"So how are you?"

I had a really good day today. I didn't do anything special, just taking Zeph to the library and swimming pool, having coffee with a friend, and the usual household stuff. It was such a good day because I didn't once think that I'm a shitty mother, or worry that my friends will have finally realised how useless I am, or sit and stare at the walls, or cry. I suppose it's a bit sad that days like this happen so infrequently that I notice when they do.

This picture was circulating on Facebook, and when I saw it I thought 'Yup!'



Only some of the time will I answer "Fine" to that question and it really be true. My brain doesn't work properly. I have depression and anxiety, which is a lovely combination. Some days I don't have the mental energy to do anything much, or the physical energy either, sometimes. Sometimes I just can't bear to socialise, I can't make eye contact or stand the subsequent panicking about whether I said or did the wrong thing. This leads to my standard of 'fine' or 'good' being somewhat different from 'normal'.

For many years I've also had trichotillomania, which is a compulsion to pull out one's own hair. Sometimes I've ended up missing a lot of hair, once having a bald patch the size of the palm of my hand. It's a difficult thing to explain, but the feeling of pulling out hair can be very soothing - I used to self-harm when I was younger, and I wonder if the two are related. Of course that really doesn't help with the anxiety (well, it kind of does, but only temporarily...) since it gives me something else to worry about, whether people have noticed, if friends are deciding I'm too weird to hang out with, and so on, or with the depression, as it gives me something else to feel bad and guilty about.

I've been vacillating over writing this post. I'm scared that people will think differently about me, but I'm tired of feeling like I need to pretend that I'm always ok.
So, how am I? Sometimes I'm not doing very well, sometimes I'm fine. And sometimes, like today, I'm pretty damn good.


See me

Crafts, Cooking and Christmas Fun!

It was so nice this year, because Zeph's old enough to really get involved and start to understand what was going on. I've been looking forward to this for ages!





Zeph made Christmas cards for the family. He loves painting, and really got into choosing what colours of paint and glitter, and spent ages deciding where to stick the stars. I'm glad he seems to like arts and crafts!




Zeph was a bit unnerved by seeing Santa. Well, it wasn't seeing him that was the problem, but having to get near enough to get his present. He was fine as long as I was next to him, and was really happy about getting his gift - he now thinks that Santa always gives you books. Mind you, he doesn't have a problem with that!




We had a nice family evening trying to assemble a sort of biscuit Christmas tree. Possibly our first mistake was in getting a cheap set of biscuits from Asda. This is what the finished result should have been.



Chris and Zeph had a lovely time using the pouch of ready-made icing (that had to be massaged until it went soft...) to stick the varying sizes of star-shaped biscuit together and to dot onto the 'branches' ready for sticking on the sugar decorations.





The finished result. Note the lack of similarity to the picture on the box...



It was already slipping sideways before we even started sticking on the sugar shapes, and by the next day had almost folded in half. After tasting bits we didn't even eat the damn thing! The biscuits had no flavour, the icing tasted about as nasty and artificial as it looked and you couldn't even bite the sugar sweeties. However, we had fun trying to put it together and that was the important thing. Next year I'm going to make a gingerbread house that we can decorate instead.


Zeph also had a lovely time making reindeer food. He scooped out porridge oats into a bowl, and mixed in some pink and purple sparkly sugar (for cake decorationg) to make it magic, then filled little paper bags with the mixture. On Christmas Eve night he went outside just before bedtime and emptied the reindeer food onto the lawn so that the reindeer could have a snack while Father Christmas brought the presents. (He gave the extra bags to his wee friends.)



All in all we had a lot of fun, and there'll be even more we can do next year!

Festive decorations in the Anderson household

Our tree with some parcels and cards underneath. Zeph helped hang the ornaments on and was really excited about hanging up the one he made and the one he was given at the library party.



These are some of my favourite tree decorations.












"Bauble Zeph did!"




We like to buy a new bauble each Christmas, something that refers to an event of that year if possible.

2008 - Three guesses where we got this! I picked it up browsing in a Perth department store with Nettie, so my little festive wombat brings back really fond memories. :-)



2009 - We bought this set of reindeer from the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre near Aviemore when we were up at Aviemore with the samba band the September before Zeph was born.



2010 - We had a huge amount of snow and ice in November and December, more than I remember seeing since I was a child, so we chose this glass bauble that has bubbles of glass inside and looks like ice drops.



2011 - There wasn't any particular reason for this one, but I just liked it!



Finally, the bauble garland that hangs across the fireplace!




P.S. I have no idea why the pictures are varying in size!

Water

Imagine an endless sea of choppy, dark-grey water. You can't tell how deep the water is, but it could go down for miles and miles. Above you is a heavily overcast sky. There's no blue, just storms in varying degrees of formation.

There's only one other thing visible anywhere. Stretching on as far as you can see is an iron girder, maybe a foot wide, with water lapping over it. Above this is the smallest of openings in the cloud. A thin streak of watery sunlight shines down on the girder.

Think how little a bump it would take to send you off the girder and into the sea to drown.

I came off my meds a couple of months ago. Welcome to my world.

Winter holiday

Since both Chris and my dad had holiday time left to use up, we decided to go down to see Granny for a few days. She'd planned to come up here in the autumn, but couldn't, and was missing Zeph!

We took the opportunity to call in to see some of the rest of the family. Here's Zeph having a go at driving his big cousin Jane's car.






We also called in to see my great-aunt and uncle. Aunty Joan was Grandad's sister, and she looks a lot like him. We haven't seen her since Grandad's funeral, so they hadn't met Zeph.




Up at Hilary and Nigel's house for dinner, Zeph decided that he was only going to eat sausage rolls!



"What, there's no more?"



This is Billy, who's a very cuddly dog!



This is Cassie - she's lovely. :-)




The car broke down, as is traditional. A small hole had developed in the exhaust pipe on the journey down. My dad thought it would be easily fixable with some filler, but on the way back from town after doing some shopping on Monday there was a horrendous noise. Chris wanted to know what it was, and my guess was that the pipe had ripped itself open. Yup, that was exactly what it was. My dad and I looked throught the shrubbery by the roadside to find a suitably-sized stick, which he used to hold the pipe together for the short drive back to Granny's house. A local garage could do a repair, but they couldn't see to it until Wednesday morning. On Tuesday we didn't do much, as it was drizzly, but most of us wanted to get some fresh air and exercise so Chris and I, my mum, and Zeph went for a walk.


On Wednesday, once the car was sorted, we went out to Sacrewell Farm and Country Park. Zeph loves animals, so we figured it'd be a good place to go!


Big goat!



Little goat!




Zeph was fascinated by the shire horses.





Definitely a boy horse!


We also saw cows, pigs and piglets, but they weren't very obliging about posing for photos.


Geese, swans and ducks, oh my!














There's a small mill with a waterwheel.





I love the frog on the pump spout!







The door latch appears to be sticking its tongue out.







A rusty old sewing machine.



Big rabbit!




Zeph and his Gran-gran.




On the way back up to Scotland, we called in to see Zeph's Gran Rielly. She was going to come up before Christmas but got snowed in, and was having Zeph withdrawal.





Zeph was pretty worn out by the time we got home. Well, we all were! It was nice to get away for a bit, and we're looking forward to going down there again in the summer.