Our dates aren’t always exciting & adventurous but what matters is that we spend quality time together.
So today is Friday which in the Davies household means date day! Every week Paul and I set aside at least one hour to do something fun together. We don’t have to spend the whole day together, but since it also our day of rest we can’t do *anything* work related. That’s not really relevant at the moment because we’re both to sick to do any university work anyway. Knowing that this is the one day we don’t have to feel guilty about not working though is a big bonus, it’s really brought back that Friday feeling we used to feel as a kids.
Today I woke up feeling awful, and I mean really awful. My arms were aching a lot and I felt completely exhausted. This isn’t really different from how I’ve been feeling for the last fortnight or so, but it just felt a bit worse this morning. As usual, I have no idea why since all I have done for the last week is rest. Anyway, my health having dictated that going out was off the cards, Paul and I agreed to revert to our secondary plan, a mug decorating date in our lounge. The plan is to get all of our duvets and pillows and make a big comfy fort to get me out of bed and then use Sharpies to decorate a mug to give to each other.
Even though this is a slouchy, not much effort, low energy kind of date purposefully, I still want to make an effort to look nice, in the same way I would have when Paul and I first started dating. Up until recently, I would have known that doing my hair and make up was off the cards and so would have just moped about my appearance. Now, however, I have begun to develop a low energy and pain make up routine that I can do even when I have bad days like this. Since writing out the routine and taking photos would not only take a long time but a large amount of energy I’m going to make a YouTube video instead. It will be uploaded to my YouTube channel soon so make sure you check back there, or even better subscribe so you definitely won’t miss it (never miss an opportunity for a plug.
I don’t think this video is only relevant to sick people though, I don’t see why a normal, healthy person can’t check out this video and use the routine when they’ve only got 10 minutes until they need to leave for work and they look a mess. Or, for someone, I’m especially thinking of young girls, who don’t need to wear much make up.
The whole routine only takes about 5 minutes but I’ve been doing a step, resting for a while, doing another step, etc, so that by the time it’s date time I’m not exhausted. What would you know I even managed to write this blog post. I wonder if it’s something they put in bronzer…
Love Katie x
If there’s anything you’d particularly like to see either here on my blog or over at my YouTube channel, then pop a comment below. I’ve already had some great suggestions but I’m always open to new ideas. Remember, it doesn’t have to be beauty related!
I’m still working on the new layout, but I’m getting there, don’t you think?
If you use GoogleReader to follow this blog then you’ll soon be about to lose contact. Google is terminating this service in the near future, so to makes things easier for you I’ve signed up to Bloglovin so you can easily keep up to date with all my posts.
Alternatively you can get e-mail updates by popping your address in the labelled side-bar on the left hand side of this page.
If you signed up for updates from me either by e-mail or on WordPress before I moved to a self-hosted blog, I’m afraid you’ll have to re-sign up. Sorry about that, but I hope you love my blog enough to re-subscribe!
Love Katie x
“You’d be forgiven for thinking that I’d abandoned this blog, but you wouldn’t be right, very far from the truth in fact. Although I have been working a lot on Chronically Katie in my mind, very little of it has appeared on your monitor because I’ve been too unwell. For the last two months I have suffered from one illness after another, aside from my usual chronic illness of course.”
Unfortunately this is as much as Katie has been able to write over the last few weeks. As she says above, Katie has been extremely ill for the best part of two months now. There’s been a real battle going on behind the scenes here at Chronically Katie. She’s winning the fight, but as with any war, victory is hard fought and there are have been many injuries along the way.
Katie has asked me to step in and catch you up on what’s been going on. Quite a few technical changes are taking place at the moment. I’ve been working on moving the site to a self hosted platform and there are going to be changes in blog layout and design. This is all very exciting, however, it’s taking it’s time because I have no experience in all this. I’m teaching myself what to do as I do it. We’re asking that you bare with us while these renovations are taking place.
On a positive note, Katie is hoping to do a video blog sometime soon, so keep an eye out for that. To make sure that you don’t miss anything, you can subscribe to Katie’s You Tube channel.
My final update is that if you wish to send Katie anything in the mail, you can request her address by emailing chronicallykatieblog@gmail.com. You can send products for her to review, or something little to make her feel better when she’s so sick. She’s spending most days in bed so I know she’d love to hear from her readers. Feel free to send her anything from a postcard to a little gift. She loves receiving mail so it’s sure to bring a smile to her face.
