Throwback Thursday: Things People Say and What They Really Mean

image1. I’ll be there in twenty minutes: I still haven’t got dressed and can’t find my handbag.

2. I’ll be there as soon as I can, I’m still waiting for a taxi: See number 1.

3. It’s not really my style, but I’m sure it would look good on you: I hate that outfit.

4. Well, if that’s your decision then I’ll support you: I totally disagree with your decision but I’m not going to say anything.

5. Do you think I’m overreacting?: I don’t care whether you think I’m overreacting, I expect you to agree with me.

6. As long as he makes you happy: I think he’s a douchebag. Continue reading

Twenty-One Things That Make Me Happy

It’s been all doom and gloom here lately, so I thought I would take the opportunity to adopt my inner Monty Python, look on the bright side of life and think about the things that make me happy:

1. Running. I haven’t been for a while, but I always enjoy being able to run around the park with some sort of heavy metal music blasting in my ears.

2. Surprise gestures. Lots of people I know dislike surprises, but I love them – I often receive little surprises from my nearest and dearest and they always make my day!

3. Spontaneity. An unplanned evening often turns out to the most interesting. Continue reading

Suzie Speaks Summer Blog Party!

imageIt has been quite a while since I last hosted a blog party, and I absolutely love them! It’s the beginning of summer, and for me its the beginning of a new chapter, so I’m determined to celebrate in style! For those of you that have never participated in one before, the rules are simple:

1. Choose your favourite post from your own blog. The subject of the post can be anything you like – blogging, food, parenting, life, travel, thoughts, photography… Note: This should be only one post at a time or it will get sent straight to the ‘spam’ folder and I may not be able to find you for a while. You can share up to three links, and for maximum impact I would suggest that you wait a little while in between posting them rather than in one go. Continue reading

Waiting…

imageI’m feeling really anxious today, but can’t put my finger on the reason why. I’ve been awake since 5.00am, and since then I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that I should be doing something. I’ve been for a run, I’ve continued in yesterday’s house blitz and I’ve bought something nice for dinner later. However, it hasn’t helped.

It’s been an odd time – the students now know that I’m going, I’ve taught my last ever lesson as a classroom teacher, my final coursework folder is almost finished, my data is complete and from tomorrow I have just three days of activities with my form left in the academic year. Continue reading

A Temporary Domestic Goddess

imageCleaning is something I have always been bad at. It isn’t that I can’t or don’t know how to do it – I was taught how to cook, clean and sew from an early age – it’s simply that I don’t want to. Well, that isn’t totally true – I keep myself, the cats and my clothes clean, but when it comes to daily organisation I am distinctly lethargic.

I’ve always been this way. I think it stems from watching my mother obsessively clean the house on a daily basis – she was desperately unhappy for most of our childhood, using cleaning as a way of having some sort of control in our household, and would often spend her cleaning sessions shouting at us to do various chores, which she would then do inevitably again after we had finished because we hadn’t done it properly. Cleaning was always a negative experience, and this mentality has followed me into adulthood. Continue reading

Me, Myself and I

imageI’ve been in a bit of a blogging funk recently and admittedly quickly running out of ideas. However, I saw this great post by the lovely Sare over at Diary of a Teacherholic, and despite the fact that it is supposed to be part of a tagged post, I thought I would join in and answer the same questions myself… After all, who doesn’t enjoy talking about themselves first thing in the morning?

1. If you could go back in time and change one decision you’ve made, what would it be?

There are lots of decisions I wish I could go back and change, but all of those decisions have led to this point in my life, which I am happy with, so given the opportunity I would probably do everything in the same way. However, the decision to start smoking is one I have always regretted – I’ve wasted thousands of pounds and now have the lung capacity of a small asthmatic child. Continue reading

If We Were Having Coffee #9

imageIf we were having coffee, I would begin with an apology. For the last seven consecutive days I have been in work, completing two major orchestra rehearsals and a concert, sports day, Immersion Day, staff training day and then all-day rehearsals on Saturday and Sunday for the musical production that we are putting on all of next week. My routine has been predominantly work/sleep/work/sleep, and the blog, my house and my general life is in a state of temporary disarray. Comments have yet to be approved and replied to, I’ve read virtually nothing, and my stats are at their lowest since November 2014. Just bear with me… Continue reading

