An update

I realised I haven't been posting for a while.  A mixture of life having got in the way, me persuing ideas for The Swap Shop UK on facebook, and me falling asleep in the evenings, even when I'm watching a programme I'm really interested in (like Sherlock, last night).   This post is just an eclectic catch up of what's been happening round here.

So, recently when we've been to the library and got out the following books:

• How does a ship float?
• The lion king
• Princess Rani
• Bathtime
• Bless you!

We're also doing the Circus Stars Summer Reading Challenge where you have to read 6 books.  Well, we'd finish it in one week, if we just tried to read 6 books, so we just go back for 6 weeks.  We've already collected the first sticker for our circus stage.

My sister's wedding went really well.  Again, I need to write a separate post about that, but I can now start losing weight again.  That said, i haven't started yet, and will do so after this weekend.  I'm visiting my grandparents, so there is no point even trying to eat healthily there, but next week I will start watching my weight again.  I won't be doing the fat burning foods diet, but will be applying those principles to my normal cooking for the family.

The veg patch is really doing well.  We've been eating tomatoes, spring onions (which are now bulbous and the size of shallots!), and I've even had a few carrots.  The strawberry plant served us well, but has since died, because the hanging basket dried out over the weekend of my sister's wedding.  Next year, though, I will try and plant the seeds at the right distance apart to begin with, so I don't need to keep thinning down.

I still want to move house, and we're still unable to.  Sadly, I have started playing the lottery and so far have won £2.50 on the lottery and £1 on a scratch card.  Not enough for my dream house, yet.  My dream house is still available atm which is probably prolonging my misery.  I'd love to move into no 11 but it's not looking likely.  I've even tried to set my sights lower, and I've found no 13 Chapel Court but we still can't afford that.  It's half the price of my dream house, but double the price of where we currently live, that's in negative equity.  As I said before, we've no chance of ever moving house unless we win the lottery, but in the mean time I'm slowly losing all my savings.  You'd think for a semi-intelligient woman I'd know better, wouldn't you?

I am working on getting more money, without the lottery, although I know this is a much longer term solution, rather than the quick fix I need for either of the homes I want.  I've bought a website for my tutoring (a domain name and a hosting package) in order to advertise myself some more.  Unfortunately, I'm not that technically savvy at programming level languages (I can cope with the higher level drag/drop with a small amount of coding, but what I've bought seems to require a lot more) so DH is going to have to help me.  Unfortunately, with his anxiety, he's not convinced I've done the right thing.  Especially as i've bought a second domain name www.theswapshopuk.com so I can develop my swap shop idea.  Atm I'm planning everything on paper, and then will type the text up and send to DH so he can put it together for me.  He said it looked fairly easy, but when I queried whether that was 'easy for him' or 'easy for him to teach me' his face suggested it was the former, so it may be a while yet, before either of these sites go live.  At worst, I've just wasted £70, which would be a few takeaways; at best, I've not got the means to make some more money.  The website it meant to have an easy to use website building function thing called Click be.  I haven't even found that yet, so I really do need to learn more!

First Taste of Strawberry!

Title says it all, really.  We've been away for a week on holiday, and I thought my plants may have died, but no.  Though they were thirsty, they were still there, and we had 3 gorgeous, huge, red strawberries that were delicious and sweet.  Yum.  Much tastier than the best of the strawberries on offer in the shops. 

Thinning out the onions

My strawberry plant was flat again today.  Again, my thoughts turned to that damned pigeon/cat.  Nevertheless, I straightened the plant so it stood upright again, and watered it. Aha - the base of the hanging basket was bone dry.  So maybe the flattened strawberry was due to me, and not some creature.  I've watered the basket this morning and I will go back out and water it again later. I hope that tomorrow I will remember to water it again, and it will last now until Friday as that is the next chance I will be able to give it some water.  Either that, or I hope the weather is wet for our holiday.

The tomatoes on the sunny side are still doing well.  They are starting to bush a bit now (rather than going vine-like as I was expecting), but still growing.  On the shady side, the tomato plants are still barely there at all.  I keep watering them, but I don't know when I should be giving up the ghost.

