Musings of a Rather Mundane Life

Moved

2011-12-03T17:51:00.002Z

Nearly 6 months ago I posted that we were moving, well that was when we had the offer on the flat (appartment) we have had some major hiccups on the way but finally yesterday the contracts were exchanged (for those not familiar with the UK process, the two parties solicitors have to be entirely happy with everything before they will exchange contracts and when the contracts are exchanged the "completion" date is set - date for money an keys to exchange hands). The buyer had previously given his notice for the place that he was living in September believing the contracts had exchanged and was expecting to move October 21st - I informed him five days before that, that contracts had not yet exchanged and he'd better stay with kind friends for a while. The buyers solicitor continued to come with a number of new things each week or so, seemingly unable to think ahead or read the information sent to him/her.

Finally the estate agent said that the buyer was expecting to exchange contracts by mid-November and complete the 2nd December. Then I heard that the buyer had handed in his notice (again) and needed to move this weekend.

Last Sunday a number of wonderful friends came and helped us move our furniture and most belongings into storage as we have not yet found a suitable (read affordable) place to live and would not be able to sign for any contract till we had exchanged contracts on our flat in case the buyer dropped out at the last minute and we were left paying a rent and a mortgage!

So yesterday after we had exchanged contracts we immediately completed (their solicitor had baffled ours once more by transferring the money but not informing them or asking to exchange and complete!)

Some very kind friends are hosting us until we find somewhere to live, it's far from an ideal situation however we have a safe warm place to stay with understanding people who genuinely care for us.

As you can immagine the past week has been hectic with clearing out the last things and cleaning the flat etc. But we are very happy that everything is now finished finally!

Norwegian Massacre

2011-07-23T21:56:00.003+01:00

I am struggling to find words to express how I feel about the massacre in Norway. Being half Norwegian, I have been raised with a respect for peaceful politics and a strong belief in government, the royal family and the people being ONE people despite having differing opinions. An attack such as the one of Friday suggests there are Norwegians who have such unbelievably different views. Such a tragedy.

News

2011-06-07T13:07:00.003+01:00

On Friday, we waved goodbye to PLB's "best friend" - the other little boy that lived in our building, they have moved to another area that is some distance away. It was a sad time as I realised that there are unlikely to be any other children in the near future in our building with only studio and 1 bedded flats.

The next evening I picked up a voicemail from our estate agent saying that we had an offer on the flat, so I called yesterday morning and had to turn the offer down as it was too low, a few hours the agent came back with a higher (final) offer that was our absolute minimum so I accepted - Yippee we're moving!

We don't know where we're moving to yet and my head is spinning with all the jobs to do before we move out but we are so happy to know that soon we will live somewhere a little bigger and we will not have a mortgage or be indebted to anyone any more.

Osama Bin Laden

2011-05-02T09:43:00.002+01:00

I very rarely blog anything remotely political but I just can't avoid it this time, - Osama Bin Laden is dead and already buried at sea - sounds fishy to me (sorry I couldn't avoid that pun). So he will never stand trial for his alleged crimes (I say alleged as we are supposed to be Innocent till proven guilty), no one will risk having his identity challenged. If I have found the right Abbottabad, that is about 1,500km to the sea, obviously by helicopter I assume to the nearest American base to be identified then off to the nearest ship? Any way I guess the cause of all the current terrorism is now dead so we are all safe and will never need to worry about Islamic Extremists again right?!?! Or as a senior US official warned "the possibility of revenge attacks had now created "a heightened threat to the homeland and to US citizens and facilities abroad".

Neighbours

2011-03-23T21:21:00.004Z

In the end of November/beginning of December I started to realise that I have taken for granted how pleasantly quiet our neighbours have always been. I have only once in 5 years until that point been disturbed by neighbours noise (a party in the flat opposite they didn't turn the music down till 10 PAST 10pm! - not that it was extreme but it was loud enough for me to hear well inside my flat). Then anew couple moved in next door at the end of November and I RNG had to BANG on their door on New Years eve (yes I know it was New Years Eve and it was Friday but it was 11pm and shaking our living room 3 rooms away from the neighbouring wall plus our baby was asleep), they didn't have the guts to open the door but the music did get turned down. One day some time later the music was so loud that I took PLB (as protection), wrapped in a blanket with his teddy and dummy (pacifier) and knocked on the door, the woman opened and was very apologetic "I'll tell him" - I didn't even need to explain obviously. Then yesterday I was just about to put PLB down for a nap and the music was extreme again so I got PLB again - I didn't bother with the blanket this time, and knocked, then I banged, then I BANGED then I BANGED so hard that the door flew open and the woman was just near the door looking startled, the dog pounded out. Next time, though I hope there will not be a next time, I have decided that if a reasonably loud knock is not enough I will call the police as I don't want to be accused of breaking and entering or anything.

The same new residents argue VERY loudly regularly - our bathroom neighbours with their flat and I sometimes find it necessary to sing to PLB so that he doesn't hear the offensive words that one cannot help hearing (especially since he copies anything that he hears). One time the two of them spent an hour arguing in the communal entrance hall despite people coming and going even a mother with a little 2 year old wasn't enough to embarrass them into retreat into their own flat.

The sooner we are able to move to a quieter place the better.

On another note, our computer has got MAJOR problems and I am nervous that it will completely die soon. One problem that seems to have occurred is that my RSS feeds have not been updating so today I finally (after about 2 weeks) got suspicious and went onto some of my favourite blogs and discovered loads of posts so I will need to find time to catch up when I can and delete and re-do my rss feeds I think.

Reply

2011-01-30T23:12:00.003Z

Remember the letter that I sent to my local health visitors? Well a couple of weeks ago I got a phone call from the head of the local health visiting team (the letter had been passed around all the health visitors then on to her), to thank me for being in touch and to say that she had check out what I had said in my letter and it was all correct, and as of that day the phrase suggesting that a child should be drinking 500ml of cows milk per day was going to be removed from the 1 year review!

The manager said something to the effect that "these things are put in there but until they have been tried and tested we don't know if they are any good" - my paraphrasing. Umm... I will refrain from further comment on that matter!

Happy New Year

2011-01-03T20:03:00.003Z

Happy New Year everyone.

I generally do not make new years resolutions firstly because I believe that if I am going to make a major (or minor) change and have decided firmly on it then I can start on whatever day I have decided and not wait for some specific date. I also try not to allow myself to get over-whelmed with trying to be perfect, I could probably think of one hundred things that I want to change/do differently/do better etc. Instead I prayerfully try to change the most glaring/most important things first and once again as soon as I have decided in my heart to change something then I will try to do so.

I do however like most people I think try to reflect over the past year and determine to do better this year. There is something about the new year and a fresh calendar that gets us thinking about all the things that we need to change.

I was very happy this year to have finished catching up on things after RNG and PLB had been sick - both are fine now and I didn't catch it - thank you all for your kind wishes.

When the sun set this past Friday, all the washing and ironing had been done and put away, the flat was tidy and comfortably clean (not spotless but clean enough to be comfortable in), and the food was almost all ready. I was therefore able to start the year on the right foot.

I have made a few decisions that are along the lines of some kind of new years resolution:

I have signed myself up (at the encouragement of Cassandra) for reading the Bible in 90 days, - starting today.

Well all you Christian's out there that have ever decided to set aside any portion of your day to read or study the Bible will know that regardless of the time of the day something(s) will happen that will disrupt your plans. For me, I set the alarm at 5am - I wanted to get up before 6 as if the alarm goes off around or after 6 PLB wakes up and wont go back to sleep (remember he doesn't have his own room as we only have one room -bedroom/living room/dining room/study all-in-one). So at 4.40am PLB woke up and didn't get back to sleep till 5.40! But that left me with 45 minutes before he woke up again at 6.25am which was time for me to get up anyway. I managed to get about half way through the reading by that point (I am a slow reader). Later in the day I managed to do the rest of the reading during PLB's two naps - along with the 3 items of ironing from yesterday's laundry and some tidying up and other odd jobs. I have been trying for 2-3 months to get up earlier to have my devotional in the morning before starting my day, however PLB seems to be very light sensitive in the morning and turning the light on wakes him, - thankfully that is not so in the evening.

I have also decided to try one new bread recipe per month (starting yesterday with flour tortillas) and one or two other new recipes per month.

In addition I have decided to do my best to reduce our electricity bill and general bills (phone/Internet/food etc.) this year too.

Not Spending (Much) Money

2010-12-28T22:12:00.004Z

Last Christmas, I was given some Love2shop vouchers from my work place (the official company Christmas present) and then when I left my colleagues gave me some, leaving me with total of £45 of vouchers waiting to be spent. The thing is that I couldn't think of anything that I wanted for myself. I determined that as they were gifts for me I would not use them to buy things we NEEDED for PLB of NEEDED for the house as we would find the money for those things, but instead I would buy something(s) that I wanted for me. Well I was beginning to think they would be in my wallet till they expired but then I was in WH Smiths at the end of November and I was ~~coveting~~ looking at the stamping items and pretty papers they have in the small crafts section and it occurred to me that the vouchers that I had could be used in Smith's. So the next time we went in there a few days later (I rarely buy things on impulse), I bought lots of nice stampy things (well if you are going to start stamping you need the inks, the stamps - a selection of several and throw in some pretty paper for good measure), anyway I spent a whopping £48.93! - SERIOUSLY but obviously £45 was deducted in vouchers. So now I have to make ALL our own cards just to justify my extravagance. I am having fun with the things.

Today (well actually late last night) I had a thought that I could use another gift card for Waterstones that I was given also last Christmas, to buy a vegetarian slow cooker cook book. So far every book that I have thought of that I'd like is not stocked by Waterstones. So this evening I did my research, found the book and ordered it without paying a penny (they have free delivery).

Today we decided to go out for the day to the London Aquarium and use some of £30 the £100 of Tesco day out vouchers that I got recently in exchange for £25 of regular vouchers. The plan was to take lunch with us, drive up and park in a place that I know is free on weekends and bank holidays, then we would pay about £6 in addition to the vouchers for our entrance..... GOOD PLAN - except that they don't take the day out vouchers they take the entrance vouchers that say SeaLife on them or something... OOPSS! After waiting more than half an hour in a very hot que we decided to pay the full £36 rather than go elsewhere. Still we had a nice day out and our lunch and parking were free. - I must research the day out vouchers better before our next excursion!

When More Unexpected Stuff Happens

2010-12-22T10:49:00.002Z

I have had a sick husband for just over a week and now the little one is sick meaning that very little is getting done, I do hope I don't come down with it too. As I said in my last post I am very grateful to be reasonably caught up when these things happen. However with a 14month old toddler clinging to my leg I things are beginning to pile up.

I must write out the remainder of the week's menu, make lunch and supper, fold some laundry, tidy up and attempt some ironing today. If I have more time I need to bake some bread (this evening I think as I want to attempt some croissants so will need to have time for regular kneading), and I must try and do some more work on next year's calendar - Oh yes - I am making our calendar for 2011 - I am a fair way through but I still need some more time.

When The Unexpected Happens

2010-12-15T11:15:00.002Z

When the unexpected happens, I am very grateful to be a housewife and to be fairly caught up on my household tasks.

Yesterday a sudden nosebleed as RNG got out of bed, forced me to wash the bedlinnen and the sofa (sofabed) covers, producing an extra 3 loads of laundry (I had already planned to do the nappies, whites and some woolens).

The 3 emergency loads of laundry and stain treating took a portion of my day, and meant that I needed to postpone my bread-baking till today along with the other 3 loads of laundry. Had I been working, I would have no doubt been late for work, and still only able to do 2 loads of laundry (1 before and 1 after work), which would have meant that 6 loads of laundry would take 3 instead of 6 days. The sofa covers which NEED to be ironed would have to wait till the Sunday.

This morning I got a message from a friend that desperately needs help looking after her youngest 2 while she goes to the school play of the other 2. So tomorrow my day will be somewhat different than planned too.

So my current "To do" list looks like this:

Today:

~~Prep breakfast, do breakfast dishes, put light woolens in machine, take woolens out of machine, put whites in machine, have worship with PLB, make lunch,~~ serve lunch, lunch dishes, take whites out of dryer (I only use this if I HAVE to), Bake bread and pizza bases for Saturday evening's dinner, wash floors - after making bread as the flour goes all over the kitchen, iron sofa covers and preferably a few more things, prep bag for tomorrow, make serve and wash up after supper.

Tomorrow:
Prep breakfast, do breakfast dishes, have worship with PLB, put dark woolens into machine, hang dark woolens, put kitchen towels into machine, hang kitchen towels, make supper, go over to friend's house, come home from friends house, warm supper & eat with RNG, do dishes, go to friend's house again with RNG and PLB for prayer and Bible study meeting.

Friday:

Prep breakfast, do breakfast dishes, have worship with PLB, make and serve lunch, do lunch dishes, clean bathroom, clean shoes, iron anything left for Sabbath, Make food for church fellowship meal: pasta, pasta sauce, potatoes, take bread out of freezer, prep our supper - jacket potatoes, salad and maybe pie/crumble

Sabbath: REST!

Of course in addition to the above I have the usual baby care. The thing that is ironic is that yesterday my father commented on my extra loads of laundry with a slightly sarcastic note, "the joys of being a housewife", - well if I wasn't a housewife, I would have all the same work minus the baby care during the day and I would have to buy the horrid supermarket bread instead of bake it, thankfully I am a housewife and I have time for all the unexpected extra work

Letter

2010-12-07T13:44:00.003Z

I recently received a letter from the local health visiting team containing my son's 1 year review, it asks if I have any concerns about his development and there is a list of expected developmental milestones such as does the child recognise their own name, can they sit unsupported, do they eat a varied and balanced diet, - all good stuff, then amongst everything it says the child should have "500ml of cows milk per day".

Regardless of whether one consumes meat and dairy or not, that is an un-healthy quantity of milk for such a young child, so I wrote the following letter:

To Whom It May Concern:

I am enclosing this letter together with my son’s 1 Year Development Review as I am gravely concerned about one of the points on the “Expected range of development for children aged 1 year of age” list.

Under the section about Diet and Health it is suggested that a 1 year old child should be consuming 500ml of cows milk per day. This concerns me greatly for the following reasons;

The WHO recommends that infants (male and female) of 1 year consume 1.14g protein per kg in weight (the recommended consumption reduces to 1.03g/kg by 1½ years and 0.97g/kg by 2 years of age. If an infant consumes 500ml of (whole) cows milk per day they will be consuming 17g protein per day (3.4g/100ml source: The dairy Council http://www.milk.co.uk - Nutritional composition of milk) from milk alone in addition there will be protein in almost everything that the child eats. This is more protein than a child weighing 14kg at 1 year needs per day (less than 2% of boys weigh that much at 1 year) Source: WHO recommended safe levels of protein in Infants and children page 176 of Protein and amino acid requirements in humans http://whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/WHO_TRS_935_eng.pdf

500ml of whole cows milk contains 590mg calcium, according to the Food Standards Agency children between ages 1 and 3 require about 350mg calcium per day (297ml of milk would provide this, however assuming the child has a varied diet they would not even need this amount of milk, breast milk (which is recommended by the WHO and DOH till a child reaches 2 years contains 25% of the amount of calcium of cows milk but is a better source as it is more easily assimilated into the human body), cooked spinach, parsley, dried figs, almonds (for example in smooth almond butter), un-hulled sesame seeds (for example dark Tahini) are also very good souces as are many other seeds, nuts, beans, tofu and green leafy vegetables.

