This is the only place I have to record this.

Read this again: (November 22nd 2007)

"We have a 75% failure rate now. One baby and three miscarriages. I never thought this would happen to me, but it happened three time - and something is odd about it. If you read my last baby post, the dates are the same for my first two miscarriages. February 11th 2002 and February 11th 2007. Isn't that odd? what's stranger is I had this miscarriage on Dylan's birthday, early in the morning, it started on the 21st and at 7am on the 22nd, it completed.

This makes my "memorable" dates:

11th February 2002 - miscarriage
11th February 2007 - miscarriage
22nd November 2002 - Baby
22th November 2007 - miscarriage

The World works in strange ways and everything happens for a reason. It's so much easier to say this when I look at my dates. Something is going on and fitting in with some overall Master plan."

Well, we had another one, it was an unexpected positive but in those few days before it went wrong I loved the idea that we would have another baby. The really, really sad part is, that judging by the ultrasound, our baby was no longer alive when we tested positive. I hate that more than anything. Telling my best friend, joining an online "Due in..." message board and all that time that poor little thing was already dead. I hate it.

I didn't even manage to get on the "Due on..." list, I got my positive on January 5th and we lost it on January 21st. I started bleeding about the 17th and went for an u/s on the 19th, it was a tiny little sac with nothing much in, measured about 5 weeks. I should have been just over 7 weeks.

This now makes my "memorable" dates:

11th February 2002 - miscarriage
22nd November 2002 - Baby
11th February 2007 - miscarriage
22th November 2007 - miscarriage
21st January 2011 - miscarriage

11/02/02
22/11/02
11/02/07
22/11/07
21/01/11

Ones and twos baby, ones and twos.....there has to be a reason.

Walking with wet creatures.

It's been a while...did we even have Jessie Jane?

We now have two Labradors, black and beautiful. Willing walkers who harrass you in the evening if they haven't been out. Dallas gets up on the arm of my desk chair and pats me with her hand, it's odd, Jessie sits between my knees gazing up at me. I feel overcome with obligation, and love, but mostly obligation when it's cold and it's been chucking it down since 2pm, with thunder....

So 10:30pm I say "Who want's a walk?" and there's an avalanche of dogs down the stairs. When I get to the bottom, they are both waiting in the hallway like they'd been there all night. Incidentally, an avalanche of Labradors is called a Lab-a-lanche.

The girls and I hit the streets, it's pissing it down, there are huge puddles and it's already soaking through my jeans - but oddly it feels good to be out. Since I stopped going to work in November, I value any amount of time I get on my own, I don't have contemplative time any more, I have home-time, and it's not the same. And right now, it's the school holidays, so everything I do involves Dylan coming with me, including trips to the bathroom. It's stressful. Nice to be with them all, but stressful all the same.

So out in the night, in the rain with my girls, we walk down the street, turn right on the old railway bridge and down the big hill, then right at the bottom in to town. Our usual walk, they know the drill, we sit at every road and wait for non-existent cars to pass....I feel like I am teaching them to cross the road safely, but let out on their own they'd be drunk with the freedom and forget everything I taught them anyway. Oh well.

On through the town. Now will someone tell me why there are so many people out? It's Thursday, it's raining really hard, it's not the weekend and this isn't central London, but yet there are groups of people, silly little girls in mini-skirts and t-shirts, carry inadequate umbrellas, all over the place, and the usual crowds of semi-plastered young men ignoring them. Seems to me that the females do a lot more chasing than the males do at this age. When they get older, it will reverse. I am so glad I am not in that whole mating game scene any more. We had our 10th anniversary last month. wow, ten whole years. Over a quarter of my life with this man.

Anyway...the girls are splashing in puddles and I am hoping they don't jump up anyone and get there pretty party clothes wet, I bet these girls will fight if they have to - the human ones, not my Labs, my Labs have manners.

It was a nice walk. I had to dry them both when I got home, and I am sitting damp and slightly chilled now, Dan wants to fool around, but I need a bath. I am gritty and dirty feeling. The girls are flat out asleep under my desk. They love me because I feed and walk them, it's pretty obvious. Dogs are honest.

Mommy plays Pandemic2

I've been playing Pandemic2...I never thought I'd get such pleasure from trying to wipe out the world, but it's exhilarating.


Click on them to see my diseases progress.....













I've been hoping that Madagascar would die...today I won. I was miles from being on the leader board, but that doesn't matter. I killed everyone. Little old me.


I might go kill them all again tonight, but now I have to make tea and take my son to karate.....then I will be back to destroy the world, MUHAHA! ahem.

For Dylan

Someone asked me to write 10 pieces of advice I would give a child. I started writing but it turned in to the things I wanted for Dylan. I could think of oh so many more then 10 things I wanted to say to him, but he's not yet six. I love him being so little, but 'I have so many things I have to tell you child, I wish you could understand them right now.'

For my son:

1. Be brave, the world is a scary place.

2. Things feel better when you know you earned them. Hard work feels good sitting on your heart at the end of a day.

3. Listen to older people - they really have done it.

4. If you need me to understand something, tell me.

5. Nothing you can do will ever stop me loving you. If you need me, I *will* be there. I promise.

6. Try to understand that people are mostly just muddling through life, trying to do the best they can. No one has any experience at it, we are all first timers.

