The Clear-Out

I nearly had a panic attack the other day.

I was sifting through my inbox and  dumping all my non-important emails to' trash'. As you do. Unknownst to myself, I somehow managed to hit the 'check all items' button which, of course, did exactly what it said on the tin. I then immediately hit the 'delete' button and all my emails went to 'trash'. All of them, every last single one. Disaster!

See, I have a lot of stuff in my inbox. I have some emails I haven't even opened yet because I know roughly what's in them and like, they're important. Or they might be important. Some day.

Then I have lots of emails that I keep' just in case'. I mean you never know when I may need that information, or need to contact that person again.

Lord forbid I'd move them to 'personal' or create a folder for them.

And now for the confession, just so you realise quite how bad I am..... some of my emails in my inbox.....are you ready for this? Really? Okay, some of the emails in my inbox go back as far as 2010. There may even have been a couple from 2009!

I panicked at the thought of all my potentially important and might-some-day-in-the-far-away-future-be- important stuff  being trashed. So to speak.

Plus the fact that the reason I was going through my emails in the first place was to find one that I got from someone last year because now that information was important and I needed to contact her again. See.... it does happen!

I also panicked because I knew I'd now  have to check my 'trash' folder.

And I couldn't remember the last time I'd 'emptied trash' .

See, even though I may send emails to 'trash' I wait a while before I empty it. 'Cos I just might still need them. Ya get me?

So, in I went to 'trash' to see if I could find the desired email amongst the sea of abandoned twitter and facebook notifications.

There were a lot of abandoned emails in there. In fact it wasn't a sea, it was more of an ocean.

I eventually skimmed through to see exactly how many there were.

I had 1732 emails in my ocean of  'trash'. 1732, people!

And I wonder why my laptop is slow sometimes??

I eventually found my proverbial needle in a haystack. Thankfully I had a brainwave and searched a relatively smaller haystack instead. My 'sent' folder!

Once I overcame the initial panic I found I quite liked the new clean look of my almost empty inbox.

I kept opening it, just to admire it.

And I've kept it that way. I've only 12 in it now. Although, admittedly I still haven't emptied 'trash'. There must be 2000 in there now.


It was kind of easy in the end really.

Clearing out stuff, even if it is only an  accidental clear-out, is quite therapeutic. It can also be applied to other areas of my life, I reckon.

 I have kept all sorts of stuff in my house  'just in case' , that also needs a clear-out.. accidental or otherwise,

 My head is also a disorganised mess of memorabilia.

We won't go there though, that's best left to another day.
.
Sigh....

xx



Note: Image credit to bit.therapy.com

The Reluctant Shopping Mission

We woke up this crisp, sunny but windy Sunday morning and I sleepily wondered what we'd do today. After a very full and extremely hectic week this was Sunday, a day of rest per our Good Lord, yet I somehow got it into my head that today was the day we'd go shopping for my pre-teen's Confirmation clothes. Oh, Good Lord....

My boy DETESTS clothes shopping and believe me, I'm also a very reluctant shopper. I find it very interesting at this point to note that the auto-checker chose the word 'sniper' instead of 'shopper' in my last sentence. Remember that.

So, I played the usual battle of wits in order to extricate him from his current infatuation interest that is Minecraft and to brush his teeth so we could  take the first step in today's  ordeal  journey..... and simply leave the house!

Getting to town on the Dart was, thankfully, uneventful and we then executed the next part of my rushed carefully thought out plan. We hit my highly considered one-stop-shop, which would hopefully contain everything we needed, and went into Arnotts. The shop we went to for his Communion clothes. It worked 3 and a half years ago so it should work now. Right?

Well, 3 and a half years ago he was only 8 and now my pre-teener is all of 12 years old. Have you recently gone shopping for pre-teen and teenage boys?? The limited choices are shocking. Seriously, if I had any kind of an entrepreneurial  brain in my head I would exploit this niche in the market. And I'd expand it to include toiletry products for this totally ignored socio-economic group.

Anyway we, stupidly as it turned out, headed for the children's department to search through their limited stock for his age group. And this is where the Reluctant Shopper in me showed it's true self. Oh good God, all those rails of clothes to organize and plan a search through. Disorganized Jazzy here cannot cope with that at all. So I approached an unsuspecting salesgirl and imperceptibly turned her into my personal shopper. Good thinking, eh?

