I swear I'm still here

So.... yeah. I wrote all that blurb about 6 months ago on how I was gonna turn my life around and become wonderful and blog like a mad thing and so on and so forth, all with the rabid enthusiasm of a well meaning new-years-resolutionee, and then what happened? Nothing much. Quelle surprise.

Let's try that again, shall we?

I'm not going to bother writing out 6 months worth of updates, because I'd get overwhelmed and give up half way and I won't remember half of it anyway. So here's the short short version.

Basically, Dad's had the all clear on his cancer. Mum's retired from work. DH is still at his job and doing OK. DS is growing like a weed and costing me a fortune in new clothes. My job has rejigged itself somewhat and is less of a trial, though probably just temporarily, not that I'm complaining about even just a short break from tearing out my hair. I've also had a great review from work, which is good but pointless since we can't have pay rises this year. Money is shit, we owe too much, and I'm trying to sort it out without getting overwhelmed (not easy).

As to all those new year resolutions, well they weren't too pointless after all. I didn't do as much as I'd hoped but I didn't sit around picking my nose either. Here's a summary:

Body - my plans to work out got derailed pretty early. Lots of stuff happened and I never seemed to get time or energy to go on the running machine, which was always covered in DH's washing and I could never be bothered to keep moving it all. Bah. Never mind, I haven't put weight on or got any LESS fit, and last week DH moved the treadmill down to the living room for me so hopefully I can get back on the wagon there and actually do some running. Maybe.
Food - I didn't become a wonder woman of perfect meals and healthy healthness. I still eat way too much junk. But I have made steps in the right direction. I have stopped having sandwiches for dinner every night because I'm too tired or stressed to cook something decent. I've reduced the amount of crap I eat significantly. Still need to do more, but I'm happy with my progress so far. Onwards and upwards!
Skin - this is where I've made most progress. In the last 6 months I've managed to cure myself of all the cystic acne that was plaguing me, and probably 75% of the blackheads. I still have some way to go but honestly I'm so pleased with how much better my skin looks already - it's the clearest it's been for YEARS.
Girlieness - I've done pretty well here too. I've made a lot more effort with my clothes and have rediscovered how good it feels to wear bright and cheerful colours, jewellery and nice make up. I haven't managed to wear too many skirts, but mostly that's because it's been completely freezing most of the time and/or I haven't had the right shoes. Why is it so hard to find nice shoes at the moment? But I have at least upgraded my jeans to nicer ones and when we did get some nice weather I worked the dresses and skirts like a BAWSE. Also, I discovered the joys of eyebrow waxing bars!

Anyway there's lots more but we won't worry about that now. Gonna just focus on the future instead. Watch this space :)

I'm still alive!

So I kind of forgot about this blog for a bit... things got really mad around here, what with my dad being sick, and Christmas, and some other stuff that I won't bore you with because, well, it's over and it'd depress you (and me). I didn't feel like writing for a while but my mojo seems to be coming back now, yay :)

It's a new year so I'm gonna get back into the swing of things.

I thought I'd start by posting my new year's resolutions. I'm kind of rubbish at these normally because I tend to set all these unrealistic goals and then forget about them because they're too hard. This year I'm going to try and be a bit nicer to myself and I might actually stand a chance of sticking to them!!

1. Body. 


I'm not holding out any hope of magically getting a body like a celebrity here, or turning myself into Mrs Fitness UK - and at 9 stone, I'm not exactly overweight either but it'd be nice if I was a bit more toned and had fewer lumpy bumpy bits. According to the chart, healthy weight for my age and height is between 8 and 10 stone, so I'm gonna aim for 8.5 stone (maybe a bit less) and work out as much as I can. I have a treadmill and an exercise bike that the Mr got me for Xmas so that's a good start. Resolution number one is to work out and to post about my progress here.