7. If you are not sure about it, don't do it.

8. If you don't think I would like you doing it, there's a strong possibility you shouldn't do it.

9. If you broke it say sorry. If you hurt it, make sure it's ok.

10. Behave, be good, be decent. You are a beautiful, charming child, I want to see you become a wonderful man.


(11. If you did something *really* bad, for gods sake tell me before the police do.)

Our first fishing trip...

OMG that was a trip!

Dallas saw the lake and just dived for it! straight off the landing and in the middle with a big splosh, she's never been in water deeper then her elbows before so we all held our breath to see if she'd sink or swim, then suddenly there she is in a shower of bubble, paddling round like she's been doing it all her life! wtg Dallas, that's a swimming fool right there.

Dylan's main aim was to fall in, he tried so hard, and after an hour he eventually managed, so then he was happy.

Dan sat on the bank and gave directions, I reckon I was the only one that actually held the fishing rod but the fish weren't stupid, I reckon they heard us coming (some time slightly before we left the house) so needless to say we didn't catch anything.

Pity we forgot the camera, but since there wasn't going to be any grand "holding up the catch" pictures anyway, all you'd have seen were exasperated parents, a wet & happy child and a dog covered in pond weed. Oh and a mud cloud spreading out from the bank to about 12ft into the lake.

The highlight for the three of them was getting the food out, I made Dallas her own sandwich and she pranced around on the bank with it for ages, like she'd got a winning lottery ticket in her mouth. Dylan found a blackberry bush and commenced to destroying the environment one berry at a time, and Dan was just happy that I'd bought a half bottle of wine - even if he did have to drink it out of a plastic cup.

I asked them "Shall we do that again one day?":

Dylan: "I enjoyed it, lets go again!"
Dan: "Sure, why not." (I am speechless!)
Dallas: Cocked her head on one side and is ready to go now if I am willing to take her.

As for me, well, I like the idea of catching something, I have never held a fishing rod in my life before today and I can see the attraction. Had it not been for the splashing and the swimming and the general bankside mayhem, I am sure I would have caught a huge fish....

Oceans Eleven

Hey, we made it. We actually went on holiday!! and came back.
I wish we'd stayed.

We went in a caravan...here it is look:



And we went to the beach:



And Dylan and I went to Great Yarmouth and played on the pier:



Dallas dug a hole:



Dylan played at the arcade:



And Dan, who does not wish to be plastered all over the internet, sat in the caravan and drank beer for a week. He was happy, therefore I was happy, and thus Dylan and Dallas we're happy.

It worked out alright.

I named this Oceans Eleven, because this week, we went to the Ocean and we also found out that Dallas doesn't have nine nipples - she has eleven.


I knew she was special.

Tessa Ten and Nina Niner.

Note to add to blog:



I was talking to Dan on the phone at work today, we were both giggling and saying "Nina, niiiii-na" and such.

I was going to try and explain some of my conversation with Dan to the people sitting around me, I'd written:



"I know you overheard that conversation, it must have sounded odd.

We call the dog "nina" as a nickname because she only has nine nipples.

We always called Sasha "Tessa Ten Tits", but Dallas only has 9 so we had to give her a new nickname.

Nina nine nipples or Nina Niner :) "



I read it back. I edited the list of people I felt I could say "Tessa Ten Tits" too, until there was only Beccy on it - and she hadn't heard the conversation anyway, so I had to delete the email.

Shame really, I thought it was funny.

Anyway, here she is, you haven't seen her yet...


Isn't she beautiful?

Stranger things have happened at sea(sides).

I told you there was something funny going on. The dates in my life are conspiring to freak me out.
Remember my "Another November 22nd" post, you'll see a list of my significant dates - namely, 22nd November and 11th February (various years). Then my last entry on this blog was February 11th...pure coincidence that I happened to post on that day.

Something happened on February 22nd. It's like a combination of my worse days, the February and the 22 got together and it was bad. My dear sweet Sasha passed away. I won't go in to detail, but she was suddenly taken very ill, and I took her to the veterinary hospital in the middle of the night, and they delayed the operation until it was too late to save her. We'd had her almost all our married life. Nothing so beautiful should ever die. Sasha Lee 2nd February 2000 - 22nd February 2008. We had her cremated and she is with us in the living room.

I am very afraid of what November 11th might bring. I am actually truly scared about it. I am trying not to think about it. It's just another day after all.


We managed exactly one and a half days before we could not live without a dog so we bought a puppy. Dallas. we bought her for two reasons. Firstly, because we couldn't stand not having a dog, and secondly, because Bu had just started in his new school and I had the option of sending him back to a new school after a weeks Half Term holiday as either The new kid with the dead dog, or The new kid with the new puppy.

Dallas is a puppy black lab. Actually, she is the worlds coolest puppy, you could not imagine how we have clung to this little creature to fix our lives after Sasha's passing, but every day she is stronger and braver and she fears nothing and no one, she's an amazing little animal. Predator. She terrorizes Dylan, springing on him from behind doorways and chasing him down in the yard :) he loves her so much. She also chewed through my network cable tonight. Unattended puppy. I told Dan off. He replaced my cable. I didn't tell Dallas off, she was busy paddling in her water bowl, silly woolly little thing.

I also booked a holiday. Death is a funny thing. You get so use to the family always being there, you forget things can change in an instant. I always thought I would take Sasha to the seaside one day - and I never got to do it. It reminded me that Dan has never been to the English coast, and Dylan has never seen the sea, and I have never been to the sea with Dylan, or the English coast with Dan. All those things that we have never done.....so I booked us for a week at the seaside in May. Might not be very warm, but dammit I am going in the sea with my boy and we are going to enjoy it.

