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the one with the train

Posted on October 30, 2009

Are you ready for some foot­ball?!?!  Amer­i­can foot­ball that is.

Are you ready for some foot­ball?!?!  Amer­i­can foot­ball that is.  On Sun­day we headed down to Lon­don town to watch my beloved NE Patri­ots play at Wem­b­ley.  To say we were excited would be an under­state­ment!

I picked up a white turtle­neck (roll­neck to you Brits) shirt for Squidge to wear and Wal danced around like a loon when I tried it on her.  LOL wish I had a cam­corder!  We had a fan­tas­tic time but I wish we had more time.  We decided to have Por­tuguese food for lunch so headed toward Stock­well(?).  Lunch was good but that meant we were run­ning waaay behind and missed all the pre-game stuff. Live and learn I sup­pose, that is the only thing I would have changed about the day– oooh and miss­ing our train and hav­ing to pay an addi­tional £130 to get on the next train!! But, other than that we wouldn’t change a thing! We were haul­ing it up to the sta­dium and could hear the national anthem being sung.  Did I men­tion Wal had Squidge on his shoul­ders at this point?!?!  Once inside and set­tled we finally were able to relax and enjoy the game.  I taught Squidge to say “GO PATS!!” and she spent the first quar­ter shout­ing it and danc­ing– sooo cute I wanted to eat her up!! LOL gotta love this kid!

We had fan­tas­tic seats– row 20 on the lower level!  I don’t own a zoom lens (85mm is all I have as i don’t need one in my day to day busi­ness) but I would have loved to have one dur­ing the game.  Ah well next time I’ll rent one… or not!

Squidge was sooo good dur­ing the game. We were wor­ried that her atten­tion would wan­der and we’d end up try­ing to keep her enter­tained.  Luck­ily she became fas­ci­nated by the cheer­lead­ers and spent a lot of time stand­ing on my thighs and try­ing to copy their dances– again, wish I had a cam­corder!  At one point she was thirsty and Wal went to buy her a drink.  He came back w/ a JUMBO (although they called it a small) Fanta.

She drank it all up, barely let­ting me have a sip.  Whoo boy did she have a sugar rush– it was funny to watch.  It lasted until the end of the game and then it was a mad dash to try to get to Euston to catch the train back to Man­ches­ter. As I said before we missed the one we had tick­ets for.  I thought we would just be able to get on the next one but nope they made us pay full whack to get on the next train.  Pretty heart­less of them and it’s no won­der peo­ple don’t travel by rail much– it expensive!!

We can’t wait for the next NFL game but we also know that this was a once in a life time event. I mean really when will the Patri­ots play another reg­u­lar sea­son game in Lon­don?!?  Prob­a­bly not for a long time.

the one where you are what you eat.

Posted on October 27, 2009

Yes­ter­day I watched Dis­patches on Chan­nel 4.  The pro­gram was about what is in your break­fast, but it also went into prod­uct label­ing and how mis­lead­ing they are.  To say that I was shocked by the pro­gram would be an under­state­ment.  As a stay at home mom we live a very 1950’s life, or so I like to think!  I cook all our meals from scratch (or almost from scratch), I clean *cough­bull­shit* and take care of Squidge. Wal works and brings home the bacon.  I would like to say he always  has a freshly laun­dered and iron shirt each morn­ing but that would be a total lie! I’m work­ing out again after 4 yrs and hope­fully set­ting a good exam­ple for Squidge.  I try to make healthy food choices and try to limit the amount of sugar we all con­sume.  I do give Squidge treats but I like to believe that the only sugar she is get­ting is from the choco­late but­ton I’m giv­ing her and not from her Chee­rios! Yes­ter­days pro­gram just brought home to me the need to be vig­i­lant.  I don’t want to set Squidge up to make bad choices. We eat a lot of fruit and veg and I want to keep it that way.  I think the part of the pro­gram that con­cerned me the most was the Heart UK label­ing and the Omega 3 label­ing.  I didn’t know that the omega 3 in mar­garine is from plants and not fish.  Did you know that it is only Omega 3 from fish that is ben­e­fi­cial to your brain?!?!  Are you swayed by the Omega 3 label on the pack­age when you pur­chase your mar­garine?  We’re a split fam­ily here, I use but­ter and Wal uses mar­garine as he feels it is bet­ter than but­ter.  I have always main­tained that but­ter is a more nat­ural and there­for health­ier option.  After find­ing out that the healthy claims on the pack­ag­ing may or may not be total and com­plete fab­ri­ca­tions, £25k and I can get one of those labels stuck on my fat ass,  I am even more cer­tain of my choice.  I will no longer be buy­ing mar­garine for Wal he’s just going to have to suck it up and use butter!

Now let me switch to cakes.  I was born and raised in the US.  I think I men­tioned before that I never baked a cake from scratch until I moved here.  I LOVED Betty Crocker and  didn’t know what to do when I moved here.  Bak­ing here is soo dif­fer­ent, every­thing needs to be weighed on a scale and I had never done that before.  In the US but­ter comes in sticks and recipes that use but­ter use sticks not grams.  I didn’t know how many grams in a stick and I had to turn to the inter­webz for help.  Imag­ine my sur­prise and joy when I went into a Wait­rose and found Betty Crocker on the shelves!  Oh i could go back to adding oil and an egg and call­ing it home­made!  I didn’t buy any BC mix as I didn’t need any, but let me tell you the first time I did I high­tailed it back to Wait­rose and clutched my box of cake mix lov­ingly in my arms.  I got home, made my cake and wait­ing impa­tiently for it to bake and cool.  I frosted it with some Betty Crocker frost­ing and took a big fork­ful– nom nom BLECH!!! Oh inter­webz I have been cor­rupted!!  Betty Crocker cake mixes are awful!!  Ooooh the hor­ror!  LOL, I have found that I much pre­fer my from scratch choco­late cake. How could this have hap­pened?!?!?  After 4+ years of liv­ing in a Betty Crock­er­less soci­ety and sur­viv­ing nicely, thank you very much,  I’ve noticed that I can now find Betty Crocker mixes in more and more shops, this makes me sad. I also heard that all you can eat buf­fet restau­rants are tak­ing hold here.  Ooooh of the one thing to be exported from the US to my adopted coun­try why all you can eat buf­fets?!?!  Noth­ing good can come of it.  They’re nasty vile dis­gust­ing plac­ing, troughs to over­feed the masses!

I think that being a SAHM I have more time and free­dom to cook from scratch but also think that with a  lit­tle fore­sight and plan­ning any­one can have a nice home cooked meal.  Spend a few hours and cook and freeze for the com­ing week.  We need to spend a lit­tle less time in from of the tv/computer/xbox and take care of our­selves, the Betty Crock­ers of the world are not going to do it for us. If we don’t the future will not be pretty.

there one where I beg

Posted on October 22, 2009

Oh head over to LDM, pleeease!

It’s just because I’m absolutely in love with how these pho­tos turned out!  Tell me what you think. Are they good? Don’t quit my day job??

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