2. Food.


I pretty much eat all the wrong things and don't really put too much effort into making sure I eat healthy stuff. I skip meals, then fill up on sandwiches and crisps. It's not especially good for me and if I'm gonna work out more, I'm going to need the right fuel. So resolution number two is to eat better, and to blog about it here. There will be vegetables. And fruit.




3. Skin.


Since I went on the depo (must be nearly 2 years ago now, doesn't time fly?) things have been really great - no more 14 week long periods, feeling crappy all the time and collapsing from anaemia, which can only be a plus! Originally I had no side effects from the jab, but  these last few months my skin has changed. Sorry if this is TMI but I suddenly have tons of blackheads on my forehead and jawline and I'm also getting some cystic acne that quite frankly is a pain in the arse. The doctor says it's probably because of the depo, but there's no way I'm coming off it yet since a few spots is a small price to pay for not having all the troubles I used to have. Sooooo instead, new year's resolution no. 3 is to take better care of my skin and hopefully get it back to normal. This means drinking water (yuck), cutting back on coffee (sob), and making the effort to cleanse it and treat it properly. (Makes me sound like a minger who doesn't wash, doesn't it? I swear I do. I just haven't been doing it the right way or using the right things). I'm going to put regular updates on here so I can keep track of whether or not it's working.

4. Girlieness.

I've got into a bit of a rut when it comes to what I wear; it's too easy to think 'aw it doesn't matter, it's just work/I'm just staying home' and slinging on a pair of old jeans and some crappy top with a hole in it yet again. This year I'm going to try and make a bit more of an effort to rediscover my inner girlieness!

I'll be trying to wear skirts and dresses and nice trousers and so on instead of the same few boring things worn to death all the time, plus I'm going to make more effort with my jewellery, accessories, make up and perfume and so on. I may just be going to work or out to the supermarket but that doesn't mean I have to look crap while I do it.. if you look nice, you feel nice. I might even pluck up the courage to put pictures on here; be kind!!




Anyway there they are, my resolutions for 2012 - wish me luck and watch this space!

Steroids are evil, but hairdressers are fun :)

So. It was a bad idea to listen to the doctor and put the steroid cream on my eyes. They reeeeeally didn't like it. Cue another bout of scary alien panda with leprousy type madness, my eyes swelled up, went red, itched and generally freaked out, then rewarded me with a nice big flare up of psoriasis that looks like I took up boxing and feels like I painted acid around my eyes.

The GP (my real one, once I finally got to see him instead of the temporary guy who didn't understand my condition and Did Things Wrong) said oh dear. There isn't much licensed for use in facial psoriasis and you've reacted to pretty much all of it. Not to be deterred, he called some guy in the dermatology department at the hospital and between them they decided to give me something 'off list' that's normally used in eczema, an immuno suppressant ointment with a list of contraindications longer than my arm. Apparently I can't drink alcohol when using it (not that I drink anyway, but apparently you go bright red if you use it then drink!), and have to avoid sunlight on my face since immuno suppression plus UV light = fast track to skin cancer! Sheesh. Thank goodness my moisturiser has sunscreen and I found my sunglasses!

I've had it on my face for two hours now and it's making it all sting and tingle and burn. I'm hoping this is a good sign rather than an ominous sign of impending barrage-balloon-face number 4.

In other news, I now have super duper anti histamines that could choke a horse and make me sleep for England... BUT they kill allergic reactions stone dead without me needing to OD on the regular antihistamines.

Work is, well, quite frankly, shit, if you'll pardon my french. I just found out the last year of work has pretty much been a waste of my time and has to be repeated from square one with a whole new method. NOT my fault, but super frustrating and pretty soul destroying considering how hard I've been working on this project (for no reward, since pay rises are frozen anyway). This is not helping the fact that I am kind of sick of my entire career; science is great but I've been doing it for 15 years now and I'm kinda bored. The corporate bullshit/pressure/hoops to jump through keep getting worse and it makes it even more of a chore. I've spent a lot of time trying to work out how I could change my career for something more enjoyable, but to get enough money to pay our bills, I can't afford to take a pay cut, and there isn't anything I want to do that would pay enough money without me having to stop work and re-train. Really quite disheartened with work right now, sigh.

