Feel the festive spirit...

I am sitting in a quiet office, full of cold and sinusitis and fretting about all the things I have to do when they eventually let me go.  I should be home at 3.30pm and although I'm on call until tomorrow morning, I'm not expecting to have to actually do anything bar a short report tomorrow first thing.

This is good as I still have to:

• Finish decorating the living room
• Tidy the spare room ready for the canine invasion (with my mother) and make up bed
• Make amaretto butter and rum butter
• Make cranberry sauce
• Make custard, butterscotch sauce and roast pears for trifle.  Then make trifle
• Then get on with supper for tonight!

All before my mum arrives c5pm.

Some of this is slightly thankless as P does not understand why I bother making custard from scratch rather than buy a tub from Waitrose and says he 'prefers the stuff in the jar' to my lovingly prepared cranberry, orange and port sauce.  Pfftt.

Things I'd like to do that seem extremely unlikely:

• Finish wrapping presents (currently only done on a need-to basis of actually seeing people)
• Curl hair with my new hair curling gizmo (thanks Boots points)

I'm also trying to avoid that last minute panic of 'oh no, we don't have a whole cheese - Christmas will be ruined' mentality which involves me buying a ridiculous quantity of food that we will then struggle to get through.  It makes me twitch nervously - 'but what if we suddenly want brie/stichelton/stollen/chocolates/anything else that randomly occurs to me' - and I think I'm going to succumb on the Baileys front and buy a bottle if I can shoot out of the office for half an hour.

It will be hard work until Boxing Day morning when my mum and her pack return to Kent and we head off for Suffolk.  When I may actually collapse until New Year and it's time to get back to work (boo).  The weather looks like we'll have a mixture of hiking and staying in and reading/watching films when it's too wet to walk - pretty perfect.  Also P's version of bubble and squeak is probably as good as Christmas dinner and it'll be relaxed with only ourselves to please.

Actually I am also planning on winning the lottery as I have fallen in love with a sofa.  I know how bizarre that sounds but it's tweed.  TWEED!  I can't tell you how much I love and need it.  And it would be handy not to have to return to work too.  So that's my NY resolution made.

Whatever you're doing and whoever you're doing it with, have a lovely Christmas and see you on the other side.

Christmas? Take a hike!

Although to be honest I could do with delaying Christmas for a fortnight, I am looking forward to a weekend of not really doing very much.  Yes, we’ll try and do the majority of the Christmas shop on Sunday (no lie-in for me) but on Saturday we’ll do our hike to the pub for lunch and home – blissful.  Assuming it’s not tipping it down.  I am not sure how I will fit in some of the chores and I’m kind of in denial about that.
 
I’m still in full-on self-hatred mode about – primarily – my weight.  It’s feeble, but I know that it could be worse.  Not in the way I look admittedly (or surely not much) but I’m not going in to shops and thinking ‘what can I eat?’, nor am I eating everything ‘just in case’ I’ll fancy it once the diet begins.  I’m trying to at least think about what I want to eat and why.  I am filing that under ‘too little, too late’ but although feeble, it’s at least a sign that I haven’t given up entirely.
 
I have a cold, sinusitis and a burgeoning mouth ulcer which is definitely a sign that I need to stop for a bit.  I finish for Christmas on Christmas morning at 9am and then I don’t have to do any work until the 2^nd January.  Although we have my mum over from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day morning – with her 3 large dogs.  In our quite small flat.  And one of the dogs is a thief.  I sense stress.  But on the 26^th we will be off to Suffolk which is when I’ll be able to relax.
 
And then I’m working the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th with the 5^th off and back again on the 6^th.  The early part of next year is looking pretty grim for work so I’m trying not to think that far ahead. 
 
I’m hoping to update next week – but just in case, have a wonderful Christmas all/

Bigger, not better

My loyal readership (Hi Seren and Amy!) have pointed out that I haven’t updated for a while.  So, let me explain why.
 
Work has been ridiculous.  They cancelled our Christmas party the other week (and then asked us to contribute to the cancellation fee!  Er, no).  On one day I had to be in the office by 5am; this meant getting up at 3.30am.  This is something that should never happen without a holiday at the end of it.  I’ve had a couple of weekends where I’ve been working one or other day too.  Tomorrow I have to be up at 5.15am to be in for 7.15am.  I’ve not had much emotional or physical energy for anything other than getting through each day.  Sound like fun?  If so, I’ve explained it wrong.
 
Also, I am not in the zone.  Unless the zone happens to be a furrow of despair.  If it is, I am SO there.  I swear I’m getting bigger and I feel hideous on too many levels to count.  It’s a veritable skyscraper of levels though.  It’s got to the stage where I buy a couple of skirts in my size (that I am ashamed of) from ebay, they arrive and don’t fit and yet I simply cannot buy up a size.  I have a lot of clothes and I estimate maybe 2% at best actually fit me.  I am very, very afraid that I’m at the pre-LL stage.  I am a mere whisper away from full on panic and depression.
 
I’ve got to do something, I know.  But I’m not sure what.  I’m just in a holding pattern at the moment where I am trying to eat healthily and not crazily. 

Also, I’ve started seeing a clinical psychologist attached to the hospital where I see the specialist.  I do not honestly think that my fatness is due to any deep seated psychological reason but I am prepared to admit that I am a f*ck up in many other ways.  Not to mention the fact that I’m prepared to try anything – I’d love to have an epiphany where everything clicks into place and weight starts dropping off, but I very much doubt this will be the case.  What it DOES do however, is wipe out all my mental resources.  I went the other week and it was a supposed to be a starve day – I simply could not bully, cajole or summon up the mental energy to do a starve day.  I tried and tried and I could not.  Of course it’s an excuse but it’s a real one. 

 

Amy - will update on Thanksgiving later this week.   But turkey shaped butter?  REALLY?