#elves #emotions #caring #computerglitches #lockdown #family #autism #anxiety #mentalhealth #selfcare

Up and running again

I will start blog with an update about the laptop situation.

That has been a slightly irritating and long drawn out process to get my laptop up and running again, I much prefer using my laptop then doing phone updates just because the programs ability to work and because my phone screen is tiny. The big issue was the latest windows updates really messing up the computers ability to do anything, even Logging on to the computer was an issue, my AVG became unable to update , my Google wouldn’t work my files were still all there but were unable to open. we couldn’t use the uninstall and couldn’t even update the windows it’s self it was stuck on windows updates at 0% .

My hubby isn’t the type of person to give up so he just carried on and got it sorted, maybe one or to rude words were uttered or a mumble under his breath. The distinct look of don’t ask me again after he just told me something fir the 10th time. I had faith he would sort it he always does I would be very lost if he wasn’t here to help.

So tonight I write with a big smile on my face , and the understanding that i have now purchased word press for another year, guess you will all have to put up with my little Elf blog for longer.

Caring and work.

My last blog left off with Hayley staying here for the week and her getting her own bit of Tec in the for of a Samsung galaxy this is an awesome device for her and works very well, she has amazed me with it a lot, and while she has been home it is nice to continue to see her use it and her daily Facebook updates have me smiling and laughing, just because where she uses the voice to type part it sometimes changes what she says, for example : “HI everyone I am having egg on toast for breakfast have a nice day,” what it typed was “I am having egg on toast in your face” my dad swears it has a sense of humor. They have been taking pictures of each other a lot of banter between the 2 of them.

in my last update i was unable to add the video’s as they were too big showing Hayley’s reaction as she was beginning to learn and her receiving the tablet so i uploaded them to my YouTube and will add the links here to them now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C71NQmbe_F8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4WD3OTh5cw

These are only short little clips but you can really see just how excited she is to learn how to do this.

Hayley is coming back tomorrow to stay again for another 8 days , dad is clinically cleaning house ready for my my mum to stay so she can be safe to attend my aunts funeral so we had to changes shifts around that. I am sure we are going to have an amazing week a head of learning when i go get her Tomorrow.

Work with Tom

My little Tom god i love this boy so much he has been face timing while I haven’t been working, he is always cheeky and makes me smile so much shifts with Tom are always fun reading, singing, dancing, selfies he loves them the most.

he is such a character .

Tom Has Been showing me his sensory Garden his dad has been building for him Dad mum and everyone have choose real good looks amazing. They are still working on it but they have some London themed ot spots the Tower bridge is water fall over the fishing pond, the wheel the London eye, and dad is working on a big ben, tom loves visiting these things when he has to travel to hospital in London.

He has even done a spot of fishing , got really upset when he had to go in for dinner they told me.

You can see that he is loving the new sensory Garden a lot and that being in self isolation can be a lots of fun as well as stressful sometimes.

Time off work with My own family.

We have achieved a lot this week in our garden planting flowers , My hubby has been sorting the fences , extending our vegetable Garden, and plant the salad and veggies, we are going to have a good crop this year if this lovely weather keeps up.

We are growing lots of different things this year;

Runner beans, Peas in pods, lettuce, Cucumber, Tomatoes, butternut squash, pepper’s , garlic, radish, strawberries, Chard and cabbage.

First time for us growing some of them so will be interesting to watch and see what comes out in the end.

Flowers and plants well we added some my Rhododendrons, Hydrangeas

we also have pansy’s , Lillie’s , Petunia and Geraniums there are some others just cant remember all their names.

we have yellows, pinks, purple, blues, I love seeing scatterings of colour where ever I look.

Still lots to keep us occupied everyday though always extra bits added here and there.

Self care and relaxation

the thing i like about time of is lazy sleep ins, yes i have a hubby who gets up with the kids and has my coffee ready when I wake sometimes it is really nice, Music we have played so much all different genres and even languages, Il Divo is very relaxing, they have these amazing voices that make you shiver when they sing. We have also been listening to Greek music. I have a few favorites and it is great for the Kids to here Greek music playing too.

