A Mother's Ramblings

Just so you all know, I wrote this incredibly quickly last Sunday, just before I started my Social Media Fast. Why? Well, funny enough Blogs are considered Social Media because of the community that builds up. Now, I know that writing a blog post wouldn't be breaking the rules, but I wanted to ensure I wasn't tempted! Anyway, here is what we are eating this coming week and please forgive any mistakes you spot, I had five minutes to write this, because I only just remembered!

For some time I have been planning a trip to Kensal Green Cemetery in North West London, for the family, admittedly not a "normal" family outing, but have you met my family? When running an hour early for a meeting last week and found myself practically on the doorstep of Kensal Green Cemetery, I managed to take some time to take a look. A pre-visit if you will! This cemetery is the largest, in terms of size if not in numbers of burials, of London's 19th Century "Magnificent 7" cemeteries . It was also the first, opening from 1833 to alleviate overcrowding in existing parish burial grounds. Over 250,000 people are buried here in this 72-acre site, and it is still open for some burials and interments today. Now, the thought of being fascinated by the opportunity to visit a cemetery may be rather unusual to some readers, but this is a very special site for a number of reasons.

Another week, another set of lunches almost identical to the week before! This is the last of the "freezer" sandwiches so next week will be a whole new range of ideas, like the Sunshine Yellow Summer Solstice Lunch Box Idea!

I was so out of sorts yesterday that despite working out what we were going to eat for the week, I didn't properly write it down or even go shopping to buy the food... So this morning I'm doing those jobs as well as preparing for a slightly impromptu hang out session that Dan Jon has organised at our house for his friends later today. With all that in mind, here's what we're eating this week.

Top Ender has been volunteering with a local Rainbows and Brownies group as a young leader for over a year now and I have to say it has been amazing seeing how confident she is, how great she is with the small ones (and not so small ones) and how much the Leaders properly trust and love her. Recently, a trip was organised (on two successive nights) for the Rainbows and Brownies to visit Pets at Home, where they would learn about Animals, get some hands-on experience and of course the all-important, finish off some work that would qualify them for a badge.

Once a year Dan Jon has an annual blood test done at our local hospital. It's to do with his Diabetes and is just to check that he hasn't developed any other auto-immune diseases and I'm sure other stuff that I've forgotten since we were first told we needed to attend these appointments each year. Our most recent appointment was scheduled for 4pm on a Thursday afternoon, a couple of weeks ago. Now; If you have been reading my blog posts over the last few weeks, you will have seen that Flyfour's car was off the road for a few days when he ran over some metal in the road and it caused a massive rip in his tyre. In order to go to work, you know so we could pay the bills to buy a new tyre, Flyfour needed to take my car to work. Not a problem, but when you suddenly realise that you are responsible for a tiny human who has an appointment at the hospital that afternoon, you have to go on an Adventure.

I did think that the Packed lunches were going to kill me, but the weekend before we started having lunches again, I made up a months worth of Sandwich Sushi and Wraps, so that I can easily pull them out of the freezer of a morning and have lunch ready in just a few seconds. The other benefit of this, is that I only have to think of two lunches a week and this week one of those lunches makes a batch, so we'll be good next week for lunches on three days, leaving me to just think up one new lunch and then I'll come up with even more ideas for July.

I actually cheated and made this meal plan when I made last weeks meal plan. I did it because I was trying to be smart and reduce the amount of time I spend meal planning and because I was planning on my friend having her baby this weekend... it didn't work! The baby came early, and even though all the meals this week (During Monday to Friday) are able to be made by Top Ender in case I was not here and looking after my friend or her daughter I've decided that this week I'll just sit back and relax and let Top Ender take the strain this week whilst I drink all the fruit tea I want!

As is usual in our household, there are times when we work together like a finely oiled machine. There are other times, when, well, when we don't. One Tuesday evening as I was taking Top Ender to her Youth group, Flyfour gave me a call and let me know that he had a flat tyre, well actually it was a ripped tyre not a flat tyre and he was going to be late home. He didn't have a spare tyre and so was waiting for a Recovery Truck to come to rescue him. The worse news for him was he was just over a five-minute drive from home.

