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 |   Originally efforts for the 30 Day Blogging Challenge in July... now just a blog |
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The 30 Day Blogging Challenge ..... lets see how far I get... Pretty far it seems! Winner (1st place) for the July 2013 "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  Second place for the September 2014 "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" |
| Hey guys! Its been a while so I figured, since I’m awake stupidly early, I would actually come by and write a blog post. I’ll be honest; I thought I’d have blogged about my wonderful wedding and honeymoon by now. But so much crap has happened since then that, unfortunately, it feels like a very distant memory. So, as you can probably tell, there is a lot I could blog about. But I think I’m going to be very selfish and write about my broken foot. I’ve been pretty up beat about it so far. However, I have a feeling it might start getting me down! How did I do it? Well… pretty easily really. I was walking from my car to my house – quite desperate for the loo  and about five feet away from my door I tripped and went over on the side of my foot. I was wearing my wedding shoes – simple cream crochet Toms – so there was no protection. As it is, I’m trying not to read anything into the fact that they were my wedding shoes! I acknowledged the pain but I got myself up and hobbled to the door – that was pretty hard work. Then I just crawled in the door, into the living room and rolled round the floor for a bit. Luckily, Chris was off sick from work (another long story) so was immediately down to see what was wrong. He started to call for an ambulance straight away, but I stopped him. I’m usually very good with pain – I can deal with it and get on with it. So, I said “don’t worry, I’ll be fine in a few minutes”. God, I am so stubborn! But when I discovered I couldn’t even get off the floor into the armchair, I had to admit defeat. An ambulance was called and off to A&E we went! Again! (we’d already been there that week for Chris). By the way, our toilet is upstairs. So, no, I didn’t get to the loo – it was a good 90 minutes until I did! Now, those of you who know me and/or have read my blogs/poems/stories, will know that I have an impairment (Cerebral Palsy) but that I am extremely positive about it. You will never ever hear the words “I wish I was normal” (or anything to that effect) come out of my mouth. That is, until something like this happens! You see, the problem is, I am never still – unless I’m asleep or very very calm. When I’m in pain/tired/stressed, I am even less likely to be still. If I try to keep still, its worse. The words I hate anyone saying to me are “keep still”… sheeeesh really?  So, you break your foot, you’re gonna wanna keep it still. Fact! Imagine not being able to! Yup, ouch, it’s going to hurt – a lot! Also, I’m a bit of a horse so painkillers don’t always work on me. I’ll get to that in a bit. First of all they x-rayed my ankle, not my foot. Therefore, told me I was fine. I almost guaranteed them it was broken (I knew, because of the pain – I’m no wimp, as I said). So, they showed me the x-ray to prove it… “err well, yeah I know my ankle isn’t broken, I never suggested it was. Try again!”… So, they did, and I was right! Big ol’ break on the side of my foot! Oh balls! I didn’t actually want to be right! Then the fun really began. The painkillers I’d had were doing nothing. So I managed to get some Oramorph (oral morphine), which did nothing much. I told you, I’m a horse . We then had to work out how to cast it. They offered me a walking boot to start with. But I couldn’t even get it half on… that was that idea out the window.At this point, I feel I ought to explain my feet. I can obviously walk, so when I put my feet on the floor I can get them flat and fairly straight. However, at rest or when I lift them up they naturally turn inwards – because that’s what my muscles want to do, clearly. So, the next option was to cast it and try and cast it straight so I could put some weight on it. So three people tried to do this, while I was on gas and air trying my hardest to relax. They managed to do it pretty well. However, within about five minutes, I was in absolute agony… I could feel my foot fighting the cast trying to pull inwards. I knew this was a bad idea as if it was left like this, it’d continue to fight it and no doubt make the break worse. So, off the cast came ad, despite all the drugs I’d been given, I was still in extreme pain. The only option then was to admit me for a night and give me IV morphine. Luckily that actually did help! Phew! However, they had to cast it just in its natural position. Sounds sensible but it scares me – I’ll come back to that. It was the worst cast ever. It was half plaster, half just bandage. Thankfully, though, it worked and it calmed things down. But a few days ago, it started hurting so much more again and I couldn’t work out why. Turns out, as I discovered on Tuesday, the cast had twisted. This meant the plaster wasn’t actually covering the broken bone . Luckily, yesterday (Wednesday), I went back to the hospital, was x-rayed and recast. So, now I have a proper hard fiberglass cast that ain’t going anywhere! And its purple!  