I love my pilot (even more)

So I was just Googling the term ‘I love my pilot’ and came up with a few things including Elsja’s Love My Pilot forum that I was actually looking for… Turns out it is now sadly off line due to inactivity, but will happily be back when there is more demand for it. I know that Elsja was particularly keen to seek Australian Pilot Wives for her site, so if that’s you feel free to post a comment on this blog if you would join, and I can see that she gets the message (I know that she also reads this blog).

The second site of interest was a cute blog by someone called Alexa called: Chris Alexa and Blair

Next, I found a site for aviation jewellery. I was slightly excited at the anticipation, but have to say, that the jewellery wasn’t really my cup of tea. This is a picture of the piece of jewellery that my search hit:

which reminds me a little bit of the Jim’ll Fix it badges that Jimmy Savill gave to the guests of his cheesy 80’s show ‘Jim’ll Fix It’…

They were tied around the lucky guest’s necks on a red ribbon.  What do you think? (click on his name for a look at the style icon himself)

 

I then found a link to an I Love My Pilot tee-shirt.

Now, I have posted about these before. I personally wouldn’t wear one, but at least some of them are cute, the one I hit today was like a potato sack, and was modelled by a man with hairy arms and a thick beard!

HAHAHA! HELLOOOOOOO?! ‘Know your market’!  I’m pretty certain that around 90% of pilots (at least), are men. Most of the pilots I know are straight, which would make the ‘pilot’s significant other’ population mostly FEMALE… I seriously don’t think that this site are going to sell many of these:

Blue Yonder Girl clearly have a much better idea of how to market and design such tee shirts.

I was also reminded of my own prior post of the same title, which cropped up on both this site and my old blog site hosted by Flyblog.

and then I found this… OMG! Do not watch this if you are easily offended. It is apparently a song that fighter pilots from the US sing. It is called I Love my wife:

Yyyyyyyyyyyah. Nice.

Underneath I note this comment by ‘Meadwolf’:

my father sang that song all the time!  he was a fighter pilot 492nd Lakenheath England THANKS! i am looking for the old songs to share with a friend who runs the airport!

I did chuckle when I read this comment by ineedcuervo, who must be a fighter pilot wife (I guess):

i bloody hope my BF does not sing this song about me!!!! i’ll kick his ass!! x

and since I was clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel with the search at that point, I decided to stop at that!

I have to end on the note that Bf has been amazingly attentive to me just recently. Our relationship seems the strongest that it has ever been.  I have noticed that we are sharing more cuddles, time and laughter together than ever before. So I have to say I absolutely ADORE my pilot, and I wouldn’t change him for any 9-5er, home-every-night guy on the planet!

Big Fat Greek Christening.

My brother is marrying his fiance abroad next summer in the orthodox church.  As it happens; even if you are Christian, you cannot marry in the Orthodox church unless you were baptised by the Orthodox church.  A couple of months ago, my brother told me that he would be ‘christened’ this month. I responded saying, surely you mean baptised? You wont have God parents as an adult will you?! (DUH!)

…Well, it turns out I was wrong.  Ha ha! He had chosen two God mothers.  The orthodox priest did suggest that he might like to choose a male ‘nouna’, since after his full submergence in holy water, he would need to have them rub him down with olive oil. He laughed, thinking that it was a joke; but the priest did not. He was apparently quite serious.

So when my brother asked if I would be going, of course there was no way that I would have missed his outright humiliation on a cold November day, wearing nothing but boxer shorts in Church, and being dipped and oiled spiritual welcome into the Orthodox church for anything!

This Saturday, we all arrived together (my brother clearly apprehensive).  I chuckled as I saw the ‘font’. My brother is over six feet tall, and they decided that the appropriate alternative would be a dustbin. BHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  I was completely unable to contain my amusement. There it was, just sat there at the top of the aisle, and there was a man pouring steamy water into it… I almost had to pinch myself.

Please tell me that my brother will have to climb into that bin in a moment? I heard myself ask

It was actually a very wonderful, spiritual service, despite the obvious amusement I still took in watching my brother have to bend himself double into a dustbin whilst the priest poured water over his head from an identical plastic jug to the one I use to wash my baby’s hair with at home. He then poured oil over him, and his God mothers had to rub it into him. It seemed a little kinky to me, which maybe because I just have a filthy mind; or it could have been because my brother mentioned to me that one of them was hot, when I was teasing him about it before hand… Hmm.

