Journal Entries
17 December
Posted Dec 17, 2009
RIP Judith, who died 22 years ago and would have been 41 today 
Not forgotten ... forever a bright and beautiful 18 year old 
Things already done today:
cakes and sandwiches made for school Christmas party
dirty crockery rounded up and dishwasher on
wet washing in the drier
kitchen floor mopped
hall cleared
hall floor mopped (and scrubbed 
)
coffee made 
computer on
Things to do today:
scan in photos for party
work out who is coming and arrive at a catering number
recalculate catering quantities
go to Iceland
revise Tesco order
download music and burn CDs
pick up parcel from Mum's
try on fairy dress 
finish going through the Christmas Radio Times* with the highlighter
work out who is having what present
work out what still needs to be bought
tidy living room
tidy stairs and landing
COBWEB!
have some breakfast 
I knew I'd forgotten something!
timetable for Saturday
work out what I'm cooking when next week
wrap presents
*other TV listings magazines are available. Just not in this house.
Discuss this Journal entry [7]
Latest reply: Dec 17, 2009
It's my party and I'll cry if I want to
Posted Dec 13, 2009
It's my birthday on 20 December and this year I'll be 40. Which is quite a landmark so I decided to have a party. A big party. A proper party. And I've invited lots of people from the village (and nobody except immediate family from outside the village ... I'll do something in the summer for people who live further away).
Anyway ... people are busy! They already have plans! They can't come!
DH said, in his usual supportive way, that perhaps we should just cancel it.
And some of the people who have indicated that they are coming have asked if their children are invited as well. No! They aren't! Isn't it OBVIOUS? It starts at 8pm on a Saturday night! I'm not even letting my own children come, I certainly don't want *other people's* children there 
Honestly. All I want is for lots of people to turn up and have a good time at something which has *nothing to do with Christmas* and is therefore totally fun and stress-free. It's not *hard*, is it?
*And* the delivery of my fairy dress has been mucked up by a well-known carrier who really ought to know better. If I end up having to collect it from their depot I shall be demanding a refund of the delivery charge, on the grounds that I might just as well have driven to the shop to buy it in the first place.
Apart from all that, I'm really looking forward to next weekend
Mol
Discuss this Journal entry [9]
Latest reply: Dec 13, 2009
End of an era
Posted Dec 7, 2009
I had my last guide meeting tonight.
It was a joint Christmas party with my sister's unit and it was fun (although it was also loud ... further evidence, if that were needed, that I am getting too old for it now). Sis had organised a big bunch of flowers and the guides all signed a card and we sang Happy Birthday Girlguiding with a cake at the end, because I knew I'd go to pieces if we sang Taps.
And then I karaoked them home 
I will miss (some of) the girls. I won't miss guides itself, exactly, because I'll still be visiting units and helping out occasionally and doing camps. And I'm used to saying goodbye when girls who arrived as baby-faced ten year olds have graduated to confident young women. I'm just not used to being the one who's leaving.
Monday evenings are now offically free ...
Mol
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Dec 7, 2009
Tongue so sharp ...
Posted Nov 21, 2009
Another busy week and Sic has been ill ... really very ill yesterday, when she couldn't walk from her bedroom to the toilet, a matter of a dozen paces. Secretly very frightened, I slept on the floor in her room (not very well) last night. *I* woke up stiff and exhausted, but she woke up feeling much, much better, and has managed to eat something today and get up and stuff ... she's still pale, and not herself, but she seems to be on the mend.
But today was a weird day. I went to the Guide shop, as soon as I'd got back DH left for town, as soon as he'd got back I went to the library, and then when I got back Nod went out to the cinema (she had also been to town earlier today, but separately). So there was lots of coming and going, and I did quite a bit of tidying and cleaning in the kitchen, which is a Good Thing, although I balked at emptying the dishwasher *again* because that's Not My Job (my job being to load it and set it going). I also spent an hour or so working out the order of progress for our house makeover (the approaching tenth anniversary of our purchase of this house is concentrating the mind wonderfully). But I was fairly constantly interrupted by Osh, who never stops talking, and wants to share all the cool things he finds on the internet. This too is a Good Thing so of course I had to get up quite a lot and have a look.
