A Mother's Ramblings

I started thinking about my word of the year unusually (for me) early this year, I think it's because I had a newish focus when I re-entered the workforce in September (with my new job as a Senior School Receptionist, it's going very well thank you very much) and was ready to think about the challenges that were coming my way for 2020. It wasn't hard to know what I wanted to focus on next year.

Recently, as a family, we had to make a hard choice and take our cat Moses to the vet to be put down. We knew that we were doing the right thing, as Moses was so ill and it was cruel to make him keep struggling each day, but it was still a hard choice because Moses was our baby. We'd had him almost since we were first married, he'd been with us for two house moves, for two babies and almost all of their growing up, for celebrations, new jobs, Christmases and birthdays. Moses was seriously a great cat, he was the only cat I've known that enjoyed laying on his back, with his arms crossed as if he was playing dead. He loved to sit on your lap and be stroked, actually, he just loved to be stroked no matter where he was, but only Flyfour could get away with cradling him like a baby.

We're almost at the end of 2019 and the start of 2020, to be honest, I can't quite believe it because at some points in this last year, I'm sure some months have lasted at least ten years and some months have only lasted a few hours. Still, it's fine because this coming year will be the same!

I'm not very good at being ill. I'm impatient and I'm not very good at resting even when it does mean all I'm supposed to do is sit there and watch TV or read or have a sneaky snooze. I don't like taking medication, even when it's important or a quicker way to recovery. Sure, I can talk the talk and insist on the children taking their medication (actually Top Ender's ASD is great for this because routine is key and Dan Jon wears his medication, so has no choice but to take his at the right times!), but when it comes to me? Well, I'd rather not take the medication, especially not with any regularity. A couple of weeks back I was feeling a little off, so I did what all normal people do. I complained a little (Seriously it was a little!) to my co-workers on a Friday afternoon.

For me and my family, each December is a chance for us to focus on Christ. We try to do a small thing each day as acts of service, we try to spread cheer and love and we think about how we can keep the spirit of Christmas in our hearts every day of the year! We, mix this in with other traditions too, singing Christmas Carols and other Christmas songs, avoiding hearing Last Christmas, decorating our home and biscuits, work meals out, Secret Santa participation, putting our shoes out for Sinterklaas, sending Christmas cards, Elf on the Shelf, waiting for Santa, Christmas Concerts, reading our favourite Christmas stories, watching our favourite Christmas films and buying presents for our family and friends. One thing I'd never thought about before a friend shared a tradition she and her family do, was getting a gift for the saviour. I realised that Jesus should be the first gift that I think about, it's his birthday that we're celebrating, it's him who I profess to fol...

There is nothing as British as going to the Theatre to watch a Panto. The mixture of risque humour, slapstick comedy, songs, terrible Dad jokes, cross-dressing, dance numbers and audience participation is really as British as it gets and getting to go each year after being invited by Milton Keynes Theatre is a tradition that the A Mother's Ramblings family love!

It's funny, each week that passes, the closer we come to the end of the year and for our family, " the meal " (I mean Christmas Dinner of course!) I seem to be finding it easier to plan what we're going to eat each evening, and yes that does mean we're sticking to the same old favourites and eating a tonne of Pasta because for one Pasta is the best food in the world, second, it's quick to make and three it's cheap! Anyway, here is what we are eating this week.

Apologies for the lack of posts recently! I've been so busy with work and trying to be a good Mum and wife that I've not had time to blog, which is a shame because I like blogging and I have a lot to tell everyone! Anyway, a quick and easy post to start with...

It was time for Dan Jon, Top Ender and I to have our two yearly eye test, and for some unknown reason I couldn't book all three of us together, so I had to book appointments on different days and at times that were suitable for us all! Mine was first and so after having dropped Flyfour off to at the airport one Saturday morning, I made my way to my local Opticians for my appointment. As they did my eye scans, I warned the person that my eyes aren't "normal" and that he shouldn't freak out or let the Optician freak out because it was something that the hospital had investigated after my last eye appointment and the one before that and all was well, and I didn't really want to have to go back to the hospital again if there were no changes!

