Goodbye 2010...Wish I could say it had been nice knowing you

The year is at an end and thank goodness for that!

My nerves are shot to hell thanks to the stress of this year. Although there have been lots of highlights, it has been one big rollercoaster of emotions that were completely beyond my control. I know nothing completely devastating has happened but all those little things that build up have just made me relieveing to see the back of this year.

Highlights...
- Completed race for life
- Finished my first year of study with the Open Uni
- Celebrated mine and Mark's two year anniversary with a trip to Portugal
- Met some lovely AYMErs
- Visited an ayme friend in Gloustershire
- Passed my driving test

Lowlights...
- Yet another relapse
- Six year anniversary of being ill
- Minor breakdowns all over the place, no idea what has been up with my emotions during the latter part of this year.
- Mark just got sacked...their timing definitely stinks!

There are probably lots of things I've forgotten but at least if I can't remember it, it won't cause me stress =]

Goodbye 2010. I wish I could say it's been nice knowing you but I can't so goodbye will have to do.
So here's to the New Year! May it be a good one!

Quote of the Day: An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves ~ Bill Vaughn

It was enchanting to meet you

I intended to post this last month but as usual I'm a useless blogger! So anyway on with the story at hand. the 30th November marked the two year anniversary of mine and Mark's relationship and we celebrated by going to Bibi's, a restaurant in Leeds. It was just typical that the ground was covered in ice an inch thick so I had to wrap up warm and wear my wellies. So there we were in a fancy restaurant ordering venison and swordfish whilst wearing horrible wellies and my dress covered by a thick jumper. Despite the bad fashion statement, we had a lovely evening and Mark bought me tickets to see The Script at the O2 arena in March as a gift =D We are going to make a long weekend of it and have a day out in London too.
I doesn't seem five minutes since we first met. We are more in love than ever and I honestly can't wait until March when fingers crossed we are going to start looking for a house to buy.
Then fingers crossed Mark will ask me a certain question...here's hoping anyway =P

Now, moving on to the festive season. For once I'm actually looking forward to it. Usually I'm Bah Humbug! and I have been ever since becoming ill because I always had it in my head that it was just going to be another day of feeling rubbish. Of course the day always came and went without too much ill hassle but I still never really got excited about it. Maybe that's just an adult thing, I'm not sure. Anyway, this year I had all my christmas shopping done early, lots of wishes from friends and this will be my first proper christmas with Mark. We decorated the tree together and had a party for a few lovely AYMEr's. It was brilliant to see everyone.

(excuse the blurriness, my camera was drunk!)

It does look like it will be a beautiful day after all and hopefully my health behaves for the weekend.

I hope you all have a magical Christmas with your loved ones around you and for those who are ill, I wish you good health for the new year and lets hope Santa has put us in for a cure.

Quote of the Day: You scumbag, You maggot, You cheap lousy faggot, Happy Christmas you arse, I pray God it's our last. ~ The Pogues; Fairytale of New York...Quite frankly the best Christmas song there is!

Time to dance in the rain again

'It was time to start again. Learn to live and love again, dance in the rain instead of trying to hide my tears in it. The light was finally shining through the fog that had surrounded for so long. Smiling to herself, she started to dance'

'And sometimes it just hits you and you realise that at that very moment, you have everything you have ever dreamed of'

'Sometimes you have to lose everything just so just you can see the true beauty of your dreams'

Why is nothing ever easy?

For once I was overwhelmingly happy last night. Me and Mark had decided that we should buy a house together once his trial period at work is finished and he is secure in his job. We talked about it all. The practicality of staying close to where I work and him travelling to work because of my being ill and we even decided we would eventually get a dog. We decided that we would speak to a mortgage advisor next week to find out our options and what we could afford. With all the practical stuff out of the way, we were just excited to be taking that next step in the next year.

I don't care where we live...

So long as it's homely and safe, it would be whatever we made it

But then what did I go and do? Check all possible information on the internet late last night and from what I can work out, it's near-on impossible for me to get a mortgage when I only have Incapacity Benefit as an income and if they did give me a mortgage, the interest would be sky high. And even on a 1 bedroom flat at £80,000 we would have to pay at least £500 a month and there is just no way I could afford that without having to declare myself bankrupt!

