Lunacat places a bookmark for 2019

Hi!

Figured I should have a thread here to occasionally fill people in on what is going on in my life. 2019 looks to be a hectic year, with increasing my hours at work, starting a new diploma to become actually qualified in what I'm doing, and all the other activities that happen along the way.

I'm Jenny, a 32 year old Brit living on a river estuary in the East of England, having moved from my hometown in the last few months in order to move in with my fiance. We have a dog, Nero, and a cat, Cato, and share the house with my future father-in-law.

I am starting a new career as a Learning Support Assistant in a high school. I work with teenagers who need a little (or a lot) of support to help them keep up in lessons, and bridge the gap between them and their peers who don't have the challenges they do. I work with a vast array of teens, including students with medical problems such as spina bifida or cerebral palsy, those on the autistic spectrum, those with dyslexia or other learning difficulties, those who have English as a second language, and a whole host of other issues. The high school is in the centre of an extremely deprived area and we have a lot of problems stemming from poverty and neglect also. It is an exhausting job, but also an interesting one, and the commute gives me dedicated audiobook time.

I'm also getting married on August 31st this year, and am excited that a couple of LT members will be (hopefully) attending the wedding.

I read historical fiction, sci fi, fantasy, historical non-fiction, YA books, and anything else I happen to stumble across.

Welcome back! Congrats on the wedding!

Glad to see you, Jenny, for however much time you can spend with us!

If you want to talk board games, you know where to find me :)

Happy New Thread & New Year Jenny! Congratulations about your wedding.

Happy New Year Jenny!

Happy reading in 2019, Jenny!
Looking forward with you to the wedding :-)

I wish you from my heart a healthy 2019 filled with happiness, satisfaction, laughter and lots of good books.

Hope you have a great 2019!

Thanks all. I’ve started off well by getting halfway through Tombland which is good as ever, and made even more interesting because I know the area well.

We do this thing at work called DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) where for 10 minutes during the day, everyone in the school - teachers, assistants, students - all have to drop everything they’re doing and read. Of course the difficulty is putting the book down once the bell goes to signify its over! I’ve started to take collections of short stories or essays in to have as that book.

It sounds like you are set for a busy and interesting year, Jenny. But it with something like DEAR where you work, looks like you have ended up in a place that is meant for you.

Happy 2019
A year full of books
A year full of friends
A year full of all your wishes realised

I look forward to keeping up with you, Jenny, this year.

Happy New Year Jenny! And happy new thread!



Wishing you and your family the best for 2019.

This DEAR business sounds terrible ;0) Imagine having to read at work.

>9 lunacat: Oh, I love this DEAR rule.

Happy New Year, Jenny! I'm also a fan of the DEAR policy.

Hi Jenny!

DEAR sounds quite wonderful. I tend to do it a lot at home - stop cleaning, stop working on finances, stop straightening - and now I have an official name for it. *smile*

Congrats on all your lovely plans for the year - new career, new diploma, and of course getting married on August 31.

DEAR sounds awesome!!! So does a wedding. : ) Good luck with all you have going on this year.

Shock horror, I finished a book.

Audio is definitely the way to go now I have a 45 min commute each way to work. I'm getting a decent amount of listening time in.

I finished Tombland by C. J. Sansom, the latest in the Shardlake series. It was interesting as I know the area very well, and I'd never heard much about Kett's rebellion before, but I felt like there wasn't as much focus on the murder mystery in the book which means it wasn't my favourite of the series. Still highly enjoyable though.

Hooray for finishing a book!! I was here earlier, and I could have sworn that I had posted, but I have disappeared now. Welcome back, Jenny - so very lovely to see you posting!

Oooh, your new career sounds challenging, and rewarding. Good for you.

The listening commute is a convenient inconvenience, if you know what I mean. :)

Yeah, the listening commute has its upsides alongside its many many downsides.

I finally got the enrollment sorted for the course I'm doing (the school is paying for it so there were more hoops to jump through than if I was doing it myself) so I started it yesterday. It's very strange being back studying again, but hopefully I can do well with it. I'd like to have completed it before the wedding but who knows if that will happen.

I'm half way through a repeat listen of Ready Player One and enjoying it as ever.

Gaming this year has started off to a slow start (board games I mean). Only six games played so far, but hopefully John and I will get one played tonight. I have managed to avoid buying any new ones so far this year which is good, as there are far too many waiting to be played!

