family – Page 3 – tiredfromwhitstable

Analysing Anxiety……

As many of you know and have been bored to tears by me for the majority of this year about I suffer with depression and anxiety. Always have in some way and quite probably always will. This year so far has been the hardest journey for me out of all the previous ones. So much so that this one I feel is the one that will change the way I deal with me forever.

These changes are positive and all I believe what will make me going forward be in control more of how depression and anxiety affects me and not letting it beat me again (yes I know I’ve said this a million times before!) One of my main issues was and I realise now has always been a total lack of self esteem. My inner dialogue has always been negative to the point where I have talked myself out of doing the smallest and simplest things because I have simply felt I’m not able to, would be laughed at or that as usually I am totally and utterly useless so why bother trying.

This anxiety that came out of this inner dialogue meant that I had literally stopped myself from doing things. To give totally honest examples I would plan how I would walk into and out of the school on the school run as I didn’t want to walk a way where that many people would see me and potentially not like me, what I write, how I look or who I am. Even though of course the vast majority of those people don’t know me and even if they did probably not well enough to condemn me and ostracise me and lets be honest if people don’t like me I really can’t do much about that and hiding myself away won’t change their feelings about me. It even got so bad that earlier this year I would park the car in a road quite away from school and would watch the clock until five to three then need to rush in knowing that the children would be coming out as I got there so I would avoid seeing lots of people. It got that bad! It sounds ridiculous and I’m even laughing at myself a bit writing it but that was what anxiety was doing to me.

I did the same with parking my car at work and even trips to the toilet where I would need to leave the office I worked in I would plan for times I felt would be quiet and I wouldn’t bump into people. I didn’t want to have to explain my issues to people or feel I was being judged so I tried to disappear. Of course no one can actually disappear, unless you have one of three Deathly Hallows and your last name is Potter! But I would have done anything to be able to. I was literally driving myself mad and even the slightest knock would turn me into a wreck and made me feel like I simply couldn’t go on.

I realise now that my anxiety goes hand in hand with my depression and the more down I am the more anxious I become. The issue of course as I have said so many times before was that I simply did not have the option of shutting down, I had to fight it for my children, my husband and the people I love but, most of all for me. I am a human being who has all manner of issues and experiences that have bought me to where I am today but what has gone before me does not take away from the fact that I have a future and that I like everyone else deserve to be happy. My own version of happy of course, it might not be what would make others happy but who cares, happiness is a personal choice and it really has nothing to do with anyone else. As long as those closest to me are okay and we are happy then that will do me.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t strut around with my head held high but I try to smile more (not in a creepy way I hope) and if I feel anxious about walking a certain way or doing a specific thing I have a little word with myself and ask what is the worst that could happen? The honest answer from my more peaceful mind is not a lot and if something did well you know what as a thirty four year old woman I would have to deal with it. I can’t go on over analysing everything and as the very wise Newt Scamander said, ‘worrying only makes you suffer twice’ and I believe lovely people that he is right.

I can’t pretend that depression and therefore anxiety won’t be a part of my life anymore but I have finally made peace with the fact that they are a part of who I am and I am their master not the other way around. I also will do myself no good whatsoever telling myself I am ugly, no good, worthless, stupid or that I need to prove my worth to others just so I feel validated. I can validate me and other than eating far too much cake and having a slightly unhealthy obsession with Keeping Up with the Kardashians I’m okay. My children are happy (albeit appallingly behaved the vast majority of the time) Karl and I are in the best place I think we have been in a long time, our home is messy but full of love and there is cider in the fridge.

This may seem like a strange post to write but I wanted to write it to emphasise how you can come through a crisis and although you will still need to handle the triggers you can give yourself the tools to do so. I was chatting to someone the other day and we talked about it like having an extra handbag. Like the one I always carry that has powder, deodorant, my phone, a notepad, my money, lego figures (mum to boys!) plasters and a variety of other delights I also have the invisible one that contains all the things I have learned in CBT and all the tools that I can use to get me through the day with a smile on my face and feeling okay about me.