I'm so excited! A month of sandwiches, although we don't have to have a different one every night like with the Salads back in February, so I might just end up repeating a few of the sandwiches as the children tell me what they like the most/what we seem to have in the house because for some reason despite me always buying all the things we need there is always something we are lacking by the end of the week thanks to some overzealous portion sizes, or more likely  snacking from the family between meals! I'll make sure that I have a lot of good snacks available in the house, fresh fruit, cut veggies, cold cuts, bits of cheese, crisps and salad for Dan Jon and I... hopefully, this will mean we won't go hungry but that we will all eat healthy snacks if we are hungry!

Flyfour, the children and I were having a family chat, about nothing in particular just some family fun and during a long car journey, when we started a conversation about our diet. We all talked a little about how we could reduce our monthly shopping bill, our monthly cost for school lunches or food when we aren't at home, be more mindful about what we were eating when we weren't at home and doing a couple of little things that we hoped would be better for our health. Little things like eating less meat and processed foods, eating more fish and vegetables and of course a lot more exercise!

My favourite radio station, (Encore Radio) would often play songs from Musicals that I didn't know, but very quickly grew to love. One of the songs that I would often sing, along with Flyfour, was The History of Wrong Guys from Kinky Boots The Musical, and so when I was offered press tickets by Milton Keynes Theatre to see the musical, I knew that I had to take Flyfour so we could sing along and yell out "He's got a girlfriend you knob!". However, we almost didn't go thanks to Flyfour having to work and me being ill... I have never willed myself well so fast before! Tops was most grateful for Flyfour's ticket, and thanked me by wearing my boots to the show. I didn't mind though, because she was rocking them and she really did look after me the last couple of days whilst I've been so poorly.

My family and I aren't normal. We like that we are different from the norm, that we're more like The Addams family than the people that live on our street and we were going to celebrate this and hang out together during the half term by going to the cinema to see the new animated Addams Family film (see the trailer here ), coming home via the supermarket (I had a voucher to buy some bits from a lovely PR company) and making a few snacks together to share together and with some of our neighbours whom we haven't seen for a while. And then I got sick. The children were fantastic, looking after me whilst I dozed, giving me bottles of water and coming to chat to me and check I was okay every so often. They made lunch and supper together and after one trip downstairs to make sure they were okay in the early evening, I realised that they had even had some fun without me. Whilst I'd been dozing Top Ender and Dan Jon had gone to a local supermarket and purchased the f...

It's half term! Whoop whoop! I'm very excited because there is a lot to celebrate, there is a lot to rest from and there is a lot to use this half term as a base to launch new plans from.... yup we have new plans for the family, for our home and for our education and work lives! Of course, on top of all of this, we are also going to be eating our favourite foods, spending plenty of time together and enjoying some free time. It's going to be so busy, but so great.

When Flyfour, the children and I were away I kept giggling when I was walking through a doorway in our hotel. It wasn't until the last walk through the doorway that I told the rest of the family as to why. Yup, it was because of that face up there. I see faces all the time, in fact, humans see faces in things all the time. It's called pareidolia apparently and so I thought I'd share it with you, as he was such a friendly little chap!

Sorry, but also I'm not sorry that this post is going to come across as a little braggy, but then again if you had a child a fab as Dan Jon, (and that's not just me saying that), then I'm sure you'd want to brag a little (well a lot) too. We had a combined parents evening/meet your child's tutor last week for Dan Jon. It was something that they do for all year seven children and parents, towards the end of the first half term to see how the new year sevens are settling in and to help them focus a little more on things that are important. It was great to meet with Dan Jon's tutor, I mean Flyfour knew him from when he was a student at the school, I knew him from when I was a governor at the school and of course from my current job working at the school, but this was different. This was Flyfour and I meeting him as parents.

