A Week of Little Lessons - LSNED, 8th-15th September

The second week of September has gone by - so the second week of LSNED has passed also.  It's been a quieter week than the first, with a number of interesting small lessons. 

I haven't finished all my pages yet - a task for this evening, then I will photograph them and blog them. However, here's a quick summary of my LSNED Week 2.

I've decided to blog about this here, as the Blog Page Diary idea isn't really working out.

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Wednesday 8th September

My mum was on the mend by Wednesday. She was eating meals, managing her own breakfast and able to cope with getting her tea, if I set things up for her.  I spent the middle part of the day with her, doing jobs and making her mid-day meal. 

However, I was not in such great shape myself! After seven solid days of caring for my mother, I was reaching the point of exhaustion.  I couldn't sleep properly and felt immensely stressed. 

On Wednesday morning, my friend called for me and we went for our regular walk round the village.  Bless her, she listened to me letting off steam for the whole walk! I got home and said "I have just moaned my way round the whole village!".  She just said it didn't matter, she thought it had done me good and came in for a cup of coffee and a (relaxed!) chat.  Amazingly, that bit of a release made me feel so much better.  I was really grateful to her for listening and just being there when I needed a friend.  It made the rest of the day so much easier to cope with.

The  lesson: It's Wonderful to have a Friend to listen and understand.

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Thursday 9th September

Another day looking after my mum. By Thursday she was a lot better and managing very well, so I didn't have much to do, other than make her some lunch and tidy up a few things. 

That morning I had woken at 6:30am, from a weird dream about electrical goods (bear with me here...).  A week before the toaster had suddenly refused to work.  We had a week with no toast and I was going to return the toaster to the shop, as it was only a few months old.  I had tried plugging it into a different socket and checked inside to see if any of the wires seemed to be damaged, but all looked okay.  Well, I woke up with the realisation that I had not checked the fuse inside the plug. 

Of course, when I changed the fuse, the toaster worked fine! Duh!

The Lesson: Check the Fuse!

* * *

Friday 10th September

My mum was really much better and I took her to the dr. for a check-up and consultation about her DEXA scan (bone density).  The Dr. says she has "moderate osteoporosis" in her spine, which explains the pain she has been having in her back.  She has some tablets now, which will take about 3 months to show any results, but should hopefully help her a bit.

After I had made her some lunch I was sent home, with instructions to have a rest (!).  On the way, I popped into some local shops, to ask if they would display a postcard-sized advert for our Scrapbooking Club.  We're only a little group and are trying to get some new members on board.  The last shop I went to was the local quilting, fabrics, knitting etc shop in my village.  They were happy to put up our card. 

Of course, I couldn't leave empty-handed, especially when they had some new rolls of fabric on the counter:

The Lesson: I Can't Resist Beautiful Fabric (or paper)!

* * *

Saturday 11th September

I was told by my mum that I wasn't to go over at the weekend - she would manage herself.  It was nice to be able to stay at home, although I was still up early, as DH wanted to go into town (to buy DS's birthday present  - shhh!).  There was so much to do at home anyway, as I hadn't managed housework for over a week.  Spent the majority of the morning cleaning, tidying and doing laundry. 

In the afternoon, we all just chilled out at home.  No particular things were done (in fact the "job list" was pretty well ignored!), but we all enjoyed relaxing after our various hectic weeks at work, school and my mum's. Tried to persuade the boys to go out for tea (I didn't feel like cooking - wonder why), but we ended up with a really nice Chinese takeaway instead - yum!

Hence the seriously slouchy photo:

The Lesson: There's Nothing Better than a quiet day at home with my Boys!

* * *

Sunday 12th September

Sunday was the day of our monthly Scrap Club meeting.  On Saturday evening I was sure I didn't want to go, but decided I would get up at a decent time and prepare my things then, as I might change my mind. Besides, it's my job to go and open up the hall, as I'm the keyholder and I always help to set up the tables etc. 