As I have mentioned in the past my Pinterest account helps me massively in this respect and I see it as a form of therapy each and every day to scroll through positive and inspirational quotes that lift me and make me feel okay to be who I am.

This has been a hard one to write and I hope not terrible for you to read. I will continue to give updates as I find it helps me to hear about others journeys and if I can help or offer kind words to even one person then it makes it totally worth putting my story out there. Thanks for reading and if you feel the need to get in touch please do so via my contact page.

Sunday ‘fun’

Hey all, how are you?

I am in a typical me fashion feeling low again, I imagine the weather changing, a really busy week and general grown up stresses are to blame. I also genuinely think I might be going through early menopause as having had a hysterectomy even with keeping my ovaries I’m at a greater risk of it coming within five years of the op.

I am going to the doctor tomorrow who I’m sure will put his head in his hands when he sees me screaming inside his head ‘not her again!’ Anyway, being a bit low I’ve been feeling massively tired, so much so that this afternoon while snuggling with the boys on the sofa watching ‘Percy Jackson the Lightning Thief’ for the seven millionth time (that’s just today) I fell asleep.

I woke up two hours later (neither boy had moved) to a missed call from one of my best friends so I got up in a slightly dazed and confused state to put the kettle on (who doesn’t need tea when they have just woken up?!) and called her as I walked into the kitchen. Not really aware of what was going on I went to the fridge and heard a noise behind me. This was Alf our black and white cat who is about fifteen and should be acting his age however he still thinks he is a kitten.

The next thing I knew a brown lump fling itself across the kitchen floor. I jumped and almost hit the ceiling and was screaming down the phone to my poor friend who I assume thought I was being murdered or having a serious episode. It was a mouse, a live mouse that Alf was tossing around the kitchen like a juggler. I ran from the room, shut the door and continued to scream down the phone to my friend who by Now was in hysterics. She has been called to help me with spiders before and knows how much of a wuss I am.

So the boys who being boys should have been saying, ‘it’s alright Mum, you may not get to have pretty pink things around the house or the choice of not having bogeys wiped on you but we are boys, we’ve got this’ but they didn’t, they were worse than me and were both river dancing around the living room.

I called Karl, he is an hour away, he can’t help and being honest was about as sympathetic as if I had just slapped him around the face with a dead fish. So I was on my own. I got a little box in the hope of putting it over the mouse and getting it out in the most humane way possible. I opened the kitchen door a tiny bit and Nate my seven year old pushed me though slamming the door shut behind me. Like when they lock you in the room on the Crystal Maze and Just stand outside the door. These two also barricaded the door so the mouse couldn’t get out. Of course that also meant I couldn’t get out either.

The poor mouse was wedged between a wooden toy lorry and a box of recycling bits (my home is never tidy) and I spent a number of minutes dancing around too scared to move anything incase it ran under the fridge. Eventually I had the nerve to move the lorry and quickly dropped the box down but not quite over the whole of the poxy thing so it was struggling to escape staring at me. I managed to sort it and then almost collapsed on the kitchen floor.

I then had to push some card under the box and get the mouse out of the house, around the toy assault course and avoiding Alf who was prowling around unhappy I had screamed at him. I released the mouse (a wood mouse I have identified from google) and then both boys appeared with some cheese. I have no idea what the cheese was meant to do but Nate seemed happy that he could just eat the cheese and they carried on as if nothing had happened.

I may be making a huge meal out of the whole incident but I don’t do pests, I don’t catch things and I certainly don’t stay calm in situations that involve any of them. You should see me if a wasp flies at me, it’s like watching that episode of Friends where Pheobe likes to run.

Anyway today I have learned that I can manage totally on my own, the boys need some better training, I may need to pay for my friend to have hearing aids and that wood mice are very cute as long as they aren’t leaping around your kitchen.

Hope you are having a lovely weekend xxx

The world’s most vintage fireplace……

Hi all, how are we?

As many of you who follow my ramblings on Instagram and Facebook will know we have finally commenced the first stages of project extension.

