Being thankful

It has been over two weeks since I last posted. Sometimes life just happens, and it happens in a way that is a little more intense that normal. Some tough stuff for folks and I needed to be there with them rather than here typing. I have missed the chance to type though because I do that for me. It really is quite a selfish activity. I know there may be a few folks out there who read it, and I hope you may enjoy it, even smile at it sometimes, or think for a minute or two, but really I write it because I like writing.

There was a lot I could have blogged about over the last two weeks.

My friend who in the midst of her child being in hospital, with initial uncertainty of diagnosis, told me how for the last two years she was managing to fill her kids advent calendars with lots of forgotten toys and have delighted children each morning. Great idea and as long as it works go for it. Those of you who have ever tried to pack forgotten toys into a charity bag, while your children were in the room, may have some idea why this would actually work!!

We have the littler boy eating bits of carrots. He will not admit to it if you ask him. He is a wise one and will not want you to get in on the game. Tomato soup too is a recent addition to his diet. These probably do not sound dramatic things to you but in our house they are the cause for much celebration.

We have Santa all organised for this year. He made the decision that while second hand is good and commendable there is a time when it is wise to have a new product with a years guarantee particularly when the second hand products are not that much cheaper. He also decided that one big family present was another wise move. Think the kids will approve, in fact they will be thrilled. They have surprised me in that they do not have a list for him. They are asking to put out a drink and mince pie for him and this year Santa better remember to eat it. The year he forgot caused a moment of panic which required a dear friend to rescue Santa's reputation!

I am having a wrapping crisis. Partly in truth because I have not actually bought the things I need to be wrapping and partly because the store that sold the rolls of recycled brown paper, the mainstay of my wrapping has stopped selling it. They do sheets but that just does not work the same. What to do now? I really like the recycled approach and I think I am probably too late to buy the fairtrade.

The fact is that while I could have blogged about all of these things in detail and enjoyed it, the biggest thing for me over these days since Thanksgiving, with all the busyness, the uncertainty and the bumps that life brings, is that I remain thankful and even more so for that list that I wrote about in my last post.

So if you have come to my blog a few times and have read again and again about being thankful you have been up-to-date with where I am at!

Thanksgiving

I truly have so much to be thankful for and I am truly sorry for the times I fret or downright stress over things that in the bigger scheme of things do not matter.

Here are a few things I am thankful for.

Family

Friends

Home

Education

Food

Health

My faith

........ and each of these things could have a hundred or more bullet points.

The more grateful I am the more I remember that so many are in need of help, support and prayer. There is so much I can be doing to be a blessing to others.

Happy Thanksgiving folks. Whether you are sitting down to a large and lovely meal (And this Scottish girl is getting the hang of this and is remembering to blend the pumpkin before it goes in the pie) or whether it is just a normal day, take a moment to be thankful for something. In fact take the whole day and be thankful for as much as you can!

Wind, rain and wasps.

I do count myself as a bit of a recycler. I find that I cannot actually put things in the bin that I know I could recycle. At times I wish I could, to be honest because recycling can be a pest.

This week our garden was beginning to look like the landfill site as our recycling container got full to overflowing and things started to blow round the back garden. Quite a few bottles and cans ended up filled with rain water. A trip to the recycle was certainly over due. My little recycling buddy was up for a trip. He headed off into the garage to find something he could use as a step so he could do his own fair share. Mum's back is not up to lifting him up so he can be helpful! A wooden box was decided on. All the bottles and cans and glasses were loaded up into laundry baskets and basins and off we headed.

June, July and August you take your life in your hands with wasps at the recycle station and this week, I realised that November, December, January and February, here in the land very close to the arctic, you run the risk of pneumonia. Me wee helper started most bravely and then very soon was heard to be muttering about his hands being so cold they would likely fall off, before he quit completely. When he got back into the car there was no way he could do his own seat belt. I fared no better but quiting was not an option. The moment when I went to throw in a beer bottle, and tipped it up only to empty a whole bottle of rain water down my sleeve, actually managing to have that freezing cold rain water go as far as my waist band was not a good moment.

Sometimes doing the right thing takes a bit of doing!!

Keeping the Christmas Machine unplugged

This is the time of year I get a little rattled when folks start to tell me they have all their Christmas shopping done and have all their presents wrapped. I do not enjoy the fact that our local Garden Centre already has its Christmas lights on and last month I deeply resented the fact that long before Halloween the other big garden centre in town had rows and rows of Christmas stuff there just waiting to be bought. Stuff I beg to suggest no one really needs. I mean a 4ft stuffed reindeer would look kind of cool standing near our tree. Who am I kidding? Can anyone out there justify a stuffed reindeer, we are talking ornament, people, not even a cuddly toy.

Hey..I appear to be ranting. Let me stop and tell you some of my plans. The kids and I have already embarked on making our Christmas gifts for them to give family and friends. Now I run the risk of a "Mummy I have a secret. It is your birthday present and it is a green house. Me and Dad bought it and it is in the garage hiding. Don't tell Daddy" moment but they are promising to keep their secrets.

We have for the last couple of years in my family just bought one adult present each, name out a hat style. It works great and I would highly recommend it. We do buy everyone small things too tho. Last year all mine came out the charity shops and were varied and well received. (I honestly think they were all relieved!) This year I am going fairly traded for these gifts and quite a few other gifts too. It means presents may be smaller as they will cost a little more but these gift will come from a small business set up to support a family or a local area. I like that!

So...........

www.traidcraftshop.co.uk

www.createdgifts.co.uk

www.ethicalsuperstore.com

And I do not need to leave the house. Aaaah, that is shopping!

Now what about the one who has a "don't need it, don't want it, won't use it" attitude to things? A wee bit tricky. I was thinking maybe a luxury alpaca hot water bottle cover. He doesn't need it, certainly won't want it and has absolutely no use for it!!