There is a significant increase in the risk of developing juvenile diabetes – this is due to the casein (protein) in the cows milk that is not recognised by the human body and therefore the body produces an immune response, casein has the same amino-acid sequence as the Beta cells in the pancreas, so the body may start destroying the Beta cells in the pancreas thus causing diabetes type 1.
Sources: Lancet Medical Journal June 1999, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1990; 51:489-91
“Early cow milk exposure may increase juvenile diabetes risk by about 1.5 times” – Diabetes Care 1994; 17 (1):13
Babies who are fed whole cow's milk during the second six months of life may experience a 30% increase in intestinal blood loss and a significant loss of iron in their stools." Paediatric 1992; 89 (6): 1105-1109 – The bleeding may reduce after 1 year however people who consume large amounts of dairy are still more prone to iron deficiency (anaemia). “Cow’s milk is a common cause of iron deficiency. It contains less iron than many other foods and also makes it more difficult for the body to absorb iron from other foods. Cow's milk also can cause the intestines to lose small amounts of blood.” (Source: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007134.htm - A service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine)
Too much protein increases the levels of uric acid in the blood and to neutralise the excess acid calcium is leached from the bones. "Dietary protein increases production of acid in the blood which can be neutralized by calcium mobilized from the skeleton." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1995; 61 (4)
The only reason I can think of for the recommendation of such large quantities of milk in a small child’s diet is to increase the calories/fat, however a balanced diet should be capable of supplying adequate calories and fat, not to mention better proportions of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats to saturated fat – the quantities of milk you are recommending give 12g saturated fat, 5g monounsaturated fat and 0.5g polyunsaturated fat. Oils, nuts, seeds, olives and avocado are all good sources of fats with appropriate proportions of saturated fats to mono and polyunsaturated fats. I think it is well known that a child’s diet will impact their health and diet choices for life, so surely ensuring that more appropriate dietary advice should be given?
My son in addition to receiving an average of 4 breastfeeds, consumes around 200ml of fortified soya milk (Alpro Junior 1+) per day and we have a very varied vegan diet. I asked for a referral to a dietician before we started weaning and she agreed that our family diet was adequate to provide all appropriate nutrients for my son. I will admit that my views on the suitability of milk as a food is biased, I have been a vegan for many years, I have enjoyed very good health as a result and my choices for becoming and staying vegan have primarily been health based – based on my own research, based on science. As you can see everything I have quoted is from well respected official sources and medical journals. I appreciate that many families have very poor diets that are anything but varied and balanced, however it would be more appropriate in my opinion to educate such families in balanced diets than hoping that including 500ml of milk will supply their lack of good nutrition.

Grit

2010-12-04T20:55:00.002Z

On Friday morning PLB and I went for a walk (well actually I walked and PLB sat comfortably in his pushchair while I pushed him through the snow), stopping by an old lady we know to check up on her - she was fine, then on to watch the cars at the end of our road.

On our way to the end of our road we were passed by a lorry "spreading" (spraying) grit onto the road... Seriously - we had at that point had snow since Tuesday and they finally make it to our road, but are they kidding - what is the point in spraying grit onto 25cm of churned up snow? SEND IN THE SNOW PLOW FIRST!!! A little grit is not going to melt that much snow and make it safer to drive on.

People get frustrated that the country grinds to a halt with a mere sprinkling of snow and more than a sprinkling completely panics everyone and makes everyone compare the UK's response to snow with Scandinavia for example, but I usually stick up for British drivers as British cars don't have spiked tyres on them, but at least the authorities could help by plowing our streets before gritting them, then people would stand a chance at making it in to work.

Let It Snow

2010-11-26T14:48:00.002Z

Yesterday evening RNG stocked up on a few basics that we were missing including salt which we ran out of in January when there was all that snow and I remember standing staring at the empty salt shelves in Tesco being completely baffled by the lack of salt (we had recently come back from Italy and missed the worst of the chaos). I could not figure out where all the salt had disappeared to and was beginning to picture a Ghandi-like man leading people to the back warehouse of Tesco where they were hiding the salt when a man told me "it's all gone on the roads". Mystery solved! This time I have no intention of getting caught out in my cooking.

Today I bought an electric extension cord so that the fan heater can reach and heat the bathroom, I bought a shovel for RNG to keep in the car and I bought a sledge - I would hate PLB to miss out on all the sledging fun.

So now we are ready for snow... Well almost I need to buy PLB a snow suit as I am currently keeping him in the pushchair wrapped in blankets but that is no fun!

Modest Clothing Shop in the UK

2010-11-25T11:14:00.002Z

I am considering opening a modest clothing store and would appreciate help from any ladies that are particularly interested in dressing modestly - especially if you live in the UK or Europe to help me conduct market research by completing an online survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/R66NSJM

I will not pass any details on to anyone else and will only keep your contact details if you request me do do so on the survey.

you can help by emailing the link for this survey to any female friends that you have that are interested in dressing modestly.

If you are male, under 18 or not interested in dressing modestly please do not complete this survey.

Embarrassing!

2010-11-08T20:52:00.006Z

A couple of weeks ago RNG, PLB and I went to the "Taste of Autumn" festival at Wisley RHS garden. We used £16 of Tesco vouchers to get an annual membership.

When we arrived and got out of the car I looked down at my feet:

Embarrassing!

Of Birds and Dying Dogs

2010-11-04T22:02:00.003Z

I have been a bit quiet lately to say the least, PLB is well and truly on the move and investigating everything he can possibly reach and the computer, iron, kitchen drawers etc. are amongst the things he can reach so I spend a LOT of time re-directing his attention and therefore I avoid spending time online while he is awake anyway I will snatch 5 minutes now while I should be getting to bed instead.

While we were in the south of Italy in June I noticed that peoples attitudes regarding animals is very, shall we say "relaxed"? Their dogs ride on their scooters unrestrained rather like their children in the back of the car (that is a whole different post). One thing that I found disturbing was walking (most days) past a pet shop where the display outside is a (too small) cage with 6 old parakeets - you could see that the birds were not well looked after and I wondered if people would ever buy a pet from a shop like that.

One morning we were on our way to the beach when we saw a dog lying on the pavement ahead of us. The dog was moving around slightly but you could see from a distance that all was not well. As we came closer we could see that the poor thing was emaciated and in very poor health to say that it was close to death is not an exaggeration. We stood for some time trying to work out what to do (we weren't keen on touching it as it might have rabies or something), we decided to go into the holiday village that we were just passing to ask if the people in reception could find us the number for the Italian equivalent of the RSPCA. Obviously we wouldn't be able to care for the dog as we didn't live there. As we were still pondering all these things the dog wandered further away and lay down in the middle of the road. We started to get even more nervous for the poor dog a couple of cars drove around the dog and some more passers-by stopped to look, then finally an Italian couple who had just come out of the afore mentioned holiday village picked the dog up and started back to the village. We exchanged a few words and they said that they would see to the care of the dog. The poor little dog lay resting it's head on the man's arm, it seemed to know that it was going to be cared for now. We were so happy for the little dog, which by the way was extremely cute - like something you would see on a calendar.

The Beach

2010-08-12T21:44:00.006+01:00

This is how I like my beaches - empty or as quiet as possible - if you look in the far background you can see another parasol hiding a fellow quiet beach lover.

I like being able to relax with my husband and baby without lots of semi-naked people walking past or lying around in their underwear - I don't like my husband seeing other women in their underwear - just because the fabric and clips are different it doesn't change what it is in essence.
I don't like seeing almost naked men in public either. I also like to be able to swim without feeling like everyone is watching. Yes I have a very modest swimsuit but that in itself can make people watch - you can almost hear them thinking - "is she really going to swim in that?" "that can't be safe" "that outfit looks very cumbersome to swim in" - ok actually I don't really care that much what other people think but people do take a second look and actually it is very easy to swim in my swimsuit despite appearances and I think people are more surprised that I swim so fast but the fact remains that I would rather swim with few people around and I like to change afterwards without struggling with a towel or retreating to a smelly public toilet.

So below you have a picture of a quiet stretch of public beach we found in Tropea. It starts to get busier around 10am and by midday it's time to think about heading back for lunch but that is fine. For those who are interested it is behind the "Isola". But be warned - don't stay too close to the rock face even though the shade may be tempting as we were made painfully aware that small stones do occasionally fall down (I never knew one could get a blue mark from a bruise so quickly), thankfully neither myself or RNG were badly injured and PLB who was peacefully sleeping under the hood of his pushchair was untouched.

PLB enjoying the sand on the beach

It's amazing how long a baby will play happily with the same few toys.

The last day that we went to the beach I was telling RNG how happy I was that there were no jelly fish unlike the previous time 2 years before and unlike the upmarket resort just down the coast that we saw from the boat the day before that had an incredible infestation of the floating creatures, but I had been able to swim multiple times over the two weeks without seeing a single jelly fish... - "whats all the commotion over there? - It looks like the life guard has fished something out with his net what sort of disgusting thing could it be, - oh there is more..."

"JELLY FISH?!?!"

Yes, as I was talking the infestation reached Tropea - I'm not sure if you can see in the below photo but there were dozens of the things in every square meter.

Still I had just finished my last swim of the season so I didn't care!

Really Random

2010-07-30T13:23:00.003+01:00

So I was on the phone yesterday to the bank and while holding I was told, "all our advisers are currently engaged but one will be with you as soon as possible" - so do they really have such a problem with people phoning and proposing to their advisers that they need to warn people that they are already taken?

Big Bad PC Virus Gone!

2010-07-10T23:30:00.003+01:00

This evening after Sabbath I decided to tackle a problem that I have been procrastinating for a very long time as I knew it would take a while. Anyway I have succeeded (I think)...

I have had a very irritating virus on my pc for a long time - several months at least so I have been using RNGs laptop which I don't like using. Anyway the virus would redirect me to malware pages every time I tried to google something - that is when I clicked on the result I would be taken somewhere entirely different. - Well you try googling how to fix a problem that wont take you to the page that you thought you clicked on. Of course my various protections on the pc would stop the malware websites from opening but I was stuck none the less. So I managed to find the fix on geeks to go but just never found (sorry, set aside) a long enough stretch of time to fix it till this evening.

So now we are a two computer family once again!

Headcoverings

2010-07-07T14:02:00.004+01:00

Any headcovering ladies out there be sure to stop over at Tomato Soup Cake for the chance to win a headcovering wardrobe. - Oh yes and blog about it for a second entry...

Vegan Review of Tropea, Italy

2010-07-04T12:59:00.004+01:00

We recently spent 15 days in a small town in Calabria in the South of Italy and thoroughly enjoyed the beach (that's another post to come), a nice trip out to the Eolian Islands (yet another post) and plenty of good food - the focus of this post.

As I have mentioned before, Italy is a great place for vegans (and vegetarians) to visit. Even in relatively small towns by the sea such as Tropea it is easy to eat well.

In several "supermarkets" - well more the size of large convenience stores it was possible to buy a reasonable selection of vegan foods - we were self-catering (courtesy of auntie). Available locally are Misura Privolat croissants and biscuits that are 100% vegetale (vegan) and Valsoia frozen meat substitutes are good though rather expensive, likewise the ice cream, also plenty of tinned - or rather bottled pulses are available. It was possible to buy margarine and soya milk - but unfortunately the only brand we found (valsoia) contains both sugar AND salt - not very good for small children. "Latte di Mandorla" (almond milk) was also very easy to find - though full of sugar but no salt.

Eating out was interesting - I'll start with the bad: Carpe Diem - the restaurant has signs all over town and we located the place, looked at the menu and decided to try it - don't make the same mistake that we did! The food was not terrible - just not great - like not very fresh or interesting, the service was rather unprofessional but polite.

The OK: Normanno - good views - I gather from auntie that the fish is excellent, they also do lovely vegan polpettino - batter fried veggies, and their watermelon was wonderful (first time) and good (second time), however there is virtually no choice for mains - one mediocre pasta and again mediocre gnocchi with bland tomato sauce (though PLB loved the gnocchi - he was supposed to be asleep but woke up and we gave in).

The very good: Gargano - it's fairly near the cannon I think it's on Via Umberto. The first time we went there we each had two first courses: me - Penne alla Tropeana (penne with the local red onion), RNG - Fileja di Tropea (a local pasta with tomato and aubergine - I asked them to leave out the mozzarella). We were then so impressed with each other's first course that we decided to order a second first each -but of the opposite foods. Another time that we went we had amongst other things some grilled vegetables including aubergine which were very nice. The food is all cooked fresh to order (many restaurants have pre-prepared the pasta at least), and it is definitely very good home cooking, it's a family run business and la mamma is the "chef". The service was polite but not outstanding but the food made up for it.

Now for dessert... When in Italy you have to have gelato right? Well in Tropea I can recommend 2 places: - Mimmo - rice gelato (sugar free too apparently - I didn't ask what it is sweetened with as occasionally it is nice just to let go of my rules about sweeteners etc, though it may just be sweetened with dextrose or something) very nice available in chocolate, hazelnut (very nice), plain and tiramisu if my memory serves me correctly. the second place is Tonino for soya ice cream which was very creamy think he only has 3 flavours plain, hazelnut and chocolate though it may only be 2 I can't quite remember also apparently sugar free.

Thoughts From Our Holiday

2010-06-19T20:52:00.003+01:00

We're currently visiting the in-laws in Milan but were down in the south of Italy for just over two weeks and I have a long list of things to blog about, but will have to wait a few days till we are back in the UK to start on the majority of them however below I will note a few thoughts from our trip to Calabria.

When you are in a small Calabrian town chatting with a local business owner and a man that is dressed so smartly that it appears out of place wanders around to many of the local shops (followed by a couple of very casually dressed rather rough looking men) and "chats" for a while to their owners, then comes to the place of business where you currently are and the owner jumps to attention to serve the "customer" and when later asked if the customer was a local just shrugs and says "sort of"... it isn't necessarily suspicious
If in that same small town a business owner asks if they can put 50Euro on the till receipt (instead of the 120 you actually spent) you have several options: Drop your jaw and ask (in a very innocent voice) "why would you do that? is there such a good discount for me?", or "Certainly not - that would be dishonest!", or "sure, - by the way, could you please direct me to the polizia financiale?"
In such a town you might be interested to notice just how many receipts you are given are not fiscal in such a town
After visiting such a town and blogging about it you might want to point out on your blog that not all business owners are dishonest and there was nobody that treated you in a bad way during your stay - yes the locals may be reserved but they are polite enough and we at least, will certainly go back again

Why Did I Wiait So Long?

2010-05-21T15:40:00.003+01:00

Why did I wait so long? - That is the question I have been asking myself for the past couple of days. I blogged some time back about the problem I was having with the screen of my digital camera - basically it no longer worked. I tried so hard to convince myself it was just like having an old fashioned film camera - look through the view finder and hope for the best then later find out the results. The thing is I was always afraid I'd delete a photograph accidentally or put some strange setting on that ruined the photos and I would be unable to see the settings to change them back. So on Wednesday we bought a new digital camera I didn't even realise that it was on sale at the time I just ordered the one that I had decided suited our needs the best only to find out it was £20 cheaper. Poor RNG didn't get much say on the matter - except the colour - Red. Anyway I charged the battery that night and yesterday I must have taken more photos in one day than in the previous 7 months of the life of my son PLB. It is a great shame that I didn't buy a proper camera sooner to capture all those precious moments - seriously there have been some times that an entire month has gone by without me taking a single photo of our first child!

Another issue that I had with my old camera was that it took AA batteries, - I thought at the time that it would be a good idea as I could use rechargeable ones and if I was out and about I could always buy some new regular batteries. Well it didn't seem to matter whether I used rechargeable or regular batteries I rarely got more than about 12 photos before the battery would give out on me. I even wasted money on some "high usage" ones specifically for digi cameras and they were worse than the regular rechargeable ones. This new camera has a Li-Io battery (like mobile phones) and should therefore last longer.

So why did I wait so long? Because I wanted to procrastinate spending more money. I mean I was going to get one sooner or later but I didn't want to spend money "just now" but the money doesn't increase for me waiting unfortunately - but the price did go down.

Busy Lately

2010-05-03T21:06:00.003+01:00

"We have an unusually high call volume at the moment, we will answer your call as soon as possible and thank you for your patience"...

Well I am glad that they will thank me for my patience, though I am not sure when they do not have an unusually high call volume.

Those call holding messages really irritate me, the particular message mentioned above always plays regardless of the day or time that I phone my ISP.

My personalised message for my lack of blogging lately is this...

"I apologise for the lack of updates recently, I have been unusually busy, I will be back blogging again soon and will reward you for your patience with more frequent updates..."

Spring Cleaning

2010-03-31T20:19:00.003+01:00

Sometimes when my dear husband is at home I get very little done as we do things together, however today was not one of those days.

A couple of days ago I received an email that amongst other things informed me that from 1st of April - weather (temperature) permitting, the communal heating in our building would be turned off. This prompted me to finally get around to washing the two large rugs in our living room. Both of the rugs are cotton and both state dry clean only, however a couple of years ago one of them had become so dirty that I knew it had to be cleaned so I put it in a bath and attempted to hand wash it - well it was cleaner afterwards but took days to dry. Last year I think I put it in the washing machine to spin (I checked the dry weight of it before I started washing and it was below the maximum weight). This time around I just put one rug in to wash on a normal cotton cycle yesterday and the other one today then put them onto the radiator to dry - WOW they are so much cleaner - like new in fact -the dirtier one I added some stain remover to the wash too.

So this all prompted me to do a deep clean in the living room (/bedroom) today as RNG was home and able to keep PLB entertained. So the picture rail has been vacuumed (I LOVE our handheld Dyson) and wiped, the ceiling, light fixtures and walls have all been dusted and the floor washed (except one small corner that will be done tomorrow or whenever RNG next has a work day off. I also wiped every shelf on our book case.