If We Were Having Coffee #8

imageIf were having coffee, I would tell you that with it being Father’s Day, every area of my social media is littered with messages of love and photographs of the special men in my friend’s lives. I haven’t acknowledged this particular day in a long time. My father is very much alive, but I haven’t had any contact with him in about thirteen years, a decision that I have never regretted. I am conscious of the fact that The Bloke, my mother and many of our friends are remembering the father’s that are no longer with us and are dearly missed. However, I am thinking of my wonderful grandfather, who was one of the most wonderful men I have ever known. For those of you with amazing fathers, and for those with beautiful memories, I’m thinking of you.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I have just been ‘up North’ for my sister’s birthday. We went to the same place that we took our mother to for Mother’s Day, 47 King Street West, for a champagne afternoon tea and cocktails. Like the last time we visited, the food was beautiful and we all had a nice time chatting and catching up. However, as we consumed more and more alcohol, the conversation became a little more raucous than it was when we started, and very soon the pictures we were taking went from this:

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To this:

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Gorgeous.

It was fun, but by my fourth Amaretto Sours I was beginning to feel a little bit worse for wear (I’m such a lightweight). My brother-in-law picked us up, which was really nice of him as he had been feeling quite ill recently, and I felt truly sorry for him when my sister and mother decided to crank up the music and sing “Ain’t No Moutain High Enough” so loudly that passengers in other cars started to join in.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that on Thursday I received an email from a colleague at work, requesting food donations and cleaning products for one of our families who are really struggling. After spending the last few weeks throwing myself a pity party, I felt completely ashamed of myself, particularly about complaining about spending some of my savings on vets bills for Daisy, the Dream Killer. Yes, I could have done without it, but when I looked at everything I have, I’ve got nothing to complain about – The Bloke and I aren’t rich by any means, but we don’t want for anything, often frittering our money away on things that we don’t need. We’re lucky, and we live a charmed life.

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After work, The Bloke and I had a chat about it and decided to do something. We set ourselves a budget, went to our local supermarkets and bought enough (hopefully) to last for the next two weeks for a small family. As we were walking round, it was a humbling experience when I realised that there were so many things that I take for granted when I am buying them. I don’t even bother to look at prices sometimes – I know what I like and I go and get it. When we added everything up at the end, we realised that we had spent more on a meal the other week with some friends. In fact, I spent more on my phone bill last month.

It’s inspired me further, and it got me thinking about making a difference on a wider scale and all of the local school children who won’t be eating well over the holidays because they will be unable to get a hot meal at school. My tutor group and I are going to set up a collection over the next month where we are going to ask the rest of the school to donate one thing each, and then The Bloke and I will drop it off at our local food bank before the end of term. I worked out that with nearly 1000 students and 150 staff in the school, we should be able to do something great.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I am going to be spending this evening catching up on Season 7 of Castle. It’s one of my favourite TV shows of all time and I was devastated at the cliffhanger at the end of Season 6… No spoilers please!!

And finally, if we were having coffee, I would tell you that I am now on Instagram – you can find me at http://www.instagram.com/suzie81speaks

What about you guys? What would we talk about if we were having coffee?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog, and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks and my Pinterest page http://www.pinterest.com/suzie81speaks

 

One Step Forward, Three Steps Back

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I saw this on Facebook this morning – perfect.

I went to the pub yesterday after work to meet my friend. It has been a challenging time for her – after ending her relationship of eleven years she has had to move house and adjust to living on her own for the first time since she moved to Birmingham in 2001. Understandably, she’s been through the whole spectrum of emotions, but yesterday I noticed that there was a slight change in her – it was the first time that she hadn’t mentioned her ex and she seemed much more settled. Just before we parted ways to go home, I recalled a conversation that we had just after the break-up, where she said that she wished she could use a time machine to skip ahead by six months just so she wouldn’t have to go through the process of changing her life. Six months later, she’s at the point where she wanted to be – she’s established in her new home, she’s enjoying her own company and she has reached a point where she doesn’t think about her ex every day. I’m proud of her – she’s been so strong and I’m glad everything is beginning to work out. She deserves it.

I can totally relate to her sentiments all those months ago. I want a time machine too.