My big debate this year tho is how to wrap. I loved my wrapping last year. Recycled brown paper, pine cones we collected and green and gold ribbon bought from a charity shop. The gifts looked just great. What to do this year? I have the paper but just how do I source ribbon or what else can I do?

Inspiring washing

I have this thing about hanging out washing. I know it is so much more work than throwing it in the tumble dryer. I also learned this year that heat and humid do not ever combine to make dry. Aunty Bethie amusingly soaked through on the river rapids in Animal Kingdom spent the rest of the day damp! So July might be a great outside drying month in Scotland, but not so in Florida. Anyway I like the way the sun and the wind do the work without charging me.

If this was my washing line I would enjoy it all even more. The poles and ropes are positioned on the sheltered harbour just up the road from Anstruther, heading towards Kilrenny. I could hang up my laundry and contemplate life here. The view and the sea smell are big energisers for me. This picture was taken on a sunny October day of which we had many. Now November has hit I have to face the fact that I could hang out my washing all day and it might come in a little drier but it ain't coming in dry.

What to do? Radiators or the tumble dryer? And the decision is almost 100% tumble dryer. The excema and asthma seem to do better that way so I have hung out diligently for months knowing this season was coming. The electricity account is in credit and as soon as that sun starts to shine a little brighter...... well maybe, just maybe I can move sometime soon to somewhere with a washing line that will inspire me!

And last night when the little boy had what we call the barfy bug and we had mountains of grotesque sheets, pillows, pj's, quilts, blankets, towels to deal with? Well thank God for the tumble dryer, and we do often, thank him that is!

R.I.P.

We moved a few pepper and chili plants into our dining room a few weeks ago. Unfortunately they became infested with tiny little bugs. These tiny critters hatched leaving a pile of mess and were quickly replaced by a heap of new eggs. What to do?

A secret and deadly weapon to tiny bugs was discovered in the back garden and was given residency in our house. This little ladybird/ladybug stayed with us for a few weeks. I would be working on the computer and become aware of someone watching me and there he was on the curtain appearing to read blogs and facebook status.

Last weekend we decided that we needed to give up on all but one of the chili and and pepper plants. The ladybird took up residence on a great chili plant and all was well.

I was quite taken a back when I arrived at work on Tuesday morning to find him or her on the backseat of my car. Now I had a big dilemma. Root around the staff car park for suitable feeding material for him and find a box to keep him in or knowing that I had a pile of work waiting, realise that it was time to say "goodbye" and release him into the new, and potentially dangerous, world of the grass between the school car park and playground.

Roam in peace, little bug and thank you for your great service to our family.

Sugar highs and lows.

On Saturday Dad and the kids went out for lunch as a special treat while Mum was away on a special shopping mission. More on that later. Ice cream and lollipops were enjoyed as part of it. Mum then returned and took the kids to singalong a Jungle Book at church. Both kids ate a bag of sweeties, a lollipop and ice cream.

Does what we feed our children have an effect on their behaviour and energy levels? You had better believe it! When we got home after the Jungle book our two were bouncing off the walls. A bike ride, I thought, would do the trick to burn off all that sugar. Nope, we then had two tired and hyper children which adds cranky to the mix too. Feeding them good nutritious food was also tried but full of sugar tummies are not hungry tummies. So when the little girl asked to go upstairs and do a craft project it seemed she had devised the perfect solution to the problem.

Well, not quite perfect. She was quiet for about ten minutes which was good, but when she arrived back downstairs she looked a little different. It turned out that her craft project had involved a restlye of her fringe (US translation, bangs!), a not at all attractive diagonal cut having been taken out right at the front. And with it being diagonal there is no real good fix available. Time will be required to return her pretty looks.

Lesson learned. Craft and sugar highs are a strict no.

I hate landfill sites!

What to do? I had a broken old TV, a broken CD player and a broken dolls push chair. They had to go to the landfill site. At least I was able to recycle a pile of cardboard and safely dispose of a couple of years worth of household batteries at the same time. I am slightly eased too that the electrical items will be recycled carefully and not just mushed and crushed with my household waste as would have happened if I had thrown them into the grey bin.



What to do? Clothes the kids have grown out of, a pile of toys they no longer need, some books we are done with? Well they are now bagged carefully and are waiting, outside the house carefully tucked under the eaves sheltered from the rain, on the first charity pick up that will take it all away and hopefully sell it to their profit.



What to do? An old bike and trike that the kids no longer need? They are not in the best of condition but someone would get a turn out of them. The landfill site is the easiest option but http://www.freecycle.co.uk/ is just the best. Been a while since I moved some of our stuff on this way that I will probably need to re-register. I kind of feel that everyone should be registered. Someone out there may need want you want to get rid of and they come and collect from you at your convenience. Win win!

So I can hate landfill sites and keep our house and garage a little more clutter free. Love it!!

You got to have traditions!

When I was little a few years ago, well truthfully a few decades, I went on walks with my grandparents thru Lade Braes in St Andrews. It seemed a very long walk to me of very short legs at four or five years old but it had a great park and most beautiful trees. We return when we can with our own kids and I love to look at them and think of the little me running around back then, with not a thought of what might lie ahead. It is not hard to remember back because they still have the same horse, roundabout and slide play equipment - built to last in those days.




It has become our tradition to make a trip in October and to go on a conker hunt. There are seven or eight tall graceful horse chestnuts. As we get close there is always that slight apprehension we will be too late and they will all be gone and then suddenly someone spots one and the hunt is on. Who will collect the most? Who will collect the biggest? Who will find one still encased in its shell?

We did not collect many this year but there are some beauties and the kids are big enough this year to want to learn to play conkers so we will need to make that bit of time to get the biggest laced up and then it is fight to the death, of the conker that is. I seem to remember one of my brothers claiming to have at least a 17-er!!

Traditions can get squeezed out- not enough time, too many important things to do.

Traditions, you got to have them and it is so worth keeping them!!