It feels nice to know that the place is much cleaner - especially thinking that PLB will be crawling before I know it and I am always playing catch-up on the cleaning.

A Few Blissful Days...

2010-03-21T21:29:00.003Z

As I have mentioned before, I like ironing - I think it gives me a sense of achievement literally seeing the difference before my eyes. Anyway, I caught up with my own ironing back in September 2007, then promptly fell behind slightly in the run-up to our wedding, but nothing unmanageable, that is until I actually got married and inherited a VERY LARGE pile of ironing from my husband. Now my husband is very good at a lot of things like cooking for example and he is very happy to help out with the cooking frequently, and he very kindly usually takes out the rubbish (my least-favourite-ever job), however he doesn't particularly like ironing and I do so it seems appropriate that I do all the ironing. So as I said I gained a large pile of ironing on December 30th 2007 and until Friday 12th 2010 I had still not caught up, that is I almost did a few times then sickness, holidays, baby etc. inevitably got in the way. But that special day to be noted for all history I finally caught up. So for a couple of blissful days I didn't have any outstanding ironing, then I did the laundry on the Sunday...

Well at least now it is a manageable pile each week.

Who'd have known

2010-02-27T20:44:00.004Z

Wow, I just updated my profile to include my occupation as "Domestic Engineer" and found that there are 23,700 bloggers who have that as their occupation - I was expecting only a handful. That gives me another 23,699 new blogs to check out when I have time!

Outsourcing

2010-02-24T14:53:00.003Z

My dear husband is a chef working through an agency, he often works in nursing or residential homes in the area. RNG has many times remarked that he wouldn't want his parents to end up in a "place like that" - he says this about any from the very worst to the very best, - why? Because though the care may be skilled and indeed many of those that work there may really care, it is still strangers caring for individuals often most personal needs.

I have often wondered what happened to people before nursing homes became big business - and they really are big business zapping both the savings and meagre pension of the residents and often their families too.

From my research I have concluded that one of two things happened to people in the past.

The person was cared for by their daughter or daughter in-law or niece in the home of the carer.
The person was poor - often a widow or a person who never got married, therefore with no family to support them they had to take refuge in "alms houses" when they were no longer able to support themselves, often living in squalid conditions.

Obviously there were often cases of abuse and poverty however most of the people who were cared for by family members were able to retain their dignity. I get the impression that once the majority of women started going out to work there was nobody left at home to look after "granny" and people started outsourcing their caring to someone "more qualified". The result being that they often found they had to work more to pay for the care that they were unable to give, eventually people just expected their elderly relatives to pay for it themselves. I think it is a sad fact that people no-longer find it strange that an older person should sell their home and give up their savings to pay for the care of a stranger, when only 50 years ago it was the norm for people to look after their ageing parents. Now obviously everyone's circumstances are different and not everyone can or should care for an elderly family member, however the assumption that someone else should is a poor reflection on our current age.

Sorry I think I am rather incoherent today - blame a teething baby and lack of sleep on that one!

This Strange Language

2010-02-02T21:03:00.003Z

A few days ago RNG, PLB and I were in a shop and my dear husband read this sign: "SALE Last week up to 75% off" and he asked (in all sincerity) "what about this week?" - I had to laugh and explain that it meant that this week is the last week and that there is now up to 75% off. I admit that without a comma it is very confusing. RNG is not the only one to be confused by signs, I recently saw a sign attached to a lamp post that read "Table Top Sale" and I wondered why anyone would only want to buy a table top - no I'm not joking.

2010-01-20T14:30:00.002Z

Just to say that I have imported all posts from my vegan blog to this blog as I so rarely update it - I will now delete the vegan blog and any future food posts will be on this blog.

Making Money

2010-01-19T22:21:00.002Z

My husband just told me that he wants to use this machine to make money. I told him that I think that it is a criminal offense to make money yourself and I suspect that if you put metal into the machine it will break. Seriously though my husband would love to have the whole of this Kenwood mixer thing... I have told him that I think it's an excellent idea and we will get one when we have a bigger kitchen and lots of money.

Oh That'll Be Nice And Warm...

2009-12-22T13:33:00.002Z

Almost everytime that my husband or I have told people that we were going to Italy over the Christmas holiday period they say, "Oh that'll be nice and warm"... We do try to explain that the north of Italy where we will be staying (Milan) has much the same winter weather as the UK but they often remain unconvinced. Right now I can see out of the window a couple of pine trees with a very heavy covering of snow, I'm guessing that yesterday afternoon and evening we received around 10-15cm of snow.

Actually the day before we flew out my husband looked out of the window and said "look it's snowing!" Thankfully it was not heavy and did not settle, however we did get nervous and were prepared for the possibility that we might need to leave the evening before and stay near the airport overnight. Considering the chaos that the snow has caused in the past few days I am very glad that we flew out already last Wednesday or we might not have got here at all.

Washing

2009-12-20T18:23:00.003Z

Just thought I would share a helpful hint:

When drying clothes indoors on a clothes horse, they will dry more quickly if turned every few hours, thereby exposing the more damp side to the air.

We are currently on holiday and staying with my parents-in-law and as predicted it hasn't taken long for us to need to do a couple of loads of laundry.

Saving Money While Travelling

2009-11-19T14:47:00.006Z

I started writing this post on Friday and did something or other wrong and accidentally deleted the entire post as I was almost finished. Since I was typing single handed (baby in the other arm), I couldn't be bothered to re-type it all then, but now as my Precious Little Bundle (PLB) is sleeping, I will attempt it again.

On Thursday we sent off the passport application for PLB's first passport. We are planning on going to Italy from the end of December to beginning of January.

When I was last away in May, I started writing a list of ways to save money while travelling. As we almost exclusively stay with family or friends when away the list does not include anything about cheap accommodation. Below is my list of tips;

Book well in advance (we haven't this time as we needed to wait to see that everything was ok for PLB to travel first)

Fly budget airlines

Take own food for journey and drinks where possible (or buy drinks at the airport after security - it will be much cheaper than on the plane - "budget airlines" are anything but budget when it comes to the extras like refreshments! )

Take the long way around, i.e. take a bus to the airport rather than the high-speed train, take local transport rather than tourist routes or taxis

Allow extra time to avoid the need for taxis

If you do need a taxi take it only part of the journey if possible (for example into the city where you can get the airport bus/fast train etc. as taking a taxi all the way to the airport will almost always cost a lot more than a short taxi ride and even the fast airport train)

Check out how local holidays or strikes will affect your method of transport (learnt this the hard way last time we were in Italy and because we hadn't done #5 we had to resort to #6)

Plan economical excursions - and book ahead

Pack a picnic for days out (take plastic food bags with you or buy there)

Plan picnic menus with simple local foods - if you still want to enjoy a treat out you can buy ice cream or a local cake etc. - if you go into a cafe to do this you can give your feet a rest and sit in the shade/enjoy the warmth/air conditioning etc.

Compare prices

Use toilets where they are free i.e. in cafes (see #10), at airports and in some stations - when we went to Lake Como in May we took the local (slow stopping but cheap) train which stops right in the centre of the town and has a free toilet, so we made a couple of trips back there during the day as necessary

Travel off-peak/out of season - day-trip prices will often be cheaper and cafes and restaurants may have special offers etc.

Buy water and snacks etc. in supermarkets, not from street vendors as it may be up to 10 times cheaper at a supermarket

Budget for meals out (you are on holiday after all - #9 is not a set rule for every day)

Budget for postcards, stamps, gifts and souvenirs etc.

If staying with or meeting friends plan for gifts in advance (food and crafts from home will often be appreciated (as they are "exotic") and certainly cheaper than buying gifts at the last minute, also bring one or two extra small things for unexpected needs

Make a plan for laundry (if self-catering it might be worth paying extra for a washing machine), find the local laundrette (laundromat) etc. - This will save you bringing too much clothing and paying for more bags/excess luggage ("budget" airlines make their money on your bags), also this will save your sanity with small children that get through 4 outfits per day

Where possible, borrow or rent baby equipment at your destination rather than bringing more baggage (budget airlines again and also you will have more than enough to carry anyway

Buy disposable nappies (diapers) and wipes when on offer - this is a new one for me

When self-catering, buy less not more food to save waste

Take a couple of tasty treats to avoid temptation at the airport

Likewise, take some new/interesting reading material also to avoid temptation at the airport.

What are your tips for saving money while travelling?

Autumn

2009-10-06T18:05:00.005+01:00

Today is one of those miserable, grey, drizzly autumn days, yesterday was too.

I haven't been outside since Sunday, I really should, but it is just so dreary, I even have an important errand to run (not that important really but should be done soon), that is to post 3 things and buy some stamps for the USA - I have bought European stamps for the birth announcements but I forgot to get ones for the US and I have several friends there that I will want to send announcements to.

I have been more than content the past couple of days to stay comfortable indoors and listen to the wind while knowing that there is nothing that is forcing me to go out there (work for example). But really tomorrow, rain or shine I will need to go out because I don't want this hanging over me once the baby arrives.

I have been saying for weeks that I was going to clean and re-fill the birdbath (well it is full now), I keep meaning to put cayenne pepper in the flower pots to keep the squirrels from digging up all my bulbs and primulas, - I really need to see if I can find the cover for them. For some reason just walking out of the flat and around the building seems like a lot of work, pregnancy hormones I guess!

What To Do....

2009-09-29T17:13:00.002+01:00

...When this happens:

OK - This is a staged photo, but it has happened to me and my husband a number of times that we have spilled a large number of cotton buds (or toothpicks) on the floor. - Obviously once such things have been on the floor they are no longer fit for their original purpose, so the question is what to do with them other than throw them away?

Well what I do is I save them for cleaning, - you know all those fiddly places that you can't get at, I used to reach for a new toothpick or cotton bud, however I now have a bountiful supply for cleaning purposes.

My PC is Dead

2009-09-28T15:05:00.002+01:00

Unfortunately my PC appears to be dead, I have managed to set up RNG's laptop online - several attempts plus a half hour on the phone to the broadband support but it now works thankfully! I am not used to using a laptop and get very frustrated by the mouse and keyboard so I will later on set up the manual keyboard and mouse with it. First however I will try to rescue various files from my pc if it will stay alive for long enough to put things on a memory stick - it keeps dying after a minute or two at most and then re-boots with the "blue screen of death" - except last time the blue screen only showed one line and the wording appeared to mean something like DEAD! I have previously a few months ago burnt all the photos onto disks -this was after a previous fright, so I am glad not to have lost all those.

I will hopefully in the next day or two do a blog over on my "baby blog" about setting up our tiny one-roomed home for a baby. So if you are interested, please check that out too.

The First Week at Home

2009-09-18T10:04:00.002+01:00

My first full week at home has flown by, RNG had an unusual work schedule this week which meant that he was home during the morning till around 1pm 3 days, all day on Sunday and Wednesday and then working from 7.30am today, so we have had a lot of additional time together which has been nice. RNG has been busy working on a sermon that he will be preaching this Sabbath, so I have been able to get on with a few things around the place during the time he has been working.

All the baby washing and ironing has now been done but I still have quite a few sewing projects I need to work on - 3 absolutes before the baby is born and the others I hope to do too. The flat is beginning to look tidier and I am starting to get a bit of a routine which is good, I really hope to have a good routine going before the baby is born as I know that in the beginning it will be enough just to focus on the basics like feeding and changing baby, eating, sleeping, keeping up to date with the laundry and showering every day, so having a basic routine that incorporates those things (except baby-care) already now will hopefully help later on... We shall see!

This morning I have spent a lot of time deleting, filing and responding to emails so now I need to log off to do some more things around here especially as it is Friday and the Sabbath will be here before I know it.

At Home

2009-09-14T14:22:00.003+01:00

I should hopefully be around more consistently now as I think I found the pc problem and the computer has behaved almost perfectly since. I am also officially on maternity leave now and therefore should have more time to keep up with blogging - there are several blogs that I like to read that I haven't checked in such a long time I can't even remember when it was.

Despite a long list of tasks (including rest) that I have, I hope to carve out some time for blogging and getting caught up with emails, so if you haven't heard from me for a while, you probably will soon!

Still Having PC Issues

2009-08-31T21:26:00.002+01:00

Electronic goods don't seem to like us at the moment. In July our pc mouse died one Sunday morning, so we bought a new one - we had wanted an optical mouse for some time - especially useful for watching DVDs.

Then the monitor died, - so we bought a new one - still haven't upgraded the graphic card and will probably wait some time for that.

Now since the middle of last week, we have had MAJOR issues with the computer. I turned the pc on last Wednesday while I was chatting to my grandmother on the phone, I didn't open any programs or do anything with it and it suddenly shut down on it's own. When I re-started it gave me a "serious error" blue screen, so I turned off and started up again to a black screen this time (or it might have been the other way around). Eventually I managed to get the computer up and running, then on Thursday I was sitting working on an Excel spreadsheet and the pc shut down same as before, Friday same thing. I have run virus scans, defragmented and run a pc-check-up to no avail. Today I have deleted a couple of programs that recently updated including one just the day before all this happened. So far this has worked however if I am not around for a while you will know why.

We really need to get a new camera before the baby is born as the screen on the back of mine has died and I can't see if I am deleting photos or changing settings or anything = I really don't want to accidentally deleter photos of the baby or something!

It's Not The Going Out...

2009-08-25T19:33:00.004+01:00

It's not the going out to work that's the problem (I don't mind my job), it's the coming home that I don't like.

When I go out to work in the morning I may or may not have had time to do the following:

Wash up breakfast dishes and/or last nights dinner dishes on occasions.
Put a load of washing in the machine - on timer to finish just before I'm due home
Iron somethings from my pile of dry clothes

When I have had the time to do some or all of the above, I can come home, hang the laundry, make dinner (and eat it obviously), perhaps do some more ironing, hopefully wash up and have some time over for checking emails and blogs. - Cleaning only gets done on Sundays or basic cleaning on a Thursday or Friday (I come home earlier on Fridays).

Generally though despite getting up at 5am (and not leaving the house till 7.10) I rarely have time for more than one of the above tasks in the morning. - Yes I am very slow in the morning but it takes time to shower, eat a proper breakfast with my husband, put my lunch in my bag and hopefully have a season of worship with my dear husband unless he is leaving very early like before breakfast. As a consequence I get home to a pile of washing up, laundry that needs doing, ironing, cooking (although RNG does that sometimes) and by the time we are finished with dinner I am exhausted.

Like I said I don't mind going out to work, it is the coming home to all the work that has not been done during the day that I don't like. I only have 9 1/2 days left of working outside the home, - that means 10 more mornings of rushing to catch a bus and 10 more evenings of rushing when I get home, but now it feels manageable as I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, - the chaos is coming to an end.

Organising

2009-08-23T13:35:00.002+01:00

Last Sunday I spent some time re-arranging the furniture in our room (we live in a studio flat so by "our room" I mean our bedroom/living room/dining room - we have a separate kitchen, bathroom and small hallway). I knew that RNG would tell me that I should have waited for him, however I knew that by the time he was home it would be late and besides all the furniture that I moved was extremely light or on wheels. Anyway We put our (6-seater) dining table into storage and now have only a small folding table that is fine for 2 of us but not great for 4 - definitely not suitable for more than 4. Why all this re-arranging? - Well we needed to find space for the baby's crib - I am not exactly for the idea of co-sleeping and besides the baby would need somewhere to sleep during the day as we have a sofa-bed which we turn back to a sofa in the morning and there is no way I would want to either live with a permanent bed instead of a sofa or re-make the bed every time the little one wanted a nap.

The crib was a gift from my brother and his girl-friend since their little one has grown out of it. They also kindly gave us some money for the baby and quite a few bits of NEW baby clothes. - We have still not bought any new baby clothes - we have bought a couple of things new (the car seat, a soft toy rabbit, a couple of books, baby nail scissors and hair brush and the disposable nappies for the hospital) but basically all the rest is second hand.

Today I spent most of the morning re-organising the bathroom cabinets to make space for the baby's things - I still have some stuff to make room for but I'm getting there. Later I want to take photos of a few things that we will sell on ebay and then I need to re-pot the basil plant and the indoor chives which are looking rather sorry for themselves. I also need to take the laundry out of the machine and do some ironing. - Trying not to over-do it - I will probably have a half hour snooze on the sofa later.

I have Thursday and Friday off work and next Monday is a bank holiday so I will have plenty of time to do stuff over the next weekend. I only have 3 weeks left at my job before I go on maternity leave and none of those are full weeks. I want to get a lot done before I go on leave so that I can concentrate on the home and preparing the baby's stuff in the last few weeks before the baby is due.

