My week in review.

     First things first, apologies for missing a week in review over Christmas, but like most people I was busy enjoying myself. This this will be two weeks in review lol. 

    We had a lovely Christmas, despite restrictions, and I got some amazing pressies. Including of course my new laptop which was an early Christmas present, I also got a new electric wheelchair. I have been wanting one for so long, so I can get myself around the shops and hospital without poor Dan having to push me. Dan even spent the first part of his Christmas holiday getting rid of some surface rust on it and repainting it for me in a lovely and very bright shade of pink lol. What do you think? 

    I wasn't the only one to get a fun new toy though, as I couldn't get Dan's car I got him a new toy also. Something he really wanted, the worlds fuggliest mini tractor. Which I have named, Fugly. 

    As well as my new toys, I also got a lovely cast iron hand crafted rose from Dan which is beautiful and so detailed and a unicorn ornament. 

    And a whole host of wonderful things from friends and family, including two awesome Christmas hats, one a pixie hat and one a hand knitted beanie, and its pink!!! I lovely little hand made bag, some lip gloss, a face mask, and cute bare of soap, a nice new top and bracelet, some awesome pink and white fluffy socks, a box of celebrations and a cute little note book with things to remember written on the front. 

    And this year I got and extra special surprise, as for the first year ever, Kye brought me a present using his own money and completely of his own choice. And it was a great choice as he got me a diamond art kit, of Lady and the Tramp. I have been wanting to have a go at Diamond art for ages. and I love it. 

    We had a hell of a day leading up to Christmas, when we went to collect Dan's present from Dorset. That was a nightmare. The drive up there was nice, but when we got there the guy said he was running later, due to traffic and was going to be an hour and a half late. 

    It seemed strange that someone would go off somewhere, when they knew someone was coming all the way from Cornwall to have a look at something they were selling, but we figured he may have had an emergency or just figured he would be back in plenty of time. So we weren't to bother and went and sat watching people getting soaked by waves, breaking over the sea wall, down at the beach. And the kittiwakes flying around. It was really nice actually 

    But after an hour and a half had passed and we went back to this guys lock up there was still no sign of him and Dan tried messaging him again, but there was no reply. But as we knew he was driving that didn't worry us to much. 

    So another hour passes and we get a message saying he is 5 minutes away, and shortly after that the guys father turns up, and he lets Dan in to have a look, but he finds the tractor buried under pile and piles of stuff. So they have to dig it out first, they do that and Dan does his thing and still this guy is nowhere to be seen. 

    But Dan is happy with the tractor so he gets it loaded and then stands chatting to this guys Dad, still waiting for this bloke. And at this point it's about the time we had calculated that we would be back home. 

    When the guy finally show up, he won't stop talking. Now, Kye and I have stayed in the car, seeing as I am meant to be self isolating and Dan has been keeping his distance from the bloke and his mask on, so we're getting pretty bored by this point and Kye keeps telling me is hungry. But all I have in my bag is some mints, so I keep passing him mints and praying for Dan to hurry up. 

    Then I hear this guy start talking about all the places he has been. London, Kent, all places in Tier one and boasting about how he got a load of stuff cheap because people wanted rid but knew people weren't going to be wanting to go into tier one, so were putting stuff up cheap to get rid. 

    And I hear Dan go "but I asked you if you had been following the rules and staying in tier two before I came, and told you that my wife has a compromised immune system so we had to be really careful and you said that you had been following the rules."

    And the guy was like "Yeah and I had, until today." Dan was fuming, but thankfully he had been keeping his distance from the guy and wearing his mask and he uses this as his excuse to finally get out of their. 

    But who does that, really. Tell's someone they have been careful and following the rules and then goes off up into tier 4, like that. 

    

    Anyway, we didn't get home till late, but stopped for McDonalds, to sort out all our hunger pangs. I was so relieved to get out the car though, I had only got out once while we were out, just to stretch my legs, as it was only while we were waiting at the guys lockup that there were no people about, so it felt safe too. So I had serious numb bum.

