Spread your wings and fly away

Had a lovely day today. Meet up with Smichen and Louisa for a shopping tirp at Milton Keynes, lots of giggling, laughter and shopping done and of course, pizza!!! (well Smichen had pizza, Louisa and I opted for Pasta )

A great time was had by all of us, looking at christmas pressies for various people as well as browsing through the shops looking for dresses and underwear

And of course we thought of a certain blogger when we saw this:
You just know he will want one to add to his dr. who collection

Got home safe and sound, more giggling from me and Louisa, then headed of to fat club where I have managed to lose 1½ lbs which I am pleased with particularly as I didn't have a particularly good week food/exercise wise. so that is 3Lb off so far!

Right off now to browse the internet and pay a few bills

Hope you all had a good day

hugs xx

"Can I go out Thursday night, bowling? " He asked me earlier.

"No," I said, "it is quiz night you need to look after your brother for me."

"What about Monday?"

"No, I am going shopping, you need to be here."

"Yeah I know with the brother," he replies.

"Today then?" he says.

"Yes, after we have been food shopping"

"Great, can I buy some milk though going to a friends house and they haven't got any"

So after purchasing said milk and various other items, we head over to the other side of town, near the airport, where his friend lives, drop him off for the day where he will be scoffing his face with junk and watching dvds.

hopefully!

Just what do you buy a boy for his 17th birthday?

A lady loves milktray I have a husband who went through the lingerie catalogue that was delivered this morning and is trying to decide, as I write this, which item he would like me to wear.

Not that I am going to indulge him of course, I have more important things to decide like what dress I might like to wear at the forthcoming Christmas meal with the Quiz team in December!

It amazes me how I am being totally serious in finding a dress, showing him these pictures, yet he is more interested in what I should wear underneath - or is that just the way men's minds work lol

As I sit here, listening to the rain pour down heavily on the roof of the conservatory, I can't help but feel that I should have picked another day to go and see this .

However it is only on for one night and I am reliably told by my friend, who I am going with, that it is very hilarious, very rude and that I will be wetting myself by the end of the performance.

I hope I will not be wetting myself, just in case I have been doing my pelvic floor exercises and I will make sure that I have paid a visit to the ladies before sitting in my seat, ready for the performance.

I am looking forward to it, a chance to catch up on gossip with a friend first and foremost, and also to be entertained as well. Our monthly jaunts were usually to the cinema to see the latest releases, but more recently, well since Dunstable got it's own theatre, it has been to see whatever was on there. What is nice about the theatre is that wherever you sit, you get a good view. Neither of our hubbies are in to going to the theatre and we like doing so and can enjoy ourselves without having to pay London prices.

So that is what I am doing tonight, while hubby watches football on the telly and the kids drive him mad!

Best thing is no work tomorrow as I am now officially on Half term Yipppeeeeeee

Just got back from fat club and lost 1Ib this week. Total loss 1½ Ib in two weeks so far. Not bad really!

Now off to have my jacket potato and beans while I watch two and a half men

Hope you have all had a good day

hugs xx

16 year old son has just announced that he

is

dating!!!

(and not dating the girl his mother really likes, oh no it is one mother hasn't met yet!!)

I am so not ready for this!

Deep breaths and counting to ten very very slowly!

Well just because it was posted somewhere else and I didn't know what else to do so here it is!

Do you eat a lot of fast food?
No

How many people have you kissed in 2008?
Hubby properly, rest have been kiss on cheeks

Have you ever streaked?
Nope

Are you an understanding person?
I try to be

What was the last movie you saw in the cinema?
Prince Caspian

What did you last get upset about?
My kids not doing as they are told

Do you eat sweets on a daily basis?
No

Does it make you happy to get letters?
Only ones from friends the rest are usually bills and I don't like getting them

Who was the last person to text you?
A friend to see if I was going to quiz night

What are you looking forward to this summer?
Some warm weather hopefully (next year I hope)

Who was the last person you ate with?
a colleague at work

Do raisins belong in cookies?
I have no idea

What's your screen name?
Faffajane

Walking into a party, what's the first thing you notice?
Oh god there are a lot of people here panic!

Kiss on the first date?
Been so long can't remember

Would you rather have chicken or steak?
Steak

What's one thing you've learned from a good friendship gone bad?
Some people aren't meant to be friends

Who was the last person you took a picture of?
My kids and hubby

Would you ever donate blood?
Not allowed to as i have had a blood transfusion

Have you ever felt replaced?
Yes

Are there deerheads covering any walls in your house?
No

Have you ever been asked out?
Yes though not recently, the ring is a big giveaway!