Offline

2009-08-17T22:21:00.002+01:00

Just over a week ago my pc monitor died - it just stopped working out of the blue. I tried to set up RNG's laptop to work with the Internet but couldn't get it working. So we researched prices for monitors and decided it would be a false economy to buy secondhand firstly because there was little price difference and secondly because the TFT screens apparently only last 3-4 years typically (could be longer but not certain), buying one over a year old would not be a good investment. We have no space for a CRT so it has to be TFT.

So we finally agreed to use some of our "emergency cash" for the minor "emergency". After researching best prices new we found what we thought we wanted, I ordered it and got a call to say that it wasn't available after all! So I ordered a slightly more expensive one with a bigger wide-screen... Seems our graphics card doesn't support the high resolution-widescreen that we have bought so everything is very stretched out. I will ask help of a colleague tomorrow, but I get the impression that what ever we do could end up being expensive. I don't think the company will take it back as we have taken it out of the box, set it up and used it. There is nothing wrong with the new monitor after all.

I suspect that I wont be online much over the next few days - it is quite tiring to look at things on an inappropriate resolution.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I, RNG and the baby are fine, my silence is down to technical issues.

Lists, Lists, Lists

2009-07-27T20:13:00.002+01:00

When we were in Italy last, I had one night that I woke up at about 3am and could not go back to sleep, eventually I turned on the light and started writing lists of the things that I was thinking about. I had literally dozens of ideas in my head of money-saving ideas.

I made 2 basic lists, 1 of ways to save money when I am home (as a housewife as opposed to earning a second income), and 1 of ways to save money while travelling. - The second list was spurred on by the first as realistically we will always have to travel as both RNG and I have parents, siblings and other family members in other countries.

As the time comes closer that I will be at home I have picked up the list for ways to save at home, and I realise that a lot of the things on that list are things I simply don't have time for while working outside full time - comparing cheaper phone deals etc. Some are not possible or practical in our current circumstances - for example only using energy saving light bulbs - we have 2 in our flat but the main light in the living room uses a dimmer switch and 5 candle bulbs - it is not possible to use dimmer switches with most energy saving bulbs - although I found out yesterday that there is a new type that can be used with dimmer switches - as far as I could see they didn't have the size we would need. - The simple answer would be to change the light switch - however unfortunately the switch is not earthed and I am not going to risk it with the (very) dodgy electrics in this flat and my "non-professional" abilities.

Some things on my list are things I can start to think about now for example, I will try to make the majority of the greetings cards we send as having 2 largish families it certainly adds up not only with the postage but with the cards when we are sending birthday greetings to everyone - If I see a good deal on packs of blank card or decorations I can buy them now (I probably have more than enough decorations however I am getting low on cards - a pack of 50 is around £5.00 - we can easily spend that in just one month) When I have time before the baby is born or even quiet moments after, I can set aside a little time to make some nice cards. Planning ahead for birthdays in this country means that I can often send the card earlier and with a 2nd class stamp instead of 1st class. Unfortunately it is not possible to send things by surface mail to Europe anymore.

Only with time will I know how much money we are able to save by my ideas, we will no doubt find some new things along the way and probably cross some things off the list, however it will certainly be fun finding out what works and what doesn't.

He Still Trusts Me!

2009-07-16T22:35:00.004+01:00

RNG's hair has been getting rather scruffy - especially at the back as he hasn't had it cut since we were in Italy so I had promised to trim the back until he goes to the Barber at the end of the month. Proof that he does still trust me after last time when I nicked his ear - he let me cut it again! - I finally got to it this evening and I thought I did such a good job at the back that I would give it a go all over - it looks so much better now and perhaps the trip to the Barber can be postponed even longer - maybe till the next time I cut it? I guess that these things really do get better with practice - after the last time I made an effort to watch how the Barber did it the next time RNG went to have his hair cut and I am sure the techniques that I picked up helped this time around.

The Importance of Backing-up Photos

2009-06-28T11:11:00.003+01:00

I have just finished doing one of those things that you always say you are going to get around to and never do... - I have just backed up all of my photos on my PC - and deleted what I didn't need!

What prompted me to do this?

The owners of several blogs that I read have recently had devastating PC crashes which may or may not have wiped out all their photos - I don't want that to happen to us.
Our PC is going very slowly lately and on several occasions has failed to start-up properly.
Last night RNG turned on the PC and it wouldn't start properly and I had to use a "restore to previous date" setting - that was the final straw!

Now all I need to do is find a fire-proof safe for storing the CDs with our photos!

From now on I think I will try to keep the photo folder to a manageable level - deleting bad photos, renaming the rest and re-sizing where appropriate - each month or whenever I upload the photos if I have time then.

What I have been doing is saving the pictures in a folder, then going in to the ones I want to keep, resizing them and naming them. - This means that I have duplicates of many photos but don't know because they are named differently -a total waste of resources.

The only problem I have is that I now have several photo folders that are empty but which I can't delete - every time I try to change the properties from "read only" the property reverts back! - Google hasn't helped me to find the answer yet, so I have three empty folders that I can neither re-name or delete.

Really Annoying

2009-06-26T12:15:00.006+01:00

This is really annoying; my mobile phone company called me last week to offer me a new 1 year contract at half the price of my old contract (for the first 8 months) and a new phone - basic simple one is all I need. So they asked if they could deliver on Monday - I said no, but they could try on Tuesday. - Well Tuesday we had already left when they arrived at around 2pm. So I tried to re-arrange delivery for today between 12.00 & 18.00 - it would cost an additional £5 + VAT but I don't mind that too much. The website said I needed to contact the mobile company. I did this and said that I didn't mind paying the extra if I could have Friday (today) after - noon (I had booked a day off and had an antenatal appointment in the morning) this was fine and the lady repeated several times "Friday afternoon".

So I came back from my appointment at 11.30 to find another "Sorry we missed you" slip. I couldn't get through to speak to anyone in the courier company (they tend to be elusive like that) so I called my mobile operator and they were helpful enough to say that they could arrange for it to be delivered on Monday - I am supposed to take another day off with such short notice to wait around for a phone - what an expensive phone - the cost of a day off! The other options are to have it delivered to a friend or family member - I've tried that one before, or to have it delivered to work - we're not allowed deliveries for security reasons so that isn't possible either.

Apparently I can wait for it to be redelivered and then (when no-one is home) sent back to the mobile company, then I can call and cancel my contract (- must be within 14 days of the start of the contract) and then go into a shop and get a new phone and contract - she didn't say whether or not I would be able to get the same contract that I have agreed to already.

ARGHHHH!!!

I believe that RNG has the day off next Friday and I had talked about taking the day off too - to spend some time with him as he will work on Sunday, - but spending potentially the whole day waiting round at home isn't very appealing, but I will see if I can arrange re-delivery for then anyway.

- OK I managed to get it changed to next Friday - and even managed to speak to a human - now all I need to do is book time off.

Making Everyday Things Special

2009-06-26T08:10:00.004+01:00

On Tuesday RNG and I went to the beach, which in itself is a "special occasion" but I like to find ways to make special and non-special occasions extra special. One thing that I did on Tuesday was instead of quick and simple sandwiches, I made potato salad a regular salad, sliced some Nutolene and cut the slices into heart shapes using a heart-shaped cookie cutter (the remaining outer parts I cut up - some with mini heart-cookie cutters and added it to the regular salad) and I took a couple of mini heart shaped apple pies out of the freezer. - The little heart-shaped things took ordinary food and made it feel special.

Yesterday RNG decided to watch some football (just the last 15 minutes) on the Internet, so I brought out a surprise that I have been saving for just such an occasion: Some time back I bought a football themed food box and a mini bouncing football and pencil with football shaped eraser, these were all carefully hidden for such a time as this. So I retrieved the goodies discretely, went to the kitchen and got a pre-packaged croissant and small heart-shaped chocolate, and put all things together in a box. When I gave it to RNG he was so surprised and pleased at the silly little gift (lets face it a grown man does not need a pencil with football shaped eraser, or a bouncy mini football).

Lazy Procrastinator

2009-06-04T06:54:00.002+01:00

Yes I admit it, I can be a very lazy procrastinator at times, I knew I should put a link to my baby-blog from my side bar, - I just hadn't got around to it yet... Thank you Maryam for prompting me, I have done it now.

Home Again

2009-05-28T09:31:00.003+01:00

We are finally back from holiday, it has been very enjoyable, if slightly tiring. I deliberately booked an extra days holiday so that I could catch up on things at home, and so that I could unpack - otherwise we run the risk of living out of suitcases for several days at least - certainly till Sunday and also so that I can rest - we were on flights both on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Anyway I put a load of washing in the machine this morning and it is currently drying in the dryer. I rarely use the dryer, however we had a booking by someone to view our flat this afternoon at 2pm and I don't want laundry drying all over the place, I say we had as now we have another one booked at 1.40pm too, and another for 6.30pm tomorrow evening (they wanted Saturday, but as that is Sabbath I said no, however the sun doesn't set on Friday till 9.03pm so I said that we would accept any viewing until 8pm).

We are really praying that someone will buy the flat soon (for the amount we are asking) as we would like to move before I get too big and uncomfortable. We (I especially) would like to settle into our new home and have things ready before the baby is born.

Check My Other Blog

2009-05-19T21:41:00.000+01:00

Pop over to my other blog for some vegan/vegetarian eating out in Europe tips today.

Cinamon Ice Cream and other Vegan stuff

2009-05-19T20:31:00.006+01:00

OK, the first part of this post I was planning to blog today, but the second part I have added in response to a request by Laura Brown.

1) Cinamon icecream????? - Who would ever have thought of such a thing? - The Italians obviously! - Wow, today RNG and I were out in central Milan doing some essential things, like RNG getting his hair cut (he likes to go to his old barbar's to catch up when he is in town), I needed to buy some shoes for my father's wedding - first ones I tried on were just right, amazing. Anyway after lunch and some more shopping we headed down to our "favourite" gelateria for some icecream. The place is called "Frozen" and is on Porta Ticinese (#98)‎ - quite far along (going in the direction away from Duomo) opposite some church (S. Eustorgio?). Any way we discovered this place last time and wanted to go back as they had a small selection of fresh soya ice cream and a reasonable selection of sorbets, plus regular icecreams too. Well I just had to try the cinamon soya icecream and it was delicious, the pecan was nice and the coconut too, but they both paled in comparison. Next time I might try the "peach, cinamon and basil" sorbet - it sounded too different for me this time, but having tried the cinamon icecream I could be persuaded to be adventurous. - I'd still be a bit dubious about the "basil sorbet" - yes, just basil, but you never know. Any way they have about 4 soya icecreams and about 10 (I'm guessing) sorbets (milk-free), so well worth a visit if you are ever in Milan.

This second part is very long - scroll to the bottom for a quick link.

2) As a vegan, eating out can sometimes be quite challenging, especially when abroad. However I have to say that Italy is by far the best country I've ever been too for eating delicious vegan food without having to go to specialist vegetarian places. - I can't say I have travelled that widely so I will give a brief run-down of my tips for vegan/vegetarian eating out in the (few) countries I know about.

UK: Good (read slightly more up-market/pricier) restaurants are usually fine to just sit down in and ask the waiter(ress) what is available that is vegetarian and dairy/egg free, - they will usually check with the chef and at worst it could be a stir-fry and at best something very unusual or even something from their regular menu - if slightly adjusted. Many ethnic places will be fine, - Chinese, Lebanese, Indian, Jewish would be absolutely no problem - ask for parve and with no fish/eggs. Smaller restaurants may be more difficult and may be worth phoning or checking with before sitting down (especially if you are getting fed-up with stir-frys). Pubs, - I would generally say forget it! For fast food (or sometimes pubs despite my previous comment) - I would aim for a jacket potato with baked beans - but ask them to check that the beans are vegetarian/dairy free - Heinz are fine but HP I think at least used to have some dairy or other animal product in them, leave out the butter and cheese.

Norway: Sorry folks (I know I am normally very patriotic, but here is where my patriotism dissapears), Norway is terrible for vegetarians in my experiance. It may be because it is a tiny country I guess. Anyway in one of the big cities you should be able to find a Chinese or Indian place or Italian but otherwise be prepared to be very hungry and frustrated (I have been known to get quite nasty...) In a regular place the term "vegan" will be met with a blank stare, "vegetarian" will require some explanation too. You will generally be asked if you want a salad. If you are anything like me and say you would like something to fill you up a bit more they may suggest chips (french fries) as an additional option or potatoes (ask them to make them with no butter or margerine if you are vegan). Also if you get desperate and go to the supermarket, don't be fooled by the mirriard of nice-looking breads, they almost all contain an ingredient that is mysteriously called "marine fat" - now I have no idea which animal this comes from, however I would assume it is dead.

Sweden: See UK for Good restaurants as it is very similar there, same goes for ethnic. fast-food - not much choice except chips (french fries). Pub-like places will either practically throw you out in disgust for suggesting not eating meat or they will give you something amazing (I once was the envy of an entire pub-like restaurant (including my father's sworn-meat-eating-till-death, cousin) with the amazing stuffed-mini bell peppars that the chef made especially for me. Some road-side places will have vegetarian stuff on their menu, anything from Nutana is vegan, other stuff they will usually let you read the label. Sweden has pretty strict laws about allowing people to know ingredients and should be able to tell you what is in the food if it comes from a packet/box.

Austria: - stick to ethnic or vegetarian places - I only know about the capital Vienna - check out posts from my honeymoon for more info.

Italy: Bread and breadsticks - just check that they don't contain lard (strutto?), although it is rare it can happen. Otherwise, go and eat at any regular place and take a phrase-book (or Italian husband) with you. Pizza Marinara should be vegan (if in doubt - most likely in country areas I would guess, check about the dough for lard). - there should not be cheese on this (do not confuse with "Pizza frutti di mare" which is seafood pizza). Most taglietelle will be fresh, i.e. with eggs, however generally penne and spagetti will almost always be egg-free. I have never had a problem finding vegan food - any pizza can be made without cheese and ask them to skip anything else you don't want, but add more of something else and they will not usually bat an eye-lid. They very rarely use butter in their cooking and most dishes that sound vegetarian are, - however for risotto, check regarding the stock as it could be animal based.

For all of the above countries, if you avoid dairy you will be very limited in deserts, but should be able to get a fresh-fruit salad from good places, Italian places will often have a sorbet available (or go to a gelateria if you are in Italy), chinese places will often do banana fritters (using milk-free batter).

If all else fails check out happy cow for tips and reviews of many cities in the world. But phone a head as it could be out of date and the place may no longer exist.

Holiday in Italy... and Sweden... and back to Italy

2009-05-17T19:34:00.002+01:00

We are currently on holiday in Italy visiting the inlaws, we will go to Sweden for my father's wedding at the end of the week and on Tuesday next week we will come back to Italy, then fly back to the UK on Wednesday. I will spend Thursday at home, sleeping, recovering and catching up on the laundry. Also finally on the Thursday we will have someone coming to view the flat - the first person in 2 1/2 months! This means obviously that the flat needs to by tidy and not look like when we normally come back from holiday - in other words the suitcases will be put straight away in the loft and we might have to wait till after the viewing to put the washing in the machine so that it is not hanging all over the place - I suspect the dryer may be used at some point too.

I have to say it is nice to be away from the regular routine for a while, to eat nice food that I/RNG didn't cook and to sleep late or in the middle of the day. I didn't want to have the holiday too much later than this as it is going to be more tiring for me to travel as time goes on, however we needed to come and see RNG's family and go to my father's wedding and it worked out cheaper this way than two seperate trips.

STUFF

2009-05-05T19:21:00.002+01:00

As yesterday was a bank holiday I had an extended weekend. So we finally got to something that has been pushed back for a long time, - taking our stuff out of the loft, sorting through it and putting what we want to keep into storage. I was getting anxious to do this soon as I will not be able to safely climb a ladder for much longer and if RNG climbs he needs to pass the stuff down to someone - which I would not be able to help with either. Since it is easier for me to pass down and RNG to receive, that is how we like to do it.

Well we had A LOT in the loft, some of it we took to the tip, a lot of cardboard boxes were recycled and a lot was taken to our store room. Now the only things in our loft are empty boxes (for computer, monitor etc.), some magazines and books that need to be given out/sold, 3 folding chairs (- last time we had a lot of guests I couldn't reach the chairs and we had to borrow from a neighbour), and a small highchair (yes, for children - I bought it years ago and it was one of my best, cheap investments for entertaining, taking the worry about knives and electric sockets from parents of toddlers and allowing the smallest guests to be at a sociable height with the rest of us). When we get back from our holiday we will put the empty suitcases up there too. All these things are now within reach for the person at the top of a ladder (i.e. do not require climbing into the loft) and are all lightweight - with the exception of the books.

