Monday 10 July 2017

Confessions! You see Ebay is taking over my life!


So I promised a few times an ebay posting. So here it is. I primarily post plants right now. I first opened an account to purchase random junk. I only moved into the world of selling really when I was pregnant with Jess. I started making room for new junk and then after she came used it to sell some baby junk. At some point I then thought I would try out selling plants. I think I was looking for plants for the garden or pond and saw someone selling teasels. They were going like wild fire and as I had tons I thought I would try this! They soon left and year after year i've come back to sell them. I think i'm in my 4th year now! This is partly why I have invested in the new green house so that I can put seedlings in there. I have since sold Bamboo root stock, Ferns, Christmas lenten rose, Alum root, and Primroses.

I have so much stuff to sell! Mostly baby related - last count I had 18 boxes! Here are a few ...



That will take some time ...!People keep saying take to charity but I want to try and make as much as I can from it. And actually I really enjoy selling on ebay! And as an introvert will find any excuse not to go out the house it gives me a good excuse to do so.

So bearing that in mind who do you know goes and takes on selling other people's junk aye?! I had an invite from ebay ages ago to join "Ebay Neighbourhood". It is a new scheme where by you take your junk to a persons house and they try and flog it for you. Sounds like fun I thought so I filled out a profile then forgot about it! A few weeks back I had a lady contact me to sell some shoes for her. So I have a few boxes full of shoes that are listed!

A week after I was contacted by a man who had moved to Italy and wanted to sell his farm vehicles. He was a quite a pain in listing them. Wanting to put specific info, keeping changing the catagories and wanting to pay listing. He wanted them paid but didn't want to pay for them as he didn't have paypal. The last 2 days of hte listing he withdrew and only answered messages once a day. I started to get suspciious as he wasn't answering qestions that buyers were aksing and didn't relveal the locaion of the vehicles. So about 12-24 hours before the listing ended I ended the listing and told him I thought he was a scammer and that I was no ore comfortable with this! Needless to say I no longer heard from him again ...!
A week later another lady asked me to sell some clothes for her. I am still in contact with her so that hasn't gone very far so far.

Just incase anyone is interested this is what I have listed right now :-)








http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/182660373210?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649 - Black Cord Trousers - Size 14 - Editions - Short 31 inch leg









Right that will do for now! Chin up and look to the skies! X ✈




Saturday 8 July 2017

ARGH! How to absolutely not sort your photos!


As a lot of you will have noticed I have taken to spamming my facebook albums again with photos. I have been trying and failing to catch up with this and I tend to do a load and then end up with more so seem to end up going backwards rather than forwards! I'm trying to get into the habit of posting to instagram more too. I really should try and use pinterest myself to post rather than just gathering a ton of exciting ideas I won't get round to doing! I am on twitter too but I find it too fast paced, a little lonesome and just weird. So i'm not a twitter fan. I do however love instagram - That is my favourite after facebook. If you don't have me on a form of social media and want me just drop me a line and i'll tell you my handles.(Am I the only one who thinks handle sounds strange?! And maybe a bit rude!Nope? Just me then!!)

Until recently I have had my photos stored in various locations - current camera, old camera, mobile phone. But since a a couple of weeks back that has extended to old phone and new phone!!! For those not in the know my lovely dd aged 2 - Sophie - Dropped it excitedly in the paddling pool!! I had my back turned at the time as Jess wanted help with something and I jumped off my seat leaving my phone behind on it to attend to her. It was literally all of about 20/30 seconds. Next I hear Jess pointing and shouting "Mummy! Your phone!!". My blood ran cold and I shouted many, many naughty words children should never hear and ran indoors with it! As the advice is to turn it off immediately that's what I did. I took out the sim card but the battery is underneath and would need a big job to screw it out. So I shoved it in a bag of rice and it was put in the hot cupboard!

So did you back it up regularly I hear you cry?

HA! Well yes - A few weeks before I had "backed up" all my photos - I say I had - I started then the damn thing got an error and I was dealing with kids and it got put by the way side. So I was missing photos from February onwards. But more importantly to me I was missing tons of notes on colornote. Again had I backed up? Nope I never knew how to do it with that so would email myself each individual one that took forever! I was also missing texts and half my contacts! But I was more annoyed with my notes as it had things like the girls birthday lists, shopping (exciting!) lists, funny sayings the girls were saying, blog ideas, etc etc. 

The phone was turned on after 24,48 and 4 days (Sorry too tired to work that one out!) but nothing happened. It would try to charge up but then cut out or would start to turn on and go straight off. It initially was doing a reboot loop over and over.

