One of those days.....

Yes the title has a hint of sarcasm, but for me it HAS been exactly that 'one of those days'

Now I guess 'one of those days' could mean a number of scenarios to a number of people, but for me it means a day where I've almost got to the point of saying "enough is enough, I quit!"

I bet you're all thinking why?! Why is today so much tougher than any other day??? In fairness I don't think it is & now I'm blogging to calm myself (strangely for me this is a technique that works) I can reflect & say "is it THAT bad?"

Actually as calm as I'm getting, yes it is! What the outside world sees is what it wants to see: the blissful married couple, 3 lovely children, a nice/safe family home, financially ok... What the outside world doesn't see: a depressed husband, a high-functioning autistic son, a stressed out wife/mother, all the chaos that goes with this too.

So why today? Why 'St Patrick's Day'? Top of the mornin to ya, by the way! Lol

Maybe the moon is in a particular phase, maybe it's the random weather patterns (freak snow showers this morning), maybe it's just a build up of the last few weeks, who knows?!

What I do know is my husband struggles every Sunday & hits a downer with the ever looming Monday morning back to work syndrome, add to the mix a non-compliant/non-conventional thinking autistic son that has been very argumentative & refusing to do homework or he at all helpful in anyway - well it's an all scale warfare to be precise.

Does that sound dramatic?! It's meant to... The morning started ok, but suddenly plummeted. We awoke, hubby toasted hot-cross buns (courtesy of M&S, they're the best in my honest opinion (but I've yet to try my hand at making my own)). We all ate, I had coffee life was good!

Then we ask number one son to do his homework (that should've been started on Friday after school, but alas arguments then, arguments yesterday too) guess what?!? Yep you bet ya, agreements again!!!

It got so heated that both male inhabitants stormed off to their bedrooms... Great! The littlest female inhabitant had a party to get to & I had a cake to delivery for said party - so given the drastic change in weather front, yes we had heavy snow showers at that time... I text my friend to let her know I'd walk the cake & girls to hers, drop lil lady n cake off for party (I'd then planned to take middle child to Costa).

Then cause I go to dress myself, hubby tells me I'm being ridiculous walking with cake, carseat & girls in this weather he'll give us a lift - Arghhhhhh! So I text my friend again, her partner comes to collect cake & we then have issues getting the boy to dress to leave the house.

Eventually he dresses, we get in A snow clad car & head to Banbury iKidz to drop lil lady (who is now The Dark Knight, it's a Superhero party) off for the party.

As is pretty standard these days in our car, the journey is never simple even if it's a short one in town... Kids arguing n bickering, I have no patience left since I quit smoking (Oct 9th 2012) give me strength please???

No, it continues so I start playing Emma B via my phone - hubby thinks it's amusing to change the lyrics & take the piddle out of me... Not happy & very vexed I stare out the window to watch the snow fall.

We drop little Anneliese at her party then head to Banbury centre, Castle Quay do a spot of shopping, some window shopping, then have trouble with hubbys stoopid iPod & Bluetoothing a photo to the printer in Boots (adding to my stress of our darling son being on form today). Before we know it the time has gone, we didn't even manage lunch before collecting Anneliese from her party!

We detoured past McDonald's on the way home, so we could eat... Lil lady was full from the party so just had a carton of milk - but even eating in McDonald's was not stress free & was fraught for me n hubby, as Cam decided the window screen that moved was of great enjoyment so kept sliding it back n fourth with Anneliese tugging the other side too. Tut, tut, much to our annoyance.

We finally finished & headed home in the car, still a few issues on the journey home - turn the stereo up, block it out! Once home we start back on the homework topic, eventually after much debate/protest/arguing we convince Cam to start it... Result!

The girls are playing happily, if a little loud, so they take their toys up to their room. We start to watch Corrie, homework is being started it is going well until - hubby drifts off to sleep, he's extremely tired after 2 nights work & early mornings after... Then the boy starts messing with deleting template pages from the document he is working on, not putting in any content so my stress levels rise again.

This is when I pick my phone up & play Candy Crush, then I start this blog as I'm getting more vexed with my son... Hubby wakes up, gets cross with son & goes to bath the lil lady - eventually son finishes homework, we have crumpets for tea & I have a cuppa then finish this blog off.

I'm unmotivated to go out this evening, but as I skipped karaoke Thursday night for feeling stressy I'm gonna force myself for Paddy-oke as a few silly Irish songs, good friends & bestie too should shove the stresses away.

I think I will tell my children when they hit their teens growing up is no fun, not to waste their time as youngsters with stress, anguish, arguments & just have fun, help one another, enjoy life while they can! So on that note, I'm outta here... Quick freshen up & tie the hair back, ready for some awful singing (from me) & a few decent tunes (from others, I hope) lol.

Fun with the Funky Fulfords

WoW, what a day we had yesterday...


6am start to the day when the alarm clock went off, after getting the clothes ready for the children the night before so we could get up & ready to leave at 7.30am for the long trip up to Staffordshire so we could spend the day at what in my opinion is the best UK theme park ever: Alton Towers!


