Weight Watchers

Well I’ve returned to the fold, I got back on the wagon, went back to weight watchers last week!

In my first week I’ve lost 6 pounds, I am delighted, it’s bloody hard work keeping track of everything I eat, and I’m starting a salsa excercise class next Wednesday, I have committed myself to this weight loss.

I t’s not about vanity or my physical health, it’s about me, my feelings of self-worth. I am giving myself permission to think about myself, to give myself the time required to go to classes and think about the food that I eat. I know that sounds very vague, but it’s true, when I spend all my energy thinking about everyone elses needs I don’t care enough about myself, I wind up drinking too much, eating too much and just sinking into the drudgery.

New year, New me!

I am gonna be the person I want to be, I’ll turn 37 on easter sunday, I’ve lived enough of my life for everyone else, it’s time for me now.

Give it all away

I don’t usually do this kind of thing, but I heard the single on the radio and I had to put in here. I was a bit too old to be a Boyzone fan, but they are really decent lovely Dublin blokes, I met Keith Duffy years ago, when he’d had his daughter, I’d just had my eldest son and he was such a nice guy, reminded me of my brother I suppose.

Anyway, it’s so sad Stephen dying suddenly, the press made everything so much worse for his family and friends. I think this video will have some mixed reactions, as Irish people we tend to be very repressed, we really aren’t comfortable with our humanity, sex and death are two things we have huge issues with. I think some people will think this video is trying to pull peoples emotions,but I think anyone who has ever lost someone they loved will be so happy to see these Irish men secure enough in themselves to be open about their grief and loss.

I can only imagine how hard it’s been for Stephens family, husband and friends. Although it’s often said time is a great healer and better to have an amazing person in your life for a moment than never at all.

Magic Moments

I love the Magic Numbers I did once go to Oxygen, the year it looked like it was gonna snow in July, I stood in my winter clothes, my wellies sinking into the mud, swaying in the rain to the Magic numbers, after that I just wanted to go home thaw out and sleep!

They are a great band, for me they were a kind of sound track for a difficult time in my life, things between me and my then husband were bad, I was 33 (the Jesus year) and I had accepted that the relationship we had, me unhappy and punishing myself for it, occasionally punishing him if I could, that was the way our relationship was gonna be forever. I remember listening to my MP3 player on the Luas on the way into work, and I’d always cry when I got to “I see you, you see me” I knew I’d never experience love like that, at 33 it was all gone. I knew I’d never meet someone  who really loved me, I accepted that relationships that are nearly 20 years old get tired and twisted!

But I was wrong, while I was mourning the loss of my love life my then husband was equally unhappy and he was planning his exit stage right!

At 34 with three children, one of whom was only 6 months old I was single for the first time ever in my life….and I was not in the mood for love,  but somehow, strangely I found myself dating after a few months and I did meet someone amazing, someone who did really “see me”, I was terrified a lot of the time, simply because he did “see me”, I told myself (and everyone else) that it was too soon, but i knew if I walked away from something wonderful just because timing was wrong I mightn’t get another chance.

Now we have been together for over two years now, it’s been really difficult at times, we have a baby together now, so that’s six children between us, we rarely get out (once every six months) without some sort of child attached, which is extremely difficult. I am generally a nervous wreck in the evenings when my partner gets in from work, and his job worries him, so often he’ll be thinking about stuff and withdrawn. We are trying, I love him so much more than I thought was possible, initially I had held myself back from him, now I just can’t stop loving him, the more I get to know him the more I love him, even the things that initially bugged me about him are things I adore about him! His singing”voice” for example!

I think my life so far has been an example of how you never know how things are gonna go, luck swinging from one extreme to the other! But I’m still no good at just living in the moment!

Magic

Thai Feast

I am having some friends over on Saturday for some family friendly entertaining! In recent years this is what my social life consists of, gone are the days of cocktails and dancing now it’s food and friends and their children and I’m quite good at it. My friends who have kids like going somewhere where they can have a bit of a laugh and some (excellent if I say so myself) food. There is still booze, but believe it or not I have some friends who don’t drink!So food is the main event!

Usually when cooking for a lot of people I’ll go for things like bakes and casseroles or a good chilli, things that can be prepared ahead as I like being able to relax, the thing  about entertaining people with kids is you don’t have much time, when friends without kids visit they can linger, generally if people have their kids with them there is a unmentioned time limit, about 3 hours, and as I want to spend as much time as possible with my guests I try to have as much ready in advance as possible. This weekend though I’m shunning the usual comfort food for Thai, I’m thinking of veggie spring rolls and lettuce rolls to start,  Green chicken curry and a red pineapple and squash curry for main, with sesame Pok choi and sticky rice as sides and probably some nice sticky chocolate dessert with some fresh fruit for the healthy guests!