When we bought our two bed bungalow back in 2015 we knew we would outgrow it however we looked beyond the here and now. As two beds went it was quite a large one and the large driveway and big back garden (plus the stunning view with cows) were all something we knew we would struggle to get elsewhere in Whitstable. Property prices are through the roof and we simply couldn’t afford an extra 100k (not many of us can!)

So the plans were made for extending the house at some point and creating not only more living space but extra bedrooms also. One of the first jobs we always knew we would have to tackle was this bad boy.

Which believe it or not was our boiler. When we first viewed the house which had been renovated throughout we just couldn’t understand why they would keep such an ugly fireplace when it had a lovely modern kitchen and bathroom. It was only when we asked some questions that we realised that it was actually a back boiler with electric fire surround (and sexy mood lighting as you can see). We got some quotes and realised that we would likely have to make do with it until such a time as we could afford to get it replaced (around 4K).

Initially I had lots of plans to cheer it up, a bespoke wooden surround for example but this wasn’t possible because of the potential build up of carbon monoxide so I then decided to wall paper it. Realising I didn’t have the patience of a saint I then got creative with washi tape and it became a multicoloured delight (can you sense my sarcasm there?!) I finally painted the surround and the hearth in chalk paint which was the best it had looked in a while!

I did always like using the shelves and the hearth for displaying my stuff, anyone who knows me knows I love a bit of clutter but alas I did find the boiler a bit embarrassing and always felt that it detracted from the other lovely things in the room. When we got the plumber round to talk about our options he told us that it was such a shame that they are so ugly as they are so simple they very rarely go wrong and in fact would continue for another forty years. Our one was in its fifties and still going strong we found out!

We decided to have the boiler and delightful surround pulled off and the wall, the new boiler put into the loft and the hot water tank in the giant airing cupboard in our bedroom removed with new piping installed. We needed this done prior to the extension beginning so we knew where the pipes would be to box in so two weeks ago with a two day slot our plumber arrived.

We could never use this room for anything other than a living space all the while the back boiler was here as you cannot sleep in a room where there is one incase of carbon monoxide poisoning. We have CM alarms but I still wouldn’t take the risk. In the build this room will become two so we needed the boiler gone.

We were left however with a bit of a dilemma. We didn’t want to spend loads of cash on making the fireplace beautiful as it’s likely when the build is done we will want to change it or it will get filthy with dust so we blocked up the open hole with insulation and made a wooden square to go over the top of it. It sounds awful and to be honest looked a bit odd but did somewhat resemble a fireplace. The hearth stayed in place. It occurred to me that we could quite easily paint a surround with limited cost (we have lots of chalk paint) and then give the illusion of having a fireplace without actually having one.

So I painted the wooden panel, the hearth and a surround with chalk paint in ‘charcoal’ that I got from Aldi. I then waxed everything other than the wooden panel so it was a slightly different shade than the surround and hearth. I did manage to get some paint on the carpet but that’s a lot better than I usually manage!

Karl then cut me lots of tiny circles from logs of wood. All in slightly different sizes and ever so irregular. There are some that are shaped a little bit like hearts, different colours and none of them in anyway uniform. I then used wood glue to stick them onto the wooden panel to look like a stack of logs in an open fireplace.

All of this cost £2 for the panel of wood that Karl cut to size, nothing for the logs that were cut down as we already had them in the wood store, £4.99 for some chalk paint and I used Annie Sloan wax that I already had for the waxing afterwards. The wood glue was a tube from B&Q that we already had.

It may not be to everyone’s taste and the Dark is taking me a while to get used to but I absolutely love the results. It looks like it was done by someone far more professional than me and my old paint brush and Karl got to use his big chopper which always excites him massively.

I would love to hear what you think and more importantly cheap ways you have used to upcycle your home.

Have a fab weekend, Lucy xxx

Time the simple way; a collaboration with Jord Watches……

Hi all, how are we?

My most recent post was about my realising that I prefer to live life simply. I was blown away with the comments, emails and messages I received from so many others feeling exactly the same way as me. So you can imagine I’ve been thinking more and more about this subject.