My next jobs were to tidy the garden (remove the last of the dead leaves from nextdoor's palm that has finally died) and thin the onions. The first of these was very quick to do; the second, less so.  Before I could start thinning the onions, I needed to remove the turf from the area of garden I was going to move them to.  No chance of me even attempting to double dig this patch, but I did the best I could in the time available.  I removed the turf, and used a fork to break up the ground.  I guesstimated the size of patch I needed, in order to be most time efficient. 

Then, I very carefully dug up some of the onions.  My gosh, they smell!  No wonder the onions hadn't been eaten by the slugs! LoL.  Onion plants are meant to be separated by around 3-4 inches, well, I've gone for approximately 1 inch separation for now, knowing that I'll need to thin them out again soon.  We have tons of onions!  I'm guessing that using up an entire packet of seeds was totally unnecessary, but at least I know for next time.  I would have separated out the plants to the correct distance, but I knew I did not have the space for more rows, and I should have removed even more turf.  As it is now, I still have 3 extra rows of onions. 

I also had a look at the carrots.  The leaves have started to grow back, after being eaten by slugs, so I'm hoping they are on the mend.  I dug up one carrot, but I think I killed it, so I'll wait a bit longer before I attempt to thin out these plants.

Slugs?

Yesterday I put my washing on the line, and my strawberry plant has some big green straweberries on it, hurray! As a first try of growing them, I was really proud of myself. Then, when I went back to bring my washing inside, my strawberry plants (which are in a hanging basket) were all flat. I think either a cat, or one of the humungous pigeons we have here, must have decided to sit on it. I propped it back up as best I could, and this morning it's not looking too bad, so hopefully it's going ok.

My onions are doing really well, and must be nearing 10cm tall now! My two rows of carrots, otoh, have been demolished. There were about 3cm, and have now been eaten (?) back to practically nothing.I think  it's slugs, but the slugs have avoided the onions which are planted in alternate rows to the carrots. I still have no idea when to start thinning out the onions and carrots though. Think I may try and do some thinning tomorrow.

My tomato plants are coming along nicely too. I have 2 growbags either side of a trellace arch, and only one had sprouted, but now the other side (which is slightly in the shade) has started growing too, so overall I'm pleased.

Dear Diary,

Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm feeling a bit rubbish.  I never enjoy birthdays.  Not because I'm afraid or hate getting older.  In fact, I think of myself more as a caterpillar that is hoping beyond hope that maybe this year I'll be that butterfly.  And I'm only going to be 29 tomorrow.  A few people have said, in jest, "getting nearer 30!", but 30 doesn't seem old to me, and I don't think there is anything wrong with being older anyway.  I've never had any looks to go or a body to lose,  so to speak, I just seem to be a person that is just sad around birthday time. 

The children are playing up too.  The house is a mess.  The car has broken down, yet again.  None of these are new things; I'm just noticing/getting upset and frustrated by them more, because I'm in a bit of a slump atm.  And the stats for this blog, which was just a mild sense of excitement, have tailed off too.  So I'm guessing whichever site it was that had a link to here, has now got some other person's blog on it's front page, and that this one is to go back to its bleak existence alone.

On the good side, though, it has rained today, so hopefully my plants will have had a good watering.  I've forgotten to water them the past 2 days, so they were probably really thirsty.  At the moment, I'm just waiting for them to grow some more, although I do know that soon enough I will need to thin out the carrots and onions.  Whilst I know I need to do that, before they grow too big, I have no idea when I need to do it.  My fear is that I'll do it too soon, and end up damaging or killing the seedlings as I try to take them out of the ground, to move them.  Not that I know where I'm going to move them either.  I do have some more ground that I could use, but I haven't removed the turf yet.  And I need to go over the area with the hoe again, as weeds are starting to appear again.  Unfortunately, the children seem to be conspiring against me, and are not allowing me any time to do anything that needs to be done, let alone time to do gardening.

We're on holiday soon, and I can't wait.  Not as soon as I'd like, but at least it's something to look forward to.  The past few days has all been taken up with the AV referendum and surprise, surprise it hasn't passed, and all hope of anyone even half decent ever getting into government has gone down the pan.  Good thing my vote makes a difference... oh, wait. :-(

Hope you feel better than I do, atm.
Yours,
LBP

Seeds have sprouted!

