Yep. Its a blog!!

I find myself constantly ridiculed by people for absolutely loving Dolly Parton

Songs for every mood

I've just had to hunt for my all time favourite - Hard Candy Christmas. Althought its a slow and sort of soppy song its a bit of a calming and inspirational song. I'm not one for being manically depressed - I believe there is always someone worse off than me and there is always light at the end of the tunnel, but these words are just amazing!

hey maybe i'll dye my hair
maybe i'll move somewhere
maybe i'll get a car
maybe i'll drive so far they'll all lose track
me, i'll bounce right back
maybe i'll sleep real late
maybe i'll lose some weight
maybe i'll clear my junk
maybe i'll just get drunk on apple wine
me, i'll be just fine and dandy.
lord its like a hard candy christmas i'm barely getting through tomorrow but still i won't let sorrow bring me down.

hey maybve i'll learn to sew
maybe i'll just lie low
maybe i'll hit the bars
count the stars til the dawn
me, i will go on
maybe i'll settle down
maybe i'll just leave town
maybe i'll have some fun
maybe i'll meet someone and make him mine
me, i'll be just fine and dandy.
lord its like a hard candy christmas i'm barely getting through tomorrow but still i won't let sorrow bring me down.

Excellent!!

Well, all my good intentions of writing every day certainly went to pot didn't they? lol. You can probably tell that I never kept a diary as a child

I have, however, been fairly busy in the thinking department. Its amazing when you sit here and re-read what you have put and start to see your own life in a totally different way. I wondered what advice I would give if it had been somebody else writing it.

So anyways. I've decided that I need to haul my butt into gear and start getting my life back. I'm not an overly outgoing person, I don't 'do' pubs and clubs and can honestly say I've not really missed them over the last few years - but I do, at the moment, feel lonely - and thats a horrible thing to feel. Especially when it is not my choice. I used to keep a Filofax on the kitchen worktop with appointments in it; coffee meets, nights out, hairdressers, kids parent evenings etc - I don't keep one now because I have nowhere to go. Oh don't get me wrong, I'm 'allowed' coffee once in a while with a couple of 'approved' friends but I get phone calls while I'm there asking how much longer it is before I'm back home (I wouldn't mind but he's at work while he's ringing me so its hardly like he's waiting for me!). I've missed heaven knows how many parents evenings and the like because he gets the cob and starts an argument. Nights out? I haven't been out, with a friend, or friends since he moved in. That's six years ago this October.

How much of a soft walk-over have I bloody been to sit here and take it?!

I'm not putting time limits on anything because I think thats a bit cold - but! being in a social housing house we can exchange properties. We only moved in September but I hate the house, the place, the people; I've seen a beautiful older style house about 25 miles away along the coast (I don't want to move away from the sea). When I suggested it to him the comment I got was "you don't want me to see any of my bloody mates do you?". He has one mate that he works with, and then meets every night for a drink. One rule for one, one for the other me thinks.

I've decided that if he doesn't want to go I'm going to go on my own. The really sad part is, I think I want to go on my own. I want to be able to talk to my friends on the phone without them having to text first to check he's out, to be able to go and sit in a coffee shop and read a magazine just for the sheer hell of it, sit with the kids and do their homework without being accused of ignoring him, read them bedtime stories without him getting snotty that i've spent too long upstairs.

I want to start feeling alive again.

What can I say about my husband?

When we met he was seeing someone, I was seeing someone. I found out I was pregnant at the same time that Mr C was about to move into his first flat. He stood in front of me and offered not to go through with signing the papers if I wanted to have a relationship with him. I stood there knowing that I was pregnant by another man. I told him we couldn't have that sort of relationship. That was February 1987. Mr C moved in with his girlfriend, me and Mr P broke up and a few months later I started seeing Mr G, we got on ok but that attraction to Mr C was still there - it wasn't long before we were seeing each other again; walking to the station, pub at lunchtime that sort of thing. We first slept together in December 1987. I fell pregnant again in about April 1987 (Mr G and I thought it was a good idea one night - and that was all it took). Mr C's girlfriend fell pregnant at the same time; at least she was 100% sure it was his . I had moved out of home by this time due to the hassle from the parents so I had no idea what I was going to do; at my parents suggestion I moved back and planned to marry Mr G.