Hubby took this to work to a wizz friend who loves all things electronic. First a replacement battery was tried but all to no avail so they decided to take the memory flash card thingy out the phone. This involved a lot of faffing to break it to lots of pieces and find it and then unsolder it. It was then re soldered into a sd photo card so it could go into a pc to read the data. All very technical but after some faffing it worked and I was able to get back all my data- Phew!!!

Sort it out girl!

I have sinced google synced everything and set up back up on colornote! I have photos all over the place. Various folders on my desktop, on my phone, on my camera, facebook. Not the way to sort them out and store! So that is my work cut out for me!

My next job (it's on the bottom of my list!) will be to sort out videos on youtube, add more, and make it more user friendly.

Right I best get to it ...! Remember to post any comments below and add me for updates! Chin up and look to the sky! ✨X

Thursday 6 July 2017

Scary things here! Bump, Croak & Snuffle in the night!


I have mostly been concentrating on the left side border of the garden and trying to deweed and destone that with a lot of sieving. I took all the plants out and have put them in a big tub in water whilst I complete this. I have just finished this and put them back in. Unfortunately it took a couple of weeks though so a few plants look very sick! :-s Hope they pull through. One I am giving a chance but I am convinced it's not going to - Or if it does then not this year. The roots look ok and green though so I am giving it a go.



Rubbish finished pictures but it was late. I will get more and add to my next update.






After completing this I thought it was time to go round the garden again on take 2 as the first lot is now weedy again - ARGH! It's never ending!

So yesterday I delved back into the veggie patch where I took everything off the greenhouse shelves and then moved it. Last year Jess grew potatoes in this patch - and yup! Up has come a ruddy tata plant ... In the middle of me bleeding greenhouse! Now not one to give up on free food it is staying ... That and my big girl put hard work into growing that. (Dropping a potato in a hole is hard right?!)





I have moved all the slabs and I am thinking of trying to level off the ground again and then put the greenhouse directly on the soil. I know due to weeds this is by far the worst option however I can't think of anything else I can do. As I couldn't do any hard work in professional levelling off.
Last night I dug up and de-weeded the first half of the whole veggie patch and tonight I finished it off. No pictures of this due to it being well after dark when I came in - 10:20pm! Again I will add to my next garden update.

The new grass is settling in well! Here is a piccie of it at the weekend.



Often when you re in the garden late at night just as the last slither of light is going things take on an eerie atmosphere! I had 5 minutes left before I was done and with face to soil I heard a massive crashing and banging noise going on in the alleyway behind out garden! It sounded like a person as it was so heavy. I suspected it might be a rat or something so I cautiously opened the back gate to peer out. Then I saw a hedgie-hog! Here he is! :-D




Coming back down the garden to go into the house and I heard plop, plop, crunch as something moved on the stones by the pond. I knew what it was! Walking down the grass I was surprised to spot one here ...



Froggies!! The garden is full of them this year! :-D

One has made a home by the back door. I have an emergency tub of water to add plants in quick that need a drink/soak. The other night I took a plant out to go and plant it and look what I saw ...





He's totally loving it in there! So I added in a pond plant pot and a stone for him to stand on to get out. Right once again that's it for a quick update! Chin up and look to the sky! 🌞🌝 XX


How does your garden grow?

Monday 3 July 2017

Breastfeeding past and now - You see the emotional journey of 2 babies!



Fun Fact: My breasts have fed a baby for a total of 4 years, 5 months and 1 week now!!! 

That's a heck of a lot of milk and many maaany hours!! 

... And we ARE still going! ...


Breasts, boobs, knockers! Whatever you want to call them! Mine fed Jessica for 2 1/2 years and we stopped when I was around 13 weeks pregnant with Sophie. Sophie is now 23 months and we are still having 1 bedtime feed.


So what is the differences in both baby's journeys?


Well with Jessica it was a hard, hard journey for the first 4-6 weeks. The second night of her arrival she fed constantly all night long! I didn't get to have any sleep until 5am. I was then really annoyed that I got woke up at 6am by a doctor doing some rounds! ARGH! 1 hour's sleep all night!
This constant all night feeding was pretty much was president for the next month. She would cluster feed all evening. Maybe put in 20-30 mins nap around 9-10 and then from 10:30pm that would be it. Glued to my breasts all night long until gone 3-4am. I may then get an hour or 2 sleep and off we go again. After the first month/6 weeks she started putting in a 3-4 hour stint of sleep from around 3/4am. 4 hours sleep felt amazing!!!

