A Mother's Ramblings

Having been a blogger for a while, you tend to see trends come and go. I remember, like Aly who kindly tagged me on her blog and gave me a chance to answer  The Liebster Award  questions, when awards like these were the way to find new blogs, to find people who thought the same as you and quite honestly they were an amazing honour because it meant that someone other than your Mum was reading what you were writing. Even though my Mum doesn't read my blog. Anyway, it's been a while since I've been awarded anything although saying that, I did get a medal the other week from Dan Jon Jr for having managed to last a whole day without bursting out into song. So, I have 11 questions to answer that Aly has set me and then there are 11 random facts about me (I tried to think up some good ones!) and I've tagged a few bloggers you might not have heard of and they have to answer 11 questions that I've set. So read on to find out more about me!

It's nearly my birthday and so I've been thinking about what I would like, as I know that people are going to be asking me in the next few days. Actually, that's a lie. Flyfour has already told me to put whatever I want into an Amazon wishlist and he'll just order from that (he actually told me to leave it in his basket to start with!) and surprise me with a few little bits too. So, I sat and thought about what I would like, just typing the words that fell out of my head, not caring about cost or availability just my material self, raising its head and pouring out onto the page. It made me feel better to make a list, and also made me feel a little greedy. Once I started thinking about it, there were hundreds of things that I would like. I took off things like a new Kitchen and a new Bathroom because hopefully by the end of the Summer they will be installed. I also took off a gardener, because I kinda want to do the garden on my own... well one I've had a tradesman...

I like making lists. I'm pretty certain that sometimes I make lists just to put off actually doing the things that I put on my lists. Like as I'm walking home from dropping Dan Jon Jr off at School I'll recite a list to myself of the things that I've already done and things that I'm going to do when I get in. Dishes are done, bleach is down the toilet, the washing is on, open the windows in the bedrooms, swap the wash out, hang the wash out, put the recycling out, wash the cat bowls, dust the living room, dust the hallway, polish the mirrors (why do we have so many mirrors in our house?), empty the bins in the bedrooms... And then I repeat it again and again as a mantra for my morning and until all my tasks are done.

When I was growing up, Saturday night was the night we all watched TV together as a family. I grew up when Saturday night TV consisted of family appropriate things like Blind Date, Noel's House Party, Gladiators, The Generation Game, Surprise Surprise, Catchphrase, Challenge Anneka, Blankety Blank, Stars in their Eyes, The A-Team, Knight Rider, You Bet, Paul Daniels Magic Show, Bob's Full House, Telly Addicts, The Russ Abbotts Show, The Price is Right, Wheel of Fortune, Family Fortunes, Strike it Lucky, Big Break, Cannon and Ball, Game for a Laugh, Beadle's About... It sounds like all I did was watch TV as a kid, but that list above was shown over roughly two decades. Then again, it only took Flyfour and me about five minutes to come up with that list. I'm not sure if it is just remembering the best of things, but Saturday Nights were also Takeaway nights in my house. We would have Chinese most often, but occasionally Fish and Chips and I don't think I ever rememb...

Roughly a week before Easter, the children, Flyfour and I went to one of the local Supermarkets to purchase our Easter eggs. Well, Flyfour and children purchased eggs, I decided that I would much rather spend the money on buying multi-packs of chocolate bars as I thought it was better value for money! Dan Jon Jr picked an Oreo egg, Flyfour picked a Wispa egg and Top Ender picked a Malteser egg. I went for a pack of Double Deckers, a pack Twirls and a pack of Mars bars. See more value for money. We decided to leave the Eggs in the Kitchen, as we didn't really have anywhere else to store them and all was fine until Easter Saturday.

