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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??

the one where I’m proud to be me

Posted on October 20, 2009

Oh it’s been a long long time since I was last tagged.  Prob­a­bly because I’m crap at meme’s and never do them or pass them along.  So imag­ine my sur­prise when I was tagged!  In an attempt to turn over a new meme-leaf I’m actu­ally going to do this one AND pass it for­ward.  I think it’s just a fan­tas­tic meme– a cel­e­bra­tion of ME eeer You uuuuh you know what I’m try­ing to say…right?

I was first tagged by Josie over at Sleep is for the weak and then Sally at Who’s the mummy tagged. Go read them they’re fab. So I’m sup­posed to list 5 things I’m proud of…*tumbleweed*…

Uno: I’m proud of the fact that I have started to work out again.  After months years of moan­ing about it I’m actu­ally doing it. For the pur­pose of this here Proud to be Me meme I won’t men­tion my actual lack of any weight loss.  Just the fact that I’m bustin’ my ass in the cold and some­times rainy nights is enough to make me proud.  The weight thing… it will happen.

Dos: Of Squidge. Despite the fact that I thought I wasn’t cut out to be a mum I don’t think I’m doing too badly.  She’s clever, inquis­i­tive, sassy, adven­tur­ous and lov­ing.  I think she’s turned out OK thanks to me.  Well except for that one time she sighed “oh shit” to her­self– pos­si­ble low point in my par­ent­ing abilities.

Tres: I’m very proud of my expat-ness.  I love that I didn’t let fear of the unknown stop me from mak­ing the move.  It wasn’t and isn’t easy liv­ing in a for­eign county– even one where you know the lan­guage, but I’m here and I’m mak­ing it work.  I’m proud that I’ve learned to take a bus, did I ever tell you about the first time I tried tak­ing a bus?  I’m proud that I can jump in my car and go any­where with­out fear– thank you Tom­Tom!  That I can bake cakes from scratch!  I’m talk­ing flour, sugar, but­ter and eggs-  that scratch!  Before mov­ing to the UK I thought bak­ing a cake from scratch meant you opened a cake mix, added oil and an egg then mixed well.  Com­ing here and not find­ing an entire aisle filled with Betty Crocker cake mixes was one hell of a shock!!

Qua­tro: I’m proud of my flex­i­bil­ity.  No! not the bendy body way but my abil­ity to go with the flow… roll with the punches… #3 reminded me of all those lit­tle things you have to learn about and to do when you’re in a new envi­ron­ment.  Tak­ing a bus in New Bed­ford is dif­fer­ent from tak­ing a bus in Man­ches­ter. Did you know you have to flag them down like taxis here?!?!?!  Light­bulbs w/ bay­o­nets instead of screw on ones– ya almost shat­tered the bulb try­ing to unscrew it.  GP’s are dif­fer­ent. We pump petrol here not gas.  If tell you I can’t find my pants depend­ing where you’re from a dif­fer­ent visual image will pop into your head.  First time some­one invited me over for tea I got it com­pletely wrong.  Learn­ing to drive on the ‘wrong’ side.  In a thou­sand dif­fer­ent insignif­i­cant yet fun­da­men­tal ways I have had to be flex­i­ble and adapt– it think I’ve done alright.

Cinco: My pho­tog­ra­phy.  I love it! Since pick­ing it back up again I see the world dif­fer­ently. I love that I’ve learned so much and that I still have so  much to learn.  I’m soo proud of the fab­u­lous pho­tographs I have taken. Of the smiles it has brought to peo­ple.  I’m proud of  myself for get­ting myself out there even while I’m quak­ing in my boots from my insecurities.

I tag:

Carol @ new mummy

Karin @ Cafe Bebe

Byr­ney @ 3 kids and 6 1/2 minis

Karen @ If I could escape…

Jo @ Jo Beau­foix

the one with the pathetic pumpkin patch

Posted on October 19, 2009

I was told by two peo­ple this week­end that I’m neglect­ing this blog– oops!  In my defense… ahem, I don’t really have a defense, other than to say that I suck.  Also, I don’t really know where to add com­mas.  I think I need a gram­mar refresher course!

This past Sat­ur­day I met a bunch of friends out at Kenyon Hall Farms for a lit­tle pump­kin pick­ing.  Visions of pump­kins piled hip high danced around my head on the way there.  I hoped there would be hay rides, roasted chest­nuts and warm apple cider. BWAHAHAHA! Not likely!! It was such a pathetic lit­tle patch– a few strag­gly look­ing pump­kins scat­tered around.

Still the kids didn’t know any bet­ter and they spent a lit­tle time pick­ing the pump­kins and putting them in the bas­ket.  One of the rea­sons why some of the pump­kins were squooshed might be that the kids would pick them and when you told them to put them down they would chuck them.  After­ward we went for a nice lunch at a nearby pub.  A nice after­noon all around.

Squidge also had her first day of bal­let and tap.  She was sooo excited and looked freak­ing adorable!!  I’m going to try to take pic­tures, can’t guar­an­tee as the main instruc­tor looks a bit mean– Eeek!!

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