A Mother's Ramblings

Hello and welcome to yet another what Pippa fancies to eat this week and so makes everyone else eat blog post. Saying that this week seems to be meat heavy and that wasn't my influence, don't get me wrong, unlike Dan Jon Jr I like the texture of meat but I'm still a Veggie at heart... Which leads me nicely on to the meal plan!

We read a lot in our house. We read daily, we read in the bathroom, in the bedroom, in the garden, before Church, in the queue at the Supermarket or Post Office, whilst waiting for let out at after School Clubs, whilst waiting for our meals to be served... any time we have a spare minute we read. And it's lush. As a Child, I read ALL the time. I was known as a bookworm and so having two children that are also happy to read all the time cheers me up no end. I read with the Children when they get in with School.

Years ago, I decided that I wanted to build a single storey extension on the side of my house. I knew what I wanted to do, as in room function. I knew how I wanted it to look and most importantly I knew that I wanted to make it easier to be "green". You know, the sort of things that we were taught about at School. A sloping roof so that I could collect rainwater to water the garden, possibly some solar panels, excellent insulation, massive windows (natural light in the room), underfloor heating... oh wait that last one was just because I like to not walk on cold floors! The problem is, I'm poor and building an extension takes more money than I can find down the back of my sofa (I actually just found a ruler down there but no money). And this is why I was in part really excited to join the Ikea Live Lagom project. It gave me a reason, a kick up the bum if you will, to make the changes that I want to make to live more sustainably and to live more "just right...

When I was a small Child, I had a dummy that I was rather fond of and my Mum sat me down and told me that if I would give up my dummy she would buy me anything I wanted. I wanted a Mr Frosty so I gave up my dummy. The Mr Frosty was my pride and joy, even if I did eat too much syrup in one sitting and make myself sick. Unsurprisingly Mr Frosty has always been one of my favourite memories and so when we were asked if we'd like to review one, I was so excited and of course said yes. I promised Dan Jon Jr that the first time I used it, he could use it too, as now that Mr Frosty no longer comes with the sugary syrup and that you can use your own choice of Fruit Juice or Cordials that I could perfectly count the carbs for Dan Jon Jr and I could make it as healthily as I wanted.

Dan Jon Jr had been looking forward to his Eighth birthday since the day after his Seventh one. He wasn't really that bothered about gifts and he wasn't really interested in having any input into what cake he wanted for his Birthday either. He wasn't even that interested in if he had a Birthday party (he ended up having two). There were only one thing that Dan Jon Jr was interested in.

With all the "life" that was going on this week, when it came to ordering my shopping (I like to order via Tesco, get them to pick my shopping and then I pick it up on the Saturday morning between 8am and 10am) I managed to work out a quick meal plan based on things we hadn't had for a while, things we fancied (and I'd picked up last weekend on the off chance!) and what we had in the cupboard! So here is my very quick meal plan.

The eagle eyed amongst you might have noticed that there has been a change to the header on this here blog. Or you might have noticed that there has been a change on Instagram and on Twitter to one particular account. Don't worry if you haven't. It's just that Big Boy has gone and has been replaced by some child named Dan Jon Jr. I've not done a sitcom thing and replaced one of my family members and just pretended that they are the same person even thought they look and sound completely different. I haven't killed Big Boy off, or worse given him away.

This weeks menu was written in advance of the weekend, but for some reason with everything going on I didn't get round to actually writing this blog post until 9pm on Sunday night. So, here is a quick meal plan for the week with not a lot of waffle.

Whilst we were in Ireland, Big Boy was often seen writing in his little notebook. We had asked him once or twice if he was okay, but we just assumed that he was creating yet more levels of Computer Games that he wasn't ready for us to see yet. This is quite a common occurrence. However, one evening he allowed me to see what was in his notebook. As I looked, I realised that he had been keeping a diary whilst we were away in Ireland. He stood there, watching me as I read his words. My eyes started to blur and I had to blink away my tears because I didn't want him to think I was sad at what I was reading. I was reading something beautiful. Something amazing and I could see that he was full of gratitude for what he was experiencing.

Is it Summer yet? With all this lovely weather we've been having I've been wanting to just get out in the garden and sit there and not move until it starts getting cold again. Although saying that, I really should get out into the front garden and do a bit of weeding and general maintenance, instead of just sitting there... You know what I think I'm just going to dig everything I want to keep up and then just shingle that bit! It would give me somewhere to put the shingle currently on my driveway at least! Anyway, you don't come here on a Saturday to find out about my garden, you come to get some food inspiration! This week we're (I'm) being cheap and so we're eating mainly out of the Store Cupboard!

Daddy and I grew up in the eighties, this doesn't mean anything really apart from we grew up watching some of the best films ever made. I mean the list of Children's movies made in the eighties is endless. Well, okay, not endless, just extensive. Now, some of these films are films that we as society have deemed as classics and as such, every Easter, Christmas and Bank Holiday weekend will have a showing of them on one of the various TV Channels and as such the Children have seen several of them.

When I was younger I was called fairly often, a bookworm. It seemed that I always had my nose in a book and a lot of my memories of my childhood are linked to books. I can remember where I first read certain books, I can remember what was happening in the world or around me when I was reading certain books. Heck, I sometimes remember things that happened to me as a child only to later remember actually I just read that in a book... Anyhoo. I was the only one in my house that was always reading and it hasn't been a habit I've grown out of. I can easily read three or four books a week, I read almost as fast as I can speak!

It's been a while since I've posted about the Cats so I thought I'd post a collection of photographs I've taken of our troop of furry children over the last few weeks! As you may remember, I have five cats. Yes, some think this is a lot and admittedly I do too at times, but we love them all. The oldest cat, or at least the one I think of as oldest is Moses. Moses is supposedly Daddy's Cat and he is getting old now.

Yup, it's my birthday And because it's my birthday you all have to do exactly what I want. It's the birthday law.