You’ll be glad to know I’m in a better mood today. I just feel so stressed because I’m trying to do too many things at once and it’s just not happening. I have a lot of offline stuff going on and it is hard to keep up online too. I have so many things I want to do but it’s just impossible right now so some stuff is being re-scheduled for the New Year.

I bought myself a new printer last week and it arrived on Friday so I spent most of last night trying to work out where I had gone wrong with the wifi set up. I was getting really frustrated until I realised it was my firewall that was blocking the connection - problem solved.

I’ve also started Christmas shopping. The kids are getting a Wii so I ordered some games from Amazon for them which just leaves a few stocking fillers to get. I also bought a few bits and bobs for friends online. I have my dad’s bought too so that just leaves my mum and my bro. You gotta love the internet.

I had to deal with a really rude customer at work today and it is so galling having to remain polite when all you want to say is frak off and die. He ranted about how he had wasted petrol coming in to collect leaflets that didn’t exist despite the fact our website said they did. That was a complete lie. We have never had the leaflets he wanted and our site definitely does not mention them. Twat! Was it my fault he decided to come in instead of phoning? I think not. I’m starting to hate people…

As if that wasn’t enough, one of the teams decided to try and tick me off with a harebrained scheme that would have halved the number of those available to take calls from customers. I was fuming so much I ended up with a tension headache. Naturally, my boss wasn’t in the office at that time but I emailed her instantly and when she returned later in the afternoon, she agreed with me. She had a meeting with the other team and told them it wasn’t going to happen but ended up reaching a compromise. I suspect there will be a bit of an atmosphere for a while but I’m so tired of them ignoring me. She also told me to start sending people her way if they were giving me aggro and not to get myself so worked up about things again. Good advice but so hard to do.

Things are like a powder keg at the moment and everyone is so busy trying to meet deadlines for stupid extra curricular groups, the work is not getting done and we are falling so far behind. I feel like I want to scream most of the time because I’m the one who gets left to deal with stroppy customers.

Is it Christmas yet?

Over the weekend, I decided to have a good old clear out in my bedroom. I decided to be brutal with myself and threw out a lot of stuff I haven’t looked at in years, figuring if they meant anything to me, I’d still be using it. I’m a bit of a hoarder, especially with books and I still have books I used at Uni which I will probably never read again. I joined the Bookhopper site a few months ago but everything seems to have stalled over there, so I removed my booklist and registered on Read It, Swap It. I got two requests for the same book within hours! The hard part is refusing a swap if the other person doesn’t have anything interesting on their list but it has to be done.

I also registered with Royal Mail so I can print postage online. Even though I have a post office across the road, working full time makes it hard for me to use it, so at least I can pay online and put the parcels through the work post. No more queues!

I also decided against getting a new camera because I really like the one I have but I’ve been looking at printers instead. I don’t really intend printing a lot of photos because I tend to upload them anyway but a printer will come in handy for all those postage labels I’ll need to print.

In between freaking out about what to wear to my cousin’s wedding, I finally hit on the perfect wedding gift. I had a tradition of doing a cross stitch sampler whenever someone had a baby or a special anniversary in the family but I stopped stitching a while ago. Faced with having to come up with a decent wedding gift, I decided to pull the old needles and hoops out of the cupboard. It took me ages to find a decent wedding sampler and I ended up getting my mum to choose it, mainly because I like a challenge and tend to go for something elaborate. I’m not even sure if my cousin will like it but the hours of stitching and the cost of getting it framed have to mean something.

I actually thought it would be strange stitching again but I’d forgotten how soothing it could be. Once I got going again, it was like I’d never stopped. As long as I’m being entertained with something decent on television in the background, I can stitch for hours. It’s a bit tricky during the week though because I’m usually too tired to do anything when I come home but I have to finish and get it framed by the end of January so I can’t afford to slack off. I’m pretty quick at stitching though so it’s not impossible.

The framing was going to be another issue though because my favourite crafting shop closed last year and I thought they had closed down the framing shop as well. However, I checked and it is still there. I’m so relieved because they do an excellent job and I trust them with my work.

I’m a week late in talking about it but life has been hectic this week so I’m doing it now.

Last Friday, it was my niece, Lucy’s, ninth birthday and I offered to take her to see High School Musical 3 at the cinema. It was my first (and hopefully last) experience of HSM and it was suitably frothy and sugary. Before that, we celebrated with a very pink birthday cake at home with her brothers. I had a hard time lighting some of the candles until I discovered her younger brother, Andrew, had put some of them in upside down! Doh!

When the kids lived on the other side of Scotland, we didn’t see them a lot, so I decided to have my very first girlie day with Lucy. After the cake, we went into town where she could pick her present and did it so quickly we had to wander around the shops for an hour until it was time for the cinema.

After the film (which seemed never ending to me), we headed back home and Lucy stayed the night. It’s the first time she’s ever stayed with us on her own and was no trouble at all. She’s actually quite a quiet little girl.

I think this is a tradition we are going to have with all the kids near or on their birthdays from now on and hopefully, it will make up for all those times we missed.

My neighbour died early this morning. She was a very kind and brave lady. She had to cope with a lot of illness in the past few years. More than her fair share, I think. At least her pain is gone now but it is a very hard time for her family.