Twice within four hours, isn't a coincidence is it? Twice within four hours, is someone telling you something that you need to possibly take a second look at. A few months back, two people told me that I do too much and as it was within a four hour period, and it made me think. Was I doing too much? In fact, now that I thought about it, over the last few weeks before the two people infour hours there had been three or four comments made by different people about how much I do and if I do too much.

A few months back, (I just checked it was October 2016 that I last did it, so more than a few months ago!) I provided both Top Ender and Dan Jon with a packed lunch every day. I loved doing it for them, working out the number of carbs in a meal for Dan Jon, ensuring that they both got the different sandwiches or other carb based foods that they liked and you know sneaking in the occasional treat. When Dan Jon swapped to Hot Lunches at School I was so upset, but it was his choice and I'm a firm believer in letting the children have responsibility for themselves! I did suggest to the children, however, that for the last part of the term they swap back to packed lunches so that they could make the most of the weather. At Dan Jon's Primary School, the children can eat their packed lunch on the School field during nice periods of weather and well, it was also a bit cheaper! Last week, was the first week and I bulk made a few lunches for the freezer for them and purchased a fe...

Sometimes I think I'm going a little bit crazy because I write a blogpost and swear that I've had it published, but I look over my published posts and it is missing. Which is what happened when a friend recently asked for a copy of my Candy Floss talk that I gave what seems like ages ago and I couldn't find this here post! Apparently, typing the title of the talk was enough for me, well until now! I based this talk on the object lesson Meck Mom talked about in her video back in 2016 and have it here in case you want to give something similar at a Baptism you are asked to speak at.

Every week when I think about what we are eating the next week, what plans we have for various clubs and activities etc I am always shocked at how soon each week is coming round. I'm not sure if it is because we are busy, because we are happy or because of the speeding up of time but whatever the reason here is my meal plan for the coming week and you can imagine me with a shocked face!

When we started doing the Holiday's in a day, the idea was that other than for Flyfour and I, it would be a surprise, where we were going and what we were doing. The children loved this and were happy for the surprises as long as they knew that we would follow a certain routine (Activity 1, Lunch, Activity 2, Activity 3, Supper) so they would know what to expect, without knowing what exactly we were doing. Then of course came the idea, that they wanted to plan something. We managed to get them to agree to plan a trip with one adult, so Top Ender picked Flyfour and Dan Jon got left with me to help organise a Holiday in a day trip. Dan Jon and I got to go first and we decided our trip would be in June and so quickly started planning together. Dan Jon wanted to do a sort of treasure hunt, which luckily doubled up with something I had been thinking of doing and so, everything came together quite quickly.

As with most of the children in the world right now, Dan Jon loves playing on his computer with his friends. Some of them live on the other side of the world, some of them used to live locally and have since moved away, some are the children of other bloggers whom he has met at blogging events we've been to and some, well some are children he sees almost every day at School! One Saturday afternoon, Dan Jon was playing online with a friend who lives about a ten-minute walk away and they were having a great giggle together. I had been out for most of the day, and popped in to check the family was all still alive before popping back out again to take my Mum home and do a quick top up shop of everything I had forgotten the day before (mainly salad, for some reason I forgot to buy any salad and it was on my list like four times!).

There are lots of reasons I love my husband, I listed some of them just the other week when I told you all that I was a Lucky Lady , but there is another reason. It's because sometimes, Flyfour finds things which are just AMAZING and perfect for our family. Dan Jon's birthday was one of those times.

So the meal plan this week has the children back on Packed lunches, with the exception of Top Ender having a Curry on a Tuesday and Dan Jon having Fish and Chips on a Friday. I can't say I'm unhappy about this, I love making packed lunches for the children!

I grew up in Leighton-Linslade. I know the High Street as well as I know, well as well as I know anywhere I guess and so when I heard about the Children's trail , I knew that eventually, we'd get round to doing it, I just didn't know it would take so long! The plan was that Top Ender and Dan Jon would follow the map to work out where each clue was and that Flyfour and I would just be the back up as we went quite late on a Saturday night and the pubs were full of people. The route starts at the Leighton Buzzard library and finishes...well just up the road from the Leighton Buzzard Library, which is handy when you park at the Library end of town.