The boys had planned another Epic Battle, so they didn't mind me going out.  I got up at 8am, did my jobs, ate breakfast, packed up some projects to work on, put a load of washing out and went out at 9:50, to walk round to the village hall. Of course, once we were set up and I sat down to work, I soon found I was enjoying myself! I took a break and went home for a quick lunch, but was happy to be back there for the afternoon.  I got a surprising amount done, for someone who was exhausted!

The Lesson: It's amazing how much I can do when there are no distractions!

* * *

Monday 13th September

So back to Monday... normal jobs for my mum. I also took her little cat to the vet, as she had runny eyes.  She came home with eye drops and also ear drops to treat mites - good thing we went!

In the afternoon, I was sooo tired, so I just had a rest and did a bit of work on a scrap page I started on Sunday. I am so pleased with the result. I haven't done many layouts with just one 4"x6" photo - it's nice to realise that I can make it work.



The Lesson: I really Can scrap with only one 4"x6" photo!

* * *

Tuesday 14th September

After a very early start on Monday (DH woke at 2:30 and went out at 3:15 - I woke up when he came out of the bathroom and couldn't get back to sleep), then a rather disturbed nighton Monday also, I was a bit of a zombie on Tuesday morning.  I seem to get to the stage where I'm so tired out that I can't sleep properly - a bit of a contradiction, but there it is!

After J. went out to school, I crawled back into my bed (having just slunk around in my dressing gown until then!) and slept for 3 hours.  I felt sooooo much better when I woke up.  It definitely got me through the day and meant that I could sleep on Tuesday night.  I still felt dull and stupid on Tuesday, but at least I could stay awake!

The Lesson: A good long nap can fix a lot of problems!

* * *

Wednesday 15th September

Well, I finally get to today.  Not a remarkable day either, but at least I had a good sleep last night. I woke before 7am (for the first time in 2 weeks!) and was wide awake. In the shower, hair washed, bright eyed and almost bushy-tailed too! 

Went for my morning walk with my friend, which was lovely as it was a really nice morning.  Then I managed some housework (sorry Mel!) and cleaned the guinea pigs' house.  I now have a shiny kitchen and happy piggies.

The gardening team came today as well.  They did some tidying in the garden and cut the grass.  It makes such a huge difference - the garden looks so much bigger and tidier when the grass is neat!

The Lesson: I am Grateful for the Gardening Team!

* * *

So now I'm up to date with my "Lessons" and photos.  I have a couple of pages to complete so my mini-album is up to date as well.  I think that I have given up the special blog diary - nice idea, but a bit much to keep going, with life as it is!

* * * 

We're busy preparing for a Party on Sunday.  J's birthday is next week, so he has invited a few friends over on Sunday afternoon, to play silly games, do races on the Wii, watch a film and eat pizza and cake.  Should be good - I'm thinking up as many silly games as I can.  So far, we have possibly got "Racing Grannies", then "What Am I?" which involves me writing down lots of objects, people, animals etc on separate bits of paper. Someone is "it" and they have a baseball cap, with a paper stuck to it.  They can ask questions and people say "Yes" or "no" - they have to guess who/what they are! It is very popular, especially when we have clues like "smelly sock" or "toilet"! I think we'll have a little quiz too.  Not sure what else - perhaps "Twister" would be fun - it usually goes down well.  I think it will be muddy in the garden, so I don't think we'll do Space Hopper races... anyway, I'm not sure if the space hoppers are still ok. They're rather old and I haven't seen them for a while...

Sounds as if I'll come up with enough to keep them all happy and hilarious. I can mostly let them get on with it, except for being quiz master, or dishing out the paper clues etc.  I think they will have fun. Once they're bored/tired, they can play Mario Karts on the Wii and we'll order pizza for them to eat.  I must get J. to sort out the film they will watch. 

Busy, busy... but fun! 

I hope all my blog-land friends are well. I haven't been able to keep up very well, although I've dropped in on a few blogs as and when I can (and tried to leave comments).  Please forgive me if I have neglected you - September always seems to be chaos for some reason!

Off to my bed now... Goodnight all Friends!