Tag Archives: Family

one + one + one = three

Facts About Me, Family, Friends, Home, Parenting, The Blonde Kid, WBIAGW, , , , ,

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

—
Steph xxx

Sunburn and Surprises.

Family, WBIAGW, ,

Today has been good, the sun has blazed all day it has been glorious. I have spent all day luxuriating in the garden with my friend and her little girl watching the world go by and enjoying a well deserved day off.

I am paying for it now.

By “all day” I mean ALL DAY and by luxuriating I mean being a dumb stupid bitch and frying myself to a crisp. I am in so much pain. I honestly didn’t realise quite how hot it was . My neck, shoulders, arms and face are somewhere near the colour range of beetroot, I have a perfect impression of my watch on my wrist and I’m kind of glad I wasn’t wearing sunglasses or I’m sure I would look something like a Panda! Despite that it kills to move my arms I consider myself very lucky that I ma still able to smile – something I’m doing a lot of at the moment.

Yesterday I had a really really FANTASTIC surprise.

My Dad died over 22years ago and since then I’ve been in very VERY sporadic contact with my fathers side of the family. In fact the only person I have contact with is my Dads brother Stephen and he lives in New Zealand so it is usually an email every couple of months with some mass catch up about what we’ve been up to and our families.

Anyway Stephen was due to visit this England at some point in May (as I’m sure I blogged about before when I knew he’d planned to come over) and I was hoping to get the opportunity to meet him as I have no memory of ever doing so and the only image I have of him comes from those emails and a few grainy photographs he sent me when I first got back in touch with him 12 years ago so it would be brilliant to get to get to know him “in person” especially as all my “local” relatives seem not to be bothered.
Anyhow yesterday lunch time I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor as I had nothing better to do on bank holiday Monday when there was a knock on the door and there was my Uncle – I didn’t even know he’d was in the country!!

It went something like this….

Knock Knock

Me: Hello

Strange man: Hello….

About a minute of silence passes and I’m just about to say say “Look you knocked MY door what do you want???” when the penny dropped

Me: OH MY GOD

I then throw myself into his arms unsure whether to laugh, cry, kiss him or take the piss for him being so presumptuous that I’d be home on a bank holiday!

I invited him in, offered him the obligatory quintessentially English “cup of tea” and inundated him with questions. Despite his obvious jet lag (He’d landed in Manchester at 7:30 that morning after a 14 hour flight from Phuket, Thailand, Travelled to Wolverhampton, Dropped his bags at his base for this week and came and knocked on my door) he attempted to answer them all.

He was everything I’d imagined him to be, He was so forthcoming with everything I wanted to know he laughed and joked as if I had known him (really known him) for years and I think we both had to bite back the tears when he told me how much like my Dad I was.

I would have liked to have kept him here all to myself but knowing what trouble I’d have landed myself in with my sister had I done so, I dropped her a text message letting her know I’d a surprise visitor and within minutes I had my sister, my mom and my step-dad (who also knew my uncle from before he emigrated) camped out in my living room reacquainting themselves with a long lost friend/brother in law or in mine and my sisters case simply meeting our never before known uncle.
I still can’t get over the fact he was here, in my house, in person, really really!! – I’m so happy I keep grinning like a loon!!

We’re hoping to get together again on Friday evening along with his middle son Joshua who he is travelling with (the older one Caleb is on the army and the younger one Stefan is sitting exams so is at home with his wife Belinda and couldn’t come) and other members of my family who I have not spoken to in years.

It’s going to go one of two ways it will either be absolutely awesome and I’ll have the chance to find out a lot more about my heritage or I’m going to find a lot more water had passed under this particular bridge than I know about and it will be horrendous!

Either way I think it’s going to be a night to remember and I’m just so pleased to have fitted another piece of my family jigsaw into place!