A Mother's Ramblings

I can't believe it is already the end of the month and we have completed our challenge of Cereal for a month. The good news is that it was WAY more successful than the month of Salads last year and the bad news is that Top Ender has reacted well to not having dairy products over the last month and so we are now a gluten-free and dairy-free family. Well, I guess that isn't really bad news... it's just another thing we're going to get used to!

Traditionally, Lent is a time where Christians give up something for six weeks in the run-up to Easter, although I know a few people who also use this time to fast rather than giving up just one favourite food or treat. Lent starts on Ash Wednesday (tomorrow) and concludes on Easter Sunday and is a period of 40 days of fasting and six Sabbath days. It depends on who you talk to about what the Sabbath days mean. Some of my friends say they are "mini" Easters as each Sabbath is a chance to think about the resurrection of Jesus, others say they are a day you can relax the abstinence and others say it is a day to abstain further! However it is followed, Lent helps Christians to focus their hearts and minds to the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us by dying for our sins and then his glorious resurrection, which means that we too will be resurrected and be able to return to our Father in Heaven.

A few days before we were due to go away, we found out that there were revision sessions planned for Top Ender during the half term and we weren't going to be here for her to go to them. Flyfour and I were gutted. We had wanted to do everything right for Top Ender with regards to her exams and her revision knowing where we failed when we were her age (we didn't fail our exams, Flyfour did well and I did okay, but we both could have done better if we had revised a little more and I always use this as an example to the children) and wanting her to do better than us, mainly because she is way smarter than us and also because it's only natural that you'd want your children to do better than you right?!

It's almost the end of February, so there isn't long until we stop eating Cereal every night. I think that we'll keep it up one night a week though (probably Wednesdays when I'm not around and so Dan Jon can easily make something to eat for himself) and of course, Flyfour and I may keep it up on other evenings when we're just not in the mood to actually properly take care of ourselves by cooking a meal.

One of the great things about keeping this blog is that I get to remember things that we did as a family or things that were so important to us as a family but we may forget (or misremember in the case of what happened when we got Swine Flu back in the October of 2009) however, last summer we went on a Family Holiday and took a visit to the Eden Project and I've been a very bad girl and not recorded it. Which is a shame, because whilst we were visiting back in July 2019 we realised we loved it so much that we wanted to go back and visit again, which we did this past February half term.

One of the main topics of conversation at work each day seems to be, what are you having for your evening meal tonight? To which at the moment I just reply cereal and I feel the other people in the conversation biting their tongue to stop themselves from saying "Again?" or "Is it still February?!" although one friend has been suggesting some rather lovely cereal ideas! Flyfour and I are still happy with the arrangement, but the children are not. Top Ender is demanding we feed her some good food, "You know, like Noodles!" which I have to agree, Noodles are blinking excellent and I'm rather fab at making them. Maybe next year the challenge will be a month of noodles... Anyway, here's what we're eating this weekend!

This last week of cereal for our evening meal has been eyeopening, to say the least. Flyfour has claimed he has more energy, I say I've fixed my internal "full or not" level thingy (a couple of times this week I have genuenly not wanted to eat in the evening as I was too full), Top Ender is quite happy with her "not milk", milk and Dan Jon wants to know if February is over yet, because he is already bored and wants a "proper meal". Dan Jon is therefore incredibly glad that it is already the weekend.

Well, if you read my post yesterday, you'd know that there is pretty much nothing happening on the meal plan this week, as I'm just ensuring I'm buying a lot of milk to go with the cereal we'll be eating each night! The only exception will be Saturday and Sunday, where we will eat a meal together and so we may eat cereal at lunchtime instead of in the evening. Who knows, maybe we'll be doing this every night from now on... Yeah, probably not!