It’s so nice to go to bed and wake up on fresh bed linen… although not so nice to wake up to a hearty dose of sciatica. 😦 Around 10 to 9 I slipped out of bed, leaving Bear to snooze and came downstairs to an empty living room, which is novel. Playing Catan until 10.45pm last night must have tired the kids out. Might have to try that again tonight. 😀
I got some chores done before we went to visit The Mommy, who had carnival food at the ready; hotdogs, devilled eggs, herring fillets, gherkins and a cold potato salad with spring onions and pulled beef in it (I passed on the herring, yeuch.!). All of which came after the HUGE apricot jam doughnuts and cappuccinos, and then there was home made waffles and sweet rosé wine.
Seriously going to have to knuckle down to a low calorie/low carb menu these next few weeks, or I’ll have to reorder my dress in the next size up… 😮 Bought some new bathroom scales when we went shopping this evening, sick of my digital ones changing their mind from one minute to the next, so we bought some analogue ones instead, which have proven what a liar the digital ones are.
The Mommy is much better now, but the girl child has a cold and a cough, so I’ve been dosing her up on soluble Ibuprofen and cough syrup. There’s only so much snuffling and snorting I can take. Thank God for Spotify on my tablet, as the boy child has taken over the TV to build PixelArt on the Xbox. He thinks he’s funny pretend snuffling and snorting because he knows it gets on my nerves.
I told him I’d beat him up if he didn’t quit it… he laughed. He thinks that at 13 years old and 5’11” I won’t kick his ass… he’s badly mistaken. I have no problem scaring the crap out of a deliberately annoying teenager with a superiority complex, especially when my TV privileges have been taken away, albeit temporarily, by his desire to play.
The problem with being shaped like an upside down pear is that you have to wear tops and blouses and dresses to fit your bust, not your body. I’m usually a UK 16/18, but due to being top heavy I have to wear a UK 22/24 on top. The tattoo dress came yesterday as expected, well, both tattoo dresses came yesterday. Having a lot of experience with plus size clothing, I ordered sizes two and three times above my usual. I’m never sure what will fit and how small or big the cut is, especially with non-stretchy materials.
Happily the three times bigger dress was too big, although my boobs were still difficult to contain. The two sizes bigger dress was much better, slightly less roomy, although I’m still going to have to get it tweaked to fit, as there’s too much room under my arms and a funnel down my cleavage when the halter neck is tied. Not the kind of look you want at your little sister’s wedding. Thankfully, it’s easily fixed. I only hope it’s not too expensive to do, or I’ll be looking for another dress that’s not a halter neck.
The kids are here this afternoon, staying until Wednesday evening as they have a week off school for Carnival. Bear has the week off, with just a late shift on Thursday, and all next weekend off too. 🙂 We don’t do Carnival. It’s just an excuse to get pissed up during the day while dressed in a costume and go around hassling people. It used to be fun years ago, with floats and parades and street parties, but now it’s just large groups of dressed up people on a pub crawl.
No plans as yet for the week ahead, but we will be seeing The Mommy tomorrow for a change if she’s well enough. She’s had the flu this past week, poor thing but she has at least been listening to good advice and resting, drinking plenty of fluids and keeping warm. Which for her is probably a first… she’s a very strong willed, feisty lady at the best of times and can’t be told something she doesn’t want to hear. 🙂
Zoodles… are much like rocket science, everything has to be exactly right for the damn things to work, or they won’t.! Three tries and four courgettes later, still no zoodles, lots of green mush that looks about as appetising as a 1980’s McDonald’s chicken burger though. Guess I’m making carrot soup later.
Bear’s on a late shift today, so I’ve made Chimichurri bean balls for skewers with sweet red pepper, chestnut mushrooms, red onion and cherry tomatoes on rice. He’s currently on his way back from Maastricht, as he decided he wasn’t keen on the black shirt with the red accents we got on Tuesday and went back to swap it for the red, rose print shirt. I won’t say I told him so, but…
I showed him the Bordello red and black shoes I finally decided on and got his immediate approval. Apparently, sexy shoes are more my thing… (??) which says two things, 1, that plain white shoes are not sexy, so are not worth wasting money on, no matter how great they’d look and 2, that he sees me as some kind of closet harlot.
