As those of you who have been reading my blog for a while may know, I am a lover of offensive tshirts. I don’t really wear them myself, but I do like to punish my 21 month old son with wearing them.
I am looking for some more and have narrowed them down to these ones:
Thoughts?
I have now become completely and utterly hooked on lolcats.
both courtesy of icanhascheeseburger.com
Sorry I haven’t been around or available as much this week as I would’ve liked, but it has been a really tough week for me and my family.
My grandad passed away on Monday night after suffering a very rare brain disease – like, literally one in a million people get it. For the curious, it is called Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease and there is no cure or treatment. You may not have heard of the disease, but you know how they say that people who lived in the UK in the 80s can’t donate blood? Well, this is one of the reasons why. It’s nasty, it’s fatal, and it’s swift.
We found out about it not long ago, and were told that my Grandad had less than 6 months to live. It ended up being a whole lot less than that – so much less that I think most of us are still in complete shock that he’s gone. I have moments where I am teary, but then I forget about it for a moment until something else reminds me that I am never going to see him again. Ok, ok, you’re right, I am sad that I am never going to be able to take the piss out of him again…
For those that are interested in the back story, Wally was not my biological grandfather. My “real” grandad died of cancer when I was 3. Wally married my Grandma when I was 5, and he is the only Grandad I ever knew.
When I was younger, apparently me & my biological Grandad were very close, and just before he died, he said that he would always look out for me. It may sound weird to many people when I say that throughout my life, I have often felt my Grandad Ken’s presence, kind of like a guardian angel if you believe in such things… it’s not something I readily admit, because, well, I am not really religious, and I know that the interwebs would hang shit on me for saying it, but…meh… so what :)
Anyway, as I sit here grieving for the loss of my “step” Grandad, I have a realisation that maybe this was some magical thing that my Grandad Ken did — to give me and my family a wonderful new Grandad in the form of Wally, to love me as if I were his own, and a Grandad for me to completely take for granted, make fun of and torment in that playful way I do.
Jason and I used to tease Wally a lot — he would give as good as he got, and we had a lot of very fun times with him. He always entertained us with his wartime stories (often very risque and frequently involving getting laid on foreign shores!), and he was never shy about his food.
He was a man who worked hard all his life, created a wonderful family, has had a long list of adventures, and will be sorely, sorely missed.
EDIT: 25 July
The funeral was yesterday and it was really nice. My grandma was a pillar of strength throughout the whole ordeal, and my heart broke for her and the rest of my family, as they all got up to say beautiful things about my Grandad, funnily enough, all reminiscing about his love of food! haha! Anyway, I know a bunch of family etc are reading this too — and thank you for letting me share in the celebration of his life. It was wonderful and he would’ve been proud.
And to my friends, thanks for your well wishes. Whilst it is most certainly not about me, I appreciate all the well wishes. :)
My last post got me thinking whilst I was making a cup of tea.
Why is it that people who are providing services to businesses are always so snobby? Why must everyone be in this constant pursuit of riches?
When I was on the phone to Quicken, it was as though, because I am a sole trader and am quite happy that way, that I was somehow less worthy than the “entrepeneurs” who exploit designers and developers to make their fortune (I can name a couple but I don’t want to be sued ;)) , and are only in web design for the money — not because they have any particular interest in designing websites.
I make a pretty healthy living just doing what I love, and I do what I have to, legally, to not go to prison for tax fraud. But thats about it.
I visited an accountant recently who literally scoffed at me because I said I wasn’t interested in pursuing “growth” and said that I was quite happy to have my main clients and the freedom to be more creative — and to work in a flexible way and just…well… do what I love, and earn an honest living.
Its almost as though something shifted in his head at that moment, where, because I am not motivated by money (and I am not saying I don’t make money — I do!), I was written off as some sort of irrelevancy in the “greed is good” world of business. I really don’t understand why people think I am so strange? Am I?
The thing is, I am happy to see where things go. I am not opposed to growing at all — but I am not going to pursue business growth for its own sake, either. I am not going to go getting employees so I can sell their skills to clients with a massive markup, or spend my whole day dealing with all that administrative crap and who-ate-all-the-biscuits-in-the-staffroom conflicts (it was probably me on a 2am binge, so SHUT UP!), just so that I can drive my BMW and have a big house and impress other people.
I mean, I like those things as much as anyone, but at what cost?
Am I mental? I really do wonder sometimes if I am the only person who thinks that happiness and creativity come first?
I don’t really think about it from day to day, but I have noticed that as soon as you mention that you don’t have a plan to expand and grow and GET THE RICHES NOW PEOPLE ITS ALL A BIG GRABBY GAME!!!11!! that people, especially service providers and other business people look at me like I am from outer space.
Am I?
Let me tell you a secret about being a mother to a boy.
They get erections.
When I first saw my baby boy with a hard-on, I have to admit, I was traumatised. I was completely weirded out.
I don’t really know why, I mean, I understand why it occurs and everything, and I am not a prude by any stretch of the imagination. But seeing your baby fondle himself and then get a little, um, excited… does do things to you as a mother.
I had weird dreams all night, about having touched him inappropriately during nappy changes, about Oedipus and all of those lovely Shakespearian stories about boys who love their mothers a little too much.
It was traumatic, but when I googled it, I realised that it was perfectly normal. Jason, of course, laughed at me. but I post this as a warning to anyone to plans on having a baby boy — watch out! They can’t help but fondle themselves. It seems they are men well before they realise it.
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