I love my bed/I hate my bed

So, today is day 6 of not having a very good sleep the night before. For almost a week now I have been in unbelievable pain – only in the top of my thighs & it ony really seems to impact my attempts to get to sleep. My legs hurt so much that I can’t lay on my stomach, which is how I need to be laying in order to fall asleep. So, instead I have to lay on my back, tossing & turning untill I finally fall asleep from sheer exhaustion. I know that right now I am not sleeping very well once I finally do get to sleep, because I am remembering my dreams. In fact, not only am I remembering my dreams, I’m in that sleep where you can actually control what is happening in your dreams. Which means, I’m waking up exhausted & my body is not getting the healing sleep it needs.

Add to that, the fact that I am struggling to even get to sleep at night – sometimes it is taking me up to 3-4 hours to fall asleep, which means I am not getting enough sleep.

Taking my sleeping pill doesn’t seem to help any – the night before last I took it & was practically falling asleep on the couch, then as soon as I crawled into bed – boom – the leg pains (& the restless legs, too) start & I’m ready to climb the walls. I have a bottle of Ibuprofen beside my bed, which I brought back from Canada & I’m needing to take 4 or 5 of them to take the edge off. Not that that really works, mind. Each of the past 6 nights has featured me in the above bed, in tears from the exhaustion & the pain, begging someone to just knock me out & let me sleep!

The other night I was watching an episode of Boston Legal & in it Denny was suing the pharmaceutical industry cause he was taking too many medications which were interacting badly with each other. In his closing argument Alan (Denny’s lawyer) talked about how the pharma industry makes up illnesses to get people hooked on medications & one of the conditions he mentioned was restless leg syndrome. Well, if this is a made up illness, then wow! I’ve had restless legs for as long as I can remember (my brother has it too, though his is much worse), but am lucky in that it really only affects me when I am over tired – like right now.

How’s this for a vicious cycle:

• I’m not getting enough sleep, which leads to:
• Over-tiredness, which leads to:
• Increased pain from my Fibromyalgia, which leads to:
• Increased instance of Fibro fog, increased lethargy, increased incidence of restless legs, etc, which leads to:
• Not getting enough sleep because I am in too much pain, which leads to:

Yeah, I think you get the picture!

 

 

 

Life sucks, pass me the lemons

cause I need to make some lemonade before I go crazy! About 3 weeks ago I found out I was being made redundant & we went through the whole “Consultation process”. This past week I got my final notice – end of consultation. My contract indicates that I have to give 3 month’s notice when I quit, so the company has to give me 3 month’s notice – or they could pay me in lieu of notice. Now, considering what I do for a living, that’s what should have happened, but ooh no, they thought it was a great idea to make us all work our notice period. So that means that instead of the almost £7000 I would have got, I have to stay & work & pay rent, bills etc & all I will walk away with is my statutory redundancy pay & my untaken holidays – so, in total I will get about £1100 – just enough to pay my bills & buy groceries for 1 additional month. After that? Well, that’s how life sucks.

My Dear OH has been unemployed since he was made redundant 3 years ago this week, which means that my £1600/month salary is what we have been living on – plus the savings he had (+£10,000) except for about £500 which we still have. So, once my redundancy comes into effect, we essentially are broke. If I don’t find a job by the middle of June there’s a good chance we’ll be homeless by September……..I’m trying desperately to stay calm, not come unhinged & to think logically, but it’s not working too great, I have to admit!

I’ve started applying for other jobs, but we’re kinda caught in a catch-22. Because I am being made to work my redundancy we aren’t getting the above mentioned money. Because we aren’t getting the above mentioned money I don’t have money to travel to job interviews. I have to travel to interviews because there are no jobs currently available in the city I live in, in my current field. But, should I manage to find money to secure an interview & get the job – because we are not getting the above mentioned money, we can’t afford to hire a truck to move our stuff, let alone come up with the money for the security deposit on a new flat/house. How’s that for screwed?

Please pass the lemons!

Spelt

Conversation I had today via text message:

Me: Can you do me a favour?

