Round up

This will be the last blog post from me this year, and also this decade!!
Looking back, it's been a turbulent year; kicking off with the death of my dearly loved Mother-in-Law and the subsequent rift between Ken and his family; Ken took a turn for the worse again, but recovered fairly well; Jenny got pregnant; I completed and passed my first Open University course; and Tom was born! It's been a year that has brought my family much closer together - a combination of shock and horror at what has happened to Ken's family, and the arrival of Tom has created an even stronger glue between us than we had before, even though we have always been close. Also, I have learnt to appreciate and value my friends more than ever before, and have built some bridges between one or two that I was in danger of losing. My inclinations to 'live and let live' are stronger than ever, and I celebrate the people I know and love in all their guises. Everyone has good and bad in them.
Sadly, Ken is not the man he was. Although he has recovered to all intents and purposes from his breakdown last year, he is different. He has a vulnerability that is new to him, and that he finds hard to deal with. The rift with his family hs hurt him badly - both because of their absence in his life and because of the hurt caused by what they said to him and Ben.
Jenny has become a mother this year, and is finding it very heard to deal with. I know long term she will be fine, but she didn't enjoy being pregnant, and she isn't enjoying looking after a tiny baby. I know that she will be a fantastic mother further down the line; she has been diagnosed with Post Natal Depression but I am confident she will recover and go from strangth to strength. And baby Tom will bring her so much joy!
Debbie has just has a painful break up with her boyfriend, and has also made the decision to move back into the family home. We will eb crowded, but I know we will make it work, and it will help Debs an awful lot financially. She is struggling with life at the moment and I hope I will be able to offer the support she needs.
Ben has got engaged to Lucy, and they are very happy and very much in love. There is no hope of them getting married any time soon; neither earn very much. Lucy practically levs with us - she sleeps over every night, and she is a lovely girl, nice natured and has is fabulous looking!

So this is also the last post of the deacde - the end of 'The Noughties'. At the start of the decade, things looked very rosy for us - we had just had a windfall of company shares that were valued at around £175k. However, as soon as they were floated the value took a nosedive and within a few weeks they were worthless. We did get some money of of them; enought to take the family to Florida and Universal, and for me and Ken to holiday in Tunisia.
Ken spent most of the decade working away from home and just being home at weekends. I continued working at the Research Councils, and am still there, if only for another few months. Jenny, Debbie and Ben all grew up into adulthood and are all really good people and I am very proud of them. They will never be rich or brainy, but they are decent human beings and all have strong values.
We saw the deaths of four cats and two dogs in our family, and took ownership of Jess and Hagrid.
My parents have become old, but I still have them, and for that I am grateful.
I think I finally know who I am, and what my life is about. I have accepted and become proud of my atheism, my open mindedness, and my ability to love.

I wish anyone who is reading a Happy Christmas, and all the very best for the new decade.

Late post

This was posted under my old blog in a moment of mental abberation a couple of weeks ago!!

My goodness, how my life has turned upside down!
Firstly I went back onto the full dose of the Seroxat and have felt much better ever since. I don't regret it at all.
Plus, Jenny had her baby really early, on 3 November, a lovely little boy called Tom who is just adorable. He seems to be very sweetnatured and laid back, although very hungry.
I am undecided about my next Open University course, as I would like to get going again, but I really don't see where I am going to find the time. I think I am going to postpone starting again until either next October or possibly even the following February, as some courses are ending and updated versions starting during that period and it might be better to wait for the new ones.
Crafts seem once again to be taking over my life; I am knitting for Tom, trying to get a Birth Sampler done by Christmas and I also have a couple of things to make for Christmas as well. I have no idea where I am going to get the time from! I love the run up to Christmas though....

Don't read this

I am not writing this for you to read, as it will be miserable and self centred, but I am just writing it for my own record.
I'm off to the doc today. I have had a horrid three weeks; I feel low, weepy, depressed and lethargic, and despite the Seroxat dose being half of what it was i still feel just as sleepy. I have pulled out of my OU course as I didn't feel able to cope. I'm seeing the doc as I don't know what to do. Do I persevere or do I go back to the full dose of Seroxat? The only reason I came off it was because of the sleep problem and that is no better. I would have expected some kind of improvement by now. The withdrawal symptoms I can cope with - bouts of dizziness and tinnitus mostly, but I am discouraged by the drop in my mood. I liked myself before and I don't now.