I also made sure I booked us in a place that accepts dogs...Dallas is coming to the sea with us. It's very late now, I will post pictures of her another time. When she arrived she was a tiny little ball of black wool that slept all the time in between piddling on my carpets, now she is a big strong pup who can walk on a lead. I am very pleased with her. She still piddles on the carpets...

Dear sweet sister Sasha, how you would have loved this little playmate. I know you are still with us though, sometimes I can feel you on the bed at night.

Morning Town Ride.

...rockin' rollin' ridin'....my mum use to sing this to me when I was little. She use to sit on my bed. When I had my own baby, and he wouldn't go to sleep, it was the only song I could think of that I knew all the words to. Something about having been awake for three months tends to deplete your capacity for objective though. I remember I sang a lot of hymns, but I only knew the first verses. Strangely, they were all the ones I learned in infant school. Dear Lord and father of mankind, Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, and a whole bunch of Christmas Carols - not the American ones you hear in soppy movies, real church carols - In the bleak midwinter,

Bu changed schools today. The last school weren't looking after him the way we needed it to. So he's going to my old school. My school. Tennyson Road. Where my mum use to stand by the iron gates to meet me and take me home. Where the caterpillars grow in the silk webbing in the bushes, and the cherry's blossom in the spring. It isn't romantic memories. The cherries are still there, I saw them today. They have buds on them. I know in a few months, when the wind blows, they will rain confetti on the playground and every one will play in it. I can't believe that was 33 years ago now.

I stood in Purple class today. They were hosting the raffle and refreshments for the parents open day. It wasn't called Purple class, 33 years ago, it was just called Our Class. I went and stood in the corner of the room. I remembered sitting on the floor there in the summer time. The doors were open, big metal framed old fashioned doors, painted white like the windows, in the summer, they opened them and let the cool blow in and all the children went and sat by them to take lessons. I remember waiting for "my word" to come up, the one I recognised when I saw it, so I could put my hand up and read it to the class. I think it was "little" but I am not sure. I know it was a long word and that's why I was proud that I knew it.

I feel like something was right about today. Picking up my son from my school. I wished my mother could see me there, I hoped she would walk by and see me with my child and remember that she loved me once too, but she didn't and there's no point in dwelling on it. This is Bu's school now too, and I am the mummy who will make the memories and I *so* hope they are good memories, he's going to have them for a long time.

He's in bed now, to excited to sleep because he wants to go back to New School. He spent half an hour at dinnertime trying to convince his father and I that it was morning so we could get ready and go again. I might go in and sing to him, sit on his bed and see if he will go to sleep. Train whistle blowing....

Guitars, cadillacs, hillbilly music...

We're looking at houses again. Out in Dallas. I don't know why I torture myself with this. I get all excited, I get into the spirit of things, I re-read "The Horse Whisperer", listened to George Strait, found the absolutely most perfect ranch in the whole world....and then Dan changed his mind and went back to "we'll buy one one day".

I can feel my heart sink in to the cowboy boots I have not yet been able to buy.

It's not about money or being rich, being posh, having a house that cost half or a million dollars, it's not about giving up working, or leaving this country. It's about the same thing it's been about for hundreds of years. The promise of something better, feeling like you could actually do something with your life. Probably the single most important reason people from over here started moving to America in the the first place.

It's about space and feeling free, feeling the wind blow when I am not on my way to do something I am obliged to do. Maybe in my head it's about having time to just be alive in the world. Just to see fields and trees and feel the elements and know that I don't have to be anywhere or do anything if I don't want to. It's about time.

Maybe I want to buy ranches the way middle aged men want to buy sports cars? who knows.

I think I am having my midlife crisis. That's bad because I'm 38, that gives me 38 more years. I'd be 76 - that's not old.

But I don't really feel like me any more. I feel like Dylan's mum, Dan's wife and an employee. That's about it. I'm just sort of here. I go to work, I come home, I cook the dinner, I get my kid ready for bed - rinse and repeat.

I wish we could just go...living in hope is not always a good thing. Sometimes you should just live in the now. It's easier.

Being older.

One of my favourite things about being older, is being who you are and not giving a shit if someone else doesn't like it. I am happy that ever since I have been over 30, I have not been embarrassed to wear stupid hats in public, this includes hats in the rain and those hats for cold weather that have ear flaps that tie up over your head. I wore my ear flap hat tonight and a man in the street said (as he was walking past) "that hat's stupid". Don't like my hat eh? I'll wear it again especially for you. In fact, I might even follow you home wearing it so all your friends think I am with you, and you have a stupid-hat-friend.

I like being older, I am not bound by dumbass kid rules any more. I don't have to have new clothes or know who is number 1 in the charts, in fact, I know if you staked my life on it I couldn't tell you who is number 1, or indeed, the names of anyone who has been number 1 for the past 8 years. Were the Spice Girls around then? that might be the last number 1 I actually remember.

I watched a "round up" of the year, as is so often the programming choices at this time of year. I didn't know about virtually anything that had happened this past year. It was all like "...and who could forget the scandal of Darni confessing she slept with Bret?" - who and slept with who? I am so out of date.

It's all ok, I like being older. I can wear flat shoes and silly hats and coats that are warm instead of pretty and I don't have to shave my legs every couple of days if I don't want. Dan has got use to me feeling like The Fly in bed when I haven't shaved for two weeks.