He doesn’t seem to have quite grasped that I’m far more likely to break an ankle or my neck in those heels than look at all alluring… I’m too old (and too fragile) to be tottering around in heels like my 21 year old attention seeking self used to decades ago. Sexy is not my thing these days… comfort and practicality is… my poor worn-out joints don’t need the pressure.
The tattoo dress is due to be delivered today, sometime between now and 3.45pm. I’ve been watching YouTube videos on how to get a quick and easy ‘bump’ in my hair without using weird and wonderful contraptions or back-combing which I’m grateful for, brushing out back-combing is a real bitch. So I’ll be trying that out this afternoon. The shoes will be delivered next Friday.
Bear went off to college this morning, taking the car as he wants to take it into the garage afterwards to get the exhaust bracket checked. Since it was replaced the exhaust rattles, which it shouldn’t and Bear doesn’t want it to become an issue. He’s off to a political meeting this evening, so I have to remember to get dinner ready in time, unlike the last time. 😦 I made a decision about the shoes and have chosen the red Bordello heels to go with the Rockabilly black and white brogue heels.
Bear suggested getting stocking seams tattooed up the back of my legs, which is something I’ve wanted since I was 21, but didn’t have the balls to get done, mainly because of my fear of needles. It would look pretty awesome with the tattoo dress and Rockabilly heels. I’m going to have to practice getting my hair in a quiff though. I’ll have to ask my friend and 1950’s style expert Peggy how to as she’s also my stylist. She loves that era.
Not much else to do today, so I’m going to start my new book and maybe get some Xbox time, depending on how long Bear’s gone tonight. I found a pineapple salsa online that sounds lush, so I’m going to do it with falafel in small tortilla wraps, like tacos. Mmmm.!
I missed a day, I know… it couldn’t be helped. Shit got to me and Bear and I almost had a row. And the stress made me feel like crap. Sometimes his teenage rebellion bullshit can be wearing. We’re going to my sister’s wedding next month and Bear doesn’t want to wear a suit. He’s never worn a suit in his life and he’s decided they’re uncomfortable and the more he thinks about having to wear a suit the more sulky he gets. I asked what he wanted to wear and he tells me that’s beside the point. He has to dress formally, but he doesn’t wanna. And he doesn’t wanna go shopping and have to pay a fortune for clothes he doesn’t wanna wear. Yes, he actually said wanna… like a stroppy 15 year old… at 52.! “I don’t wanna”… Give me strength.!!
I really don’t see the issue. It’s a wedding. He hasn’t been to one since he was 23… and he didn’t wear a suit to it because it was a Dutch wedding and they don’t do formal. Us English do, and my sister does and Bear’s not wearing jeans and a fucking band t-shirt to it and I don’t give a shit how sulky he gets. A line has been drawn and he’s damn well going to toe it.! So after telling him to wear whatever the fuck he wants or stay the fuck at home and going upstairs to make our bed and bursting into tears, he comes up after me and says he didn’t mean he didn’t want to look nice for the wedding, just that he’s not looking forward to having to dress up in clothes that are just not him. How the fuck does he know they’re not ‘him’ when he’s never worn anything like it before.
Just because he’s spent the past 50+ years dossing around in jeans and a t-shirt doesn’t mean that’s his one and only style of dressing. I pointed out that he had shirts, and smart jeans and he liked wearing those, to which he said he did, after wearing such ‘formal’ wear to a dinner out with colleagues a few years ago, and leaving their jaws hanging when they saw how well he brushes up when he makes the effort. It boosted his ego and he happily wore smart jeans and a shirt to Christmas meals with his family. So why the issue now. Eventually, he decided he wanted to go to Maastricht to look in the ‘posh’ shops, because he didn’t think he’d find anything in his size here in town. So we drove to Maastricht, parked up and took the park and ride into the centre.