I have just six weeks left until I leave my job. I have a plan for how I want my new life to be, but it seems that every time I take a step forward something intervenes and pushes me three steps backwards. While I often live life by the proverbial seat of my pants, being far too disorganised to plan effectively in the way that others appear to do, I have had to ensure that my decision to quit a permanent, full-time post will not have a financially devastating impact on the life that The Bloke and I live. I’ve saved every penny I can and have been living off as little as possible, I booked meetings with important people who are offering me exciting employment opportunities and I finally started to see a small light at the end of the tunnel. The Bloke and I have even started saving up for our first holiday in five years. Normally, because of my contracted hours, we have always had to plan any trips during the school holidays as I am not allowed time off during term-time, but we realised that we wouldn’t have the same restriction this year. We decided that we were going to get a package deal to somewhere in Europe in September – it’s much cheaper and there would be no children around as they would be at school, and we found an offer for the beautiful Greek island of Kefalonia (watch Captain Corelli’s Mandolin to see just how stunning it is).

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Daisy, The Dream Killer

However, this week has been a continuous battle. The meetings that were booked weeks ago were cancelled, my workload has been utterly ridiculous due to the fact that it is exam season, all of the coursework has to be finished and we have two major performances (including a musical theatre production) that happen within a week of each other. To add the icing on the cake, my cat, Daisy (who will now be referred to as ‘Daisy, The Dream Killer’) needed emergency dental surgery, taking a portion of my savings – essentially the money we had put away for the holiday, so now we have to start again. Consequently, the anxiety, panic and insomnia has returned and I went into what I consider to be ‘survival mode,’ getting through each day an hour at a time instead of looking at the big picture. I’ve breathed a sigh of relief as I’ve walked through the front door to my home every evening, and congratulated myself for making it through the day. My saving grace is normally the blog, but there has been no time to even look at it aside from a quick post at the beginning of the week, never mind contribute a post or reply to comments, and worse still, I’ve been that stressed out that I didn’t even notice. It was only when I received a few messages from some lovely bloggy friends that I realised just how much I needed to catch up on (thanks, by the way).

I want it to be over. It’s only six weeks, but it seems like an absolute lifetime away.

My friend provided the biggest inspiration yesterday. It’s still going to be a tough road ahead, but she’s proof that every small victory is one step closer to winning that war. Daisy has made a swift recovery and has now resumed her daily routine of sleeping, eating and sleeping some more. I still have several pay checks yet to contribute towards my savings. I will re-schedule the meetings. The next few weeks will be stressful, but it is just weeks – it’s isn’t as if I have to wait months, or years for my new life.

And when I’m sitting on a beautiful beach in September, I know the fight will be worth it.

What about you guys? How has your week been?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog and you can also find me on my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks and Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/suzie81speaks

Accepting Average

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Six weeks ago a friend and I were walking down the main high street in Birmingham, when we were stopped by someone who was promoting a new photography studio that had just opened in the city. After a conversation, we came to a deal that involved a makeover and photography day for us both, complete with champagne and various treatments at an enormous discount. Since then, we’ve had the date firmly booked into our calendars and we’ve been looking forward to it.

Until today, that is.

The shoot is tomorrow. It is rare that I will discuss issues of body confidence unless it focuses on the positive, but today I had to choose a series of outfits to take with me, and the whole process left me feeling totally deflated.

I’m not fashionable or fashion conscious, and never have been. I prefer to spend my time in sweaters and tracksuits bottoms in my spare time, my hair is scraped back on the top of my head and the last time I put any effort into applying make up was in March for my friend’s birthday. My reflection in the mirror today was quite a sorry state – my hair hasn’t been cut for about two years, I have never had a manicure and my eyebrows are beginning to take over my face.

On an average day, this doesn’t necessarily bother me – I have a busy and often stressful life and have better things to worry about than whether my nails are painted. I tell myself that I’m an average woman and I am comfortable with that. However, the process of getting ready today reminded me of how many beautiful clothes I can no longer fit into – my favourite dresses won’t go past my thighs, jackets won’t fit on my arms, and once baggy tops are now tight, revealing the gut that has steadily appeared over the last five years.

It has served as a reminder of just how much I have let myself go. Having to stand in fromt of a camera tomorrow (even when there is champagne involved) is one of the most daunting things I have experienced in a while. It has made me realise that I’m accepting average, and I deserve far more than that.

What about you – do you like what you see in your reflection? Are you open about body confidence issues with your loved ones?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks and Pinterest page http://www.pinterest.com/suzie81speaks

Want to find out what happened? Click the image below to see the results!

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