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Silent Sunday 05/01/2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

                           



 

My Week In Pictures #Week 1 Project 365

Project 365 is a project run by the lovely TheBoyAndMe. This is the first year that I will be taking part and I will be linking up every week throughout the year. I'll be taking a photo every day, some will be interesting, some probably won't be. But these photos will be a daily diary of our family life and how we change. 

So this is week one, it's a short week with only four days. I apologise now as it's not exactly been a very exciting week with the bad weather and recovering from Christmas and New Year we haven't done much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 01/01/14 New Year's Day was a lazy pyjama day in our house, most of the day was wasted away sleeping after the late night seeing in the new year and we spent the afternoon watching TV and eating this lovely box of chocolates sent to us for Christmas from our dear friend Helen.

 

02/01/14 It's pretty safe to say from this photo that G thoroughly enjoyed his chocolate pudding. There's a theme here...I think our chocoholic family secret is out!

 

03/01/14 G was a little under the weather with the sniffles on Friday and the weather was terrible so we had a play day indoors, this is G's first drawing with his new sketch pad.

 

04/01/14 We bought one of these cat beds last week thinking that Sooty & Sweep would share, but apparently they don't want to share anymore so we went back to the shop today to pick up another one. Now they're happy that they have one each.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking Back To The League Cup Final

It's almost a year since we ventured to London (Nodnol as we affectionately call it) with the family to see our beloved Bradford City play in the Capital One League Cup Final at... WEMBLEY! After many years of hard times for the Bantams 2012/13 proved to be the best season of our lives. 

At the start of the season we took G to his first open day at Valley Parade, he was four months old so didn't really have a clue what was going on, but S and I very proudly dressed him in his Bantam clothes and introduced him to the team, the manager and of course Lenny the City Gent. For S and myself who are life long Bantams this was the proudest day of our lives.

Griffin with the Gaffer Phil Parkinson!

G with Meredith!

Nana nana nana nana na na na Nahki Nahki Wells Nahki Wells Nahki Nahki Wells!

"He used to work at the Co-op, work at the Co-op, he used to work at the Co-op!" The one and only James Hanson

"He's magic, you know, You'll never get past Gary Jones!"

Lenny, the one and only City Gent. A legend always.

Little did we know that G's cuddles with the team would bring them such good luck for the season ahead. The first round of the cup we played Notts County and to be honest we didn't expect anything from this game so we we're thrilled when James Hanson scored the winning goal in extra time. In the second round we played Watford, a championship side and never dreamt that we would beat them 2-1 to make it through to round three with goals from Kyle Reid and Garry Thompson. The excitement started to kick in at this point, but still we never dared to dream of the possibilities ahead... We played Burton Albion in the third round, I know many expected us to win as they we're a League Two side like us, but knowing Bradford City as well as I do I expected this to be a difficult tie. We struggled in the game against Burton, but we managed to pull it back from two goals down with both goals coming from Nahki Wells taking the game to extra time where Stephen Derby sealed the next round by scoring the winner.

Round 4, Wigan Athletic, a Premier League side. Now we we're living the dream! Quite honestly never expected to win this game in a million years, but you can't help but have a small part of you that believes and the excitement takes over. Realistically though we we're just thrilled to draw a Premier League side as we would make a good sum of money from the draw. We didn't go to Wigan as G was unwell, but we listened intently on the radio. I don't know how G slept through all the shouting and screaming that was coming from the sofa, but it soon went quiet as we took the game to penalties. It was torture listening to the penalties never mind watching them, but we did it, we won. 4-2 on penalties would you believe! Bantams everywhere were floating on clouds after that game!

Round 5, Arsenal, another Premier League side, what a dream! My mum very kindly agreed to babysit so both S and I could go to the game along with Big Brother. Driving to Valley Parade we we're listening to the line up on the radio, our hearts literally sinking as we heard the line up for Arsenal who clearly had enough respect for Bradford to be fielding their full first team against us. Despite this the atmosphere throughout VP was electric, we played out of our skins and held onto the lead for most of the game with a single goal from Garry Thompson but Arsenal managed a draw and we went to extra time. The stress starting to show now through the fans, but the players kept going and we got through to penalties. Much worse than the penalties against Wigan as we had to watch these, I felt sick with nerves, but as we kept scoring the penalties the excitement kept building. We did it, we, little old Bradford in League Two beat Arsenal to reach the Semi Final of the League Cup!