Dad's tumour is apparently isolated to just the one and they are confident they can remove it with surgery. Massively relieved about this. He goes into the hospital on the 9th September. I'm gonna be super stressed since he's no spring chicken and all that, won't feel better until he's the other side of it all. But at least they think this will be straightforward and TREATABLE.

I get my hair cut tomorrow! Really excited about it, I'm going even shorter with a chin length, angled, layered bob and I'm tempted to try a little bit of a side fringe too. I was tempted to go and get my piercing just beforehand too, but decided against it in the end, think I'll save that for another day.

Hmmm what else. Well the house is overrun with cats, currently we have four 12-week kittens downstairs (though my sister in law will be having two of them hopefully next week once she's moved house - literally just opposite our house, YAY!!!) plus Poppy is currently an indoors cat as she seems to have some sort of URT infection or possibly an allergy (wondering if it's her flea allergy manifesting itself as sneezing and runny nose, her eyes seem ok so presumably not cat flu). Merlin has the upstairs to himself and is wondering where everybody went!

This cute picture is Morpheus in his favourite place, the laundry basket. He spends a lot of time there and the fact that there's a pile of laundry NEXT to the basket because nobody wanted to disturb him just shows how soft we all are in this house :)

I'm gonna enjoy this if it kills me

So here I am at the start of my last week off work this side of November; the last week off was terrible and the week-I-was-meant-to-be-at-work-but-was-sick-for-four-days-instead was even worse.

I'm determined this week will be amazing. It owes me one.

So... I'm up, dressed, the kid is dressed and on his Xbox, the Mr has gone to work, I have some Bob Marley on the stereo giving us a nice 'chill out' vibe, and I'm thinking about painting my nails. Chill out day today... might put on some DVDs later and have a cinema-at-home with popcorn and ice cream. At some point I need to bathe the fleabag dog and tame the teetering pile of laundry, plus kick the kitchen into shape, but... eh.

I had a good day on Saturday; I went to town to buy blond hair dye for the Mr (which I've since done and he loves, finally worked out how to defeat his 'I go ginger no matter what you do to me' difficult hair colour) and whilst I was in Superdrug I got some new perfume. Also, the guy in the video game shop gave me 1/3 off for no apparent reason (saving me £15, yay) and some random drive-by guy wolf whistled at me in the street. I'm secretly chuffed about that, since it doesn't happen very often, hehe.

Sunday wasn't bad either; my sister in law visited and it seems as though she will very soon swap flats with the woman who lives opposite us... this is exciting news! Sis-in-law is awesome and fun and all sorts of one-woman-girlie-support-network, it's gonna be great having her that close again.

Bad stuff this weekend included DH doing a ton of clearing out in the bedroom: technically a good thing but it stirred up so much dust that two days later I'm still a bubbling, sneezing wreck despite massive amounts of antihistamines. My eyes have decided they kinda enjoyed swelling up last week, so they jumped on the bandwagon; nothing as scary as before but there's red, puffy itchiness that has forced me into using the steroid cream the doc gave me (was hoping to avoid it, I hate steroid rebound).

Overall not a bad weekend; little nervous about tomorrow (hospital results day for dad) but trying not to think about it too much. Now... I'm gonna go and paint my nails!

Distraction

Today is a stressful day.

I'm still off work, in the certain knowledge that when I go to work tomorrow two weeks worth of missed crises will all descend on me at once, keen that I shouldn't miss a moment of the fun and games. I have a £40,000 analyser to try and fix (it needs attention every day and will have utterly broken by now), zillions of people to bleed, an anxious boss to deal with, a ton of other stuff to chase up, two weeks of important but unsupervised work from my assistant to look at (goodness knows what he's been up to; I heard rumours of him screwing things up the other day that have left me in cold sweats ever since). Somehow I have to get everything done and ready for me to take next week off; all in the space of one day. Joy.

