My Name is Emma and I Have a Problem...

Spoiler: I own two out of three shoes pictured...

Those of you who read my blog on Monday will know that I'm not very well, at the moment.  I've finally seen a doctor about it and it turns out that I have some kind of virus that's gotten to my chest and made me cough and wheeze even more than is usual for an asthmatic.  I'm on steroids and I'm expecting my six pack and beard to magically appear any day, now...

The trouble with having lots of time on your hands due to illness is that you're very limited as to what you can do.  I can't go for a day out anywhere, because I'm liable to start spluttering and gasping for breath if I walk too far.  I can't go to watch a film at the cinema, because the audience would most definitely lynch me for coughing through all the important bits.  I'm largely housebound, with the exception of the odd short walk to stop me going insane.  And being housebound is very dangerous, because I have a problem I'd like to share with you all, today.

My name is Emma and I think I might be a shopaholic.

I have this urge to buy stuff.  It happens a lot and it's usually not even stuff I need.  

I will browse websites that sell dresses and skirts for literally an hour at a time.  I have the Irregular Choice website bookmarked in my favourites, because you just never know when you'll get a sudden urge to buy quirky, gorgeous heels.  I lose entire evenings on Amazon, just looking at the weird stuff you can buy, even though I have NO need to be buying any of it.  This morning alone, I spent half an hour browsing phone cases, before deciding that I'd check later to see if you can have a personalised one made.  Because I need Dan & Phil on a flip case, duh.

Actually, I've got such a problem that just writing that last sentence reminded me that I never did get around to checking about personalised flip cases (it has to be a flip case - I drop my phone at least seven times a day).  And as a result, I have created this masterpiece, which, when I have a spare £19.95, I will definitely be ordering:

Sorry Dan.  You can be on my iPad or something.

The trouble is, I don't actually have an income to justify my urge to splurge.  There are currently three weeks until pay day and I have the princely sum of £36.71 in my bank account.  And depressingly, roughly £34 of that is earmarked for bills.  There's cash in my wallet, but that's not money I can simply chuck away on the most beautiful phone case known to man, either.

In summary, I have a massive love of shopping (be it online or in person - I'm not fussy), but literally no funds with which to do it.  Well, no funds for a while, anyway.  Sadly, March, April and May require me to buy wedding gifts, car insurance, birthday presents and other such things.  That's all stuff I obviously don't mind spending money on (well, with the exception of the car insurance - the only good thing about that is the free meerkat toy I totally didn't choose a comparison website just to to get), but it does mean that for the next couple of months, no matter how beautiful the shoes on the Irregular Choice website may be, they're going to have to stay there and I'm going to have to mourn the absence of them on my feet.

It's not just buying stuff for me that I love doing, I should point out.  Few things make me happier than splashing cash on people I love, too.  I get all excited when I see something I know one of my friends or family members would really love and the next thing you know, I'm typing out my debit card details on some website or other...

Now, before anyone starts to worry that I'm getting myself into debt and I'm one shopping spree away from a payday loan with an interest rate of 900000000%, fret not, my friends.  I'm ridiculously anal about money.  I save coins and pay them into my bank when I have £5 or £10.  I have not one, but two piggy banks for emergencies.  I have only ever been overdrawn twice in my life - once was due to someone else's mistake and it was rectified within an hour and the other time was when I went under by 20p the day before pay day, because a bill was taken out two days earlier than it was meant to be.  So, essentially, that wasn't my fault, either.  

I will only buy stuff if I can afford to, because I see no point in getting myself into trouble just for a pair of shoes, a pretty dress or a really amazing phone case (I NEED IT, OKAY?!).  I also do a budget every month to work out how much I have to spend on myself and I'm pretty strict about sticking to it.  If I can't afford it, I don't have it, simple as that.

So, actually closing the websites in my browser and walking away from the clothes shops won't be a problem.  I can do it.  

But that won't stop me window shopping.  It won't stop me wandering down to our local shoe shop to browse the pretty heels.  It won't stop me spending much too long on Amazon, looking for the most random of items.  My recent searches, in case you're wondering, have been for:

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer strappy tops
• Irregular Choice heels on sale (those shoes are an obsession)
• Interesting car stickers (what? WHY?!)
• Body spray variety packs
• Nail varnish sets
• Nerdy clothing
• Doctor Who shoes

and...

• Alcoholic milkshakes.  Don't judge me.

I figured that I can't be the only one with a compulsion to buy ALL THE THINGS, so I thought I'd share this with you guys, so you can either nod sagely in agreement or, alternatively, tut in judgement at my materialistic ways.  