One of the most painful memories was the night before I moved away. I spent the night at Mr C's flat (his girlfriend was at work - and no, it just didn't cross my mind that it was wrong somehow!). We had the most wonderful evening; he was so loving and caring. The next morning he begged me not to move; he cried (and I've not often seen that!). The way I saw it was that he wasn't offering to leave his girlfriend and I didn't want to be the bit on the side for years. He rang me on my wedding day to Mr G. The marriage didn't last long - me and Mr G still get on; we get on very well to be honest, I have a lot of feelings and care for him a lot - but I don't love him. He's happily remarried and has provided our daughter with two youngers brothers that she loves to hate!

I moved back down here in the October 1989. I didn't move - I ran away. I didn't tell anyone I was going. I was still living at my parents with Mr G and our daughter - I couldn't cope with it anymore and packed up the car one day and came back down here with her. I went back to work at the same place as Mr C but things were never the same - we didn't sleep together and although we still stared at each other and probably both wanted each other we just didn't go there.

I had a couple of short relationships then a 12 year long one. I ended that one in June 2002 - he was an alcoholic; he was more mentally abusive that physically but I had four children by that time. I was working full-time had the kids in school and childcare and was doing quite well. I had started a degree a few years before and was enjoying using my brain and having a social life. My best friend was the only issue I had - although I must admit I didn't realise it at the time. She was a very negative person who derived pleasure from being above everyone else; I quite often used to go to her house and end up doing her housework, she'd try and talk me into taking out loans she knew I couldn't afford, things that I can look back and see but at the time she seemed like a pillar of support

I received an email in September 2002 from Mr C through Friends Reunited - well, you could have knocked me down with a feather! I went from annoyance at him having the nerve - to dizzy pleasure! After a week of dithering over whether to answer or not (I was on holiday with the kids) I replied when I got home. I had been driving for eight hours straight and after a couple of hours he was on his way over - it was like 2am! I slept with him that night (yeah, yeah - I hadn't had it in a while - and a girls got needs!! ). He started coming over everyday after work and never wanted to leave. One weekend I couldn't get hold of him and started to worry that something had happened. He rang me at about 8pm sounding like he was crying; when I asked what was wrong he told me that he had just left his wife. I asked where he was and he said he was on his over! Helloo!!?? I felt a bit stumped to be honest. He hadn't told me he was going to leave her, didn't ask if I wanted a live-in boyfriend - jeez, I'd not long got rid of one! I felt a bit off to be honest. I was enjoying a relationship without the laundry, the bills, arguments etc.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well we got on - he didn't tell his ex he had been seeing someone (I certainly didn't see the need to rub her nose in it). He kept his family away from me and my kids for almost a year until the divorce was almost done and dusted. He gave her the family home (which she promptly sold and spent), she kicked two of their three kids out so we ended up with them for a couple of years. We had our own child - we felt we wanted the one between us after our history. He does adore me; he drinks too much, smokes too much, does a mean job of sticking his head in the sand when it comes to bills and money (he had money and a house - now he's broke and living in social housing) - but he helps with the housework, tells me he loves me everyday without fail, kisses me good morning and good night, will defend me to the end and the sex is quite often absolutely fantastic (not even I expect mind-blowing absolutely every time!!).

Trouble is, he's also very possessive. He would have preferred me to give up my studying - I was quite lucky I had already covered that one before he moved in. He was told quite bluntly that no man would ever stop me studying again; he tried once and since I suggested he walk he hasn't done it again. He drew the line at me going on a summer school for a course - that was a definite 'you go, I leave' scenario. I don't go out with friends; I still have a couple but not like I used to, its not worth the hassle or the arguments. He doesn't want me to work although we could really do with the money. He's been violent about three times - I don't think he quite realised how much I could argue back the last time I packed my bag in front of him and walked straight out with the kids and to give him his due he hasn't touched me like that for way over a year.