Here's a real good story if you are far enough away from it to be nostalgic about your youth - [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3Gqp_hYbpg"]Right Field[/url] by Peter, Paul and Mary.
How can you not just love that?

I posted this on a message board I am on. The kids were annoying me with their music tastes - I won't go in to detail, but suffice to say, none of it actually qualified as music.

I seriously think a lot of "our" music that young people don't like is just because they are not old enough to associate with it yet. They like noise but they can't get in to stories, they can't feel what the singer is saying because they just don't have the experience. Like a 12 year old watching American Beauty. You can like the movie, but you have to be older to really get it. The kids will disagree with me, but as Lester said, you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday.

:)

Another November 22nd....

This is familiar - we were pregnant and we lost another baby. I feel like I say this a lot. I feel like people are getting fed up of having to say they are sorry to me because I had a miscarriage. I am almost embarrassed to go back to work - there's no failure like failure to bear children, I feel like I am no good at the sole and single purpose of my Earthly existence - to make little copies of myself.

I don't really tell anyone any more, just my best friend Beccy and my little buddy at work Gemma. These are the only two people who will care anyway, everyone else would fumble about uncomfortably and mutter some apology. I'd rather they just didn't know.

We have a 75% failure rate now. One baby and three miscarriages. I never thought this would happen to me, but it happened three time - and something is odd about it. If you read my last baby post, the dates are the same for my first two miscarriages. February 11th 2002 and February 11th 2007. Isn't that odd? what's stranger is I had this miscarriage on Dylan's birthday, early in the morning, it started on the 21st and at 7am on the 22nd, it completed.

This makes my "memorable" dates:

11th February 2002 - miscarriage
11th February 2007 - miscarriage
22nd November 2002 - Baby
22th November 2007 - miscarriage

The World works in strange ways and everything happens for a reason. It's so much easier to say this when I look at my dates. Something is going on and fitting in with some overall Master plan.

It helps to know that. Isn't it odd though?

The things I am grateful for this week:

* Dan the man. His genius IQ makes him very difficult for most people to understand, I am constantly amazed by how wrong people read him. After 8 years I am still left in wonder sometimes when I realize how much more then me he knows about everything. He's a cross between John Wayne and J.R. Ewing. Totally tough and smart, he is the only person I have ever met that truly understands the way the Universe works. I just trust him and do what he says because he knows so much more then me, and while I am reading The Introduction To Life still, he has finished the book and written a sequel.

* Dylan. Oh Dylan. My one and only child, my sole son and heir. Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. Who ever knew another human being could be so precious. A bright, beautiful child that everyone wants to be around. Determined and bold. Unafraid. Outspoken and defiant. He's just like his father. I hope he understands the power he is going to have one day.


* Sister Sasha, the maiden aunt now. Another species invited into our house to live as one of us. I watch her cuddle up with our boy and groom his hair, she puts up with so much and she just gets up and walks away when she's had enough. The power to rip any of us to pieces if she chose, and she chooses to curl up and lay her head on our laps.


* Our lovely, leaky, little old house. Our fruit trees and chickens, all the things that make this home. Our four open fires and the smell of wood smoke on a cold night.


* Oh and thank GOD that this month we have finally sorted out our money. Everything is being paid and all the bills are coming down, we only have 10 months left on our loan and we are debt free too, we even have a little bit of spare money - a miracle in itself - and we are eating better and able to go out at least once a week and do something.

Has it really been that long?

Lord I just looked at my blog - it's been months since I wrote.

Now, what's been happening? Dylan has been assigned his new school, he started football, swimming, watching Power Rangers....good lord, I am amazed at how quickly he is growing up.

We watched a show tonight, Trumpton, a kids show I remember from my childhood. It was amazing. Like being in 1975 again. The people on TV looked like they did when I was a kid, the firemen and the mayor and all the major players were there....the man that winds the townhall clock was in it. It was so cool for me to feel how it felt when I was five, to remember the net curtains in our living room, my mother ironing in the kitchen, the way the kitchen was laid out - it's not like that now, she went a bit "yuppie" and made it look cramped. It use to be nice. Anyway....the point here is, my kid hated it, LOL. He is WAY more grown up then I was at his age.

Poor Dylan kept gently trying to say we needed to turn over ("Mom, I don't like this, turn over so I can watch Spiderman") and I kept saying "wait a minute darling...(mommy is having a flashback)".

I'm sure the world was a lot more innocent when I was a kid, but maybe not. The credit on the show said 1967, wow, so it was almost 10 years old when I saw it. Maybe nothing changes in your head until you start seeing the world.

Anyway, that'll do for now. Dan is having one of his "yay country!" moments, and I can't think with all the hillbilies and guitars flying around in here.

I'm off to watch some meteors. Night night xxxxx

Another February 11th.

We were pregnant and we lost the baby :(

I found out on January 19th and emailed Dan and we were all so happy, but we were scared too, we're old now and there was a good chance something could go wrong, and on February 8th, it did.

It was the first day of the snow. Deep snow, started at 5:30am, just when I got up, and I went to work in a blizzard and found half my office didn't bother coming in.

As per my usual settling in routine, I went to make a de-caff and then to the toilet and I was bleeding. I told my boss I had to go and went to the hospital, they sent me for an emergency scan.

