It’s been a while since my last blog post. So much has happened since then, and the cliches of ‘never finding the time’ to write and ‘life running away with itself’ have certainly been true.
Push yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you.
In the space of a few months I’ve planned a wedding (and that wedding has now happened…more on that later); met with seven builders and two kitchen companies for the work we want doing on our house and changed jobs and company – 6 weeks before getting married. Up until a couple of weeks before the wedding, when the heatwave arrived and it became too bearable to even move, I was also working out for at least 30 mins every day.
Our wedding was in the planning for over eighteen months. Before I embarked on it I never anticipated the time and energy it would take up, especially in the final couple of months leading up. We had several spreadsheets on the go, to-do lists coming out of our ears, a multitude of questions to ask and to be answered. Our house became like a wedding warehouse and I’d definitely over -ordered on flipflops, which came apparent when three boxes arrived and they had to go off to my parents’ house to be stored. We had last-minute stressed and panics, sometimes over such trivial things. Six weeks before the wedding I also changed jobs and company so that also didn’t help with my stress levels as I tried to appear as calm as possible on the surface but inside was a completely different story. There was the day, about a fortnight before the wedding that I had an almost complete breakdown over the fact that I’d forgotten to incorporate a sparkler arch (and we’d already bought said sparklers months before) in the schedule and there was no time to do it…but in the end it worked out well and we had a lovely day and both overcame our fears of public speaking. However, it went far too quickly and all those months of planning ended in a blur and we definitely didn’t get to speak to as many people as we’d have liked. Now we are on to the next thing to plan – our honeymoon to South Africa at the end of October.
An obstacle is often a stepping stone
When we first discussed the plans to renovate our house and move the kitchen to an adjacent room I naively agreed to pencil in the start date with the kitchen company we were going to use, to be in the middle of September. I am so glad that Ben put his foot down and said we should delay until next year. At the time I couldn’t see the point – I just wanted it done but the extra time is not only giving us the chance to save more money but the breathing space too. It has also meant that we have had the time to deliberate on our plans. I was well aware that the actual building process would be stressful – I have seen enough housing renovation programmes to understand that – but what I didn’t think would be so stressful was actually finding a builder to do the work – and mean that we’d need to sell a vital organ to do it. From December to June we saw seven builders and a structural engineer – but only four of the builders actually provided us with quotes. Two of them came out with astronomic figures that nearly made us both cry and it seemed to take an age to get anything out of them at all. We also changed kitchen companies and wrestled with numerous plans. And, in January we had our conservatory roof replaced – phase one of the work. We finally found a builder for the kitchen and have a draft plan in place – the build is scheduled for February 2020 and so I expect that after the honeymoon we will then turn our attention back to the building work.
In between all this I have been learning to live with my Lymphoedema. The exercise I have been doing has definitely helped but I do notice that I get tired more than usual. I have been trying to wear my compression stockings every day but when it is hot that’s just not possible. Once a month I’ve been having manual lymphatic drainage massage to help drain off the excess fluid from my legs. I’m due back at the Lymphoedema clinic in a couple of weeks so it will be interesting to see if there has been any improvement to the swelling. Finding nice shoes that will fit me is an ongoing uphill battle but I’ve discovered that quite a few shops now sell shoes for wide feet or I buy shoes in a bigger size, but that means I have to get insoles for my ‘normal’ foot. It took me ages to find my wedding shoes and ended up going with Rainbow as they sold wedding shoes in wide fit – but in the end the shoes I bought were standard fit, something I was over the moon about!
Make your life a masterpiece; imagine no limitations on what you can be, have or do.
Brian Tracy
Since becoming ill last year I have made a conscious and perhaps also unconscious effort to grab life by both hands and make life as busy as possible. My mum also became ill in May – something that really shook me up as she has always been so healthy – so that has also spurred me and made me realise how short life is and to embrace it while you have the chance. As well as our own wedding we’ve had many celebrations this year – one of my best friends got married in May and in the same month Ben’s older sister turned forty so we have had many celebrations around that. We have seen friends and reconnected with family, been to shows and had weekends away.
When I think back to all we have both achieved over the last few months – I can’t quite believe it, and the year is not yet out and we already have so many plans in the pipeline. I just hope that 2020 will be as busy and fun – although no doubt there will be stressful times along the way!
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