Last week, I was in the sort of mood where everything looked tasty, I didn't know it but my cycle was at the point where my hunger was up but thanks to my self-control I wasn't about to eat everything as I wanted! I went downstairs to see if there was anything that I could eat in the kitchen, that was healthy (there wasn't) or maybe persuade Flyfour that what he really wanted to do was make us some of the gluten-free mini pizzas that he often makes the children for lunch at the weekend. As I'd gone downstairs and I saw a leaflet for a local pizza company sticking out the letterbox and exclaimed to Flyfour how I really fancied pizza now that I had seen the advert and then as I was looking at the advert a bit further saw there were chicken wings on sale too and decided that I fancied those too. Of course, I wasn't going to buy them and as Flyfour said that he wasn't hungry, I gave up on the idea of Pizza, got a glass of water complained to Flyfour that I was a...

When Dan Jon was first starting at his senior school, there was an assembly for his house, where they explained about a few different opportunities available to the students, including being Sports Captains and House Captains and the process of how the students should apply to be considered. Dan Jon was rather taken with the idea of becoming a House Captain and so wrote a letter to the Head and Assistant Head of House to support his application for becoming a year seven House Captain. I didn't actually know he had done this, until after his application had been given to the Head of House, so I had no input into what he wrote and really, I have no clue what his letter said other than what Dan Jon half-remembered later.

Do you remember that about a month ago I was banned from giving blood due to my low iron count? Well, this is the update you may have been waiting for if you wanted to know what was going on. So. The day after I was banned from giving blood, I phoned my Doctor's surgery and arranged to have a telephone consultation as there is a rule that you can't book a blood test without having spoken to a doctor first, which makes sense, but also means I had to wait longer to book in the blood test and I wanted to give blood, so I needed to know as quickly as possible that this was a mistake and all was well!

It was the Primary Presentation in our ward today, which apart from meaning I got to sit next to my husband for an hour and together we got to watch our son sitting on the stand and giving his talk, also means that I got to listen to some of my favourite people in the ward give their two cents about whatever subject they had been given to talk about. It was a little emotional for me because this was the last time I will have an actual child of mine in the presentation, there are still several young people in the ward who feel like they are my children because I have known them all of their lives and I love them unconditionally, but this was sort of the last official primary thing at Church that Dan Jon will do before he is a member of the youth programme and means that he is growing up and growing up fast!

Oh my goodness! Do you know how good it is to write a blog post? I have honestly been sitting at home at times this last week, with my fingers over the keyboard and the words just wouldn't come out. Normally they come out at a million miles an hour and I can't quite keep up, but this has helped me to actually write and I'm hoping that now my other blog posts will come out! Keep an eye out this week!

It is World Diabetes Day today, so I thought I'd speak a little bit about my Type 1 Superhero because as we all know Dan Jon is a superhero of epic proportions! Dan Jon is seriously the most wonderful child I know. I mean really, he is. Dan Jon comes to see me every day after school and gives me a kiss goodbye (he initiates it!) no matter who is in the reception (there are normally a few students waiting for their parents). He sends me little text messages saying "Hi" or asking what I'm up to, or if I'm okay and cute little gifs.

I'm running out of food ideas again and asking the family is useless! They just say things like "I don't know" or "whatever you pick is fine!" and that means that I get to pick all the food that I want to eat, even if it means that the rest of the family don't particularly like what it is that I've picked! Still, I'm happy and as I keep telling the children and Flyfour, if Mum is happy then they'll be happy!

There are many things that I can do whilst doing something else. Use my phone and pee, tell the children to clean up whilst hiding a cookie that I'm eating, watch TV and knit (although I can't follow a pattern at the same time), make dinner and load the dishwasher, answer the phone at work whilst also spinning on my spinny chair... you know normal things. Then there are other normal things, at least I think they are normal.

One thing that Dan Jon has been excited about when going to Senior School, is taking part in weekly cooking lessons. Whilst he loves cooking and frequently does with me or his Dad, he is getting to the point where just helping isn't enough, and he wants to be making things on his own. Of course, with having Food Tech lessons, it is all down to him. The first dish he made, was Fruit Salad, which is why all weekend we have all been singing the classic Wiggles tune "Fruit Salad".