First of all, she told me "There is something in there, but I can't find a heart beat" then as she said it, we both saw it beating on the screen....so she used the internal scanner and there he was, little B2 with a little heart beat. She said he was measuring small and the heart was beating very slowly. I timed it about 70 bpm, and I touched him on the screen. I asked her for a picture of him and she made one for me. I wish Dan could have been there to see him, but he was home with Bu because of the snow.

When he called and I told him I was going to the hospital, he asked me should he come too, but I told him no, stay home so I know where you are, and call me every hour. Dan called at 9:30am, just as I was going in, again at 10:30 when I was waiting to be seen, and at 11:30 when I gave him the bad news. He also called at 12:30 to see if I was ok. I got home at about 1pm.

They booked me to come back in 12 days, February 20th, and sent me home to wait.

We were very sad and trying to sound hopeful in front of each other. They had said since he only measured 6w1d that it may be that the dates were wrong and his heart had only just started beating - but I knew it wasn't right. She wrote on our notes that the sac was disproportionately large and I knew right away she knew it was abnormal.

We didn't know what to do. But there was a lot of snow and one very happy little four year old, so we did what good parents do and we built snowmen in the dark. A mummy, a daddy, a Dylan and a Sasha. No one knows but in front of the mummy snow man, I built a tiny B2 snowman, just because on that day, we were a family of four not three and I had to mark it somehow. You can barely see him in the photo, just the top of his head, but I know he was there that day.



See him?


Well, Friday I stayed home too, and we went to the park with Dylan on his sledge and Dan and he had a lot of fun. Saturday was uneventful and on Sunday, February 11th, the blood quit being brown and started being tinged with red. I got a few cramps and knew it was going to be that day.

It started about 4pm, it wasn't so bad, not like the last one, I tucked Dylan off to bed at 8pm and at 9:30pm it was all over. I found the gestational sac, I didn't know what to do so I wrapped it in some tissue. I'd known really since Thursday that this was coming and I'd had time to knit him a tiny blanket that I edged with black ribbon. I just couldn't "dispose" of my baby, I am supposed to bury him in the garden but I am having thoughts that I might go down to St Mary's late at night and bury him on consecrated ground. I haven't shared this with Dan.

Now, we are a family of three still and this is almost an exact replay of what happened in 2002. On February 11th 2002 I had my first miscarriage. I had a normal period in March 2002 and by April 2002, I was pregnant with Dylan.

I hope it goes the same way this time.

Good night, you're not alone in the dark, someone somewhere is wondering about other people who feel the same way you do, whatever the cause of your unhappiness, someone out there is going through it too, right now. Be strong and believe that somewhere out there in the world, someone would hold your hand, if only they knew you.

Christmas time.

Ah, I'm back.

well, it's been a while, I am not a dedicated blogger yet...

We put our tree up, Dylan insisted we had one from Budgens - we were going to the garden center but he fell in love with one, and we didn't buy it. The next morning I took him in there for something and he ran and hugged it. kerching. Tree please, my boy says we'll take that one. How could I leave it?

It's growing in a big pot in the living room. It has roots, I am not sure it will be a long term feature in the garden after christmas, but it'll give it a go, I hope it lives. I hate that they all get killed for Christmas, it seems so out of the spirit of things.

Odd that I am more upset by a dead tree then a dead turkey. Oddly, the whole turkey things doesn't even really bother me, I guess I have been eating meat for a long time but have only had maybe 10 christmas trees killed on my behalf. That must be it.

Anyway, it's 1am, I am eating cookies and have a coffee, then it's bed time.

I had another job interview on Thursday, and I may or may not get it. I am not holding my breath but in the mean time I am still working for where I always was - and feeling the same about it.

Bah humbug.

Standard UK 10

I asked a group of my friends if they felt like grown ups or did they still feel like kids. I think it has a lot to do with money myself, I think that driving around in your own car, with your stereo on, windows down, deciding where you go and what you do, must make you feel more grown up. I hate having to catch a bus or wait for a friend so I can go anywhere. I think it must be all about money - or maybe I just fall in to the "grass is always greener" catagory.

The girls don't really agree with me, but that's because they have cars, and holidays, and they go on golfing weekends with their friends. They order lattes in cafes - and call them Coffee Shops, and buy clothes in stores where someone is paid to help them choose. They have carpets in their kitchens and they have utility rooms. Their houses have porches and double garages. It's easy to think it's not about money when you have money.

I know a lot of people that don't have what I have and would love to be in my position. I own my own house, I will have virtually no debt at all in 4 months - both my loans will be paid off with only a £400 credit card remaining - and that's not technically a debt, it's a work in progress :lol

I have a nice car (which I still can't drive), I have a beautiful child, a tall and handsom husband with an exquisit Southern drawl, a trusty dog, a big garden, two parents - four if you count their husbands and wives - well ok, maybe that part isn't perfect.

But I'm an aunty, I'm a mother, I'm a wife, I'm employed. I am slim and mostly healthy, I am not tall but not short, in fact, I am a Standard UK 10. That's what it says in the back of my jeans.

I noticed it tonight when I was in the bathroom. I am a Standard UK 10. I've been saying it in my head for half an hour now. It some how defines me in a way I hadn't thought about. It says I am an average height. A decent weight. It says I am English. It says a lot more about me then I thought it would.

