Wedding Plans

Posted on August 27, 2009

OK folks I need your help.  As some of you already know, Wal and I are get­ting mar­ried.  We’re think­ing some­time in May, dur­ing half term so our friends can come to the wed­ding.  I would like a des­ti­na­tion wed­ding which is the rea­son for a half term wed­ding date.  Some­where in North­ern Por­tu­gal, per­haps a win­ery?  Or maybe in Madeira although I watched 2 min­utes of Kerry Katona on telly this evening and she was going on hol­i­day to Madeira so she might have just ruined it for me.

So you’re won­der­ing where/why I need help.  I am ashamed to say that I don’t know nuthin’ bout wed­dings.  I think Wal and I might just go to a reg­istry office and do the legal deed then off some­where for the party.  What do I bring?  Do I need wed­ding favors?  A cake? A dance? A DJ/Band? I just want a really chilled out week­end drink­ing some fab wine w/ friends and fam­ily in a super cool win­ery.  Basi­cally not very ‘wed­ding’ like.  Any­one have any sug­ges­tions of places to go or wed­ding ideas?  Any­thing would be great.  I don’t really want to start buy­ing wed­ding mag­a­zines as they’re geared for the more tra­di­tional bride and that is some­thing I am not.  Wal and I have been together for a while, we have child together so all that wed­ding malarkey just seems a bit silly to me.

Is May too soon?  How far ahead to we have to plan these things?  Oh mah gawd I don’t have a clue… help!

Oh and a recent photo of Squidge…





I think I’m a country girl

Posted on August 23, 2009

This week­end I did some­thing I never in a mil­lion years thought I would do, I par­tic­i­pated in and won a snail race. I have said this before and will say it again I am a city girl through and through. I’d never seen a tad­pole until recently. I’ve never rid­den a horse. The first time I was stung by a net­tle I freaked out think­ing I had been bit­ten by a bug. Yes folks I am citi­fied, my idea of wildlife was killing the roaches that crawled up the bath­tub pipes in my high rise dorm building.

Squidge and I drove to Allo­stock in Cheshire on Sat­ur­day to join in on a fam­ily fun day. I dream of liv­ing in a big house in Cheshire so I jumped at the chance. The lit­tle vil­lage of Allo­stock is beau­ti­ful (and if my right­move app is any­thing to go by veddy veddy pricey) and we had a fan­tas­tic time. Squidge ran around singing, danc­ing, dec­o­rat­ing bis­cuits, star­ing at Shet­land ponies, eat­ing ice cream and pick­ing the win­ning snail.

The city girl in me was a bit icked out by the bucke o’snails but Squidge just reached right in there and pulled one out.

She chose #38, we named him Bolt.

Bolt was a bit on the hefty side.  I was going to have her pick another one but though hell it’s only 30p! We set our snail on the table along w/ the oth­ers and the race started. They were feisty lit­tle bug­gers which amazed me a lit­tle. Still, at the end of the day they were snails so we wan­dered off for a bit while the race went on. When I went back to check on Bolt he was in the lead– holy freak­ing slime ball! This is the point in the story were you see how pathet­i­cally com­pet­i­tive I am. A girl, no older than 10, was help­ing her snail along by wav­ing some let­tuce in front of her snail. I thought to my self  OH HELL NO IS ISN’T!! Please visu­al­ize my best Shanae­nae.  Yes folks I took piece of let­tuce and BRIBED lit­tle ole Bolt to the fin­ish line.  Booyah!!!  All jok­ing aside Bolt was going and wasn’t all that inter­ested in the lettuce

So that’s the story of how this city girl won a snail race and came home w/ a bag of mar­bles.  Good thing too as I think I might be los­ing mine.