The Semi Final was over two legs and we had drawn another Premier League side, this time Aston Villa. I went to the home leg with Big Brother and S watched it on the TV at his friend's house with G. We out played Villa and earned a well deserved 3-1 win with goals from Nahki Wells, Rory McArdle and Carl McHugh. I watched the away leg on TV with G, my mum and our fellow Bantam friends Ray & Anne while S and Big Brother made the exciting journey to Villa Park. What an emotional roller coaster that game was!  Villa pulled out all the stops in the second leg and beat us 2-1 that night with a single goal from James Hanson but it just wasn't enough for them as we had won 4-3 on aggregate. Bradford City were going to Wembley, yes Wembley! We actually made it to the League Cup Final!

We were playing Swansea City in the final, this was their first League Cup Final too and they were equally as ecstatic. We bought our Wembley tickets, booked a hotel, found our old tape from Wembley 1996 and I dug out my home shirt from 1996 too.

The Wembley 1996 song!

We drove down to Nodnol the day before the game in a two car convoy. In front was Macca driven by me with S in the back entertaining a very excited G. Followed by Big Brother who had Mum, Nephew and Big Niece in his car. We didn't stop until we reached Leicester Service Station as this was the rest stop we made in 1996 and we were feeling very superstitious! This was the first long distance journey I had made in my car Macca and it was pretty tyring so once we arrived we unpacked, had a lovely dinner and went to bed. The boys went to a wrestling show that evening and they had a great time. 

On the drive down with Billy Bantam

Well the morning came, excitement hit fever pitch in our hotel. At breakfast the restaurant was a sea of claret and amber, with one table opposite ours that was occupied by four Swansea fans. We filled up and packed up more than we needed for G as usual and started the drive to the tube station. It felt like an eternity until we were parked up and ready to get on the tube.

The tube was 100% Bantams and the journey flew by as everyone was absorbed in the carnival atmosphere on board. G was the tiniest fan on board at 10 months old so attracted all the attention and fuss, of course he loved it! Then we were there..... Wembley....

Our first sight of Wembley...

A wave of emotion came over Big Brother, S and myself. After 12 years of hardship, financial difficulties, threatened closure and relegation's, here Bradford City were, at Wembley in the League Cup Final. Emotions increased even more by the fact that Big Brother had two of his children there with him to witness this momentous occasion and for S and myself this was G's first ever Bradford City game, a dream come true for us and our baby Bantam.

We made the walk up Wembley Way, it was completely different to 1996 and we discussed these changes on the walk up. We met up with our friends Ray, Anne & Eliis on the way and we grabbed a programme and a giant flag too. We took lots of photos and made our way into the stadium which had changed so much since we were last there, we wanted to find our seats early so G could have his lunch before kick off.

S, G and me on Wembley Way

It really was something else, the sea of claret and amber was a breathtaking sight. Our feelings of "We don't expect to win, it's a trip out to Wembley and we're just excited to have made the final" had flown out of the window. We dared to dream now, even discussing how the club could afford to compete in Europe if we won the match. Now we felt that we needed to win, that making it to the final at Wembley wasn't enough, that looking back on how far we had come we couldn't let go now.

A beautiful tribute to the 56 who died in the 1985 fire.

Well the whistle for kick off was blown and there was no looking back. It was evident straight away that something wasn't quite right, Swansea we're allover us and after just 16 minutes they had scored. But that didn't stop us getting behind the team, it was only one goal and there was plenty of time left. We tried to hold them off but we went in at half time two goals down. We had mixed feelings now, we were only two goals behind, we could pull this back, but in our hearts we knew that the enormity of the League Cup Final and Wembley was too much for the lads and the nerves had taken over, so part of us just hoped we could score a goal and not take a complete battering from Swansea. But sadly the second half was even worse, we conceded three more goals and lost the game 5-0. That said no one can ever take away the amazing loyal support and love of the fans, we spent the second half on our feet singing our hearts out, celebrating the fact the little League Two Bradford City had beat three Premier League clubs, one over two legs, to reach the League Cup Final at Wembley and that in itself was something truly amazing to be proud of.

To be honest you couldn't take anything away from Swansea either, they had done well to reach the final also, and on the day they played well. Their fans were friendly and had a lot of respect for the Bantams for making it this far.

Well we stayed back to watch the lads receive their runners up medals, we saw Swansea lift the cup, but then we left as staying to watch the celebrations was just too much for us. I have to be honest that despite what we had achieved it still hurt to stand there knowing how close we had come, yet it felt so far away. 

The walk back down Wembley Way was slow and I couldn't help but look back at the stadium, which looked stunning all lit up now as it had become dark outside. I took a moment to capture a photo and said goodbye to Wembley, I also in that moment said to Wembley to be ready for our return in May. I was right, we did return in May, but that's another story for another day....

See you again in May!



Linking up with #FlashbackFriday and Mummy Mishaps

Also linking up with #PostCommentlove and Verily Victoria Vocalises



  

 

 

 

Looking Forward To 2014

A part of me is glad to see the back of 2013, I've always being a little supersticious and had that feeling it wouldn't be a great year. But on reflection it wasn't that bad really, I'm not going to dwell on the negative parts of the year but I have looked back at the positives and realised that I am thankful for so much. 