It doesn't say I am insecure, or that I am funny, or that I never knew where I was going in life. It doesn't say that I lock the bathroom door even when there is no one in the house. It doesn't say that I always wanted a flat in a big city like LA - but I also wanted a country cottage with roses. It doesn't say I have an above average IQ, or that I am afraid of dead spiders, or that I often wish I was a dog so on windy days I could run very fast and hear the wind rushing past me. It doesn't say I often dream I can fly, or that I believe in ghosts. I doesn't say my dearest wish when I was a child was that I would wake up one day and be an American child, living in a pretty little town with a high school and a cheerleading team and a football team, and pumpkins on the step in October and friends that had cars so we could go to drive in's and do all the stuff they do on TV.

It says I am ordinary. And I am so far from ordinary, I couldn't reach it with a stick. I don't like being a Standard UK 10.

Everyone feels like they are special and different, I've heard people saying that they always knew they were different - well they are, so are we all, we just like to think that everyone else is the same and we are the odd one out because it makes us somehow more special, more different, and no one in the world wants to be ordinary. Even the lowly poor folk I have known have confided that they didn't think they would turn out the way they are, circumstances conspired to make them that way. Well didn't they conspire against all of us? I wonder how many of us would have been truely great if we'd been able to "be all you can be"? I guess we'll never know.

But I know one thing for sure - I am not a Standard UK 10.

My jeans are.


Stay happy.

Junk Yard Dogs.

I'm in a definate 'junk yard dog' state of mind today.

My world is conspiring against me and today I almost lost it at work. Well, I say 'lost it' but technically I would have gladly given it away to the right person. What exactly do we lose when we've lost it anyway? our grip on reality? our sanity? our composure? probably all of them. Anyway, I'd have given them all up this afternoon and spent my days happily talking to a wall, wearing a cosy fitting jacket.

Just once, just once before my life is done, I promise to lose it in public. Whatever it is.

So I'm at work. Mike has requested a large refund be sent to a customer, I am authorising refunds. I look at the case and realise that he has made a mistake. I email him to tell him that I have rejected his refund. He calls me and tells me he doesn't understand why I have rejected it. I tell him I don't think it's right, but if he does, then he needs to get a manger to sign that they agreed with him. He wasn't convinced so we asked M. She was the only manager in the office at the time. Mine had gone AWOL.

Anyway, M decides we need to send the client a letter - and she tells me to do it! Excuse me?? I am the one that found the error that Mike made, I just saved the company some money, he was about to refund the client money that wasn't owed to him. Make him do the friggin letter.

I wrote the letter, it wasn't worth the hassle of fighting with her over it, but I was in a 'Fire Starter' mood, and all my work colleagues knew it. I sat down and immediately got two emails, David's said:

From: D. C***g
Sent: 01 August 2006 14:59
To: S. Gilbey
Subject:

No need to say it. I agree.

Yours Sincerely,

Mr D C***g

Council Tax Officer

Sue's said:

From: S. P*****s
Sent: 01 August 2006 14:59
To: S. Gilbey
Subject:

BET U WISH U NEVER ASKED!!!!!!!!

Mrs S.P*****s
Council Tax Officer


I reckon they were both right. I said thank you to them and tried to redirect my anger into a bath tub of water "back off! back off!". I'm not sure if I will talk to my boss about it tomorrow. Maybe M will tell him I was offhand with her, but then again, I think she will realise the error of her ways and maybe come see me tomorrow with some BS story about how Mike has targets and I don't. Well lucky me.

Anyway, my kid wanted to go out on his bike tonight :) I love that he's growing up but I do so miss my baby. He's lined his hoovers up in his room, I just looked because he was being to quiet. He's asleep, in bed. The Hoovers are on parade. I guess his work was done, and I guess mine is too.

Time to forget about it and relax. Thanks for listening.

Sue x

What happens to life?

Dan is having one of his "music evenings". Usually, this consists of him playing a bunch of Woodstockesque songs and saying "do you remember this one?" - No. I was 2 when you were 20.

Tonight, in the middle of a bunch of stuff that's more like the soundtrack of a Vietnam movie, he suddenly played Janice Ian "At Seventeen". It stopped me in my tracks and reminded me of just how sad I was growing up.

I never really did the whole "love" thing, or maybe I did it, but nobody did it back. I always just wanted someone to love me the way I could love them. I had such a huge capacity for love and there was no-one there to receive it and love me back. I don't suppose anything much changes. Once you have a lonely kid in you, you never really shake her, and whenever something goes wrong, she comes back out from behind a tree in a field, somewhere in 1976 and reminds you that no one ever really loved you anyway.

I suppose I should spend more time playing with her, maybe then she wouldn't be so bitter all the time.

One thing I know is that I will send my little boy anonymous valentines cards all his life and he'll never find out they are from me. No one should ever be the one that didn't get a card. Ever.

Anyway, we put in a Koi pond on Sunday and the fish finally got to move home. Dylan is very nonplussed by it, like it happens every day, but let him see a new vaccuum cleaner or lawn mower and you'd think he just saw the first moon landing. He's a weird kid but I love him. That's why I will be Valentine mommy forever, but I needn't worry, he is so handsome, he'll never be short of a card , or someone that loves him.

Wish me luck.

I did something bold. Not something I am usually renowned for, not since my great "Shirley Valentine" flit back in '99 anyway :)

I applied for a new job with a HUGE pay cut.

It was just one of those things. I don't actively "hate" my current job, but I have to get up to early and travel to far to get there. No one really cares about our department and that makes it hard to care about going. I am off more then I am there really. Bad girl.

It was more a gentle slide into absenteeism then an active decision - it just sort of happened, then it happened again. erm, and again....you know how that goes.

