Tag Archives: life

I’ve been thinking

I watched the Northern Lights in Iceland and trekked 10km around the lakes at the foot of Matterhorn on the 150th Anniversary of the first accent to its summit.

I experienced a 5.3 magnitude earthquake whilst visiting New Zealand and bathed in a log fire heated bath under the stars while hiking around the Banks Peninsula.

I’ve fed wild Turtles on the Dalyan Delta, hunted the monster on Loch Ness,  rode a camel in the Sahara Desert, overcome my fear of the ocean to go swimming from a boat in the Aegean Sea and lay for hours on a blanket watching a metoer shower above our house with love of my life.

I gave birth, to one of the best people I know, and married the other.

I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, Made friends, lost friends, I’ve impressed people and depressed people and I’m writing all this here to remind myself that while day to day my life seems ordinary and it’s easy to get stuck in a rut, even the most ordinary lives can be full of adventure.

Being Brave – My body

Being Brave

This is me – part naked, exposed and posting this before I chicken out – this is in response the BBC article – Are women’s bodies still beautiful after pregnancy? I read and subsequently shared it on Facebook  and it led to a really refreshing conversation with a group of my friends – all  mothers – about their feelings about their bodies.

Stretch marks, cesarean scars, weight gain, between us we had all felt that something was at fault with our bodies. It made me feel – for want of a better expression. Less alone.

I was stupid while pregnant I ate and ate and ate, young and niave so thought “it’s baby weight – it’ll come off”. I was a size 10 -12 when I fell pregnant yet came out of the hospital a size 16 with added stretch marks and flabby bits. The only time I’ve fit into a 12 since was when I was on antidepressants – I got better then my back and hip problems started and the weight piled back on.

Oftentimes I hate my body – I have no real hang ups on how other people view me,  But I really do have issues with how I FEEL and I how I view myself and that feeling is compounded by the heatwave we’re currently experiencing.  Spring, Autumn, Winter – hell even in the last few summers I’ve been able to hide behind jeans, jumpers and shirts, I can dress and pretend, but in this heat there is nowhere to so.

It’s uncomfortable to be fat. Clothes don’t fit – summer clothes are designed for waifs and in shorts and vests everything is on show. The fat on my thighs – because WHY DO THEY MAKE WOMENS SHORTS SO SHORT, the stretch marks on my arms, the creases on my back, it’s all there for the world to see  – and I feel uncomfortable, so very uncomfortable and exposed.

Some one sent a card into postsecret:

Being Fat Is like having your most humiliating "secret" visible for the world to see and JUDGE

 

And they hit the nail on the head. While in reality I don’t care what YOU think of me, it only takes one story in media, one television programme about thin being beautiful, one stupid stupid facebook post or hurtful remark in the street to reinforce my feelings about myself. And I shouldn’t feel this bad about being me.

I’m 32, a Mom of one, recently married with a great job. I’ve overcome homelessness, selfishness of others and health issues to be where I am today and here isn’t such a bad place…

…So I’ve been brave and taken this photo. This is me laid bare, I can look at this and see the back fat and the split ends or I can look at this and see history. Every ounce of that weight has been on a journey with me and I need to be grateful for who I am and what I have, and so should all of the other ladies who were talking to me today. I have the greatest of respect for you my friends. You exude confidence and are so much fun to be around from the exterior no one would know of the body issues beneath.

It has taken so much courage for me to take and post this photo ( no really there was nearly tears and I’m home alone) but you’re WE’RE  all beautiful and think we just need to believe that of ourselves.

A slice of history.

I posted this previously on my (now much neglected) Moblog but after visiting my grandparents tonight I wanted to share it here too.

My Grandad is really poorly again, I live in fear of the day he will no longer be around – he was is and always will be one of the main men in my life and I love him lots.

A Family Photo

This photo was taken before I was born, we think around 1978/79. It has all the most important men from my childhood included in it, It’s like a capsule containing my whole life history!

This man is Pete. He’s my Dad….

….He died suddenly in 1985, I was only 4. One day he was here, the next he was gone – I don’t miss him all the time – that sounds harsh but it’s true – I was too young to really appreciate what I had and then it was gone.  I never had the chance to get to know the man my dad was growing up and only really started questioning my roots as I got older. I missed having a Dad and the paternal side to my family more than I missed the man that was Peter Jennings – I just wasn’t given the opportunity to know him and I think I grieve for that more than I do for him at times.

This man is Tony, my maternal Grandad….

..My sister and I went with my Mom and lived with my grandparents for a short while after my Dad passed away.  My Mom needed the space and a chance to grieve and recover from the shock of becoming a widow and single parent overnight. We were only there for a couple of months but the effects lasted a lifetime.

While everyone else was pushing their luck and hearing “You just wait until you father gets home!!” This is the man I was I had to wait to get home, I adored him as a child, he was my Grandad, my stand in father figure and my friend, as a small girl I would often climb the tree by the bus stop and wait for him to get home from work when he’d scoop me up and carry me home on his shoulders, as a teen he had the best technique for help towel dry hair and as a young adult, pregnant and suffering from morning sickness he made the only thing I could stomache, the most divine poached egg on toast!

He was, and still is my rock and I know I could still go to him for anything! He’s been with me FOREVER!

Now this man is Dave, he was one of Dad’s very good friends before his death and now he is now my Stepdad!

My Mom and Dave got together when I was 14 and married in 2001 when I was 20. When he moved in we were going through my Dads vinyl record collection together and Dave pulled our a couple of records that had actually belonged to him.

I truly would not wish for her to be with anyone else! He is a fantastic Dad to me, my sister and brother and a devoted Grandad to Jordan.  He’s supported my Mom through thick and thin and cared for us all for years and I’m glad it was him my mom married!

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!