Strictly not vegetarian

I have read a few blogs recently where the writers are clearly passionate vegetarians and the words meat and poison feature frequently together in the same sentence. I am no vegetarian, the thought of no bacon does it every time. The closest I have got to it would be my six months in Tanzania and our visits to the meat market........ almost too fresh for me but I was always grateful to Cathy, who could carry the warm, still pulsing, meat back to our kitchen and cook up a storm, which was a welcome alternative to the veggie mush varieties we mostly ate.

A few months ago Mike had discovered a butcher he liked the look of near my brothers house in Lenzie. A most wonderful T-bone steak had been purchased but it is hardly local to us. This last week, and who knows why, I had got to remembering stories a friend of mine had been telling about camping trips with a bunch of his mates, entitled "hairy man weekends". They fished, camped, drank a few beers and generally hung out, free of....... well, the rest of the world I guess. Sounded like a great idea, not least for the fact that that one of them was a butcher so the BBQ was of the highest quality. Well, middle age and caravans appear to have struck and there have been no more stories of the hairy men but off we set yesterday to find the aforementioned butchers in Limekilns.

Oh my goodness!! I suggested Mike just went in and had a look because two kids in a small butchers? I am not sure why but two minutes later we were all in that little shop. Mike was taken in the back to have a look at his T-bone steak, still in situ and ready in two weeks. The two men in the store, passionate about their trade, taught us and entertained us for twenty minutes, all of us. They listened to the kids, answered all our questions and more. They sell local sourced, fresh produce. Their steak pies are famous and their sausages are the real deal. You know that cos they are all different shapes and sizes. Venison, guniea fowl, lamb chops to name but a few things on display. We talked about folks we knew in common, where their different meats come from, why when your fry their bacon you do not end up boiling it in the frying pan as it is not shot full of water. We left the store feeling like we had made a couple of friends, our T-bone steak ordered for two weeks time and a handful of venison and sweet chilli sausages given to us as a gift.

I think perhaps there is some truth in meat and poison featuring in the same sentences. Maybe poison is too strong a word but what exactly are we buying in our cheap and cheerful meat from many of our supermarkets. Pumped full of water and who knows what else? We plan from now on to be regular visitors to this butcher in Limekilns. We have decided to spend more on better quality. It will mean that we eat less meat for sure, but that will not be a bad thing and our farm shop will be open in a couple of weeks!! And with two guys who are keen to help point us in the right direction of what to buy and how to cook it we are in safe hands.

And the sausages ............... they were so good!

Changing things............

It is hard to decorate and blog. In fact it is hard to decorate and do very much apart from trash out the entire house and be really grateful to friends and family who invited us out to dinner/sanity in the middle of it.

I stripped wall paper for days............................. . Many days! The kids loved it for short blasts and actually were pretty helpful. I thought that would be the hard work. Wrong! Stripping wall paper was just the boring work. The hard work came after Mike had filled all the holes, scrapes, bumps with polyfilla and it all needed sanded back. I hate sanding. The worst part was the fact that our sander was broken. After a couple of hours of sanding by hand it was replaced, believe me!! It took me 33 minutes to get to the store, purchase and get home. Sanding became tolerable at that point. Covered in fine dust, gagging behind a face mask I heard my partner in design utter those words (with a smirk) ......."Maybe we should just have kept the wall paper!"

I would be lying if I said it had not crossed my mind but I hated that paper, it looked 100% rotten. Change takes work, and lots of work is not much fun. That is the bottom line for this project and many other changes in life. The good thing is that once you have started there is no going back. You can stop half way and be left in a pretty poor, scrappy place or you can push on.

Are we finished? No!! We have smooth, painted walls. A charming white colour. No actually just white. We now have to decide if this is an undercoat or if we are planning to do something funky with it. The gloss work needs done. The carpet needs changed.

Are we finished for now? You better believe it. We are on holiday. All four of us. We are away to play for a few days. The little people are very excited!! And so are we. We have a lot of dust that needs blown away.

(NB the Grape welding/lollipop is still in the fridge unlicked and unused!)

Creativity in the kitchen

We have been really excited with our grapes this year. Planted initially to hide an unattractive archway which leads into our back garden. It had been my intention to plant a clematis but oh no the other decision maker in this partnership was determined on grapes. I had been adamant that grapes would not grow this far north and yes, the photographic evidence is there to prove me wrong.

Now we did not have heaps but enough for the littler boy to work with his Dad to harvest and collect the two different varieties for a few minutes on Sunday afternoon. The wee soul actually tripped up at one point and managed to fall on the ground stoically saving the grapes! Not one did he drop.

A beautiful collection! And we did what we do best, had a quick look thru recipes online and pulled up one for grape jelly. I have to be honest tho I tend just to use recipes as guides. I kind of read them and think that maybe doing it this way or that way instead might be better. A touch of arrogance perhaps or just some creativity? It is not like I have a proven track record on jam/jelly. Four jars in the fridge does not make me an expert. Well, clearly not!!

We gently boil up the fruit and Mike patiently pushes it all through the sieve to get rid of pips and skin. The pectin is in the pips, he had read, and he is a much more careful reader than me. He kind of gets more than just the gist of it!! So we throw the fruit back in the pot with the sugar and bring to a rolling boil. Well I was under the impression that a rolling boil was a gentle boil. I mean do you not think that rolling boil sounds like a gentle boil? Well it ain't! We had a jam jar full of juice you could have sooked up with a straw. So back into the pot and I set it to a rolling boil, which I had since read, was a belter of a boil. So boil it did and doing the spoon test after just a few minutes I had just a wee concern, a slight niggle, about how quick it had set, and set firm, in fact really firm. I did initially pour it into a jar but very quickly thought the better of it.

You see our precious grape harvest had been turned into a kind of grape toffee! Well, something more like a giant boiled sweetie. It has not set quite enough to break it into pieces. It has set just a little too much to be able to cut it.

