I like mood lighting, particularly fairy lights and I have 2 sets permanently in my living room. This isn’t a picture of either one!
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‘Tis the season to become obsessive compulsive.
Christmas is once again upon us and amid the annual rush to the shops and the seasonal sense of having to enjoy yourself, a madness creeps upon me that I am desperately seeking a cure.
Mid November right through til mid December I become the worlds WORST obsessive compulsive. Christmas without fail brings out the perfectionist in me!
The tree has to go up at the first available opportunity in December – allowing for TBK feelings about having the tree up on his birthday which differs from year to year. Then the decorations HAVE to go on in order, lights first, then ribbons, pine cones, plain baubles, glitter baubles, and finally depending how I’m feeling either the star or the angel is sat on the top. We have one of each as I couldn’t make up my mind which I preferred so now every year I agonise over which one should go up as once the decision is made it has to stay that way! Everything has its “proper” place and I have redecorated whole trees if they don’t look just right.
James and TBK have learned not to be offended if they put something on the tree to later find it’s moved, after all there has to be and equal spread of decorations and colours or it wouldn’t look right! Right? At the same time as doing this I’ll also decorate the matching swag which sits on my fire surround in place of the family photographs which sit there for the rest of the year and all my candles etc get removed and replaced with nativity scenes, Santa Claus figurines and snowmen because Christmas supersedes EVERYTHING including family photos!
I wish it ended there but it gets worse…
I am relentless in my pursuit of the “perfect presents”, I beat myself up about them searching endlessly for just the right thing for each person. I make repeated lists of WHO to buy for, then other lists of WHAT I should buy. Then once a purchase has been made I spend hours deliberating whether I’ve made the right choice and “will they like it?”. It takes James ages to talk me round but then once he’s finally convinced me that the gifts are fine and nobody really cares what they’ve receive, they have to be wrapped….
…For this I save a special kind of neurosis…
…All my presents have to be wrapped to a colour scheme – complimentary to, but different from that of my tree (which is gold and ivory) and it’s one scheme for the adults presents and one for the children’s but everything gets wrapped with matching ribbons and tags and if they aren’t wrapped just so they WILL be unwrapped to start all over again!!
Once finished they go under my tree and have to stay there unless I move them to put other presents people bring around behind them that don’t match my colour scheme!
My wrapping compulsion is such that two Christmases ago my manager at the time bought me all her Christmas gifts from home to wrap in work and it has been known for my sister to deliver her entire Christmas booty to my house complete with wrapping paper and sticky tape to wrap all her presents for her as “You’ll do a much better job than me”.
I’m such loser!
This Christmas I’m striving to be more relaxed and well, less anal about the whole thing.
The Christmas tree still went up the first chance I got (last night) but get this I let James choose whether the star or the angel went on the top, I let him hang some of the baubles AND I’ve left them where he put them(Kind of). I made a conscience desicion to buy wrapping paper so the adults and kids do NOT match and I haven’t finished putting all the decorations up, even though in previous years I’ve insisted i all go up in one night!
Now if you’ll excuse me as I have to go sit on my hands to stop me returning the lights I bought for the window that are just the wrong shade of white, adjusting those two red baubles which are much to close together (one should really be in the middle of those gold ones to distribute the colours) and moving Santa to the other side of the fireplace because he just looks so much better there….
one + one + one = three
Moblog user are taking part in a project “Interview52” inspired by Nige, Each week a different moblogger will have to post a photograph and answer a series of questions about themselves.
This week was my turn and here’s my entry:
An old picture but one that sums me up, Converse and my family!
*Where does this find you? Tell us the story of how you got there.*
Well right now as I’m writing this it’s Thursday evening and I’m at home, But
by the time it’s posted it shall be Friday morning so I’ll be at work in
Wolverhampton City Centre and I shall have arrived here on the bus from my
home 20 minutes away in the area I grew up in. I’m a yam yam born and bred,
I have lived in other places (Lichfield (too pretentious)and Wigan (Too
Rough)) but I returned “home” when I realised there really is no place
like it!
* Why do you moblog?*
I started moblogging as a way to pass the time when I was a poor lonely
single girl living alone with no one but the blonde kid for company.
