A Mother's Ramblings

Top Ender is home! Actually, I'm not sure why I'm so happy about that. I mean obviously, I love them and I love that they are back for the summer, but it also means that the meals we eat become less... Tops knows what they like and what they don't shall we say! Plus, with Tops home, there are suddenly no leftovers, so my lunch becomes more complicated (can't just take a box of leftovers with me) and our food bill goes UP as like me she loves things like Sushi and I can't say no when she asks if I want to go with her! Still, TOP ENDER IS HOME! So. Here's what we are eating this week.

I recently shared on Facebook a huge secret that I'd been hiding, because I knew that people were going to be shocked and I was honestly a little... well a big bit annoyed that evening. You see, about a month before my birthday I suddenly decided that I wanted a party. It was my 45th birthday and I wanted to make it special for some reason. I had thought that what I would do was hire my local cinema and invite all my friends and family to come watch a favourite film with me. I thought it would be fun, I'd get everyone to dress up as a character from one of my favourite films and it would use be good clean fun. Only, my birthday was a couple of weeks before Eurovision, and in order for Top Ender to be part of the celebration, she'd need to drive down from Hull, spend some time with us and then drive back to Hull for a week, before driving down from Hull to spend some time with us whilst watching Eurovision, before driving back to Hull and then a week later driving back down ...

If you know me well, then you know that you can't tell me anything. I don't mean, that you can't tell me secrets (once they are in my head they are locked solid), I mean that I need time to process, ruminate and come to my own conclusion before accepting facts about me that are very obvious to you. For example, did you know I'm stubborn? How about that I'm neurotic? What about Impatient? Yeah, it all came as news to me.

Seriously what does it mean to sustain my Church leaders? Especially when, if you are like me, you're a little... well shall we say irreverent?!  I've found myself pondering this question over the last few weeks, and I know that even the greatest Church minds have had a thought or three on the subject too. What does it truly mean to sustain our Church leaders? As someone who has worn many hats within our congregation – from Primary Teacher extraordinaire to Relief Society stalwart– I've had my fair share of encounters with the concept of sustaining. But recently, I found myself in a rather humbling predicament that brought this question to the forefront of my mind, and I promise this picture of a sausage sandwich... well bap will make sense eventually!

OH MY GOSH! Do you know how good it feels to write a meal plan for a blog again? The answer is blooming amazing. At the moment it's just Dan Jon, myself and Flyfour at home as Top Ender is at University. Tops will be back in the next couple of weeks (actually they are back this weekend, but that's because it's my birthday party) and this means that Flyfour and I will need to start thinking of more meals to prepare for our family that fit in with everyone's preferences, dietary needs, our budget and time constraints! However until then...

Recently we hired a cleaner. It's something that I have wanted to do for the last few years for several reasons, the first being that I hate cleaning. No, seriously I mean I really hate it. When I was younger my sister and I, along with my Mum would clean our home from top to bottom, we'd wash the ornaments, we'd wipe over the baseboards, we'd polish, vacuum, mop, scrub, dust and organise... it was a lot. The benefit was that I got good at cleaning. Really good. My sister and I actually had a job cleaning an elderly neighbour's house each week, as well as doing our chores at home each Saturday morning, and despite the money and the delight we had with the two neighbours, I still hated it. Actually, do you know what? It doesn't matter what the other reasons are. The fact that I hate cleaning is enough for the reasons why I felt I wanted to hire a cleaner.

So, on my birthday a post auto-published;  A Letter To My Future Self . And I thought I should probably post a response to answer what I am up to and what I am doing... seeing as how the one thing I really want to get back to is blogging! Dan Jon and I spoke about the postcard the other day, he was adamant that it had been an email that they had scheduled to themselves, but at the moment I'm just hoping that they (as in the school!) haven't forgotten! Am I still friends with Flyfour?

Back in 2019, Dan Jon and the rest of his year at School were given some homework in their Religious Studies class, to write a postcard to themselves. The idea was that these wouldn't be marked, or read by their teachers, but would be sealed up and given back to the children around the time they take their GCSE's. I decided that I would take part too. Although, my postcard is this blog post and well, you can all read it too! Dear Pippa (and people who hopefully still read her blog), HAPPY BIRTHDAY! So it's 2024 and this blog post has finally been posted. I bet for the last five years it has really annoyed you because it has sat in your scheduled blog post folder, not being published and giving you false hope that you were a little more prepared than you thought and had a blog post ready to go. Sorry about that (Oooh! Do I still sound like Hagrid when I say that?).