In 2013 we celebrated our second wedding anniversary, which may not seem to be a huge deal but we celebrated our first with me in hospital very poorly with HG at 38 weeks pregnant, so the second one was really to cover both! 2013 is also the year that I joined Pregnancy Sickness Support (PSS) as a volunteer, I am privileged to be supporting amazing women as they fight their battles with HG and NVP. I also met a lot of fellow volunteers through the year and was fortunate to spend a week away with a dear friend, Emma who suffered through HG at the same time as me, and of course her gorgeous HG survivor Adam who became great friends with Griffin. 

2013 also saw me graduating "Boob School", this was a course to train to be a breastfeeding peer support volunteer, but this course and Nikki, our Boob Coach, gave me so much more. It gave me the confidence to continue breastfeeding Griffin, to be confident in feeding him whilst out and about and of course the opportunity to meet so many wonderful women who are such lovely friends.

There were a lot of downs throughout the year too, including Hubster being laid off, it's being difficult for him to adjust as he's worked all his working life and finding another job is taking it's time. It's not just the financial strain that has taken it's toll it's the emotional effects too, his confidence has taken a big hit and he's not used to been at home full time with Griffin. But on the positive it has given us more quality time as a family, Hubster has bonded so much more with Griffin and of course he's had time to reflect on life and careers. 

So 2014, I have a feeling it will be a great year. We're starting the year off with celebrations for Hubster's 30th birthday, he doesn't like the fact he's moving out of his youthful twenties, but I'm going to make sure he embraces it of course! I am also planning to reach my goal weight at Slimming world, hopefully by the summer. I'm excited that we are almost at the end of the Nine Months Of campaign for PSS and I'm really looking forward to seeing how much awareness will have increased as a result of the campaign. Then of course there's the Baby Bistro's, I'm hoping we will see lots more breastfeeding mums there and continue our efforts to normalise breastfeeding. Finally I'm looking forward to continuing with my blogging journey, it's most likely a lot of ramblings to a lot of people but it's very therapeutic and fun.

I'm going to stop rambling on now and simply thank you all for reading, following and supporting Mummy Whiskers. I really appreciate you all and wish you all a very happy new year and the very best of wishes for an amazing 2014 

With love from 

Katrina, Scott, Griffin, Sooty & Sweep

XXX

Silent Sunday 29/12/2013

Meat Free Monday Singapore Noodles

So last Monday I made Singapore Noodles, a recipe in my Quorn Kitchen recipe book, you can find it here on the Quorn website too. It's a really simple recipe with basic ingredients that are so easy to obtain and cheap too, so perfect for a family meal on a budget. 

I found the recipe really easy to follow and it's quick to make too so ideal for midweek or when you're busy. I prepared all the vegetables first before I started cooking as the cooking part doesn't take long at all. The only changes I made were to replace the cooking wine with more soy sauce so that Small Boy could try some and to cook the Quorn mince from frozen and add the sauces to the wok as cooking rather than to defrost and marinade. I cooked the mince from frozen in my large wok, I use a low calorie spray rather than oil. Once the mince had browned I added ingredients in the order from the cooking instructions. I boiled the noodles as per the instructions on the packet, although I did add a few cheeky splashes of soy sauce to perk them up a little, then once they we're cooked and drained I mixed them into the wok with everything else to give them a little crisp. 

Served immediately, this is what it looked like...

The Singapore Noodles were a hit around the table, we had my mum over for dinner and she absolutely loved this, as did Hubster and myself. Small boy enjoyed the mince, but he's not keen on noodles, or pasta for that matter. It surprised me just how tasty this dish was, I've made a lot of stir fry's with a bag of mixed veg and a packet of ready made sauce and I'll never go back to that now, this recipe was so quick and easy to make yet tasted wonderful.

My family have always being big meat eaters, my Grandad was a master butcher. My family and Hubster have this idea that Quorn is tasteless so they don't eat it, but they have agreed to try Meat Free Mondays and I am pleased to say they have found the recipes that I have tried so far using Quorn to be very tasty and said they would definitely have them again, this is a huge achievement!

Oh, for the record one tablespoon of hoisin sauce works out to be one syn for Slimming World, the rest of the ingredients were free, but please bare in mind that I follow the green plan with being a vegetarian. So it's healthy and low fat too! 

I'd love to hear from you if you try out this recipe yourself so please do let me know.

Tonight we'll be trying Lemon Linguine using a recipe from my new cook book, Lorraine Pascale, Fast, Fresh and Easy Food. Obviously I'll be switching the chicken in the recipe for a meat free alternative. I'll update you all on how it goes next Monday.