Anyway we also managed to store away several boxes of things that were taking up space in our bed/living/dining/room and now there is much more space and it feels much better.

The good thing about having put so much stuff into storage already is that when we do move, there will be less to pack and it will simply be a matter of putting the boxes into a van.

The bad thing is that every month that we do not sell our flat we have another month of paying for storing our things.

Yes we probably have too much stuff, however alot of the things that we have stored are things that we do use. We have stored away a lot of kitchen things and are managing on a lot less but long to get back our things. We have also stored a lot of cookbooks and religious books that we miss. Not to mention 5 boxes full of fabric collected over many years and including lots of knits with prints for baby - I long to get my hands on that stuff when I have the time, before the baby is born.

Any way we pray that the right person will make an offer on our flat very soon so that we can start to look towards a future in a more appropriate home.

Shower gel vs bath foam

2009-04-27T22:42:00.003+01:00

When we first got married, RNG used shower gel, being the thrifty, marketing cynic that I am, insisted that RNG read the ingredients of the shower gel and the same-brand, same-scent bath-foam... The first 20 or so ingredients are identical, then there are a few minor variations and slight re-ordering of ingredients. Anyway the cost of the shower gel: £1.49 per 250ml (£0.60/100ml), the bath foam: 1.95 per 500ml +50% free often = 750ml (£0.26/100ml) - almost a third less. In the year or so that he has been washing with bath foam, he has always been clean and pleasant-smelling. Conclusion: For a convenient small and expensive product go with the shower-gel, for a more economical option go with the large bottle of bath-foam.

Personally I use soap - lasts way longer and is even more economical - even with fancy olive-oil soap.

Recession?

2009-04-24T18:09:00.004+01:00

Recession? - Well it's all over the news, - you can't avoid hearing about it, but I have to say although some people are in very bad situations and many have cut back considerably, there are many who do not need to cut back at all.

Yesterday we went out for a meal - a rare treat that was a real spur of the moment thing. Any way it is a long time since we went to this (our favourite) restaurant and last time (and all other times) there were only a few other patrons, well last night, we were fortunate to get a table - there were only 1 or two other small (2-people) tables left in the place - it was positively full. To be honest the small town that the restaurant is in is a very wealthy town so the economic crisis has only hit the businesses that aim at the lower end of the market.

Both RNG and I were very pleased to see that this little business is doing so well, - it is one of those places that has excellent food (Real Italian) and wonderful customer service. We probably wont be going out for many meals (except when on holiday) for a long time, with a baby on the way, however when we do it will generally be to this place so I am pleased that it is likely to be around for a while.

Now That is Depressing

2009-04-19T19:34:00.002+01:00

If you are a Seventh Day Adventist (who longs for the day when she will become a full-time homemaker) and you are looking for a new blog to add to your (already far too large) list of blogs to read, DO NOT do a blog search through google for "Adventist homemaker" - as you will find tonnes of obituaries and no new blogs! Sorry for the very long sentence - I couldn't shorten it.

Today has been quite productive; I did all the dishes left from Friday evening and through Sabbath -we'd had company and there were a lot. Did two loads of laundry and sorted through a couple of large boxes of papers and micellaneous things that were waiting for homes. - The last job took at least 5 hours - I'm not kidding.

A message to Jean Marie - you asked me to email you, - however you didn't give an email address. - If you want you can email to my spam-collecting address and I can email you back from my normal email address (which I don't publish as I don't want to get Spam to it!). - My email address is: lillian g AT hotmail dot com (all as one word with obviously @ instead of AT etc.). Please put something very obvious like (Regarding blog from Jean Marie) or whatever in the subject line so that I wont delete it without reading.

Trip to Scotland

2009-04-15T19:33:00.004+01:00

* This post has been edited slightly after a recent comment pointed out that it was not written in a very respectful manner. I have removed some things and hope the post now comes across in a more civilised manner without removing too many of the basic facts about our trip. Please understand that my mother and I have never had a good relationship, but I do try my best to be respectful and act in a loving manner towards her.

Now I am in a slightly better frame of mind to comment on our recent trip to Scotland.
We left at about 5.40am on Thursday and arrived at about 2pm, having had a couple of stops and picked up my eldest brother.

It only rained and was grey on Thursday and Friday.
Sabbath, Sunday and Monday were quite bright and sunny.

Last time we visited my mother, despite having tried to explain the concept of keeping the Sabbath to her (she is by no means ignorant on the subject to begin with), I ended up having a disagreement with her outside a shop on the Sabbath, when she was trying to persuade me to come in and choose some bread for her to buy - her reasoning was, that I wasn't buying it, so it shouldn't be a problem. This time my mother had wanted us to go for various nature walks (certainly acceptable) and a (free) nature exhibition - which I kindly explained that we would not be happy to go to as it involved other people working and that is therefore forbidden.

However our Sabbath was still anything but restful. We had joined my mother at the local Good Friday service that ended shortly before sunset. We then walked back to my mother's home and she immediately started putting dinner on the table. By the time we had finished dinner I was falling asleep and I excused myself and went to bed which meant that RNG and I didn't even have a proper worship or anything more than a brief prayer - in bed, to open the Sabbath. The next day, by the time that we were ready for breakfast everyone else had already eaten and my mother was rushing round trying to pack a lunch for everyone to eat and getting very stressed. We didn't even have time for a morning worship, Bible reading or prayer before we were hurried out of the door.
My mother then proceeded to take us to 5 different places to have various walks and stuff, before accepting that I was thoroughly exhausted and would prefer to go home, than to go to yet another place. When we got back I had a rest on the bed and read a little in my Bible and RNG too. Then after the sun had set, but before we had even had a chance to close the Sabbath my mother had my husband cooking for us all. All in all last Sabbath was anything but restful, in fact RNG and I agreed that if we ever bring our child up to see my mother we will not be doing the things she wants to do on the Sabbath, but we will instead insist on having a proper Sabbath, with worship both evening and morning.

On Monday morning my mother was just running out of the house to go to work (we were letting ourselves out when it was time to leave) and we were saying our goodbyes when my mother asked this question:
"When can I come and see the baby?"
- Simple question. Now, RNG and I had already discussed the subject of visits during the early days of our baby's life and based on what I have heard from other new mothers, it seems wise to limit visits to 2-3 hours at a time and not allow well-meaning family over-whelm us with advice about parenting. Instead allowing a month or so to get to know our baby, and having only a few short visits each week during that time seems wise. Knowing that my father and mother both have a long distance to travel to see us, we would not expect them to only come for a total of 3 hours, therefore my answer was:
"After about a month"
Pause...
My mother: "No, I, I, I can't, the clocks will have changed, it will be dark..."
This continued with a quite a scene by my mother - it was not a pretty sight, in fact my dear husband was so embarrassed that he walked away.
It was quite clear that my mother didn't like the answer I gave, however I believe that it is the right decision for our little family.

Basically that was the end of our trip to Scotland, my mother ran out of the house. I sent a text message when we arrived home saying: "We're home".

I have searched my heart about my behaviour and come to the conclusion that I was not wrong or inappropriate in my words or actions and I have consulted with RNG and he agrees, therefore I am not inclined to apologise for any of what I said. - Yes I am sorry that we parted that way however that is where my sorrow ends.

So all in all I didn't have a very good trip and I (we) will not be going back to Scotland (at least for a very long time).

Saving Money on Fuel

2009-04-14T21:33:00.004+01:00

Just a quick note tonight.

We got home at about 8.40 last night, ate and went to bed. We had a very tiring trip to Scotland and when I am in a better frame of mind I will probably blog more about it.

For now though, just a little tip from me - Don't re-fuel the car at a motorway service station as they are extortionately priced, here is our experience:

When driving back yesterday we knew we would need to re-fuel (- our car being diesel has outstanding fuel-economy, however diesel does cost more than petrol). On the way up we had filled up in Carlisle at a Tesco store at a rate of 101.9p per litre. On the way back we brushed off the Tesco idea even though we passed right by it after dropping my eldest brother off and figured we'd top up later when we stopped for lunch. So we stopped for lunch (sandwiches in the car) at a nice (yes really it is quite nice) motorway service station then went to fill up, - just as RNG was getting the pump ready - I happened to ask - "how much is it here anyway?" - Neither of us had thought of that yet and they had no conspicuous signs. Turns out it was 107.9p per litre - I said - "No way - we can fill up somewhere else" (we did have a half tank), so at the next rest stop we pull over to find out how much the diesel is - 109.9p per litre! - I couldn't believe it - I had a mini-explosion about rip-off prices and insisted that we drive on to the next exit (actually 2nd exit) and go into the nearest town and get reasonably priced fuel. So we drove to the second exit and it took us less than 5 minutes to locate the nearest filling station - the price? 99.9p per litre. We filled up the tank with 39 litres - meaning an overall saving of £3.90! I have to admit that we felt rather smug about our saving - with less than 10 minutes extra driving. We will never again be buying over-priced service station fuel.

We also learnt another lesson - when planning how much water to take for the drive up - remember to double the amount so that you have some for the way down and don't have to buy water at over-inflated service station prices too!

Thank You

2009-04-07T21:39:00.002+01:00

Thank you all for your kind comments yesterday. I know I haven't been blogging much lately (flagging energy levels...) but I am beginning to feel less tiered now - except yesterday when I was so tiered that I was crying on the bus to work as I was so tiered and I ended up getting off after 10 minutes and asking my dear sweet husband to come and pick me up!
Any way I am not sure if I'll have time to post tomorrow and the posts that I had planned as automated is the one from yesterday and the one on my new blog, so if I don't see you all before next week, have a nice holiday.

News

2009-04-06T10:32:00.001+01:00

Warning, I am likely to slightly ramble in this post.

I have been spending a fair bit of money on clothing lately in-fact one week after placing my big order for clothing back at the end of February I found out that I am pregnant! - Good thing I ordered to fit and one skirt slightly larger.

I am now 13 weeks pregnant and am starting to show - actually I was clearly showing a couple of weeks ago when someone from another department at work commented: "Either you're getting fat or you're pregnant... and I think it's the latter of the two"! As it has become impossible to "hide it" anymore and as we are past the highest risk stage of pregnancy we decided to start telling people. We were both anxious to wait as long as we could to tell people, after our experience in October.

I had put off buying new clothes for so long as I couldn't find modest clothes I liked and also in-case I became pregnant I didn't want to waste money on things that I would not be able to wear for long. I finally caved and bought new clothes and then I found out when the clothes were already on their way - typical! - Well at least when I (hopefully) get my figure back I will be a very stylish mummy!

So obviously I know I will outgrow some of my clothing and I had borne in mind the fact that I might get pregnant when I did my big wardrobe clear out and I had kept hold of a couple of very baggy sweaters and ear-marked a couple of stretchy draw-string skirts for possible future maternity wear.

After the first scan (I was privileged to have an early one for reassurance and to date - my calendar dates suggest one week further along than the measurements) at 7 weeks + 6 days I started to gradually relax a little.

We still haven't told my mother... shhhh... she will be one of the last to know. This isn't out of ill-will, we simply think that it will be more fun for her to guess for herself when we get up to Scotland on Thursday, I hope she doesn't get offended.

I know that some people who read this blog may not be interested in all my baby-related blabbering so I have decided to start another blog for baby-related stuff and keep this one for general things. I apologise if I spend more time over-there than here during the coming moths - I am going through periods of baby-obsession.

Mini Holiday

2009-04-05T23:00:00.002+01:00

Just a quick note to say that we are currently busy getting ready to go up to Scotland to visit my mother for Easter. We will be leaving early on Thursday morning and returning on Monday afternoon.

I am hoping to have a couple of automated blogs set up while I am away, or I might just publish them early, we will see.

April Fools!

2009-04-02T21:55:00.003+01:00

Yesterday (April 1st) I had a bit of fun playing a practical joke on the whole of my department (minus the boss who I needed to be in on the joke for it to work - he needed to send an email and one other person to take photographic evidence).

I wont give too many details - don't really want people I know finding their way here without me telling them, but suffice it to say that I managed to convince everyone (ok a couple of people suspected what was going on) that HR had decided that everyone should do a special workout on Wednesdays to combat Repetitive Strain Injury. I was to lead the workout at 11am every Wednesday.

So there they all were in their seats moving their hands and heads etc (I did use legitimate exercises) and I finished off by asking them all to bring one thumb to the nose and wave. - We got some fun pictures. Nobody took offence and everyone was laughing. Some people reckon that next year we should really get HR involved to invite the whole company to get together for a communal workout!

The Economy

2009-03-24T21:02:00.003Z

WOW - you know the economy is bad when countries run out of Coca-Cola! - Whatever your opinion on Coca-Cola is, it cannot be denied that this is a true symbol of globalism and capitalism.

Observed Today....

2009-03-23T22:34:00.002Z

At work I sit next to one of the printer/photocopiers - it is an all-in-one machine that you log into to print your work from. Anyway the printer ran out of black toner so I put a sign on top of the log-in screen saying "Out of black toner - ordered 23/03/2009". So a few minutes later I watched as a lady (from another department) came to the printer, removed the sign and tried to print! - What does she think "out of toner" means - that the printer's skin-care regime is going to suffer? - she didn't even have the sense to put the sign back onto the log-in screen when she gave up trying to print her work!

Thought it was quite amusing really!

Warning - Tesco Value Soya Drink

2009-03-22T07:02:00.000Z

For years I have bought Tesco* value soya drink (Soya milk - lets face it no vegan actually calls this type of thing soya "drink" - pathetic EU rules!), and I have always been happy with it for the following reasons:

Vegan
Made from organic soya beans (non-GMO)
Good value for money

Well recently we picked up a carton at the shop, then a few days later (before opening the new carton), picked up another 3 cartons. We were sitting eating our breakfast and the milk tasted different (not bad, just different), so I picked up the carton to take a closer look...

Carton now says: Unsweetented (as before) with calcium and vitamins (?!) - well that's new, but hey a cheap soya milk with added calcium, not a bad thing right? - Ummmm... well I am not sure yet - I am trying to investigate further, but the packet used to say on the front "Vegan" and now it says "vegetarian" - warning bells started going off - the ONLY product that Tesco specifically claimed as vegan (doesn't mean that many others aren't - they just don't label that way), used to be their soya drink. On checking the ingredients I am very concerned: vitimin D - not vitamin D2 or something as is usual for vegan products - you can't get full vitamin D from plant products only the provitamin. Conclusion NO LONGER VEGAN!!!! - one opened pack and 3 un-opened - need to find receipt.

I have tried googling this but drawn a blank - however I did find out that one of Tesco's other soya drinks contains vitamin D from lanolin (sheeps wool fat), - I suspect that they are using the same source for this - yuk!

* Please do not start a discussion on the morals of shopping at Tesco (no I do not ever buy their clothes - or Asda or Gap - child labour/appauling wages). - One of my friends was shocked that I still shop at this "terrible shop" - well yes I do - there is little other choice where we live (except for over-priced and/or poorly stocked shops and we can't afford to waste money at this point in our lives. Yes I would love to buy all local/organic produce (as many in our wealthy area do), but that stage of my life has passed - at least at this time.

That's Where They Are!

2009-03-17T09:52:00.003Z

In the past couple of days I have discovered where all the nice second-hand clothes have gone to.... You see I have been an avid charity-shopper for many years, partly due to cost and partly due to the fact that I like finding things that I can't find in shops as - either because they are old or because it is a shop that I don't go to/have locally - Also I guess it feels good to support a worthy cause. For the past few years I have become more and more frustrated with my efforts to shop thriftily, they seem to have less choice, less of what I would wear and more of what my grandmother would get rid of and less and less modest clothing (obviously being a few years old the charity-shop clothes reflect high-street stores from a few years ago).

Well a couple of days ago I had a thought to look for something particular on eBay - NOW I KNOW where all the selection has gone, - people are selling on eBay instead of giving to charity! I mean I know that it exists and people sell stuff on it, - I even once bought something there myself and I have considered selling things (for example my wedding dress) through eBay, but I had no idea how big it is.

This year there are going to be quite a few expenses for us as we are selling our flat and will be buying a bigger house (with at least 2 bedrooms). I realise that we will probably be buying quite a few things from eBay for our new home - if there are no built in cupboards for example, we will also eventually need to buy a proper bed for ourselves unless we plan to sleep in the living room (we would probably buy a new mattress though). We are hoping for a small (or large) garden to grow our own fruit and veg so will need gardening tools and maybe some leisure furniture eventually.