It is now rolled up in a big wrap in our fridge. There is no way we are going to waste it but we have no idea what exactly we are going to do with it! Anyone out there got any suggestions?

Vintage!

This old lady is indeed seriously old but she is a game old bird. She has some real quirks about her and an ever increasing rust issue. I left her at the garage last week for her annual road worthiness test last week. We know there will come a time when it is far kinder to let her go, kinder to our wallets that is!!
"I'll call you!" said Alec, our local mechanic.
"I have no doubt you will!" was my reply imagining the conversation which would start with "I am really sorry to tell you but........." and he would reel off a list of things.
Well, the call never came and as the clock ticked on and we passed those lunchtime hours when I knew they had pretty much done their assessments I was beginning to have my suspicions. The call came at 4pm.
" That's your car ready."
"Unbelievable."
It is one of the oldest cars driving around the village. I know because I play a game when driving around seeing how many license plates record a car older than ours. I have my moments where I am kind of mortified, but you know what, you cannot aim for maladjustment and suffer from mortification. So get over yourself girl!! I am planning on designing a bumper sticker that says "Old, rusty but paid for!!" We have no loans on this car and with a very reliable engine (Honda, you know, very reliable or so I am told) we have paid nothing but wear and tear. Sure helps when we are working to be credit free.
I have been seriously tempted by the scrappage scheme. I mean £2000 would get us back more than we paid for her in the first place. Nice! A mere matter of about a £7000 loan however would push us to a place that my only working two days a week would not allow the sums to add up. I wonder how may folks have been encouraged again into crazy credit that they can't afford at a time we all need to learn some serious lessons about living within our means.
So the car and I keep our partnership. Alec warned me that she may be getting a little "soft" and might need some major welding if I want to keep her beyond next year so time to get saving some pennies me thinks!!

Is he really going to...?

This week saw the start of a momentous project, the removal of the last of the wall paper that this house was completely wrapped up in when we bought it. I mean, people,what were you thinking about?!! We have lived here nearly four years and we have had to take it one room at a time. Things like giving birth to the littler boy and the months of sleepless nights which followed kind of slowed the pace. The upstairs landing, the stairwell and the wee entrance hall were the most liveable with, covered in that thick kind of textured paper and painted white

We can live with it no more so this week armed with a scraper and a wall paper stripper, and a most excited pint pot sized helper, I got the project underway. There is something satisfying about stripping paper, particularly when it comes off in wonderfully large pieces. The littler boy was having a ball too, pulling at pieces which were running up the wall to heights way higher than him. The problem came for me when the wall paper pulled away from the ceiling and large chunks of very sticky gloss paint came loose like wads of chewing gum. Now I know what needs to be done. You need to run the knife along the edge of the paper leaving a tidy edge which makes the painting so much easier. I know this why? Mike has patiently explained this to me on a least two, actually make that three, occasions. Well, I had run the scraper firmly along. That was bound to have the same effect, right? Wrong!!

"Oh no!!," said I to the little helper, "Your Dad is going to kill me!"

"Ahhh," said he surveying the damage obvious even to a four year old. "Just don't tell him."

You what? You are just a little person, you have not even run wild through the school playground and your immediate reaction is to lie, or to at least lie by omission. So I gently had a wee chat about the fact that telling the truth is always the best option, even if it will land you into a bit of trouble.

"But Mummy, will he really kill you?"

Are you kidding me? Mental note to self - drop that expression from your repertoire!

"No sweetheart. Daddy knows that Mummy get things wrong lots of times. He will be able to fix this. He might just be a little cross that is all!"

We live in a world of spin and untruths. We need to consciously teach our kids to be honest and to value that.

This was reinforced this week when the little girl did something which will remain between her and I, and a few folks I trust with the story, and blamed it on her imaginary dog! There clearly needs to be some work done here. Telling the truth seems more important than teaching her to lie well!!

Recipe for Bramble and Apple Jelly

Ingredients
Brambles
Apples
Sugar

Method

Say "yes" when two small children ask to go out for a cycle round the village when you would really rather have a Sunday afternoon nap on the sofa.
Pack two carrier bags in your pocket just in case.
Take the route your better half suggests because he clearly has a plan. He packed the bags after all.
Listen carefully to two small children squealing about spotting loads of berries.
Stop and have a good laugh picking, and eating, as many as you can.


Pause at an apple tree randomly growing at the edge of the road, spotted previously by the route deviser, and stretch precariously to reach the ones that are high up, knowing that someone got there before and picked all the easy ones.

Give all the fruit a good wash, rough chop the apples and throw the whole lot, seeds, core and all into a pot and bring to a gentle boil, very slowly.

Run to the shop and buy a pair of tights because you do not own a jelly net and somehow you have to let the juice drip through leaving all the seeds and stuff behind.

Leave the fruit to drip for a couple of hours and quickly realise that the fruit is such a thick unjuicy mixture that the tights were a waste of a run to the shop.

Spend thirty minutes pushing the mixture through a sieve.

Test a little, a lot and often, just to enjoy the sheer yummyness of the very, very thick juice.

Put in fridge because it is now way too late on a Sunday night to do the next stage.

After a tough day at work, and at least two hours of homework ahead, take timeout to boil the fruit up for ten minutes with a 2 to 3 ratio of sugar to fruit. (g to ml!)

Pour into a jar

Enjoy!

Enjoy a whole lot. Eat lots of toast at various times of the day and night. Make a batch of scones. Make a Lemon Drizzle cake for friends who are coming over (hey, I have lemons that need to be used up!) so you do not have to share any of that deeply fruity goodness.

Anyone want to go for a cycle?

Food miles

This is Richard and he has come to live with us for a couple of weeks. At least two of us are most excited about it and at least one of us is quickly realising the responsibility of a pet! That would be me! Is there something written into the mum job description? And rest assured that the title of this blog does not apply to Richard. His family are off to Spain for a well deserved break and figured he would be happier with us.