For what seems like years now, I've been looking to buy a piano. It needed to be quite good quality, it needed to sound nice and it needed to be in a price range that we could afford. It honestly felt like it was never going to happen and so I'd sort of given up a little when my sister sent me a message. Due to a few circumstances changing for her and her family (all good stuff!) they were needing to pass on their piano and if we wanted it, it was ours. WE WANTED IT!

When I was at University, I read this great thing that Jewish people used to do to try to "prove" that someone was Jewish and also to make someone feel more at ease, knowing that they were in a community that held the same values. They'd ask them about where they were from, and because the community was close, would then ask about someone who lived near there that they knew. If they knew them, then they were really Jewish, if they didn't then they may be pretending and not Jewish. As I was tweeting about General Conference last night (well actually really early this morning), I realised that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do something similar.

Another week over, by this rate it'll be Christmas before we know it and thinking on it I'm actually really excited by that thought! We were teasing the Principal at work this last week, about how I'm going to be celebrating Christmas from December 1st as he believes it should be celebrated between December 24th and 26th... Maybe I'll start this week! Right, what are we eating this week?

Twenty years ago today, Milton Keynes Theatre opened and I am so thankful that it exists. Not because of the press tickets I get, but because of what I've come to realise about myself and about you. Okay, I also love the press tickets. When it was first being built, we talked about it in my Theatre Studies group, about how we could get jobs there if we were lucky, how we could work backstage, or in the sound booth or maybe we could work on the lighting, or even work front of house. Dreams. They are the fuel of our lives.

This blog post is about some great Harry Potter stuff, that I was gifted. Many years ago, my Mum accidentally introduced me to Harry Potter. My Mum, a childminder, asked me to wrap a gift for one of the children whose birthday it was. Instead of wrapping it straight away, I accidentally read the book and got it wrapped in time for the family to take home. I was hooked and purchased all the books and films as they were released. I read the books to both the children whilst they were in the womb, small babies, small children and have even managed to force   encourage them to read the books themselves, once they were old enough to read and of course,  they both watch the films with me on repeat, because who doesn't love a bit of a Harry Potter Marathon, when the weather is a bit gloomy?! Which is why when Paladone asked if I would like some Harry Potter bits and pieces I was all over it and quickly picked some items with the £30 that Paladone had gifted me.

There is something brilliant about being a Brown Owl, that I can't quite explain, because I'm not sure what it is. It isn't the fact that I'm adored by 30 small children, although to be fair that is a huge draw. It isn't that I get to do fun things, again huge draw. It isn't even that I'm allowed to do things, like light a fire. I mean come on, FIRE! It isn't that I get to spend time with Top Ender and a few women, two of whom have become very close friends. I think, that it's that I'm proud. I'm proud when I with these girls and they achieve something that they thought they couldn't. I'm proud when they are given compliments for their excellent behaviour. I'm proud when they trust me with very important information such as which boy is cute or which teacher is funny. I'm proud because I can see how these wonderful young girls are growing up into amazing young women and I know that the world is going to ...

Milton Keynes Theatre is nearly 20 years old, and you can read more about this later in the week (I know, it means nothing to you, but trust me you'll love how I make it relevant!) but this post is all about Top Ender and I going to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert, after Milton Keynes Theatre were kind enough to give us two tickets and make Top Ender's night by saying if she wants them, she can have some posters from the foyer for an upcoming show that we are going to see (Six, it's going to be brilliant!). which happened just as I took this picture, hence the slightly crazed look on her face!

I think a lot of people need to hear this today, it's a grey old day as my Nan used to say and I think that everyone is just thinking about the next job they have to do, the next person they want to help, the next change they need to make to help this world survive.  Take care of yourself, let yourself glow and then you can help the world by shining your light around.