Pulling myself together

I have been really down in the dumps this week - my diet has gone completely to pot, and I have been really miserable. Work has been stressful and difficult, but the main reason I think is that I am feeling that I don't want to do this OU course. It's the time factor bothering me; when I tell people what the course involves I still think it will be interesting, but I have been resentful about the lack of crafting and family time. However, I have kicked myself up the arse this morning and am now pulling myself together. I know that if I am not careful I will slide back into a depression and I really don't want that to happen, nor do I want to have to keep taking the medsn in order to be the person I like.
So - it all starts this weekend!!

Not sure how well you can see this, but this is the schedule I have worked out. It looks very tight to me, and although theoretically it gives me 18 hours a week to knit/stitch I'm not sure how that will work out in practice. Also there isn't much leeway for study missed due to occasions, tutorials etc etc.I had hoped to get a head start as the materials were due to be sent out last Friday, but the despatch date has been delayed to next Friday. As I fully expect to lose time when the baby is born, I need to get ahead as far as possible!
Ooh - just seen the pic is clickable!

Sleep matters

Does anyone get the right amount of sleep? Currently, to be happy, I need around 12 hours sleep every 24 hours, which is impossible except at weekends, so I am in a perpetual state of drowsiness. I am hoping that this is caused by the anti-depressants I am currently trying to drop and will get better. As I write this I feel like I just want to crawl into bed and sleep the clock round, but I had 6 hours sleep last night, 2 hours yesterday afternoon, 12 hours on Saturday night, 3 hours Saturday afternoon and 8 hours Friday night. Ken isn't sleeping very well either, and frequently wakes in the early hours of the morning, but to feel refreshed he only wants 6 or 7 hours anyway. My Dad maintains he gets no sleep at night, but spends a couple of hours a day asleep on the sofa in the late morning/early afternoon. I think that is a fairly usual pattern for the elderly. My Mum sleeps soundly but wakes and gets up at 7am as she has all her life; similarly my neighbours, who are in their late sixties, wake and get up every morning at 5am with seemingly no effort. (I wish I was like that!)
I can't work efficiently when I feel this tired; my mind is fuzzy and woolly and I have trouble concentrating. This is a problem for my OU work as well.
The annoying thing about it all is that about 9pm, I start to feel more awake, and then am reluctant to go to sleep, and frequently toss and turn for an hour or so.
I find it easiest to sleep in the afternoons!
Ah well. I start the next step of my Seroxat dose reduction this week - 3 weeks on 15mg.
Oh - and I gained weight this week rather than losing - despite being really good and not eating any of the luscious food and puddings I prepared for my parents on Friday night and Jenny and Chris on Sunday. So unfair!

Times they are a changing

I'm two weeks in to the great Seroxat weaning programme, and so far I'm OK. I had dizziness and nausea for the first four or five days but then it stopped, which is encouraging. On the other hand I have only reduced the dose by an average 2.5mg a day which isn't much. Nontheless I do seem to be waking a little bit easier - I woke on Saturday at 8am without the alarm, and managed the whole weekend without a nap. On the other hand, I didn't wake until 12 pm on Sunday, which is normal for me, but the Saturday was definitely an improvement. It remains to be seen whether it is psychosomatic or not. As I write, I could just crawl into bed and sleep the rest of the day away!!
Yesterday we bought some lovely solid wood drawers for my bedroom, which is great as all my drawers have been broken for the last 5 years or so! I should now be able to organise my bedroom properly.
The weight loss continues, although it is a bit up and down. I haven't lost anything this week and the only diversion was a chinese take away on Thursday. However, I am not disheartened - yet!! Seems odd that I have lost nothing this week, because all of a sudden people are noticing and commenting on my loss, which has been very encouraging.
I'm now reading Great Expectations for my Literature course, and am surprised at how much I love it. I remember reading it at school and hating it as it seemed really hard to understand and seemed very jumbled up. Now, however, I just love reading Dickens, he has such a wry way of writing.
I am worried about time for my course...20 hours a week is such a lot when working full time. Now Ken is working I have to pick up a lot of the housework again, which is really going to cut into my time. I am also completely in love with knitting again, and I want to get back to my stitching as soon as I have finished the baby knitting I am doing for new grandchild. Only 10 weeks to the due date now!
I have worked out a sort of schedule but to fit everything in I need to get up at 6am every day, and not much later at the weekend. I will have another look later on today, I think, and see what else I can come up with.