OH: Sure

Me: I need you to go to Sainsbury’s & pick up a few things so I can make some banana bread when I get home

OH: Text me what you need & I’ll pick it up

Me: Flour, eggs, butter, milk* , walnuts & vanilla

Ok, so I basically needed everything to make the banana bread, but we had some bananas I had bought with our online grocery shop – they came badly bruised & past the point where I would eat them (they were already starting to get their brown flecks on the skin – yuck), so the only thing they were fit for was bread.

So, I get home tonight & OH proudly shows me everything he picked up. Well, he bought spelt instead of white flour. When I explained that I needed white flour he said “but I thought we would try something different!” Hmmmm, ok then!

I’ve never cooked with spelt – let alone used it in baking, so I have no idea how it will turn out. There are currently four loaves cooking in my oven, so I guess we’ll soon find out!

*(not for the banana bread)

How to get your kids to eat vegetables………….

and they won’t even know it!

Last week I made two (yes, two) chocolate carrot cakes. I had seen the recipe on one of the gazillion cooking blogs I stalk read & thought that since I had a mahousive bag of carrots in my fridge, it would be a good day to try it. So, try it I did – I made one for home & one for work & they came out completely different to each other!

The first one was dry around the outside & slid right out of my bundt pan onto the cooling rack – the other was very moist around the outside & stuck so much to the pan that the inside of the cake broke away & stayed in the pan when I tried to get it out to cool. Bizarre!

This is what they looked like:

The one on the left is the one that just slid out of the pan, the one on the right is the one that stuck. The batter was different for the two cakes – one was thick, the other slightly runny. Interestingly, I had pieces of both & they tasted identical, were both very moist & very yummy!

The Recipe

2 & 1/2 cups of flour*

1/2 cup of cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cardamom

1/2 tsp salt

4 medium eggs**

2 & 1/2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup melted butter (cooled)***

1/2 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla

3 cups finely grated carrots

Method

In a medium bowl sift flour, cocoa, soda, spices & salt. In a large bowl beat together eggs & sugar until smooth, then whisk in the cooled melted butter, milk & vanilla. Gradually add the sifted dry ingredients, stirring with a wooden spoon just until there are only a few streaks of dry batter remaining, then stir in the carrots. Pour into a cake pan (I used a bundt pan) & bake for about an hour (or until a toothpick or knife comes out clean, when stuck into the middle of the cake) in an oven pre-heated to 350 degrees.

For the icing, I combined a package of cream cheese, a cup of icing sugar & few spoonfuls of milk to make it runny.

*I used 1/2 white flour  & 1/2 whole wheat flour

**I only used 3 eggs & it was more than enough

***I used vegetable oil

The final result:

I think I might be becoming a Hypochondriac……….

But the internet made me do it!

A while ago I posted about how I though I might have fibromyalgia & that I was going to the Dr. to see what he said. Well, I went & he sent me to a rheumatologist to rule out the rheumatoid arthritis I had been told I had when I was a kid & for him to decide whether I did indeed have fibromyalgia. I also had loads of bloodwork done in anticipation of going to the rheumatologist. So, about a week before we were due to fly home to Canada I had my appointment with the rheumatologist. Only it wasn’t the actual rheumatologist that I saw – it was a student. She asked me lots of questions, poked & prodded me, but seemed more obsessed with the pain I was having in my hands than anything else. She was fixated on my hands & didn’t listen to me at all.

The conversation with her began badly, so I guess I shouldn’t have expected much. Her exact words to me were “So, your Dr. says that you think you have fibromyalgia? He says that your sister was diagnosed this past summer, so now you think you have it too?”……and it was all downhill from there! In the end, she sent me for x-rays of my knees & hands, prescribed some cream for my hands & sleeping pills to help me sleep. She told me I don’t have fibromyalgia – “…because you are not depressed & people with fibromyalgia are always depressed. You see, it’s a vicious circle of pain, lack of sleep & depression, but you are not depressed, so you cannot have fibromyalgia!” Ok, so I guess I don’t have fibromyalgia (& she also had the audacity to tell me that I looked disappointed that she had not diagnosed me with having fibromyalgia, lol!), but something IS wrong with me.

