Remember Me!

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It’s been so long since I’ve been here I’ve almost forgotten how to post. Ok so perhaps it’s not quite as drastic as that, but it has been a long time. I was happy to note however that there have not been too many more changes to the WordPress platform since my last visit, I was a tad worried.

So where have I been? Well I’ve been nowhere but right where I always am, I’ve just been caught up and getting squashed by life. We had a couple of really bad weeks with the Mothership meaning mentally I was not fit for any kind of interaction let alone writing. Every day it seems to be that a little more of my time becomes taken up with the things that need to be done, at this rate, there will be none left.

As far as Christmas goes I’m actually in fairly good shape. The Motherships cards are all written although it would seem she does not believe me, as every time a card is received she asks me at least ten times did they get one. Wonder no more why I hate the alleged season of being jolly, my good will meter is almost empty.

I’ve missed this place, but despite wanting to write and actually sitting down to write, nothing came to mind, mainly, because there were too many other things on my mind already.

I’m behind on reading too, sorry about that, again a combination of needing space and a rekindling of my love for Cookie Jam which has been keeping me amused on the journey to work. I also downloaded Candy Crush again, something I had not played much of since my leg recuperation days. I’ve lost most of my progress though and as a result am battling my way from the beginning, ripping my hair out in the process and wondering how I ever made it through these evil levels in the first place.

I have penned many posts previously in relation to my addiction to the above game, the search terms it generates, and the fact that some people play it naked….don’t even ask, but I swear this time, I am adopting a more level headed approach……I haven’t put it on my phone…..yet!

Anyway, I just though I would drop by, let you know I am still alive and give you a mini hi five, because you are after all, really rather awesome.

I’m hoping to get back to some normality soon, so see you on the flip side!

A touching post…

touching
ˈtʌtʃɪŋ/
adjective
 1. arousing feelings of sympathy or gratitude.

I’ve written many different kinds of posts, happy ones, sad ones, frustrated ones and angry ones to name but a few. I don’t however think I have written too many touching ones, so I think it is time I address that issue.

My touching post!

I touched the electrical socket, only I licked my finger first,
My hair has now gone curly and I look like someone cursed.
My legs have gone all tingly and there’s a buzzing in my heart,
I hope I don’t shoot lightening bolts if I accidentally fart!

There you go, how was that for a first post. That is what they mean by touching right!? Did you feel sympathy for me?

In other news, Happy Birthday to my Sister, let me embarrass her once again by putting her wonderful little Haiku on the world wide web for all to see.

Sitting on the train
Enveloped in a fart cloud
Of my own making.

Many happy returns oh Sister of mine!

 

Some days are sad

Life is about

The other day when I couldn’t think of anything to write, I started to read.

Despite the fact that I had a gazillion unread posts on both WordPress and Bloglovin, I started to read my own, using the recommendations at the bottom of each post as stepping stones.

I think I have changed. It’s almost as if over the course of the two years I have grown up a little, mainly because I have had to. I have yet to decide if I like the person I have become, but I miss laughter, it seems to be in short supply this weather.

One common theme through many of my posts, was my unashamed love for WordPress and the people I have met. I noted as I wandered around how many people are now absent for one reason or another, gone, but not necessarily forgotten.

I wish I had the time to maintain the level of participation and interaction that I would like, but sadly, due to the aforementioned having to grow up, I don’t. Everyday there is something new that steals a few more precious minutes from me. It is something that sits heavily on my shoulders, because I don’t feel I can always give back what I receive, just know that I try.

I was late to discover ‘Mondays Finish the Story‘, I do believe I have Drailman to thank for my introduction with his take on Delphine and her fathers airplane. I participated in that one myself and perhaps one other.

Barbara, who was the host, had been unwell, but still managed to continue with the challenge and despite undergoing treatment, commented on each and every post, a genuinely lovely lady.

I’d kept an eye out this past couple of weeks for the challenge, but none had been posted and I hoped everything was ok, but I didn’t know who to ask. Today on checking the site, I read the sad post from her husband saying that she had passed away.