The very first men’s outfitters we tried, the clerk took one look at Bear and recommended another outfitters, he wasn’t even going to try and persuade us that he had anything that would fit him. So we went off down the High street to the most expensive place in town, who had nothing we could afford… and only two jackets that fit Bear but were really not him. Plain dark colours are not him at all and that’s pretty much all any of the suit stores had, so we stopped at a bar and had a beer and a burger, and got to thinking about what else we could do in town now we were here… and decided on the bookstore that we both love… it used to be a church, and the old building has been renovated and made safe with no alterations to it’s structure or any of the old flagstone floor.
Alice In Wonderland/Through The Looking Glass with a letter to the reader from 1876 printed at the back and an explanation of the creation of Alice and the inspiration for the characters and illustrations from John Tenniel.
It’s a gloriously beautiful Gothic building and it now houses a three storey bookstore, at which we found Bear a Marvel Encyclopedia and me a complete collection of Alice In Wonderland, with colour illustrations from the original artist, John Tenniel. I had the story in a huge book when I was very young, along with Through The Looking Glass, but the illustrations were in black and white. It’s lovely to have them in colour. Wandering back through town, looking up at the old Neo-Gothic and Art Nouveau buildings that line the High street, a mannequin in a white floral shirt and tan waistcoat caught my eye and I stopped to see what else was in the store, to spot a red, rose print shirt further inside, so we went in. What a great store.!!
So many colourful print shirts, just the sort of thing Bear would look amazing in… and he did.! The red, rose print looked great on him, red is so his colour. And the same print in black looked really good, as did a mid-blue with a small gold floral print on the sides. I was so into finding shirts for Bear to try and discovered an alcove filled with suits, so picked out a red and mid-grey patterned suit that would go with the black rose print. Bear decided to see it as a costume for a costume party, rather than a more formal clothing, and eventually found some enthusiasm in the admiring looks and encouragement the Italian shop manageress was giving him. He does like to be the centre of attention when the attention’s good and she was earning her money like a Boss.
She came up with shirts in his size, decided which jackets would fit him perfectly and stroked his ego like a pro… in an hour she had him in a jacket and trousers, two different styles of shirt and his whole demeanour was much improved from the ‘nothing’s gonna fit and it’ll all be too expensive anyway’ sulky attitude to a much sunnier disposition that saw him checking out other suit colours and shirts and smiling a lot and being very agreeable. That lady’s getting a five star review. After we were both happy with the suit, I managed to persuade him into buying decent leather shoes, explaining that his brown floral patterned cowboy boots really wouldn’t go and once we got home, tired, aching but a little more jovial, he tried the whole outfit on.
He looked just as I knew he would… jaw-droppingly gorgeous and the whole lot came to less than he would have paid for just a jacket in the ‘posh’ outfitters. So he was happy about that, and so was his mother when I sent her the photos of him dressed up, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She’d never seen him in a suit and said she was really impressed and that he looked sharp. Which is an old fashioned English expression for those of you not sure what the hell that means. We bought a present from the wedding gift list on my sister’s wedding website and ordered a dress that I found online, because the gorgeous floral jumpsuit I found before wasn’t in my size, and they might not have my size in before the wedding, so I went to my plan B… which just might get me a new tattoo.! 😀
Printed with tattoo designs
Then we looked at shoes for me, because I only have boots… and the lace ruffled boots I found before were no longer viable, seeing as I’ll be wearing a dress and not trousers. Bear loved the wingtip/brogue heels I found before, but hated the white strappy Flapper heels I liked, which caused some upset, mainly because he doesn’t think before he opens his mouth and he came out with “I expected better from you.” The Fuck.!! Seeing the closed, pinched and very pissed off look on my face, realisation dawned and he quickly explained that he hadn’t meant it how it sounded, what he meant was that he saw nothing special in plain white shoes, you could get plain white shoes anywhere, why did I like those particular shoes.?