Are you good at telling jokes?
No I forget the punchlines

Have you ever driven without a license?
No

Do you wish you had smaller feet?
No

When ordering sushi, what do you get?
Never had it, don't eat fish cooked so why would I eat it raw?

Do you write in cursive or in print?
cursive

Who was the last person you sat next to?
A colleague at work

What were you doing at 10 am?
Listening to children read

Are you different now than you were six months ago?
No

What was the last beverage you spilled on yourself?
Tea

How old will you be in 10 months?
43!

Do you think you'll be married by then?
I am married

Was yesterday better than today?
No.

Did you not read what I wrote earlier

What month is your birthday in?
April.

Can you live a day without tv?
Yes.

When was the last time you saw your dad?
1994

How many pets do you have?
2 dogs, several fish, 2 finches

How many houses have you lived in?
4

How many city/towns have you lived in?
3

Do you prefer shoes, socks, or bare feet?
bare feet

Available?
No

What is your favorite colour?
black

What are you doing for your next birthday?
Same as usual being a mother

Do you like coffee?
Only when I am out

Do you like iced tea?
no

What are you listening to?
the noisy game my son is playing

Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed?
Yes

If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
I am just me!

Do you know how to play poker?
No

What are you thinking about right now?
Do I want to be sick or not

Any plans for next weekend?
No

What were you doing at 12 last night?
Sleeping.

Do you smile a lot?
Yes in between the giggling

Why did you last cry?
kids annoyed me yesterday

Have you ever had a life-threatening injury?
no just a life threatening blood transfusion

Do you like flying or driving?
driving

What is your favorite thing to spend money on?
Music

Do you wear any jewelry daily?
earrings and my wedding ring mostly

Who got you the jewelry you are currently wearing?
My hubby

Who is the funniest person you know?
A certain canadian lady I know

How often do you remember your dreams?
Everyday

What is your ringtone?
Bon Jovi wanted dead or alive

Skim, 1%, 2%, or whole milk?
skimmed

Are you mad about anything?
No

What time did you go to sleep last night?
11

Where did you last sleep besides your own bed?
All stars music Orlando Florida

I woke up last night with one name on my mind.

I kept thinking about a blogger, his profile picture clear in my head.

this evening as I log on to catch up on friends posts I read the news about one member of our community and I am feeling sad that after all he has been through it has now come to this. My thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family at this time.

Hugs xxxx

The most commonly used threshold of low income is a household income that is 60% or less of the average (median) household income in that year.

I have to admit, I had a rough idea what I was going to discuss on here, did some research and came across this quote from The Poverty site which made me rethink what I was going to write about.

Why?

Well at some point in our lives, the majority of us have been hit by poverty.

As a child there was not a lot of money coming into our house. Add to this fact that it was the 70’s and strikes were a common theme, so dad seemed to always be on strike for something or other. As a postman when he was working, money was tight. Mum stayed at home, believing that this was her place in life and struggled to pay the bills and feed my sister and I. We weren’t unhappy, if anything my childhood was happy. We made do with what we had - we amused ourselves. We didn’t have central heating. In our house there was only one coal fire in the living room, the rest of the house you froze in. As I say to my children you are not cold - you are cold when you have to scrape ice of the windows and you get into bed, amongst crisp cotton sheets and hope the dog will want to join you to keep you warm!

Mum and Dad tried their hardest to make sure we didn’t go without. We didn’t have waste. You ate the very last morsel of food on your plate; to throw food away was a waste – if you didn’t eat it then you certainly didn’t get anything else to eat. To feed my sister and I was something that made my mother creative – many a time my sister and I would sit down to food and mum and dad would eat cheese sandwiches, believing we should get what was good and wholesome and nutritious if there wasn’t enough to feed all four of us.

The 80s came and I experienced my first recession as an adult. We purchased our first house and like so many, we ended up with a huge negative equity. Nigel was self-employed, I had our first child and couldn’t work as I was working in London and to get there and pay childcare costs would have taken up all of my wages and some of Nigel’s as well. Our worst experience was Nigel having to sign on after being laid off and being given milk tokens, no money, just tokens for milk. It wasn’t long before he found work again! he was totally humiliated!

Money was scarce again and I certainly appreciated everything my parents had done to keep a roof over our heads when we were little. I experienced some of the trials and tribulations of having very little money coming in and having to make good wholesome food go a lot further. Scrimping and scraping became part of our life. Though we didn’t have to hide from the milkman or the rent man like my mother had to, there were times when I felt overwhelmed at how little we did have yet the bills didn’t stop arriving. Spiralling into depression, wondering how I would ever cope, I eventually took things into my own hands, taking over the finances and gradually being able to see a light at the end of the tunnel again. It was to take many years to pay of those creditors who kept writing to us demanding that we pay them or they would take us to court, the endless hours on the phone talking and arranging payments, the constant feeling that you were never going to be left alone, but in the end we did it. We caught up, paid up and deflected the endless threats of repossession, bailiffs; court orders that threatened to overwhelm us.

