Category: Yelly Writes

My life is extraordinarily ordinary and this is celebrating and writing about my beautifully ordinary moments.

Yelly Writes

Be careful what you wish for!

Yelly

I remember myself saying this several times during a conversation whilst I was making tea at work:  “I wish I’d get properly sick just so that I can get over it!”

I did just that.  Get properly ill.  Could not get up out of bed, had no energy, had a massive headache and just felt like death.  I still feel that way today but as I’ve been off work properly for a week (I went to work on Tuesday, but went home after 3 hours!) I need to go to work on Monday.  Although, if I’m honest, I don’t feel like I am actually well already.

Be careful what you wish for.  Because sometimes when you get what you want, it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to.  That being said, I’d love the win the lottery.  Properly.

Yes please!

Yelly Writes

Quotable Mother Goose

Yelly

I am a worrier and I had to smile when I read this quote in the book that I am currently reading (Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman).  It was so apt and so what I needed to read!

Serendipity!

This is going into my worry journal!

Mother Goose quotable

Yelly Writes

Sometimes you just need rest!

Yelly

I have been quite stressed lately…and I think it’s because I’ve been working too hard and I’ve been dealing with…issues.  I’ve had a reflective look back at my life and during the most stressful situations, I’ve noticed that I read a lot of books, fiction mostly.  And during the past 12 months, I’ve been reading up a storm!  My fiction reading is directly proportional to my stress levels (15 books in 6 months is a lot – more than a book every 2 weeks!).  I think I’m this close to a burnout.  I’ve also been reading loads about stress coping strategies and burnouts and how to spot them.  It’s not helping though because I know intrinsically, something’s got to change.

What I really need is a change of place, a change of pace, and…a change.  But tonight I’m going to go to bed and just rest!

nuh-night!

Yelly Writes

Life was made for lazy Saturdays

Yelly

The trains are buggered today.  Well, they’re not exactly buggered.  Train services are suspended because Network Rail are “improving” current rail infrastructure.  They have suspended train services between Manningtree and Shenfield, so basically, I’m stuck in Harwich.  My question: why couldn’t they let the trains get to Colchester, at least?  But c’est la vie!  It’s cold anyway.

So I shall be couch potato, pretend I’m a Nigella-esque and cook delicious food (baked chicken with gravy and rice for lunch today, roast pork shoulder and roast vegetables for supper tonight, corned beef hash for lunch tomorrow and leftovers for supper) this weekend, read a book (probably that new Julia Quinn book, if I can be bothered to download it) and bake (I have chocolate cake in mind…mmmmm fudge!).

Oh and I’ve got to iron.

Yelly Writes

What snow?

Yelly

I love snow.  But only when I don’t have to walk in it.

There’s something magical about fluffy precipitation.  And only if you don’t want to walk in it!  As I discovered this morning, as I trudged very carefully in the melting slush that was falling snow last night!  I let out a few panicked yelps as I discovered that my choice of footwear did not have any proper traction!

The next thing on my to-do list: find boots that I can wear to work that has traction!

And, yes, despite its obvious dangers, I still love snow.

Snow bench

P.S.  Harwich has not had any snow worth mentioning though.  I can’t help feeling that I’ve been left out by Mother Nature!

Yelly Writes

A look back on 2014

Yelly

For the last few weeks, I’ve been saying that I can’t wait for 2014 to end because it has been the worst year.  I take that all back.

While it has been a difficult year, after looking back, it has been a year filled with amazing things: I went home to Manila twice; with my Abba’s amazing recovery, I have seen what I believe is a miracle; I am so very thankful for the support of family and friends (especially the friends I have made here), because your faith, optimism and positivity (and the occasional “it’s okay to go and cry”) has buoyed us and carried us through the difficult months; and I even managed to get myself on TV (for a total of 2 nanoseconds!)!