It is true about the people we meet, because although I only met and conversed with Barbara briefly, she touched my heart, and that heart goes out to her husband, family and all the circle of bloggers who knew her far better than I did.

We have lost two amazing people from the blogsphere in the last year, I hope they know how much they are / will be missed.

Gone but never forgotten.

There are two new stars in the sky to cast a light on our journeys.

Tis the seas…oh feck off!

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You may have noticed that I have not posted in, well I don’t know for how long, but it feels like forever.

I wouldn’t even know how to explain the last couple of weeks, it’s been a veritable rollercoaster of ups and downs. There have been tantrums, mini bathroom floods, periods of silence and very little breaks in between.

The run up to Christmas has started and the Mothership is already on my case about writing Christmas cards despite the fact that November has not yet ended. It’s enough to give anyone a headache.

I think I must be the worst Christmas present buyer ever, I can never think of fun and ingenious things to buy anymore, once upon a time such things would have come naturally, but now it just feels like additional stress, something I do not need.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could just programme everyone’s traits into a big machine which would then spit out the perfect gift ideas for friends and family. Even better still, what about a personal shopper!

Up until now we’ve been relatively lucky weather wise as well, its been quite mild, albeit a little windy at times, nothing to do with my arse or brussel sprouts I promise. This weekend there is the threat of snow, a piece of news that had me all a tizzy. It means the official season for the DM boots might be starting, something that is sorely going to displease Alien Leg, she’s already been pitching a fit.

But hey ho, life goes on, there’s nothing else for it.

My pre Christmas New Years resolution…to write more, wish me luck.

What about you, how’s things been?

Hugh’s Photo Challenge – Isolated

I’m almost a week late to the party, but hey, I’m working on the old better late than never saying.

In his challenge this week, Hugh asked us to post a photo of something isolated. I have hundreds if perhaps not thousands of photo’s, but finding one was believe it or not quite hard, and then I remembered this one:

Whitepark Bay

Whitepark Bay is one of my most favourite places here in Northern Ireland. I love the wide expanse of the beach and how shut off from the world you can feel once you have made the long walk down.

If you look closely at the picture you will notice the figure of a girl sitting on the rock, I believe she was reading, and I remember thinking at the time, what an awesome place to sit and write, isolated from the world with nothing but the sound of crashing waves to keep you company.

Oh balls it’s almost Monday!

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It’s hard to believe that the weekend is over once again, and with it Halloween, but fear not folks, only 364 days to go till the next one!

I was looking forward to the weekend, because the past week has been the longest in creation. Whether rightly or wrongly I’ve been blaming the time change, that extra hour came in like Miley on a wrecking ball and knocked everything for shit.

Friday morning I got up grumpy, as you do, well as I certainly do anyway. I mean come on, it was early morning and there was 8 hours of work stuff to do before I could officially say it was the weekend and that’s when it started, the drip, drip drip. Sadly on this occasion it was not a tap, but my nose that was running and that’s how it continued for the whole day. I was so cold sitting in work that I had to wear a hoodie and it was a toss up between what was going to break first, my jaw from all the yawning or my neck from all the sneezing. By the time 5 o’clock came I had a nose like a Belisha Beacon and there was still the shopping to be done.

I laid on the old sympathy card with the Fathership and somehow managed to convince him to come into the store with me and push the trolley, I took a hot flush when I saw the price of the balsam tissues, the ones that are meant to leave your hooter as smooth as a baby’s butt and I had eaten a packet of breaded chicken nibblers before I even made it to the check out because I was following the rules of the rhyme ‘Feed a cold, starve a fever’.

Car loaded up we headed to a different store to check out the price of tissues there, bargin, 99p instead of £3, well that was a win win situation. I purchased a box, and that’s when it stopped, the drip, drip, drip that is. I mean WTF nose give me a break! Erm not literally though, ok. I picked my nose with a tissue, I figured that same as I had paid for them I was bloody well going to use them.

