A Mother's Ramblings

When you have a blog and your friends and family know about it, there is always a caveat when they tell you something. "This isn't to go on Facebook or your blog, okay?" Yeah, because that's what I do. I take your personal life and immediately tell the rest of the world. I'm that callous and immature that I'm going to use your personal life to make my status updates seem more... yeah, I don't know what your personal life is going to do for my status updates.

Watching the Children play together this past half term has made me think about how I would cope as a Stay at Home Mum in previous decades. How would I cope if I had been bringing up my Children in the 90's? The 80's? The 70's? The 60's? I'm sure that I would have been a much more different person to the one I am now. The slight and subtle cultural changes that mould us all in ways we can't possibly imagine, would have made me a different me.

So you may have seen my post yesterday about my new Front Door and saw that I mentioned that we were swarmed with builders and assumed they had just sent out a zillion guys to ensure the front door was fitted quickly. It wasn't. In fact, they sent out just one despite having TWO jobs to do at our house and still they were both completed this past weekend.

Ever since we moved into our current home, one of the things that I've hated is that the bathroom is downstairs opposite the front door. Ordinarily, this wouldn't really be a big problem, but the people who picked our front door picked one that was half glass and had a giant full-size window next to it. This is really only inconvenient if you pee with the bathroom door open, or if you come out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel after a shower, or you forget to take a towel into the bathroom when you shower, or you run out of toilet paper and have to shuffle into the hallway to pick up a spare roll with your underwear around your ankles... Yeah, I'm guilty of all of those things. So Flyfour and I decided we wanted to change our Front Door and it was going to be the first thing that we were able to cross off our massive list of Home Improvements that we're working on this Summer... but then the door company cancelled our fitting appointment the evening before th...

Well, the list of Home Improvements that we created to help us focus our efforts this Summer is finally off to a busy start and these past few days I've had more Builders, Decorators, Roofer's, Installation Specialists and other men in shorts splattered in things like plaster, sweat and spilt tea than I think you could ever find in a Builder's Merchants, doing things to my house to make it a home. The roof wasn't going to be the first works we had done, it wasn't even one of the works that we were looking forward to really. Don't get me wrong, we knew that the roof had to be done because there is only so much patching you can do when the roof is already a patchwork of patches! Flyfour was getting a little fed up of going up on the Kitchen roof in the rain to stop the collecting rainwater from drip, drip, dripping into our Kitchen and the Facias? Well, maybe the less said about them the better eh?

I've decided that it is too hot to go shopping, think about meal planning AND that we have too much going on today for me to actually go out food shopping (think builders taking over the downstairs of the house and we're decorating Dan Jon's bedroom too) and so I've quickly looked at what we had in the larder, the fridge and the freezer and meal planned around that!

I had a good childhood, I've mentioned that once or twice before and yet the way I was raised left a few areas of my life strangely lacking in knowledge and so I present to you things I wish my parents had told me... or I wish I had listened to if they did. Oh and don't worry, I'm trying to ensure that Top Ender and Dan Jon Jr will learn these lessons before they are out in the world!

I love that my husband has passions and hobbies that maybe I don't share the same amount of enthusiasm for, but I am appreciative of all the same. For example many years ago I remember watching Through the Keyhole and the guest on the show that evening had the best house in the world to my young mind. If you were sitting at the kitchen table, you could press a button and a bath would start running (in the bathroom obviously), or you could make the table fold into place from the bath, look I was young, I was impressionable but I did not make this up. Ever since then, I wanted an automated house too but I'm the kinda gal who just wants to move in. I don't want the hassle of having to programme everything! Luckily Flyfour doesn't feel the same way. Which is why our home is slowly turning into an automated home, without me having to lift a finger.

My parents moved house just before my seventh birthday, which means that I moved house just before my 7th birthday. I remember it quite clearly because I hated my parents with my all nearly 7 year old might for moving. I had good friends at my school, they lived down my road and I remember going to their houses to play and they came to mine and I knew that when we moved things were obviously going to be different. At the time I didn't understand why we moved, I just knew we were moving away from all I knew, moving away from all our extended family and I was angry. I don't remember showing anyone that anger, instead I let it fester inside. Looking back, I can see how stupid nearly 7 year old me was.

There is a debate in our house, that comes up everytime Flyfour and I have a breakfast of cereal together. You see, if we have cereal, Flyfour some gluten free and me some of whatever is needing finishing or if I'm lucky some cereal that I've actually chosen for myself then we will start debating over this matter. Flyfour is convinced I am wrong, I am convinced that he is wrong and I need you to help me settle this debate once and for all before Flyfour and I divorce over this matter! Okay, so we won't really get divorced, but we might end up not talking for a few hours. In an attempt to curry favour, I am not going to tell you who Flyfour and I are in the incidents below so you can't just say I'm right because you like me better than Flyfour!