What’s wrong with these.?
Mainly because I used to have a pair in my late 20’s and loved them and these looked very similar. Apparently that’s not a good enough reason. Plain white shoes are not me… so back to looking for something ‘special’. *sigh*
Monday is chores day, and when I can finally get my shit together enough to get my ass off this chair, I’ll go do them. I woke with a headache this morning, around 9.30am… it’s still throbbing a little, but it’s fading, slowly. Bear’s on an early shift today with the grocery shopping to do afterwards, so I’ve got until 5.30pm to sort my life out. I have to shower too before I forget, and put the dishwasher on.
The major rainstorm we were promised last night didn’t happen… as per, it took the long way around us and went to annoy the German’s instead. Wish my neighbours would bugger off and annoy the German’s; they’re at it again, screaming and fighting with each other and slamming doors. Now it’s getting lighter and warmer they’ll be in their garden soon, screaming and fighting with each other, getting drunk and stoned and shouting bollocks across the neighbourhood.
God, I wish we could afford to move. I’ve been wishing that since a week after we moved in. Maybe one day. I have my heart set on a nice five bed, one storey Cottage style home with lots of land, a garage, a summerhouse and a beer cellar/bar surrounded by rolling hills, or mountains. And a helipad. The nearest neighbour would be at least 100 miles away. Bliss.! Now to find it… or a place to build it.
UPDATE: Finally got my ass in gear around 2pm and did my chores, thankfully without emptying my stomach everywhere as that headache I woke with, returned with a vengeance and threatened to become a migraine. I had to beat it down with 1800mg of Ibuprofen and a hot shower before it finally got the message. I’m making garlic butter fish with courgette (zucchini) noodles tonight. Quick and simple and pretty much effortless. Perfect.
Today I’m a bit stressed. Not as stressed as yesterday, but there’s still a trace of anxiety going on in my general vicinity. I’ll get over it, I always do, but it takes a bit of time. This time it was caused by Bear inviting a complete stranger into the house for coffee yesterday without a single word of warning. He knows I can’t deal with new people without some preparation. He knows it stresses me the fuck out and makes me anxious and jumpy and nervous. He did it anyway.
And I was. Stressed out, anxious, jumpy and pissed off at being completely unprepared for my safe place to be violated by a total stranger who sat beside me and drank coffee and tried to make small talk with me. Small talk. Me. I don’t do small talk because I can’t do small talk. Literally, I can’t.! I’m not one of those people who can discuss the weather, world events or the latest trend at the drop of a hat. I need time to think about these things before offering any sort of opinion or comment.
So I sat in front of my laptop screen, listening to Bear and his colleague chat, trying to concentrate on the words so I understood a little of what was going on, trying to stop myself from leaving the room in a panic. I was pissed at Bear for being so bloody inconsiderate, knowing I can’t deal with the situation, but I also understood that Bear very likely didn’t even give it a second thought… it wouldn’t have occurred to him to say anything because he forgets stuff like that… consideration is not an inbuilt thing with him.
He certainly didn’t do it deliberately and if I’d explained to him again, as I have so many times before, that what he’d done had caused me stress and anxiety he’d have been so apologetic and would say he should have remembered and he’ll never do it again. But he will do it again, and again, and again, because he forgets, so there’s little point bringing it up and making him feel bad. I deal with my stresses in my own way and in a day or so, I’ll get over it and be relatively okay again.
90’s Grunge Go-Go boots
After he’d gone to work yesterday, I tidied around a bit and did some laundry and continued browsing the internet for suits and smart shoes for Bear, when I came across these babies… 90’s grunge Go-Go boots.! I would have sold my soul for a pair of these back in the day… I still might.! 90’s grunge is so my thing… Nirvana, Blind Melon, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Hole, Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins are a daily ‘must have’, regardless of other genres I’m listening to.
