Week 47

Chicken Casserole

Last week I was craving chicken casserole, the temperature is dropping and I wanted something nice and warming. Since I’ve never made chicken casserole I decided to invite my Mum and stepdad over for dinner so my first casserole was for six. I tried making it in the halogen oven since I didn’t have a casserole dish big enough and a new one was going to be nearly £30. But after nearly two hours it still wasn’t cooking so I ended up dumping it all in a large pan on the stove. Another half an hour and it was done.

It was delicious and there was enough left over to make bowls of soup the next day.

 

Shanna xx

Week 46

Top Five Musicals–Seen In 2014

I’ve always loved musicals, I always remember going on a school trip in primary school to see Singin’ In The Rain in Bristol, I even remember which lamppost I walked into while talking to my friend.  I remember going to see Dr Dolittle and Whistle Down The Wind in London in Secondary school. I’ve seen a few others over the years but last year my friend Rachel and I went to see several in our local theatre which triggered something and I’ve pretty much seen at least one musical a month since.

 

Here are my favourite musicals I’ve seen in 2014.

 

• Phantom of the Opera – London

 

 

My Mum and I took a trip to London in August – we queued for an hour at the TKTS office – I was expecting to see Jersey Boys or Once but when we got to the front and I asked my Mum what she wanted to see said Phantom of the Opera. We got seats five rows from the front. It was an amazing show.

 

• Wicked – Cardiff

 

Wicked is one of the musicals I’ve always wanted to see so when we found out last year it was coming to Cardiff Mum bought me a ticket for Christmas. So in April we got to go and see it. It was every bit as good as I expected it to be.

 

• Calamity Jane – Cheltenham

I loved every minute of this musical, I’m so glad that I didn’t wait until April when it comes to our local theatre I’ll be definitely seeing it again.

• The Lion King – Cardiff

I knew I was going to see it soon, but decided last minute to get one of the single seats that were left and go on the Sunday after my birthday. It was one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever seen a real master class in how a musical should be.

 

• Shrek The Musical – Bristol

I took my sister to Bristol to see this, it was cute and hilarious.

 

Also deserving honourable mention are Dreamboats and Petticoats and Dreamboats and Miniskirts which as of the end of the week I will have both seen four times.  The cast are the sweetest people.

 

Shanna xx

Stroke

Just over a year ago my grandfather had a stroke.  That seems odd to write down, but he did. He already was in the early stages of Alzheimer's but he was on medication and doing pretty well. I live with my grandparents to help keep on eye on them.

 

The day it happened was a Friday. I was trying to use up some of my annual leave so I randomly had the day.  When my grandmother called me down to say there was something wrong with him. He was mumbling incoherently and suffering right side weakness. He’d been fine an half an hour before talking. I don’t know why but his dropping smile instantly reminded me of an episode of House MD I’d seen years before where a pregnant woman had had a stroke. There was a pneumonic  FAST – A stands for arms – he couldn’t hold his arms up, in my head I thought S stood for smile, it’s actually speech but he couldn’t smile or speak and T stands for Time. For the life of me I couldn’t remember what F stood for. It’s actually Face, or so the paramedic told me later, it’s the one to do with your smile.

 

When I realised what happened I called an ambulance, luckily we only live about a mile from the ambulance depot so the bike paramedic was here within minutes and the ambulance a few minutes later. While that was happening I had to call my Mum and stepdad who had both gone to work, my sister who was taking her kids to school, I had to leave a message for my brother who was walking to work, call my great aunt who would let the rest of the family know and try and call my aunt. Through all of that I kept thinking I need to cancel the Asda delivery. I ended up calling Asda while they were loading him into the ambulance. I call from my mobile and it cost £3.60, they said they would reschedule, but the ended up delivering that day and for some reason setting up to deliver the exact same items the next day.

 

We all followed the ambulance to the hospital having to wait while the ran tests. He had a stroke but luckily we noticed quickly and got him to the hospital. There is a four hour window to get him on the right drugs to stop the stroke from killing his brain. After a few hours he was moved to a heart ward as he needed monitoring as he was on blood thinners, as we sat waiting I started to cry. I’d been holding it together for hours and I couldn’t cope anymore.

 

A few hours later he was moved to the stroke ward. He seemed so small in that hospital bed. He spent a few weeks in the hospital, he hated every minute. He kept beginning us to bring him home, he kept confusing the man the bed next to him for my grandmother as he had white hair. He kept calling for his mother and reverting to a child, some days he would recognise us and others he wouldn’t.

 

A year on he can walk and talk, he still has Alzheimer's and now Vascular Dementia, so he gets frustrated when he can’t remember things, some days we have the same conversation every five minutes, some days he remembers us and some days he recognises us but can’t remember our names. It’s been tough on all of us, but I’m just grateful that I had the day off and was here when it happened, as it couldn’t have been a lot worse if we hadn’t got him to the hospital so quickly or we could have lost him all together.

 

Shanna xx

Random layouts

Here are some random layouts I’ve made over the past few months.

 

Shanna

Week 45

Shanna

Week 44

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Books I Read In October

The BOyfriend App by Katie Sise

 

Dead End Dating by Kimberley Raye

 

Shopholic series by Sophie Kinsella

 

Right of Passage by Joy N Hensley

 

A Slice of Murder by Chris Cavender

 

One Scandalous Season by Lily Dalton

 

Where Passion Lead by Lisa Kleypas

 

5th Street series by Elizabeth Reyes

 

Lucky Harbour series by Jill Shalvis

 

Shifters & Bikers by Rebecca Royce

 

Smart & Sexy by Jill Shalvis

 

Her Wolf by Rebecca Wolf

 

Crash series by Nicole Williams

 

That Night by Chevy Stevens

 

Blackbird by Anna Carey

32 in October

 

Shanna