The Picks in The Wirral, the beginning of summer, and blogging more often

It's with a heavy heart that I write this post. We lost my mother-in-law, the head of the Pick family, this week.
We saw her over Easter and she wasn't well, then she was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. Luckily, we visited her one last time when she was feeling well; this was before Mister Pick went down on his own to see her a final time.
Obviously, I won't dwell on her illness or the details of the effect it's had on the family because, unfortunately, most people can imagine from first-hand knowledge, what a tragedy it all is.
But when we were down to The Wirral together the last time, we had a good visit, and Daisy was the star of the show, as always. She had her cousin dog, Tilly, to run about with, and then found some friends at Queen's Park. This was the first time we took her off the lead, and she didn't disappoint us. (That dog loved to play with other dogs and is crazy about getting attention from other doggy parents.)
This photo was taken at Red Rocks right after Daisy rolled around in the sand before heading back to the hotel. She got to sleep in the bed with us and made sure that everyone who came and went through the hallways all evening knew of her presence.
Unfortunately, when we go back for the service, Daisy will be staying the night somewhere as we have siblings to help out and a wake to cater for. The Pick Kids were told to "expect a big turn out," for their mother's wake because she was a well-liked woman in her town. I expect nothing less.
Other than that, our drive down was filled with rain, as it does in England (why is it all the time?!) but it's been glorious on the way back home. Here's hoping that we get to embrace the summer, finally, and can get outside again.
While all of this family business was unfolding, I was still at work, finishing up my first unit for the management apprenticeship I'm doing. It was confusing at first to get the grasp of what evidence I needed to produce in my folder because we only go to workshops once every couple of months. However, the tutor was really good and helped us out, but she's left the company so now we have a new tutor to meet with next month.
In the meantime, I'm working on an epub book for a story contest at the library. This is something I haven't looked into for ages because, let's be honest, I'm severely lacking in my self-publishing productivity anymore. So, it's good practice for me and gets me thinking about writing, editing, formatting, and publishing again.
Finally, I'm sure I've said this before, but I'm hoping to rekindle my blog posting updates more regularly, just to keep myself involved in something I enjoy doing. The 9-5ness and the school work sort of takes over most of my brain and I miss doing to me things that I enjoy. (And I'm so out of practice! Gah!)
And, unfortunately, I had to start my blog posts for the summer off on a sad note, but Mum Pick would want us to "get your head down and get on with it," as she'd say, so that's what we do.
Happy first week of summer to you all. I hope you take some time to enjoy it.

Easter bank holiday wind down and catch up

Good afternoon and Happy Easter Sunday!

It’s been a nice break from the daily grind these past few days and we’ve actually taken next week off as well to enjoy some traveling to go along with our rest and relaxation.

On Friday we were going to go to Sunderland Museum and Gardens (and library!) for the da Vinci drawings exhibit. However, once we got onto the highway, we realized that everyone and their mother was out cruising, so we headed to IKEA (why not) and bought patio furniture instead.

Afterwards, we hung out on the back patio and enjoyed the warm weather. It was in the 70s this weekend, and was actually very warm for people like us who are used to wearing quilted coats and woolly hats every day.

On Saturday, we headed to our favorite place – Beamish (as seen in the main photo above). Now, I was all gung-ho about the fish and chips and the walking and the sunshine … until I got overheated and sick. Being overheated is just weird. You’re not physically too hot. I wasn’t sweating to death or feeling hot, I just realized how dizzy and nauseous as we trekked around, so I had to cut the exploration short. I mean, we enjoyed the time we spent out, but I was really happy to be back in the car with the air conditioning.

Today is Easter Sunday! We started off with pancakes and a cuppa at our new patio set. Daisy has a pool that she’s still not completely sure about, but it feels nice to paddle around in when you’re wanting to cool down. Right now, Mister Pick is working on mounting our old TV up in the bedroom (we’re still technically moving in). We have the windows open and the cats are hanging out upstairs in the windowsills. All and all, it’s a perfect day.

I’ve been making my list of goals because I’m still working on the question of what I want to do with myself and where I see myself in ten years. (Anyone else who has the Rachel Hollis Start Today Journal knows what I’m talking about.) So, I’m looking up authors I admire and writing down places I’d like to go and really trying to wind down and focus on how I want to propel myself forward into the rest of the year.

Tomorrow is still up in the air, but we’ll make the most of it. After that, it’ll be traveling time and we’ll head to see The Pick family down in The Wirral for a bit.

In the meantime, I hope everyone has a fantastic Easter break!    

Visiting a lighthouse, using planners, and staying motivated

Well, it's the middle of February so that means I'm still plugging away at my goal-oriented planning.

From the photo above you can see that I have been outside and getting fresh air. Last weekend Mister Pick and I took Daisy to Souter Lighthouse which was interesting even though Daisy acted up and tried to jump on every dog and human that came close to her. (Goldendoodles are insane, I tell you.)