I am looking forward to seeing some of my friends, the snow has been great, slowed us all down, forced us to spend time with our families, but I am craving adult conversation and a bit of craic! I also can use the opportunity to convince my friends to read the True blood books!

Michael Buble

I know he is super sexy and we are all so jealous of his lovely south american girl! But I love the “just haven’t met you yet”song. I just wish he had gone for boring old dowdy fans in the video….the song pulls all my strings I think of my partner who I was so lucky to meet, but having his drop dead gorgeous girl in the video is a bit of an anticlimax… Michael, it’s us boring housewives who adore you….try a normal looking girl in the next video… we’d love that!

True Blood

Okay, so on New Years Eve I decided to treat myself, I went into the local bookshop looking for the latest Marian Keyes book, I wanted to totally escape reality, be entertained and feel alive! But it was sold out…..I looked for something else, I couldn’t find anything suitable, I like to escape into Chic Lit every now and again, but I am fussy. I was about to give up, buy some crappy gossip magazines in the newsagent (they are verboten in my house, I feel so dirty when I read them). On the way out of the shop I saw a huge book, picture of a woman’s pout with blood dripping, I picked it up, Trueblood trilogy, (as see on HBO- means nothing to me, don’t really do tv) 17 yoyos! SOLD!

I brought my book home, a bit sheepishly showed it to my partner, I read all the Anne Rice books when I was young, I love the eroticism of the “other” but I see it as a childish indulgence so he was suprised to see me reading this. But read it I did! I have flown through the first two books, I only have a couple of pages in the third book… I highly recommend them, if you are feeling lost, bogged down in the problems in your life, tired waiting for the Visa bill. It’s total fiction, but it’s brilliant, easy to read, lots of wonderful supernatural beings! I really love it! It has been my life line over christmas. My partner is delighted when I say I need to be alone to read my book because when he sees me after that I am in great form, I’ve forgotten about my worries!

And there are loads of books in the series! I am gonna finish the third book today, I bought the Marian Keyes book and the fourth book in the series, so I am gonna read the Marian Keyes book next, my dreams need a bit of a break, I’m dreaming sexy dreams about the undead, but in my dreams the undead are my friends!!! So I need a bit of a Chick Lit period! I’m starting to believe Vampires might exist…..

I am so tired of being me…

I really, really want a night away from it all, other people I know have younger kids and theyare less tied up than I am, at twenty past ten I told the kids I needed a break…their reation was….NO NO NO! So I said to my partner, I’d like a drink…he said, you’ve had enough….. nt good

I hate Christmas

I have never, ever liked Christmas. Today I had Christmas for my partner and I and our children, which totals six between us, it has been awful, we aren’t talking. I feel like running away,but I’ve had two glasses of wine and I can’t.

Last week speaking to one of the mummy friends I said by hook or by crook I am going away next christmas, it’ll either be my partner and our son, while my other three stay with their dad, or if everything has gone tits up by then I’ll go alone.

I’m so tired of everything being a fight, I fight with my kids, I fight with my ex, I fight with my partner, yesterday I even had a disagreement with my mother over a friend of mine who she described as “lazy”, my friend has three children under the age of five! I really need a break but a break is not forthcoming. I won’t just dump my kids on my current partner and feck off, I could I suppose but I won’t. A side effect of my failed relationship of 17 years has resulted in a deep sense of insecurity and unworthiness.

I suppose the fact that I can recognise these feelings should mean that I can manage them and maybe overcome them but it doesn’t seem to work that way. I don’t want to be a victim, I don’t want to be someone who people feel sorry for, but I would like every now and again a little bit of a lift, a hand to lift me over a particularly bad patch, I don’t want to have to ask, I am really bad asking  for help, but I would like a helping hand every now and again.

Anyway, I am a total Scrooge, maybe one day I’ll feel happy and content and Christmas won’t be a terrible anti climax, until then I say Bah Humbug!

Last days

All over Ireland kids are enjoying their last day in school for 2009, while mothers of school going children are enjoying their last few hours of freedom before the “Holidays” begin!!!

If you work, if you go to school you get some holidays during the year, even if it’s only a few days, but as a mum you never get a proper holiday. We look forward to not getting up at 6.30 to dress and feed several drunk midgets, but trying to entertain them without spending every penny on the credit card is difficult.

