Ups, downs, kicks and good times a plenty!

Last week was brought to a lovely end as my Dad and Nan came to stay on Sunday eve - a perfect excuse to go out for Sunday dinner!! Neither of them have seen my ever-growing bump for well over a month, so I think they were suitably impressed with the growth spurt it's had - perhaps it was the watering and sunshine I've given it lately? And there was me and everyone else who is aware of my gardening skills thinking I didn't have a good set of green fingers! Who's laughing now?! ;-) Talking of gardening I am actually trying to advance in this area, well when I say advance I mean more that I've sewn some seeds for some herbs that a friend bought me and am nurturing them on my windowsill . . . all good so far, touch wood! Ok you gardening lot, I can hear you laughing as you're reading this! I know 'herbs are easy' and all that but I'm out of my comfort zone when it comes to planting anything and keeping them alive is another thing altogether!! Therefore, this is me starting to attempt to become a gardener, so as a novice and usually a complete disaster in this area please bare with me and at the risk of boring half of you to death I may mention my progress in the forthcoming months - if you hear nothing more let's just pretend I never mentioned giving this a go - oh yes of course, hints and tips gratefully received during this learning period!

            Bump at 25 weeks






Anyway, back to what I started talking about before . . . my Dad and Nan being here. So they stayed Sunday night and after an early start Monday morning I finished up my work by 11am and took them on a jolly tour around my favourite parts of Norfolk, we started with a wander around Holt and it goes without saying, of course, that we graced Byfords with our presence for lunch! Fuelled with some posh pasta and a delicious side salad I was looking for an adventure rather than a quick route home, so drove them to Cley, Blackeney, Wells, Holkham, Burnham-Overy-Staithe, Burnham Market and all of the places in between. The sun was shining and all of these places looked even more stunning than usual, another reminder why I love Norfolk so much and a few grateful moments along the way that I live in such a lovely area - who would have thought that after how I used to feel about living here as a teenager? How things change!

With Dad and Nan gone Monday evening it was full steam ahead catching up with work and helping to get prepared for Trevor's funeral Wednesday by baking one of my special Victoria Sponges - first time I've had a request and it apparently went down well! The service and cremation was lovely on Wednesday and the sun was shining for us, which always helps on these terribly sad occasions. Of course it was sad but also an opportunity for everyone to celebrate Trevor's life and share stories and memories of him. He will be sadly missed but the tales of Trevor Godfrey will never tire! Great man!!

Wednesday night I was struck with a terrible bout of tummy troubles, which carried on through Thursday leaving me feeling a bit weak and grotty. However, it was short lived and by mid-morning Friday I was feeling right as rain and after a day working in bed Thursday I was back to my office and working full steam ahead. It's been a hugely successful week for me work wise and everything appears to be coming together now, so much to think about (from extra staff to solicitor contracts and the final push on my website!) but it's all very exciting and I'm feeling positive about  how things are moving along. A little apprehensive about it all taking off too quickly as am already getting enquiries left, right and centre from people looking for work to companies looking for me to work for them and also some individuals and companies wanting to work with me in various ways! However, where there's a will there's a way and it's nice to see all my hard work paying off already . . . it will all be worth it if it means being able to spend more time with my little family to be!

The reason I'm late writing and publishing this blog is because for the first time since starting it I literally have not had a spare second until now (Sunday evening) to sit down and write it. I was going to merge this week and next as didn't think I had much to say but you know me once I get started! I'm flagging a bit now though, as have had an action packed weekend . . . Yesterday we got up early and drove down to a friends in Dartford where we spent a few hours catching up with them and I even dusted off my camera and took a few photos of the kiddies, prior to a bit of shopping at Lakeside and then on to my Brother's in Suffolk for a lovely evening despite enduring some corrupt Eurovision delights before heading home to bed, at which point my mind was tired and ready for sleep but my legs were not in agreement and were particularly restless, preventing me from hitting the land of nod until early hours of the morning - doh! Despite the lack of sleep I was awake this morning by 6am and we were up at 7 putting a few things that we picked up yesterday into the babies room - perhaps it was excitement?? Today we've been visiting family all day which resulted in the collection of more baby goods - we've gone from not having anything at the start of the weekend to now having most things in hand (cot, moses basket, car seat, pram and many other bits and pieces that were on the must have baby list - hurrah!).

KAORI'S MOTIVATIONAL WEEKLY CHALLENGE:

I've also been thinking of ways to spice up my blog and get you all involved as well as trying to motivate and inspire you, aside from me just talking about business etc. So with each post I'm going to give you an idea of something to implement into your week, it might be challenging or just something lovely to do that you don't usually make time for. If you do it please let me know what you did, how it went, how it inspired you and whether you'll do it again etc - comments on the blog will be best so everyone else can see who's joining in - if we're going to smile let's do it together!

This week's challenge: 'Smile & the World smiles with you' - It is proven that being nice to other people makes us feel happy and warm inside. Therefore, this week smile at everyone and you will be amazed how when they smile back it makes you feel so good. Also, try starting a conversation with someone you wouldn't usually have time to talk to, perhaps the person on the till when you go shopping, someone collecting for charity in the street or a neighbour you usually rush past in the mornings.

GOOD LUCK! ;-)

I'm going to wrap up now but just before I do I wondered whether you could do me a favour . . . my reader numbers are down a bit over the last few weeks so rather than risk writing stuff that you don't want to read about please let me know what you want to hear by the way of a comment under this blog (I think you have to sign up to follow the blog first which means you can either sign up to follow by inputting your email or you can do it via your google or Twitter accounts - you can do any of these things at the top right of my blog, just under the amount of people that have read it). Equally, if you're happy with what I'm producing that would be good to know too . . .