Good food is another part of self care, yes sometimes take always if you have been busy but I like making things myself more and if i am not driving or working and in holiday mode an occational drink,I love malibu or cocktails some times a smirnoff ice but can’t drink much though.

Spending time with kids and hubby there defiantly does get any thing better than that , except having our oldest son home that has been hard since lockdown not having him here with us.

I love these kids so much. very busy blog to today with lots to share, i am going to finish up with our exercise in the park where we also got in a photography lesson it was a very quite time we went and the kids wouldn’t go out with out their mask as they had a little anxiety to start with but really enjoyed getting out for a little while.

Niki’s perspective in photo’s

Jake’s perspective in photo’s

We were talking about perspectives on what different people see as beautiful in photo’s may not be the same as what they see and that sometimes it is photo’s that aren’t perfectly planned out are some of the best. i know my kids have this perfectionist side to them and that’s ok but some time they do amazing work and then get frustrated with it and rip it up, or sometimes if someone else takes a photo of them they can really find that hard, if its not the way they would like it to look.It is why my photos aren’t as perfect, but capture special moments as they are no time to plan or check light of even see if the lens of my phone is clean I just take it when it makes me smile because other wise the moment is lost and you have to rely on your memory to hold that moment forever.

Mums perspective the kids did give the ok to these first before i posted them and took out ones they really didn’t like.

Emo came along for some fun too.

Now it is that time where i say good night have a beautiful sleep.

Much love Faye xx

I will leave you with link to EBook

https://www.kobo.co

m/gb/en/ebook/emo-the-emotional-elf

paperback

#emotions #elves #caring #lockdown #digitaltec #autism #anxiety #mentalhealth

A bit of sun, bathing, no fake tan no sunbeds just some sun cream, ice cream maybe a few Malibu’s 😀 Greek music and dancing, a BBQ the works but most of all a great imagination .

Eyes closed you can almost imagine you were actually on a Greek beach I am lucky to have a memory of my time there to go back to,

The kapozee ( watermelon) souvaliki and chips down by the harbour, the amazing meals and dancing in the castle which was also a night club Family all singing and dancing ouzo , The bold and the beautiful playing in the TV with English subtitles the smell of the sea the bright vivid colours, the afternoon naps . Holding hands as we walked.the kids teaching me to sing the coca cola song in Greek. Uncle Theodosia wearing my hat, the long walk up the acropolis to visit the Pathanon, the Greek gaurd that you have your picture taken with not wanting to get to close definatley wouldn’t want to mess with them.😀

I will show you what I mean In Photo’s you have to excuse quality they were taken on some disposable cameras way back in 1992 😀 that’s how long ago I was in my other home Greece.🇬🇷

A few of my favourite moments

That is exactly the feeling I had this weekend , warmth family , love. I am super happy to relive these memories multiple times.

This blog is taking ages because I am still using phone computer is still a work in progress . Sunday was super chilled the tempreture here dropping to cold to go out so relaxed,

I have been reminiscing a lot this week and was looking at some old photos I had taken after my Josh and Niki were born the photo shoots were presents from my hubby .

I really enjoyed the pampering plus how better to feel after you become a mother .

Monday was back to work Hayley is with us this week , she came with her favourite things the kareokee matching and her favourite Boney m CD. I love this about Hayley she is the life and soul of the party.

It has been a week of singing, dancing baking 😁♥️

I made a bit of an misjudgement as I got caught up in the excitement and posted photos before letting Niki see them first the other day, it was a bit of a melt down that occured so had to go back and delete the ones she wasn’t

happy with, sometimes I forget to get the ok first. I just have to try harder to remember that it future.😀 These ones she said we’re ok to post. It is one of the things I find hard because some of the imposed phots I think are the most relaxed an beautiful ones but I respect that it is there choice to.