The doctor said I was to come back in four weeks to get the cast off. However, when I went to book my appointment, it turns out he’s on holiday that week so it has to be five weeks! I asked if I could see a different doctor and they said no. Seriously? They’ll give me 15 choices of colour for my cast, but I can’t choose to see a different doctor?? Wow, I’m mad about that. Anyway… My foot feels much more secure in my new cast but I am still scared about its position! Why? Because it is an awful position – basically. I had tendon surgery on my ankle nine years ago (same foot), which was casted in the same position and it took months to get it back in use. Mind you, I did have to train my tendons again so I guess that made it harder. But still, its worrying. Especially as 7 weeks in cast will make you weaker anyway. The only part of my foot I can get on the floor is my toes. So I’m currently a full time wheelchair user. I’m getting pretty good at transferring. But my house is very inaccessible . I’ve been staying downstairs mostly. Luckily we have a very comfy sofa and I can just about squeeze into the kitchen. I also bought a ramp so I can escape out the back door. But that’s about as far as I can go.While I was waiting to be x-rayed, I received an email with my first list of visits for the school year. I have 34 visits to book in so far, which is great that I have work. But I can’t drive! I employ PAs who have said they can help me out. So I might try and get a few half-day visits in in September. I need to make SOME money after not working over the summer! Ohh the downsides of self-employment!Luckily, I’m fairly good at entertaining myself, so I’ve not been too bored so far. While house bound, I have:  Watched three series of Revenge – loved it Two series of The Walking Dead One & a half series of Scandal One series of The Witches of East End Read four awful “celeb” magazines – I hate them Got addicted to word puzzles Lived on coke, coffee, chocolate and cigerettes (the four Cs), pills that make things feel nice ... and some fruit & veg Written a fair few poems. In fact, I am tempted to set myself a goal on Slave Drivers inc to write a poem everyday I’m now in cast. That’s a lot though so maybe every other day? Mind you, I have a few half written.I’ve been totally useless on WDC over the past three months + and I’m sick of seeing myself say “sorry for being useless” – but I really am sorry and will try and get back on track very soon. I’m going to shut up now because this is nearing 1500 words. If you’ve read it all, I’m impressed! But I do have one last thing to say… BIG congratulations to all the new blue Mods, especially Elle - on hiatus  , Cinn and Nixie  … I’ve seen first hand how hard these two work around here. Its very well deserved and I am proud of you  |
| Hi guys - I just wanted to share about a cool (I don't think cool is the right word but I don't wanna get too soppy too early) school visit I did today. Sometimes in my job (motivational speaker) you have days where you doubt yourself. Not because you can't do it, just because you might not feel very motivational because you're down or stressed. Today I felt stressed. My inbox was full of date change requests or "we don’t think we can fit it in" emails. I had two phone calls on my way to my school asking for my time that I don’t really have! Aggh. Then I got to the school expecting to do a practical then a classroom session - all planned out. Only to be told that they forgot the kids had an exam so I only had one hour so could I just deliver the six keys to success instead. Fine…. Plan out the window. But I am glad, now. I had a group of year 9 (age 13-14) disaffected and struggling students… maybe knowing this didn't help my mood. But it was the best "pick me up" I could of asked for. I started off by telling them who I was and what I'd achieved - this was met with choruses of "wow" and "amazing". Then I explained that this was not stuff I ever thought I'd say about myself when I was their age because I didn’t believe I'd be successful at anything - ever. Saying this, I looked at one boy who I saw had a tear in his eye. Before I knew It, he had tears streaming down his face. I jokingly said "don’t cry mate, you'll start me off"… then I regretted it because I didn't want others to laugh. They didn't… a few others said "I feel like crying too". Wow! I'd only