We managed to find a shirt but not trousers. Note: the ultimate aim of this foray into the sensorally challenging environment that is town was to find appropriate, yet not too casual attire, that felt 'comfty' to my very perceptive son. The Levis shirt in soft brushed cotton fit the bill and was at a very good January Sale price;-) As was another Timberland top. We bought both,  just in case like.

As we didn't find trousers we failed in the other aim of our mission, that to try on any choices as quickly as possible in order to get the hell out of there in double quick time.

That meant a further search which I limited to the same shop and we headed downstairs to the Men's Department, in the vain hope we'd find something suitable. In double-quick time. Tick Tock....

Oh God. Downstairs was a nightmare menage of multiple Men's Concession shops spread far and wide. What to do? Neither of us could cope with that at all. Tick Tock.... Suddenly I remembered one trendy shop in the many my personal shopper mentioned and we headed further downstairs, to Top Shop. And there I found me another Personal Shopper! I'm getting good at this, I thought to myself! My boy played a blinder and tried on everything whilst amusing me with some posing in front of the mirror. I don't know where he got that from, honestly!!

I am very pleased to announce that we completely finished the job in this shop and accomplished all the aims of our Reluctant Shopping Mission. In double quick time.

Until stressed out teen decided he needed to go to the bathroom. In the multi-storied Arnotts.

Dear Arnotts:Why did you  put your bathrooms in the furthest, upper-most corners of your store? And what were you thinking when you put the Men's and Women's bathrooms on different floors??? Good Lord. That was almost the straw that broke the camel's back for us two Reluctant Shoppers. Shopping is very stressful for parents and children with ASD you know. We were very close to a serious meltdown of epic proportions and you should know that I  would have held you personally responsible for the outcome. I mean, How on earth do you expect a 12 year old to survive the trauma of seeing his mother rolling on the floor screaming her head off like in that supermarket ad??? Where's that 'sniper' when you need one, eh???

Ahem.... moving swiftly on....

On to treat shopping in his favoured Game Stop shop to disappointingly find nothing of interest. Feeling very sorry for himself we headed off for yummy pizza to end our stressful, yet successful shopping trip. On the way we came across a very interesting shop that we'd never heard of before.... Games Workshop. Wow, it looked like a lot of fun, so in  we went and were given a trial run! This is live soldier/fantasy type games we're talking about here. With tiny characters you buy and paint yourself. Yeah, a real game played in real life and not on a screen. Yay! They have workshops every Sunday and this is the only store in Ireland. It is an expensive hobby though as the starter kit for the Warhammer 40,000 costs €79. My boy has found a new infatuation interest it seems.....sigh.

Eventually we made it to the restaurant and we had a lovely meal and chat. It ended with true WiiBoy humour at desert ordering time, when he read the list of non-alcoholic drinks which was listed after the desert options.  It went something like this...

WiiBoy: Look at that mum he said, giggling.

Me: What?

WiiBoy: 'Safe Sex on the Beach'....teeheehee.... I know what that means... teeheehee


Me: Really? .......(really'???....did I HAVE to say that??!)


WiiBoy: (Boy voice) I have the condom..... (Girl Voice) I have the pill...


Me: Silence....apart from splurting my wine.... everywhere!!!

Time to vacate the premises.

Oh, thank God this day is over!!

xx

Busy Times.....and an Award!

As the Christmas Holidays came to an end it was increasingly obvious that it was time to return to school. I'd exhausted all excuses to get him off screens... and he'd exhausted all excuses to avoid going for a walk or going, well, anywhere. Anything from a pain in his side, or his big toe, to being weak all over  was the usual. By the end of it all I had a pain too. In my backside!

In that vein we headed back into the mad routine of school runs, lunches, uniforms and extra-curricular activities and after just one week it's like we've never done anything else! I was a bit worried about the return to school as sadly, problems still persist. However, I think that my boy is showing his budding maturity and handling it all very well. And to top it all we ended the week really well as he had a play date with a 'new' friend AND received a certificate at weekly assembly, commending him for his hard work. Glorious words to a mother's ears......

Personally it's been a very hectic week as the return to school  coincided with lengthy auditions and call-backs for our teen school musical: Footloose! What a busy, exciting and fulfilling week it has been! We have been blown away by the huge turn-out of some very polite, helpful and talented teenagers who have made our decision-making process very difficult indeed! I will never, EVER hear a bad word said against the 'teenagers of today'. Ever!


