Fabulous Friday Five for February

As February draws to a close, I took a little time to reflect on the last few weeks. It’s been tough – I’ve been in hospital, the cat is ill and required an enormous amount of vet treatment that I couldn’t afford and we found out that we are going to have to move again after only six months of living in our new house. However, February has also been a positive month, particularly in my little blogging endeavours, so I thought I would take the opportunity to share the five things that have been fabulous.

1. Suzie81 received it’s 100,000th view a week ago. This in itself was a monumental achievement and it exceeded any expectations that I had when i started this blog 10 months ago. I decided to bite the bullet and share a few of my posts with my friends on Facebook, most of whom had no idea that I actually had a blog to begin with. They shared one of my posts – ‘Why Being a Stay at Home Parent is the Toughest Job in the World…’ which was viewed several thousand times and ended up being featured on ‘Mumsnet,’ which was amazing! Since then I decided to share one of my older posts, ‘How To Know When You’re a Teacher’ and it has been picked up and shared over 3,000 times, giving me and extra 20,000 views in the last week. It’s still going – I have been boring The Bloke to death with daily updates and I have become a stat obsessive, checking it at least ten times a day. It’s so exciting!!! Every morning I wake up with this facial expression…

I’d also like to say a massive ‘thank you’ for all the lovely awards that I have been given over the last month, but more on that in a future post.

2. My school underwent a very tough and intense OFSTED. I was seen by one of the inspectors and was awarded an ‘Outstanding.’ This was the third one that I have been given in a row and as a ‘well done’ The Bloke gave me a beautiful Pandora bracelet to celebrate – I’m spoilt rotten!

3. I have been reminded yet again what amazing family and friends that I have. When I was taken to hospital my mum and sister drove half-way down the country to be with me, some of my friends came to visit me, my work colleagues sent me a beautiful bunch of flowers, and my mum spent the weekend at my house after I was discharged. During my recovery I have been inundated with messages asking how I am, with offers of support if I need anything. When I found out about the house move my friends offered to lend me money and help me move. I’m extremely blessed and once I get all this stress out of the way I am determined to show them how grateful I am and how much they mean to me.

4. The housemove has meant that I have been able to get myself a little more organised – I have been able to be ruthless and give lots of books, CD’s and clothes to my local charity shop. I received a letter from them to tell me that my stuff has raised £50 so far, so this gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.

5. And finally, I have been really pleased to see the fantastic response to the campaign to help Merbear, a fellow blogger, who suffers from Fibromyalgia and is a risk of losing her house. After reading a heartbreaking post by the lovely Merbear, who I have only had the pleasure of meeting recently, Zoe started a donation fund to highlight her plight. After only a few days she has managed to raise over $1,100, which is just unbelievable. If you can, please share her story – let’s get everybody involved! If you wish to donate, simply click here – no amount is too small! It has restored a little faith in humanity for me, and proved that the blogging world is one of the most supportive that I have ever had the pleasure to be part of.