Hurray! My carrots and onions that I planted a couple of weeks ago have started shooting. I did have to do a google search to check though, as I wasn't sure if it was grass/weeds but this is my first attempt at gardening so I'm pleased. Also, one of my tomato seeds has appeared. The strawberry plant is doing well, but all I've had to do with that so far is water it. DD1 is interested too, and helps me do the watering everyday (I bought a pink watering can for her) and every day she picks flowers from the garden for me (daisies and dandelions ).

Mother's Day!

Today is Mother's Day, in the UK.  It is usually the last Sunday in March; I don't know why it has changed to April this year, unless it is somehow also linked to Easter?  Mr. Internet probably knows somewhere. 

Today I had a lay-in, and DH took DD1 and DD2 downstairs nice and early, so I could sleep.  Then, just before 10am, DD1 ran in shouting "Happy Mother's Day" and DH brought me a large cooked breakfast in bed, and a glass of orange juice and I had a card from my two DDs with a lovely picture of the moon drawn by DD1.  (Why there's a picture of the moon in my card, I don't know, but shhh, don't tell her that.)

And because I want to grow my own, I used today as an excuse for DH to buy me lots of gardening stuff.  So off we went and bought a watering can, compost, plant feed, name tags, tomato grow bags, strawberry plant in a hanging basket, a bucket and a water power thingy for the patio (which is really a new toy for DH and cost more than all my stuff put together).  Typically, as we were loading the car up it started to rain. 

Since coming back home the rain has come and gone. I have managed to cut back the holly bush (I wanted to remove it totally, but DH thinks it looks good.  It's just a bit too prickally for my liking), hang up the strawberry basket, and tidy the garden by putting the leafy things from next-door's palm-type tree into the compost.  Not much, as I was hoping to sow some seeds too today, and cut the grass, but the weather has changed.

As it is Mum's day today, yesterday we went to visit my grandparents.  My dad came down to visit them, with his wife and my sister, and we went across for just the day as we don't live too far away.  Overall we had a nice time.  Ate far too much (I may have mentioned this before, but my grandmother is a feeder), and brought loads home too, which we have been eating today.  My family are not known for their tact, though, and the first thing that my grandad, my dad and my grandmother (all separately) said to me was how blothcy, red and spotty my face looks.  Thanks(!)  Yesterday morning I got up early-ish, had a shower.  Chose clothes to help show slim I'm looking now.  Used mousse in my hair to keep the curls, as nobody knew I had had my hair cut, let alone seen it.  I even applied some make up, which I very rarely do, so that I could look my best.  And they all comment on the state of my acne. :-(  After my mum's comments a few weeks ago, I've even been using specific cleanser and a night lotion to help.  Obviously they're not working are they.  DH is still convinced that my face isn't that bad, but it made me feel so rubbish.  I ended up asking directly about my weightloss and my new hairstyle.  My grandad asked if my hair had grown - nope, I've only had 6-8inches cut off a fortnight ago.  My Nan and my sister both said they liked my hair, though. 

Anyway, before I upset myself again I should stop there.  That was yesterday, and today is Mother's day.  I wonder if I could even fit a bath in later on? :-)

Oh, and my nan bought me a dress and a swimming costume in a size 14, because the dresses she bought for me before didn't fit.  The swimming cossie fits lovely - I'll look forward to wearing that on holiday in the summer - and DH said I look really slim in it.  And the dress, looks and fits really good, but really it is slightly to big, as I can easily pinch in a good inch from either side!

Busy Busy

We (DH and I) spent a looooong time last week cleaning up and sorting things out, and some part of our house are almost unrecogniseable!  I may have already said, but we rearranged our living room, so that the sofa was in the middle of the room, and the dining table up behind (it's a butterfly folding one) which, so far, has had the desired effect of us eating altogether at the table, especially because the high chair is there too.

We have also tidied our bedroom , moving DD1's toy boxes back into her room, and putting DD2's moses basket back in the loft.  She sleeps in DD1's room (which I need to starting calling their shared bedroom) everynight now, and has started sleeping through - touch wood.  She has had a couple fo nights waking up again, but I'm hoping that we are now well on the road of sleeping through.