Happy Meat Free Monday!

Disclaimer: Quorn have provided the voucher for use on their products for our participation in this week's Meat Free Monday, however the choice in Quorn products purchased is my own, the recipes that I make will also be my own choice. Any opinions expressed in my blog will be my own and unbiased.

Silent Sunday 15/12/2013

 







Just Another Birthday

Well it was my birthday on Sunday, another year older. I really hate how birthdays seem to come around much faster since I hit the 30's, I don't feel like a thirty-something and it doesn't seem like five minutes ago that the thirties seemed to be in the distant future. Well it's not in the future anymore, it's here giving me a good bitch slap and saying "time to buy the anti-ageing cream!"

Now that I'm a mum I have started to think about my birthdays past, when I was a child I had a big party at home for my friends, my Mum would provide enough party food to feed an army and Big Brother would be the DJ. Birthdays as a child were so exciting, gifts were a surprise, there was the party to look forward to, all the fuss at school too. As a teenager things changed a little, instead of parties it became concert tickets for Boyzone every year and a meal out somewhere with family and besties. The excitement for birthdays was still there though, even once drinking age finally arrived... Yes from 18 to late twenties birthdays had become a week of nights out drinking and staggering in and out of night clubs, I have many fond memories and even more cringe some photos to look back on from these days. No I won't be sharing any of these drunken photos! I don't really know what it is that changes inside, but there is a turning point there where we go from all the fuss and dragging out of birthday celebrations to realising that actually the best birthdays are celebrated just one day with the people that mean the most to us and doing something that really makes us happy. Oh, and of course eating cake, cake is the best solution to every problem.

So on Sunday I spent the day with Hubster and Small boy. The day started with our little tradition where Hubster serves breakfast, pain au chocolates warmed and coffee. At lunch time we visited a Victorian market that was in our village that day, it's the first time we've been to this Victorian Market, there is one every Christmas in our village. I don't know why we haven't been before to be honest but it was great, lots of people were there, a good variety of stalls and some great food. Then my Mum made dinner for us, Big Brother & Nephew, which was lovely and then we had birthday cake... Yes you're never too old for birthday cake, everyone in my family gets a birthday cake regardless of their age! This year Hubster wanted to make a birthday cake for me, he's never baked a cake before but was very excited to do this. I wasn't nervous about the cake, just the mess that I imagined in my kitchen! Hubster looked through my baking books and eventually selected a recipe from the Nigella Lawson Domestic Goddess book, he chose the Autumnal Birthday Cake. Hubster chose this cake because he knows how much I love maple syrup and pecan nuts.

The cake was a huge success, despite how Hubster was in the kitchen making this cake until 2am, not only did it look fabulous, it tasted good too. Hubster also cleaned up the kitchen too after baking which I was really thrilled about. Although the down side was that this cake wasn't very good for my diet, but you only have a birthday once a year!

Amongst the birthday gifts were three new books that I had asked for, The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook; Lorraine Pascale's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food; and National Trust Simply Baking. I had asked for the two baking books mainly for some fresh inspiration, I have flicked through them both to see what I'm going to try out first and quite honestly I can't decide, every single recipe looks delicious! I asked for Lorraine's cook book as I needed one with easy to follow recipes and quick recipes too as most days, like most of us, I'm pressed for time at dinner and find myself in a rut of making the same meals each week. I have over the weekend read this book from cover to cover and can't wait to get started. In fact I've already picked out a recipe to try for Meat Free Mondays!

Once we managed to get Small Boy to sleep the Hubster and I managed to relax and watch a film, Hangover 3. There's nothing like a good comedy on a Sunday to laugh at. To be honest I didn't think it was as good as the previous two films, but it was still very funny and I'm sure we will watch it again. Well that was my birthday, a perfect day for me, which made becoming another year older just a little more bearable...

Christmas Stars

So I've attempted our first home made Christmas decorations, they're pretty easy to do to be honest, but I would say they are best made with children above toddler age, unless it's just my small boy that would equal a disaster when put in a room with glue and lollipop sticks!

 

 

Anyway this how to make them yourself....

 

 

Items needed:

 

1) Lollipop sticks (if you don't have them saved from the summer you can buy packs cheap enough from most craft shops and some supermarkets) You will need 10 sticks per star

 

2) PVA glue

 

3) Tinsel approx, 2.5 metres per star

 

4) Christmas ribbon, as much as you like!

 

5) Needle and thread

 

 

So the instructions are basically as simple as the shopping list!

 

1) Place the lollipop sticks on a flat surface, such as a table or large tray, and position them to make a five point star shape.

 

2) Once they are positioned where you want them start to apply glue to the ends of the lollipop sticks where they join to each other, one at a time, and apply a little pressure for a minute or two until the glue starts to set.