So, the ironic thing? We go to Canada, have a great vacation & a few days after arriving home (now 4 weeks since my appointment with the rheumatologist) & a letter arrives, which has confused me no end. According to this letter I do have fybromyalgia! I don’t really understand & neither does my OH. The letter from the rheumatologist isn’t really clear & I supposed depending on how you read it you could take it either way. I suppose I should have made a bee-line for my Dr.’s office & ask for an explanation, but life (and work) is busy & I just haven’t had the time to go.

Now flash back to last Monday & something odd happened. Something that has happened a couple of times before, but I’ve never gone to the Dr. about it. My face started to go numb & tingly – almost like I had pins & needles in my face, or like how your face feels when it is coming out of the anesthetic from seeing the dentist – only I haven’t been to the dentist. So, I did what any sane person would do – I googled it! And, according to Dr. Google, I either have Bells palsy (scary! I have an aunt who has had Bells Palsy), or I have Multiple sclerosis………I’ve made an appointment to see the Dr. on Wednesday!!

My Cafe

I love to bake – no, that should read, I love to cook! I had dreams of becoming a chef, but when I realised that most chefs only really prepare one part of the meal, not the entire dish, that sort of put me off. Then, as I fell into a career in Hospitality it became blatantly obvious to me that becoming a chef was the last thing I wanted to do!

Cooking is a passion for me. It is something I do to calm down after a hard week & I get such pleasure out of making things that people love to eat. Over the years I have met & become friends with plenty of chefs (as tends to happen when you work in hotels) & my brother & my brother-in-law are both chefs. They all have something in common (besides the fact that they are chefs) & that is that they really don’t cook at home. Cooking is their job – they do it 5 days a week, so the last thing they want to do when they get home is more cooking. I understand it (I mean, the last thing I want to do when I get home is load more rates onto websites, or fill in endless spreadsheets full of hotel stats), but that is what, more than anything, stopped me becoming a chef. I want to do it at home. I want to do it for fun. I don’t want it to be a “job”.

So, instead, I cook (read: experiment) at home on the weekends & my OH & my work colleagues are the unfortunate guinea pigs. My OH gets the serious cooking, the work colleagues the baking – cause if I baked & we left it here in the house OH & I would just get fatter than we already are, lol!

We do have this little joke between us, my OH & I, in that every time I concoct something that he likes (I’ve yet to find something he didn’t like, so I’m not certain he’s really a very discerning judge of my ability), he tells me it’s going on the menu.

Yes, the menu….cause even though I have already stated all that above stuff, I really do want to cook professionally. It’s my dream to open a little tea shop in Wales (Northern Wales, maybe in Llanberis or some place like that) & have a very small menu of things that are freshly cooked to order & sell my cakes & lots of tea & fresh ground coffee in French Presses.

I’d like the shop to be big enough to hold no more than 20 sit-in customers, but big enough that I could turn a section of it into a shop to sell local artisan’s wares. I even have the name of the shop picked out already – in my mind’s eye I can clearly see this shop, the cakes & sandwiches, pancakes for breakfast & the locals & tourists browsing the shelves & walls of crafts & paintings. I know that is my future, now I just have to find the location (& the money) to make this dream come true.

Is it just me……..

or should some people just not have kids?    5 days a week I pass the same family on the street – we are always headed in opposite directions, caught up in our own worlds, but I notice them (I know they don’t notice me). Almost always it is the Mom & her 3 kids – 2 boys & a girl & every day they are in a rush. Usually the mother is shouting at at least one of her kids, while pulling them along the street, rushing them along even faster. Some days she is on a bike & the kids are running, trying to keep up with her, all the while she is shouting at one of them for some infraction or other.

Every day I wonder what is going on in their world, in her world, that she is so stressed out, so harried, so tormented that she treats her kids this way. A few times they have passed me (or me them) & they have stopped & I’ve heard the things she is shouting at them about – it’s trivial kid stuff. You know, the normal stuff that kids do that can be annoying & it obviously upsets her, but what does it say about them – about her – if this is an every day occurence – and such a public display?

Admittedly, I see only  a snapshot of their family life, almost a snapshot of a snapshot, really, so who am I to judge, right? Ok, I get your point for saying that, but surely if I see this EVERY single day (and I am seeing it, this is not an exaggeration), then there must be something wrong? What I would LOVE to do one day is stop her & ask her if she realises the way she is with her kids. Does she see what she is doing? Does she recognise herself in what I see her doing?Does she realise that she is so (or so it comes across) desperately unhappy with the situation, that she is berating her kids for minor childhood infractions?

Don’t get me wrong, I know kids can be annoying little buggers, but surely they aren’t like that all of the time? It does make me wonder what their home life is like. Then that makes me think about the childhood I had & it makes me sad that their mother is always yelling at them – always pulling at them to “…go faster, hurry hurry, & shut up or I’ll give you something to cry about.” I have heard her say that to them.

Maybe it’s none of my business (no, obviously it’s none of my business), but I just don’t understand that level of frustration with a child. Or, should I say, I don’t understand that level of frustration, on a daily basis, with a child. But then, seeing as I am not a parent, maybe it is me that has the problem?

My secret crush……..

Ok, so I have become an internet stalker! Who knew that Wil Wheaton was so bloody cool? I mean, I always liked him (even though I was not a Star Trek fan, I only watched cause I thought Data was so bloody cool!) as Wesley Crusher, but I really only watched the shows to see Data (I LOVE Data!!!!). Then, last week (good lord, was it only last week?) I stumbled across this & I have been hooked ever since! I’ve read loads of his stuff on his websites, watched videos on youtube, and now I’m following him on Twitter……… where will the madness end? He’s very funny, obviously very smart & more than a little bit gorgeous!

The funniest part is now my OH is now in on the act & he points out Wil anywhere we may see things about/by him. I guess we’re sorta both crushing on how cool Mr. Wheaton is! Are we sad? Nah!!

Tired tired tired…..

So, I had a Dr’s appointment today & came away pretty confused. I was diagnosed as having Juvenile rheumatoid Arthritis when I was a very young child & have suffered with pain (chronically) all my life. Today I went to the Dr. because my arthritis has become almost impossible to manage. On Monday I banged my ring finger on my right hand, jarring the top knuckle & I almost passed out from the pain. 2 days later it is still hurting really badly.

As I said, the pain is pretty bad at the moment & that’s what I told my Dr. He looked at my joints in my hands, we talked about the other pain I have been having (almost all my joints really, but its worst in my left hip, both hands & my spine {in the small of my back}) & he made me show him how I could bend & flex *or not and checked out the movement in my left hip. He gave me a prescription for some anti-inflamatories, & orders for blood tests to be done tomorrow. He left me with the parting words that he doesn’t think I have arthritis – doesn’t think I have ever had arthritis, that almost all my life I have been living with a mis-diagnosis. So, what does he think I do have? He hasn’t said. He wants to see the test results first.

I told my sister about this (she who was diagnosed this summer as having fibromyalgia) & we got talking about some of the other symptoms I have.

• the chronic exhaustion (I am so tired that I have to have naps on the weekends – unless I am keeping too busy to notice the exhaustion, that is)
• the pain
• the unbearable morning stiffness
• the pain in my feet
•  the teeth grinding
• the light interrupted sleeping at night
• the tingling in my fingers
• the restless leg syndrome
• the heart flutters
• the unaccountable irritability (my poor OH – I sometimes get so irritated with him! And the customers at work annoy me for no reason!)
• the tendency to cry easily
• the sensitivity to scents

- it goes on & on. So, is my Dr. thinking I have fibromyalgia? If he isn’t I’m pretty sure I’ve just convinced myself that this is what I have!

Jamie’s Italian, Nottingham

We went there after an epic HOD (head of department) meeting the other day. It was our “Management Night Out” & I chose the restaurant. Work paid. (Always good!) There were 6 of us & it was a pretty good night! We arrived at Jamie’s at around 6:45 & ordered  drinks before heading into the main restaurant to sit down. Conversation flowed, liquor flowed even faster (lol).

We ordered:

WORLD’S BEST OLIVES ON ICE – £3.75
Large green olives, black olive tapenade and crispy “music bread”.