Cameron had wanted to go for his birthday this year, but as we were at a wedding on the Saturday that weekend & it would've been no good going on the Sunday with the children going to school on the Monday morning, we had no option to go before now.  So we decided a few weeks ago as it was our good friend Mike's birthday on the 14th, that we could go on Saturday 16th instead!


Now, Cameron is not afraid of anything really... except Hex & Duel, I don't know what it is about Hex that he doesn't like, but I do know Duel is too loud for his sensitive ears - he will do Duel at a push but he keeps his ears covered, I did say to Duncan about getting him child ear defenders for such instances but Duncan didn't seem to keen on this... I think it would be a good investment as not only could he use them on things like Duel that are too loud for him, but he also struggles when we go to the cinema so we could use them there too - it would save seeing him with his fingers in his ears for the whole film or even more amusing is when he has snacks, he has devised a way to keep one hand free to eat... he wraps his right arm over his head & sticks his finger in his left ear while his right ear has been covered by his arm - ingenious I think!


The rides we covered yesterday were: Sonic Spinball, Oblivion, Enterprise, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Twirling Toadstools, Rita, TH13TEEN, The Flume, Congo River Rapids, Runaway Mine Train, Duel, Nemesis & Air... Cameron only skipped Duel (for reasons already mentioned), Hermione skipped a fair few due to height restrictions (so not really her fault) & a few more were skipped as she suffers dreadfully from motion sickness (so much so, that even on the journey to Staffordshire with preventative measures not only was she sick but we had to put her in the front passenger seat while I moved to the rear seats), the rides she did were: Enterprise, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Twirling Toadstools, & Runaway Mine Train.  Now Anneliese would have been up for every ride going if she was only taller than a meter high... sadly too many height restrictions, much to her disgust Lol!  She did manage to do the following though: Enterprise, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory & Runaway Mine Train.  Duncan has done them all before & so have I, so we only sat out a few to watch the children that couldn't ride.  Duncan skipped 5 all together: Sonic Spinball, Oblivion, Twirling Toadstools, Rita & Duel, I skipped out only 3 of the rides: Twirling Toadstools, The Flume & Congo River Rapids.


Now out of the Funky's Kirsty was the adrenaline junkie like me & did every ride going - go Kirsty!!!  Stevie was a bit too reserved for my liking only doing Enterprise, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Twirling Toadstools, Rita, TH13TEEN, The Flume, Congo River Rapids, Runaway Mine Train & Duel. Caroline was my Hero of the day & I am so, so very proud of her as she overcame a lot of fears, she rode the following: Sonic Spinball, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Rita, TH13TEEN, The Flume, Runaway Mine Train, Duel & Air, although she did call me a choice name while on Air, Lol!  Considering she is afraid of heights I think she did remarkably well with the rides she did.  Mike was also a star, even if on some of the rides he was screaming like a girlie... Mike rode: Oblivion, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Rita, TH13TEEN, The Flume, Congo River Rapids, Runaway Mine Train, Duel, & Air.


Despite the girls not doing very many rides they had a marvellous time, however we ran out of time to visit Old MacDonalds farm, Sealife or do the Squirrel Nutty ride.  This just means we will have to go back again very, very soon to keep them perfectly happy!


All in all we had a most enjoyable day out, the weather wasn't perfect as we had a fair few showers of heavy rain in the morning, but the afternoon it was wonderful as the sun came out & dried us off :)


2 Birthday celebrations, lots of rollercoasters, screams & fun had by all = Perfect Day Out =)

There's A New Arrival!!!

Firstly, apologies for not Blogging sooner but I have been so hectic with cake making that I just haven't had time to turn on the laptop let alone Blog!


On Sunday July 3rd it was Cameron's birthday... he was 10 this year, where does the time go?!  We had been to a friends wedding on the Saturday where another friend had told me & Duncan about her sisters kitten that needed a new home, she showed us a picture & what can I say???  He was adorable!!!  We fell in love with him & Duncan liked the name, so it stuck... Colin!


We have had Colin a little over a week as we picked him up the evening of Cameron's birthday & he has settled into the home just nicely, although he is a cheeky little character & full of mischief when he's not sleeping!!!


Oliver is quite used to him & friendly with him, although Pebbles still let's him know who's boss - this little kitten needs to know his place, Lol!  On meeting Merlin, Colin decided to let him know who was boss... this was quite funny as the other 2 cats tend to avoid the dog, not Colin though - he hissed & growled & made Merlin back away!  Not bad for a 9 week old kitten eh?!


He is now just over 10 weeks old & really come out of his shell, the girls love him to death almost... but he doesn't seem to mind all the fuss they give him =)


He had his first vaccination on Saturday, which he didn't feel at all - but it did leave him incredibly knocked out... the poor little mite slept pretty much all day & wasn't back to his normal self until Sunday, but he is as right as rain now (didn't keep him down for long) Lol.  His second vaccination is booked in for July 30th, the day after my birthday so we booked him in for 11am rather than an early appointment as it's bound to be a late night/early morning on the 29th (a little lie in will be more than needed) but hey, it's my birthday so it would be wrong not to celebrate!

He's certainly a little cutie, wouldn't you agree???