Universally Emma

I discovered this afternoon that James has never seen The Ring. We both love horror, we both love ghost stories, so how is it possible that he's never seen it. He's never seen the original Japanese or the US remake. As soon as the kids were in bed, I pulled out the snacks I jumped straight on Amazon Prime and loaded it up and movie night.

I haven't seen the movie in years. I was 13 when I first saw it, it may have even ben my first horror movie, and it scared the absolute shit out of me. I slept with the lights on for a couple of days and I had nightmares. I LOVED IT!

Rewatching it, it stood the test of time. It still managed to get under my skin (although hopefully without the nightmares), and for good reason: The atmosphere is palpable, and a sense of dread is consistently sustained from the first scene through the end credits.

What people tend to forget about The Ring is that even though it's about a journalist trying to solve the mystery behind a cursed tape, it's also about a broken up family that slowly comes together in the wake of a crisis. Because of that, I will say that the ending is unnecessarily cruel and unearned, providing a twist that pulls the rug from under the audience just for the sake of doing so.

The kids were all feeling better and were back to school this morning. James was supposed to have the day off but covered an extra shift because they were short He didn't do a full shift, just a half and was home in time to collect the girls from school. That was a huge relief, because I'd fallen asleep and wouldn't have been there to do it myself. I'm still not feeling 100% still so I worked from home - although that mostly involved keeping an eye on my inbox and dealing with anything urgent/needing an immediate response.

I've wavered between bouts of getting shit done and being sacked out on the couch feeling sorry for myself/sleeping. I've been running a mild fever, not able to get warm and feeling completely drained. I watched the first couple of episodes of Game Of Thrones but I'm not sure I see the fuss. The Husband loved it but I think I'm going to have to give it a little more to get into it. I'm enjoying Jason Momoa shirtless, however. Then went back to my Supernatural re-watch marathon. I watched S1 last week and I'm going to start S2 this week. The boys were so young and I'm falling in love with Dean Winchester all over again.

During my more productive moments, I focused on bedding. With myself and the middle child being sick, it made sense to change bedding, air bedrooms and do laundry. The weather's been mostly dry today so I was able to get two loads washed and out on the line. Still one more to go but that'll get done tomorrow. All four bedrooms have had windows opened to air them and I got clean bedding on the girls beds. I'm going to have to get my husband to do our bed because I haven't done it yet and don't think I'm going to have the energy to do it.

I had to have words with the girls, especially the eldest two, about keeping their rooms tidy. It's their main chore and they're both going to lose points on their chore chart - which means losing pocket money. Eldest's room was a complete mess, she had video games scattered everywhere, games not in their cases, controllers in the middle of the floor. I almost stood on some and could have broken them. Middle's room wasn't as bad but she still had books and clothes discarded on the floor, and her dirty PE kit tossed in a corner. However, she was ill all last week so I'll cut her some slack - she just need to get it tidied up now that she's better. I'll give them both to the end of the week to get things tidied up.

I also managed to give the kitchen and bathrooms a cursory wipe down, but didn't get round to little things like straightening up the living room, emptying bins or the dishwasher. The kids all helped out after school though - Little emptied the dishwasher, put clean stuff away and reloaded it, Middle emptied the bins and Eldest... well, she sulked, but did set up the dinner table, helped her dad cook dinner (spaghetti carbonara, very tasty!) and both her and Middle made a start on tidying their room.

All in all, a pretty good day. The kids are all in bed and I don't think it's going to be long before I head that way myself. Hopefully I'll be back in work tomorrow, Husband starts a week of night shifts and, most importantly, tomorrow is my birthday!

I succumbed to the inevitable this weekend and came down with the same virus that Middle Child had all weekend. Started getting sick late Friday night and by Saturday morning I felt like death warmed up.

I'm more annoyed than anything else. We had plans this weekend. We very rarely have plans and the one weekend we do... they'd already been put into question with Littlest being ill but then when I got ill, it was out of the question.

We were supposed to have been going bowling last night - a joint night out for Fathers Day today and my birthday later in the week. A couple of games of bowling and some junk food at the burger bar. This afternoon we were going to go to the cinema to watch Aladdin. We're all disappointed but my husband has no shifts next weekend either, so hopefully we'll all be fit and well to go then instead.

This afternoon finds me curled up on the couch, under piles of blankets, feeling pretty miserable, with a wracking cough. Husband is cooking - lamb chops - and the girls and I are watching Moana. Husband thinks we can't hear him singing along ;)