So to say I ended up on a downer is an understatement!!

It always gets to this when something good starts to happen. Everything is always just out of reach. This is the one thing I desperately want more than I have wanted anything in a while and yet it seems that there is no way we could even afford a poxy flat without barely being able to afford food.

I'm struggling to get past it this morning after a terrible night sleep. Again I feel like this god damn illness is getting in the way of everything

I do apologise for the moaning again haha!

Quote of the Day: It's never something huge that changes everything, but instead the tiniest of details, irrevocably tweaking the balance of the universe while you're busy focusing on the bigger picture

Portugal

I've just got back from Portugal and I can't get used to how cold it is back here, even though I've only been gone a week.
Me and Mark went to a small fishing village in the Algarve called Alvor. It was a lovely place and was perfect for a relaxing break. It was so good to be away from work and just spend time with Mark. I did have a minor breakdown about feeling rubbishy and not being able to just one week of feeling normal. But other than that, we had a brilliant time and it went all too quick.
These are a few photos we took =]

Main street in Alvor

Me on an evening out

Alvor harbour at sunset

Alvor beach

Main town

poor blind kitty in one of the villages

Me and Mark

Alvor harbour

Harbour

Busy busy busy

I've been terrible at making posts on here and for the last week or so I've just been so busy and I'm exhausted. I went to Cheltenham last week to stay with a friend for a few days. It was lovely to finally meet her and we had a day out in the Cotswolds and then shopping in Cheltenham. But two long train journeys and a bus journey in 3 days has taken it out of me so I spent the weekend just taking it easy.

And then back to work yesterday. Oh the joys! I swear the kids get more ill-behaved every year. I had a kid kicking someone else in the face today after he'd thrown him on the floor! And they are 5-6 year olds would you believe?! I doubt the behaviour will get any better.
Oh and a pointless ultrasound at the hospital which showed absolutely nothing.

So there's my busy week. I'm going to see Dangerous liasons at the West Yorkshire Playhouse tomorrow with Mark so I better go get some rest.

These are a few pictures from my trip to my friends....

Lower Slaughter in the Cotswolds

Bourton-on-the-water in the Cotswolds
Me and Hannah

Quote of the Day: 'True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost' ~ Charles Colton

Carefree

I'm not feeling up to writing anything today but I'm feeling pretty carefree and have a few good days planned so these are some photos from weheartit.com that resemble my mood :D

Quote of the day: Live like there is no tomorrow

Scarecrows

I'm not up to making a decent post but here are some of the photographs I took at Kettlewell Scarecrow festival last week :)

Lewis Hamilton

I think he is supposed to be death

Fairy
Snoopy :)

Children going a-fishing

Woody

Shrek

Sunbathing

Witch and her cat

Mary, Mary, quite contrary

Quote of the day: Grow into your ideals so that life cannot rob you of them

What's with all the what if's?

I'm back finally. I would have been back days ago but I've been too busy racking my brain wondering what on earth to write about since my wonderful little world makes for pretty dull reading.

So I was listening to a song called 'What if I'm right?` by Sandi Thom (check it out on youtube) and it's basically about having the perfect partner and yet still wondering whether your doubts will be right and everything will go wrong. And it got me thinking, why do we always do that?

Just because something is perfect and we are happy, we immediately think of when the next downfall will be.

Like if you get a new job, there is always that thought that it'll be horrible and not work out...

Or deciding to have a picnic...but what if it rains?

Most people I know don't take themselves too seriously...
And yet they all still have these 'What if ?' questions for everything. They have the ability to laugh at themselves but don't have the ability to jump in to any situation feet first.

Maybe we should all just....

Dance in the rain without fear of a cold...

Ask him to marry you without fear of him saying no...

Have that dream holiday without counting every penny...

And just live on impulse for a while. Forget about the stress of life and let everything just be, even for just one day and see what a difference it makes to you.

While I was in Scotland, the sky was the clearest I've ever seen it and we just stood outside for a while in the cold just watching the stars. It was wonderful to just stand there and watch the beauty of it without thinking about anything at all. You should try it sometime :)

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Quote of the day: 'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars' ~ Oscar Wilde

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