We hear a whole pile about food miles these days. These most fabulous tasting plums were gifted to us this weekend fresh out the garden of friends of ours. Just a few miles on these. There were more but they were so good that the eating became more important than the photographing.

Check these out too....!

We have a dining room full of peppers, chilies and tomatoes. Our outside growing attempts may have been poor, in fact downright embarrassing in some cases, but we are having nice success with our greenhouse/indoor plants. When I say "we" I mean "we". Three families have been involved in the looking after of these beauties. Food miles has taken on a different meaning in our house. These plants, and more on other window sills, have been transferred round three houses on a fair few occasions in the last few months to ensure they have had the care required clocking up some food miles. I'll also clock up miles going over to my mothers greenhouse which is full of tomatoes. We are now all a bit confused as to whose plants are whose in fact. The rule is though, if there is something ready to harvest then enjoy!!

So while they all living it up in sunny Spain we are about to have a nice wee harvest to ourselves.

Result!

Super Heroes

"Mummy, I want to be a Super Hero!" announced our little girl yesterday at breakfast time.

"You know," I replied, "You can be a Super Hero all the time by helping people."

"No, Mummy" she said in a you just do not get it at all voice, "I wanna kick butts!"

Oh, I do get it daughter of mine, I so get it! The thing is that as tempted as I am to kick butt, I am called to follow a really maladjusted Super Hero, one who showed how to serve, how to turn the other cheek, and he lived a life that truly made a difference.

That's my boy!

He is four years and three months old and today I heard words that just warmed my heart! If you have not dealt with a fussy eater, and I do mean fussy eater, then you will just not get it and be thankful you do not. (Just like I am glad that I cannot share in the swapping of H1N1 stories and long may that continue!)

Anyway our two arrived at the dinner table tonight with four imaginary alligators in tow. These were the baby alligators and the mums, the dads having just been taken to the zoo as a punishment for some kind of jealousy. OK, I have no idea! Every meal with our littler boy is a battle to not have a battle and it starts with the food arriving at the table. Tonight there was not a complaint.

"Yum, I like this kind of pasta, don't I Mum?"
Yes, you do, buddy!", say I omitting the fact that every time it is a struggle to get him to eat the first few mouthfuls. I leave him to do a task in the kitchen. During the week we do normally eat together but tonight we had friends coming later.
"Everything OK?" I ask checking in and interrupting a gator discussion.
"Yes, Mummy. I love it! Thank you very much"
"You are very welcome. I am glad you are enjoying it" say I, thinking I am 100% thrilled that you are showing this amount of enthusiasm and you are eating blended down steamed carrot, yellow pepper, broccoli and tomato sauce in pasta but we will not tell you that quite yet!!!
"Mum, do I need to finish this?" asked his sister.
"I'm finishing mine." said the littler boy to her surprise and my continuing delight!

Having filled up on pasta, fruit, (four small pieces, and I mean small pieces of grape but small steps are important steps, for the wee boy), and frozen yogurt, I was suddenly aware that I was in the kitchen and no-one was at the dining room table. They had had some kind of alligator emergency that had required their attention. I only wish I had taken a picture of the little girl's bedr alligators cage.

This is what happens when a friend introduces your kids to Dill Pickle, the alligator at Memorial Park in Athens, and your kids have great imaginations. You need the patience of a saint to happily help tidy the mess tho, particularly when they had started the session with a secret craft project and had then thrown everything off the bed, including the mattress so they had somewhere to keep the alligators safe!

Work

We have had a week of all settling back into school. Our little girl did great in her first few days of Primary Two. Such a change from the trauma of last year. The littler boy was just delighted to be back at nursery. He could not get there quick enough. And me? I think I might still be jet lagging. Maybe, in truth, I am just lagging!! Work was not a problem. I am fortunate to really enjoy my work and I am still just doing two days a week. It is the whole getting routines going again that seemed to be the problem. I did manage to get everyone to the right place with the right clothes on, and snacks and lunches packed, but it did feel a huge effort. This week will see me full of oomph, I am sure.

I was given "Change the world 9 to 5" from Sarah for my birthday. Remember "Change the world for a fiver?". Well this book is full of things we can all be doing while at work to make a difference and make folks smile. So Idea 86.... Avoid waste. If each of the UK's ten million office workers used one less staple a day, 120 tonnes of steel would be saved every year. I will not be able to look at a staple in the same way again. Who in the world worked that out?

These feet were made for.....

...... walking and running and jumping and oh so many more things! And they did all thru our holiday. They went to the beach, to catch fish, to the park, they rode wild rides and fun rides and "too scary for me" rides at Disney. They travelled on four aeroplanes and fidgeted many hours in Grandaddy's truck. The best things about these feet is that they were, oh so comfortably, housed in a pair of gratefully received hand me downs from Rowan.

Having examined my summer wardrobe, that is my "it is going to be warm rather than a typical Scottish summer" wardrobe, and found it distinctly lacking, I found myself drawn to rows of very attractive looking clothes in a clothes store. I was rescued by Susan who dug thru her wardrobe and loaned me some great things to take with me.

Our little girl came home with a whole bag of hand me downs from Shelbie, crazy I know to have a transatlantic hand me down relationship, but a year apart in age and exactly the same build and colour, it is just ideal and we are grateful!

And you may remember my having been upset about wearing a hole in the knees of my favourite jeans? I wondered how in the world I would ever replace them without reneging on my challenge of avoiding clothes stores. One word... Goodwill, specifically Goodwill in Athens. This is a charity that exists to create employment opportunities for people. The money they make in their charity stores gets ploughed into that. Well this charity shop is the size of a supermarket and full of great stuff. Yep, you have to hunt through an amount of not so great stuff. But two pairs of jeans, five dollars each and one (a never worn pair from the Gap) then I was a happy bunny. I also learned that I could so easily develop a thing for shoes. That took me a bit by surprise. The fact that I have a thing for plates did not. Thankfully, the whole suitcase thing pushed me into good sense and no plate purchasing. And I have found charity shops that actually do white, racks of white. I have listened for a year to Beth telling me about how I need to see this place and she was so right!