I am thankful for all the lessons I learned in 2014.  Because while it has been challenging, I learned a lot about myself, my faith has grown, my Abba is much, much better, my family is stronger together and we know that we truly love each other and I have learned that I am made of sterner stuff after all.  I know that I am truly, truly blessed.

I can’t wait to find out what 2015 will bring! 🙂

Happy New Year everyone!  May you all be so very, very blessed! 🙂

P.S.  Here’s a quick-fire list of my blogging goals for 2014: blog more, bake more so I can blog more, cook more so I can blog more, take more photos and post them on the blog…yes, the goal is to blog more!!!

Yelly Writes

Challenging myself

Yelly

I’ve been telling myself that I need to blog more often, more regularly.  That I need to add more content to my blog.

I have this amazing knack of biting off more than I can chew on a regular basis because I have this (almost masochistic) need to push myself and stretch my boundaries.  There are days when I am exhilarated by the challenges I put myself through (I was probably a circus animal of some sort in a previous life because I seem to enjoy jumping through hoops of various heights and sizes); but there are days when I just get completely overwhelmed and I wonder why I started the whole exercise!  I usually bang my head of a figurative wall and ask myself what I was thinking!

But blogging is important to me, and I really miss blogging regularly (sometimes mindlessly, and let me tell you, my verbal diarrhea is sometimes not the most pleasant!).  I’ve been moaning that I haven’t been blogging much.  So, in the interest of developing my writing (an erstwhile goal), I am challenging myself to do BOTH Blogging 101 and Photo 101.  I wanted to join NaBloPoMo but I was afraid I’d miss the prompts!  I have, yet again, challenged myself to do the impossible.  A blog entry AND a photo post every day for a month!  Ha!  But, come to think of it, I already do Fat Mum Slim‘s photo a day challenge and manage to post a photo a day on Instagram most days.  This is just doing that, on a far bigger scale.  I spend so much time online anyway that I think it’s just spending a bit more time on my WordPress tab than being nosy on Facebook and reading posts on Twitter (also a “being nosy” exercise).

So here goes everything!

This month's challenge

Yelly Writes

And…they’re off!

Yelly

The dressings have come off today.  Well, I took them off today.  I took off the dressing and cleaned off the caked blood.

I won’t post a photo of the wound and the stitches because that would be slightly morbid and very macabre.  But the wound site looks good.  It looks like it’s healing well and there seems to be, knock on wood, no signs of infection.

And now I am going to attempt something I have no way of knowing whether or not I can accomplish: ironing and all the work that goes with it (getting the iron out of the cupboard is going to be a particular challenge!).

Yelly Writes

Day 6 of the hand

Yelly

I have stopped taking pain killers for the hand and although there is pain still, at least, the pain isn’t masked by pain killers now.  So in effect, it is now “real” pain.

I’m typing as normally as I can today to sort of acclimatise my hand to the kind of thing I’ll be subjecting it to soon.  I find that there is pain when I use my pinky, ring and index finger (so yes, mostly all my fingers!).  The pain is mostly in the area where the surgery was done.  It is my goal today to get an appointment with the doctor so the hand can be looked at and I can reassure myself that I won’t be doing it any damage by going back to work a week after the surgery.

One of the lovely ladies at work has very kindly (and in a way that only a mum can) told me to stay put for the entire time that I’ve been signed off because I mustn’t do my hand any undue damage.  I do realise though that I need to be patient with myself and that I need to give myself time to heal properly.

That being said, though, I am determined to go back to work this week.  Being left alone with just daytime TV and my thoughts can, sometimes, not be very good!

Yelly Writes

Cheer-me-upper

Yelly

I love flowers!  Every time I walk past a flower stall, I walk away with a smile.  Flowers are the best cheer me uppers ever.

I got flowers today from my colleagues at work.  I feel very appreciated and the flowers have cheered me up a lot.  I have been wandering around the flat like a lost soul with a thumping headache and a very sore, very painful hand.  Getting the flowers helped and am smiling again 🙂

Flowers from work