It wasn’t easy, it still isn’t. One thing it taught me though was to not take money for granted. We no longer have to ‘rob Peter to pay Paul’; we are financially sound – for now but to get there means that both of us have to work, like so many families we cannot get by on one wage. We work hard and have a budget which we stick to, which is getting smaller each month as prices rocket seemingly out of control.

As we head into another recession, a global one, I want to refer you back to the quote at the beginning of this tale. How many of us can say our purses are getting lighter? How many of us are coping with the spiralling costs of fuel, food, interest rates etc? Today it was announced that 1.79million people are unemployed, the highest unemployment this country has seen for 17 years. In an age where we are considered an 'affluent society', how many people will be classed as ‘in poverty’? How many children will suffer because they live in poverty? What is poverty and what does it mean to you? are children in poverty because their parents can't afford to buy a home computer? Of course not. Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom. Of course it doesn’t just affect us here, neither is it a new phenomenon. It has always been with us, all over the world. We have all grown up with it. We all suffer from it. Unfortunately in some parts of the world, men, women and children face poverty every single day of their lives.

We are lucky because no matter what happens to us here, we can get help. We don’t go without food. We don’t have to traipse miles each and every day to get some water. We don’t go without heat or light. We are educated. We have access to the doctor, hospital, medical services. We have clean water, heat and electricity. We are not deprived. Yes we may struggle with rising prices. Yes we may lose our jobs and worry about if we will ever get another one. We may worry about how we will pay our bills. We may worry about if our bank will go under or not. We are lucky as help is there for us. We can claim benefits, not a lot admittedly, but we get some. It may not be enough to pay our bills but there are advice centres we can go to to get help and advice to keep a roof over our heads, to help us to budget, to help us to get by. Even with repossessions on the increase we are still fortunate to be able to get help. It isn't easy, it never is, never will be, because even in this country where we are fortunate enough to get more than others in the world, people die, people go cold, people lose everything they have because they get very little help.

Millions of people and children in the world die from the effects of poverty every day. The true horrors of poverty is death, disease, hunger, and cold. Let us hope that we do not become another statistic, that we never have to experience what others in the world suffer everyday of their lives.

Some of you got a friends only post from me which had a video on it.

sorry had to take it off, which is why you couldn't see anything!

It wasn't playing back properly so I took it off to redo. Will post if I can.

It can be seen on my facebook page though if you are on my friends list there

Sorry for the mix up!

Hugs to you all and hope you have a good day.

hugs xxxxxx

One of my friends has a birthday today, so as we hadn't seen each other for a while, we met up at another friend's house and sat chatting, drinking wine and snacked on crisps, popcorn and maltesers while we put the world to rights or, in this case, and the world put to rights in our own way. Subjects ranged from work (we all work in schools though different ones from each other), men, kids etc while x factor was on in the background.

We don't do this often enough, due to all three of us being very busy, but it was nice all the same, to catch up where we left off and to finish the evening with a smile.

Unfortunately, our time together ended all too soon, but hoping that we can catch up where we left off in a few weeks time. Having people here is difficult, particularly if they are not keen on dogs as my two love visitors, but that doesn't stop me from feeling guilty for not inviting people round to share a drink or two. Also Nigel is often around as well so that doesn't make it easy to have a girly chat if he is in the room (though knowing him he would probably join in!). I try to keep in touch with people as often as possible, but again that doesn't always work - how many times have I thought must phone so and so, then before I know it it is 9 o'clock at night? I hate phoning people after a certain point in the evening though there is no excuse for not sending a text now and again lol!

Till the next time we get together I will have to remember to try and keep in touch and not be such a bad friend really. to my friend who may read this, hun thank you for yesterday, it lifted my spirits more than you will ever know.

Hugs to all my friends xx

Despite my best intentions, trying to lose weight by myself without support is akin to my mother trying to give up smoking.

Something happens and I eat.

something happens and she smokes more.

Good intentions disappear out of the window and no matter how much you try you find that you do not get back on track, there is always tomorrow. In my case tomorrow never comes, the weight just piles back on.