So at 7pm I suddenly realised that Osh was in the bath, and I could probably sit down with a glass of wine for ten minutes and think nice thoughts about the evening I was about to have with my husband, ie, the living room to ourselves for once and a takeaway, which we haven't had for ages. I was intercepted on my way to the wine bottle by DH wanting to know where to put my work laptop's mouse and power cable ... sorted ... right, glass, fridge ...
"Do you want this?" said DH, who was now picking over my stuff on the table. That is, he was tidying up. But I completely failed to recognise this. What I saw instead was my husband preventing me from having a quiet sit down with a glass of wine. I totally overreacted and we had a short sharp exchange about cluttered kitchen surfaces (him) and not emptying the dishwasher (me), and then I stomped upstairs with all my offending stuff, and stomped back down, so that he could stomp off upstairs in his turn.
Osh appeared, wearing only a bathtowel. "I heard all the shouting," he told me, and I silently sorted out his supper. All the time he ate, I was aware of his big brown eyes watching me ... and all the time he ate, he was totally quiet. Osh, who never stops talking. Then we had a hug and then he went to bed.
I tidied and cleaned all the kitchen surfaces, including the table, and then sent Sic to bed and tidied the living room, and then sorted out a box of guide stuff that's been kicking around the living room for several weeks and took me all of seven minutes to deal with, and then sat and felt miserable. DH came downstairs.
"Do you want a cup of tea?" he asked, poking his head around the door. I managed to explain that I had a glass of wine and asked as normally as I could if we were still having a takeaway.
And so DH got his jumper on and his shoes on and started looking for his car keys, and while he was pottering about the house doing this I stayed sitting here and cried and cried and cried. We were going to have a lovely evening and I spoilt it.
DH came in here to look for his keys but I was over the worst of it by then so he was able to pretend he hadn't noticed. He's not very good at dealing with me crying (when we had counselling and this happened the counsellor had to tell him to hold me and pat my shoulder etc), partly because it doesn't happen very often. So now he's gone out into the wind and the rain to fetch us a takeaway, and I feel mean and miserable and can't stop
Mol
Discuss this Journal entry [14]
Latest reply: Nov 21, 2009
September
Posted Sep 24, 2009
1 September - last day of our holiday, got sandblasted on two beaches and then returned to the site to find the tent about to blow away. Packed up and reached home at about 1am.
2 September - Recovered. Lots of laundry.
3 September - More laundry. Organised grand clean-up of house and started chivvying children to get sorted for new term, resulting in lots of stress about pencil cases and PE kits.
4 September - DH travels north to help prepare for the wedding, I get the laundry done (well - all that I've managed to find) and some food in. Guide leader who is organising event I'm catering for 25-27 Sept comes round for what turns out to be interminably long meeting.
5 September - wedding. Leave home 9am, get back 11pm, very full day.
6 September - recover
7 September - a day off!! Everybody goes to school and I spend the day ... fighting with the printer. What joy.
8 September - London. Return to find I am needed to identify a cat corpse.
9 September - Office. Work late. Girls have choir auditions in the evening. Deal with a load of paperwork and don't have time to prepare for Thursday's training. Place shopping order.
10 September - Office. Guide database training in the evening. I have organised this and am leading the training on the basis of 20 minutes playing on the dummy database several weeks ago.
11 September - Work at home, have afternoon booked off, most of which is mopped up by guide leader *I am seeing in the evening*. Shopping arrives. Visit guide unit, get home at 9.30.
12 September - walk out of house at 10am and do not return until 3, by which time all our overnight guests have arrived. Get smashed with best friend while supposedly supervising a bunch of children and listening to an open air concert behind our back garden.