Paperpod Rocket

Posted on August 23, 2009

Toy: Paper­pod Rocket

Retailer: On-line

Web Link:http://www.paperpod.co.uk/index.htm

Price: £29.95 (+ £5.95 postage)

Score out of 4:5

Ini­tial thoughts: I was a bit skep­ti­cal when I saw the box– it’s not the type of thing I would buy just because of its size AND card­board! I was wor­ried about the qual­ity.  I do love any­thing that Squidge needs to use her imag­i­na­tion to play with so I was keen to get into the box and assem­ble it.  If you’re like me and a bit chal­lenged in the flat pack depart­ment you might need some help.  Luck­ily for me I had a friend who whipped it together in no time.  Once it was up we had a hard time keep­ing the kids away from it.  We set them up w/ mark­ers and crayons and they had a fan­tas­tic time doo­dling on the rocket.  If you have a crafty child this rocket will keep them enter­tained for days and days just dec­o­rat­ing it.  Our 3 were a lit­tle impa­tient and after a few doo­dles it was time to blast off!!

We Liked: It was a bit out of the ordi­nary and the kids just really took off and let their imag­i­na­tion run riot.  If you have a child who is mad about space/planets then this will really get them excited.  It’s made of some pretty sturdy card­board. It’s made from recy­cled mate­ri­als and is recy­clable. CREATIVITY!  CREATIVITY!! CREATIVITY!! No princesses, trains or explor­ers and it can be any­thing your child wants it to be. I would buy one for this rea­son alone.

We weren’t keen on: It’s size. If you strug­gle w/ space like I do then this is not the toy for you.  Although it’s angled so it does fit eas­ily into a cor­ner and being card­board it can eas­ily be dis­as­sem­bles and stored away.  I’m of two minds with this one– some of the things I love about it are also the things that I am not keen on.  It’s a bit pricey for a card­board toy BUT our three played w/ it for ages and ages.  If you have the room for it then it is well worth the £35.

Over­all: It’s cre­ative. It’s fun.  If you’re look­ing for some­thing that will stim­u­late imag­i­na­tions and increase role play­ing the range of Paper­pod prod­ucts fits the bill.  The fact that it’s not “branded” is a huge bonus for those of us that try to find alter­na­tive prod­ucts for our chil­dren.  I think it is made in the UK– I had a good look around their web­site but couldn’t find any­thing that said dif­fer­ently. I’m always look­ing for locally made prod­ucts so if it is in fact made in the UK it is another rea­son to buy.

I did sub­mit this review to a fab new UK toy review web­site Great Toy Guide . I feel that although a lot of the toys can be pur­chased in the US it is nice to have one that is UK based and from what I can see some of the toys will/are by small toy com­pa­nies so YAY for independent/ organic/green toy companies.





The one where I stop moaning and start doing

Posted on August 19, 2009

I’m FAT.  I hate it and have been moan­ing and hav­ing a good old pity party for a while now.  WHY-HIIIII-HIIIIIIIIIIII am I fAAAAAAt (as I shove a piece of toast in my mouth)??  I’m a stay at home mom w/ loads of oppor­tu­ni­ties to graze.  I some­times take a moment to think of all I’ve eaten and think WOW ok so I haven’t actu­ally had a meal but I’ve had toast, some fruit, fin­ished off Squidges meals, licked spoons, tasted bits of this and that and THEN at the end of the day I sit down and have a proper meal w/ my man.  Usu­ally keep­ing up w/ him bite for bite. I also do very lit­tle phys­i­cal activ­ity.  Now granted I prob­a­bly do more than some­one who works a desk job but I also graze more than some­one work­ing at a desk job!