My father phoned last night to tell me the date that he and his fiance will be getting married so now I need to find a suitable dress/outfit.

For all these things I expect eBay may be the first place I look.

I do feel sorry for the charity shops as they are loosing quite a bit of money I expect.

I may well sell those 4 suits through eBay too - although I would have to pre-buy suitable posting-bags and pre-package them so that I know I only have to go to the post-office with them once they are sold. - I am a terrible procrastinator with mail - things can sit around weeks stamped and addressed before being posted so that is what puts me off eBay selling slightly.

Anyway we will see.

Review of New Clothes

2009-03-15T17:14:00.004Z

Remember I mentioned that I had placed an order for some new clothes? They all arrived promptly and I have worn the tops a number of times already and I have worn one of the skirts with the jacket a few times to church - oh and the tax and duty was nowhere near the £60 that I feared - it was only £17.50!

When I wore the jacket and skirt to church the first time one of my friends commented that she thought it was very un-like me and she could see my husband's influence. When I asked her what she meant, she told me that it was more curvaceous than what I usually wear (what I usually wear to church during the winter is basically sack-shaped). - Basically my friend felt that it was not very modest.

I have to admit that I was highly offended by her comments on various grounds:

1) My husband does not choose my clothes for me (I choose what I like and I do ask his opinion - I wont wear anything that he doesn't like or thinks is immodest)

2) Just because an outfit has some shape, it does not mean it is immodest - the said outfit is only lightly fitted at my waist and the skirt has a feminine shape but is not tight or fitted

3) Modesty isn't about covering all traces of the female shape or dressing frumpily, it is about not revealing or being provocative in it's shape, colours, style or cut

When we got home I asked my husband's opinion on what our friend said, he agreed that the outfit is shapely but not immodest and he made a clear point that he would not like to see me in anything more tight or fitted than this.

I will try and get my dear husband to take a photo of the "offending" outfit tomorrow so I can get other opinions.

Over-all I am VERY happy with the clothes I bought and highly recommend both shops: Tnius.com and New Creation. They both offer a speedy service and when I contacted New Creation to return one of the skirts as it was too small, I was given a new skirt at no extra cost and told to pass the too-small skirt on to a friend, I also received an extra skirt as a free gift which goes perfectly with the jacket. The descriptions and sizing were accurate on both sites (the skirt I needed to replace was a cut that although it fitted perfectly was too clingy for my taste - one size up was just right.

Updates

2009-03-12T15:32:00.006Z

I finally went to the doctor's yesterday - I had only slept about 2 broken hours during the night and another 1 (broken) hour in the morning and called in to work sick. The doctor has signed me off work with a respiratory infection for one week. - I wasn't exactly expecting that (in fact I was shocked), I was expecting to be told to continue to take in the fluids and get plenty of rest and that it is just a common cold. He did tell me to rest and continue to drink plenty of water etc. too.

To be honest I probably need the enforced rest as I have not slept well last night and I can at times over-do things. Oh well time to catch up on some projects.

On Sunday afternoon I hadn't got any more tidying done, so we ran round in a mad panic on Monday tidying and cleaning and shoving things in cupboards out of the way before the estate agent arrived. I have now signed papers and the flat is officially going on the market. The estate agent came round yesterday to take some photos and I will get an email with the write-up in the next couple of days and when I have approved that it will be "out there". - YEAH!!!!

As promised here are a couple of photos of before and after the decorating of the flat. - In the first photo, note the number of different colours that we had bought tester pots for and tried:

We eventually settled for a colour that we had not tested, but it turned out O.K. anyway:

Cough, Cough

2009-03-08T17:41:00.004Z

Well my plans for today have pretty much gone out the window (plan was to paint and tidy). I have been down with a cold since Monday - I left work about an hour early, got plenty of sleep and went to work on Tuesday feeling refreshed. Wednesday I was too sick to go to work, having in addition barley slept all night, Thursday too, Friday I made the effort to go in and spent yesterday regretting my decision. Yesterday RNG had been asked to preach at a church in a different area and I had really hoped to go with him, however as I could barely speak I decided to stay home. Today I have been trying to take it fairly easy, I have done one load of laundry, and washed the living room rug, we also went out for a couple of hours to buy some essential food items and to try and find a log basket (we did not succeed with the latter). I will try and get some tidying done later.

I am sorry I haven't been posting much lately, I have been very tiered in the evenings - in fact I only checked my email for the first time in about three weeks on Thursday. I have tried to keep up to date with reading my regular blogs but even that has lapsed. Sorry if I worried anyone. I will try tomorrow, to take an "after" photo of the flat - to go with the before one an post it.

Nearly There

2009-03-05T14:43:00.005Z

We are nearly finished with the decorating. It is not like it is a huge job, just we don't have much time (or energy) for it. On Sunday we will repaint the doors and the (living room) skirting boards. Hopefully we will tidy the rest of the flat too so that on Monday I can spend the day cleaning (I have requested a holiday day on Monday). I plan to be finished by 3pm on Monday. The estate agent will be over at 4.30pm - so that gives us 1 1/2 hrs leeway to finish up and to relax.

We bought some pretty primroses to plant in the empty "vegetable" pots on our patio. This year I will not be sowing any seeds and will probably not plant anything until we move.

I pray that God will send the right buyer quickly for the flat as in these economic times it is difficult to sell any property. I pray also that we will find an affordable property in a decent area.

Well That's Different

2009-02-02T08:28:00.003Z

This has never happened before: I can't get to work because the buses have been cancelled due to snow. Previously the buses have been running even with heavy snow but today I got to the bus-stop and after about 10 minutes wait my manager called me - (she lives further away than me and drives to work) to find out what the traffic looked like - very bad I told her so she decided to stay home as last time it took her 3 hours to get to work. While I was still talking a man in a car wound down the window and called out to us (4 of us) that he had just heard on the radio that the buses have been cancelled. So I told my manager that I was going back home.

About 10 minutes ago RNG phoned to let me know that he had just arrived at work - the 20 minute journey took him 1 1/2 hours today - I am worried how he will get home today. I am glad I am home now as even if I got to work I might not get back as it is still snowing and they say on the news we could have double the amount by tomorrow! Interestingly I woke up at 3.30am this morning and peeked outside and saw a light dusting on the ground, at 6.30 when RNG opened the curtains there was about 10cm (4inches) - in 3 hours it had snowed that much.

The good news is I have an unexpected day to do lots of work around the home!

Shopping

2009-01-26T20:02:00.004Z

Well my wardrobe clear-out certainly revealed a few gaps - all 4 suits will have to go (I will see if they will take them at a local re-sale store as they are good quality) I have one large bin-bag (refuse sack) fairly full of things to give to charity and the rest of my wardrobe (closet) is fairly sparse the youngest thing in my wardrobe is about 3 years old and the oldest is well over 10 years old - I have a number of things around 10 years old.

I re-evaluated a couple of hand-me-down dresses that I thought were a little troublesome from a modesty point of view and I realised that if I sew on a couple of those clear plastic snaps then they would be OK. I have 1 rather faded winter dress in organic cotton that I made about 4 years ago and wear almost every week to church during the winter. - I will retire this from it's current duties when I have a replacement and I will change the collars, cuffs and buttons and use the dress around the house or for less special occasions.

Wow I just worked out that not counting underwear, outerwear, shoes or accessories the value of my wardrobe is about £556 total - most of that comes from t.shirts and sweaters that I bought new, only £145.50 from dresses or skirts. Anyway yesterday as promised I went Internet shopping and came away having spent around £180 for 10 items of clothing (I will have to pay more for import duty and tax when it arrives as they are coming from the USA) - so I am guessing at another £60 I just hope that my new clothes will last as long as some of my old stuff has. Also I hope I wont put on any more weight. It is a long time since I have allowed myself to buy so much new stuff but I am at the point where I really have almost nothing left to wear and I have been unable to find anything appropriate that I like or that fits anywhere - charity shops or regular shops and I don't really have the time to sew a new wardrobe at the moment, so I had no option.

The Painting

2009-01-20T19:28:00.003Z

I have done no more painting yet however I did do a giant sort-out on Sunday and dismantled a shelf and re-arranged the furniture. - WOW there is so much more room in here now (when we take some more stuff to the store room and tip we will have even more) - almost enough space for a child... - I said almost - that is not to be considered a challenge and no I am not pregnant.

I have now started clearing out our wardrobe (closet) as I want to see what I can get rid of and what I really need to buy. During the holidays I went to a small town near here that has at least 7 different charity shops and I didn't find one single thing that I wanted, needed or liked. I have promised RNG that when I get paid this month I will do some Internet shopping as I desperately need new clothes that fit and aren't falling apart (yes it is that bad).I can't find any modest clothes in my style here anymore, I did find a new store online that I will be buying something - I found it through my favourite resource for finding modest clothing stores.

Money Saving

2009-01-15T22:46:00.003Z

A week or so ago we ran out of conditioner for our hair (RNG and I use the same). I have long fine hair and have always considered conditioner a must-have item as I get so many knots otherwise. Well we had no more money left in our budget for toiletries for the month so I said we'd have to wait till the 25th. After my shower I dried my hair (I was going out shortly and it was very cold - otherwise I usually air-dry) put it in a bun and went about my day. It was only when I took my hair down in the evening that I realised that it was not in the least knotted. It seems that the shampoo we buy works well enough for me even without conditioner - yippee less money needed! In case you are wondering it is not the most expensive brand of shampoo or the cheapest but is is very economical as far as semi-brands go.

Another thing I have started to do lately to avoid buying things we don't need is cutting notches in the waistband of my tights (panty-hose) - many are too small for my waist (I put on a bit of weight after getting married), but they fit on the leg, so instead of rushing to buy a size larger I am making do with the smaller size and simply adapting.

Decorating

2009-01-13T21:18:00.002Z

Yesterday I had secretly taken the day off work so that I could surprise RNG by painting the main room (living/dining/bedroom). When my dear husband came home he was so surprised, I had done 2/3 of the first coat, he is working on Sunday so I will finish the first coat and start on the second.

RNG felt a bit bad as he had hoped we would do it together, but I said I would rather do it when he is out at work so that we can spend our time together doing other things. RNG is currently working every other Sunday so our time together is is precious, as we don't do shopping or work-like things on Sabbaths (Saturdays) we need to do those things on Sundays.

After I have finished the painting I will post before and after pictures. I am really hoping to get this flat on the market soon so that we can start looking for somewhere bigger and more suitable for the long-term.

A Little Snow...

2009-01-06T19:31:00.002Z

Well yesterday we finally got a tiny dusting of snow it is still here today. It was only 14C in the room when we woke up this morning (-4.5C outside the window) - the heater hadn't turned on - we have an electric one with a timer as the central heating (central for the whole building) doesn't come on early enough or heat well enough.

On Sunday evening RNG said to me: "Tomorrow, can you call about the elderly retreat for me?" - Well I knew he was older than me... But elderly? - he meant the church elders retreat that he will go on in February - it will be our first time apart since getting married we are not looking forward to it :(

Cold

2009-01-04T09:30:00.003Z

The thermometer outside my window currently reads -1C (30.2F), earlier this morning it said -2.5C (27.5F) but when hubby phoned from work he said the car thermometer said -7C (19.4F) - maybe the warmth from the building gives our home thermometer a false reading?

It has been cold - below freezing point for about 3 or maybe 4 weeks (occassionally in the sun getting a couple of degrees above) but it has been dry no snow at all, I expect it wont snow until it is mild enough to become miserable slush instead of settling. - In case you can't tell I love the snow in fact winter is my favourite time of year.

Little Hearts

2008-12-30T06:30:00.000Z

This is an automated post (I hope - I have never tried this before so I hope it will work) timed for the 30th December 2008.

one year ago today I married the love of my life, the most wonderful man I know and the right man for me. I had to wait over 30 years but God knew what He was doing when He brought the two of us together.

This year has been a year of getting to really know a new person, someone who is far more than just a flat-mate or a friend, but rather someone who knows the most private things about me - good and bad, someone who I will always need to coordinate my life with even for the simple things like using the bathroom or making breakfast.

Yes there have been some surprises and some frustrations (from both sides), some tears and some laughs, overall it has been a fun year.

Long before I even married RNG I knew what I wanted to do for a first anniversary gift. The first anniversary is traditionally celebrated with paper - I think that sums up the financial means of most couples in their first year.

I decided that I would cut out of paper a heart shape for every day that we were married for the first year (it is a leap year so that means 366) and on each piece of paper I would write some thing that I love about RNG and date the paper. Then on our first anniversary (today) I would give RNG a box with all the heart in it.

For the past month RNG has had very little work through the agency, meaning that he has been at home all the time that I am at home, this meant that it would be difficult for me to find the time to make the box for the hearts when he wasn't around. On Friday my chance finally came below you can see the process.

First I selected pieces of paper to cut out - some were from gift wrap from wedding presents and a gift RNG gave me once, and some papers were from envelopes from wedding cards, other papers I had been given by a friend or got when I worked for an office supplies company and I did buy a few specialist papers (the hearts only take a small amount of paper so the rest can be used for cards, scrap booking etc.

When I had windows of opportunity I would cut as many as I could so I would have some ready. I obviously needed to plan where I would store the paper hearts (a small box with a message forbidding RNG to look sufficed - when away from home - like on our honeymoon I had a small card-lined envelope hidden in my wash-bag - I could sneak with that into the bathroom in the evenings to write my hearts.

For the Box I bought some deep red card - I bought a huge A1 piece which I cut out at work so I could easily get it home without suspicion. I used a slightly bigger heart template for the box (I was using cookie cutters).

I also cut the base and lid in thick card to line between the thinner card. For the lid I drew around the outside of the cookie cutter and was generous with my cutting, for the base I drew around the inside and was mean with my cutting

The long wide strip was curved around the base with v-shaped notches cut out at the curves this was then glued to the base and the red card was stuck over both sides of the grey base. Same procedure for the lid

I then decorated the lid with a heart trim in fabric and a small heart shaped set of beads both bought from a craft store. See the finished box below.

The box was to be filled with the hearts - the oldest at the top

Then hidden away so that it would remain un-detected till the correct day

It is not easy keeping a secret in a one-roomed apartment - thankfully RNG has just gone to use the bathroom so I can sneak the last remaining hearts into the box. - I have been writing this blog behind a screen of a calendar propped up on it's side. In fact he was back too quickly and I had to ask him to brush his teeth or something so now I will finish.

Getting Organised

2008-12-29T21:29:00.004Z

Well I did finally get my craft work done on Friday - took longer than I hoped - pictures coming tomorrow. I then still managed to get the essential cleaning and cooking for Sabbath done so I was happy as we were able to relax for the day of rest.

This evening I have finally got round to transferring all the important dates - birthdays, anniversaries etc to our new calendar, I also wrote down when to check the smoke alarm (new battery going in on the first of January), checking morning of the first Friday every month (that way I can buy a new battery if necessary before the weekend).

To the calendar I also added dates to start finding new quotes for home insurance and for car insurance, dates for buying car tax disk and the sunset times for Friday evenings (I draw a red half sun with an arrow pointing down above it and then the time is written next to it - I only did up till the middle of June as I hope by then to have moved to a new area).

Right now I am feeling very organised I am sure the feeling will pass soon enough!

Secret Crafts...

2008-12-26T10:37:00.003Z

Friday is preperation day for the Sabbath (although when I am at work I do my preperations on the Thursday as i only have a maximum of half an hour when I get home on Fridays during winter months before the sun sets). RNG has had very little work through the agency for the past 3 weeks or so which means that he has been at home a lot more than I have. This is good for having lovely meals ready when I come home, but bad for our economy and for my secret crafts.

Today RNG is working until 2.30pm so instead of running round tidying, cooking and cleaning as much as I probably should, I am taking the oportunity to finish off a craft for an anniversary gift for Tuesday (30th December). I have had no opportunity to engage in my craft for weeks and time is getting short, - I was doing what I could before work and on my lunch breaks but there are limits. I really thought I might have to throw him out of the house for a few hours!

On Tuesday I will try and have an automated message set up with details about the gift I am making for RNG... suffice it to say it involves paper as the first anniversary is traditionally the paper anniversary - I am not a big fan of man-made traditions, however I thought of a craft involving paper that I couldn't resist.

Six Things

2008-12-22T20:54:00.004Z

A while ago (read a long while ago) Karen tagged me to write 6 things that I have learnt in the past month.