Our Aunty Bethie also let us know about Plato's Closet. This is not a charity shop. It is a chain of stores where you sell your not wanted clothes to them and they then sell them on. The secret is that they will not buy your tat only the good stuff so you have a store full of pretty good gear and a store that you would not be embarrassed to be inside, in fact it has a real upbeat feel to the place. I picked up some good things in there. One of which I will be wearing to a wedding next week. Please do not be telling anyone the dress cost $8 and the cardigan is borrowed from Susan. You just cannot go without a cardigan over here!!

The result of all this borrowing, hand me downs, second hand purchasing and a generous Grandma who took the kids on a most wonderful shopping spree in Osh Kosh B'gosh, meant we went out with a bag and a half of our stuff and came home with five!!

Watch and learn

These are pretty cool, eh? Our littler boy and I made them on the two hour flight to his grandparents, just after a three hour layover which had followed a seven and a half hour flight. Plasticene and some plastic and we were busy for at least twenty minutes.

We have just made the return journey which included a five and a half hour layover. What in the world to do with two small children for a travel time of around 15 hours? Well I had it all planned out with a couple of new DVDs and some tried and tested, guaranteed to keep them glued for hours, ones and the beauty of US airports being the willingness to let you plug your stuff in. (Not sure about UK airports.) Well, then I went and packed the charger in the checked bags. Just great! Four hours of DVD time and when to use it became the debate.

During this trip we broke the news to our little people that we were likely to cancel our Sky package on return to the UK. The grown ups in this house have virtually eliminated TV from their activities and are surprisingly unbored and definitely not lacking in stimulus. I have no problems in the kids watching TV but I am beginning to see just how much they are influenced by advertising and if it is bad now then it will only get worse, right? The little girl just has to have Lelly Kelly shoes and why? Because they come with a crazy amount of sparkles and a lip gloss. I don't think so. The little boy went through a phase recently pointing out cleaning tasks and announcing "Cilit Bang. Just one spray Mum and the job is done." It is a cleaning product, for goodness sake. The news that there may be no more kids channels from Sky was met with some real resistance but I think we will not be swayed. We have a ton of DVDs.

Anyway we found a good spot in the airport to set up camp for a few hours and I put on one of our new DVDS, trusting that this was good use of precious charge. It kept them busy for a wee while and then I saw their attentions beginning to wander, becoming completely engrossed in the unloading of a huge aeroplane parked right outside the window. It was a huge operation with trucks, cranes, trolleys, moving ramps and a whole heap of people.

"Watch and learn, buddy!" the little girl said to her brother.

"Yeah, this is great!" he replied.

Watch and learn, Mum. Who needs endless charge on the DVD player?

But I really want a pair of Mickey Mouse pj's!!

I do. I am living this week in the land of Mickey Mouse. I have swum with sharks, ridden on dinosaurs, raced down rapids, said hello to Lilo and Stitch, watched Nemo reunite with his dad, floated round a lazy river, went on safari with Kilimanjaro safari company, raced round Thunder Mountain on a roller coaster, sung "It's small world" quite a few times, flown on a magic carpet and I now want a pair of Mickey Mouse pj's.
I had a great pair all picked out, my size and everything when someone happened to mention that some child had undoubtedly been exploited to make them that cheap and well, all the magic went real fast!!! And I left the store without my pj's. Make no mistake I still want them but I do not need them and I am still committed to seeing this year of maladjustment out. I know too that while it is true that clothes which are very cheap are likely to have been made by people who are not receiving a fair wage and working in good conditions, it would be a mistake to think that just because clothes are more expensive workers are being treated right.
On this trip we have done great on borrowed, hands-me-downs, Goodwill and Plato's Closet.... more details to follow. Right now I am away to recapture the magic!

Loving life!

For anyone who missed it, we are on a four week trip to the US catching up with family and friends over here, soaking up the culture and eating way too much. The little people are having a complete ball. They have swum in the sea, the pool or splashed in the paddling pool most days. They have been to the Laser Show at Stone Mountain, visited Chuckie Cheese (aka by Grandaddy as "Chuckie Frickin' Cheese" and that will be his last visit - altho he did say that last time!), been bowling, visited Dill Pickle the alligator at the small Athens zoo and so much more. They have had the undivided attention of so many great folks.

The little boy made us laugh a few days after we got here. He was yelling on his Grandma for something, for the fifteenth time that morning. When I suggested that he give his poor Grandma some peace he replied, "But Mummy, Grandma is just soooooo helpful!". And in truth Grandma was in her element so who am I to get in the way of that partnership.

Tomorrow we leave for Orlando. Mike's folks have booked a fabulous house just along from Mickey's. We are hugely grateful to them for their generosity, they are a true example of folks who give not just out of their pockets but out of their time, pouring heaps in to others. Again I am conscious of the huge example our parents are setting us. Our kids have no idea how privileged they are and we are not giving them daily lectures, we are not showing them pictures of those much less fortunate. This week is not the time. This week is for fun and family. There will continue to be times when conversations can be had, when our little people will continue to to be generous, will learn about giving, will learn when something is broken we will not simply go out and get a new one.

You have to take the time to talk through these things because society sure does not set that example and all kids learn so easy to manipulate. Our little boy came up with another cracker all by himself this week just to illustrate the point. Made us laugh real hard but made us realise that he is learning fast and all by himself! He was messing around at bedtime, doing everything to avoid putting on those pj's. I played along, cajoled and then finally having had enough my voice took on a sharper tone.

"I am going to count to three and you had better have those pyjamas on or there will be serious trouble!"

He stopped abruptly, his bottom lip trembled and he said, " But, Mummy, you are just too beautiful to use that angry voice."