After my trip to the US I knew I needed to change.  While home I real­ize that most of the peo­ple I know are doing/moving/running (marathons FFS!!) and I was hav­ing a hard time walk­ing around the park.  Here I am with all this time on my hands and all I do is moan.  I used to work out a lot. Prior to  my move to the UK I was a reg­u­lar at the gym.   Since mov­ing my weight con­tin­ues to creep up.  I have gone up 3 sizes since May 2005.  I blame it on the move over and hav­ing a baby.  Well my baby is now 3 and they DO have gyms  here in Eng­land– shock­ing.  I joined a gym when I first arrived then pro­ceeded to get knocked up and felt like crap for the first 4 months and then just couldn’t be both­ered.  I was preg­gers– time to eat ICE CREAM not work out!!  When Squidge was about a year old I joined another gym.  When I say I joined I really mean I paid £45 a month for an entire year and didn’t step foot inside the build­ing after the first 2 months.  My excuse?  The creche was hor­ri­ble.  I joined this par­tic­u­lar gym because I could drop Squidge there while I worked out.  Only thing was you needed to book in advance (not men­tioned prior to join­ing) and if you didn’t man­age to go you still had to pay.  Now Wal trav­els for work.  He some­times leaves at short notice (or thinks he’s told me when in fact he just thought about telling me) and Squidge was only 1.  Any­one with a new baby knows that sched­ul­ing things can be tricky, espe­cially things you don’t really want to do– like work out.

Excuses, every last thing I’ve told myself  and oth­ers.  If I really wanted to work out I would and could.  Wal is home A LOT and I could make the time if I really wanted.  I spoke to Wal about what I wanted and where I wanted to be.  I told friends of my secret desire to run a 10K. I told them this while laugh­ing because I’m not a run­ner.  I never have been. I’m asth­matic and that has ALWAYS been my excuse for not run­ning.  I get winded eas­ily. I get light headed.  I don’t run.  But Ooooh I so badly want to be a run­ner.  I want to have the free­dom to throw on some run­ning shoes and go.  No gym. No sched­ule. Noth­ing to restrain me.  I tell Wal I want to have a per­sonal trainer. Some­one that will tell me off.  Get me going.  Not some­one I know who will hurt my feel­ing or that I can tell to eff off.  I looked around.  I sent emails.  I left mes­sages.  No one called me back.  Odd see­ing at per­sonal train­ers are EXPENSIVE and you would have thought they’d be on you like a fly on shit to get your money.  So I looked around some more and found some­thing called British Mil­i­tary Fit­ness.  I read.  I got fright­ened.  I’m intrigued.  I read some more.  I signed up for the free trial.  I almost died. I dis­cov­ered a deep deeeeeply hid­den masochis­tic streak which lead me to sign up and pay for unlim­ited ses­sions. I spend 10 min­utes try­ing to put on this new bondage inspired sports bra. I per­se­vered and got to my sec­ond class safe in the knowl­edge that by boobages are locked down tight!  I might die  but the pup­pies aren’t going any­where– bring on the running!!

So there you have it.  I’m now doing boot camp.  It’s fan­tas­tic. It’s painful.  It totally blows chunks.  I hate it.  I love it.  I am the slow­est, fat­test, most unco­or­di­nated per­son there.  When we run I am ALWAYS last.  I huff and puff my way through press ups, and scor­pi­ons and weird jumpy uppy lunge things that both frighten and amuse me. I crawl on my tummy while the instruc­tor shouts at me to get my ass down or it will be shot off.  I chase balls and won­der what the eff I’m doing.  I may not be good at it but I’m there.  I like that no mat­ter how much I think it’s going to kill me it will be over soon.  I like that the peo­ple there will hang back and make sure I’m OK.  I like that we laugh and grunt and groan together.  I espe­cially like that it’s get­ting my ass out of the house and doing something.

Please keep me in your thoughts– I really do think it is going to kill me.  Please keep me in your thoughts that I stick to it.  I love it and need to do it.  I have a new goal .  That I am actu­ally think­ing about doing this is scary but thrilling at the same time.  I hope and pray that this time… this goal…

PS: Those of you that have lost a lot of weight, did you take a nekkid (actu­ally semi nekkid) pic­ture of your­selves for a before/after thingie??  I’m think­ing about doing this but the thought just turns my stomach…





Big Sky

Posted on August 18, 2009

words to fol­low… bed now. night. night.





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