Weekend Tasklist What Got Done

Posted on February 10, 2014 by nicdempsey

This weekend goes down as the weekend that nothing in the house got done! You could choose to see that as failure but I don’t. Having a clean and organised house is lovely and important but this weekend, I spent time with my mum and my nephew. We had Oli on Saturday overnight. Babysitting Oli has been a little bit traumatic for him and us recently, he’s an only child and used to the attention of his parents and he doesn’t like change so he’s been very upset when Grandma and Aunty Nic come to the house and his parents leave, without him. This weekend he was delightful and it feels like major progress. This week I’m going to have to do a bit more housework when I get home from work but it’s a small price to pay for hearing Oli tell me that he and I are friends!

Kitchen

  • General clean (sort out the recycling and rubbish, sweep floor) This gets done tonight in time for the Tuesday rubbish pick up!

20140122-110009.jpg

Cooking

  • Food prep for next week. This I did get done, come on, I’m always going to prioritize food and sleep!

Bathroom

  • General clean (sweep floor, change towels, empty bin, clean bath, sink and toilet). Towels were changed but that and scrubbing the toilet is all I did. Bathroom will get a proper clean on Tuesday night. 

DSCF4039

Bedroom

  • General clean (sweep floor, change bed). Nope nothing done, a task for this evening.

20140122-110042.jpg

Living Room

  • General clean (tidy sofa, put things away etc). Fortunately, I’ve hardly been in the living room so it’s pretty tidy and can go another week.

DSCF4231

Hall

  • Hoover – Not done, needs doing, not likely to get done until next week – I hate hoovering!

DSCF4101

General things

  • Shopping
  • Washing (clothes wash, white wash, towel wash)
  • Ironing
  • Wash make up brushes
  • Water plants
  • Back up laptop
  • Charge kindle, ipad and camera batteries
  • Handwashing

Posted in Home, How I Live | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Weekend

Posted on February 10, 2014 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday people! Ready to tackle this bright and shiny week? No, can say I am either but the week is here whether we’re feeling up to it or not!

My weekend was tiring but fun, Oli was delightful, which we honestly weren’t expecting but with 4 year olds, you take what you can get! He’s also at the stage where he’s starting to try and tell jokes and not quite succeeding but is always absolutely delighted when he makes you laugh. We played lots of games, made jelly, went shopping, (Oli scanned the shopping!). He did have moments of being ‘sad’ but we didn’t have hours and hours of crying!

20140210-083300.jpg

20140210-094329.jpg

There was pizza for dinner, with vegetables for the grown ups

20140210-094336.jpg

 

and just ham and cheese for the boy.

 

20140210-094344.jpg

 

I got to watch Match of the Day, which much to my surprise is the biggest thing that I miss about having a TV! Oli played on the iPad a lot, it’s my secret auntie weapon!

20140210-094403.jpg

 

20140210-094429.jpg

 

Then on Sunday, Ben and Laura came home and Ma and I headed out.

20140210-094418.jpg

 

This week is going to be about surviving the second tube strike, getting some work stuff out of the way so I can go on holiday at the end of the month with a clear conscience and doing all of the things at home that didn’t get done this weekend!

How was your weekend? What are your plans for the week?

 

Posted in How I Live | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Weekend Tasklist

Posted on February 8, 2014 by nicdempsey

Ok, you know the drill. Below is a list of things I hope to accomplish this weekend. If you read these posts every week, you’ll notice that the list is much shorter this weekend because I’m spending most of it babysitting the nephew, while his parents get some time together without him. Oli isn’t happy about this. He’s told my brother that he “doesn’t want Grandma and Aunty Nic to look after him”. Life is hard when you’re 4!

20131102-213254.jpg

Kitchen

  • General clean (sort out the recycling and rubbish, sweep floor)

20140122-110009.jpg

Cooking

  • Food prep for next week.

Bathroom

  • General clean (sweep floor, change towels, empty bin, clean bath, sink and toilet)

DSCF4039

Bedroom

  • General clean (sweep floor, change bed)

20140122-110042.jpg

Living Room

  • General clean (tidy sofa, put things away etc)

DSCF4231

Hall

  • Hoover

DSCF4101

General things

  • Shopping
  • Washing (clothes wash, white wash, towel wash)
  • Ironing
  • Wash make up brushes
  • Water plants
  • Back up laptop
  • Charge kindle, ipad and camera batteries
  • Handwashing

What are you crossing of the list this weekend?