I love him. He still makes my heart flutter. And yet - I feel like I'm compromising being happy and having a life. If I go out to work I lose him. I don't like arguing with him; I don't consider myself a nasty person and I don't like being heartless. Maybe thats what leaves me wide open to being stuck here. And yet I don't want to be without him

You know I just couldn't sleep last night . I had the husband snoring next to me, the windows were open - rain pelting it down outside, gale force winds blowing the curtains across the room and my brain just wouldn't stop thinking! I did get out of bed to close the windows so I could cut out most of the noise and stop the dancing curtains but the OH immediately woke up (just like he does when I put Friends on funnily enough) and he started whinging about how stuffy the bedroom was. So I now feel like a complete bag of shite

I know subconsciously the biggest problem is that I know I'm not 100% happy with my life. Trouble I feel ungrateful almost for feeling like that! I have beautiful kids, and husband that adores me and somewhere to live - what the hell is wrong with me?? Some people would love to have what I have. Yet I want more.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life getting more and more bitter about what I feel I'm missing out on. Other people have it all, why can't I? I try to break it down but always cannot come up with logical answers.

I've tried finding the answers in the past - I found out that I was (apparently) a white witch in a past life and I been back here so many times because I don't learn from my mistakes. So tell me something I don't frigging know!! I was invited to visit one of the covens (I think thats what they call the witch clubs lol) - my biggest fear was that you sleep with loads of strangers (could be fun ) and that they'd see my stretch marks!!

Does everyone feel this confused about life in general? I walk down the road and other people look normal and happy; I feel like I bimble through life in a constant stream of confusion.

Now the reason I started with Mr P (the ex) is because I'm really not sure whether what happened with him has been the basis for the way my life has gone - or whether it was me. Now obviously I know that some of it was down to me because he wasn't around to be a part of decisions I made as I got older - but I do sometimes wonder if things had gone a little different with him whether I would have followed a slightly different course (if you know what I mean!!).

My parents went absolutely bloody balistic over my being pregnant; it was ugly. There was no-one I could actually talk about the situation. Obviously I knew that I didn't want a child at 16 (although if I'd have know I could have been housed and got benefits I may have considered it), I knew that I couldn't have gone through a pregnancy to give the child away for adoption, and I certainly didn't want a termination. As it happened the decision was taken out of my hands; probably a good thing in hindsight. I started bleeding - badly. I miscarried at home. My parents were relieved - sorry, but I've always made a very conscious effort to be very different with my children - even if its something I think they've done wrong. I've made a huge effort to try and put myself in their shoes which is something I don't believe my parents attempted to done even once. They were hurtful, nasty and pretty much cold over the whole thing. Over twenty years down the line if I went to my parents today and asked them about it they would say I deserved what happened and I shouldn't have been such a slut. A little piece of me and never forgotten and certainly not forgiven.

I had to go to hospital as it was classed as an incomplete miscarriage - what I still find insulting to be honest is that they call it an 'incomplete abortion' - like it was what I chose to happen!!

I attended the same college as Mr P on day release. We had split up and he didn't seem to want to get back together. I was absolutely heartbroken - I loved him to bits. He moved away about two years later with his family to another part of the country and even though all of this happened absolutely years ago he still has a piece of my heart (yep, that is just so bloody soppy isn't it?). I never knew if he was faithful to me; there seemed to be an awful lot of people telling me that he wasn't and in some ways the bitterness I felt because by that time I believed he hadn't - and the fact he hadn't been around while I'd been going through so much helped a little way towards getting over him. It threw me a bit recently when he added me as a friend on Facebook - oh my little heart just pounds at the thought of him (do you think maybe I still love him just a little? I'm not sure!). He is tall, dark and very handsome. Of course he's married now - to a lawyer; he sent me some pictures. The wife is a very pretty red head and they have the standard two children (boy and girl) - very sweet kids.