I’ve not really done any collaborations before so when the lovely people at Jord Watches asked if I would be interested in collaborating with them being honest I really wasn’t sure. I questioned whether the people who read my blog would think I was selling out, being too commercial or whether in fact there is a place in my life for a new watch.

I currently wear a fitness tracker watch, it calculates my steps, distance covered, hours of sleep, active minutes per day, tells me my heart rate, vibrates and shows text messages on the screen from my phone as well as phone calls so I’m always aware of everything going on if I’m wearing it.

When I looked at the Jord website and saw the selection of simple, wooden watches in many gorgeous designs I knew I wanted one. It’s been so long since I’ve worn a conventional watch and the simplicity of the designs all made in wood really caught my eye.

If I’m embracing a more simple life surely it would be okay to not monitor every step I take, analyse my sleeping patterns or be constantly available via my watch?

As a busy working woman and also a mum I have to be organised, I have to plan dinners, food shops, social events (mostly for the boys!) childcare, house work, bill paying, blog writing, column writing, various appointments and of course the odd half hour to watch Eastenders (guilty pleasure alert!)

Just because I have to be on top of these things doesn’t mean that we can’t live simply, I take my time and consider everything we do, will it be stressful? Will it make us tired and grumpy? Are we asking too much of ourselves or the boys? If the answer is yes I have got much better at prioritising accordingly and realising that tiny moments are what are important not how many days out we go on or social events we attend.

When my watch arrived it came in a gorgeous wooden box with a sliding lid along with some wood treatment oil and all of this sat in a cardboard tray to keep everything together. Inside were instructions, two kinds of cleaning cloths one for wood and one for the watch face and the watch itself around a little pillow to keep it in shape.

The first thing that struck me was how light my new watch was. It sounds silly but I hadn’t anticipated the difference in weight between a wooden watch and a conventional one. It looked lovely on my wrist, elegant and simple. Just what you would want when embracing a simpler lifestyle.

My new watch had it’s first outing to a family day out at Dover Castle. Ordinarily I would be interested to see using my fitness tracker watch how many steps I had taken and how many floors climbed running around after the boys and up and down hills and castle stairs but yesterday it didn’t matter. I would feel in my legs how far I had walked and moved and when I got tired I would know I had worked hard. I didn’t feel the need to check my active minutes, my heart rate or whether I had missed any notifications on my phone.

I simply checked the time, the time that was best for our packed lunch, when the next jousting tournament would begin, when the next tour of the wartime tunnels would start and to marvel at how time flies when I realised we had been running around for five hours! I had some compliments and one lady in particular commented how she had never seen a wooden watch and even tried it on!

I’m not saying for one minute that there isn’t a place for my fitness watch, that I can and will be able to switch off from the world at any time I like or that wearing this watch will suddenly make me live the simple life I crave everyday, however I can state as a fact that I checked my phone less, used less technology and felt stylish (I think the last time that happened was 2003 and I’d just had my hair dyed red!)

If it helps to enjoy the time I have and live even a little bit more simply then that for me is a winner and as you know for someone trying to combat and survive mental health issues that has got to be a good thing. Wellbeing is so very important and yesterday even with the boys appalling behaviour at many moments I felt like I had done a small amount towards a little bit of mindfulness.

If you follow me on Instagram you will know the things the boys got up to so I won’t repeat it all but just to emphasise the behaviour imagine this. A new exhibition of some of the outfits worn by the famous actors in the movie Dunkirk. Teenage girls giggling and taking selfies by the costume worn by Harry Styles from One Direction, others marvelling at the authenticity of the officers uniform worn by Kenneth Branagh and then an ear piercingly loud alarm sounds. We look around to find Nate lovingly fondling the fabric from Harry Styles costume. Not because he loves Harry Styles but because he loves to touch and fiddle with anything. Yes the expensive outfits were alarmed with all manner of loud alarms to prevent anyone taking anything. Cue us awkwardly shuffling out pretending our children were not the worst behaved ones there but inside bearrating ourselves for being such awful parents.

So the collaboration part, follow this link and enter your details to be in with a chance to win $100 off any watch over at the Jord website. Even those who don’t win will receive a $25 voucher. Good luck lovely people!

