My week in review

Little bit late with this one but it has been one hell of a week. 

So first off the biggest feature of this week was pain. Lots and lots of it. The stricture was still giving me hell, but the pain was so bad my doctor was convinced it was more than just that so Friday I was rushed in for an emergency blood test to find my inflammation levels were through the roof. 

Bye bye remission. So I’m now back on the full course of steroids and the strong antibiotics. 

My week had mostly been about trying to stand the pain and not cave in and head to the hospital for lots and lots of lovely morphine on tap. 

COVID is thankfully helping me stay at home too, as my head nurse is trusting me to decide what I can cope with, so as not to put my weakened immune system in the firing line. Although I’m sure they’d do everything possible to keep me safe should I have to go in. 

Now I just have to hope the steroids and antibiotics do their job. 

They’ll also be looking at what effect if any the Infliximab is having beyond making my hair fall out and if it isn’t working, changing me to a different Chemo drug. Oh I wonder what delightful poison they have lined up for me next. They’ll also be putting me on a complete liquid diet, at least they will give the dietician ever gets around to actually ringing me. 

In other news my lovely loopy lu aka Ludo turned 9 on Friday!!!!!

Here he is strangling his sister. We got him a cute little oinking pig, a brand spanking new chicken ball, his fav toy, which has started to look a bit flat lately, and lots of yummy treats. 

He was absolutely made up with it all, and the pigs oinking is marginally less offence to the ears than the squickers. 

Here’s Ludo the day after we got him. 

This ones when he just started going out for walks

Him being his little old crazy self. Wearing his sisters bows and being absolutely over joyed about it.

And his old chicken ball, with him sneaking to grab it when I was trying to get a pic. It doesn’t look this healthy anymore. (The new one is late in arriving grrr , hence this old picture of his old chicken ball) but I know he’ll be made up once it decides to arrive. 

And here’s his new pig. 

He used to get a lot more toys on birthdays and such but Dan gets grumpy if I buy too many now as he says he has more than enough. Problem is Ludo isn’t really destructive with his toys, so once he has them they tend to last a very long time, until general wear and tear takes them out. 

Tweeters also got some new toys, not because it was his birthday, we don’t actually know when his birthday is, but just because I saw them and thought what the heck. 

A guy/gal on eBay was selling a bundle of birdie toys and a fish tank net, what a fish tank net has to do with birds I don’t know, tweeters would be most disgruntled if I tried to net him with that, but any £4 for this lot, what a bargain. 

I mean there are way to many to fit in his cage in one go, I know I tried, but still we can chop and change every wit and trip for a bit of diversity. I mean I’m sure even canaries get bored with the same old toys all the time.

Shopping has been a big feature of this week, I mean what else can you do when your on complete bed rest. Mostly though I have been sticking to stuff I actually need. Like a whole load of new clothes, because all my other ones are hanging off me, thank to all the weight loss. The one plus point of Crohns’s!

So new tops, trousers, jumpers, cardies and knickers. And OMG I needed the knickers so bad the only thing keeping the old ones up anymore was the crutch of my trousers. It’s a good thing I’m not a skirt wearer or I’d have been in trouble. 

Did I tell you about the time I flashed the Asda delivery man, scarred him for life. There he is going about his business and suddenly there’s a middle aged fat lady dropping her trousers and flashing him. 

I mean to be fair it wasn’t intentional, I just forgot to hold onto them as I stood up, and next thing I knew they were round me ankles. I was mortified. You’ve never seen a fat person move so fast I can tell you. 

That was the first time I accepted defeat and decided it was time for some smaller outfits. 

Any who, it’s been going okay, accept when that cow bag snuck in and last minute bidded me out of the cutest top ever. There were some choice words spat out  then I can tell you. I’ll give her her dues though, woman most have nerves as steel cause I held out till 8 seconds was left on the clock before chucking mine in, she must have been sat there till there was just 2 seconds left on the clock or something. Now that’s bulls. 