 

3) Leave about 20 minutes for all the glue to set, at this point you should be looking at something along these lines....

 

 

 

 

 

 

4) Once the glue is set you're ready to decorate the star. I used tinsel, you just can't beat tinsel at Christmas! I picked some that was made with wire inside so that it could be bent into shapes easily. I also made sure it was a fairly thin tinsel as you can lose the star shape if your tinsel is too thick. So quite simply you just need to start wrapping the tinsel around the star frame. Once you've finished the tinsel shouldn't need securing in place if you've used a tinsel with wire in, if not though you could use florist wire to secure it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5) Finally you need a hook to hang the star with, just cut a piece of Christmas ribbon about three inches long, but it's best to thread it through the star and decide yourself how much ribbon you want. Thread the piece of ribbon through the star and then stitch the ends together with the thread and needle to make a loop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There you have it, your star is ready to hang. If you like you could use some more Christmas ribbon to add a second loop so the star will hang longer or flat on a wall.

 

 

 

 

 

Meat Free Monday Quorn Bolognese Pizza

Last Monday I made Quorn bolognese pizzas for dinner for Hubster, Small Boy, my Mum and myself. I used the recipe in the Quorn Kitchen recipe book, a book that has been on my shelf for over a year. I'm just starting to cook properly again since the HG pregnancy which left me terrified of foods and in a state of panic whenever I needed to prepare a meal, so this is a learning curve for me.

 

As I'm currently on the Slimming World diet I had to adapt the recipe slightly, so instead of using pizza bases I used square wraps, the white ones are eight syns each. I also replaced the olive oil with a low calorie oil spray so that was syn free and I weighed the cheese so that I could use one of my healthy extra A choices to cover the cheese going on my pizza. The Quorn mince and other ingredients for the Bolognese we're all syn free, but I was a little naughty, I added a cheeky tablespoon of red pesto to the bolognese sauce while cooking, which once divided over four pizzas only worked out at half a syn per portion. So all in one pizza worked out at eight and a half syns, which I personally think is pretty good for a pizza. Served along with a bowl of syn free salad this makes a delicious filling meal.

 

As for the Hubster, to make his pizza more of a "man portion" I used two square wraps and added a layer of mozzarella, crushed garlic and a sprinkle of oregano in between the two wraps to give him a stuffed base, then added the bolognese, mozzarella and seasoning for the topping and put in the oven.

 

I set my oven to 180 and put the pizzas in for approximately ten minutes, until the cheese had browned how we like it. This isn't a fan assisted oven though, so if you are using fan assisted you may need to reduce the time or temperature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone loved the pizzas, they we're delicious, even my Mum loved it and she's not a very big fan of pizzas. The bolognese was very tasty and we all found the meal to be very filling. Needless to say this is a big thumbs up for the Quorn Kitchen book and I'll certainly be trying out another recipe from the book tonight...


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: Quorn have provided the voucher for use on their products for our participation in this week's Meat Free Monday, however the choice in Quorn products purchased is my own, the recipes that I make will also be my own choice. Any opinions expressed in my blog will be my own and unbiased.

 

 

Hiding The Presents

Well I had figured that with Small Boy being the tiny age of twenty months that we would be safe this year with Christmas gifts in the house... How wrong I was! Obviously he doesn't understand Christmas yet, but he is a smart kid and he has "toddler radar" installed as standard so he can sniff out anything that he isn't meant to see.

Last week Nephew and Hubster went on their annual Christmas shopping trip and when they arrived back Nephew was very excited to show me what he had bought for everyone. Within minutes we hear a familiar "ooooooh" sound from Small Boy and turned to see him hugging one of the Christmas presents that was for him. The second incident was yesterday when it took all of twenty seconds from him getting out of the bath to him pulling out one of his Christmas presents to play with!

As for the element of surprise I'm pretty sure he won't remember these incidents by Christmas day, so hopefully he will be surprised when he unwraps his gifts in a few weeks. Obviously I'm not worried about blowing Santa's cover either, we're safe there for one more year.

This has however got me thinking about the next nine or ten years ahead, I can't imagine how we're going to hide gifts and wrapping paper from him. I am one of these people that likes to buy Christmas gifts all year around and there is no way around the fact that I have nowhere to hide these things from him in the house. I've given this some thought though and I've decided the best option for us is to hide them at Big Brother's house, or Uncle Donut as Small Boy now likes to call him.

I have also being worried lately that Small Boy could be over faced with wrapped gifts on the day, however he surprised me at the weekend when we visited Santa. When we arrived home he sat down on the floor to unwrap his gift from Santa and to our horror he knew exactly how to unwrap this parcel. Hubster and I looked stunned at eachother and tried to figure out where he may have picked up how to do this, still we are clueless so that's 1-0 to Small Boy.