been talking five minutes. So, I started the six keys, relating them to my life story. I spoke about my lack of confidence for People Skills and going from failing at school to my First Class degree for Breaking Barriers - I think this really struck a chord with these guys, too. I tried to relate it all to things they might be going through. They all hung on every word and answered everyone of my questions and discussion points. Throughout it all, I noticed a girl who had an answer for everything but would not speak up. At the end she came up to me and said "how do you do it?" … I wasn't quite sure what she meant so I asked her. "How do you stand up and speak to people like you're the most confident person ever? What changed for you?" she said. It’s a tricky question to answer, because I'm not 100% sure. But I spoke about finding sport that gave me the confidence to be myself and being able to accept/believe in myself. She, too, was in tears at this point, telling me how shy she was and how she just could not speak up in any situation. Unfortunately, it was exam time so she had to go, so I only had time for a few snippets of advice. But she left nodding , saying "I'll try!" I was at the school last Thursday too and when the teacher told me who I'd be working with today, I jokingly said "they better be nice to me because it will be my birthday!" (it is - that bit wasn’t a joke).. So, on Friday, the group spent a whole lesson making this amazing card, which I love! I was so touched. It is days like today that make me realise the beauty of the programme I work on and makes me feel really lucky to have this opportunity. I only had one hour with the group, but it was a worthy hour. Even if we're not feeling it, we can still make a difference.   |
| Welcome to my reality - week 2, prompt 2 - What made you question yourself today? Okay, so I've put this off for too long. Here's part three… why I had to wear a £25 wedding dress from Amazon. When it comes to the WTMR prompt, I'm not talking about today - I'm going back to last Wednesday. But I did question myself, so it seemed very fitting. The specific question I asked myself was: "what the hell am I doing?" So, from "Invalid Entry" you know about the horrendous moldy wedding dress and why I had to turn to the wonders of Amazon. But you do not know why all this was necessary….Chris (my fiancee, if you don’t know) works for a disability charity locally. They are currently going through a rebrand and their new slogan is "I Can". So, despite being disabled I can xyz. This has been in the pipe line for a while and Chris would come in from work with their ideas of how they were going to launch and advertise their new brand - many involved Chris and I doing stuff. For example, there was one idea that involved a sky dive, to which I just rolled my eyes. Another idea was for them to use us getting married in some sense. Again, I laughed it off. Until one day… BOOOM… "Hi Fran , we're doing a TV advert and we're going to be in it… getting married!" Riggggght! Before this actually happened, I did another photo shoot for them in my swimming costume/in the pool. These photos, I was told last week are going on buses and bus stops I honestly thought this wedding thing was a joke until Chris got home with that awful awful dress! So, we arrive at Wednesday. I had to go to Chris' offices for 9:30 to get hair and make up done. There should be a photo below of Chris and I getting ready. I got ready, complete with:  Tiara Flowers Make up Dress Pins to hold the dress up Timberland boots (figured they'd be out of shot Then I had to drive half an hour to the chapel (the one we are actually getting married in). I honestly thought "crap, if I get pulled over by the police, I'm going to look like an absolute idiot!" Not that I didn’t look like an idiot when I got out my car in a white dress and black boots. We didn't actually have to pretend to get married. We just had to pretend we had just got married. So, we stood, under a tree while people chucked rose petals at us. Loads of petals went down my front, in one shot. Wow that felt odd. We also had to take millions of shots of us kissing. Sheeesh. Chris said "I really hope our real wedding day is easier than this". Now that I've written this, it doesn’t sound THAT ridiculous! But it really was. Sat in an office getting made up, walking round a massive open plan office in all that gear, driving in a tiara, the looks we got from the public wondering what the hell we're doing… All for a TV advert that airs in May  |
| Welcome to my Reality - Week 4, prompt 6 - Take a photo of something you see today and share it with us. This is the meal I made tonight... very simple but very yummy... It was a bit of a treat.... Carrot sticks Sliced pepper Plum tomatoes Cucumber A slither of red leicester cheese Grilled halloumi cheese Homemade potato wedges The BIGGEST rump steak I've ever had! |