Today is mine and Flyfour's 18th Wedding Anniversary. I can honestly say that meeting Flyfour and managing to somehow be charming enough that he fell in love with me was the best thing I've ever done in my life. Genuinely, whilst there wasn't any real trickery involved, I am so happy that Flyfour and I managed out of the billions of people on Earth to meet each other, to realise that we loved each other and on top of all that and that we then managed to work out we both wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, well actually not just all our lives, but all of eternity together*.

It's nearly the end of September, which is amazing because that means I've almost had a job for a month, I'm about to celebrate mine and Flyfour's 18th wedding anniversary and it's nearly Halloween. I mean come on, it's fab right?! Time is flying and I'm totally okay with that.

This coming weekend is mine and Flyfour's 18th Wedding Anniversary. We are planning on being up north for our anniversary again, and then possibly at a Fireside if we return home early enough so Flyfour and I won't have a chance to sit together and just enjoy each other's company. Well apart from the very long car journey back to Milton Keynes, but that doesn't count as the children will be in the car too! We decided because of the lack of time we'd have alone together, we'd spend some time together one night the week before our anniversary and share a bottle of Noughty, an organic, vegan, alcohol-free sparkling wine that I'd been sent to review.

I was told off at work this week. It wasn't a real telling off, but one of the visitors to the school told me I was too happy, upbeat and positive to be a receptionist in a school and that they'd never met a receptionist quite like me. Another visitor to the school overheard and agreed and then a discussion over my demeanour between the two took place. I took this not real telling off as a compliment because I like to be happy and so purposely smile and act upbeat so that every interaction I have with Staff, Pupils and Visitors is positive. It's working, I know several of the parents (so really only the ones who come in regularly, or who were parents at my local primary school too) and I know a lot of the students... I mean a lot. I've got a little "gang" who come to tell me what they've been up to and how many house points they've achieved. I've mostly managed to memorise the entire staff's names and faces (this is a large senior sc...

I first saw the stage version of 9 to 5 The Musical, six years ago and fell in love with it, so when Milton Keynes Theatre offered me a ticket to go and see the latest touring version of the show, I was very much in favour of attending! Again, it was a fabulous show from start to finish and I'm so glad that I got to see Brian Conley as Franklin Hart Jnr, as he played it so brilliantly it has to be seen to be appreciated. Then again that little crush I have on Brian Conley probably also has something to do with it.

I don't know if this happens all over the country, I assume it does, but around here it seems every weeknight there is a knock at the front door and standing there looking expectant is a Charity Cold Caller. You know who I mean right? A young person who is paid to knock door to door to get people to sign up to give a monthly donation via direct debit to the Charity they are working for. Actually, that's not true I assume they aren't paid directly by the charity, but a company paying minimum wage or maybe even no wages at all and they are paid on commission of the people who sign up. I don't know. The point is, we get them a lot and I try hard to be nice to them, but we have our chosen charities and I'm not able to support all of the ones who knock on my front door and the scripts they have work at making you feel guilty about not supporting them, so I kinda hate them.

Since having the garden done two years ago, we have loved spending time in our garden. We have loved sitting on the deck, we have loved eating on the Patio and to be honest, I've loved having my three little raised beds outside my kitchen window, even if they aren't always fully weeded or devoid of cat poop... It was all that we wanted, but as we lived with it, we realised that we had further dreams for our garden, to make it great for how we use it, how we wanted to use it and more importantly how to help us to keep it neat and tidy.

Every month, the Young Women in our ward have a discussion with each other and us leaders based around a talk from our most recent General Conference session. I've talked about what General Conference is before, and even included a video that gives a sort of taste of what happens at Conference and honestly I can't tell you enough about how much it means to me and just how much I get from the talks and from listening to the Spirit whilst I'm listening to the talks. It's a really spiritual thing and honestly, I think if you'd watch you'd get it and want to know more, so I'll remember to invite you to join me the first weekend of October! Last month, I was leading the discussion with the Young Women, and I picked a talk which to be honest the girls had mostly overlooked, as it was the closing remarks of our Prophet and from what the young women had said, they thought this was just where he said it was a great conference and talked about the new Temp...