EDIT: I emptied my coin jar and found enough to order the Phil phone case.  I AM ILL AND NEED TO CHEER MYSELF UP, OKAY?!

Send help.

It's The Little Things...

So, here's the news:  I have a cold.  I'm possibly dying of some dreadful lurgy.  Or, perhaps it's (wo)man flu.  Either way, I feel pretty lousy right about now.  It's a bit like someone has taken my brain out of my head and replaced it with a really heavy, wet sponge.  And that sponge is so full of liquid, that some of it keeps dribbling out of my eyes and nose.  I hope I've painted you a lovely, mental image.  You're welcome.

I don't really have time to be ill.  I've got a novel that needs to be promoted (click here to buy it and I promise I won't sneeze on you), a YouTube video to finish editing, a new novel that I need to start work on and stories that need to be written and recorded in advance, for my weekly bedtime story feature on this blog.  Add a day job to all of that and you can probably see why getting ill is just not really something I can squeeze into my hectic schedule.  If I had a social life, I'd really be struggling...

Since I had to go to work today, I was forced to set my alarm for 6:45am and to be out of bed by seven.  Not easy, when you've spent most of the night wide awake, because you can't breathe and you're coughing so much that you're in danger of waking people in nearby towns.  Needless to say, when my alarm sounded this morning, all I wanted to do was crawl underneath the duvet and hide.

Phil's hiding under the duvet skills need work.

The trouble is, being poorly doesn't just affect your physical well being.  It can totally mess up your mood, too.  When your mouth's hanging open all the time (because you genuinely can't breathe through your nose), and you feel like an elephant has taken to tap-dancing on your skull, the last thing you're likely to be is particularly jolly.  And, if you're anything like me, feeling a little fed up is going to make you super duper sensitive to the words and actions of everyone around you.

No matter what you do, feeling ill is going to leave you vulnerable.  You're not at your best and your metaphorical shields are on the fritz.  Even if you plaster on a smile, engage in some major positive thinking and drug yourself up to the eyeballs with Lemsip and Sudafed and whatever else you can find in the medicine cabinet, you're still going to be more likely to notice those little things that you might usually be able to ignore.

I am currently 90% Lemsip.

Being sensitive to those little things really does make you aware of just how much the tiniest thing can affect your day. And if other people can have a major effect on us, then it stands to reason that we can have a pretty big effect on them, too.

For example, today I've been mostly coughing, sneezing and blowing my nose.  Reactions to this have ranged from: Outright laughter (to be fair, that was from the kids I work with), to tutting, all the way to actually being told to shut up.  Pro tip: if you're telling someone to shut up when they're coughing/sneezing/doing something else they can't actually help, you might want to consider most definitely not doing that.  Juuuust saying.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and beg for eternal sympathy.  It's a cold, not something that might actually result in my grisly death.  But the people who've eased the weight of my wet-sponge-brain today have unanimously been the ones who've realised that actually, I can't do much to stop myself from sneezing or coughing, and that it's far better to blow my nose into a tissue than it is to just stand there, casually allowing a stream of snot to flow down my face.

Again with the mental images...  

Anyway, the more I thought about those little things - the angry tut if I've sneezed more than three times in a row, or the frown in my general direction if my coughing gets irritating to people around me - the more I thought that it's surely pretty easy to step outside of ourselves for a second and think that even if something like endless coughing is annoying to listen to, it must be much worse to actually be endlessly coughing?

And then I started thinking about how it applies to life in general.  Regardless of the health of a person, it's almost certainly not cool to start having a go at them for something they can't help.  It's also pretty lousy to make a person feel bad just because you're in a grouch.  

The smallest things we do can affect the other people around us.  I remember once going to a school assembly, in which my Head of Year told us all that simply holding a door open for someone, rather than letting it slam behind you, is a small way to affect someone else's day in a positive, rather than negative way.  Which is why I always hold doors open.  And why I will sarcastically mutter "you're welcome" after people who don't thank me for it.  Because screw those people.

I guess what I'm trying to say is just think.  Think about how what you're saying and doing might affect the people around you.

Also, think about congratulating me on being poorly, yet having written a blog AND edited a YouTube video, this evening.  Oh and think about watching said video, or I'll have spent an evening editing rather than dying under a duvet for NOTHING.  

On that note, I think it's time for me to get into my pyjamas, crawl underneath the duvet and watch The X Files.  Hopefully tomorrow, the elephant tap-dancing on my head will have taken up a gentler pastime.  Like... Yoga.

COMMENCE DUVET ACTION!!!!