Thanks for your patience,
Paul (Katie’s husband)
I recently read a blog by one of my great friends, Sian Cooke, which inspired me so much I opened up a blank document, the second I read the last full stop. Her blog post was about not allowing the mundane to plague your life. Right now I’m in a difficult patch, as I talked about in my last post, and when you’re in a situation like this it seems like the best thing to do is to bring down the hatches and do nothing other than what is necessary. The temptation is to adopt the victim stance.
I’m not planning on doing either of those things though. I’m not going to pile on too much and make the situation worse, but I won’t be sticking to the mundane, and abandoning my love of curiousity and doing new things. As best as we can, P and I are sticking to weekly dates and I’m looking for at least one new thing to do each week. I’m not feeling sorry for myself, instead I’m focusing on everything I am thankful for. I am being honest about the situation I am in, without allowing it to control me. I cannot control mine and P’s sickness but I can control my response to it.
I will…
- keep the romance alive in my marriage
- stay passionate and enthusiastic about my degree
- do my best to give as well as take in my friendships
- fill my days with fun and laughter
- love my God and put him at the centre of my life. I will continue to trust that His plan for my life is the best plan, and trust that He can use all my suffering for good.
Don’t give in to your sickness, take back control! Now is not the time to give up, it’s time to fight harder than ever for the life you want.
Love Katie x
The last week or so has not been easy. Although P is doing a little better, he is far from well. On Friday, after another week off university, he went to see our doctor. We are blessed with a great doctor who has treated us both for a few years now and has a good grasp on our situation so we usually trust her. Her diagnosis this time was exhaustion. P can’t get over his virus because his life is so busy. We’ve both made a concerted effort to cut back on our activities over the last year so there’s no option there. P does an amazing job juggling caring for me, his degree and a part time job, but sometimes even my superman needs to reach out for help. That’s where my strength lies. Although I’m still also struggling with the virus, I can organise a lot from my bed. We are lucky enough to have great friends and family to call on in our time of need.
Doesn’t my boy look cute when he’s sleeping?
The next couple of weeks will be an experiment in what happens when a carer gets sick. The most important thing for the both of us though is where we draw our strength from. Although it may sound cheesy, we know that we need to rely on God to bring us through something that is too big for us. The Bible says that God is strongest in our weakness. We are believing for supernatural strength and energy to get us through to P’s graduation.
P and I would really appreciate your prayers over this period.
Love Katie x
As you read in my last post I recently came down with a virus/sickness/migraine thingy. Anyone who knows me well (or follows me on Twitter) will know that although I’ve had lots of practice, I am a big wimp when it comes to being ill. Have you seen that episode of Big Bang Theory when Sheldon is sick? Yea that’s me. I am very prone to self pity and sadness. In order to cheer myself up last week I made a list of all of the things. I thought you might appreciate me sharing this list here so you can steal some ideas next time you’re ill.
Things that make me smile when I’m sick:
- Getting sympathy. Thankfully, God has given me a husband with a lot of patience and compassion so he’s happy to dole out cwtches* and sympathetic nods of the head on request.
- Getting some perspective. The antidote to the above. Being sick makes me self-centred, I need to be reminded that there are much bigger problems in the world than my migraine.
- Watching movies. One night P treated me to renting a movie online so that I had something new to watch. We picked Brave, a Disney Pixar animation. Doctors should prescribe Pixar movies, they’re that good.
- Learning something new, however big or small. I wasn’t able to be very productive last week, most of the time I just sat there moaning because everything I tried seemed to hurt my head. I did, however, learn some healthy new recipes on Pinterest (follow me here) and find out about Smash books (watch out for a post about this soon).
- Didi. Just anything to do with my cute ball of fluff. Well, pretty much anything anyway. While I write this she is sleeping on my lap and making sweet noises out of frustration when she is disturbed by my typing. What a cutie. There is actually research now that proves that petting and interacting with animals can help patients recover from a whole variety of illnesses. My doctor friend told me that in a hospital in Bristol they actually let a charity bring dogs on to the wards for patients. How amazing is that?
- Having a bath, especially if there is a Lush bath bomb or bubble bar in it. Although baths completely sap my energy, the warm water can be exactly what I need to get me to a point where I am relaxed enough to fall asleep. Plus, waking up clean and smelling nice always has a feel good factor.
- Clean pjs and bed sheets. The perfect end to a bath. You can’t beat that smell of fresh linen.
- Candles. Yankee candles are my favourite, they smell so good!
- Pink flannel pjs. Comfort and my favourite colour.
What makes you smile when you’re sick?
Love Katie x
*Cwtches- if you’re not Welsh you probably have no idea what this word means. Think of a hug but a million times better.