Hi Jenny!

I had a 40-45 minute one-way commute and with the rare time I spent listening to NPR, I listened to audiobooks. It's a great way to 'read' books!

Best wishes on your course.

Happy 2019, Jenny!

Kudos to you for handling your challenging job. That has to take patience and a very giving nature.

That is so cool that you may have a couple of LTers at the wedding! I love it.

I missed that bit about the potential LT attendees at your wedding until Joe posted. Will you allow people at your wedding to take photos? At the last wedding I attended it was prohibited.

Absolutely we're allowing photos. In fact, because we're cheap and doing this significantly low budget, we're not getting a wedding photographer so am relying on friends and family to do the photos. I have a photographer within the family who does advertising photography (a very different beast apparently) who is going to take a few formal ones and those with good cameras will take the rest.

And, of course, you are going to post some here, right?! : )

Looks like we need to get on the board game bandwagon, what with you and Stasia playing.

Jenny?!!!!?

*waving*

Hi Jenny!

I hope you're doing well.

Sorry for the radio silence! Life has been hectic, interesting, busy, and often tedious, but we make it work anyway.

Unfortunately I've been off work for the last two weeks (and am signed off next week as well) due to pneumonia, so that hasn't been much fun. I haven't particularly felt like reading either, so have just been reading books from my childhood which is always what I resort to when I'm under the weather. Hopefully things will pick up soon.

Everyone else is well and happy, including Nero (the dog) and Cato (the cat) and John's father, so we're thankful for that, and looking forward to summer.

Oh no! Sorry to hear that. Glad everyone else is well.

Glad to see you, Jenny, and hear that life has been mostly good. Hope you're feeling better soon and can get back to work.

Hope you're healing up, Jenny. Rats to the pneumonia, but I'm glad all else is well.

I'm sorry to hear about your bout of pneumonia, Jenny. I'm glad that it's over, and I think you made a wise decision to use this week to recuperate.

Well, the latest news is that my pneumonia wasn't just pneumonia but was also whooping cough (pertussis). This has led to a rib fracture and mild pneumothorax! Thankfully neither is particularly bad, just extremely painful. I'm still on reduced hours at work and not looking forward to the length of time it's going to take to recover, but at least I know why I've felt so bad for so long.

In other news, wedding planning is plodding on and the veg garden is up and running. I'm starting a reread of Swallows and Amazons which is always good. I'm looking forward to feeling much better soon.

Wow whooping cough! I thought that only affected infants!

Hope you are fully recovered and will come back to us soon.

Hoping you feel better by now.

Good news about the wedding and the veg garden.

I'm attempting a couple of tomato plants but we do have a lot of snails and the herbs I've tried have been hit and miss - in the sense that they do alright for a while and then die off. But my mum had a riotous success with tomatoes in her Sydney garden, so fingers crossed!

And yes, Swallows and Amazons is always good. I've bought it for my kids, but I ought to get the sequels too.

ETA: I think that could be a book boomerang...

Life has take a turn for the weird? Heartbreaking? Who knows what. John and I are getting married on August 31st. We got a phone call yesterday saying that his brother (who he hasn’t seen for many years due to said brother’s alcoholism and abusive behaviour) is receiving end of life care due to multiple organ failure.

John, his father and I drove the 300 miles across country to, in a weird twist of fate, the hospital I was born in. John’s brother has no other family than John and his father (estranged) and we have no idea how he ended up there.

John and his father were able to say what needed to be said.

We stayed the night with my aunt who still lives 15 minutes away from the hospital, and returned to see John’s brother. We spoke to the doctor and discussed our priorities with regards to end of life care - them being him being calm, peaceful, comfortable and pain free. They have removed all intrusive care including observations, tests and blood tests.

John’s father, who is 80, couldn’t bear sitting at his side and waiting while his son dies a self-inflicted death. He wanted to be home with the dog and the cat, in his own home, while we wait. We are respecting those wishes. Our focus now is on making sure John’s dad is as able as possible to cope. John’s brother is no longer aware of what is occurring around him thanks to the morphine, but he was aware when the doctor discussed things with him on Friday and he knows he is dying. John and his dad were able to say the things they needed to in order to offer love, compassion and forgiveness.