Posted in Home, How I Live | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Friday Links

Posted on February 7, 2014 by nicdempsey

Hello Friday, good to see you, it feels like a long time since we’ve seen you. Honestly people, it’s a been an arse of a week. What with the ever present rain, the Tube strike and other general shenanigans. Let’s hope the rest of February improves or by the end of it you’ll find me huddled in a corner, whimpering! Not many links this week because frankly, I haven’t had the energy…

1) How councils are cutting waiting lists. Heaven forbid they should do anything as straightforward as house people.

2) This is why we need to be very careful about banning late abortions. I think it also points out how difficult the decision is, the issues around pregnancy and terminations are hardly ever black and white and I feel that if both sides could see that we’d be kinder to one another.

3) FMG in the UK. An issue that we should start to see in black and white. Cutting up little girls is against the law, if you do that to your children, you should go to prison. Seriously against the law since 1985 and no convictions?

4) Jack Monroe has a cook book out at the end of the month. I’m a big fan of what she does and she’s a more creative cook than I am. So glad that things are working out for her. This is clearly from the book.

5) I wrote earlier on this week about how addiction affects the children of addicts (well my experience of it.), Russell Brand, writes from the other side of that experience, as an addict. Worth reading.

Posted in Links | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Choices

Posted on February 5, 2014 by nicdempsey

There are a number of things I can be cross/grumpy/miserable about today.

The 2 hour journey into work. The three trains I couldn’t get on to this morning. The pain in my feet and knees caused by my arthritic feet and the almost constant rain. The almost constant rain. Today’s tube strike. The continual freezing temperatures of the office. The fact that my freshly painted nails have chipped already (it’s always the middle finger of my left hand, what do I do with that finger?). The list is endless.

20140127-092247.jpg

Honestly, I can’t be bothered. It’s exhausting being miserable.

So today, I’m going to chose to concentrate on the good. I have a job to go to. People on the train were nice about being squashed up against one another. I need to walk more to keep my feet flexible and I got a 30 minute walk into work and it didn’t rain. I live in a country where workers (at least some of them) have the right to strike. I have clothes to keep me warm. Chipped nail varnish can be repaired. This list is endless too.

20140203-082304.jpg

 

Having said all that, I am really tired so this is all I’ve got!

How are you going to stay cheerful today?

Posted in How I Live | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Stuffed Mushrooms

Posted on February 4, 2014 by nicdempsey

Leftovers, I’m very fond of leftovers. Our Boxing Day breakfast is made up of leftovers (it’s not as grand as it sounds, it’s cold roast beef and yorkshire puddings – the breakfast of champions!)

But leftovers, save me from my biggest kitchen sin, cooking too much food. I’ve tried, I’ve really tried but I naturally cook for 2 to 3 people and as there is only one of me and even though I’m quite very greedy, there are often leftovers. A lot of them get packed up for lunch, but sometimes they get turned into something else entirely.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

These mushrooms started off as the leftover lentils from the Vegetarian Cottage Pie, which I stuffed into some mushrooms. I love mushrooms, there are always mushrooms in my fridge and sometimes they make it into my cooking, mostly they just go straight from the fridge to my mouth, there are worse snack habits to have! Anyway, I took the mushrooms and stuffed them with the  lentils, added some cheese and threw in the oven.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Dinner was served 25 minutes later and was delicious.

Posted in Cooking, Food | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Weekend Tasklist – What got done

Posted on February 3, 2014 by nicdempsey

Ok, this is going up Monday night because I got sidetracked into a post about addiction and fathers and worthiness. So let’s see what I crossed off.

Kitchen

  • General clean (sort out the recycling and rubbish, mopping the floor and general cleaning)
  • Sort out the picture wall – At least, I need to fill the empty frames on the wall! 

20140122-110009.jpg

Cooking

  • Food prep for next week.
  • Make marmalade, it’s time and I have no marmalade in the house!
  • Cook some freezer meals for Kathy and Adam

Bathroom

  • General clean (mop floor, change towels, empty bin, clean bath, sink and toilet)

DSCF4039

Bedroom

  • General clean (sweep floor, change bed, dust, general tidy)

20140122-110042.jpg

Living Room

  • General clean (sweep floor, dust, tidy sofa, put things away etc)

DSCF4231

Hall

  • Hoover

DSCF4101

General things

  • Shopping
  • Washing (clothes wash, white wash, towel wash)
  • Ironing
  • Wash make up brushes
  • Wash hair brushes
  • Water plants
  • Back up laptop
  • Charge kindle, ipad and camera batteries
  • Handwashing

Pretty good I think! As ever when I’m crunched for time, I won’t hoover, so that didn’t get done but really needs to! The marmalade didn’t get made because there were no seville oranges in Sainsburys so I crossed it off the list. I did get the empty frames on the kitchen wall filled in but didn’t add the others.  I’ll get to that at some point this month!