Many years ago, when I was taking my GCSE's I decided that the best thing for me was to take Art. I have no idea why because if I am perfectly honest, I can't draw. I remember just a few weeks into the course the head of the department set us some homework. He wanted us to come up with some logo's for companies, whatever we wanted to do, it was up to us. I can't remember if I left my homework to the last minute, or as is more likely spent hours designing various different signs (we each had multiple signs on one side of A3 paper) well before the lesson was due, but what I do remember was the head of art picking up MY artwork and moving it to the centre of the table. In my head, it has always sounded like a compliment what he said next, but thinking about it now I'm not sure that it was. The department head said that whilst this particular logo wasn't complicated it had been thought about. I've recreated the piece of art below so you can see what I did. ...

Sometimes I forget that the people who read my blog don't just live in my head and don't know the hundreds of stories of events that happened before I started this blog. Today I thought I would share one of those stories. Before Top Ender was born, Flyfour and I would often go and watch TV Shows being filmed. It was something that Flyfour had done semi-regularly for many years and whilst my family had been a couple of times to see Noel Edmonds House Party (remember that?!) I really only got into it when Flyfour and I started dating. A few months after Top Ender was born, Flyfour and I were offered tickets to go and take part in a new quiz show, well it was actually a pilot of a quiz show called "Dial M for Money" and it was to be hosted by Philip Schofield!

On Easter Saturday, Flyfour and I had decided that after we had watched Doctor Who as a family,  (wasn't it fantastic? Bill is brilliant and added some much-needed lightheartedness and banter to the show!) that we would all head out to Tesco to grab a couple of last minute supplies and hopefully a few reduced bargains. We didn't get any bargains. We did bump into Top Ender's Guides Leader though, which was nice. Anyway, as we got home, we noticed there was something hanging from the front door.

When Flyfour and I decided that we wanted to make some changes to our home, a visit we had made to the Ideal Home Show many years before came to mind. We had found a brilliant ladder system there, as well as a few other "bits" that have been well used since we purchased them. We thought that what would be brilliant, would be if we went down again as a family and had a family day out. We could all look at the various items that were being showcased, speak with the vendors that were selling items we needed for our home improvements and hopefully sort out our plans a little more so that's what we did at the start of the week.

There are plans formulating in our home. Well, there are always plans formulating in our home, but these ones are quite specific plans. For what seems like a few years, Flyfour and I have been talking about improvements that we want to make, things that would make our home better, things that would make us happier... but we had no money and so these ideas, these plans have stayed in our heads, occasionally being voiced during those hypothetical conversations about what would you do if you had a million pounds? Recently, however, we realised that it was now or never. If we were going to make these home improvements we had to start now. So, we drew up a list and refined that list again and again until we got a list of things which were important for us, that would benefit us and that we could afford.

I was having some trouble trying to work out what to blog about over the last few days. I did think about blogging about what I've been watching on TV or Netflix, but I'm been watching very little really. I thought about blogging about what I've learnt from the children I read with each Monday and Wednesday. I thought about blogging about a zillion different things but nothing sat right with me. I was moaning to Dan Jon Jr about it, not realising that he was in an Xbox party with a friend of his and Dan Jon asked his friends what I should write about. Phoenix x Panda and FireProMoo suggested I blog about Cookie Dough Ice Cream, Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust Pizzas and Ponies... I'm not sure exactly what the three have to do with each other but it did get me thinking.

Okay, first of all, I can't believe it is April already. It's like one month until my birthday. Secondly, today marks, (well yesterday marked) the last day of our six-week diet/lifestyle change. Flyfour and I both lost over a stone each, and are rightly pleased about it. It's great right? The good news is that we have adapted to this lifestyle and the next six weeks are going to be a test of that. Flyfour and I have decided that we'll stick with the same breakfast and lunch ideas (so basically either Cereal with a yoghurt, or toast and a yoghurt sort of thing for breakfast and something along the lines of a sandwich and salad at lunch time) and get a bit more creative with our evening meals... or rather the children and Flyfour are going to! The family gave me a suggestion of all the different meals that they like and asked that I find ways to incorporate them into the lifestyle. Some of the recipes were fine as they were, others needed a little adaptation and so...