| Welcome to my Reality - week 16, prompt 7. List 10 things you will never do again and why. 1. Do all of the judging for the 30 Day Blogging Challenge at once. Because reading 98 blogs and 300 comments in five hours, really hurt my brain. 2. Get married again. It's SO stressful. 3. Swim in a competition… I've retired. I like retirement 4. See Rhiana in concert again. She was rubbish. 5. Eat gherkins. They make me want to be very ill 6. Buy a wardrobe from IKEA to be delivered. I cannot describe the nightmare we went through. Mind you, we did get a free wardrobe. 7. Buy a Windows computer if I can help it. I'm so used to Apples now that Windows makes no sense to me anymore. 8. Take part in a fake wedding. Ohhh maybe that gives away too much? Wait till Ridiculousness Part 3 9. Try and secretly organise my own Hen Party without people knowing. It's tricky  10. Leave WDC. I did once, but now I'm hooked. |
| Welcome to my Reality - week 15, prompt 3. What has disappointed you this week? Ridiculousness - Part 3 has been put on hold until tomorrow because I don't want to break my streak on Welcome to my Reality. But I do have three posts to write tonight in order to do this. Eek. I'm disappointed and annoyed tonight at people complaining about our wedding invites. We've had three separate complaints so far… Firstly Chris' cousins messaged him saying "we're gutted not to be invited to your wedding"... obviously their parents invite arrived. They were getting separate invites because the parents are coming to the meal and the kids are just coming to the evening. But they do look like idiots now because their invite is in the post! Someone else text Chris saying I notice we're ONLY invited to the reception and what about our kids? THEN another of Chris' cousins messaged Chris' sister saying "we haven't got our invite yet" (he sent me his address TODAY) and he's gutted he's only getting a reception invite because he took a day off work... Well, great! NONE of my cousins are invited at all because I have too many. Errr I'm confused. Because everyone is invited to the service (the important bit?) |
| Welcome to my reality: week 2, prompt 5 - Share an interaction you had with a family member today. So, here we are, part two. I know I promised both parts two and three today, but as per "Note: Oh my word! I've just spent the last five h...", my brain is frazzled. Therefore, I'm only offering part two… you'll have to wait for the rest of the wedding dress fiasco. I'm worried that I've bigged this up too much and you'll say "ugh is that it?" … maybe you will. Meh, its all ridiculous in my book. Lets go back to Tuesday … humm maybe I'll offer a little preamble to start… My father is a man I do not understand. He's a pretty well off international accountancy lecturer. He's written books, has a nice life, lives in Thailand now and, as far as I know he has no real life problems - he's a healthy 60+ year old. However, I often think that if he was the opposite of all these things, I might understand him better. He left my mum when I was ten for his much younger Korean secretary - my parents divorced. In a way, though, he also divorced his three kids. He got remarried (we weren't told until later)and adopted her son. From then on he put all his energy into his new family and left his biological children behind. I wont go into this too much as I could go on for hundreds of pages about why the word "dad" leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I will give you an example though: whenever he came back to Britain, he'd always call when he was at the airport… on the way OUT of Britain. Never bothering to visit or ask us to visit him. Ho hum. Ironically, his new wife had an affair Anyway, on Tuesday I set to work on getting our wedding invites out - a job that felt like it took forever. While I was doing so, I got an email from my father asking if he could call (time difference and all that). Aggh I hate it when he calls. Luckily it’s a very rare occurrence, but still. He called, on a with held number. Honestly, I do not know his number! If I was ever in an accident, the only way we have to get hold of him is via email! We spoke for about 10 minutes - 15 if I'm being generous. Here's the gist of the conversation (I've cut out the awkward bits where I don't know what to say): Father: I'm calling about the wedding, everyone wants to come but they haven't heard anything Me: yup, I know, I'm doing the invites as we speak, they will be there by Friday. F: ahh good … so they can book hotels? M: given that it's family and I told you they were invited, they should have done that already - it is Cambridge! Also, I need so and so's address from you. F: Ok I'll send it. Have you spoken to Dan (my brother) recently? M: Relatively, why? F: has he told you my news? M: Nope, what's that? F: ummm I got married again… for the last time. M: Oh right F: we were thinking about it for a wh…blah blah blah M: Right, well… well done *silence* M: when are you coming to Britain for my wedding? F: I don’t know M: okay well we're having a rehearsal the night before - the Friday, from about 4… F: okay… Sooo… what did I learn from that phone call? 1. My dad has married a Thai lady who is, honestly, about my age. And he's too ashamed/other to tell his children… again. That's two weddings and a leaving party none of us have been invited to. Ridiculous. 