Thank goodness for the years of teaching because I was able to retort quick speed and in a hurry, "And you are too cute to not do what you are told right now!"

I laughed hard as soon as that bedroom door was shut!

Just before we left on the trip we are currently on we had to do some serious work on our allotment. If you have an allotment it needs really regular care and we just did not have the time for a few weeks. When we arrived, from a distance it looked really healthy. Up close it was a huge crop of poppies and other gloriously vibrant weeds.


We dug and pulled and had some major assistance form the little people who dug their little hearts out in a clearish patch, digging a large hole to somewhere! Aunty Vonny had got them some "them sized" tools for their birthdays. A whole heap of fun right there!

After an hour or so here is what there was left..... a pretty sorry sight!

Can anyone explain to me why slugs and caterpillars like our veggies and not the attractive poppies?

We have very little left and we know for sure, being gone for a month and a whole heap of rain , that our garden will be glorious once more with weeds. It is not all bad news tho! The stuff in the green house and in pots are growing well. We left loads of pots with our allotment partners to water. Thinking the heavens will be doing that just fine for them at the moment. Cucumbers, tomatoes, chillies starting, onions and garlic.

On this trip we have really enjoyed eating fresh produce from folks gardens and visiting one or two! Over here the heat is both a blessing and a curse. They can grow so much more, it seems, but at times the heat is stunting growth too. And while we have to deal with slugs, and next year suckers, we will be ready, so ready, friends here have to deal with larger challenges with four legs and a big appetite. Deer!!

Living life!!

If you knew someone who was entering a new decade what would you recommend she did today, this week, this year or at some point during this decade?
Maybe, just maybe, I will pass on your suggestions!!

Seeing the sunrise!

When you jump continents you would think our time clocks would automatically adjust, you know like our computers do with daylight savings. At 4.50am we were wondering what quite to do with the very awake little people. My best suggestion was a dvd and a containing exercise. Mike's suggestion was a trip to the beach to see the sunrise with a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. There was no need for discussion and in a short while we were all in the car!

The girl at the Krispy Kreme drive through was very cheery for that time in the morning but she had no regular Krispy Kreme doughnuts ready.

"I am sorry, Sweetie," she announced "but they won't be ready until 6.15 and I am really sorry about that but I can give you mini glazed ones for the same price, sweetie, or you know we do have raspberry cream, or lemon drizzle, or chocolate sprinkles or..." and she reeled off a list of another ten. Mike tried a few times to say we would be happy with the mini ones before she quite got it. On driving up and meeting her in person we got a glorious welcome, another apology, a confirmation that we had made a good choice and wished a "blessed day. " Well, our new friend at Krispy Kreme, you certainly started our day off well and you are obviously living up to the challenge of Mother Teresa's about people not leaving you but that they feel happier.

How people respond is their choice. I found myself initially being a little irritated by her. You know kind of "Just give me the doughnuts lady!" but here was someone who was giving more options, pointing out other good possibilities. I need to not be rushing past and dismissing these kind of people. In fact I need to be that kind of person. I saw again recently how short life can be, and how tough it can be, but the journey is for enjoying and there are many different flavours out there to be experiencing.

Gardening joys

London has set itself the challenge of 2,012 communal vegetable gardens in time for the 2012 Olympics. Vancouver took the lead, aiming for 2.010 vegetable gardens in the community by the 2010 winter games. One of the exciting things about the London project is the amount of roof projects planned. London has 1.6 million square metres of suitable roofing. That could be a huge transformation of what the place looks like, have a dramatic effect on pollution and funnily enough the folks taking the lead on this reckon that by getting folks involved you can change their eating habits.

I came home from dropping the little girl at a dance class to find my two boys on the garage roof. They were not embarking on a roof project, just having fun hanging out together and the wee-est was most proud of himself.

We leave for the US on Thursday and have a lot to achieve in both our gardens before this. The good news is that we are harvesting loads of strawberries and raspberries. Most of our other stuff will be ready while we are away so friends and family help yourself! We are planning to haul our pots over to Doug and Susan's and the parents while we are gone. Mike was seriously talking about a short hire of a truck so many and large are the pots. He really misses his pick up truck! I figure we can just use both our cars and ram them in!

We have to confess to being beaten up pretty bad by the little creatures in this world; slugs, snails and caterpillars. Maybe I will spend some of my US time investigating all the different solutions and next year we will be ready with a whole pile of ammo.

Yesterday our little girl came yelling into the house...

"Mum, Dad, Mum, Dad, baby birds have been born in our garden. Come see. Come see. Come see!"

I was immediately thinking about our two wee ones messing with baby birds. I am not much clued up on the birthing time for birds. Mike quickly went out to investigate with me observing from the kitchen door. Our kids had discovered all the egg shells I had put on the ground around the broccoli, a tip from the Bethster. Mike explained very carefully to the kids what had happened while I fell around laughing in the kitchen. I totally understand why the egg shells might just work. Those shells are sharp. Guess I may be keeping all our egg shells from now on!

Ok, this is good!

My other half has a kind of "don't need it, don't want it, won't wear it attitude" to clothes. He does not like shopping and is certainly not keen on anyone else picking stuff out for him. Aggravates his dad at times, but you know what, the "don't need it, don't want it, won't wear it" attitude is definitely hereditary. His Dad is a firm believer if you cannot buy it from a catalogue and preferably online,then you have no need of it. We are highly entertained when we call and find that he is in a mall. He is never there on his own venture, in fact he is only ever there if Mike's Mum requires him as a carrier or for a second opinion. It does not happen often but when it does we enjoy it.

On browsing round the ethical clothes options online Mike came across this site which is just great. You have got to love it. No more trawling round stores. See if they have what you need, order, giving money to a good charity and in a few days the postman brings you the items.
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/second-hand-store
Such a well organised site. Only thing is that we did not find it soon enough so I pitched up tonight at my staff night out in my jeans and a nice top. Maybe, just maybe, the stuff will arrive for my next event on Saturday.