The other thing was my brother was shopping and the shop was not good at social distancing, and ended up with him being attacked by a group of four people , the police were called he has a black eye and three broken ribs,

I had to go get his car and take it back to his house while he was at the hospital it seems sometimes in this country that people are aloud to attack you and because you defend yourself and your family and hit back they won’t be charged with assault, law is supposed to protect victims, you are supposed to be able to defend yourself especially in a situation four

against one. So this week has definatley had downs as well as many amazing moments .

Today was a pretty special day other then food shopping, Hayley has had a pampered princess day, after much thought and discussion with Mum and dad we decided to let her buy a tablet she may not be able to read and write but with support she can begin to learn to do new things she has been joining in with the kids on Tik Tom and learning new things plus it’s great to help her have something she can keep in touch with family by faceting them while we continue to live in a

socially isolated way , originally we were thinking of a smart phone but because of her eyes sight she needed something a little bigger and easier

for her to use. Plus I want to add some apps for her learning.

She has been so excited all day, I managed to order it online and when I went food shopping I picked it up from store. I put it in a box for her to open and we videoed the moment so Mum and Dad could be part of the magical moment, you know seeing things through others eyes is a truly special thing, you want to make that new experience and way of learning super special for them.

I will add video to my media for some reason it won’t let me add it which is frustrating 😡 why give the option and it not work.

Niki helped set it up think she wanted to be part of this new experience with Hayley, we have her Facebook sorted and all the privacy set up to keep her safe , we have Tik Tok so she can join in with Niki and the other kids in

family messenger so she can video chat with family and her boyfriend.

He did some tonight on it complete 2 in under five minutes , she messaged dad with help telling her way letters to press and she has her YouTube play list of all her favourite songs. I just have to now add a few more apps to help with learning her letters something like grid but for Samsung .we will work more on sentences together.i. Going to make the app icons bigger just so she can see them better and press them. We are just waiting for the protective casing to arrive which is definatley needed as she has trouble with carpel tunnel and sometimes drops things and can’t grip great . So you see we are moving on with her in a new bright exciting way it’s going to take patience and care but she will learn

It is these moments you really appreciate your work and the good you can do, these moments of making someone so happy , and that’s what she actually said I am the happiest I have been at this moment, it has been a hard few weeks being away from the day center and her friends losing her aunt not being able to follow her own routine or go and socialise at the pub with her friends , because the reality is when you have learning disabilities it isn’t easy it’s super hard I mean many adults without any issues are struggling and they understand life and the world and what they need to to do , for Hayley , Niki and Jake it is more unsettling and scary on a very different level, and they have all show such resilience strength and respect for the new rules we have at the moment Niki and Jake have had an impact on there depression but they are talking about Thier emotions and how they feel

INow as things are slowly begining to move towards more movement and there is talk about schools returning soon what can we do to help our kids transition back with the least amount of anxiety, role play school in a social distancing way speak to school about taking a few photos of layout of the rooms so they know how things are going to look, have a list you can send to parents of what is expected of the kids before you even think about opening the doors, it doesn’t hurt to prepare a child in advance to wants expected I have found especially with my kids that there anxiety is lower when they can plan things out in there head in advamce.f a change is going to happen social skills can play a huge role we have used it with school before when Jake moved up to year six his anxiety and school refusal was so high that we got his teacher to send a photo of herself the classroom layout , his teacher also talked about her special interest which was turtles so he did a turtle project that first day anxiety was not there as he was focussed on carrying his project in for the teacher he forgot he was scared.

There are so many thing to concentrate on during the next steps it is achievable. If we all work together .

Any way I will have to stop writing now this phone is really laggy I think it needs a big update doing maybe then my apps will work properly

Much love Faye ❣️❤️😁

Wishing you a beautiful day, 😁❤️

#simplethingsinlife #summerlockdown

Have a wonderful weekend ,😁🌞🌞❤️

It’s already sunny here, we are going to spend the day in the garden

Garden speaker all charged ready for some music, sun cream and ice-cream ready. Life really is what you make it.

We all have the power to enjoy life what ever it brings.

I think I may even pick up a book and get lost in the story.

Have a beautiful time today.😁