Only just in my case!  This week was supposed to be a catch up week as it was short one and I was going to get lots done, AGAIN!  No, trying to get over shingles is not easy!  I have done some work but nothing else. 

We have also arrived at the worst time of year for me, taking the Christmas decorations down and packing it all away.  I hate it!  DH is going to help tonight and tomorrow and I will get our home clean and tidy and also catch up on all the washing and ironing which has been breeding in the laundry room!

If you are in the UK you will know and if not may have seen, how much flooding we have here in the East Midlands and other parts of the UK.  We have had so much rain and flooding in the latter part of 2023 that the ground is satuarted and so the new rain has nowhere to go.  Our garden is always wet in Winter anyway and we do not go on it unless absolutely necessary but of course Coco goes up.  Well the mat by the back door, which is grey, is now muddy brown and Coco has to be almost washed every time she comes in. 

DH decided that action was needed.  When Coco was a puppy we did not want her up in the garden as there were too many places she could hide, so we restricted her to the patio with the pots.  Well as she grew older she worked out how to get around them via the garden!  So now she is a big, grown up Doggy our bench has had to be used to stop her up the steps and the pots on the wall.  So far it is working!!!!!!

©PA Media

RIP David Soul 1943 – 2024

©IMDB

Sad news today for all of us who were young in 1975 (I was eleven), David Soul has passed away.  Starsky & Hutch was the first TV series, certainly on British TV, which was exciting and different to anything we had and I loved it.  I had posters on my wall, although I hate to say it I liked Paul Michael Glaser more (!) and all the other stuff.  Funnily enough my Boys like the show too and of course had models of the car!

As well as trying to get a lot done tomorrow, I have an appointment at the Hospital as well!  DH is also setting up the sound equipment for Sunday for the Swimming Open.  We will be getting there at 6.00am and won’t get back until about 8.00pm, a long day!  Hopefully it will not be a sauna this year unlike last, where we could hardly breathe!  Next week I will be back to work properly hopefully and the shingles will be firmly in the rear view mirror!

I hope you lovely lot have a wonderful weekend, the first of the New Year, and you get some time to do some reading or anything else you want to do. 

Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx

A final few pictures of Christmas before we take it all down until eleven months time!  Mind you the way the weeks and months fly by it will soon be here!!!

Resolve!

“A Firm Determination To Do Something”!

Yep that is my word for 2024!  This started last year by my reading something in the Daily Telegraph about choosing a word to use during the year, rather than lists of Resolutions (!) that people make and then by the end of two weeks and we are all back at work and busy, forget about!

I also started a list of Aims for each year rather then Resolutions because again it does not seem so demanding!  They are pretty much the same as last year (!)

       Aim 1: Try to read more.    Aim 2: Try to do more quilting.                   Aim 3: Try to be more organised.  Aim 4: Try to find more balance between work and home.

I think the biggest one is Aim 4.  Trying to find that balance and I am sure those who read my Blog probably feel the same.  The balance between work which we need to do and our home life which is the best bit is the hardest thing and the last two years there has been more work than anything else and I hope that this year we can balance that up a little bit!  As I say it is an Aim!

Whatever happens during the coming year it will be fun to find out and see how things play out and I am very grateful to have my lovely family and my Blogging Friends & Followers along for this wild ride of life! 

Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx

You can tell that we are in the New Year!  It used to be on TV when we only had three stations (!) that you knew it was New Year because every advert break had some sort of weight loss advert on!  I always used to think it was so unfair.  Having had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends and yes perhaps eating more that in a normal week but it is Christmas.  Then these adverts would start and basically shame you.  Its the same at the gyms, which would be practically empty before Christmas but whatever time you go now it is full of people with new work out gear on hogging every machine.  It is also the same I have to say here in the UK after Wimbledon.  All of us who played tennis all year did not go to the courts for two weeks after Wimbledon.  It only ever lasted two weeks and the same with the gyms and the diets, people would stop after those two weeks!

Now I have noticed another way for people to beat themselves up after Christmas; the Instagram Influencer declaring that January is the pefect time to declutter your home, car, husband, children, LIFE!  I am not joking!  If not one but at least twenty have popped up onto my feed this week all advocating a different way to throw everything out! 

These Instagram Influencers two weeks before were all around showing you their carefully curated Christmas decorations without a pine needle out of place (not that they have real trees as that is too much hard work!) and showing you pictures from every angle but come one minute past Midnight on December 26th and they are there with their Dyson stick vacuums, having packed all their decorations away, cleaning for all they are worth.  Then out come the boxes lablled “Keep”, “Donate”, “Sell”!  Why they think anyone else will want their stuff who knows!

Don’t get me wrong I am all for decluttering.  Goodness knows I fully realised that having the bear minimum was a good thing, after having had to clear out my Mother and then my Grandmother’s homes after they passed.  Particularly my Grandmother’s home as she had had her mother living with her for a few years so that was like two homes in one!  My relatives were of the era where you had two sets of china; the good set for high days and holidays and the every day set!  I was determined to only have one set of china (well pottery actually) and it gets used every day and holidays! 

They both had cabinets full of things which they had been bought or collected which were just sitting in a cupboard.  The best piece of advice we had was from the lady who came from the Auctioneers to value my Grandmother’s things.  She said keep what you love and let the rest go, otherwise our home would be filled to the brim with stuff and we would not be able to move.  That is what we did.  It was a shame as my Grandmother had some wonderful pieces of furniture but they fitted into her old Victorian home and definitely would not have fitted in our little modern one bedroom house! 

I, of course, was going to do miracles between Christmas & New Year and gets lots of jobs done, but this bout of shingles put paid to that!  I have just finished the antibiotics and just have another day’s worth of antivirals to go.  It is feeling a lot better than it did a week ago although I still have the rash on my face (!).  I am hoping that I will not have to have another set of tablets, we shall see how it goes.

I am a tidy person at home and do not like it when things get in a mess so that helps (if I am honest I am a little OCD about it!) and I do have a sort out, as we always called it, every so often to get rid of things that have sat in drawers for ages and not been needed or used so I get rid of them in some way. 

So over the next few weeks I will be doing a bit of decluttering but don’t let these Instagram people shame you in any way!  I love the Christmas decorations up and only take them down on January 6th when I absolutely have to!  I dust them all and put them back in their boxes for December 1st this year when they can come out again.    Don’t let the fitness Influencers shame you into drastic diets either!  As a PT guy said the other day slow and steady wins the race and I firmly believe that! 

I hope your first week of January is going well, you lovely lot. 

Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx

Wishing all my lovely Friends & Followers wherever you are

A Very Happy, Healthy & Peaceful New Year

2024

All Our Love & Hugs,

Susie, DH, Eldest, Girlfriend, Youngest, Coco & Honey xxxxxxx