Help!

My clothing challenge continues and it is a bit of a challenge just now. I have a birthday coming up, just another one -day-older birthday but the kind of one that makes folks sit up and take a bit more notice at the passing of years. (Or is it actually decades? Yikes!) I have been fairly determined to get hooked up with something from one of the fairly traded shops. Well, as with any shopping endeavour it is never at the top of my list of things to do and now with just a few days until my staff night out for the summer, same outfit many uses philosophy, I am in trouble! Of the two stores I can find on line, neither have anything in stock my size. http://www.peopletree.co.uk/ and http://www.nomadsclothing.com/ You see it is that issue of not mass producing. I applaud them but really could they not have something my size that I like? Just one thing. I am away to find more sites. There surely have to be loads out there!

Get this................................ .

In the UK we buy two million tons of clothing each year. 1.2 million tons of which ends up in land fill. That is the equivalent of 200 million full bin bags. I am thinking we maybe do not need to be buying so much.

There are 6000 clothes banks in the UK. 25,ooo tonnes of textiles are donated each year. Of that

• 5% go to charity shop for resell, only the most usable.



• half is sent to developing countries



• damaged clothes are unpicked, sorted into colours to prevent redyeing, and are made into new fibres.



• unwearable clothes are sent to the flocking industry where they are shredded and made into fillers for roofing felt, loudspeakers cones and furniture padding.

We bought the largest of tubs this weekend and have crammed it full of fab salad leaves, including an oriental salad mix. Just as we went to plant it the heavens opened on two loads of laundry. We chucked some of the laundry in the dryer, left the rest to the mercy of the weather and dragged the big pot inside the kitchen to deal with it.

We have decided pots are a great way to go. Slugs seem unable to scale the heights which is great. Our allotment is in a sorry state. Two weeks of no attention and the garlic and onions are just about making it. Everything else has provided slugs and caterpillars with highly nutritious fare. And the weeds? How does that happen so fast? So, I am now reckoning we need to learn fast about winter veg and have another go. Two steps forward and one step back! We would love to actually harvest, but even the time out in the fresh air is well worth the efforts.

A few weeks ago we went on a walk with some friends of ours and their little people. Put four keen adult walkers together and the wee ones find themselves hiking hard and fast. We climbed up the hill at the back of Castle Campbell. It was quite a scramble and there were the occasional really marshy bits. On the way back down our littler boy started to complain a little.

"My legs are not made for walking!" he announced very loudly.

"Well, what are they made for?", we asked.

"They are made for watching TV!" came his all too quick reply.

Mike and I are watching next to no TV and are so enjoying it. Too many more comments like that, and our little people who are watching very little TV, will be watching absolutely none!!

Tough times

These guys are never far from my thoughts and prayers just now.
www.lifewiththelockharts.blogspot.com

Outraged!

We walked to school yesterday, the two little people and I. In the driveway of a house we passed was a leather sofa. It looked in pretty reasonable condition. The kids wanted to know why it was there. I explained that the folks in the house had obviously got a new one and did not need this one any more. Inevitably, they asked me what would happen to it. Our little girl quickly suggested that maybe they would give it to someone who did not have a sofa. We all agreed that would would be a very good idea and walked on happily to school.
After lunch the three of us were walking back down the same street towards school. As we approached the same house the kids suddenly stopped with wide eyes.
"Mummy, that is the bin lorry. What are they doing with the sofa?"
We watched two men tip that perfectly good sofa into the mouth of that large chomping beast and I have to say I felt physically sick and really angry. The kids were pretty upset. There was not a lot that could be said. At 4 and 6 they get it. There are folks in this world who do not have as much as we do. We need to look after what we own and if we have something perfectly good that we do not need then it is good to look for someone who might have a need for it.
It is not hard, people. The same time it takes to call the council to arrange a pick up you could call at least three organisations who will come to your house and collect. Maybe the council should offer these numbers, you know right at the bit they tell you that the call is being recorded for training purposes they could say "if you are calling to chuck a perfectly good piece of furniture please call Bethany or Debra or the Salvation Army. The landfill don't need it and someone else could really do with it!"
You just do not know how much I wanted to knock their door. This week, though, I have to remember that I am a little more emotionally fraught. And maybe it was completely infested with fleas and there was just nothing that could be done about it.

There is a time

There is a time............................................

To gladly use the tumble dryer, which was an incredible gift, to ensure the family have clean clothes, maybe using up unnecessary electricity but saving on your energy, allowing it to be poured into something more valuable this week.

To not be with your best friend at the funeral of her father, even though everything in you wants to be there, because you know that your nephew needs you to be that smiley, safe person who will give him cuddles and let him share your lasagne even when he has eaten all of his own dinner.

To send your sister frequent texts about how things are going and how the family is coping when you know that she is struggling being 150 miles away, and to send texts that have those twists of humour even in a sad event, that allows her to feel connected without crying. Thank you little brother!

To let your son wear a really nice shirt out of a bag of gratefully received hand me downs, because he really likes the look of it and thinks he looks like he is going to a wedding, when in actual fact he is off to nursery to get messy, just because it makes him feel happy and that makes you feel happy when there is a lot of sadness around.

To drive late in the evening, when you are already completely exhausted, to weep with a friend whose three year old son has just had a stroke which at this point looks like it has had a serious impact.

To say "please, that would be so good" to a friend who offered to make your tea one night this week when normally you would you would say you were fine.

To use ordinary shampoo when your shower can only be 3 minutes long and it takes at least twice that long to rinse out bicarb and vinegar.

To not worry about the slugs probably decimating the garden, knowing that time and energy needs to be poured into people at the moment. Another season of planting will come.

To commit to regularly doing those back and shoulder exercises to deal with some build up of tension.

There is a time to quit blogging and get some much needed sleep!