How did you do this weekend?

Posted in Home, How I Live | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Death, addiction and damage

Posted on February 3, 2014 by nicdempsey

On Sunday, Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead. With a needle in his arm and bags of what is currently thought to be heroine. On the radio this morning Ken Stott, said that he was convinced it was death by misadventure, “he adored his wife”.

This post isn’t really about Philip Seymour Hoffman and his struggle with addiction, it’s about what I feel about growing up with someone that couldn’t control an addiction.

Addicts have to decide everyday whether they need to get high or drunk more than they want other things. Drugs or living. Getting high or being with their family.

I don’t say that lightly and I don’t say it with blame. The heartbreaking tragedy of addiction is that it really is that simple and that complicated. Ultimately, addicts wrestle with addiction alone, if the wishes of others had the power to change the compulsion, it would be easier for them to stay clean but the decision about whether to resist or give in belongs only with the addict. I’ve been on the sidelines and what you can do is limited.

I’ve written about my Dad before (here and here) and he’d have met the AA definition of an alcoholic, whether he was or not is still open for debate. What I do I know is that my Dad loved me but I grew up in the sure certainty that he loved his next pint more.

A wise friend of mine, talks about the stories we learn about ourselves and how they shape us and what we do next. The story that I learnt growing up with a father like mine, was that I was worthless.

As an adult, I know that my father’s behaviour wasn’t my fault. It doesn’t change the feeling, I had that if I had been a better daughter, he wouldn’t have behaved like that. My father drunk and smoked his way to an early grave, if he cared how his behaviour hurt his family, I didn’t know it. The hard truth is that he didn’t love me or us or anyone enough to stop.

That feeling of worthlessness runs through my life. It kept me in damaging relationships, it made and sometimes still does make me needy. Everyday, there’s a voice in the back of my head that tells me I’m not good enough, clever enough, pretty enough, committed enough. It makes me scared to try because I’ll only fail. Nowadays, I manage to keep that voice to a dull roar, I tell myself different stories.

Sometimes I want to fill the huge hole that feeling creates in me with something, anything that will make me feel better. I’ve learnt not to drink when I feel like that.

I don’t know if addiction is a disease, I do know that it runs in families.

So this morning, upon hearing how much a man loved his wife, the story I heard, was that love wasn’t enough to prevent the tragic death of a talented man. I wish he could have found a different story.

Posted in Random | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The Weekend

Posted on February 3, 2014 by nicdempsey

Welcome to a new week and a new month.

This weekend was lovely, mostly because for what feels like the first time in forever, there was no rain. I can’t tell you how lovely that was.

20140203-082304.jpg

 

The rest of the weekend was pretty much as normal.  There was pizza on Friday.

20140203-082234.jpg

 

There was cooking for the freezer, homemade ready meals are brilliant.

20140203-082245.jpg

 

There was also a tasty, meat heavy Sunday morning breakfast!

 

20140203-082256.jpg

 

Not captured with my camera was the housework, the reading and the time spent at Kathy and Adam’s.

Plans for this week include mentally fortifying myself for a weekend of nephew watching and seeing Simon Russell Beale talk about being in King Lear at the National Theatre. It’s going to be a good week!

 

Posted in How I Live | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Weekend Tasklist

Posted on February 1, 2014 by nicdempsey

It’s Saturday morning, which means that’s it’s time to talk housework! The tasks this weekend are pretty straight forward. I have a little more cooking that I want to do, but that’s more for pleasure and helping out friends through the first couple of weeks of post adoption mayhem (new parents need easy food!)

Kitchen

  • General clean (sort out the recycling and rubbish, mopping the floor and general cleaning)
  • Sort out the picture wall – At least, I need to fill the empty frames on the wall!

20140122-110009.jpg

Cooking

  • Food prep for next week.
  • Make marmalade, it’s time and I have no marmalade in the house!
  • Cook some freezer meals for Kathy and Adam

Bathroom

  • General clean (mop floor, change towels, empty bin, clean bath, sink and toilet)

DSCF4039

Bedroom

  • General clean (sweep floor, change bed, dust, general tidy)

20140122-110042.jpg

Living Room

  • General clean (sweep floor, dust, tidy sofa, put things away etc)

DSCF4231

Hall

  • Hoover

DSCF4101

General things

  • Shopping
  • Washing (clothes wash, white wash, towel wash)
  • Ironing
  • Wash make up brushes
  • Wash hair brushes
  • Water plants
  • Back up laptop
  • Charge kindle, ipad and camera batteries
  • Handwashing

What are you crossing of the list this weekend?

Posted in Home, How I Live | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment