Stuff to share

I'll hold my hands up and admit that when it comes to posting here, lately I have pretty much sucked. I know that anyone who is still reading this must be sick to death of my excuses by now. So I thought I would take a few minutes to explain where my time has been going. You don't have to read it, you can skip down to the bottom and look at the layouts and hybrid projects I have to show you, but I feel compelled to write about it even if it's only for my own benefit. Ever since Nan broke her arm things have been crazy here, at first I was doing everything for her from coffee making to dressing her, taking her to the toilet, helping her up and down the stairs and too many other things to remember. I cared for her and the house, I looked after Lukas who was sick as well, threw in the usual arguments and disputes with Mark and CT work. Somehow I still found time to throw a little scrapbooking into the mix. Sure I could do it but my days were starting somewhere between 5-30am and 7-30am (depending entirely on when Nan got up). I had to stay up to do things for her until she went to bed anywhere between midnight and 1am. I would start all of my "work" scrapping, CT work, forums, emails, etc after she went to bed. I will hold my hands up and admit that some days I was getting about 2/3 hours sleep in total. I'm not well myself but I found myself having to get Nan and Lukas ready for hospital appointments and actually go out of the house. The person who can go months at a time and not even go out into the back garden was going to the hospital for appointments in various departments. Nan had appointments for her eyes, others for her arm, day clinic, blood tests, scans, xrays, and other things and Lukas had weekly occupational therapy. I was getting close to a complete meltdown. I just wasn't physically able to keep up that pace. When I reached the point where I thought things couldn't get any worse inevitably they did Nan was taken into hospital. We were truly worried about her, she was in hospital for a week and I was so exhausted and ill myself I visited her a grand total of once. People were saying to me that it must be a break for me, but to be honest it really wasn't. I ended up working harder because with Nan out of the house Mark became even more of a slob than normal. He seemed to be of the opinion that since Nan wasn't here to notice and shout at him for it, her usual standards for the house could be thrown out of the window. I will admit as the weeks went on Nan was able to do more things for herself meaning I could take her down in the morning, make her coffee, give her the medications she usually takes and sort her breakfast out and then leave her sitting there and go back to bed. She was content to sit and watch Jeremy Kyle, and a variety of other daytime TV until I got up. I kind of let anything looking vaguely like a routine slide. Lukas stayed up as late as I did going to bed some nights as late as 4am. That meant he slept all day long leaving me time to do everything Nan wanted. With him being ill he was happy to lay around on the sofa or the bed and watch TV or play games, really anything that involved him not having to do much. Right now we have reached the point where I am staying up all night because I can't sleep (sometimes combined, with my immense hatred of being woken up, meaning that I elect to stay up and then go to bed once Nan's up rather than be woken up). Me and Mark have resorted to watching late night olympic coverage and using that as our time together, we really don't see each other otherwise. I fit some scrapping in after Mark falls asleep, or sometimes while we are watching the olympics. I am grabbing a few hours sleep during the day while Lukas is still asleep, he's still not back to 100% but he's slowly getting better. Nan has the plaster off but her arm is a mess she really can't use it at all without being in a lot of pain. The biggest problem I have now is that she's so depressed, she hates that she can't go to work, hates having to ask people to do things for her. It's making her irritable and she's slowly driving me insane with her whining and not listening to anything. I understand that she's in pain but there is a huge difference between telling me she is in pain, or complaining about being in pain and whining and whinging constantly. I keep telling her that I am not going to listen to her if she whines, and that if Lukas does that he gets put in time out! I suppose a lot of it comes down to the fact that I feel so ill myself. I desperately need to make a doctors appointment for myself and get the obvious urine infection sorted, I have had enough of them to recognise when it's time to go see the doctor but I just don't have the energy or the time really. We still haven't celebrated Lukas's birthday as he's been too ill to do anything, and everything I had planned for the summer holidays has been resigned to the probably not going to happen pile. Sunday would have been Leo's 4th Birthday, we always try and do something to make sure it's never forgotten. It's still a day that needs to be celebrated, sure we only had him 3 months but any time with him was better than never knowing him. He was so sweet and innocent and he truly touched and changed everyone's lives,so I have decided that for the 1st time in a long time, I am going to put what I want 1st. If Nan needs anything she will have to either manage by herself or pick up the phone and call Lisa. I am in severe need of a break I have coped all by myself since Nan hurt herself. Lisa never let it stop her from taking the 2 holidays she had booked, including the one over Lukas's birthday. Sure it worked out that I, would have had to cancel my plans for his birthday anyway because he was ill, but she didn't know that. She went off happily on her way, knowing that Nan couldn't be left alone at that point, and I would be the one who would change things in my life to make sure she was cared for. Malcolm never let it stop him from flying to spain for the weekend. I think it's time that someone else stepped up and took over just this once. Mark's off for the entire weekend so we are planning to spend Saturday tidying the rooms, getting rid of junk and making this space we call ours a little more suitable for human habitation lol. Then Sunday we will make our plans based on what the weather decides to do. Whatever we end up doing it will just be me and Mark and Lukas, spending quality family time together to remember the one that's missing. I have just over 2 weeks left of the school holidays and I am hoping to get at least one of the things I wanted to do with Lukas done. I have a complete new school uniform to shop for, Lukas is in need of absolutely everything to go back to school with. Pants, Socks, Vests, Polo shirts, Trousers, Shoes, Trainers, Tracksuit bottoms, White T-shirts, Book bag, Fleece, Jumper, Coat, Lunchbox/Lunchbag, Water bottle, Bag and that's before you account for all the other stuff he needs as well like new pyjamas, dressing gown, slippers, you name it he needs it he is so tall now nothing at all fits. I also have challenges at Sweet Shoppe Designs I want to do and I admit it's all feeling very overwhelming right now. This has turned out a lot longer than I was intending so I will post the layouts in another post.