Filling in the blanks...This is me

I was tagged the other day by the lovely Mich over at Mummy from the heart in two memes - crikey, two!

Luckily for me, I have kind of already done the first one so I'm going to cheat a little bit.  'This is me' is a meme where you get your child to draw a picture of you and share in with the world.  Much to my embarrassment, here's one she did earlier.

The second meme is 'Filling in the Blanks', from Wendy's original idea over at Inside the Wendyhouse,  and has proved much more tricky.  So, this will either allow you to learn a little bit more about me hiding behind my laptop, or else nobody will be interested and it will simply be a therapy session for myself!  Here goes...

I am Tired, mostly.  I'm fed up with the constant feeling of exhaustion, the lack of energy and the fact that even if I have a great night' sleep, I always wake up more tired than when I went to bed.  When I wake up some mornings I literally cannot move. I feel sapped.  I have felt like this all my adult life, with the brief exception of when I was pregnant.  For most of those nine months, I actually felt alive. I felt energised. I felt great.  Then the tiredness returned after having Ruby, not helped of course by the fact that she didn't sleep through the night for us until she was past 2 years old.

I've seen various different GPs over the years. They've sent me for blood tests. They have checked I'm not anaemic or diabetic. They've found nothing apart from a lower than average white blood cell count.

It looks like I'm going to have to live with it.

The bravest thing I have ever done was jump out of an aeroplane. To be fair, I did have a parachute on and I was strapped to a trained tandem instructor.  This experience was a 'thoughtful gift' from the old man one birthday.  For the life of me I'm not sure why he booked it - I'd never expressed any desire to hurl myself out of a plane. But I did it and I'm very proud.  Even if I did look like Wallace from Wallace and Gromit on the way down because I had my mouth open when I jumped, it's then impossible to shut it as your cheeks fill with air.  I have hunted high and low for the photo or the DVD of me doing this, but I can't find it.  Shame!

The sense of fear was incredible. Like nothing I've ever experienced before. I actually thought I was going to pass out sitting on the ledge of that plane. 

Whenever I'm scared or nervous of something, I think back to this and know that surely, if I could do this then I can do anything.

I feel prettiest when I have those days when things just go right.  You know the days, when your hair behaves, when you have no spots, the bags under the eyes aren't too bad.  There's no rhyme nor reason as to when these days will be, but occasionally they do just happen.  It's a self-fulfilling prophecy too - when you think you look attractive/ok/better than normal, it gives you more confidence, makes you walk taller and that in turn makes you look better.

Wish those days would happen more often!

Something that keeps me awake at night is worrying. I'm a terrible worrier. From the state of the planet to whether I remembered to get the mince out of the freezer and everything in between.

My favourite meal is one where we can all sit together as a family and Ruby eats her dinner without fuss.  Without getting down from the table 100 times. Without having a fit because she doesn't want it.  Without having to resort to threats of no pudding unless it is eaten up. Where we can sit, relax and talk about our day.

The way to my heart is usually a simple act.  A kiss from my daughter. A thoughtful note on the fridge from the old man.  A lovely message out of the blue from a friend.  Failing that, chocolates work too.

I would like to be a good mother.  I do my best, but I could do better.

So that's me, warts and all.

In the spirit of blogging memes, I have to tag some other lovelies now.  You can do one or the other or both of these, and I'm going to tag:

@missdaisy32 http://missdaisycrafts.blogspot.com/

@christinemosler http://christinemosler.wordpress.com/

@hazelandblue http://hazelandbluemum.blogspot.com/

@mummiafelice http://whitelilygreen.blogspot.com/

@MyFunnyBunny http://www.myfunnybunny.com/