I think it's safe to say toddler's are much smarter than we give them credit for, so take my advice, hide those presents well!

Meat Free Monday

From today, every Monday I will be cooking a meat free meal for the whole family. I myself have being a vegetarian now for around 19 years, but Hubster and Small Boy love their meat. They are however going to participate in Meat Free Monday, so I will be cooking up a meat free meal every Monday for dinner for the three of us and anyone else who might be here for dinner, I will share the details with you the following Monday and let you know what everyone thought of it too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the first three weeks I will be making these meals with Quorn as they have very kindly sent us some vouchers to use on their products for the purpose of Meat Free Monday. I'll be using my Quorn Kitchen recipe book for inspiration over the next three weeks too, but I may need to adapt them slightly so that they work well with my diet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: Quorn have provided the vouchers for use on their products for our participation in Meat Free Mondays, however the choice in Quorn products purchased will be my own, the recipes that I make will also be my own choice. Any opinions expressed in my blog will be my own and unbiased.

 

 

Back To Basics

So I started the Slimming world (SW) diet in the summer, this is the first time I've ever done a SW diet and it's safe to say I love it! I was doing pretty well until the winter weather kicked in, tins of chocolates have started stacking up in the pantry with various other naughty treats. The problem with this cold weather is that I crave my comfort foods even more, I'm sure I'm not alone there though....Anyone??

 

After two weeks of feeling horrendous with the flu, days of not eating and days of eating what Hubster was able to prepare or cook, I was very nervous to be weighed at my SW meeting this morning. Much to my surprise I had actually lost 1/2 lb! I was really expecting to have gained weight. I'm glad I lost, even though it's only 1/2 lb it has given me a much needed boost. After the meeting I felt much more motivated, our coordinator is lovely, as are all the members there and I always feel very motivated after the meetings. It's towards the end of the week that I struggle, the temptation kicks in as Hubster and Small Boy are eating chocolate in front of me.

 

Yes chocolate, this is my weakness. I also love crisps, but have actually found it quite easy to give them up. I used to eat one or two packets of crisps a day, but now I only have two or three packets a week. But chocolate, now this is one thing I cannot sacrifice, I've tried but I can't do it, I think it's safe to say I have a chocolate addiction, but I personally feel that cutting something you love out of your diet will simply make you miserable, and life is too short to be miserable so the chocolate stays. Yay!

 

I've decided this week to go back to basics, just like the first week of my diet, simple meals, writing everything down, counting syns meticulously. I will not slip up this week, despite the fact it is my birthday on Sunday because when I sit down and think about it, losing weight this week will make me feel much better about myself than stuffing my face and feeling fat would, and who really wants to feel bad about themselves on their birthday? My plan is to follow the green plan as I normally do, but two days this week I will be trying the Success Express plan, wish me luck..!

 

Right, so now it's winter I'm getting back into soups, but I find the tins and cartons are full of syns, even the low fat ones. I've never ever in my life made a soup before, but I'm going to try this week, the syns on these soups are wasted for me personally and could be put to much better use in chocolate. The soup has to go! I have the laptop at the ready and I'm going to search the SW website for amazing syn free soup recipes this afternoon, I will let you know how it goes later in the week....

 

 

Getting the house ready

It's officially on, the mad race to get the house ready for the 1st December. The house needs cleaning and the furniture needs reorganising so that we can somehow fit my beautuful 6ft Christmas tree in.  Hubster has tried on several occassions to talk me into having a smaller tree, but he failed, for me Christmas is not Christmas without a big tree. So we will be spending tommorow night moving furniture around in the lounge to find a way to make our tree fit. It will fit, one way or another!

So with Sunday being the 1st of December this marks the first of our traditions...

Firstly the tree goes up in the morning, decorated with love, so many of my tree decorations have a story. I have a selection of baubles that once belonged to my Grandad, some that I brought back from an awesome trip to Canada to visit family, special baubles from my childhood, so many with memories of others, very special decorations made by Nephew and of course Small Boy's additions. Finally there's the fairy, she's a woodland fairy and absolutely gorgeous. I searched far and wide to find the perfect fairy and perfect she certainly is. All this tree decorating is always without fail every year done by Hubster, Nephew and myself whilst singing along to our special Christmas album and scoffing a tin of chocolates! I have to confess this year I'm a little worried about how Small Boy and the cats will behave with the tree! Last but by no means least, there's Small Boy's advent calendar. We decided to buy him a Christmas wooden house advent calendar that he will use every year, we'll fill each drawer with his favourite chocolates, although all chocolate seems to be his favourite at the moment!