They then snipped off several locks of hair from various points on his head, which symbolises your first gift to God after baptism. I have never seen that done in my own church. He was even given a new, completely different name, to fit with the culture into which he is marrying. This is only a Christian name, and will not appear on any legal documents; though I do now intend to use it whenever I get the opportunity!

One last amusing thing though… After his baptism, the priest put a cross around my brother’s neck. When my brother bought the cross as the jeweller shop, there were two girls in there,  one of whom was also looking at buying a cross, clearly in two minds, she asked her friend’s opinion on which one to choose. Her friend looked at the choice and said:

“I reckon you should buy the one wiv the ‘geezer’ on it.”

SERIOUSLY! …How STUPID can one person be?! How can anyone living in the UK reach adulthood without knowing what the religious significance of a crucifix is, or not know that the ‘geezer’s name was Jesus?!  I wish I had been there to make a smart-ass remark, or at least to laugh really loudly… You have to laugh, otherwise it’s just worrying that any British school could turn out such an ignorant bint!

All joking aside though. It was a really cool baptism, and I do feel very blessed to have witnessed it.

It’s nice to do nothing

I haven’t written much this month, because Bf has had the best roster ever. Only three flights! I say best. Clearly, he’ll earn less, and he wants to be flying more, but it’s not too worrying, since this time of year is always quiet for UK operators, following the summer season, but being prior to the Ski season and Winter Sun season pick’s up… Everyone is recovering from the summer holidays, Halloween and is getting ready for the build up to Christmas… November is always a bit of a lull.

Baby has now started pre-school… I guess I’ll have to stop referring to her as Baby, and start calling her stroppy 2 year old or something soon! HAHA! This morning she made me laugh… She plonked herself into Bf’s reclining arm chair in the living room, and announced “Ahh, it’s nice to sit and do nothing!” …Because clearly, the life of a 2 year old is so stressful at other times, right?

I am loving being a mummy so much at the moment. It’s so rewarding. The little gems that my daughter comes out with on an almost daily basis keep me laughing… I wish I could bottle them up and save them to play back whenever I felt the need to smile. My sons are also changing so much. My youngest is at Beaver Scouts and is so excited about all the badges he has earned, and his academic progress has just suddenly come on leaps and bounds, and my eldest is in his final year of primary school, and going to start senior school next September; which I am still struggling to come to terms with!

We are hoping to get me on a very exciting trip of Bf’s in January too… Please please please PLEEASE let me get on it! I’ll keep you updated if I do. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, since I was a little kid (so nowhere particularly cultural, lol!)

Scooping off the fat

Things are looking up in my life! I have been absent from the world of Blogging because I have been focussing on the things that matter to me. Notably my partner, children and extended family and friends in the real world. I found myself increasingly sucked into the web 2 world of social media and it was starting to have a negative impact on my life, because of one or two people in particular that were bleeding me dry.  It was upsetting and consuming, and I only had myself to blame for allowing it to happen.

So I went on a diet, a lifestyle diet where I cut out the things in my life that weren’t productive for me, in particular I weeded out those influences in my life that seemed to be all take and no give.  I am a very generous person, but as I learned in my counselling, my boundaries are low and my tolerance threshold has historically been too high; which has resulted in some people taking me for granted and walking all over me.  I think if I hadn’t cut out some of the excess baggage in my life, I would have snapped!

But I wanted to share with you, the good things that have happened for me over the past few months as a result or restructuring my priorities, and I wanted to share with you a story that helped me to arrive at the conclusion that I needed to make some changes… It has been doing the rounds for some time, but I guess it holds more meaning for me now as it holds a very important message regarding appropriately setting priorities in our lives:

A professor of philosophy stood before his class with some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks about two inches in diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full.

