Author: rebeccahalfway

One week until the big day.

One week until I’m Mrs Huck.

One week until I’m a wife.

One week until I have a husband.

Bloody hell, it’s all a bit grown up. I’m on the verge of hysterical excitement every time I think about next Saturday. I’ve had little butterflies thinking about our wedding day for the past month. They’re now more like enormous tiger moths rather than tiny butterflies.  The build up is like Christmas and I am loving every minute of it. Here’s to next Saturday! As for now, I’m about to enjoy my last week as Rebecca Carville.

(Also, fully loving that our calendar slogan this month is ‘new beginnings.’  Totally fitting.)

I’m a sucker for a bargain Kindle book. Even if the synopsis isn’t the most riveting in the world that 99p price tag pulls me in every time. The Happiness Project by Gretchin Rubin was no exception to this rule.

Now I love a self-help book as much as the next noughties Bridget Jones. My Kindle library is testament to this with a bevy of 99p titles on mindfulness, being productive and generally trying not to let shit get you down, filling it’s pages.

The Happiness Project, for me, is different to the others. Less patronising. More relatable. Rubin sets out a 12 month plan to change her ways in her quest for happiness. From the opening I was completely agreeing with her sentiment. The comments she makes were really hitting home with me. Comments like; “I am happy – but I’m not as happy as I should be. I have such a good life. I want to appreciate it more – and live up to it better… I complain too much, I get annoyed more than I should. I should be more grateful. I think if I felt happier, I’d behave better.”

Now I’m only up to March (the book is divided into chapters for each month of her project) but I’m loving it. I’ve created my own list of things that make me happy. Things that truly make me happy like being creative and spending time with friends and family. I don’t know if I’ll necessarily tackle a new way of thinking each month as Rubin does but I am going to start putting some of her actions into practise.

Hopefully this will help the stress of teaching a Year 6 class in the lead up to SATs and the manic whirlwind that is the countdown to our wedding!

 

It’s been a while since I did a 4 highlights round up. As always, work has been manic and planning a wedding has been gradually taking over my spare time! Only 11 days to go now though. This thought is equally terrifying and exciting.

I’m fairly sure April is going to be incredible, but March wasn’t too bad. Here are my 4 highlights from last month:

1: A farm based day out with the godsons.

Jonny and I are very lucky to have 2 super-cute godsons. One of whom is 7, the other 18 months. When they (and their equally lovely parents) visited in the middle of March we took them to a local petting farm. As much for my enjoyment as the kids as there were ridiculously gorgeous baby lambs and miniature sheep. Miniature sheep! I didn’t even realise this was a thing. My life was essentially made playing with all the teeny creatures. The cutest thing of the day, however, was the 7 year old godson buying me a surprise baby lamb toy from the gift shop. He was about to spend his own money on it before Jonny gallantly stepped in to help him out. It was definitely a really touching little moment!

2: Wedding crafting.

I spent the Easter bank holiday weekend at my parents’ house as Jonny was in Wales for his stag do. Alongside the mothership we got creative putting finishing touches to tiny bunting, vintage glassware table decorations and the flower girl dress.  I squeezed a visit in to see said flower girl (my goddaughter) during the weekend and she was a charming little delight. I think her and the smallest godson are going to steal the day come the 16th!

3: Receiving flowers

During March I received beautiful flowers from 3 different people. The mothership brought me a selection of Easter blooms, my friend Cherida came up for dinner and provided a second incredible bunch, and Ross and Sam brought me a fab belated 30th birthday bouquet. Having a house filled with flowers is always lovely. More so, when they’ve been provided by brilliant friends and family.  It’s now back to my bargain favourites of daffodils throughout the house until they’re replaced by a wedding bouquet later this month!

4: York hen do

I know this wasn’t technically March as it happened over the last weekend in February but it’s definitely up there in the good things that have happened this year. Cocktails, dinner, museum and shopping with my favourite lovely ladies was just what I hoped for. Coupled with some fantastic goodie bags organised by my chief bridesmaid, Roz. Roz also created a floral crown and managed to source a ‘bride to be’ sash that wasn’t pink and shiny. Ten out of ten for her efforts towards a ‘classy’ hen do!

Thanks for everything March, despite knowing that April is definitely about to steal your thunder!

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This week marks 10 years without my appendix.

If we lived in medieval times I’d definitely be dead. That’s a weird thought.

Modern medicine (whilst still having a way to go in finding cures for all the bad shit) isn’t half bad sometimes. Nor is the NHS. It’s thanks to them, alongside Lancaster Royal Infirmary, that I’m here today (dramatic.)

The story of my appendicitis isn’t a wildly exciting one, but it’s really an ode to the NHS. They are wholly brilliant. I experienced fantastic care whilst in hospital, and even got my own room at one point during my stay!

Having spent a day off university in absolute agony, vomiting copiously (fun fact: bile really is fairy fluorescent green) my university housemates returned home from lectures and decided I could probably do with a visit to the out of hours doctors. One taxi journey and some agonised screaming later and I was in a second taxi on my way to hospital; the lovely doctor already having called ahead to warn of my impending arrival.

During this taxi journey I called my mum:

“I’m on my way to hospital, they think I’ve got appendicitis.”

“Don’t be ridiculous; you’d know if you had appendicitis. It’s probably just a bad hangover or alcohol poisoning.”

Oh the faith she had in me. In my mum’s defence I spent quite a bit of university drinking heavily, so her assumptions weren’t unfounded. She has, however, yet to live it down that she didn’t believe me.

The following day, after being attached to a drip, having x-rays and generally being poked and prodded by a range of medical professionals I was informed that I had appendicitis and that they’d be operating on me later that day. An overly dramatic, tearful phone call home ensured my mum was on her way from Yorkshire to Lancashire fairly quickly.

After a little debacle (they didn’t believe I was old enough to sign my own operation consent form. Weirdos. I was 20) some visits from lovely university friends, and my first ever experience with morphine I was finally taken down to theatre.

I awoke, knickers under my pillow (carefully placed there by the nurse/surgeon?) to find that I no longer had an appendix. Which was fortunate as apparently by the time they’d got to the little bugger, it had perforated. That’s not a good thing for an appendix to do.

In my own room, attended to by amazing nurses I made a great recovery, aided by tiny shot glasses of morphine they provided to manage my pain. Under this influence I apparently made a phone call to my brother which I cannot remember at all. I think he said I was talking about dinosaurs. Go figure.

Anyway, it is thanks to the wonderful NHS that I received all this treatment without actually having to spend a penny. I really think it’s important that we support our NHS and all the genuinely brilliant people working for it. They are, quite literally, saving our arses. Cheers NHS.