So, why have we tidied everything?  My mum was coming to visit to babysit both the LOs on Friday, whilst DH and I went to our Gaudy.  It's over ten years since we started university, and it was good to meet up with old friends, may of whom I hadn't seen since we left.  Some of our friends were complaining that they felt old, I didn't, partly because I'm always seen as young compared to some of my mum-friends who are over 10-years older than me.  We had a good time, but I had too much to drink.  I'm not an 18yr old anymore, and having gone through 2 alcohol free pregnancies, and I'm still BFing DD2 (so am barely drinking even now) I've forgotton how much of a lightweight I am.  In addition to that, being good hosts, our glasses were never empty: champagne, white wine, red wine, and after dinner drinks.  On the good side, DH said he didn't realise how drunk I was until we got to our room, so I don't think I've done anything too embarrassing in public.

Yesterday we caught the bus home and that's when I realised how old I am.  The older you get, the worse the hangovers are, and I was not looking forward to having two boistrous, excited LOs jumping all over me, as much as I had missed them for the night.  My mum seemed to have had a good time with them (and them with her), and I went to bed for a few hours, whilst DH looked after them and my mum left for home.  Later, DH went to bed, whilst I stayed with them.

Today, we have actually been really productive - or at lest it feels that way.  We;ve done 2 lots of clothes washing, walked to a pub for lunch and walked back, and I've done loads of gardening.  I have doubled (!) the size of my vegetable patch and pruned back some of the bushes in the garden.  I haven't double dug the veg patch, but tbh I'm starting to think that is too much like hard work for my liking.  Recently, I bought some garden gloves, some seeds, and a trowel/fork and a watering can for DD1.  DD1 was helping me dig the patch, as I was doing the gardening and wasn't getting too much in the way.  I hope as she gets older, it's something we can do together.

Anyway, must go as DD2 has just woken up and is crying.

Is life coming together?

I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I've caught up on my sleep, had a shower this morning, the sun is shining and though cool, it's a gorgeous spring day today, and I managed to get the prescriptions to the doctors, the filled scripts to the chemists, done the shopping, bought birthday cards for relatives whose birthdays are this week, went to the library, and made a cheats giant mince pie with DD1 today.  Cheat's because I bought a sweet pastry case, filled it from a jar and stuck it into the oven for 30min.  I will make some icing to put on top in a minute, though, so there is a little work there.

DH was talking to his mum, and she (and therefore he) is starting to come round to the idea of HEing the girls.  It helps that we've been talking about joining DD1 up to a gymnastics class, as like most people she's most worried about the socialisation side of things.  Truly, that is the least of my worries.  But DH also explained some of our concerns about school, and she actually agreed with them - or at least the bits he told me about.  In particular, as my mum said about me, apparently DH was also held back and told to wait for everyone else to catch up to his academic level in primary school, so MIL can see why we'd be concerned about that.  These are really big steps forward.

And lots of little things show me that HE is the right direction, and that it doesn't have to be the big scary thing that some people make it out to be.  Today, DD1 totally out of the blue said, "Quatorze.  [pause] That's 14 in French!"  "Yes, it is" I replied.  There are kids studying for their GCSEs who can't count in French, and yet my three year old, says it casually over breakfast.  And then there's the cooking, gardening (which she wants to get more involved with. I'm thinking of maybe growing one/some sunflowers too), cycling, dancing, singing, squash etc that she wants to do.  And, as I mentioned before, gymnastics we actually are making steps towards.  And DD1 has been taking the magnetic words off the fridge, bringing them to DH or I and stating "this says xxxxxx".  90% of the time she is absolutely correct, and the rest, you can see where/why she has made the mistake.  For example, she came in the other day and said "this says 'toop'." I congratulated her, said well done, it looks like it could say 'toop' because 'to' says 'too' but this word is actually pronounced 'top'.

I've probably said before, but one of the reasons why I started this blog was to help document our HE efforts (as many other people do, and I've copied) and also so our family can see what's going on.  Of course, at the moment, none of our family (except my sister) even know I'm keeping a blog, so that would have to change if I'm expected them to keep up to date with our activities via it.  If we do HE, though, we will have to be careful, as I'm sure many other parents do who don't HE, not to compare DD1 and DD2.  Growing up in someone else's shadow, or someone else's potential shadow as an older child, isn't very nice.  But as parent's we're only human and we do the best we can do.

