Awake

In the middle of the night, when insomnia is keeping me awake again (even though I am exhausted), I find myself dwelling on all sorts of thoughts.

My mind is running on overdrive and when I try and follow up information on issues worrying me I often feel like I can feel my blood pressure rising in frustration and upset. Which keeps me even more awake.

So I'm coming to the conclusion that I would be better off not being online or, in fact, using any technology when I cannot get to sleep.

I think I need to get myself an insomnia pack together consisting of a piece of knitting, some crocheting and perhaps a book (though nothing too stimulating) in the hopes that these activities will help to calm my brain activity and, hopefully, help me get to sleep.

In reality, the only action that will help me to get some rest is for the things worrying me to be sorted out so that I can relax and not be stressed. Here's hoping.

Thoughts from the Shower #3

I find myself hopping from link to link online and I find myself wondering what on earth am I doing? I have so many things on my To Do List.

The answer my friends is procrastination or displacement activities or . . . 

I have been accused of writing lists to delay starting chores/activities. To that my response is: 'Without the list, I will definitely get distracted from my tasks in hand. I will end up not knowing whether I have achieved that which I had set out to achieve and, quite possibly, do something entirely different and not pressing (like read a magazine instead of writing a difficult letter/email)'.

Is this a bad thing?

I'm not sure. Obviously, if I get distracted from writing a letter of complaint about a poor quality purchase it will delay my refund. However, if I don't dust or sort through the bookshelves, does it really matter?

Now, I had better publish this post and go and get on with something on my To Do List!

How I Quit Smoking

It's 12 years since I stopped smoking.

Actually, it's 12 years since I stopped buying cigarettes. I last smoked a cigarette about 11½ years ago.

I'd been talking about giving up smoking for a few years and had reduced the amount I smoked and changed the type of cigarette I smoked to a 'light' version. The astronomical rising cost certainly had a big effect on my desire to quit.

However, the decider was my promise to my (now) husband that I would stop smoking after our wedding in October 2002. I wanted to do it before but, being realistic, knew it would be far too stressful in the run up to our marriage for it to be a good time to attempt stopping then.

'How did you succeed?', I hear you ask?

Well, I didn't use nicotine patches or chewing gum. Neither did I try self-hypnosis or self-help books. I just decided that I wasn't actually giving up cigarettes, I was just going to stop buying them.  If I really felt the need to have a smoke, I could - but I would have to find someone to get a cigarette from to do so.

In the first few weeks after I stopped buying fags, I came to realise that I didn't actually like the taste of cigarette smoke and that I had always had either a mint or a drink to hand whenever I smoked. If only I had realised that 14 years earlier I could have saved myself a lot of money!

My cessation from smoking met with quite a negative response from older smokers within my family, who seemed to find my success a threat and also expected me to try and recruit them away from their nicotine fix. Eventually, after several years of gentle persuasion, I managed to convince them that my only real concern was that they desisted from smoking around my children. 

After all, when someone has been smoking for over 40 years and knows all the information about the damage that the products of a lit cigarette do to your body and still wish to partake, there is nothing much that can be said - they know it's bad for them, you know it's bad for them but a person backed into a corner by criticism is rarely likely to respond in a positive fashion.

So, in my case, telling myself I could smoke, but only if I could get cigarettes from other people for free, worked. Mainly because I discovered quite quickly that I loathed waking up with a mouth that tasted like an overflowing ashtray, which was a very helpful negative reinforcement of my desire to quit.

Un Birth Day

Today, 9 years ago, is the day that December should have been born (assuming her estimated date of delivery (EDD) had been calculated correctly). It's a funny date for me, because it isn't really an anniversary of an event that occurred - more of one that should have.

Unfortunately, my health rather got in the way of December's EDD and she was delivered by emergency caesarean section on the morning of Christmas Eve 2005 (something covered in more detail in my Christmas Complications post of 2/12/14).

I have never worked out why I'm mourning an event that never occurred, given that even though December arrived very early, she survived and is a healthy, happy, thriving child. It helps that one of the girls that I attended Antenatal Classes with had her first child, a boy, on the 10th February 2005 and that he is doing well, too.

Maybe what I'm mourning is more to do with the fact that my illness robbed me of experiencing a normal pregnancy and labour and, instead, delivered me a whole load of stress and worry. This was then compounded by how I was treated on the Post Natal ward by Midwives who didn't know what to do with an ill first time Mother whose baby was on the SCBU (Special Care Baby Unit).

Fortunately the Nurses on the SCBU were absolutely marvellous, very supportive and caring and ensured that both I and my darling little girl got through a very difficult time when I was forced to agree to be discharged home earlier than arranged and needed to travel in to hospital every day to see December, express breastmilk and, later, start breastfeeding. 

The travel was made harder due to my not being allowed to drive (having had a caesarean section) and my DH being a non-driver. Taxis, trains and buses are difficult over Christmas and New Year at the best of times but really awful when you are exhausted and tender. I was saved from the worst by lovely friends who arranged lifts where possible (you really know who your friends are in times such as these).

The best news was that December was allowed home after just 2 weeks in hospital, which was a great way to start 2006.

Here is the link to a UK charity that provides advice and support to parents of babies who are born prematurely http://www.bliss.org.uk/

Full Moon Dreams

I've been having some very detailed and colourful dreams over the last week or so, often waking up tired and un-refreshed. It's been a bit like experiencing action/mystery/thriller films that you see at the cinema.

I have no idea what has caused this level of activity, but am wondering whether the Full Moon has affected my dream patterns?

One night, in a dream, I was at a party in someone's very posh house when suddenly someone burst in saying that some people had gone missing in the woods. We all rushed outside into the night and I found myself alone in the darkness, stumbling over tree roots when I came upon the body of a young man caught beneath a fallen tree. Next to it was a cave-like opening in the ground (possibly made when the tree fell) which I entered and found another man lying in a foetal position on the floor.

The next thing I knew, I was in my room at home dealing with some very muddy laundry and tackling a pile of mending.

Weird.

Have you had any odd dreams during the Full Moon? If so, I'd love to read about it :) Could anyone interpret mine for me?

What? It's February ALREADY?!

Gluten Free Chocolate Jaffa Self-Saucing Pudding

Yesterday morning I was bumbling around, minding my own business doing my usual Sunday stuff (oversleeping; rushing to get those who go to Church there on time; baking a yummy Sunday pud) when December suddenly announced, 'It's the 1st of February today'. My laid back, sleepiness woke up - how on earth had January disappeared already? It was only New Year's Eve days ago - heck, Christmas Day was only about a week back. Or not, as it turned out - New Year's Eve was 31 days ago and Christmas Day 40 days in the past.

I have had rather a lot on my mind recently, so much so that January has disappeared in even more of a blur than usual. In the approach to the festive season and over the Christmas period itself, January (if you think about it at all) seems to loom in a slightly dark and gloomy way over the proceedings. People always talk about the first month of the year as being a depressing month, which given that it follows weeks of celebrations, sparkly decorated rooms and gift swapping, is hardly surprising.

Somehow January 2015 has managed to slip by almost unnoticed.

Maybe it's because I have been very busy with our Home Educating activities? Or perhaps it's partly down to the fact that I have been filling the non-HE moments with learning new skills? I'm not sure, however I think I rather like it - not feeling like January has been endured is a new experience to me and one that I would hope to repeat next year.