It was different when I worked, I still had the drunk midgets to deal with, but going to work was like a little holiday, and the real holidays were novel as I wasn’t with the kids all the time.

This morning I tried to finish all the laundry and I dyed my hair, trying to do stuff I won’t get to do in the next two weeks. Now it’s slightly different for me, as I have the two babies at home so I always have someone here, but when all four of them are here it’s mad! I will be trying to have a little bit of space over the break, I’m gonna buy the Marian Keyes book, and try to read it by picking it up every now and again, I haven’t been able to read anything since baby was born in March!

Speaking of which, off I go, my littlest dictator calls!

Birthdays

My daughter is 6 on Wednesday, I can’t believe it! Six years ago I was pregnant, I had high blood pressure and was in and out of Holles street hospital, expecting my second child some time in the middle of January. I went in for my usual check up of lying in bed for a few hours to see what was going on, and the doc decided it was time for baby to come out, so after a painful quick delivery my little daughter was born, we had planned on calling her Mia, but when she was lifted up onto my belly (after she flew out, midwife said if she hadn’t caught her as quickly as she did she would have hit the wall!!!) I looked at this little soggy, steaming bundle and I said, “Hello Holly”. And that’s my little Holly Dolly, I can’t imagine her being a Mia, she is so suited to her name.

It’s lovely to write this down, you see not being with my first three children’s dad means I no longer have anyone to talk to about things like the babies births. Now when I remember the past events when he was there I have to edit him out. It’s actually quite difficult, but I have to do it. You see now I couldn’t possibly talk to him about any of those things, everyone says time is a healer and it’s over two years now and I don’t hurt as much as I did, it’s not raw anymore, that’s due to my amazingly supportive women friends, my folks and my new partner who I am convinced is a saint (or a lemming) as I zig zag between trust and distrust, hope and despair! But even though it’s not raw, it hasn’t healed over the way I’d like, I had hoped that time and distance would bring me peace, that I would feel comfortable around my ex, as you would an acquaintance, but that hasn’t happened. I find it ten times more difficult now to be around him, because we had over one and a half decades together, and now it’s like those years never happened, yet we have three children as a result? I  find it hard to belive that this man is someone I spent so long with.

I think maybe that this is what happens to some  people while still in relationships , I know men who are married for years and then they leave, sometimes they jump ship to a different woman, but sometimes they just leave. Maybe this weird sense of disconnection can happen in a relationship, you find your self looking at your partner and you feel like all the closeness and honesty between you and your partner meant nothing? Maybe that’s what happens? I am pretty sure that my ex feels like that about me, and that he did for at least a few months before he left, then again who knows.

So I had a surprise birthday tea for my daughter yesterday, I wanted just a couple of her close friends, and some of the people who had been such a great support to us all, especially this year when my youngest baby was born. I asked her dad initially, as every year since we split I have asked him, then I realised that I didn’t want him there, I wanted my family, my friends, my daughters friends, my kids and my new partner, so I uninvited him, it was awful, it hurt him a lot, but It hurts me to have him around, it hurts when one of the kids does something fabulous and my ex will say how great they are and will bask in the glory of their achievement, and I am thinking it must be great to share the joy, while I am changing stinky nappies and doing homework and practising lines for p[lays!

I wouldn’t swap though, last week I saw Holly in her christmas play, she was amazing and she didn’t take her eyes off me, I had shivers going up and down my spine and I felt so lucky to be the one there with them for all these wonderful things! Then again fifteen minutes later, when she was moaning that she was tired and I wasn’t “allowed” to talk to another mother, I wanted to run away and hide in the crib, but I suppose that’s parenthood

Time to type

I haven’t posted in ages, I don’t know why I haven’t, I suppose my life has changed a lot. I blogged a lot after my separation, and I blogged about all my feelings, good and bad, but the last year I’ve changed, having my fourth baby, weight gain, self-confidence shook, I never have anytime for me, and I am so tired talking to friends about how I feel, I suppose blogging it would just seem too boring and moaning for everyone else!

But bad news, I don’t care if anyone reads this, I just need to get it out, I need to try to work thorough the feelings I am having, looking at my life before in words helped me see things differently, helped me see the excuses I was making fro not changing things…so maybe it’ll work again.

The worst time of my day is between about 4 and six thirty on weekdays, that’s when I feel so lonely and isolated, the kids are all in full demanding role, I am attempting to cook dinner and I feel like I want to run away. So I am trying to find something to do to distract me from the doom and gloom feeling.