We started talking on Facebook then MSN and he swore blind he had never been unfaithful to me and that he regretted what had happened. A lot of it had been down to me not contacting him, his pride wouldn't let him back down and get back together with me. It felt like someone had whipped out the rug from underneath my feet - I had spent so many years hating him for being unfaithful and not being there for me; and here he was telling me I was wrong. It has confused me. A lot.

But then, because confusing the hell out of me wasn't enough, he started flirting and telling me that he wanted to meet up for a coffee - and get this - we'd never had oral sex and surely it was something we should rectify!! WTF??!! When we were seeing each other I was a fantastic looking size 10 - I'm now an 18. After a few kids it just isn't pretty. Things have stretched, sagged and some of them are just downright ugly. I sent him a couple of pictures - that shut him up for a while LOL. He still confuses me though. Sometimes he sends me dirty little comments on Facebook; there is an application to send dirty thoughts and actions - I've received a pretty good variety but I'm not the only one. He has admitted that he hasn't been faithful to his wife. I'm thinking maybe I could be a convenient bunk-up when he's in the area (his parents moved back down here). Trouble is, it is so bloody tempting.

I've looked the pictures of his kids so many times; it makes me wonder what our child would have looked like. He/she would have probably had his brown eyes, and we've both got dark brown hair. He's got very slightly darker olive coloured skin too, so it would have been a beautiful child. My children are pretty good looking (if I say so myself!) and his are too. We would have had a stunning child.

I'm too scared to meet with him. He has a very good job, is obviously very well off. I'm sat here in my council house with a husband that drinks and smokes too much. We struggle to pay the bills each month and its embarassing! Mr P and myself used to be on the same level - now he's far, far higher than I am and I don't know if I want to look him in the face knowing that. He's 'matured', I've expanded. I don't know if I could bear it.

And I think the biggest problem of all is if he can still makes my heart beat so fast it is only going to result in me feeling hurt all over again. I don't know if I could bear feeling like that again.

Its so hard to know where to start when analysing your life. Do you start from being a kid, your first love, leaving home? There doesn't seem to be any set point does there?

I want to talk about my ex - the oh so sexy Mr P. But I think I would probably be better off starting with my husband. Now you may think thats a weird place to start, and to be honest I would probably agree - but! he's been in my head for so long!! 22 years long (and I'm only 38!!).

We met at work. I was doing my little YTS course and being that I had been placed in a large manufacturing company I was doing the rounds of the departments gaining secretarial experience. I used to get the earlier train to work because you could actually get a seat on that one so I was always there about half an hour before I needed to be. The department I was working in at that time was the switchboard and post room - there I was minding my own business reading my book and in waltzes this cute and very sexy electrician to change one of the lights. Now I must admit I wasn't attacted to him straight away - I was in a relationship with Mr P and very happy with him too. But this electrician used to wander past the windows of the switchboard room (it had those little mirrored stripes on the windows) and I could see him looking at me all the times he used to walk past. He was growing on me.....!!

Mr C (the electrician) started to wait for me after work (the shop floor workers used to finish about three quarters of an hour before the office workers). He used to walk me to the station where we would board the train and go in separate directions. On a Friday we would go and spend our wages in Woolworths on records (oh yes, the days of vinyl) before starting outside the station for as long as we could get away with it; don't get me wrong - there was no kissing, cuddling or any funny business - we were just enjoying spending time with each other. One thing I can never forget was the look on his face when he found out I was only 16 - it was pure class!! He was 19 and thought I was the same age (obviously being 16 I was highly honoured that someone thought I was older than I was - now I slap them!).

It was in the November that we first kissed. He had finished his training and was hauled down the pub; all the guys knew by that time we were friends (I think, looking back, they thought it was more lol) so I got invited too. After a couple of hours drinking he was definately 'happy' - he didn't want me to go back to work and kissed me. Passionately. Very passionately. Now I was pretty limited to my experiences at 16, and to be pashed by a 19 year old was well, it was luuuuuuuuush!!!! There was that bit of excitement that I was seeing someone and I'd been kissed by someone else.