    

    But at least the journey itself went okay, though we were going through a lot of flooded areas, and the rain, fog and wind were really bad on the way home. With loads of branches and things brought down when we were really close to home and one massive one right on a corner, that we didn't have time to swerve. Thankfully our 4x4 went over it okay, though the trailer dragged it a good way. But that meant it was safely out of the way of anything else coming round the bend and Dan was able to stop and drag it out the road. God know what would have happened, had a smaller car come around the bend and hit it first. 

    but anyway, Christmas was lovely, we spent it at home just the three of us, of course. And then Dan spent most of the holiday out playing with fugly, so he was happy, but we still watched a lot of christmassy and non christmassy films together and played some games. 

    

    Then New years eve we got a bit of surprise. Will call it a surprise injection of cash. Which means, we now have enough for our new car, although we are gonna save a little bit longer, just so we can get a really nice one. But that's okay as it takes Dan ages to decided exactly what he wants anyway. 

    In other news, I am nearly off of the steroids and already I am having pain. So that's not looking good at the moment. but my next infusion is next week, and I have heard people say they start to get some pain a couple of weeks before an infusion is due, so I am hoping that's all it is and it doesn't mean the infusions still aren't working. But I will have to contact my team today and let them know and the dietician to get my liquid diet sorted. Which they said I would need to do if I started flaring again. 

    I have also got another new wig. This one looks more like my natural hair, for when I want to feel more like myself. What do you think? 

    Well that's pretty much it from me, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and that this year will be better for everyone. Once they get all this covid stuff under control of course. 

love and hugs all

Joss xxx 

    

New year new blog

The last few weeks I've really been brainstorming where I want my blog to go.

Over the years, I've had a habit of letting my blog jump around all over the place with no real structure. 

This is something I really want to change. 

It's impossible to appeal to everyone all the time. There are those who love learning new things and exploring new topics, but who find endless book reviews tedious. Likewise, there are people who prefer reading blogs that deal with real life, be it world news or just others lives, to which they feel they can relate in some way. 

With my blog post coming pretty much at random most of the time, I think I'm making it all a little too confusing. So my plan for 2016 is to try and add a little structure. 

Now to be clear I don't want to be too rigid with this, because I'm a spontaneous person and when I feel the need to blog about life, concerns or the day to day joys, I'm gonna do it, but  life has a way of at times becoming incredibly mundane and as a result during these periods I can sometimes end up with nothing but book reviews up on my blog. 

So the plan is to create three scheduled posts a week. 

On Mondays I'll do an in the news post, where I look back at what world news caught my attention in the week just gone and discuss my thoughts and feelings around it, hopefully helping to give you, the readers a bit more insight into me as a person while also creating an opening for further discussion. Which might also give me some insight into you.

Because what are blogs for if not to share, discuss and get to know each other. 

Mid-week, I'll be diving into my book reviews. I love reading and also sharing my thoughts and feelings about what I am reading with others. 

Thanks to Net galley, I get the opportunity to read a lot of books before they are even released, in return I am asked to give honest reviews. My blog is a great way for me to do this, but I know that to some, excessive book reviews on a blog can feel a bit like the person doing the reviews is somehow getting compensated for doing nothing but good reviews. 

By grouping all my reviews into one post, I hope that people will see that my reviews are honest, that if I dislike a book, I'll say not only that I dislike it, but why. 

It will also mean that my blog is not just book review after book review all the time. 

Then finally, for the weekly basis, I would like to dedicate Friday's to posting a general post about my week, what I've been up to, what's been playing on my mind and so on and so forth. 

By providing this regular content along with the more spontaneous posts, I hope that my blog will be not only varied and regularly updated, but that it will allow readers to be more easily able to check out what interests them and ignore the rest. 

So that's the plan for my blog in 2016, only time will tell if this schedule works for me and my readers or not. 

My biggest goal; however, is to get some discussion going, so that I can actually get to know all of you better. 

So here's to 2016 and a new way of blogging. 

What are your plans for 2016? If you blog are you planning to make any changes or do you already feel you have a schedule that works well for you and if so what? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the above questions, as well as your opinion on my new schedule plan. 