So I’m gonna start putting all my thoughts down in text again, I thought about finding a new place to write about how I feel but this blog was where I wrote about some of the most significant events of my life, it is really my diary of the last few years.

new me…..

I am moving, next friday,I am leaving the place I have been for nearly five years, the only home my nearly six year old knows as home, and definatley home for my two and a half year old and baby, but we are leaving next week.

This is the home where my marraige ended, where the relationship of 17 years ended, and the new relationship now of two years began….

But we so need space, space for him from my children, space for me from his…

Does God hate sex?

Ha ha! We all laugh at that don’t we… but this is a life or death question if you live in the third world… bit here, where I am in Dublin, in 2009 I  am dealing with the issues of sex, life and fidelity.

I am a woman, I am 36 years old, I have four children, three of which I had with my partner of 17 years, one of which I have with my partner of two years,  But my sexuality and my children’s paternity subjects me to “shame” people judge me, because I was married and my partner left me, I had to continue my life, taking care of my three children, I found (suprising me) a new relationship, we have a baby now, but people judge us…People think I am not sad because my husband left me, or that I in some way was unfaithful and deserved my husband leaving the marriage.

I was faithful to my partner, I was betrayed but, because I have tried to find a new life and a new love with my partner I have been faced with problems everywhere I turn, I love my new partner, I deserve faithfulness, I deserve a wonderful man who wants me, would all of my friends have been happy, if I had never found any happiness, if I had been left by my partner, and not found a man to love me? But I have found a lovely man, and he is delightful, he makes me feel so special and loved, but if I had not found love I think I would have received more support from my female friends.

Home

I really love that Newton Faulkner song, it has a lovely romantic association for me, but there is another one, and as I believe in the good with the bad, ying and yang etc here it is….

The night before my husband left me we went to see ratatouile with our two older kids, baby was with sitter, and on the way to the Cinema, after picking my husband up from work we were driving in silence apart from the kids (I suppose you’d say there was an atmosphere) and listening to Handbuilt by Robots, and the  song “Feels like Home” came on, now to me the song is a Dear John letter to a girlfriend, forgive me for I have sinned, but I’ve found love so get over it!

Now at the time that was the last thing I wanted to hear, I was working really hard on the forgive bit….which I really would never have been able to do, not in a trillion years, so at the time I felt like every bit of blood in my body froze, I remember clearly reaching my hand from the gear stick toward my husband, stroking the hairs on the back of his hand, and already feeling him shutting me out (  I think men have the ability to just close off bits of themselves emotionally) That moment will haunt me forever I suppose, it was the last time I touched my partner in love before he got up the next morning and left.

I know this is a really moaning, boring post, but I have stopped blogging cos my posts were so mealoncoly, and guess what, I didn’t feel any better keeping things in!

It’s two years since all this happened, my two year old was the same age as my baby is now when all this happened….I look at my baby and wonder how I survived.

Two years have passed, and I am in a new relationship with The evil Scientist, we have a baby (six months today), I am happy, but the happiness is always bittersweet, I wouldn’t be in my new relationship if my marraige hadn’t ended, my kids like my partners kids, but that wouldn’t be an issue if I was still a “happily” married. We are all doing alright, but again, what is alright? And nobody ever wants to be in the position I am in, everyone wants to believe in ture love, in meeting “the one” findng truth love and fidelity that lasts forever! But now, I really think that is a load of fudge and respect and tolerance, being comfortable in each others presence is what matters.

Anyway, I need to stop moaning! Next post I’ll ise my head, not my heart!

Newton is back

Newton Faulkner has a new album out,  and he is gigging here in the Academy in October! I am delighted. The song I tried to upload here is called feels like home, and it’s The Evil Scientist (my partner) and my song….I don’t know if it’s romantic but I have a lovely memory of slow dancing to this in his tiny kitchen in his apartment one Wednesday when we were getting to know each other!

Still here!

Thanks to everyone, in particular Jo who gave me a slap and told me to post today, I am fine, the docs have turned up nothing and my lumpy boobs are (one of many) side effects of the IUD I had fitted in July.

I have to keep a close eye on my boobs, but nothing sinister is afoot!

Sorry haven’t posted

I paid 55 yo yos today to have my lovely GP confirm that I have a firmness in my breast, if it’s still there in seven days I’m off to Vincents for an ultrasound…. to say I am scared would be a horrific under statement, I have four childrn, youngest is 5 months….. breasts scare me.

I love the loose….

I need say no more… other than I would leave my lovely family and join his cult…