James introduced me to it before “we” were “us” taking me into Birmingham
with a selection of Spied cards and I was hooked straight away, It’s so much
fun, kinda combining social networking with a hobby! Along with TBK telling
everyone we were getting married before we’d even smiled at each other in
THAT way maybe moblog was party responsible for the creating of James and me
as “us”?
* What were you hoping not to be asked for interview52?*
The typical Interview question used in lots of job interviews, Describe
yourself in 3 words….
* Now answer it!*
DOH! shoulda seen this coming. I’ll use the answer i gave in my last job
interview
LOUD, TALKATIVE and TENACIOUS – and they still gave me the job!
* What question would you like to ask the next moblog interviewee?*
I’m not going say now as with the new interview 52 rules I’m going to get
the chance to ask what I want! –
oh new rules everyone says what are they??
WELL:
The week after the last interview with FF when there was no interview I
though hmm thats strange, then the week after that when again there was
still no interview i though hmm even stranger It’s not like Nige to start
something and not finish it, so I emailed him something along the line of
“Oi you, giving up already?” and it transpires that Nige is a busy busy bee
and time had just ran away with him.
Organising questions and participants whilst running around the Notting Hill
Festival and generally having much fun was a time consuming thing so with
revised rules and with me being next on the “hit list” and silly enough to
wonder why he’d stopped he sent them to me….
From hence forward the interviewee will become the interviewer for the next
willing victim….So once you’ve read this today I will be on a hunt to find
someone to take part next . Then I will forward the list of questions and
instructions how to post on BUT
I will have to CHANGE AT LEAST ONE of the questions in the list
And so it will go on – my interviewee will become the interviewer, finding
the next participant and again changing AT LEAST ONE of the questions before
they forward it on. So taking the onus off Nige, continuing the project and
giving it a life of it’s own!
So who want to be next use email/text/contact button to get in touch
* What do you think your job was in your previous life? Tell us why..*.
I think I must have been a psychologist/guidance counselor in a previous
life, for some reason I’m usually the Agony Aunt, Dishing out advise to all
and sundry my friend Nicky seems to seek my advise on everything and even my
local shop keeper stops me in the shop and asks for marriage counseling –
And I’ve never even been married.
James reckons I was Pippa from Home and Away. I love kids and we’ve usually
got a houseful of TBK friends, I’ve worked as a youth worker, I’ve helped
out at school, taking part in sleep overs, & going on trips, He thinks
(quite rightly) that I’d have a horde of my own given the opportunity
*Whats the story behind your moblog username? Why did you choose it?*
Oh everyone knows this as I answered it on spikes moblog ages ago:
Essitam is Matisse backwards, It’s been my online name since school when in
an IT class the teaches asked us to think of a username.All the “cool kids”
were calling themselves “Sexygal1994” or “hotchick” and as I was neither a
cool kid, sexy girl or an hot chick I wanted something different.
Inspiration was at hand with a huge Matisse display on the wall i was
sitting next to. I wrote it down, I then rewrote it backwards and is stuck!
* What was your childhood obsession? What happened to it?*
I didn’t have one – seriously. I even called my mom when I read this
question to find out if she could remember something I’d forgotten, The only
thing she could come up with was I used to like emptying ashtrays into the
dustbin, Which apparently amused her no end as neither of my parents smoked
and my dad only ever threw loose change in there and according to her I just
one day stopped doing it aged around 3.
*Where do you go to my lovely, when you’re alone in your head? (Filbert
Fox’ question)*
I try not to spend too much time alone in my head I find it a pretty
worrying place at times!
That’s not avoidance either, I’m being serious. I suffer autophobia
(J.F.G.I.) as a symptom of stress/depression caused (according to the people
in the know) by the sudden death of my Dad when I was just a little Steph.
So I avoid being left alone for too long when I can help it. I’m better now
than I used to be. At one point the panic attacks were so bad I would be
physically sick – now I just sulk lots and get snappy if I’m left alone for
too long!