They agreed that it was full.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly and watched as the pebbles rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The professor then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They chuckled and agreed that it was indeed full this time.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. The sand filled the remaining open areas of the jar. “Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognise that this jar signifies your life. The rocks are the truly important things, such as family, health and relationships. If all else was lost and only the rocks remained, your life would still be meaningful. The pebbles are the other things that matter in your life, such as work or school. The sand signifies the remaining “small stuff” and material possessions.

If you put sand into the jar first, there is no room for the rocks or the pebbles. The same can be applied to your lives. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are truly important.

Pay attention to the things in life that are critical to your happiness and well-being. Take time to get medical check-ups, play with your children, go for a run, write your grandmother a letter. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, or fix the disposal. Take care of the rocks first – things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just pebbles and sand.

It made me realise that recently, I have allowed my Jar, my life, to become more and more full of pebbles and sand, and so in a bid to regain the balance, I emptied my jar somewhat to regain my perspective and restore the balance.  I now have a nice clean jar full of rocks again, and only now am I starting to allow the pebbles and sand back in between the gaps where they belong.  

Since I have done this my life feels more wortwhile, and I am not only happier, but also get to sleep easier and don’t feel as burdoned with the weight of things that have no place in my life.

• I have been under the care of a specialist consultant, which I did privately and my health scare is over… I am now in the clear
• Bf has finished his step-parenting counselling, and things seem to be vastly improved… We’re not there yet, but we can see the light together.
• I have devoted time to the house and we have finally almost finished our long running building work to our house. We hope to move into our new bedroom this weekend and everything else (bar the plumbing for our utility room) is just cosmetic.
• I have confronted someone who was masquerading as a friend in my life, but who turned out to be a back-stabbing, two-faced witch, and purged all trace of her from my life. I was worried about the confrontation initially, but once I found the courage to do what I knew I had to, I felt like a black cloud was lifted from over me.
• In the process, I was lucky enough to discover just how supportive and wonderful all my other friends are and I feel truly blessed to have them in my life. Quality, not quantity is my mantra of late! Or as one of my good friends said to me recently:

“The fat always rises to the top… Now we just need to scoop it off and throw it in the garbage disposal RrrrRrrrRrrr LOL. Keep on scoopin’ off that fat… Get rid of it!!!! Good riddance!”

So that’s what I am doing, in keeping with my new regime!
• One of my very best friends (Godmother to 2 of my children) had a baby girl, and she is adorable. I was even able to visit for cuddles twice already (they live a 3 hour drive from me these days).
• We went away for an AMAZING holiday. Best ever.
• I have booked our tickets to go to my brother’s wedding next year (he is marrying abroad).
• I went to a massive family reunion last week… It was lovely, because I have 9 cousins on that side of the family and we were all there with our children, many of whom I have never met.
• We have new neighbours and they have a son the same age as my younger son.  This may sound insignificant, but they no longer have a drum set and my son is no longer wandering around with a face like a wet weekend every time his older brother goes out to play.

So  there you go, things are looking up for me. I have been focussed on enjoying life, making time for the important things and not just being sucked into a virtual world and being positive and productive; and it has worked. My life is great right now, and I know it’s going to go from strength to strength.

I’m Back

I decided to take a break from the world of blogging and social media in general. But I am back again. Thank you to those of you who emailed me to ask how I was. Bear with me and I will catch up with other people’s blogs and emails! I’ll try to post later tonight

Laughter is good for the soul :)

I wanted to post this for my friends who are going through some difficult or testing times at the moment…  It’s not remotely aviation related, just made me chuckle and gave me a warm feeling inside-which is something nice I wanted to share with you too

I love the way that he even leans his weight over the skateboard to make it turn!

I don’t need your attitude thanks-I have one of my own!

Excuse the following rant. We’ll blame it on my scary hormones.  I am really hacked off with pissy people.  I had a pissy comment from a reader who was on her high horse because she thought I had not deleted a comment of hers that she requested I remove ‘a few weeks ago’ (FYI I had in fact already removed it from public view).  First of all, I didn’t write the damn comment, and secondly, I have been absent recently for several weeks from the blogosphere because I have been quite ill, in fact on Thursday night I thought I was going to pass out from the pain.  I was alone with Baby or I would have asked Bf to take me to A&E!   I’ve been deliberately keeping busy and trying to be upbeat by distracting myself from ruminating or focusing on negative thoughts…

Then today, I read a post on another blog which really hacked me off. I will not point fingers at the offending post, because that would probably make me as negative, bitter and aggressive as the author of that post seems to be of late; but suffice to say it has my blood boiling!