I've had a few words rolling through my mind over the last few weeks. Words that I once thought could be a poem and I wrote down, but they didn't quite seem right. I've had another bash at them over the last few days and I hope that if I share them with you now that maybe you'll read them and understand the feeling I was trying to convey. Just so you know this isn't how I feel right now, I've just had these words circling and needed to get them out. And if not, maybe you'll just think it's pretty or something.

I'm hoping that nobody here reading this blog post is in my ward if you are then  PLEASE LOOK AWAY NOW  and come back after Church! I don't want the surprise of the gift to be spoilt. This year the Primary Presidency (me, and three others) took the task of organising a gift for the men in our ward (Parish) for Father's Day and we had a lot to live up to seeing as how for Mother's Day the Elder's Quorum President got every woman over the age of 13, a Lindt Chocolate bar and a red rose. The roses and chocolate bars were presented by the young men of our ward and it was quite a sight to see the boys, aged between 13 and 18, handing out the gifts and it brought a tear to many an eye! Okay, so my eye. I cried as they gave them out and I'm not even related to any of them! Saying that I do love each and every one of them as I have got to know most of them really well over the last few years.

Today I wanted to do one thing that I knew I could achieve. Just one thing because I needed a win and I knew if it was small and didn't really matter about being perfect, but that I could still cross it off my list it would count as a win. So I made this meal plan. As I said, it's not perfect but it's complete and it's now crossed off my list.

As I was falling asleep last night I started to play the Desert Island game. You know the one, you're stuck on a desert island and you are allowed to take three things with you so what would you take?

How many times have you walked past a group of people and thought they were talking about you? You know how they stop talking as you draw near or make excuses to leave as you join them? How many times have you read a blog post or a tweet and sat there thinking that it was about you? Well, this post isn't about you and if you think it is then your a bigger narcissist than the person* this is about. Sometimes it isn't all about you, believe it or not, nobody sits around talking about you.

Flyfour and I were talking about the long walk I took a few days ago and were talking about how fast I walk compared to how fast the average walking pace is. I walk at around 2.9mph, and the average for people my age (but considerably fitter and a normal weight) is 4mph, according to the internet. Personally, I think that considering I am double the amount of weight that a person my height should be, that my walking pace isn't too bad!

I was thinking about Tarmac the other day. It's okay, stick with me on this. I know that it was patented in 1901 by Edgar Purnell Hooley, but that it was used before this as some roads in the ancient city of Babylon had tar-paved roads, (honestly, the random facts I have in my head would surprise you)... but who came up with the idea of tarmac and why? Was a bloke (you know it was a bloke and not a girl) laying in bed one night when he suddenly thought "I know what could make a huge difference to walking along the road if it was covered in a smooth substance" and immediately run out shouting it out to his neighbours?

It is a well known fact that I'm a fan of The Simpsons. Even if I have had to ban the family from watching the cartoon at least twice in the last few years. The show has it's fans and it's detractors but, what I think a lot of people don't get is that the Simpson family, is actually a pretty good role model for how a family should be, well in the first few seasons anyway, and here are my reasons as to why. Yes, I'm aware that the above picture is a baddie, but he is my favourite character from The Simpsons.

In case you've forgotten, since the last time I mentioned it, I'm the Primary President in my Church Ward (Parish) which means that I get to spend time with the children each week and I can honestly say that I absolutely love each and every one of them. I'm so lucky because I get to speak with them each week and joke with them and learn about their interests and their hopes and fears and just generally absorb their enthusiasm. One of the things that I like to do with the children in the ward is to occasionally send them letters. I do this because who doesn't love getting a letter just for them, I want the children to know that I am thinking of them other than just at weekends when we are together and also I sometimes have a bit of time on my hands. During half term, I decided that each child in our Primary (aged between 2 and 11) deserved something a bit more special this time though and so I set wrote each child a short note on a postcard and then set about de...

We had a big surprise last week, the children discovered that they liked Jerk Chicken. And by like I mean LOVED Jerk Chicken. Well, they loved the version I made and so much so that Dan Jon asked if we could have it again this week, but I thought that might be a bit too much, so I'm trying to think of something that is similar but also different... leave me your suggestions in the comments!

The other day when I was visiting with my Mum, we went to her local supermarket, which is in the town I grew up in. Unsurprisingly walking around this Supermarket means I bump into a lot of people I know. People who taught me, people who babysat me, people I babysat for, people I went to school with... It was a person I went to School with that I spotted in Tesco today. I had a little bit of a crush on this chap when I was younger and my knowledge of the way they hold themselves in public has apparently not faded as even without looking directly at him I knew it was him, just from the way he walked. I say I spotted him, but I think that he actually spotted me first as I only became aware of him after I realised I was being followed (I'm like a spy me. Razor sharp senses) and they were pretty bad at doing it. Maybe it wasn't all in my head when I was younger and he had a crush on me too?! The first thing I thought was; "Do I look alright?"

A few months back on one of my visits with Dan Jon Jr to the Diabetic Team, we went to see the Nutritionist. Now, the nutritionist isn't my favourite part of Dan Jon's care team for many reasons and normally I refuse to go and see her because despite being a lovely person the advice that is given to us is pretty useless. For example, when Dan Jon was first diagnosed we were told to give him carb free snacks of meat and I'm pretty certain that's why his cholesterol level has been raised as it's not like we are sitting here scarfing down foods high in saturated fat everyday. Anyway. For some reason we went to see the nutritionist and she suggested that Dan Jon Jr go on a course for a few weeks, something which would get him to exercise more and was more of a club and it sounded great. And then I forgot all about it.

You know those clickbaity webpages on Facebook, that promise to tell you what you'll be talking about in the next twenty years, or where you are going on holiday, or how many kids you'll have? Yes, the ones that everyone hates but still manages to click on at least one of them at some point during the week. Well, I love them. Even though I know that they aren't really true and that the answers they give are selected from a small pool. From the answers that I have been given, I have created a Youtube playlist of all the songs that various quizzes announce as my song to dance to, to be played at my funeral, is my theme song, is the song I get bow chicka wow wow to... I have quotes in my quote book that are supposedly perfect for me, I have enough holiday ideas to outlive any wanderlust and I'm pretty certain that if I were to have any more children they wouldn't look like a cross between Ryan Gosling and myself! The other week I saw one that I had to find out...

I've been trying to read some lovely new blogs over the last few weeks, and one of the best ways of doing this (that I find) is to read blog posts where the blogger talks about themselves and their families, and their hopes and aspirations... in other words blog posts like the one that is about to follow that Adventures in Websterland  tagged me in recently. So, I need to list ten things that make me happy. I'm pretty certain that you could all guess what I'm going to list, but that's okay it just proves that what I'm going to list are really things that make me happy!

I am SO excited. After Flyfour and I discussed that our Bathroom needed to be revamped we came up with a list of a few other things that needed sorting in our home, or rather that we would like to have sorted in our home to make our house the home we have been dreaming of. It was a bit like dreaming of what you would do if you won the lottery, how you would spend the money. Together we created a list of things both big and small jobs that we wanted to do. Things like...

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints , when you are baptised you make a few promises, I've explained about them before in a talk that I gave at Dan Jon Jr's baptism , but basically you promise to take upon you the name of Christ, you promise to be an example of Christ and you promise to help others, just like Christ did. This third promise, when we help others out, we call it Service and it's this third promise that I wanted to talk a bit about today, but first a sort of story. A couple of weeks ago, Flyfour and I were walking past the grave of Flyfour's maternal grandparents and we noticed that a bush that had been planted atop of the grave was growing a little unruly and it probably needed trimming back a bit. I offered to do it in the upcoming week, as being a stay at home Mum I have more time than Flyfour to do things like this.

I part created this meal plan whilst watching BGT on Thursday and part whilst waiting for the bin men to come on Friday morning because I wanted to get my Green Bins emptied so I could get on with clearing the weeds and crud out of my garden. With all the works that are going to be going on soon (hang on have I told you about that?) I  wanted to make a difference myself and the only place I could really do that, was the garden! So, with that all in mind here is this weeks meal plan!

Dan Jon Jr doesn't often go to the theatre and if he does, it tends to be to productions produced for children or shows like the Panto designed for families, and he loves them! He loves it, because like Top Ender he is actually a mini version of Flyfour and me, who as you know both love the theatre. As Dan Jon says; "It's the Theatre, what's not to love!" So, when I was offered tickets to go and see Billy Elliot at the Milton Keynes Theatre and saw it had an age guidance of 8+, I asked if he would like to go with Flyfour or me to see the show. Guessing that I was probably the one who would let him eat more Ice-Cream and sweets than his Daddy, he picked to accompany me, which is why my phone is was filled with gifs like this; The boy could gurn for England. Now, Dan Jon hasn't seen the film, Billy Elliot, and other than a brief synopsis from me (It's about a boy that is told he can't dance, because dance is for girls and it's set in the ...

Recently I was sent a new book written by Benjamin Ludwig to read and of course review. It's a story about a fourteen-year-old girl who has been adopted, who has been sent back into the foster care system, adopted, returned, adopted... you get the picture. By the time we join Ginny, she is in her fourth forever home and things are, well things are possibly not going as well as Ginny or her new adoptive family would hope.  Oh and Ginny is Autistic. Yes, it is an important feature of the book but I wouldn't say it is the defining feature of Ginny.