As you read in my last post I recently came down with a virus/sickness/migraine thingy. Anyone who knows me well (or follows me on Twitter) will know that although I’ve had lots of practice, I am a big wimp when it comes to being ill. Have you seen that episode of Big Bang Theory when Sheldon is sick? Yea that’s me. I am very prone to self pity and sadness. In order to cheer myself up last week I made a list of all of the things. I thought you might appreciate me sharing this list here so you can steal some ideas next time you’re ill.
Things that make me smile when I’m sick:
- Getting sympathy. Thankfully, God has given me a husband with a lot of patience and compassion so he’s happy to dole out cwtches* and sympathetic nods of the head on request.
- Getting some perspective. The antidote to the above. Being sick makes me self-centred, I need to be reminded that there are much bigger problems in the world than my migraine.
- Watching movies. One night P treated me to renting a movie online so that I had something new to watch. We picked Brave, a Disney Pixar animation. Doctors should prescribe Pixar movies, they’re that good.
- Learning something new, however big or small. I wasn’t able to be very productive last week, most of the time I just sat there moaning because everything I tried seemed to hurt my head. I did, however, learn some healthy new recipes on Pinterest (follow me here) and find out about Smash books (watch out for a post about this soon).
- Didi. Just anything to do with my cute ball of fluff. Well, pretty much anything anyway. While I write this she is sleeping on my lap and making sweet noises out of frustration when she is disturbed by my typing. What a cutie. There is actually research now that proves that petting and interacting with animals can help patients recover from a whole variety of illnesses. My doctor friend told me that in a hospital in Bristol they actually let a charity bring dogs on to the wards for patients. How amazing is that?
- Having a bath, especially if there is a Lush bath bomb or bubble bar in it. Although baths completely sap my energy, the warm water can be exactly what I need to get me to a point where I am relaxed enough to fall asleep. Plus, waking up clean and smelling nice always has a feel good factor.
- Clean pjs and bed sheets. The perfect end to a bath. You can’t beat that smell of fresh linen.
- Candles. Yankee candles are my favourite, they smell so good!
- Pink flannel pjs. Comfort and my favourite colour.
What makes you smile when you’re sick?
Love Katie x
*Cwtches- if you’re not Welsh you probably have no idea what this word means. Think of a hug but a million times better.
Phew! It feels good to be back in the land of the living. By that I mean the last week or so has felt as though I am approaching death. Well perhaps that is an overstatement… P and I both caught some kind of illness, sickness, virus, flu, whatever you want to call it. I think it has been years since we were both that unwell. Of course since we were both unwell it felt as though we just hobbled along each day, both of us managing to do what we could. Today is the first day that I have managed to get dressed in over a week! Although I got the migraine far more badly than P did, he seems to not be able to bounce back at all. He is exhausted all of the time, and I feel completely useless, unable to take the burden of duties like cooking from him. As he isn’t particularly unwell he feels like he must continue working on his essays and going to work. He is such a trooper. I am so lucky that I married a man who will never give up.
Valentine’s Day
With me barely able to lift my head off the pillow and unable to stand the stand the sound of speaking, and P sleeping most of the day, our first Valentine’s day as a married couple was not exactly how we had imagined. The most romantic that things got was when P passed me a tissue. We did exchange gifts though. We had decided to have an ethical Valentines so our gifts had to have some kind of ethical edge, for example the gift would be fair trade or would be handmade. I was given a beautiful silver heart necklace, which I absolutely adore. Once we are both up to scratch we are hoping to have a belated V-day since it is one of my favourite holidays.
Shrove Tuesday & Lent
One of the highlights of last week though was Shrove Tuesday or Pancake day. For those of my readers who don’t know what this means, it is the day before Lent begins. Pancakes were originally made to use up all of the “luxuries” (butter, sugar, etc) one would have in the cupboard before the beginning 
of lent, where people restrain from such things until Easter. I won’t go into more detail here, I’m sure there are lots of places on the internet that can explain it better than I. Anyway, the lovely moment was that P made me Nutella crepes, one of my favourite things, in the shape of hearts. I didn’t even ask him, he just did it to cheer me. How sweet is that?
That brings me to Lent. This year I have decided to give up puddings for two reasons. Firstly, I think I often eat puddings, not because I’m hungry but because I just crave something sweet as a bad habit. I’d like to break the habit but since breaking a habit takes restraint, this will help me grow the discipline that Lent intends you to. Lastly, the time I would spend eating pudding can be spent praying, as I did when I fasted the internet recently.
Are you giving anything up for Lent?