So, I decided to stop being unhappy and get a new job. I applied at The Salvation Army. For several reasons:

1) It's two streets from my house.
2) It's the same building as Dylan's nursery.
3) It's the church we go to - Dylan insists we go, and having been brought up Christian, I don't object, in fact I feel like I have gained extra God-points when I go.

I don't expect it works like that but I think God knows what I mean. It's like that happy feeling when you've been to see your kid in his first Nativity play, even though he didn't say his line ("We must see the baby") and even though he did suck the microphone when it was held in front of him causing everyone in the audience to giggle.

I made that darn shepherd costume with my own two hands, a stripey curtain and a real live needle and thread - not like some other mommies who *clearly* bought the Walmart "Instant Shepherd" pack with fake lamb - but hey that's cool too, at least you took your kid along and let him join in. I just get to feel more righteous then you

So anyway....I applied to be a secretary for The Salvation Army and I am happy. At least I feel like I did something worthwhile tonight that might change my life. Of course this will mean I have to work a night job stacking shelves, but that's got to be worth a few God-points too.

Bad Mommy Syndrome.

Aww we've all done it. You tell your kid off then break your heart looking at his/her little face like "what did I do that was so bad?" - what he did do was pretty bad, but it wasn't worth getting that look, so I took him out on his "big boy" bike for the first time on the sidewalks.

Oh that boy was so proud of himself, he came home saying "I was a good boy, my daddy will be proud of me!" and I could have squished him to bits, he was just so thrilled! Fortunately, Dan was standing in the kitchen and got to see him ride in through the back gate so he saw him riding his bike. I love my boys.

It's been an odd weekend. We didn't do much. Dan wasn't feeling great so he stayed in his office (where he is happiest) and Bu and I played in the garden. I let him run riot while I read "The Secret Life Of Bees" - mainly because the title was so like my blog. I found it in a charity shop last week. It was good actually. Usually books that you buy on a whim are rubbish, some of my worse books were bought because they had a cool title or I liked the cover picture. I should learn to buy stuff that won Pulitzer prizes, at least you know they are going to be worth your time.

Anyway, today we went to the car boot sale with my dad, a usual little Sunday ritual. We bought a bag of door knobs. OMG I must be getting old. I bought a bag of door knobs and I am pleased with them. Disproportionately pleased actually. I love them! they are the old china type, with flowers on them. My dad, who sold us this house, clearly hated them, mainly because he knows how much he paid for all the existing door knobs - all the more reason to get those bad boys fitted :) I hate being 36 years old and having my dad look down on me like I am 9 and bought something silly with my pocket money. So, tomorrow night I will be fitting china door knobs. I might even take a picture and post it. Wanna see my door knobs? no of course you don't and that's entirely because I am older then you and obviously a lot sadder.

Anyway, we spent the evening cleaning our the fish, three of our four tanks, including the 6ft one. The fish in there are neat and funny, I never really thought fish were that impressive, but our fish are armoured and they eat cucumber out of your hand. I might post a picture of that. That's cool.

Volcanos and other late night events.

I was thinking. Volcanos are not really very nice. I would normally say they were cool, but I had a bad experience with my child becoming one last night.

Bu had gone to sleep on the sofa at about 7pm, so I scooped him up and carried him up to bed, and right as we got there, I had even bent over by his bed to put him down and he suddenly threw up on my shoulder. Ick. I was torn between trying to sound sympathetic "oh bless you baby, are you alright??" and wanting to get it off me as soon as possible "DAAAAAN!!!" - I opted for the latter, but not before Bu threw up right in the middle of his bed. bah!

1am - "whaaaaaa Mommy I threw up in my bed!" oh gawd did ya? hang on I'm coming...

3am - "whaaaaaa Mommy, mooooooooommy!"

So then I had a ton of really yuck laundry to do. So like any hassled working mom, I came and sat at my computer at 3am instead of going back to bed, and smoked an illicit cigarette - for which I know I may be on the downside of the road to hell. Who cares? it's 3am and I have puke on me.

I figured out a few things before I went back to bed, because the world looks different from a 3am point of view:

1) When we move to Texas, I'm going to miss Old Blighty. I don't know why because most of the time I'd rather be anywhere else but here.

2) A lot of what I believe, exists only in my head. If I hold it up to the light of day, or rather, to the moonlight, it's very fragile and shakeable. I try not to look to hard at it sometimes in case it breaks and goes away, then what would I believe in?

3) You should review your life every day and make sure you know the truth. An example here is that my sister once told me when she came back from a school holiday in France, that in the evening the local boys would come on their scooters, to the hotel, and call up "Do you want to come down to the beach?" - and I always believed her, and by default, in my head she was always the most loved because no boys ever asked me to the beach.
But hang on....what would boys old enough to have motorbikes want with ten year old girls? and how come they suddenly all spoke English? For years and years I felt inferior to her in this respect, but then I realised it was just a lie. Damn.

4) Coming on from the last point - be honest with yourself and others. You don't know what effect your lie will have on someone else, or yourself.

5) Definately try to laugh at yourself and try to say sorry as soon as you fuck up. Don't hide and skulk because you feel embarrased or ashamed, just fess up and get it over with. Saying sorry is like standing in the rain. When it's over, everything is clean and clear again.

So I went back to bed at 3:30am, having washed my child and his laundry, and thought my funky thoughts, and shoved Dan back on his side of the bed - and sent Sasha back to her bed instead of being stretched out beside Dan with her head on my pillow.