So this evening sees me back at the local fat busters club. The form filling was easy, I have done it before. I smile at the leader who knows me only too well and welcomes me back with a smile and a hug. The scales are not so nice though - I can almost hear them groan as I step on them, the numbers not quite deciding what to settle on and when they do settle they are not good. yes I definitely need to to do this.

I greet old friends. yes old friends, I have been here before we all have. Yes this tells us one thing, diets don't work, but we are all there for the support, the encouragement. I don't think any of us actually takes it seriously, afterall we have all done this before, some keep returning over and over again, one thing that is obvious is the comradeship, the unity as we all strive towards a common goal, to lose weight.

I have a problem. I eat healthily. I eat lots of fruit and veg, very little meat, very little diary and generally I am quite healthy even if the scales tell me I am morbidly obese. There is also the fact that losing weight will mean that I will be able to get into my jeans again, something I am struggling to do at the moment. So if I do all the right things, exercise, eat well, why am I putting on weight?

I am addicted to fresh bread and butter. There it is. I have said it.

Over the last few weeks the amount I have consummed has been vast. It has got out of proportion. I can quite happily eat a whole loaf. I love bread. Unfortunately as we know, a little of what you fancy doesn't hurt. However having vast quantities is not so good. My portion sizes have crept up a bit as well. I like my food. I have always had big meals, but that is not always a good thing.

Some people can control what they eat and howmuch they eat. However that is something that I can't do, never good. Even when I am full I still eat. I am down I eat. Stressed I eat. Happy I eat. A never ending cycle.

That has to end. A few years ago I lost over 3 and a half stone. Most of that I have put back on due to excessive eating. I took the decision a while ago to stop but I need help. So back to fatbusters to get that help and support. I never follow what they do, preferring to do it all my way, but I can follow the healthy guides and up the exercising a bit. the point is to get the support I need, the encouragement to lose what I need until I am back in my jeans, I can get that little black dress back on and most importantly of all feel good about myself once more.

Some people find it easy. I do not. Today is the start of a new me and that, my friends, is what I am going to be, my old self back again.

I am cold

I am freezing.

My feet have lost all sense of feeling in them as they are like ice of blocks.

Even with the added cardigan over my jumper I am shivering.

Oh well the heating had to go on sometime, wasn't planning on yet though!

The child was having a big tantrum in the middle of the shop.

The father, was trying to reason with the child, obviously embarrased that the child was still screaming and pulling things off the shelves. The father, pulled the child by his hand and told him not to do that, that he was being a bad boy and he would have to walk with him holding his hand. He never raised his voice. He wasn't angry. He was just stern.

The child bit his dad's hand.

The father, bent to the child's level, held the child on both arms and said to him, "You will never do that again. That is naughty. Never, ever bite people. Do it again and I will show you how much it hurts, do you understand!"

The child nodded then started to scream again as the father stood up.

"you're hurting me"

"No I am not I am holding your hand. You will not touch things"

A lady approached him and told him she was going to report him for abusing his child.

"I beg your pardon?" the father says to her "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're hurting him and you threatened to bite him" she says.

"would you rather he stood here pulling things of the shelves and biting people then?" says the dad "anyway I never mentioned that I was going to bite him"

"you implied it" she says, "that is evidence enough"

Now I am not going into details of what he said next apart from the fact words were exchanged, some not so pleasant and all the time the child kept on screaming in the shop and pulling at his dad, refusing to stand and having a right old tantrum.

In truth I thought the father dealt with it well, afterall we have all been there with our children at some point and been driven to distraction but the tantrums ( though when I threw one in a shop in the style of the woman on the adverts that seemed to cure them of that). He never smacked the child. He didn't bite the child. He told the child firmly what would happen and how disappointed he was in him in the style of supernanny! He was firm yes and who was to suggest that he was going to bite his child when he got home, the threat may have meant something else.

And now my head is going into overdrive as to what that could be and it isn't pleasant, though I may be misjudging the situation, afterall it could be something quite innocent who knows?

At no time though did he get angry even when there was a heated discussion, he never raised his voice, he remained calmed even when she was hurling abusive language at him, he just told her that it wasn't necessary for her to swear in front of his child and told her several times to mind her own business.

He walked away, eventually, dragging the child behind him who was still screaming and having a tantrum,telling the child that there were not going to be any treats today because of his behaviour. She went off to find security (who seemed to have made themselves scarce) and to report the abuse of a minor.

I am really glad I didn't take my own child into town today as we often argue, dread to think what I would have been accused of

that is how I have felt today.

Nothing wrong apart from a sore throat and streaming nose, but now I am beginning to feel a little rough.

Not too good when you have a pile of ironing to get through and work to do for tomorrow.

The joys of working hey!