This person has written several eyebrow raising, judgemental posts, that have left me with bite marks in my tongue from the things I held back from saying as  I reasoned that she was having a rough time… The thing is, we all have our own difficulties to deal with in life, but as time wears on there is only so far that my empathy extends when someone moves on from (understandable) self pity and sadness to blatantly wallowing in bitterness and being spiteful towards others for daring to have the very same thing they want – or just for being more positive about achieving it.

It’s a shame, as I really think that this person is capable of being inspiring and would do far better to channel their energy into something worthwhile, rather than leaving malignant comments that erode the happiness and dreams of others thin… Nobody is perfect, but it would be far more productive and fruitful to focus on the things that are good in their life, rather than only focusing (so seemingly aggressively) at projecting their frustrations into villifying others for getting on with their lives as best they can.

I am not responsible for your misery, so please don’t attempt to take me down with you. Hating others won’t make you any happier.

Aviation videos

I found this on a website for partners of pilots and thought I’d share it as it made me laugh. It definitely reminded me of my guy… Flying the real thing just isn’t enough, he’s always flying those damn simulators and as you know, the radio controlled models.

I also found this one which did make me chuckle, but is a touch random

This one is rather sweet, “Leaving on a Jet Plane” sung by Chantal Kreviazuk, there is another version by Dohn Denwer, but although I’d prefer to hear it sung by a man, I prefer this version!

Cabin Manager Rap

Quick update

I could cry with relief. I have just had an appointment with my doctor, I am covered by the airline’s medical insurance and I now have a referral to see a private specialist.  My GP agreed that the consultant I saw sounds like he was not giving me the best service and agreed that his interpretation sounded as though it was based more on speculation over my medical history rather than factual evidence from the present.  I am holding out hope that I may be told that I wont need surgery after all.  I guess I should not get my hopes up too high, since I was referred because of genuine symptoms; but I am so pleased that I am going to get the treatment I deserve and not be messed around on waiting lists unecessarily.  I just have to hope now that the specialist doesn’t have a 2 week holiday booked or something!

My night out on Friday was a lot of fun. I met some really interesting people and cant wait to go out with my cousin and her friends again!  Hopefully my luck has taken a turn for the better.

Bf has been very much more supportive and caring recently too.  He has bought yeat another bloody radio controlled model, and joined yet another rc flying club, but he has agreed to stop giving up so much of our weekend time to this obsession (I no longer class it as a hobby).  This weekend he did insist on going to a model airshow (yes, seriously) but the weather was so gorgeous that I went along with him, as did his other pilot friend’s wife, and she and I had a lovely day sun bathing whilst the boys shopped around all of the trade stalls.

The only thing I am less happy with in my life right now is a new manager that I am dealing with, who seems to think that we are in primary school and that I am her 6 year old pupil.  I am just contemplating how to deal with the situation professionally and calmly, because I do not want to lose my rag and say something out of frustration!

Airline Medical Perks

HAHA! I’m soo excited! My new fun cousin has just invited me to go on another girlie night out this weekend to a few very up market bars and clubs that she is the events manager for. I can’t wait!

On a bum note,  I rang the secretary at the hospital this morning to find that my appointment doesn’t appear to be pending! I hit the effing roof! She passed the buck onto appointments, who denied all knowledge and suggested I give them a call back later so that they could look into the matter… Long story short, they’ve just penciled me in for an appointment on July 18th-THREE WEEKS TIME!!!! I’ve been waiting two already, are they KIDDING?

First thing tomorrow (after my manicure) I am going to ring the private health people and get the wheels in motion Bf checked the airline health policy wording and it looks like I should be covered for pre-existing conditions! PHEW. I am sick of this NHS crap, and I thin it’s time I cashed in on one of the airline job perks, medical insurance. Just hope and pray that there isn’t some hidden exclusion that prohibits me ffrom receiving my treatment privately!

Any way, off to bed for me now. I need my beauty sleep or I’m going to be pooped tomorrow.