Today, I’m mostly doing sweet F all. Every other Sunday is my sod it day. When the kids aren’t here, Bear’s at work and I can kick back and do whatever I want without having to get chores done. Although I did make Bear a sweet potato stir fry for his dinner. I’ll grab something from the freezer later when I can be bothered. I did next week’s meal plan and made a shopping list for tomorrow, so I’m done. I might play on the Xbox in a bit.
I’m in love… completely head over heels (pardon the pun) in love with these totally fucking awesome shoes I found on AttitudeHolland.nl last night. I was looking for Louis heels (no, not Louis Vuitton, I’m not made of money) originally, then Oxfords because everyone loves Oxfords, proven by the fact that I couldn’t find anywhere that had them in stock in my size. Then I saw some wingtips and had to have some, again coming up empty… yes, I have a thing for shoes… unfortunately money and storage are my two evil setbacks…
Almost what I was looking for…. still LOVE them.
Perfection.!
THEN I saw some gorgeous vintage shoes on the above Dutch website AND these beautiful lace edged heels and I’m a goner… they are perfect and will look amazing on me and are bloody expensive… but… so worth it.! Given the opportunity, I would be the next Imelda Marcos when it comes to shoes. I used to have over 75 pairs of them in my late teens/early twenties. Some vintage, some retro styled, most glossy, sexy ‘fuck me’ shoes because I was that age, stripper heels a plenty, a pair of New Rock’s I bartered for because I couldn’t afford them but wanted them SO badly.
High heeled boots that covered my knees and goth boots with thick tower heels and lots of overly aggressive studs and zips and chains. I had very little to give a shit about in those days and shoes were my true love. Then I met handbags… oh boy.! 😀 I had a major clear out a year or so ago. Getting rid of at least 30 handbags, my last few pairs of stripper heels, my beautiful skintight sexy jeans that had stopped fitting me about 20 years before… but you know, still kinda fitted if I didn’t eat for a week and breathed in real hard and pulled my corset to it’s tightest fitting… Oh, to be 18 again.!
Did you know Valentine’s Day was actually the Roman Feast of Lupercalia back in 300BC.? Yeah, they sacrificed dogs or goats, skinned them and beat women with the skins to enhance their fertility. Pretty sure the only thing that would have been enhanced with me would have been my homicidal tendencies. Whose dumb idea was it that whipping women with animal skins made them more fertile and how the hell did they come to that conclusion.? I’d say it had to be a bloke, but then you’d all start at me about sexism, and feminism and all that PC BS, but be fair, what woman would come to the conclusion that she needed to be belted with goat skin to be in with a chance of conceiving quicker.?
My father taught me that if it’s not working right, smack it. How we got from beating women with goat skins to buying tons of chocolate and flowers and jewellery is a mystery, but one wonders if it’s not in fact a result of the goat skin beatings, by way of apology. “I’m sorry your Roman ancestors got beaten with animal skins by my Roman ancestors, here, have some chocolate and a pretty bracelet in apology”. 😀 It’s an evolutionary genetic dysfunction that the big corporations that benefit from all the apology gift buying take full advantage of.! And so we have commercialism.
Luckily we don’t do that shit in this house. Commercialism can stay the hell out of my relationship. Bear knows I forgive his ancestors and I know he would never even consider beating me with dead goat skin, so we good. He buys me flowers when he sees some he thinks I’ll like and replaces the chocolates and jewellery with beer and shoes when I get all glassy eyed and drool-y in front of a shoe store. Which to be fair isn’t often as I don’t go out much so there’s not much need for shoes and he’s not the bedroom shoes kind… unfortunately. 😉
Bear agreed to the stripper heels but made it clear he’ll only wear them at home. It’s a start. 😀 Today he’s on a late shift which means he’ll be gone from 2.45pm until 11.30pm. Currently he’s walking the streets with a political colleague asking people about the complaints that have been made about the assholes who use their street as a racetrack. I hear them. It used to piss me off when the local reprobates used the road we used to live on as a racetrack, until some twat bent his fancy BMW around a tree and I went outside and cheered him. Dumbass.