We didn't lunge straight into a 'relationship' or 'affair' to be fair. I fell pregnant by Mr P in the following February (totally unplanned and the result of failed contraception I might add!) - but that was a real time of changes. My parents firmly believed in getting married before having sex so I knew I was in for a bit of a problem. I went to the doctors to look into having a termination although it wasn't something I really believed in doing. My mother went to the doctors to pick up a prescription and was given a termination form by the receptionist for me - what a real uncool way of them finding out I was pregnant. I got some real grief for it. Now my parents were very middle class - no benefits or anything. I had no idea of the benefit system, how things worked - my dad told me that if I had the baby I would have to go and live in a childrens home, and yes, I believed him. I wasn't allowed to contact Mr P (obviously nobody had inventd the mobile then!!). It was a complete frigging shambles.

Had a day of painting yesterday spending the majority of the day stuck in the bedroom with the local radio station and what seemed like a growing expanse of wood needing three coats of cream paint. And the real sucker?? I scratched it in several places when I put the drawers back in the frames - so now I need to paint the whole friggin' lot again but in gloss. Urgh! My room is gonna look like a throw-back to the seventies. The OH has chosen a nice chocolate brown theme (get me a bucket puuuuuuuurlease).

So anyways, the radio is on and they are going on and on about the A level results - why is it that I get all choked up about things like that? Seriously, I can cry at anything. But you have to sit here and wonder whether its because your pleased that the kids passed, or whether its because you feel like its something you missed out on. I got stuck on a YTS scheme in the '80s. I was told I hadn't worked hard enough at school to go to college and do A levels. Stupid thing is that I've almost finished a degree - and yet i feel like I've still achieved absolutely sod all. Part of me wants to go to work when I finish next year - but the OH thinks I should be staying at home; part of me wants to go to uni and do a post-grad course for a year but I get filled with terror that I might not pass. The last part of me wants to stay at home and do another degree!! Trouble is I think that may just be an 'avoidance' choice. It saves any arguments all round.

Thanks for the comments on my first posting - I'm liking the 'if people don't like it they can eff off' that's what I call my kind of thinking!! I'm sort of hoping that by writing down just some of the stuff drifting round my head I may be able to sleep at night because my brain would be able to shut down LOL. I'm going to be brain dead by the time bedtime comes tonight the OH has got the Blues Brothers on (he's asleep I might add!!) - if I turn it over to Friends the bugger will wake up. Arrrrgh!!!!!

I suppose everyone has had the same question going through their mind really though haven't they? Do I write about myself? How I feel? What I want? I suppose it will all come out at some point! You don't know just how lucky you are - you have the chance to get a look inside my head! For free!! I can't give you any guarantees that I'm normal - because I must admit I scare myself sometimes, but then I look at some of the other people out there and the way they live their lives and I think 'what the f**k was I worried about?'.

I think I sort of see this as a kind of counselling. You sort of rabbit on and on and on - and at some point you kind of see what the whole point of all the whinging was for. Or at least that's how it worked when I last sat in front of some wimpy hippy looking woman with a handshake that was akin to holding a wet lettuce leaf.

As today has gone, its been fairly boring and uneventful. The kids are on their summer holidays - but the weather is shite so we're a bit restricted as to what we can do and where we can go. Hence I've been stuck indoors doing housework - what sort of god-forsaken moron invented that then? I have washed the laundry basket - now I mean, how freaking sad have you got to be to wash a laundry basket? I just know that I don't want to be sat here in another five years doing the same brain-dead stuff. I hate it. I want some excitement. I watch some of these programmes on the TV - I'd love to go on an expedition across the North Pole, go bug-hunting in the jungle or explore some volcanoes. Something that you would never, ever forget til the day you died. Maybe I've been brain-washed into not being able to leave my kids to do something like flying over the other side of the world for a bit of adventure. But hey, who am I kidding? I can't even get my husband to go out anywhere other than the pub.

Maybe an affair would liven things up but I don't know; I quite like my husband (when he's behaving himself LOL). I do feel sorry for the guy - I can't be the easiest person to put up with, but I did warn him before he married me; he had enough warning!!

I'm thinking maybe I should go and make a coffee, tidy up a bit. Back to the boredom......