To check out the Jord Website and have a look at the gorgeous watches please follow these links:

For my watch click here

For women’s watches click here

For men’s watches click here

and for the home page you can click here.

The competition will close on the 9th of September 2017. Good luck!

> Luxury Wooden Watch
>
>

The simple life…….

Hey all, how are we?

I’ve been thinking today about happiness, gratitude and how I use them in my life. I was thinking this while out on a ‘power walk’ on the Crab and Winkle Way which as most of you know is one of my favourite spots in Whitstable.

Thinking about the little things that keep you happy and grateful is an essential in life and it occurred to me just how much I long for the simple life. I keep seeing and reading things about living a simpler life, the best life you can and getting ‘off grid’ for a while.

My husband wouldn’t be able to be ‘off grid’ for long, he is a gadget man who loves technology but then it occurred to me that he is also at his happiest outside in the garden, doing jobs, enjoying the peace and making things. All of these things are relatively simple and usually involve minimal gadgets (other than his drone!)

The boys too are usually happy when they are playing outside. I actually find that the more time they spend on tablets (we limit this as much as we can) the more grumpy and irritable they become. They get lots of built up aggression and you can tell that they have been having screen time.

Earlier this week we visited the Elmley Nature Reserve and had a night of no television or tablets. Karl and I had our phones but mostly for pictures but neither of us used them that much. We walked, talked, played cards and the boys got lost in nature. There was a huge hill at the back of our fishermans hut and they were up and down it constantly, looking out over the fields and playing little games they had made up.

Of course they did some arguing and some wrestling but they are my children and wouldn’t be if they didn’t!

I loved the peace, the views and the feeling of being at one with nature. There were pretty butterflies, all manner of birds and rabbits running around which made it all seem quite magical.

So as I was power walking in my maroon shorts and running top which is way too tight because of all the chocolate I was thinking about how much I just want to spend my time simply being. Taking in beautiful views, walking and conversing with the people I love and enjoying where we live.

In our home we seem to be embracing simpler things, not focussing so much on smart storage solutions from modern shops but loving things with a history and that were made by hand. Things that will still be around and usable when we are old and the boys are able to appreciate them like the table Karl made using the base from my Grandads old Singer sewing machine table.

Gone are the days where if we had a free weekend I would feel like we needed to fill it with all and sundry, we now take life at a much slower pace and I actually try to plan in time where we can choose what we do whether that be a walk in the woods, on the beach or some time with Nana chatting and drinking tea. I love seeing friends and family but they too have similar feelings to us so it’s nice that we can all enjoy our times together.

I am so very happy when I am out walking, it opens my mind and allows me that space to think and be me. To go over what’s been going on and to plan for what’s coming up. To think about all the things I am grateful for and to process things that I’ve not been so good at in recent times and how I can improve next time.

This is a key element of moving forward for me after my CBT has come to an end. Originally I was massively scared and felt like I needed that session each week to be okay but the more I have thought about it the more I realise that I have the tools I need and I need to keep using them, building on the foundation the therapist and I built and making them habit. Walking in the fresh air is a huge part of this for me.

This morning I walked for half an hour, no time at all really when you weigh up what is important or not but the feeling afterwards was immense and is carrying on throughout the day. Of course not all days will life be so simple and some days or even weeks there won’t be time for a long walk but life is after all about balance. We make time for the doctor or dentist when we need to and being mindful is just as key to our health as these visits are.

How do you keep your life simple? What things would you like to improve on or to change? I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas. If you can take half an hour for yourself this week and do something you love, something that is good for your soul. Walk, run, sing to loud music, catch up with a friend, draw, knit, have a chocolate bar, bake a cake, build Lego with your children, buy some flowers, take some photos, cook a meal from scratch, light a scented candle, have a bath (you get my drift?!) I bet you will feel much better for it.

Illness, bike riding and lost crocs…….

You know how sometimes you get to the end of a long day and just need a really good giggle? Read on lovely people……..