I'm really excited for this week to be over! Well, that's not quite true, I'm just really excited because next weekend is my anniversary and we're going away and I'm excited for that and because it's nearly Halloween and Bonfire Night and CHRISTMAS! Anyway, my anniversary first.

Our local Tesco store has been doing some refurbishment works over the last few weeks in their car park. We don't actually go to Tesco that much so we didn't really know about it until one day when I stopped off to get a key cut and saw they were taking away the trees between spaces. Normally, I'd be very unhappy about them taking trees out, but these trees were slowly being murdered by being in the car park, with not enough space to grow properly and fairly often being hit by drivers who should be looking a lot more carefully where they are driving!

Every so often, there is a need to go shopping in the middle of the night. It might be that Dan Jon and I have decided we need a snack when Top Ender and Flyforu are away. It might be that Flyfour has a sudden urge to make something and so runs off to buy whatever ingredients he needs. It might be that Top Ender remembers the night before her English lesson that she is supposed to be taking in biscuits for her class to share. It might be that we've run out of something we need for the morning or something important, like cat food, or really important like chocolate.

I went to give blood last week. It's something that I've been doing since going to University and is actually really important to me and has been since I started giving blood for two, well three reasons. The first is, as many of you know I have a blood phobia, to the point where I often pass out if I see blood. Giving blood is my way of not letting that control me, and yes I may close my eyes and distract myself every time and have to warn the lovely team that help take my blood, but it's my way of having control over my phobia.

A friend of mine is Swedish and recently, she posted on Facebook that it was her name day. I had no clue what this was, so decided to look it up, so that when I wished her a happy "name day", I'd know exactly what it was I was wishing her. My very basic level research (aka I googled it) told me that in Sweden, all but six days are allocated names, on which people who have this name (or similar) are able to celebrate. They had originated as with most things with the Catholic Church and their Saints days. Sweden changed some of their name days in the 18th Century to add some popular names and ones that didn't have religious links and then the Swedish church encouraged people to celebrate name days because they thought birthday celebrations were a bit too pagan.  I'm a bit of a magpie when it comes to traditions, picking ones that I think look fun to adopt for my family and so I was eager to find out if my families names were on the list.

Walking into School on Friday the 13th, I was ready for something bad to happen. Not because of the date you understand, but because it was the end of my first two weeks at work and almost everything had gone smoothly and I was, dare I say it, happy and so of course, I was ready for a bad thing to happen to end this happy streak. I mean, that's not normal is it? Being happy at work. The children had got a lift with me to School, and as we parked in the Staff carpark, two teachers were parking up at the same time. In the last couple of weeks, I've got used to the teaching staff looking at me with a bit of suspicion, when parking with students in the staff car park. Yet, one of the teachers recognised Top Ender and called out Good Morning to her, which meant the other teacher looked at us and recognised Dan Jon.

During Mutual a few months ago, one of the boys, threw a ball to me. Actually, that isn't quite true, he didn't throw it to me, he threw it at me, by lobbing it in the direction of my head. The expectation was clear, he was acting the fool and was hoping to amuse his fellow Young Men, and maybe impress a few of the Young Women at my expense. Knowing this young man as well as I do, I could tell that he had envisioned the ball sailing over my head or perhaps even better in his mind, hitting me in the head and for my embarrassment or shock to add to his comedic timing of having thrown the ball whilst I was getting everyone's attention and asking all to settle down. He isn't a bad kid. He made a decision in the heat of a moment and it was the wrong one. His plan to humiliate me failed, because of one tiny detail that he forgot to factor into his plan, mainly because he didn't know me as well as he thought he did. He didn't know that I used to play Netball and ...

Is it just me or has this week flown by? Don't get me wrong, I am 100% fine with the year flying by, but could we all possibly have just one week where we can all catch our collective breath and have a Hot Chocolate before we start the next chore/event/moment etc?! Yeah, didn't think the world was going to stop just for me.