Love Katie x
Some of my more loyal readers will know that I write a fortnightly column for the student newspaper at my university. Up until now I haven’t shared any of those columns on here but since I’m not feeling up to writing a blog post right now I thought I would post my most recent one. It’s not available online so I’ve posted the text below for you.
Cat-astrophe
Last weekend I had an interesting time, and by interesting I mean expensive. I have a kitten named Didi, who is cute as a button and loyal as a dog. My husband got her for me as a surprise birthday present, and we have been putty in her paws since the day she first set foot in our flat. Any pet owners among you will know that animals provide an endless supply of funny stories, just look at Marley and Me. If Didi had her own movie, last weekend would have been a great scene to add. Sadly, I don’t think I am about to make millions from a movie blockbuster about my kitten, at least she provided me with content for this week’s column I suppose.
On Sunday morning when we woke to find her crying and howling incessantly, we were like panicked parents of a new born child. After changing her water, giving her food and doing everything else we could think of, we did that stupid thing you always see on American sitcoms. We started talking to her, asking her to show us what she wanted. If a baby can’t, I have no idea how a kitten would show their owner what they wanted. What can I say? Desperate times call for desperate measures.
I decided it would be a good idea to seek advice so I turned to my parents, lifelong cat lovers and owners. Peculiarly, however, they didn’t answer the phone at ten to nine on a Sunday morning. Make of that what you will. I tried their mobile numbers, and for all of the times they’ve moaned about my not answering my phone, they didn’t flipping pick up the phone either. I was forced to turn to trusty Google in an attempt to learn to be a vet in a couple of minute by typing in various combinations of words. The problem was though that other than a lot of moaning, rolling around on the floor and a sore part on her tummy, Didi didn’t have any other symptoms, and all of the possible diagnoses included sickness, swollen stomach or a description of poop that didn’t match. Yup, checking for that one was a fun activity. In a moment of genius (read sarcasm) I decided to share my predicament with all of my Facebook friends in the hope that one of them might be able to save me an expensive trip to vets. In hindsight, I imagine most people didn’t want to read a description of my cat’s bowel movements that early in the day.
While I waited for cat lovers to share their wisdom on my wall, I continued to ring my parents. Finally they answered and confirmed what Paul and I had hoped to avoid- we had to take her to the vets. Sigh. If you have ever had pets you’ll know that it’s a costly enough affair going to vets, let alone when it’s out of hours. To make the whole thing seem more dramatic Didi provided a background soundtrack by continuing to cry in the most pathetic and heart wrenching tone. I hoped the couple upstairs with the baby couldn’t hear her. When we rang the emergency vet they told us that at the very least we would need to pay £80 to bring her in. Ouch. Add to that £5 each way for the taxi. Now I was really praying there wasn’t something seriously wrong with my little ball of fluff. To my shame, I kept imaging awful scenarios in which Didi would have to undergo some long and, more importantly, expensive treatment. For all of her wonderful traits, my kitty can be pretty naughty. I’ve never seen a kitten who attempts to digest so many random and potentially harmful things, I signed up for cat, not a Labrador!
Anyway, back to the story. By the time that we found a vet and the taxi arrived we were getting pretty worried, if there was an obstruction then we needed to get her to the vet as soon as possible. Since I wasn’t dressed (don’t judge me, it was a Sunday), Paul- that’s my husband- took her on his own. Unusually for Didi, she was completely quiet during the taxi ride, giving us all the more reason to worry. When the vet got her onto the table she was still completely silent. As she was examined, not a peep. The cat seemed totally fine. Paul was feeling pretty stupid at this point. When he explained how she was acting, the vet barely managed to stifle a laugh. Didi was absolutely fine, she was just on heat, that’s vet talk for saying she’s horny. That’s right, we paid £90 to find out our cat was trying to have sex. Great. The very worst that was wrong with her was cramps.
Keeping his head down, Paul paid the receptionist, and left as swiftly as he could. I had a bit more sympathy for the cat, not the horny part, but having had period pains I could understand the whimpering. I made a joke about giving her a hot water bottle and some chocolate that didn’t even break a smirk on to Paul’s face. I think it’s safe to say the next time he hands money over to a vet it will be to get Didi spayed. While I write this she continues to howl in the hope of encountering a male lover.
So, what is the moral of this tale of woe? When a cat is horny, you’re going to know about it.
So, what did you think? Just in case you were curious ‘Gair Rhydd’ (the name of the paper I write for) means ‘free word’ in Welsh.
Love Katie x
p.s. The title of this blog post is the name of my column.