 I see busy months and tons of multi-tasking in my immediate future, so I now take this opportunity to do some blogging multi-tasking right now! You see, the fabulously funny and entertaining Lizbeth over at Four Sea Stars has recently given me a blogging award!! It's been a while since I've gotten an award so my huge thanks to Lizbeth for tagging me with the Liebster Award, an award given to up and coming bloggers with less than 200  followers. I feel honoured 'cos I LOVE Lizbeth's blog!

 Here are the rules:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award. DONE!
2. Link back to the Blogger (or Bloggers) who awarded you.Thanks again Lizbeth!!
3. Answer the following questions.  
4. Pass the award out and victimize ten other Bloggers letting them know, of course, that you've nailed them.  Ten?? Seriously??!!

 And here are the questions to be answered:

 Favourite Colour? Yellow, the colour of sunshine and happiness. I very rarely wear it but I do love it. It doesn't necessarily suit my skin tone, nor does it match my hair colour. My highlights are blonde...NOT yellow! For years my WiiBoy called blonde hair 'yellow hair'! When he was very young he pronounced it 'Lellow'! Sooo cute!

Favourite Animal? The wonderfully graceful Deer. I also like the ever graceful swans!

Favourite Number? Seven. Or, as Len Goodman from Strictly Come Dancing might say.... SE-VEN!!


Favourite Drink? Seriously? You mean there are people out there who don't know my favourite drink? Eh..... WINE! And the colour of it don't matter too much either ;-)

Facebook or Twitter? Ooh, now this is tricky. I have many friends on both and I love both for different reasons. Can I plead the 5th on this?? On the grounds that I may seriously incriminate myself and be 'unfollowed' and 'unliked' in droves?? You wouldn't wish that on me, now would you? Especially with me having a BIG birthday looming??

Moving swiftly on....

My Passion? Dance, shows and instilling the love of live musical theatre on the younger generation to keep this genre ALIVE. I've also been known to get passionate about Special Needs and Autism...and about Special Needs Assistants in particular. Oh, and don't get me started on current affairs and the State of our nation!! Guess I'm a multi-faceted, multi-tasking mad and almost pentagenarian woman!!


Giving or Getting Presents? Well, I DO like to give presents. I really like it when I've made the right choice for someone and given them something that I know they'll love. Of course, I really, REALLY like receiving them too. Did I mention that I have a BIG birthday looming????


Favourite Day? Friday. I've always loved Fridays as they herald the end of the working week. Not that it matters now that I'm a SAHM! But now I have FB (facebook) Friday to look forward to ;-) And that's one reason I can't choose between facebook and twitter!! Both do very good Friday nights ;-)

Favourite Flower? Lillies. Beautiful, graceful flowers with a gorgeous scent. Of course I love ANY flowers I'm given as it doesn't happen too often!

 And now it's my turn to pass this lovely award on to some lovely bloggers. here goes...

1. The fabulous Looking for Blue Sky who's writing I adore. She's also my blogger and real life pal who also happens to have a BIG birthday looming this year!
2. The lovely and very interesting Midlife Singlemum who writes an intriguing blog and who also happens to have a BIG birthday looming this year!
3. The lovely Di who tells her story in an up-beat and bubbly manner over at The Bright Side of Life.
4. The also lovely Deb over at Aspie in the family who writes some very interesting and important posts.
5. The fascinating Emma who has moved from Scandinavian Sojourn to Bavarian Sojourn and intrigues us withe her tales!

I look forward to your responses if you choose to do it....absolutely no worries or pressure if you choose not to!

As I've said I have an extremely busy couple of months ahead of me, so my blogging activity will be somewhat curtailed. l will try to visit you all as much as I can and there may be quite a few Wordless Wednesdays and Silent Sunday posts from me in the meantime! Please don't forget me.... I haven't gone away for good you know ;-)

xx

Wordless Wednesday: Darn that Pretty Cat....

xx

The #50club....

This week my son and I had a lovely day out,  in a very cold, blustery Dublin Zoo, with Looking For Blue Sky and her son,. Later on we got to talking and the subject of our forthcoming 50th birthdays this year came up. We both thought that there seemed to be quite a lot of people in the same boat as us and wondered if we should try to organise something?

I then wrote my New Regime..... or Middle Aged Meltdown  post as it had been in my head to do, and I just casually threw in about the big birthday.... to see if  anyone would bite! Midlife Singlemum was straight in there (in the comments section) mentioning a possible #50club, which raised an immediate Oh YES from me and the same from others, when posted on twitter! Looking for Blue Sky started some recruiting and there would appear to be some interest!