On waking up yesterday and realising there was still no drippage I had high hopes I was on the road to a remarkably quick recovery, but no, it was too good to be true as along came Mr Headache and Mr Lethargy. Saturday is my housework day, but I was so tired that at one point I considered sticking dusters all over my body and just lying down on the floor and flailing my arms and legs.

Then I took a tablet, from the bottle below, and as if by magic the housework was done, perhaps not to my usual standards, but done all the same.

concrete_pills

Today, well I feel the same. I was going to have an early night, but oh no, here I sit writing about picking my nose and eating concrete pills. Perhaps I am delirious!

On that happy note I am away to bed, I’m more tired than a big tired thing schooled at the school of tireness and I am scared that I might fall asleep at my lsj;lfIDHVORVB;ldckj…………..

I am a Criminal Mastermind

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Warning – I’m going to talk about gaming, so if that’s liable to put you to sleep, I advise you to carry on about your business!

Once upon a time on the Emerald Isle a geeky gamer met three lads from various parts of the UK. It’s funny how murder and mayhem can bring people together, but that’s exactly what happens in GTA, although there is the possibility that the Irish accent charmed them just a little.

These three lads wanted to embark on a challenging and dangerous adventure and realising that the geeky one was marginally less rubbish than the random strangers the game teamed them with, they invited her along for the ride.

What ensued was two months of murder and mayhem, random deaths, her arse being blown apart by randomly launched rockets and tears of frustration, that was the lads, honestly.

Let me briefly explain the Criminal Mastermind Challenge in GTA. There are a series of heists, five in total that need to be completed. Each has around five set up missions before the actual heist takes place. There are bank robberies, prison breakouts, lab raids, drugs and finally, a $1.25 million bank raid. So you know, just a little something to get your teeth into.

It is quite possibly the most difficult challenge within GTA. None of the four person team can die during any of the parts involved, if you do, then it’s back to the start.

Somehow, against all the odds, this little group of random strangers banded together over the course of two months and became a team. They say practice makes perfect and for them that was the case as on Sunday past they finally completed the challenge.

In the very last part of the final heist not a word was spoken, in fact I’m not sure anyone even took a breath, no one wanted to jinx the mission so close to the end.

Collective deep breaths and curses could be heard when the team passed into the final checkpoint. They were finally done!

It was a long haul, but it was fun! And the payday, well that was a cool 10 million dollars. Shame it isn’t really eh!

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He Won’t, So I Will

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I rarely check the Daily Post Prompts these days, but for once, being almost caught up on my reading, I did.

I think right now it’s quite apt, so I’m going to go ahead and complete the challenge, which is:

Right To Brag – Tell us about something you (or a person close to you) have done recently (or not so recently) that has made you really, unabashedly proud.

Have I ever told you about my best friend Lee? I know for sure I have mentioned him in posts before, but have I ever sat down to tell you about him and how amazing he is.

When people look at you like you are crazy and tell you that friendships cannot be formed with people you meet on the Internet, I’d like you to politely inform them that they are talking bollox!

Lee and I met on the Internet and have been friends for over a decade yet we have never met in person. It will happen someday, hopefully soon, but we have no less of a friendship because to date it has not happened.

Lee’s been with me through some of both the best and worst moments of my life. He’s resisted the temptation to tell me to eff off on many occasions when I was doing his head in and on other occasions wound me up so much that I was floating just below the ceiling. He gets me, and bless him, puts up with me.

He’s been through quite a lot of hardship himself over the last few years, but the thing is, he will always put others first. You have to trust me when I tell you that I am just one of a very long list of people who have love and admiration for this fellow.

When you have a big heart, you need a big body to hold it, couple that with suffering with Lymphedema of the legs and it makes it hard to shed any excess weight that you accumulate. It’s a battle in itself, but one that Lee took on head first when he decided to check out his options for a Gastric Bypass. There are people who will be judgmental and perhaps say this is the easy option for someone who suffers from weight problems, but they would be wrong. Both mentally and physically it is an uphill battle.