Nice car though. It settled down quite a bit after that and then we moved here. Now I just have noisy, obnoxious asshole neighbours and wheezy moped guy to tolerate. Who woke me up again yesterday morning, the little turd, talking to his-damn-self about how cold it was, and how he couldn’t believe it was that cold. If it’s too cold for you pal, stay the fuck at home and let me sleep.
Anyone know where I can get a pair of women’s heeled wingtips.? I’ve searched through dozens of online stores and local store websites, but everywhere is sold out. What gives.? How many of you own a recently bought pair.? Size 9.5 US/40EU/7UK.? Can I borrow them please.? Please…? I’ve set my heart on a pair and typically they’re nowhere to be found. I bet if I wanted stripper heels there wouldn’t be any either. 😦 Not that I want stripper heels, those days are far gone now, my poor ankles couldn’t handle those dizzy heights anymore.
I was winding my sister up last night, asking if jeans were okay and what kind of t-shirts were acceptable, and would she be okay if I wore my DM’s.? 😀 She knows I’ll turn up dressed to the nine’s, but it’s always fun to goad her a little. Bear of course would wear jeans and a band t-shirt to her wedding if she said it was okay, so I’ve told her I’ve been trying to get him into a suit and to work with me. No luck on finding anything even remotely suitable for a guy his size, so it looks like a bespoke job. I did find an awesome pair of men’s silver glitter stripper heels though… figured Bear wouldn’t entertain the idea… but I’m gonna ask him anyway. 😀
Now I have to start looking for a wedding present. Currently, I’m listening to my 80’s playlist on Spotify… I know Climie Fisher is a part of it, but man, that guy’s voice just grates on my nerves, I may have to remove him. Tonight’s delectable gem is fajita pasta. I’ve already made guac to go with it and there’s black beans and corn to go in it. Gotta make Enchilada sauce but that shouldn’t be too hard, as long as I don’t eat it before I need to use it. I’m a sucker for enchilada sauce, especially with tortilla chips… Nom.! 🙂
I’ve been searching for a wedding outfit for Bear and getting just a little more than thoroughly fed up with it. As far as your average clothing stores and men’s outfitters are concerned men only grow to 6’4″ and have 30″ legs. There is literally nothing in Bear’s size. The only Tall Man’s outfitter’s I can find cater to tall, but chunky men… so Bear is tall enough but too slim for their suits. At this rate we’ll have to mix and match or pay a damned fortune for a bespoke suit he likely will never wear again. 😦
He took me out to lunch today after getting his hair cut at the barber’s. We tried the new restaurant on the top floor of the library building. It’s high enough to look out over the town and see all the lovely old buildings. Architects knew what style was back in the early 19th century before some idiot decided his bank balance was far more important and dumped concrete blocks everywhere, covered the tops in tar and gravel and called them homes.
Lunch was amazing. I had a goat’s cheese burger with mushrooms and spinach on a rustic roll with mixed pepper salad and home-made chips. Bear had pulled beef in a sweet and sour sauce with chips. I also made an appointment at the salon for mid-March. I’m having the blonde part of my hair dyed deep copper, so when it washes out and it will, probably before the wedding if my history is anything to go by, it’ll be a bright peach colour, which is what I’m aiming for anyway.
In June 2015 I dyed my hair a beautiful shade of Flame red. It was absolutely gorgeous until I washed it for the first time a week later… when it washed out to an ugly brownish salmon pink colour. As it grew out and was washed over and over it faded to a pale salmon pink. I hated it so much at the end of that year I shaved my head. In January 2019 I had it dyed bright purple, within a month it was pale blue, green and yellow… instead of the lovely pale lilac I was told it would be.
My gorgeous flame red hair, 06/2015.
Yep.. I shaved my head. 11/2015
Loved this purple.
The curls lasted 30 minutes. My hair is dead straight.
So I’m a bit dubious about the deep copper colour, but the stylist assures me it will fade to a peach colour. If it goes fucking salmon pink again, I’m going to be really pissed.
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