Once we've finished we go to Whiteleys Garden Centre to visit Santa, last year was Small Boy's first time meeting Santa and he did really well, never cried once, however he did try to pull Santa's beard off! We have a photo taken with Santa, take a leisurely walk around the shop looking at all the beautiful decorations, maybe even buy some then finally write and post a letter to Santa.  Then we move onto next door, the Whitegate pub for lunch, we love it here, the staff are wonderful and the children's menu is great too.

Once we're back home there's nothing better than curling up together on the sofa to watch a Christmas movie with a hot chocolate, especially a Baileys one!

Silent Sunday 24/11/2013

Surviving a bus journey

Since Macca broke down last week we've had to make a few bus journeys, I can safely say it has been enlightening and that's putting it nicely! I noticed that the buses have notices up with certain seating rules and after observing other passengers I have come up with a few pointers to help others survive a bus journey...

1) THE SEATS AT THE FRONT These seats are supposed to be reserved for disabled or elderly passengers, but also parents with a pram. If you have a pram and need to sit here whatever you do avoid eye contact with the elderly as they board the bus, wow you just wouldn't believe the deathly ninja stares that come from them!

2) DON'T FALL ASLEEP Besdies the obvious, that you would miss your stop, there are many other dangers of falling asleep on the bus. The chance that there are a couple of school kids on the bus with a marker pen in their possession is highly likely, if you fall asleep then you're just asking for those whiskers, the porn tash or that pirate eye patch they've lovingly drawn on your face... If you're lucky enough to avoid this you still need to worry about embarrassing yourself, snoring, sleep talking, drooling. Not a good look for anyone!

3) WEAR A SCARF Preferably one you have sprayed a fragrance onto, you'll thank me for this one when you're sat next to Sir Farts-A-Lot!

4) MP3 Take your earphones with you, you'll need them to drown out the annoying voices, I guarantee you will hear at least one annoying conversation whilst on a bus journey and they're a great excuse to avoid talking to the random smelly weirdo that chose to sit next to you despite the fact the bus isn't even half full.

5) NO SINGING Whilst we're on the subject of MP3's, you must remember where you are, otherwise you could get carried away listening to your favourite tunes and let's face it, not many of us have the voice to pull off "Dancing Queen".

Finally...
6) QUEUES Don't be fooled by the friendly looking pensioner who is stood behind you in the queue smiling sweetly at your tiny person who is sat  nicely in the pram. When they're looking at you stood there with the pram, juggling your shopping bags they're plotting their move, be ready! When those bus doors open you need to be ready to run like Usain Bolt because believe me they will move at the speed of light to push past you to be first on the bus!

I'd love to hear of any other survival tips that any of you may have for bus journeys as I'll probably have a few more to go on before Macca is back on the road...

Silent Sunday 17/11/2013

 

 

Its my shed, I like it, f**k off!

I've always loved cars even though I don't know very much about them, as a child I would imagine that the lines on the carpet were roads and run toy cars up and down them. I would always ask my brother, Ian to dig out the box of his old toy cars, Matchbox cars, they were my favourite! I have fond memories and photos from visits to car shows with my Grandad and Ian, as I've grown up this hasn't changed and I still love to look around car shows, although now it's with Ian, my nephew Zak, Scott & Griffin.

I bought my current car five years ago, I was very excited to own a Volkswagen and had high hopes for my little car. I took my nephew Zak with me to collect the car, which was lucky really as I spent twenty minutes at the petrol station trying to find out how to open the petrol cap, luckily Zak found a button for it under the hand brake. Yes that's right, an 11 year old had to help me put petrol in my car, the shame! It took me a couple of days to decide what I was calling my new car, well I say new car but I mean new to me, he was actually seven years old when I bought him, so I called him "Macca", named after the great Bradford City legend Stuart McCall. I loved him, I would take him out for a drive just for the sake of it. I've always found driving with some decent music on quiet roads without other drivers, especially annoying drivers, to be very therapeutic, I just love the freedom that comes with driving, how you can be in your own world, your bubble and whatever is going on in life just fades away into the distance.

Well I have to confess my friendship with Macca had a rocky start, after only three months the exhaust had gone, then the brakes, parts of the engine, even the hand brake. I couldn't afford to replace him and I needed a car for work and college so I would scrape the money together and repair him every time. I resented him for letting me down all the time, I felt like he didn't have a personality like my previous cars had, we just didn't have a connection. For the first time ever I didn't enjoy driving, it was becoming stressful wondering what disaster would happen next under the bonet. After three years I decided to pull out all my receipts and add up what I had spent on repairs, I was horrified to find it came to almost the same amount I had paid for the car in the first place! Not long after I became pregnant, and I'm sure you all know by now how awful my pregnancy was, so I couldn't drive Macca anymore, my mum had to drive him. Over those nine months I really missed driving, I started to miss my Macca. From that point on things started running smoothly for him and I found it frustrating that he was finally running well when I couldn't drive him, typical! I counted down the days until Griffin was born and I would be able to get behind the wheel again, which was delayed again thanks to the complications during labour.