Happy new year to you all

Love and hugs

Joss xx

Are we getting our priorities straight?

As the clock counted down to the new year, people all over the UK gathered around television screens or headed for London and other cities around the UK to watch impressive firework displays.

They estimate that 100,000 people showed up and paid £10 to watch the massive display that cost a whopping 1.8 million.

If you combine all the displays held in the UK that night alone, imagine the overall expense.

And that's fine, who doesn't love a good celebration right!

The problem is, not everyone can afford to celebrate. In fact an estimated 13 Million UK residence now live below the poverty line.

Which means many families are having to turn to foodbanks for help. In 2013-14 foodbanks in the UK fed 913,138 people nationwide and statistics provided by The Trussell Trust say that 330,250 of those helped were children.

Given those statistics can we really justify a 1.8 million pound bill for a firework display that lasted just over 10 minuets.

 That's far from the only money wasting that been going on either. The Royal family cost us an extortionate 33.3 Million between 2012-2013 and there cost apparently rise on a yearly basis. On top of that, the belief that they create revenue by attracted tourist is untrue. In fact the only time that the revenue created from tourism that can be directly attributed to the Royal family has come anywhere close to covering the costs of having them, has been when there have been special events such as wedding and births and the buildings an history alone could continue to draw tourist, even once the Royals were cast out. So why do we insist in supporting a family and providing them with untold luxury at our expense, when so many others in the UK are struggling to feed their children.

And then there was the 2012 Olympics, which cost an eye watering £8.77 bn. The reality is all of these things have something in common. They are designed to impress. To say look at us, how big and expensive everything we do is, which begs the question posed as the title of this post.

Are we getting our priorities straight?

I'd love to hear your thoughts and feelings on this matter in the comments.

love and hugs
Joss xxx

New Year, New goals!

It’s that time of the year again where we set out goals and pray that we’ll succeed in keeping them.

I’m fairly unconfident this year, as one of my goals is to shed a whole heap of weight and even as I type this chocolate beckons and excuses for why I should put it off are churning in my mind.

•      The terrible final takeaway last night failed to provide the joy it should and thus must be repeated but with something from a better takeaway.

•      The massive collection of Christmas goodies still yet to be devoured

•        The fact that technically the Christmas holidays aren’t over until hubby and son are back at work/school.

I could go on, but I’ll spare you.

Last year’s goals consisted of weight loss, getting organised, blogging/writing more, cutting back on the smoking and dealing with my anxiety issues and hopefully as a result getting out more.

I failed miserably at the weight loss so much so I have avoided the scales like crazy most of the year. I just wasn’t in the right place for dieting, largely due to having a lot of pain this year with my back and IBS but also due to succeeding in the one area I never thought I would, smoking.

My plan for last year was merely to cut back on how much I smoked as I was getting through a massive 2 x 50gram pouches a week and sometimes a little more when my pain was bad.  Well cutting back turned into quitting all together for both my husband and I.  A massive achievement which was far easier than either of us ever imagined, we are now completely smoke free. I say that because I know a lot of people have switched to E cigs, we used nicotine free versions of those to help us quit but now we are off them as well, in fact Dan was off them after just a couple of weeks and I was off after about a month.

The amount of money we have saved from quitting is amazing, and has meant that we have been able to have a pretty good Christmas this year, which is great.

That was about the only goal I did well with. I failed miserably as being more productive, except when it came to the A to Z challenge which I felt I did pretty well with even earning a place as one of the blogs thatrocked the challenge, with my doggie theme, which was great.

I had a lot of ups and downs in 2014 and pain, so I wasn’t too overly disappointed in myself.

Another thing I did just manage to do in time, was deal with my anxieties. I visited the doctor about it at the beginning of December and he put me on some anxiety medicine. It’s early days yet, but I am hopeful.