I went in the lighthouse on my own while Steve took her for a walk and the gal at reception told me that it was 75 or so stairs and the last bit was very steep. Now, me being me, I heard that and thought immediately, "Well, I won't be climbing that then, will I?"

But I did.

It was freaky though because on the way back down you have to go backward like on a ladder and my life flashed before my eyes a bit because I could see myself falling straight back and them having to find Steve on the beach to tell him that his wife had broken both of her legs in a freak lighthouse incident.

But I didn't, and I was proud of myself.

I'm such a wuss, I swear.

Anyway, so I was pleased with myself after that and looked at the little lighthouse cottage before going outside and hanging out with Daisy while Steve took a look inside.

Having a National Trust membership is nice when the weather permits you to explore things nearby.

We also took a walk down the coast, hence where this photo was taken, and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

I was off on Wednesday and that was the first time that Daisy went to doggy daycare when I was home so I felt like a free woman who didn't have to check on the baby every five minutes. I went to the dentist, the gym (hooray!), Weight Watchers (lost 3 pounds -- more hooray), and bought myself a bike because I want one. (I totally need a wicker basket for the front of it!)

Valentine's Day was good. We had M&S Dine in for Two (tradition) and I got my super cool Cath Kidston Bambi bag!

Today we took a walk along the river and I found lots of nice paths where I can ride my new bike, so I'm super excited. This bike is by no means the fancy cool Trek that I have left in Florida, but it's cute and comfortable from what I could tell from the showroom, so I'm ready to take up casual cycling again.

We also had a chance to look around our new neighborhood and was pleasantly surprised at all that was going on. We even had a couple of people stop to chat with us and we get the idea that we're notorious (in a good way) because the couple who owned our house before us were well-liked around here, and I'm sure they let everyone know that we'd be turning up with this mad dog.

Now, I've focused on my good things because all of this is part of my planning for achievement and working on spending family time as well as my fitness which really, really needs for me to keep myself accountable for each week.

Again, I'm really stoked about my Passion Planner, and my This is My Era planner. I still find it so easy to be lazy and procrastinate but this has helped me put things in perspective, even if it's small personal objectives. Not that health and creativity are small topics.

Like, one of my objectives is to amp up bookblogarama.com but it's going to be so much work and it's so much easier to just not start getting involved. However, I really want to have more book reviews and interact with more book bloggers so I'm going to have to just dig in and get that started.

I'm also listening to podcasts which I never did before but it seems to put me in a better frame of mind for the rest of the day, as opposed to music where my mind can wander.

The writing is okay too. I at least work on something most days, so that's a huge accomplishment considering how little writing I was doing for the last few years, honestly.

And with that said, here's hoping everyone had a fab Valentine's Day and enjoys the rest of their February!

Countdown to moving day

This will probably be the last post I’ll write in our flat. It’s now Sunday and we’re scheduled to move to our new house on Wednesday. Our movers are booked for 8AM, I was able to swap my Wednesdays off, and we have a hotel room to keep Jake (the cat) out of the way and relaxed (somewhat) while the moving chaos ensues.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again – moving is a complete pain. I mean, I’m super excited, don’t get me wrong, but when you have no control over the aspects of if the solicitors will get the paperwork from everyone in time, and if you can or can’t get the day off just to sign your contracts, it’s sort of a quiet anxiety. You want to get upset and panic, but there really is nothing you can do but wait on things to fall into place.

But, it’s done for the most part. The last bit of paperwork the solicitor needed from us was the house’s building insurance that we transferred from the flat. The insurance company finally emailed that to us yesterday, so that’s been forwarded on to the solicitor’s office. Now, on Monday, Mister Pick has to give them the deposit on the house and we’re good to go.

We haven’t ordered any new furniture yet because I want to be there and get an idea of what color couch I really want and how high of a dining room table I’ll need. I do know that I need a washer, a dryer, and a refrigerator when we first get there, so we’re going to look at PC World for those today.

In the meantime, we’re packing. Massively packing. We’re only going 3.3 miles down the road, so it’s not like I have to worry about anything getting lost in the mix or anything. I’ve labelled things so far (basically, all of my clothes).

We were going to go to the Brontë Parsonage this coming bank holiday weekend, but with the move, we’ve cancelled that. This is still a big one on my list, so maybe Mister Pick, Daisy and I can travel down there on a regular weekend, just to nose about and spend the night. That would be nice.

Other than that, I’ve seen the BBC iPlayer documentary on Sylvia Plath, I’m still watching OITNB S6, and I picked up Fear Street: You May Now Kill the Bride last night.

So, yeah. Next time I post here I’ll be at our new house (or some random public place, let’s be honest).

Until then, enjoy your last days of summer before school starts (for those in the UK). I’m scheduled to go back to my MSc in Computing and Information Science in September too (plus going to Florida!) so I’ll be right there with you.