ITALIAN NACHOS – £3.55
Crispy, fried four cheese ravioli with ‘angry’ arrabiata sauce

SWEET MINI CHILLI PEPPERS – £4.45
Red chillies stuffed with tuna, capers and anchovies

MARINATED SARDINES – £3.75
Pickled fillets of sardines with garlic, lemon, parsley and chilli

as our appetizers (I had the peppers & the nachos, both of which were so nice!). I’m allergic to Olives, so passed on those & the other one makes me wretch just thinking about it!

Our waiter was from Liverpool & he was a really nice guy – he told us about the special (spaghetti & turkey meatballs) & let us know that there were only 3 orders of it left (which 2 of us promptly snapped up). The ambiance in the restaurant is really nice – there was some music playing in the background – real classics from the 80′s, but it wasn’t obtrusive. Once our appetizers had arrived we focused on them & reading the menu to decide what we were each going to have for our starters & mains.

Cue more alcohol in the form of double vodkas, and a really nice bottle (or 2) of Pinot noir rose. We quickly scarfed back our apps & our waiter (who had taken our order by now) returned to clear our plates. Now, if you haven’t been to Jamie’s (I hadn’t before that), but know anything at all about him you would expect the restaurant to be down to earth – and you wouldn’t be wrong. It’s all light wood tables & chairs, no cloths on the table, but the napkins were mini kitchen cloths (pretty cool).

For our starters & mains we had:

Starters:

CRISPY SQUID – £5.75 (x 3)
Fried squid served with really garlicky mayo

BABY MOZZARELLA AND TOMATO SALAD – £3.75
Creamy bocconcini with torn basil, chilli and extra-virgin olive oil

SMOKEY SCAMORZA ARANCINI - £4.95
Crispy rice balls stuffed with smoked buffalo mozzarella and porcini mushrooms.

Mains:

Spaghetti & Turkey Meatballs – £6.25/£9.85 (x 2)

8oz ANGUS SIRLOIN STEAK – £16.95 (x 2)
Sirloin, from Tillyfour Farm in Aberdeen, with grilled mushrooms and dressed peppery watercress

BEST OF BRITISH LAMB SPIEDINI – £13.95
Marinated and grilled leg, shoulder, heart, liver and kidney served on smashed jersey royals with minty chilli and yoghurt dressing

FUNKY CHIPS  – £3.25
With fresh garlic and parsley

POSH CHIPS – £3.25
With insanely good truffle oil and Parmesan

The Mains were, for the most part, fab. The steaks were well cooked & the chips tasty. The lamb (according to the guy who ordered it) was lovely & better than expected. That leaves the spaghetti & meatballs……which were not that great. When I think Italian meatballs I think big juicy meatballs – these were not. There were about 20 meatballs, which weren’t even balls, really. They were the size of a .20p piece & they were vaguely round. Our waiter explained that because making the meatballs is so labour intensive the chefs make them & roll them up in cling film, then cook them in the cling film & cut the “sausage” up into bite sized pieces. How is that Italian meatballs???

This is more along the lines of what I was expecting (this pic is taken from one of Jamie’s websites, so you can see why this could be what one would expect to get). The pasta was not very nice either, unfortunately. Mine was all clumped together – it looked like pasta that had been made & cut with a pasta machine, but got all stuck together before getting cooked. It was literally big lumps of pasta – not very nice!

Cue more alcohol – more vodka, more rose (a bottle or 2 of coke), some Bailey’s & some Cointreau, then desserts were the order of the hour. Our waiter (bless him) spilled one of our bottles of coke on the table next to us, which was unfortunate for them (but then they were sitting next to the most rowdy table in the restaurant, at least at that point anyway), but they didn’t seem to mind too much & they got some free drinks out of it.

Dessert consisted of:

ICE CREAMS - £4.50 (x 2)
Three delicious scoops of ice cream (ask your waiter for today’s selection)  Served with any two of these toppings:

smashed honeycomb
crushed nuts and seeds
seasonal fruit
butterscotch sauce

and more Bailey’s, vodka & Cointreau….(are you sensing a theme here?)

All in all, a pretty good meal…..no, I take that back – a brilliant meal, save for the 2 pasta dishes, which is a real shame for a restaurant that has the word “Italian” in its name. Afterall, what could be more Italian than pasta?