Finally the day came that I was well enough to drive again, I had counted the days and it had been exactly 43 weeks and 2 days. At first I felt nervous, I couldn't help thinking what if I have forgotten how to drive? But I guessed that was silly as everyone says that it's like riding a bike, you never forget. So I packed Griffin up in the car, I decided to have my first drive without my mum or Scott there as I wouldn't feel as anxious then, and off we went. Well we didn't go far, just around the village and back, but it was amazing, absolutely amazing! I didn't even have to think about what I was doing, I just drove, for the first time ever the pieces fell together and Macca's personality came shining out, I finally felt that he was my car. I've often taken Griffin out for a drive with nowhere in particular to go, Griffin loves it, he just loves to watch the world go by out of the window and listen to music, now that he's older he sings along too.

Macca had a mini disaster at the start of the year when we travelled to Morecambe for New Year's Eve celebrations and the football match, just before the game I went out and the clutch bust. Typical the first day of 2013 and we missed the football and were towed all the way home which took hours! Luckily I managed to get Macca fixed pretty quickly and the rest of the year went well, he sailed through his mot, took us to Wembley twice, for the League Cup Final and the Play-Offs, and more recently he took Griffin and myself to Norfolk to visit friends. But it's happened again, on Tuesday whilst driving up a bypass the clutch blew, AGAIN! To be honest what upset me most of all was how dangerous it was, Macca just stalled and stopped dead, the clutch pedal was stuck and wouldn't move at all, we were in the right hand lane with traffic flying up behind us, it was pretty scary. Luckily my mum was there to help me get Griffin out of the car safely and onto the grass banking out of the way. Once again we were towed home, luckily not as far this time!

At the moment we need to have Macca looked at as we're not sure if it's just a new clutch that is needed or if there is any further damage. I'm really hoping no further damage has been caused to Macca as this could mean goodbye for him, he's 13 years old now and he may cost too much to repair. It's hard to think about letting him go, he's a very special car to me despite our ups and downs. He's the first car that I bought by myself, my statement of independence so to speak. I bought him when I got divorced, he took me to my first apartment, then he took me to a new job, that job is where I met Scott, he took Scott and I on our first date, to Scarborough where Scott proposed, to our wedding, he brought Griffin home from the hospital. Macca was the turning point in my life, when everything started to get better, when I found happiness and love. He's a part of our family and I know that cars don't last forever, that one day I'll have to let him go and find a new car, but right now I'm not ready to. So were keeping our fingers and toes crossed that the repairs won't be too big, keep yours crossed for us too because even though you may think he's a clapped out shed of a car, he's my shed. As his awesome sticker that Ian and Zak bought him earlier this year says... "It's my shed, I like it, f**k off!"

Now come on, don't be shy, who else drives a shed and likes it??


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More decisions to make...

I'm not quite sure what happened to the past two weeks, they seem to be a blur! We all had a sickness bug in our house which took just over a week to get over and we seem to be rushed off our feet every day recently.

There are so many decisions to make at the moment, one decision in particular I have to say for once I'm not enjoying... Which smart phone to choose? For the past five years this decision has been quite simple for me, iPhones all the way! But I have to confess I'm starting to feel a little bored of them now, nothing seems to change with them apart from the odd app here and there, but I'm not a very techy person and I'm sure they do, I just don't notice it myself. So I'm looking at other smart phones this week as I'm due an upgrade again. 

There are way too many phones out there now and they seem to have improved drastically over the last couple of years too. I've asked a few different people for advice and opinions are varied which has left me feeling lost! I went to look at phones in the shop today with Scott and to be honest they all looked the same to me, when I asked about the different phones I was left even more confused by all the techy jargon. I do love my iPhone though, it's my third now and I'm still very tempted to stay with what I know, it's a tough decision!

To be entirely honest I hate that I have become so reliant on smart phones, but I think it's just a part of life now for most of us. For me personally I have a laptop that is verging on prehistoric so I tend to use my phone to browse the internet as it's much quicker. I find it so convenient that if I'm out shopping I can use my phone to compare prices, reserve items and even find my way around if I'm lost. The convenience of the camera is also a huge asset for me as I never remember to pack the digital camera or the video camera. I also organise a lot with the apps, such as keeping track of my diet with the Slimming World app, shopping lists, appointments, to do lists... It's endless! 

Well writing that all down hasn't really made the decision any easier, so I'm going to have some chocolate and a think, yes chocolate is the easy decision here and solves all problems in life... Now do I have milk chocolate or dark? Hmm......