So onto this year’s goals:

•        Lose weight, although I am going to wait until I am able to get back on my stronger pain meds, before starting my diet. Being on the new anxiety meds, my doctor wanted to reduce my pain meds just while my body got used to the new meds I was taking not only for my anxiety but my IBS, so I am hopeful that when I go back to see him on the 8^th of this month, he’ll give me back my stronger pain killers and I can start looking to lose weight. This also gives me time to continue enjoying the remaining Christmas fair and to get a decent take away in before my diet starts, that eradicating some of my excuses. J  

•      Get more organised. I have already gotten started with this by buying a Filofax type planner, with a calendar section for my writing/blogging as well as one for everything else in life. I’m hoping to post a blog post every day and all going well, I plan to write all my post on the Monday so the rest of the week can be focused on my current WIP and commenting on all you lovely peoples blogs.

•      Finishing the first Rehabilitation girls books ready for publication. This will be a big challenge for me as it will be the first time I edit my own book using Grammarly, fingers crossed it’s as good as they claim. J

  

  we were playing around with the colours and mood for the cover on this and like this sort of look although preferably with a much better model than myself in the finished product lol  

•      Continue to try and work through my anxieties and get out more. I’ll be starting on that Sunday I believe, when I go with hubby to one of his steam engine shows. I would like to say I am excited but to be honest I am not really feeling it at the moment as my IBS is playing up after too much fizzy wine last night and  my back isn’t fairing much better, but oh well

•      Work on being more focused and less distracted. It does seem a shame to abandon my whole, "oh look a bunny!" thing when I have got so good at it though. :) 

• I'd really like to get involved with some more blog hops this year also, so if you know of any good ones, please let me know in the comments. Thank you.

So that’s my New Year goals along with my 2014 fails and successes. How did you do with your goals in 2014 and have you set any new ones for 2015? Let me know in the comments.

Love and hugs

Joss xx

New year intent

Every year, millions of people make New Year's resolutions. Few actually keep them.

For this reason, I am going to have intents instead of resolutions. 

My intent this new year is to become more productive. That includes more blog posts and more time checking out the posts of others, as well as more writing in general. 

Working from home, it's so easy to be distracted by pointless tasks, like checking Facebook, watching movies, playing games, and the call of a good book, while what should be my priorities get pushed to the side and put off as long as possible.

Of late, getting distracted has been a serious problem for me; so much so, I think my poor bunny is getting a complex, lol.

I seriously need to kick things up a gear this year and get some real work done; something my new iPad Air should make, not only easier, but far more enjoyable, too. 

How did I ever live without one?

(A big thank'ee to the awesome Dan Solheim aka the hubby for fulfilling yet another one of my present dreams.)

It is, in fact, because of Dan that I am determined to try harder this year. Since we have been married, Dan has worked incredibly hard to support us all; allowing me, in the process, to stay at home in the guise of a housewife, so that I could focus on my writing. 

Very few people get as lucky as me in that respect. A lot of writers have to work full time in order to survive then come home and write as not all men are as understanding or as supportive as Dan, not to mention the fact that in some households it just isn't financially viable for only one person to work. 

My dream, you see, and it's a big one, is to earn enough from my writing, so that one day, Dan can retire with confidence.This will definitely not happen if I do not get tough with myself and even then it's no easy task; because, let's face it, very few writers make enough from their writing to support themselves, let alone a family.

It's relatively hard for me to think of my work in a professional context, even now that I am published. Writing was just something I did because I loved it. It was an escape from life, a way to create a happier, better world than the one I lived in as a child. 

Had I been told back then that I would become a published author, I never would have believed it. Neither would I have believed that writing would at times, seem like a chore. 

Where once, I haphazardly slapped down words without care, now I must edit, revise, tweak, trim, and splice my work into a tightly written, perfectly structured, and grammatically correct masterpiece of fiction; something that flows well, captivates others, and doesn't have "and then" haphazardly dotted everywhere, as my childhood writing once did.

( Thank God for Chuck Jolly and his editing skills; without which I would be royally screwed, lol)

So, this year .....

I will be dedicating my time to working hard on my career and taking care of my family, especially Dan, because he deserves a lot more appreciation.

What's your New Year's intention? Leave a comment and let me know.

Love and hugs Joss xx

P.S. If you're aware of any anthologies or blog hops taking place this year, please let me know; either in a comment or via my email at jossie.marie@gmail.com

Happy New Year everyone! XOXOX