In order  to be considered for the surgery Lee had to start his weight loss journey on his own and mentally prepare himself. When you have a friendship with food, it is not easy to sever ties, but through dogged determination, Lee did everything that was asked of him and then some, shedding over and above what he had been asked, and securing his place for surgery.

On Tuesday the 21st July, Lee had his Gastric Bypass and started a new chapter of his life.

It’s not going to be easy for him, he knows this, but I hope he also knows that all of his friends are behind him every step of the way. He’s worked hard to make it to this point and the hard work will have to continue, but he’s determined and I have every faith that he will make it.

I hope that now you can see for yourself why my best friend is in fact amazing and when I tell you that to date his total weight loss is a whopping 17st, you will understand why I am so unabashedly proud of him!

If you wish to follow Lee’s journey you can do so here on The Fat Mans Blog

Things you should know

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I did’t stop for coffee this week, so having no other way to update you I am going to do it now, very quickly and most likely in the form of a listing type thing. Seriously, I have become a lady of the lists since I started my new job, it’s the only way I can cope.

Training the top box

Once upon a time, while bored and surfing the Internet I came across an App for brain training called Elevate. When you have no idea whether or not Dementia is going to come knocking at your door,  trust me, you do all you can to assist the old grey matter. I wish I hadn’t bothered, because it just proved what I have known for a long time…..I’m fecking stupid.

It’s a good App and I am enjoying the challenges, however sometimes it speaks to me in a language I do not understand. I don’t mean a foreign language, it uses words like alliteration, which to me sounds like a rave at a rubbish tip, or algorithm, a dancing plank? cos in my head when I see that I hear a – log – o – rhythm.

What however did surprise me was that I aced the estimations for the Maths test, strange considering I passed both my English ‘O’ Levels, but never my maths. Apparently since I have aged my brain has gone all arse about face (back to front, for those not in the know).

I have no doubt that as I progress the tests will get harder causing either one of two things to happen, a) my brain will explode or b) my phone will as I bounce it against the wall in frustration.

Social Media

I am, by my own admission, pretty rubbish at the whole social media thing. I know (because Google says so) that in order for Facebook pages etc to work they must be regularly updated. What I didn’t know (thanks Google), is that telling a rubbish joke once a month is not classed as a regular update. Note to self, improve networking technique.

What I was amazed about however is how far a post can go just from a few likes. A FB page will give you insights into how well a post has done. One with no ‘likes’ will perhaps only be viewed say 5 times. One with 4 ‘Likes’ can lead to views of 100 people. It’s fascinating yet scary, and shows that my friends are very popular…damn them!

On the strength of this, I decided to host a little experiment and see how far a post of mine would go. It made it to the end of the street, that’s a result right?!

Wanna like my page on Facebook? – You can HERE . I regularly update with one joke a month :)

That’s all I’ve got you’ll be glad to hear. Till next time eejits :)

No Moaning Monday

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Who’d have thought that in the middle of October I would be sitting at a train station bathed in sunlight. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fecking freezing, but then again I am sitting in the shade.

It’s hard to believe that we’re approaching Winter, but it seems that the old saying is true, time does indeed fly. In just a couple of weeks the clocks will change and we will be rewarded with an extra hour in bed.

I don’t miss the long nights of summer, but neither am I looking forward to the cold frosty nights of Winter, perhaps I am only content for two weeks out of every year. Two weeks is better than none.

I’m trying to be better, better at finding positives in every day. Like the smell of fresh cut grass, possibly the last until spring, the formations of birds who fly high heading for warmer destinations and the setting sun which paints the sky red, an alleged Shepherds delight.

Life has moved very fast of late, there has been much to do, it leaves little time for the activities I enjoy, so I make the most of these small moments and acknowledge them with a smile.

I consider that not a bad result for a Monday :)