And I lay there a long time wondering what I was going to do in Texas and how long it would be before my kid threw up again.

I still don't know, and he didn't.

Good night.

Damn

They wouldn't let me take it!

They said I had to have a passport - but the web site says "A form of photo ID" - so I took my government issue identity card - and they turned me down!

I lost my money too :(

bah!

Bleugh

I'm thoroughly miserable tonight.

I booked my driving theory test a while back - right after pay day, I did it because I always run out of money later in the month.

I was planning to change the date - but life got in the way, and when I went to rebook it for two weeks time - I've missed the deadline and now I have to take it tomorrow :(

That sucks. I will fail it for sure.

Oh well, I might as well take it, I've paid for it, so I don't have anything to lose, but I know it's not going to be pretty. I have not done a second of revision or practice. I have crammed in a few on-line tests tonight and was astounded to realise I didn't even know what shape a STOP sign was.

Damn. I'll post again tomorrow. My misery and I are going to go hide in bed. Good night.

Rude words - once learned, never forgotten.

We were out shopping tonight. For those of you who have never taken a tired three year old shopping before, it is slightly less enjoyable then do-it-yourself tubal ligation. For those of you who have tried it, well, you're already nodding. You could probably finish the story for me.

We're waiting in line. Dylan has done his full compliment of dangling off my hand, swinging into candy bar stands, pulling the non-fixed barrier, whining for batteries etc when he suddenly stops.

I know he's going to do something awful because he looked at me and smiled first. As Robert Fulghum would put it "Uh-oh"....

Little slitty eyes looking up at me. "Stupid asshole" hisses my precious baby, and bursts out laughing. I am wide eyed, mesmerised, dear lord let him not remember anything else Dan and I might have said in any late evening discussions we may have had...oh lord, now he's singing a song about a retard - Dan once called Sasha a retard and he asked what it meant. Why do we tell him everything? He's three, dammit, we should just lie to him sometimes.

Oh god. The lady in front has some tampons in her basket. Please don't let now be the time he decides we are going to revisit that conversation about how he and daddy have a penis but mommy and Sasha have a 'jyna. I'll never be able to come in here again. The last time I bought Tampax in here he asked me, nice and loud, "Are they for your jyna?" - as if it's some kind of pet I keep at home. He always picks crowded places to want to have a facts of life talk. It's all my fault anyway for trying to bring him up well balanced and educated, I should have just said "Johnson" and "pompom" or some other unidentifiable words and damn it, it's all my fault.

We're at the front of the queue now, he hasn't asked about anyone's purchases or nether regions or decribed anything terrible to anyone or managed to sing the Retard song loud enough for anything but a trained mommy ear to detect. He hasn't pointed out any fat men either. We may yet make it out of here alive. Both of us.

The lady at the counter says "Hello Dylan, how are you today?" and my precious baby says "Hello, I went to nursery today and I did a painting. I painted a fire truck for my mommy" - oh how I love this child! he never lets me down, he's so cute and charming and all the ladies behind the counter make a collective "awwwww" when he speaks in his little three-year-old baby-talk voice. She rings the food up and hands him the till recipt and unprompted he says "Thank you ladies, bye bye" and off we go. I know they'll talk about us when we're gone, they'll say what a nice little boy he is and how well behaved he is...this is because they didn't hear the song.

Another succesful shopping trip with my sweet little boy.

About the Beetles.

Dan and I met about 7 years ago. It was all very modern and odd, a net-friend of mine told me she had someone she wanted me to meet, we were in chat, so I met him and we had a fight, I thought he was rude and he thought I was a sissy.

But for some reason we just immediately loved each other.

I felt like I'd known Dan for years. When we sat and sometimes said nothing but listened to mp3's together, we both just knew it was all going to be ok - despite the inconvenience that we were slightly over 3000 miles apart, and almost 20 years difference in age.

When Dan asked me to come meet him, I said yes right away. We'd known each other for 5 months. My mother went instantly hysterical because I was "running off with some man I didn't know."

How well does anyone really ever know anyone else? we'd done nothing but talk for 10 hours a day since we met, I was 29, divorced, employed and had my own house. I thought I'd made it to adulthood quite succesfully. Dan and I met at George Bush airport, Houston, on 3rd July 1999. Our wedding anniversary is July 4th....

A year later, we got Sasha. Two years later, Dan and I had Dylan. Three and a half years later, Dan, Dylan, Sasha and I, decided to start a blog. Actually, Sasha didn't have much input. She's a girl of few words.

Welcome to our world.

Introducing the Beetle family!

Hey, we got a blog! Wonder what we'll write or if we'll be interesting?






I'm Sue, my husband is Dan, our son is Dylan and our dog is Sasha.
Those are the main players.

No doubt Dan will be doing something clever, Dylan will be doing something startlingly dangerous for a three year old and Sasha will be doing something involving chewing socks, or something else we don't seem to have a lot of. She usually is.

And me? well, I'll be talking about it.

I'll start it properly tomorrow, to tell you the truth, it's very late here, I think my son just woke up (damn it) and I have to get up tomorrow. Also, since this is my first entry, I can't wait to press "Publish" and see what it looks like. I'm such a child sometimes.

So, thanks for coming and I'll see you tomorrow, when I'll tell you something about who we are and what we've been doing. Not like a life history, just some basic junk so you understand us a bit better.

Good night.