles and taps a blast of cleaning spray for now) so I'm going to have a little sleep and hope my leg is working a bit better later. Will still go to mum's for a bit if I can.

Don't think Hanukahh would help much Buffy- presents for 8 days.

stymied

Would the tree not be happier in the conservatory Buffy so you don’t have to move the cupboard? Or just don’t bother with the tree this year!

I love my Dyson v6 animal - expensive but best purchase ever.

Buffythedebtslayer

I am still in the I hate Christmas camp. And am here for a whinge. 

Went out just before10, left Mum with a cup of tea and biscuit, raced to Ne£t, did a bit in the Home of Bar gains, and the big pet shop. Amazing I got a parking place really. By the time I left it was getting busy and fractious. Or maybe that was me. 

After that it was Sainsbugs for the hoover, some last minute essential pringles and what not. They didn't have chestnuts! The horror! 

I must confess to buying those dates that no one eats..... I felt it was important! 

I then went to the high street to go the place of the not too fruity shower gels to get a last minute gift or 5. And also Morris's son to get the pesky chestnuts. And hopefully the prescription but it wasn't ready and won't be until 3. Which is annoying. 

But there you go. 

 I have a Henry hoover so that is good. Lots of cleaning, wrapping and tree putting up ing when I return. Oh and I have to drop of the neighbour gifts. And moving the cupboard. 

I would love to put the tree up in the conservatory Stymied but it is too cold out there for Mum so she would never see it. I did buy a mini pre decorated tree for it tho. 

badmemory

I do hope you don't have to go back for the prescription & it will wait till after Christmas.  The doctors here have got a new system.  I bet you will be really shocked to discover that despite technology it now takes more than twice a long to order one.