So now that I have had two months to think about it, her it is... ;-)

1) It is possible for menu-planning to take 2 hours - if you have the help of someone equally passionate about food
2) Sticking to a budget and shopping list is more difficult if the one who has no experience in budget-keeping is doing the shopping
3) Children remember the stories you tell them, long after you've forgotten them (and these are good Bible stories - I can't re-tell the story of Achan without looking up the details, but the four year old I told it to three months ago can tell his mother it in detail!)... Note to self - be very careful what you tell children!
4) Even without a broken blender on the work surface a small kitchen can still be made to feel crowded if you add enough food
5) In a one roomed flat with no spare space once the bed is made, there is no other choice for a good nights sleep but to make up. Not only is it Biblical to not allow the sun to go down on your quarrels, - around here it is a necessity
6) My husband looks even better than usual with a good hair cut

Now I wont tag anyone... but if you want to take part, please feel free to do so.

Hospitality Part 3 of 3

2008-11-29T19:41:00.010Z

If you have missed the first two parts of this series, you can view part 1 here and part 2 here.

Although I count it to be a great joy to be a hostess, indeed RNG and I are frequently looking to invite more friends over for a meal or something, it is also a great joy and privilege to be a guest in someone else's home.

Recently we went to Sweden then to Italy for a few days and before we went I received a text message from a friend in Sweden asking if we would like to come over one evening for a meal. We decided on Saturday evening (the sun would set at about 5pm meaning that we could go over after closing Sabbath).

We did go over to our friends, they were great hosts, making us feel welcome, and at ease. We had a wonderful time just relaxing, chatting and having a "normal evening". You see that evening almost didn't happen, we almost cancelled and missed out on such a blessing. The day had been anything but normal, in fact it had been a terrible day and we really wanted just to stay home and feel miserable. I am glad we didn't cancel however as going over to our friends was exactly what we needed to do just to not focus on ourselves for the evening. We didn't even tell our hosts until afterwards what had happened that day.

We had, had a little secret that we were hoping to keep to ourselves till around the end of December. You see despite hoping to be have children sooner rather than later, in August, after 8 months of marriage our doctor kindly agreed to do some tests to reassure us that everything was normal and so on, despite me not having conceived. Well the results of my test were anything-but reassuring - the receptionist, over the phone announced (a little too enthusiastically) that there was "no evidence of ovulation", my erratic periods seemed to agree with that result. We finally managed to book an appointment to see the doctor the day after we returned from our holiday.

10 days before going off to Sweden, I had some rather PMS-like symptoms (including mild cramp-like pains - but without the period), remembering my best friend's tale of pregnancy, I decided to take a test just to rule that out... 3 tests and 2 days later we were beginning to understand that despite our previous fears, I was miraculously pregnant! We were over-joyed, our hearts were filled with praise to God and pleading for guidance on how best to prepare for parenthood and for the protection of our baby.

By the time we flew to Sweden, I had realised (thanks to the Internet) that my "symptoms" were suggesting that I was probably 6-8 weeks gone and I packed looser, more comfortable clothing as everything was even tighter than usual.

We arrived in Sweden and spent the Friday evening at home with my father and his partner, we were not planning to tell them anything till the 30th December (our anniversary, we felt it would be fitting). We planned to go to the church in Stockholm in the morning.

At 4.30am I went to the loo and found that I was bleeding, - change of plans, we woke my father and his fiance up and had to tell them what was going in, we phoned the medical hotline for more information, the nurse reassured me that if it was only light bleeding and no strong cramps (at that time it was light and no cramps), it was fairly normal and no need to worry, but "if it was a miscarriage, then at such an early stage I should be able to manage it at home". - I was terrified - firstly I was not at home - I only happened to have any sanitary towels with me because I hadn't emptied my bag for a while, secondly, WAS THERE NOTHING I COULD DO?

In the morning, the bleeding was still fairly light and so we took things slowly and still went to the church. By the time we got to church I was an emotional wreck and I was having some strong-ish cramps. After the Bible study, I went to the loo and found I had soaked a pad. I knew I could not stay at church and sing praises to God, when I knew that something so terrible might happen, so we decided to go back home. I knew that I knew that if the worst was going to happen, I would be unlikely to be able to stop it at this point, but I still wanted to lie down or something to see if that would help.

When we got back my father and his fiance had already phoned the hospital and told us that they were taking me to the Gyne A&E. So we spent most of the remainder of the Sabbath in a hospital waiting room. By the time the doctor was able to see me (she had been in surgery), it was unfortunately too late, we had already lost the baby. To say the least we were devastated. My father and his fiance who had only just found out hours before were also very sad about the events.

RNG and I seriously considered just staying home and cancelling the evening. We felt however that we would like to take our minds off the tragic events of the day so we went over to our friends and I am very glad we did. Nothing we could do would change what had happened, self-pity wouldn't help, more tears wouldn't make the pain go away faster. Spending time with friends who knew nothing and wouldn't remind us of what had happened (just by the looks on their faces) was just what we needed to help us realise that we would eventually feel normal again, we could smile and laugh despite the pain and one day things might change and we might even have the baby that we pray for. We will always remember that evening with warmth and gratitude.

In my experience, hospitality is always worth it, because you never know the needs of the person or people you are hosting, you also never know the blessings that you can give them or receive from them.

Hospitality Part 2 of 3

2008-11-24T21:59:00.003Z

If you missed part 1 you can read it here.

So, here I was at home with 4 friends enjoying the company, as it was the winter we closed the Sabbath early together (I can't remember exactly but probably between 3 and 4pm the sun would have set).

Time spent with good friends seems always to pass far too quickly, this evening was no exception. At probably around 5pm I (having eaten the least), started feeling the first pangs of hunger... Then it occurred to me... "These people might not leave before supper time!" - I had eaten the last of the bread (except for the very thin end crust) at breakfast and was planning on making some more before breakfast on the Sunday morning...

My mind started scanning what I had in the freezer - nothing really, - then I remembered that I had made 8 small rolls instead of one loaf of bread a few weeks earlier and had frozen them, but I couldn't give my guests only rolls, besides they were frozen and I did not have a microwave. Well they might defrost more quickly than a whole loaf. So I excused myself to the kitchen, took out the rolls and stared into the now almost completely empty main cupboard - Well there really was nothing but dried beans there! - Well I did have some Marmite - would Swedes accept such a thing? - I checked that cupboard and a plan started to form.

When the rolls were defrosted enough to cut through them I would put them under the grill and toast them. I had some honey, marmite, some carob spread, I could whip up a quick "jam" (frozen berries with a little sugar and cornstarch), I can't remember if I perhaps had some peanut butter or tahini too. I would serve all this with a selection of warm drinks - teas and hot almond drink (from a powder in a tin - a luxury I had afforded myself some time before and still had plenty of left.

About an hour later I again excused myself to the kitchen and started to cut the still quite hard rolls, I put all the spreads that I had on the table with some side plates, cups and the selection of drinks, boiled the kettle and remembered that I had some biscuits (cookies) that I had made a few days earlier, sitting in a tin.

I went into the lounge and enquired if anyone was hungry, "Oh yes if you don't mind", was the reply. When everyone came into the kitchen (now smelling like warm toast), the oohhs and aaahhhs about the "lavish spread", blew my mind. My friends happily ate of the toasted half rolls (I also ate the left over end crust from my breakfast loaf) and everyone was excited by all the "exotic foods" that I had (Marmite and almond milk)! One of the young ladies is a trained confectioner and insisted on getting my bread and my biscuit recipe.

My friends eventually left together at around nine (if my memory serves me correctly). When my friends left they left with me an impression that was imprinted on my brain for life, that it truly is "more blessed to give than to receive". Giving when you have nothing forces you to rely on God to supply your humble needs.

My story may not have earth shattering miracles in it, but to me it was utterly amazing that God cared enough to allow me to have such a wonderful time with friends and to see His amazing power at work. That God cares about such seemingly small and trivial matters as hospitality, shows me that it is neither a small, nor a trivial matter to be hospitable.

In the 3rd and final part of my story I will tell, how I have been blessed by being a guest in another person's home.

Hospitality Part 1 of 3

2008-11-20T20:43:00.007Z

Hospitality is a beautiful gift. Even when we are lacking in almost everything we can still practice hospitality even if it only means a warm drink and a chat. Look at the Biblical examples of those who hosted strangers and how they were blessed by this act, search for yourself the motives these people had for their kindness and read further to see how they were blessed by these deeds. I will tell you a few stories of my own experiences of the blessings of hospitality.

Some years ago I was living on my own and had virtually no money over once the bills were paid. Indeed frugality was a luxury - suffice it to say that I had less than the price of 10 magazines a month (whatever the currency I figure that will give you an idea in real terms - 300 Swedish Kronor), to buy all of my food, toiletries, clothes and luxuries each month. One day while moping around, doing the dishes I thought about what would happen if I knew I would die tomorrow, I decided that I would get rid of everything and have a "party" for all my friends and loved ones. So in that spirit I decided to invite one friend over after church on Sabbath. I prepared enough food for my guest (I didn't know who I would invite till I got to church) and myself, I made sure that my home was neat and tidy and I even got some cheap juice as a treat for us.

At church that Sabbath, after the service, I approached one friend and asked if she would be happy to join me, she kindly accepted but asked if she might invite another friend who she had promised to join for lunch at the church. - I figured that I could stretch the food so of course I said yes.

Turned out that the other friend, had been talking with another 2 while the first person asked him, so those 2 would join us additionally and now many years later I forget how it happened, but another 2 joined us. - I now had 6 people (plus myself) coming for lunch - my table would only really seat 6. All the way home I prayed and searched the recesses of my mind for quick food that I might have at home (most of my meagre store-cupboard was dried pulses and flour). By the time I walked through the door with my guests, I had remembered some food that would de-frost quickly (without a microwave), and I had remembered some other basics that could be put together quickly. Then I prayed that the food would stretch as I really had nothing more in my cupboards that would be suitable for lunch at short-notice.

By God's mercy and miracle's the food stretched everyone was happy with the "delicious food", I don't think anyone was hungry (except possibly me as I didn't dare take too much - my faith was not so strong yet), and an enjoyable time was had by all.

After lunch we all made our way to the sofa to relax and after a while 2 of the friends excused themselves and the other 4 stayed back with me....

Some Random Things

2008-11-20T20:16:00.004Z

Yesterday was our one year (civil) wedding anniversary. My dear grandmother who came to that wedding sent us a card, which I thought was very sweet. - We won't be celebrating till our religious anniversary on the 30th December though as that is when we became husband and wife in the real sense. It is still a special day to remember though.

This morning I took the train to work (don't do that usually as it costs too much extra to justify, however I had a doctor appointment and would be very late otherwise). Anyway I sat down by the window with a fee isle seat next to me.
At the last station before I was due to get off a woman got on and sat down next to me. This lady had a cup of coffee in her hand which she put on the folding table in front of her and I thought to myself (oh well it's only a coffee - it won't be too much for her to move when I need to get off in about 5 mins).
Then the woman got out her make up bag and started applying liquid foundation, powder etc. I tried to make polite rustlings with my bags as we started to near the station to forewarn her of my impending move, but she appeared oblivious. So when her foundation lid was safely back on the bottle I politely said "excuse me", well you should have seen her eyes roll and heard her huff.... Then she said, "well it would have been better to move in the first place" (the cheek!) - To which I replied (as politely as I could muster - being a rather blunt person by nature); "Well I didn't know you were going to do your make up!" By the way it was 10:30am - this wasn't exactly "I have just crawled out of bed time", - did this person not have a home in which to take care of her personal grooming ritual? - Admittedly I do not know why she was putting make up on that late (or indeed why she needed it - she looked fine to me), perhaps she had been rushing to get a child to a nursery and prioritised that over her face (well at least she would in that case have got one priority right, she didn't strike me as the mum type though! - SOME PEOPLE!!!!

Time Keeping

2008-11-13T22:28:00.002Z

My beloved husband is one of these people who hates to be late (which I am very grateful about, as I hate to be late too). Generally speaking RNG is pretty good about time-keeping.

So this evening I was washing up and making the dinner and RNG was taking the rubbish out (a 2 minute job) and before he went out he said "see you in 15-20 minutes". I thought he was joking. 10 minutes later I started to become concerned as the steps out the side can become slippery, so I wandered out to see what had happened and I could hear his voice chatting with a neighbour. Another 35 minutes later he came back in!

My sweetheart had been chatting with a neighbour about various things including religious matters (that is what took the time I think).

I am very glad that the times my dear husband does not keep time is when he is talking to people about important things. Being in a hurry when there is no reason to hurry is never good for building good friendships with other people. I think that our neighbour really needed to talk (his wife is away and I think he is lonely) and I am glad that RNG was there to talk with him.

My Little Nephew

2008-11-12T22:47:00.003Z

On Sunday RNG and I went down to Brighton to visit my middle brother, his girl-friend and their 6 month old son. It was the first time I had seen my little nephew and he is gorgeous.

He is also absolutely fascinated by the computer and will not turn his head away when there is anything on it!

On a side note, we spent some time walking round Brighton in the afternoon and it was incredibly windy and I definitely had the wrong skirt on. The skirt I was wearing was very light weight and very full, hence it kept trying to blow up. I spent all the time while walking along holding my skirt wrapped against my legs. Next time I will check the weather forecast!

Very Very Simple

2008-11-12T22:29:00.000Z

On Monday I was really not feeling very well, I had a miserable cold and I ended up not going to work.

My dear husband had tried to get me to eat an orange at breakfast (for the vitamin C), but an orange when you have a sore throat is basically torture.

At lunch time I wasn't particularly hungry, and couldn't face bread so I made my simple stand-by soup.

This soup is very very simple and quick for one person.

vegetable stock powder - for about half a litre I suppose (I am sure a half stock cube or even better, fresh stock would do, but this is what I have).

Small clove of garlic, chopped

Some finely diced carrots *

broccoli florets (for the vitamin C!) *

soup pasta (conchigliette - small pasta shells or similar even broken up (1 inch pieces of spaghetti work. TIP (from the Italian chef himself: if breaking up spaghetti, wrap in a clean kitchen cloth to prevent the pieces flying everywhere while breaking - I didn't have any shells left in the evening when I made this soup for RNG so I used spaghetti).

onion powder (or fresh diced if you feel adventurous)

soya flour

some olive oil

* substitute any available veg, fresh, canned or frozen.

Start by boiling the stock with the carrots, garlic and onion powder.

Use some of the stock to make a paste with the soya flour, stir in.

Add the oil, pasta and broccoli boil gently.

Serve

Total preparation time including chopping and boiling 15 mins.

Simple and tasty.

Venice and Other Things

2008-11-01T20:45:00.003Z

On Thursday there was terrible weather and flooding in many parts of Italy, however in Venice it was dry all day, the morning was especially beautiful, warm and sunny. We had a wonderful time and Venice really is a beautiful city. We will definately go back there one day if possible, we will however not go back to the first restaurant that we tried - the food was a joke the 'Spaghetti, algio, olio, peperoncino' was basically re-heated spaghetti, with cheap veg oil some garlic and a sprinkling of chili powder, no parsley, we left after one course.

Unfortunately RNG's father is currently in hospital so we went to visit him yesterday and today, he is in good spirits and will hopefully be home again soon. Observations about Italian hospitals (well only this one actually):

A bit scruffy and rund-down, but clean
Aparently good food
Solar panels heating the water
The beds can only lie flat - if you are well enough to sit up you either use pillows or get up
No curtains around the individual beds for privacy - they operate an 'avert your eyes' policy

General observations about Italians:

They like good food - did you know they actually have a special department for investigating 'food fraud'? - I bet DEFRA doesn't - I mean can you immagine it: "These Lincolnshire sausages are actually made in Staffordshire! - FRAUD, FRAUD!"
Even in hospitals some Italians manage to remain fashionable as patients (one lady was so elegant that it took a while to realise that she was the patient not her husband!
The Italians will generally chat and be friendly with anyone
To cross the road at a zebra crossing like an Italian, look both ways and walk across between cars - they will drive around you (without hooting)

In Milan

2008-10-29T19:11:00.003Z

Wow, I can't believe that it is over a month since I last blogged, in fact I have hardly been on line at all during that time.

We have decided to bite the bullet and sell the flat, ultimately we need something bigger and it isn't worth us doing anything about the place if we will be moving on within a few years.

On Friday morning we flew to Stockholm with Sterling Airlines - yes we are blessed to not have been caught in that fiasco!

This was RNG's first trip to Sweden and he liked Stockholm very much - I forgot the cable to up-load photos so those will need to wait till we get back to the UK.