*If you had to draw a moblog family (and friend) tree, who would you be
linked to, and how?*
Oh now this could be quite interesting, If i were to be literal about this
then there is:
James
TBK
Goonflower
NickyC
Miguel Sanchez
Stato
HippyJack
Who are all really (or via James) related to me in some way and registered
mobloggers and then real life friends (as in people I see in the flesh with
the family mobloggers)
Dicko – although I’m sure he should fall under family
highwirer
aj1905
Rich (not the one with Elvis)
shrontthebaron
baronshubby
GhostMonk08
Spongvid
Then there are the mobloggers who I’ve met in person purely through moblog,
at meets, if cafes (Dhamaka) in shopping centres (Nige) etc. I’m not going
to list them all as I’ve already rambled on too much but my ultimate moblog
family are my ultimate real life family:
Me + James + The Blonde Kid
I’ll never be, but I can do!
I’ve felt “off” most of the day.
I can’t quite out my finger on what was wrong. I’d blame it on PMT but it’s not quite that time of the month. I’d blame it on lack of sleep, but I slept just fine. I would even try to say it was over work if it wasn’t so stupidly quiet around here today I just don’t know what it was. I do however know what cheered me up.
THIS blog post over on Moosh in Indy.
It got me thinking, I’ll never be a lot of things but for everything Isay I’ve missed the opportunity to do I’ve opened up doors to other possibilities so much more rewarding.
So, Here’s mine to add to Moosh in Indy’s list
I will never win a Nobel peace prize, But I can always make peace between warring 8 year olds!
And that my friends is characteristic that comes in very handy some days when the blonde kid and his friends start!
Good News
I…
…am…
…excited!
I have had the most amazing news, well you may find it mildly interesting, but for me it is just so damn amazing and incredibly awesome that I can not wait to tell just about everyone I know!
I received this news A WEEK AGO and I’m only just blogging! I have mentioned it on my social networking pages as status updates come and go, I even posted my “news” on my moblog knowing full well that if it all fell through the lovely people over there would console me if it all went wrong, but I wanted to wait to blog it here.
I’m not sure why I felt it necessary – I think I wanted to make sure it was all going to happen and there was no going back, I just didn’t as there are so many posts of my “glass half full attitude” earlier in the life of this blog I wanted definite good news to share with the world!! So here it is;
I…
…have…
…a…
…new…
…JOB!!!
YES!!! I handed in my notice last week and finish at the jewellers on the 21st May and I start on the 26th May as a Media Centre Assistant for the Light House in Wolverhampton.
I’m leaving the shop with mixed emotions. I’m going to miss all my colleagues SO much and change whether for the better or worse is always a daunting prospect BUT it is going to be such an amazing place to work and after spending 3 years banging my head against the a wall of monotony of the sales culture I needed out, I can not think of a better place for me to move to!
We survived…
The television amnesty is over, not that anyone is bothered. We survived quite well without the grey box in the corner, so well in fact it has hardly been switched on even though it is now “allowed” and both myself and James have dragged ourselves away from the computers outside of the predetermined “shut down” hours with out suffereing any major withdrawal symptoms.
The blonde dude didn’t once complain of boredom, We’re looking into purchasing a different selection of board games for him and we’ve looked online to see what activities are running at out local library. He has even gone as far as to suggest other activities we can partake in AFTER the ban was complete.
He didn’t even ask for the television when he went for dinner at my parents which is amazing as he is allowed free reign of the remote control when he’s there…..I think I can call that MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
Player Level – Intermediate.
The other night I was cooking dinner and the blonde kid stuck his head into the kitchen.
“What we having mom”
“Chicken dinner hun” I replied “Chicken, Mash, Broccoli, Yorkshire Puddings….”
His face dropped, “Can I have something different?”
“Why?” I asked. “What’s wrong with your moms cooking?” piped up James “She’s an expert cook”
“Well…” said the blonde kid “She’s not an expert, more like an intermediate. You and me James we’re beginners and mom, she’s an intermediate”
I looked on pretty speechless, as what do you say to that I was impressed that he knew the meaning of “intermediate” and able to use it in context, I wasn’t however impressed that was how my son saw my cooking, I thought all kids were supposed to prefer their own mom’s food!?
Then James asked…
“So Jordan, do we know any experts?”
His response. “No, but if mom cooks two more meals then she’ll reach expert level”
I am no longer impressed, Now I just think he plays to many computer games!!