The lack of sleep plus the constant feeding wasn't just it. By far the worst was the state of my poor nipples! Each time she came off they would be white on the ends from being clamped on. This is usually a sign of a bad latch but as far as I could (and numerous other midwives and the nasty health visitor who fancied looking at my on show breasts!) see the latch was bang on. I was feeling highly frustrated as it didn't make sense! I was reminded I could go to lanterns where they have a breastfeeding support group. I was also using Medela nipple shields by this point. As you can see here :-) (The thing kept flipping up lol!)




I collapsed on hubby in a blubbing knackered emotional wreck one night and I said I can't do this any more and we should just put her on formula like everyone else. The health visitor had been pushing this for some time saying after every breast feed to give her a bottle. She had horrific reflux and often it was just too much for her. And she would just throw the whole lot up over us, the sofa and floor. What a waste! So it was decided we would have one last try by visiting the babies breastfeeding group if that didn't work formula it was ...!

My experience of a breastfeeding group

Not sure what I thought I would see or get from this group. I am very much a introvert so I had to be mega desperate to go out and do this. (Having failed at the whole giving birth thing I was! Jess was C-Section for being breech) I'm not one for meeting new people so it was hard. However it was amazing to see a big group of ladies all sat in a circle with their babies. All sharing their experiences and agreeing on the challenge of feeding babies! The counsellors went round the group helping ladies one by one. I came in at a quiet time so they came straight to me. I might have been first or second in I can't remember now! It was picked up that Jessica had a tongue tie and that this would need cutting. It took 3 weeks for this to get done! I was told there was no appointments and that I would need to go 40 miles away to Salisbury hospital - I said no way. So a week later I had a call saying that there was one slot at Winchester and could I make it straight away. I said we could do in half hour so we upped everything and went! It turns out the consultant who did it was there for his last day before he stopped working for the summer holidays. We got lucky!
The change was immediate. My nipples were much better within 24 hours. I had been using Medela nipple shields before that due to the cracked nipples that were bleeding and the skin dangling off! 

After this feeding began to settle down. Still frequent but a tad better. Feeds were taking around 40 minutes+ at a time! And she was feeding every 2 hours or so. Feeds are timed from the start of a feed so by the time she finished a feed she was 40 mins into the time before the next one.

Growth spurts were very obvious with Jess as she would feed constant - Often only giving me 20 mins between feeds. Enough time to run for a pee, get a drink and de-square my poor bum before being back in the nursing chair! I spent all night in that chair just "watching" tv in the first 7 weeks. I say watching as you are so exhausted your eyes go and you constantly fall over asleep. Looking back I can't believe I did it! Here are a couple of cute pics of breastfeeding poses! That little hand is adorable!






Breastfeeding in bed!

Like every new mother I was terrified of cot death. I read a book when pregnant about cosleeping and said to hubby I will never do that it's too dangerous! However once I had been to the breastfeeding group the lovely ladies told me the stats, explained how to do it safely etc and I tentatively had a try. It was one afternoon she had just gone to sleep so I carried her up and laid in the middle of the double bed. I piled pillows each side of me so that if she fell off me she wouldn't fall out the bed.I some how managed to forget the smothering risk but they weren't that close! I had her on my chest and I laid back. I was so terrified of something happening I set my alarm for every 5 mins to check on her. She was sleeping fine - I however didn't sleep! She then woke up 20 mins later so back to the nursing chair!

At 7 1/2 weeks I thought I would try the bed. So after a 5am feed I decided to venture up to bed - took her with me and put her between us so she wouldn't roll out. This was my big bad thing! As you aren't meant to have them between you both. I had my arm over her though. But it worked! She slept great - I slept great and hubby slept ok. His hips kept hurting though so he moved to a mattress on the floor next to us not long after! So that was it. If she woke for a feed I would sit up on a mountain of pillows and just feed her there. This continued until she was 8 months and then she went into a cosleeper cot next to ours that basically was just an extension of cosleeping with the side down.


FAST FORWARD 3 YEARS TO WHEN SOPHIE ARRIVED!

Not much to write on this one really! From start to finish it was all a dream in the early days! Sophie also had a tongue tie but I recognised this straight away. This was then cut when I came home from hospital less than a week after her arrival. Oddly I was only really sore on one nipple the other was uncomfortable but not agony. There was also no real blood shed this time. I have a picture of this but feel it would be TMI to put in. However as I am giving a real life account of what breastfeeding IS like I feel like I should?! However I think I will leave this up to you guys! Do you want to see the picture of my poor nipple for education purposes? Let me know in the comments below!