My parents are currently up at the hospital where my dad is being put through a barrage of tests; an MRI scan, some other kind of scan I've never heard of, and an endoscope. I was supposed to go with them, but at the last minute got told to stay home instead; I've been pacing the living room for two hours now and trying not to smash anything or scream. I'm so bloody nervous - what if it's really bad? Worse than the really bad I'm already picturing? What the hell am I gonna do if it is?

There's other things too; I'm not going to whine on about them here, same old rubbish with money and vehicles and all that jazz. Oh and the huge flare up of psoriasis from all the stress is a bundle of fun, too. Yay :/

No wonder I've lost 14 pounds and don't seem to want to do anything but hide and sleep these days. If I didn't still have *some* contact with friends both online and otherwise, albeit much reduced these days, my new hobby of blogging (both beauty blogging and this personal blog) and *some* amount of role play, I think I'd be in an even worse state by now.

Anyone got some good luck they could spare? Could do with something good happening right now. Next week's my last time off work until at least November... it'd be nice to at least get through the week without something bad going down...

Shopping, cooking and mystery...

Today was a good day!

I'm still too deformed to face work; the swelling's gone down a lot but it was replaced with cardboard-stiff eyelids that wouldn't open properly. To try and cheer me up, mum drove me to the shops (I hid my scary looking eyes behind my shades like some kind of celeb, even in the shop... the staff must have thought I was a right poser!) where I bought about a bazillion things in the sale at Peacocks with my birthday money. It's been toooo long since I had new clothes and their sale was so cheap; everything seemed to be £3!

Then I came home and discovered some lovely nail mail had arrived: Zoya Breezi and Orly Sapphire Silk, plus a mini selection box of four polishes from the Essie Brazilliant Collection: Super Bossa Nova, Brazilliant, Meet Me at Sunset and Smooth Sailing. All birthday presents courtesy of the 'ebay voucher' my lovely friend sent me on Friday :)

There was one other parcel too: a Dove Summer Glow facial moisturiser-come-self tanning lotion that I didn't order and have no idea why it's here. It could be an ebay mix up with someone sending me the wrong thing; or possibly I won it in a competition from the Superdrug website (though I don't remember entering one for facial tan but you never know). Oddly, it has no return address and no accompanying note either. Very strange.

I've also been busy attempting to fix my immune system and skin. If you hear rattling when I walk, it'll be the multivitamin, vitamin B, vitamin D and Selenium I took this morning. I also cooked myself dinner: boiled potatoes, peas and Quorn fishless fingers.

I was too tired to make anything pretty and I wanted comfort food; this reminds me of dinner as a kid (only back then it was actual fish fingers).

More later; for now I'm off to play with new clothes and paint my nails :)

In which I wake up and discover I turned into a leprous alien panda (warning: not for the squeamish)

I really must have words with my immune system; it's not behaving itself recently. First there was the infamous superglue fumes (we think) lip allergy a month or so ago:

As if that wasn't enough, my body has now decided to torture me further with this lovely sight, which greeted me in the mirror this morning:

Scream? Panic? Swear a lot? Yep, I did all three. Then I hovered outside the doctor's surgery until he arrived and panicked all over him, too. He thinks I've become allergic to the Psoriasis cream I've used for years, and which I applied under my eyes last night. Apparently it's not life threatening, but all I can do is put emollients on it and wait for it to go away.

DH is freaking out, worried that people will think he's a wife beater. Feel quite sorry for him, actually - it really does look a lot like someone gave me two black eyes.

Every time I lay down it swells up even more. By lunchtime it was so swollen the skin cracked and started peeling off like I had some kind of leprosy. I couldn't see because my eyes were swollen shut and that's after TWO antihistamines.

Oh, joy.

Think it might be time to start looking after myself a little better; if my immune system is this screwed then something's not right. Bring on the healthier food, vitamin pills and -gasp- early nights...