Still doesn’t stop me hoping she’s got a fat neck and it chokes her as she try’s to get it on though. I mean I don’t wish it bad enough that she dies or anything, just enough that she regrets the purchase and resells it. I’m not a complete savage ya know. 

Have you ever had that happen to you though, on something you really really wanted on EBay? It absolutely sucks!

What else? Dan went to try and get an exhaust of the doner car at the weekend. Only to find the one on the doner car was more rotten than ours lol. 

So he’s been on eBay looking for a new or second hand one, whatever he can find really that won’t completely break the bank. 

Other than the panel that got smacked up by the hit and run guy, that’s the only bit left to replace on the car now. But Dan still wants to sell it once he’s got those bits done :( men have no loyalty. 

I love our car, it’s the best one we’ve had but men always get bored and want new toys don’t they. They’ll be tears when he does sell it, mine of course. 

He wants to get a pickup truck next, I’m not keen. It’ll be a double cab, but I’m still not keen. I like out regular four by four. 

Our regular 4x4 for those who don’t know. 

If you like it watch this space as it’ll be for sale soon. He’s had loads of work done to him, all the rotten metal replaced and so much more besides. So you’ll get a good few years out of him. And make me very jealous lol. 

Well I think that’s pretty much it for this weeks, week in review, stay safe and healthy all.

Love and hugs

Joss xxx 

Temptation by Filofax

Happy Monday all. I'm in high spirits today for a number of reasons.

1. My child's been as good as gold. Which is always a joy. 

2. My hubby will be picking up my new axiety meds and even more importantly pain meds. Which with the sudden drops in temperature are desperately needed. 

And

3. I treated myself to a Filofax that I've been lovingly ogling from afar for a while now. 

In truth despite having many Filofaxes and currently using three different ones on a daily basis, I have yet to find a set up that I really like.

Normal Filofax inserts are decidedly lacking in space and sadly suffer quite badly from bleed through, if you use more than just the standard biro.

Decoration is also time consuming and at times tedious.

What I have found to work is to write in pencil prior to the event and then afterwards when I know I have nothing else to add, I break out the pen. Although this does work better for fitting things in, the space in the inserts is still decidedly lacking. 

So along with my new Filofax I ordered a dodo pad. These come predecorated but I am still not sure how well the layout will work for me. It feels as if I maybe limiting myself even more with regards to space, but I am hoping there will no longer be a need to decorate. 

This has it's pros and cons; however, because I have just found a form of decoration that I really like. Doodle decoration...

I only need one pen for this and I've found some really nice fine tip, black pens that don't bleed through. It also enables me to fit more info in. 

In the image above we are looking at Monday and Tuesday of this week. There not completely filled in given that Monday is not even over yet and Tuesday is yet to start but it gives you an idea of how things look. 

Using this method I can use icons when space is running low. Which really helps and I usually keep the notes section at the top of each week free encase I need an little extra space for one of the days.

This works well in both my personal and a5 Filofaxes, but I am also currently trying out using a whole plain page as my diary page in one of my personal Filofaxes. The downside to this is that I can't really plan ahead, but I figured out a solution to that too. Month on two pages. 

This option gives me a lot more space to work with, but I worry that overtime my planner could end up way too bulky. 

I determined though that I will find the method that works best for me and get back to just two planners, a personal and A5, by at least this time next year. 

Some bad news on the planner front, is needing to shelf my original Fluro A5.

I love that planner but omg, it gets dirty so easy, there are always marks on the outside cover where the rings press against it and I recently noticed a slight cracking on the outside spine which I think is caused by the fixings of the rings inside. 

I'm really disappointed as it was an expensive planner and am now debating whether to keep it or sell it, because if I don't feel comfortable using it, what's the point.

So for some of you this blog post has probably been a bit of a bore and I apologies if that was the case, but I'm hopeful if you love Filofaxes you'll hopefully be able to relate. 

Paper planners are growing in popularity and there are more and more people being sucked in by there charms. So if you love things cute and late terrible at staying organised. You might want to give, Filofaxes or planners a look. 

Remember if you have any questions, feel free to ask. 

Love and hugs all

Joss xx