I worried about having a newborn and a toddler. However it was MUCH easier than what came from 3 months+! I had a traumatic birth - traumatic on my body more than my mind over all. I am still paying for it now ... So I was very weak and wasn't allowed out of bed for 2 days. I was in a room by myself as I had to be monitored due to my severe blood loss. So as I couldn't even reach to my side for a cup due to the agony of my muscles after giving birth I really couldn't do much in the way of baby care. I had to buzz a midwife to pick her up, change her, pass to me, put back etc. I was and still am very confident in my mothering abilities. I knew that breastfeeding laying down would be easy to I tucked us both in and we slept like that most of the night. She would wake every 3 hours roughly feed for 5-10 mins - 20 max and be done! 



Again except for during growth spurts when it might drag out to 30/40 mins but no where near as bad as Jess did! The norm was over and done with in 5-10. I was warned I might not be able to breastfeed easily or "on time" due to the blood loss and it might take a lot longer for my milk to come in. However day 5 in it came. I had the familiar feeling I had first time round although not as bad. I felt off, a bit ill, fluey almost and hot. I had no idea what that was with Jess until I read about it somewhere!This time I had an extremely fast let down. The milk came in a flood and fast. Poor Sophie was choking lots and doing a lot of noisy gulpy feeding trying to keep up with it. It was like this for the first 6 months at least!Sophie was feeding at night every 2 hours for a long time. Easily up to 8 months. I then tried the gradual nipple withdrawl as she used to use it to go back to sleep. This then led her to sleep through at 9 months. I did the same with Jess although that was at 5 months. This time Sophie felt too young then and being my last baby I wanted to savour it all as long as I could! Due to this constant feeding it was hard to pull out any sleep regressions and it was all just one big mess of no real sleep.This is where cosleeping really comes into it's own though. I had fab sleep. She would wake I would roll us over - get a breast out and leave her to it and go straight back to sleep! 

Here's some cuties of Sophie! ...........







So that's it! The biggest difference between the girls! Me up in the nursing chair until 4am with Jess (having not yet been to bed!!) V just getting a boob out and going straight back to sleep with Sophie! Poles apart!!


Hope you enjoyed reading about my breastfeeding journey. As you can see it started off really troubled but ended really well! They are different.So if you can't breastfeed first time round or give up like I almost did ... Then it doesn't mean you won't be able to breastfeed second time round! So that's it - Chin up and look to the sky! ~ 🌗 X





Saturday 1 July 2017

What happened? ... Not for the first time!! ...


The garden took over my life! I started witing this so many times!

Here was my start:

"I have just realised 5 days have passed with no posting! Things have been mad round here. One child ill to the next. Cold + fever. But seems to be mild compared to some illnesses we have had."

And another ...!

"I have been tons of work into the garden ... as has hubby!! The garden has taken over my life! The very long grass has now been cut ... And the big empty space of dirt is now covered in turf as of Tuesday! It arrived at 12pmish and was laid by 4pm ... Impressive!! It was starting to dry out on the drive so I covered it in a sheet and then a tarpulin.

There will be loads of photo's in this due to so much going on ..."

It has now been a further week or more since I started this blog post!! And now ebay is taking over my life lol!! (This was 2 weeks ago!!!)
     =======================================================
Right I am back to it! I refuse to go to bed until this is complete even though it is long gone midnight! ... A few more weeks later! I've really struggled with being able to write this post but tonight I am determined to do it!  I will update on the garden first and as ebay is quite complex I will update on that in a separate posting.

And attempt number god knows how many at writing this!! ... Getting on for 10 at least!!

Reading back I was talking about the new turf so I will show you all this first!

GETTING LAID!







AFTER BEING LAID!



HOW TO WATER YOUR LAWN ...




WATERING THE LAWN IS FUN!






Laying it proved to be an easier task that digging up and levelling the lawn off. This arrived right in the middle of that hot weather a few weeks back. So we were watering this 3 times a day then! Now only once or less depending on hot it has been etc. We started walking on it tentively after about 5 days but using properly after 10. Again only really walking up and down.

Here is my garden friend :-) More pictures of her in my garden album on facebook for those of you that have me on there. If you don't comment below and i'll add you :-)


And here is another gardeners friend and Sophie having a look :-)




I'm going to end here with some pictures of my rose! I have more that I will add to a different post ...







Right i'm closing here for the night now! Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Sorry about the radio silence ...! Hopefully I can add postings more often now. Until next time chin up and look to the sky! 🌛 X