Today is one of those where I work the day and Karl works the afternoon and night so my parents pick the boys up from school. I go straight to their house and they usually feed both me and the boys before we go home about seven pm for bedtime.

Tonight I got back to find the boys doing clay modelling with Nana, she loves any kind of messy, knife wielding and potentially get paint everywhere crafts so I let her get on with it and watched with a nervousness that I can’t describe while Leo flung around the small knife chopping clay into various shapes.

The boys ate tea and Nate not even half way through eating declared he felt terribly poorly and took himself off into the living room. Now my Nate is a big boy who loves all the boy things there are in this world. He is also one of the biggest drama queens I know and often goes to extremes when he feels poorly asking questions such as, ‘is it my heart?’, ‘do I need a blood transfusion?’ and ‘is it a deadly disease?’

Tonight was no different and within what seemed like minutes he had worked himself up into a huge tizzy and was very concerned he would be sick. He reminded me a bit of a woman in heavy labour, all heavy breathing and uncomfortable movements. It got to the point where not only did he feel sick but his neck was hurting, he couldn’t swallow properly and he was almost delirious. I then went into typical mum mode and thought just incase he had indeed developed some kind of tropical disease that I should get him checked out.

We drove to our Doctors which also has a minor injuries walk in centre attached. Usually they have nurses who can prescribe and often the doctors work late. We went to the lady at reception with Nate leaning on the desk with his heavy breathing and humpback whale type moans. She gave me a perplexed look when I answered the question of whether it was an injury or an illness with ‘I’m not really sure’ and ushered us through to the waiting area where Nate continued to whale loudly.

The kind lady doctor called us in and Nate who had tears steaming down his cheeks went into full flow about how his breathing was strange, he felt sick, his neck and throat hurt and that he blamed the ham from school. She also looked at me perplexed and asked if Nate often got this anxious. I explained that he hates being ill and even the thought of it makes him get into a real tizzy so she was extra patient with him. Turns out his glands were up in his neck so we were prescribed antibiotics and he was told to rest up.

My plan next was to drive to our local Tesco to get his medicine which would take around ten minutes. Nate was having none of this so I delivered him back to Nana’s (by this point it was pouring with rain) and shot to Tesco on my own. The lady at the chemist said I had a few minutes to wait so I found myself by the flowers and picked out some peonies for me and pink roses for my mum.

I collected the medicine and left the store with handfuls of flowers and the little white bag the medicine comes in, my hair was everywhere and I was soaked. I must have looked very strange. By the time I got back to Nana’s and gave Nate his first dose of medicine I felt exhausted and that we should all be getting home. Nate happily came but Leo refused to put his shoes on and ran off out of the back door into the pouring rain.

I loaded the car with all the things that needed to go home, school bags, shoes, clay models, hats and Nate loaded himself in. Leo then appeared on his bike which he has only just learned to ride without stabilisers cycling round and round the house in the pouring rain. On his second trip round I realised he was wearing a giant pair of adult crocs, Grandads crocs.

The next thing I knew Grandad himself was running after Leo shouting, ‘he’s got my crocs!’ While I sat in the car windscreen wipers on full pelt wondering if this kind of thing ever happens to anyone else. It took a reasonable amount of time for them both to return for a third loop this time Leo wearing nothing on his feet and Dad telling me as he went past that Leo had thrown the crocs on the lawn.

On the next rotation Grandad appeared with Leo over his shoulder in a fireman style lift. Leo was placed into the car and as we drove off I looked in my mirror and saw him smiling to himself. He had been having a wonderful time.

We got home and I had to unload the car, I had flowers, two school bags, one handbag, one pair of shoes, half a shepherds pie (leftovers) clay models of Saturn and Neptune, my work bag, two drink bottles and two hats. Nate held his prescription and Leo unlocked the front door. We walked in and everything in my arms dropped to the floor, I managed to catch the Shepherds pie and promptly got the boys into bed.

They are still awake and I’m eating the rest of the shepherds pie which I planned on having for lunch at work tomorrow.

Oh well it’s not like it’s only Monday and we still have the rest of the week to go……. oh wait!