13 September - cook fry-up breakfast for 10 people. Laundry. Prepare for Guide meeting.
14 September - office. Get home with about 5 minutes to spare before guide meeting. Guides.
15 September - Manchester. Late home.
16 September - working at home. In the evening, DH takes the girls to choir and I am home alone with Osh. We do lots of tidying and sorting and I field several guide-related phone calls.
17 September - office. Visit Brownies, then Centenary camp meeting in the evening. At midnight I am finally getting around to preparing the presentation I'm doing on ...
18 September - London. Presentation. Meet A for drink afterwards. Home late. Place shopping order.
19 September - Woken by husband (in a good way 
) Laundry and chores (or rather supervision of chores as I am such a slave driver). Sic has drama in the afternoon and we all go to pick her up so that we can have junk food afterwards. Discover major village event that I thought was tomorrow is in fact next weekend while I'm away 
20 September - Shopping arrives (in the nick of time: volume of protests at lack of biscuits, cheesestrings etc getting unbearable). Cook roast dinner. Prepare for guides. All go out for picnic in the park.
21 September - office. Have now reached the stage at work where I feel on the point of tears most of the time as there is simply more to do than I can currently deal with. Prioritise ruthlessly on the basis that boss leaves next week and I have cases I need him to see first. Guides. Meeting with new Brownie leaders. Email them loads of stuff after they've gone.
22 September - office. Arrive 8.15am, leave 6.45pm, having made scarcely a dent in the back log. Discover I have a free evening and go to bed at 9pm.
23 September - office. Lunch out. Spend evening preparing for this weekend's event - I'm catering for 25 and have to sort out the food order. Do this, and deal with district emails, and crawl to bed at 1am.
24 September - cook shepherd's pie and prepare veg before leaving for Office 2007 training. Trainer identifies after half an hour that I seem to have some issues with being there. 
trainer - I am hugely because I have been using word processing packages for 20 years and it usually takes me about half an hour to get the hang of a new one (as indeed is the case today). But this course was compulsory and is keeping me away from my *actual job*. Trainer says I can go early (ie at lunchtime) as he's satisfied I'm competent. Feel v pleased and decide to stay, as my manager is on the same course and might not appreciate me disappearing. Home by 4pm, organise super-tidying of house, visit Brownie unit to see new leaders in action and smooth over with retiring Brown Owl, return home, put laundry away, Rangers arrive (their leader is on maternity leave so I have said they can meet here). Their meeting consists of pizza and DVD so while they are here I get the kitchen super-organised and deal with the arrival of my grocery order for this weekend's event. Rangers go, I get on computer and place our own grocery order for delivery tomorrow. Husband comes home to find me writing on H2G2 and is not best pleased as it's bedtime.
25 September - need to make casserole, working at home, afternoon off. I have to pack for guide event and load the chilled and frozen food into the car. ETD 4.30pm so won't see Osh or DH before I go (I do have a husband and son, don't I?) Full-on weekend planned by other guide leader and event doesn't finish until 3pm on Sunday 
28 September - a day off 
Well, I have to take Sic to the orthodontist in the afternoon, and there's guides in the evening, and I'll be knackered from the weekend ...
29 September - office. Boss leaving, afternoon scheduled for party. Guide district meeting in the evening.
30 September - working at home, but will probably have to go to office. School governor meeting from 4.30pm onwards.
And then, thank Bob, September is over. I am totally and utterly worn out. But it has been very good at focussing me on what needs to change and I finally realised that what needs to go is in fact being the leader of the Guide unit. I caught myself counting how many more meetings I'd have to run between now and the end of the Centenary and that's not right, how can I enthuse and energise the young women in my care when I simply no longer want to be there? So I've started the recruitment process for a new leader and I finish at Christmas whether we've found one or not. Once I'd made the decision, I felt so relieved, that I knew straight away it was the right one - even though before when I was thinking about what had to change, I thought it was the one thing that was absolutely fixed.
How was September for everybody else?
Mol
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Sep 24, 2009
Mol - on the new tablet
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