John’s brother is dying, aged 39, in a hospital I was born in 33 years ago and we’re across the country as per his father’s wishes. John and I get married in a month.

Life is so very strange. I’m so grateful for the love of friends and family surrounding us.

I wish his brother a peaceful end, and all the compassion in the world.

Hi Jenny!

I'm so sorry about John's brother - what a shock to you all. I'm glad that John and his dad were able to say the things they needed to in order to offer love, compassion and forgiveness.

I hope the wedding prep goes well - what a strange summer for you indeed.

Yikes, what a mix of emotions you all must be going through! So sorry about John's brother, but I am glad everyone was able to say what they needed. I hope the wedding plans and everything go smoothly.

That is quiet the rollercoaster of emotions you got into, Jenny.
So sorry for John, his father and brother, glad they were able to speak to eachother in time.

Hugs to you Jenny and to John.
Isn't it odd how life seems to move in such circular patterns?

Echoing everyone else, Jenny. It must feel weird.

Wishing you all happiness to see you through the sadness.

Though maybe only a thin sliver of a Silver Lining, your time to speak with John's brother was of true value.

My sister, who also suffered with alcoholism and drugs, chose a self inflicted death which gave her family and friends no time or space for any words.

Best Wishes for a Beautiful Wedding!

I'm sorry to hear about John's brother, Jenny.

Me, too, Jenny. I’m glad you could get there and John and his dad were able to say good-bye.

And your wedding coming so soon! It must be a strange mixture of feelings.

Countdown to your wedding, Jenny.

26 days to go and I do hope you'll share pictures and so on with all of us.

So, things are still not looking great for John’s useless brother (hereafter known as UB) but holding steady. He’s well enough to phone John’s father from his hospital bed and ask for money, which means he’s trying to get hold of alcohol somehow.

He also claimed that the doctors had told him his cirrhosis of the liver and subsequent liver and kidney failure wasn’t due to the 2-3litres of vodka he admitted drinking every day, but was instead because he hadn’t been eating. First time I’ve ever heard of lack of food causing cirrhosis, but there we go. (Before anyone is confused, it’s a blatant lie and an attempt to convince us he isn’t an alcoholic and we should therefore give him money).

Meanwhile my stress levels are through the roof due to everything, and quite frankly I’m not looking forward to the wedding at all. I want to be married to John more than anything in the world and if he said let’s cancel the church and the party and just go to the registry office tomorrow, I’d do it.

I’m sure it will be lovely and I will definitely share photos here. But at the moment, emotional exhaustion and stress is getting on top of me and it’s hard to look forward to things.

Sorry to hear it's been so stressful, Jenny. Hope the next month prepping for wedding goes smoothly (or you elope!).

Oh no. I hope everything calms down and the wedding becomes something to look forward to again.

Congrats!!!!!!

Yay Jenny! Congrats to you and John.

CONGRATULATIONS! You both look very happy.

Um ... mult-coloured trousers?

Congrats!

Congratulations! Lovely photos :)

Wonderful, Jenny. I am so pleased for you both.

Congratulations!!

Congratulations, Jenny and John!

What a Beautiful Celebration!

Sorry to disturb the honeymoon and all but if you get a few minutes to go online you'll see that I offered the newly weds a happy weekend.

Aww, congratulations, Jenny! Thanks for posting the photos.

Congrats!! Great photos!

Way behind on threads. Sorry about the UB. But look at your wedding photos!!! Congratulations. You look beautiful and HAPPY! Best wishes to you and John.

*waving hello!*

Married life updates....? : )

I'm way behind on your news, Jenny. Sorry to hear about the UB, I hope that you have fully recovered from your health issues and life stresses, great wedding photos and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

Have a great holiday, Jenny.

Or in other words, Happy Christmas! And have a great New Year as well.

Happy first 'official' Christmas together, Jenny!

Thank you for keeping me company in 2019.......onward to 2020.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, some other tradition or none at all, this is what I wish for you!

Best wishes this holiday season!! See you in 2020!

Another resolution is to keep up in 2020 with all my friends on LT. Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Jenny!

Any chance you are going to have a thread this year? Have I missed it? : )

I will have a thread :) lots of (hopeful) life things going on and I’m even doing a bit of reading, so I’ll be setting something up shortly :)

Look forward to reading it then.