2. I need to open the books, with very good odds, as to whether or not my dad is actually coming to my wedding. We set the date over a year ago. He doesn't know when he's coming. That means no flights and no hotel booked. Meh. |
| Welcome to my Reality - week 1, prompt 1 - What made you laugh today? I'm going back in time slightly in this post. So far this week, I could've easily blogged everyday but I've been too busy/frazzled to do so. I'll start with Monday. This three-parter goes from Monday to Wednesday. However, I may not get round to writing parts two and three until Friday because I'm on a training course tomorrow. Considering I am meant to be off for two weeks, this schedule is ridiculous. BOOM ... see the ridiculousness has begun. So, on Monday I spent the day with my good friend Donna. She used to live 15 miles away and we weren't seeing each other very often anymore. Recently she moved 65 miles away and we see each other more than ever - as in once a week or more. Strange but true. She was in the area on Sunday, dropping her kid off at his dad so she came and stopped over. We chatted, smoked too much, took a road trip to her old town (dump) and ate McDonalds. A VERY healthy start to my easter holidays, I think you'll agree! But the whole time I was avoiding something... You see, I "agreed" to do something this week (today - Wednesday - part three) that required me to wear a wedding dress! Now, obviously, I couldn't wear my own because that's special. So, someone from the place requesting this lent me her old wedding dress. Chris brought this dress home on Friday night, laughing to himself. When I opened the bag, I realised why he was laughing. It was hideous. So hideous that I looked at it for a minute and then hung it on my office door and got on with my weekend. When Donna and I got in from our mini trip, I knew it was time to try it on. Sheeesh. My PA was there when we got in. I have PAs to help me with house/"life" stuff because if I tried to do house stuff on top of everything else I do, I'd literally die. Anyway, I get on very well with this PA, so I explained the dress and told her to go see for herself. She did so and came back, declaring that it was worse than I'd described {e:facepalm) Helpful! Nonetheless, I went, with Jane's help (my PA) to try it on. It was worse! It was yellow for a start - I'm pretty sure it was ivory to start. It was massive. I was told it was a size 10/12, it definitely was not... 16 maybe? We couldn't tie it tight enough at the back. I'm also pretty sure that, if I'd tried hard enough, I could have squeezed a newborn baby down into the chest area. And, if you really need to top it off, it was mouldy! Jane and Donna were crying with laughter. So was I, but I was also thinking "crap, I have 24 hours to find a non-mouldy wedding dress that fits!" I found one... on Amazon... £25... next day delivery! Genius. End of part one... I'm tired and I want to finish my book before sleep Stay tuned... It gets more ridiculous! |
| Welcome to my reality - week 9, prompt 7 - List 10 great things about your week. 1. I've printed my wedding invites ... better late than never. 2. We went to see the Dean of Chapel where we are getting married... he was super lovely. 3. I got a standing ovation for a speech I did on Wednesday. 4. I tried on and fit into some old clothes I had grown out of. 5. We went to visit Chris' parents which he loves to do. 6. I'm about to see one of my best friends for the second time this week. We went through quite a while of hardly seeing each other at all. 7. We received our wedding rings. 8. Friday was the start of my Easter holidays 9. I finished 4 books 10. Chris' parents said they were proud of us |
| Welcome to my Reality - week 4, prompt 4 - What was your favourite part of today? I have to favourite parts of today so far. My best friend is coming over very soon so there maybe more. 1. Eating a lamb roast dinner made by Chris' mum. It was amazingly nice. So nice that I wanted more. 2. Arriving home after a very dull three hour drive from Chris' parents. Made even worse because we only went up there yesterday. So (more than) 6 hours in the car in just over 24 hours. Yawn. |
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