Yesterday (Tuesday) evening we flew to Milan (Easy Jet this time), we will return to the UK on Sunday afternoon (also Easy Jet).

Today we have spent the afternoon in central Milan eating delicious food including vegan (soya) ice cream and shopping. The Italians - especially the Milanese are so fashionable that even their umbrellas and pets are fashionable. I decided to join the fashionable umbrella band and bought an outrageously expensive umbrella (well actually RNG bought if for me and mine is brown with white dots and ruffle).

Tomorrow we will take a day trip to Venice which I am very much looking forward to.

Now What?

2008-09-25T21:50:00.004+01:00

WOW, OK.... Where to begin?.... I wanted to blog already at the weekend - but I didn't have time.

I survived the work "team-building", but I can say I don't think I will ever wear culottes again - too uncomfortable and by the way how does anyone go to the loo in those things? I kept my back turned during the archery and the shooting as I didn't want to watch how to hold a gun/bow and arrow, the shooting guy had strong opinions about lots of things - including vegetarians and religious people. He claimed that he would have loved to have an hour to really talk with me - I get the impression that he meant to talk me out of my beliefs! - He did however respect my desire to abstain. On a side note, in defence of my employers they would have chosen to do something different if one of the group had disabilities and the past few years they haven't done anything more dangerous than duck-herding due to the number of pregnancies (pregnant women shouldn't be around sheep + there was foot and mouth going around last year) - don't ask about the ducks - it was ok though - quite funny in fact.

On Sunday morning RNG, myself and a friend went black-berry picking but the entire yield was about 12 blackberries, 8 blueberries and some nettles!

Sunday afternoon we finally started to pack some boxes to put in storage so we can make space to decorate and so we can put the flat on the market....

Yesterday we had a VERY big blow that means that we will be highly unlikely to be able to sell for a while.

The roof of the building is in such a bad state of repair that it needs urgent attention the roofing fund wont cover all the repairs and so we will need to come up with £6500 towards the cost of the repairs.... THAT folks will take us into negative equity. We were planning on selling... This is a grade II listed property and a "compulsory maintenance order" has been served on the building, which effectively means that if we don't cough up our home will be reposessed to pay for the maintenance.

We are not sure what we are going to do yet, but we will probably remortgage and buy my grandmother out of her half (she wont contribute to any cost of work on the property interior or exterior), then we will pay for the cost of the repairs and while we are at it we will properly renovate the flat - re-wire, new bathroom, new kitchen and cupboards. If we pay out this money and don't do anything else we will definitely not recuperate our costs, so we need to do something to improve the flat before we sell.

At this stage it looks like we will be here a while longer. This is not the best prospect considering our desire to have a family - if we are blessed with a child it will be a very tight squeeze here but at the same time we can not move for a while, but the fact is we wouldn't be the first family to live in only one room and we wouldn't be the last and it would hopefully be only temporary.

The good thing about all of this is that it has made us focus. RNG will have to get a permanent job locally for the time being, and I can say I am very glad I am not facing this on my own and whatever happens we will always have each other for which I am eternally grateful.

You know that saying, "when life throws lemons at you, - make lemonade"? Today I was wondering what you do when life throws you rotten lemons? - Use the sugar and water for something else and throw the rot away I guess!

Television

2008-09-17T22:05:00.003+01:00

In Europe (both Britain and Sweden) it is compulsory to have a TV licence if you have a television - it is about half the price for a black & white only licence. - The TV licence rule applies if you only have a video recorder, a tv card on a pc or any other device that can receive television signals. This TV licence gives you the right to watch and/or record public television as well as commercial television broadcasts -the public (non-commercial TV) is funded by the licence. If you want cable or satellite you pay extra.

When I was first living on my own I had cable, but I had to give it up as I couldn't afford it, so I was down to two state-run public-funded channels which had nothing of interest to me and one commercial channel which I would occasionally watch (this was in Sweden).

One day the renewal for my licence arrived and it was due to be paid the day before pay-day and I didn't have the money. So I called my father to ask him to come and collect my TV. that was probably 7 years ago now and I have never regretted getting rid of the TV. In the past 7 years I have lived for a total of about 2 years in a place with TV and I found that although it was very boring in the beginning, after a while I started to get addicted to the TV again. I saw how easy it is to get sucked into watching rubbish.

Nowadays I can't imagine how I ever had time to watch anything on TV. When I hear about the programs or see part of one at a friends home I find it incredibly boring.

Don't get me wrong, I think there are many good things out there on television, good quality documentaries for example, but I certainly wouldn't want to pay to see the occasional documentary.

RNG and I do watch some streamed television (streamed television does not require a tv licence), we watch some news reports for example and I watch the occasional vegan cookery program on 3ABN but in all our watching it is very controlled choices not surfing between one channel and the next like I used to be in a habit of. When one thing is finished it can go off or the report stops. - I will sometimes have something on in the background while ironing or something but equally I have become accustomed to the peace and quiet and I may even create some music of my own through singing.

What To Do...

2008-09-15T19:42:00.003+01:00

On Thursday and Friday my department at work has our annual "away day". Thursday afternoon we will be having presentations, in the evening there will be dinner and evening "team building" activities. On Friday morning there will be outdoor "team building" activities.

I have "issues" with the majority of the schedule.

Presentations - no issues
Evening activities (murder mystery dinner). Issues - I don't enjoy or agree with in any way, shape or form "glorifying" evil such as murder, or making it into some form of entertainment. I made my views on this clear and said that I would not stay for the dinner. - This was fine, in fact the presentation, meal etc will be held at a hotel near to where I live, meaning that I can easily go home after the presentations.
Outdoor activities ("Rage buggies", "quad bike rally", "archery" & "clay pigeon shooting") - issues, issues, issues, issues. When I was about 17 I might have enjoyed racing round on motorised vehicles and pumping myself full of Adrenalin, however I grew out of that a while ago as I am not a man, am unlikely to enjoy it now. - I think this sort of thing is very testosterone-inclined (if that is an expression). I don't own a pair of trousers (and certainly do not intend to buy a pair for one day), and I suspect it will be difficult to ride a quad bike in a skirt. I have got a pair of culottes that I never got round to hemming that I suppose I could finish... I won't take arms (weapons of any sort) - even for "sport" as I believe this is wrong - I was raised with this belief and as I became an adult I examined and understood the issues for myself, besides my religious beliefs prevent me from bearing arms. Also I am an absolutely lousy shot - I can literally aim straight ahead and the ball or whatever I might be throwing would go at a 90 degree angle, - I dread to think of myself with a gun or bow and arrow - I would be lethal. I made it clear that I would not be participating in the guns and arrows activities, but I have no suitable explanation for my lack of desire to race round a wet field on a motorised vehicle like a child that is playing a game.

Right now I am hoping that the back pains that I have been experiencing since yesterday might still be there on Wednesday, - at which point I would go to the doctor, get signed off these activities, and go to work like a sensible person!

Mini-confession coming up - I was hoping to be pregnant before this event, so that I could legitimately abstain... Unfortunately this has not happened... Hardly a good reason to have a baby though. OK I am semi joking, - I would have been over-joyed at becoming pregnant and this would just be an added bonus!

Don't Go There

2008-09-07T21:44:00.004+01:00

Here follows the review of a restaurant (ASK - yes that is the name) that we visited in Haslemere the other day. - Since the restaurant review site has not published it I thought I would for your reading pleasure!

My husband and I had high hopes for this restaurant as it looked nice, we were however very disappointed.

The waiter that brought us our water, barely looked at us, never mind smiled.

I have a milk allergy and the "chefs" were unable to confirm if the pizza dough was made without milk as they had thrown the packet with the label away! - At least the menu is accurate when it states that they "stretch the dough" - they certainly don't make it themselves.

The pizzas when they arrived were a joke, it appeared as though the tomato had been brushed on thinly and then the "excess" scraped off, indeed the sauce only covered the middle section leaving more than an inch of bare bread around the perimeter. We had both ordered a vegetarian pizza and the contents of the pizzas were about 3 pieces of Aubergine, a sprinkling of onion and a few mushrooms. My husband had a thin layer (very thin) of mozzarella so it looked like he had very slightly more on the pizza.

My husband was absolutely appalled (he is an Italian chef and certainly knows a pizza from a piece of dough with a few things on top) and he called the waitress back. She agreed to return the pizza and get me a better one.

The new pizza had more topping and some strips of red pepper on it. Neither of our pizzas was very good in fact the tomato sauce tasted like the type you get from a jar (it was almost acidic like vinegar), it might have just been a badly made one it was hard to tell.

Looking around we could see that the waiters/waitresses didn't have much idea about food hygiene/health and safety. None of them had safety footwear on, the ladies trousers were so long that they were stepping on them, one young waitress seemed to continually need to scratch her head (in between carrying plates and glasses etc), and another waitress had decided the suitable place for her order notepad was in the back of her trousers... NO not the back pocket - the back inside of her trousers!

Quite simply we will not be going back there and certainly would not recommend it, especially as there is an authentic family run Italian restaurant within 50 meters (Arco Felice), with friendly staff and good pizzas. We only went to ASK because Arco Felice was closed and I can assure you we will not make that mistake again!

Suffer Little Children...

2008-09-01T22:25:00.004+01:00

On Sabbath a couple of weeks ago the mother of one of the small children that I teach in Sabbath School told me the following:

She had been reading the "wrong" lesson from the weekly readings to her not quite 3 3/4 year old son (it was the lesson from 2 weeks previously) and it was the story of Nadab and Abihu and their mistake while ministering in the wilderness sanctuary. Then her young son told her that, "that" (pointing I gather), "was the alter where the lamb was sacrificed" and he was able to tell her about the priest sprinkling the blood on the horns and so on.

This young child was able to explain to his mother about the concept of the lamb being sacrificed as an example of what our Messiah, Jesus was to do in our place. The mother knew she and her husband had not explained the sanctuary services to their son, so she asked him where he had heard this... his reply "Lillian told me"!

Wow!!!! I sometimes feel like the short time I have with the children less than an hour a week, makes no impact (and in comparison to their parent's work it barely scrapes the surface), this however was wonderful to hear that a small child who hardly seems to be paying attention at times, really is listening and by God's grace is learning too.

What's Up?

2008-08-21T20:15:00.003+01:00

RNG and I have decided not to go ahead with the opportunity that arose - I wont go into any detail other than to say that it would have involved opening a business and too many hours and not enough holiday for my liking (RNG would have been working every day except Sabbaths for 50 weeks of the year), - if he hadn't worked I would have had to, meaning in the future with perhaps children, we would have very little family time and no oportunity to go to museums etc as a family. Ultimately though we didn't feel that God was leading us in this direction.

This brings us back to where we started. RNG is still working with the agency and we are still thinking where to move to and what to do in the future. A good outcome of the exercise we recently had was that we discovered that it is possible to find more affordable housing in areas even not that far away.

We will definately have to move out of this area though if we want to live in more than just a studio flat.

At the moment I feel an urgency to get the flat painted so that we can put it on the market - if the prices sink much more we'll make a loss and that we cannot afford! I also want to get settled so that if we are blessed with children one day, we will have the space and not have the difficulty of moving when I am heavily pregnant or have a tiny baby.

I'm Still Here

2008-08-15T19:48:00.002+01:00

Hi, I am still here although I haven't blogged in nearly an entire month.

I will try and write more on Sunday, we are just getting ready for Sabbath here so I don't have time now.

I will also get around to reading all my favourite blogs and replying to my comments etc.

The good news is that RNG and I have probably made a decision regarding the future.

Lots of Things

2008-07-17T21:25:00.004+01:00

There is a lot going on in my life at the moment, I am not able to go into everything at the moment, however as and when things can be said I will probably blog about them.

When I got married I gained 4 nephews as my husband's brother and sister have two boys each.

Anyway along with the joy of gaining a sister (I only have three younger brothers), I gained 3 young boys and one teen boy as nephews.

Three weeks ago I learned with joy that I have become an auntie (not just auntie-in-law!), my middle brother has had a little boy!

The little boy will be nine weeks old on Saturday, - I will allow you to do your own maths to work out how long it was before I knew. Why so long? Well apparently my brother was afraid to tell me "because of my religious convictions" (and I thought we were fairly close)! Any way eventually my mother got so fed up with the secrecy that she told me. Please understand that my mother knew nothing till my brother phoned her one evening and said; "Hi mum, - congratulations, you're a grandmother, my son was born yesterday". My brother is obviously not married and we knew nothing of the young lady till the little one was in the picture.

I would say my little brother's fears were unfounded (I am not saying that I think a child born without a stable family is an ideal situation), I am delighted to be an auntie and finally be able to make little baby boy cards as opposed to only ones for all my friends that keep having little girls. I am looking forward to meeting my latest family member and also his mother.

Baby Boy (nephew) (the baby boy paper was stuck inside a plain white envelope)

Baby Girl (friend's daughter)

As a little trivial side note, I thought I would give you an idea of the proportion of males to females in my family:

I have two older male cousins on my father's side, 2 older and one younger male cousins on my mothers side (all biological), I also have 2 young girl cousins that are adopted on my mother's side. I am the oldest child and only daughter of my parents and I have 3 younger brothers.

My dear husband was the oldest of 4 children 3 of them were boys and the youngest is a female. - More of his cousins are males than females and he has more uncles than aunts.

My brother has now produced a boy, much as my mother would love a granddaughter, it looks like her chances are slim of ever having a granddaughter - RNG are hoping for children (no I'm not expecting yet) but the chances are very small of us having a girl!

The Lord Will Provide

2008-07-06T13:11:00.005+01:00

Both my dear husband and I are Seventh Day Adventist Christians.

As Christians we believe that "in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is" and that He "rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it", therefore we should "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates"
(Exodus 20:8-11 - re-ordered slightly for the sake of keeping the thought flowing)

As Christians we also believe that the LORD does not change (Malachi 3:6), we therefore believe that the ten commandments (all 10 not just the ones that suit us) are still valid today, if the commandments to not kill, not steal and not commit adultery are still valid then so is the Sabbath commandment (all ten are upheld in the New Testament and kept by Jesus and his early followers), as Jesus said; "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (Matthew 5:17-18)

Occasionally living in the society that we do where God's Sabbath is not observed, we come into conflict regarding work etc (the Sabbath is certainly not the only area of work where we need to make choices for God but it is a very important area).

I work in an office and I am able to leave earlier on Fridays to be home when the Sabbath starts (during the winter when the sun sets before 4pm I am able to work in the extra hours during the rest of the week).

Since he became a Christian, the work my husband has done has mostly been for regular companies in their company restaurant where the chef hours are Mon - Fri 7am - 3pm or similar so keeping the Sabbath has not been a problem.

There are certain areas of work where somebody NEEDS to work during Sabbath hours, hospitals are one such example, Jesus said; "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?" The Seventh Day Adventist Church has many hospitals throughout the world and obviously caring for sick and dying people cannot stop for 24 hours every week. There are however certain principles that are upheld to observe the Sabbath in such places, for example, non-urgent operations will not be carried out on a Saturday or a Friday (the most intense nursing following any operation will be the 24 hours immediately following the surgery). Food preparation will be carried out as far as possible in advance and will be of simple food and in some places will be served on disposable plates or non-essential washing-up will be left till after Sabbath hours. The atmosphere will be quieter and less hurried and people's conversation will generally be on more spiritual matters. Boarding schools and university campuses with live-in students are another example where people NEED to eat and somebody NEEDS to work. Work on Sabbaths in such places is considered a service, many people will give all or a large portion of the money "earned" on these days to God's work. People who work Seventh Day Adventists who work in hospitals etc that are not run by the church will often either agree a head of time that they will not work on Sabbaths or they will try and swap with someone else for a different shift as the atmosphere will often make it impossible even to keep the Sabbath in their heart.

My dear Sweetheart has since February been working as the Chef Manager in a Nursing home, people there NEED to eat and as there were 3 chefs he agreed to work one Sabbath out of 3 as a service to people in need. Recently one of the chefs left and he was asked to work additional Saturdays, he tried to swap with the other chef and he said he was not willing to work the extra weeks (the atmosphere in a kitchen is rarely God honouring at the best of times), the other chef did not want to swap and the management would not agree to agency staff. I will cut a long story slightly shorter and say basically that RNG decided to resign.

That means that now my dear husband will be working through an agency again until some other suitable work comes up. - I must say that I am happy that he is leaving for various reasons not-least that he has been working so many extra hours and I have become increasingly concerned for his health.

Yesterday the pastor asked my husband if he was worried about finding work (what with the looming recession and all that), his reply (and mine too), was, "absolutely not", the Lord will provide. As the Psalmist said: "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread". (Psalm 37:25)