1962 was a very special year it seems!

We are in good company you know, with Bon Jovie, Sheryl Crow and Jody Foster also celebrating their 50ths.

In Ireland we have Pauline McLynn, Anne Enright, Ray Houghton, Tony Cascarino, Eddie Hobbs, Dan Boyle and Cyprian Brady among others also celebrating!

Even our National broadcaster, RTE, is joining in with their 50th anniversary this year!

In good company indeed!

So, what are we going to do about it?

I mean, turning 50 is a big thing you know. It can be scary.... traumatic even, some may claim! I reckon we can either bury our heads in the sand or get ourselves out there and celebrate. In style!

Blue Sky and I think we might become leading pioneers and start a #50club and see who wants to join us in our celebrations! We will share it on our blogs, on twitter and facebook and see what happens. Maybe a meet up? A virtual party? Both?

Maybe we'll even have badges to sport: in real life and/or on our various profiles?!

Whatever happens there's bound to be lots of wine. There may even be champagne!

 If you're interested leave us a comment below with your birthday date, where you're from and suggestions!

 Let us start the ball rolling....

My birthday will be Feb 14th

Blue Sky's is June 20th and we're both in Dublin.

So, you wanna be in our gang??!!

Look forward to hearing from you, if so!!

Let's show 'em how it's done ;-)

xx

 

New Regime..... or Middle-Aged Meltdown?

Okay, so here we are at the start of another New Year and Jazzy here feels like making some changes.

Not resolutions, you understand. Dear God no. Resolutions are only made to be broken so I am NOT making any New Years' Resolutions. Instead I'm making some positive life-enhancing changes. That I'll stick to. This time.

Stoppit, no laughing now... you hear?!!

A girl doesn't stay the same age forever you know so she has to take some steps, to take control you see. Besides, the month of December has been a month of over-indulging and it's now time for reparation.

Step 1

This new Jazzy is cutting back on food and alcohol intake. Jazzy doesn't do 'diets' either. Instead, she is now going to take control of intake and portion sizes;-)

In fairness, I have done very well in this area from September to early December and after recent health checks it seems my cholesterol is high so this is a necessary positive life-enhancing change!

Step 2

I'm embarking on a healthy regime of food supplements to help reduce my cholesterol and to help support pulmonary/respiratory function (in addition to inhaler.) I'm also taking multi-vitamins and Vitamin C. My infamous cough from hell may, to put it simply.... GO TO HELL! Finally.

Unlike previous occasions these supplements will be taken daily, EVERY day and my medicine cabinet will NOT contain half-used out-of-date capsule containers, that end up in the bin!

Step 3

As I have a very busy start to the New Year with our involvement in a local school musical (ooh, I'm SO excited to be teaching dancing again!) I have reason to implement my next step. That of being more organised. In this regard I have started making entries into my Diary. Not just upcoming appointments etc but daily to-do-lists.

This WILL be adhered to, to keep me on track and to reduce stress. It doesn't matter if I don't complete my schedule each day (like today...oops!) it will help prioritise and ensure it gets done the next day. Or the day after! Well, that's an improvement in not getting it done at all!

I may even get all high hi-tech and use my iTouch calender App!! Doh....

Step 4

Be in bed by midnight at the latest. Mid-week nights, at least! Eeeek...would ya look at the time? Better get me skates on and finish this post!

Step 5

Stay positive, banish all stress inducing thoughts. Easier said than done at times!

Step 6

Have fun and don't get too bogged down by ANY of the above;-)

Already off to a good start by celebrating getting this written with a cup of hot chocolate! Well, a girl's gotta get her daily calcium somehow! Skimmed, of course and better than having a mid-week glass of wine ;-)

It feels good to be in control and to make such  positive changes. It's important to me right now it seems, as I face a big birthday next month. It is quickly becoming very scary to be facing turning 50. Good God, how on earth did that happen? Not only that but I will also be taking early retirement at the same time, so I'll officially be a pe..... a pen ...a pensi... a.... a..... no,...  sorry, can't say it. Won't say it. Won't BE it!

I'm far too young, with WAY too much energy for that!

No, I'll survive this by taking control, being positive and by celebrating!! Only way I know how to do it ;-)

It's only day 3 of this new regime and God knows how long I'll last BUT, if I stick to it and keep up the exercise and dancing I hope to be able to do this when I'M 70......

In WAY cooler heels....



xx