As I'm here, I might as well update about a couple of other things too.  I think DD1 is pretty much potty trained now.  She does have the very occasional accident (usually when she hasn't pulled her trousers down far enough, so got them wet) but that is getting rarer, and she always asks/takes herself to the toilet.  It's probably helped by having bare-bum days most of the time at home, but that's not a problem at all.  She is also waking up some nights to go to the toilet, or waking in the morning with a dry nappy.  I'm definitely not ready to risk her being nappiless at night yet, but these are all steps in the right direction.

DD2's weaning is going very well too.  She is having breakfast and lunch most days (she only doesn't when I/DH forget), having plenty of BFs during the day too.  Her hand-eye coordination is getting very good so she is much better at feeding herself now.  Soups/porridge I will still give her on a spoon, but toast and things she will happily hold herself, which means I can eat at the same time!  We've rearranged our living room, and put the high chair next to the table, and DD2 really enjoys being the same height and eating with us at the same time.

Yes, today (at least!) life is good.

Dear Diary,

I didn't have a good day on Friday.  DD1 decided to fight me over everything and even resorted to hitting me to get what she wants.  I didn't hit her, but restrained her every time she hit me, for 3 mins (a min/year of her life) and it felt like she was in time out more than she was in time in!

Then, when I wanted to complain/moan to DH he, less than sympathetically, asked if I couldn't just be happy. Cue flashbacks to my teenager years, when I was depressed and suicidal, and my dad could ask me why I was so miserable the whole time.  :-(  On the good side, though, DH did apologise later on.  But, after the day I had had, I was feeling a bit lonely.  Things did improve over the weekend though.

I've decided to dye my hair: Damson Wine  It's not the colour I initially was thinking.  I wanted to go a more vibrant purple (Mystic Violet) but DH wasn't too keen, so our compromise was this more plummy colour.  I'm hoping he'll help me tonight to put it in my hair.  In a couple of weeks, it's my university's 10 year reunion (from when we started) and so I'm looking forward to dressing up in black tie.  I've planned to get my hair cut into a new style on the friday too, I just don't know whether to dye my hair tonight, or next Sunday, in time for the following friday.

We have also rearranged our living room, so it feels more cosy, but also allows us to have our butterfly dining table open all the time, and we've moved the high chair next to the table, ready for DD2.  She's sat in there a couple of times now, and seems to enjoy being sat with us when we're eating, whilst being annoyed that she can't eat what we're eating.  The weaning is going well, but slowly for her!

And today I managed to get some time in the garden too, despite going to the pub for lunch to watch my team lose (and DH's team win :-( ).  DH and I are both football fans, but our teams are arch rivals!  Whilst his team may have won today, we are higher in the league and generally much better.  So there.  Back to the gardening, though, I managed to double-dig half the plot that I've got so far.  I would have liked to have done the whole thing, but considering I was simultaneously helping DD1 on her bike, helping her to help me, and then I had to stop for a good 30mins to BF DD2, I thought that wasn't bad going. :-)

Hope you, in your diary-world, are well.
Regards,
LBP

Gardening

I'm not particularly green-fingered, but I want to try and grow my own. I've bought a book (any excuse for another book!) and back in the Autumn I cut the grass on my proposed site, weed-killered it to remove the perennials (using the recommended 'safe' weedkiller), and started digging up the turf.  It turns out that "hard labour" is indeed hard and, before the frost and ssnow came, I only managed an area of 1ft x 2ft, which DH helped me expand to 1ft x 3ft.

Tuesday, this week, was lovely, so I finally managed to get back into the garden.  I wrapped up DD2, and put her in the bouncy chair, got out DD1's balance bike of the shed, took out my spade, put my hand on the door to close the shed and got a hand full of splinters. Ouch. There's at least 20 of them in there, so if anyone knows of a easy way to get them out? Or is it best to leave them until they work themselves out? I've soaked my hand in hot water, and had a go with some tweezers, but they're all so small I only managed to remove one.After looking up various techniques of removing splinters on the web, I've tried glue - didn't work at all, so I doubt Sellotape will work.  The other interesting ideas are using Vicks Vapour Rub (to open the pores), using a paste of baking powder (to cause the skin to swell and push the splinters out) or leave them alone.  For now, I'm leaving them.

But, I did double the size of my vegetable patch. It was much easier than when I tried before, so I think the frosts must have helped. It is now 1.5ft x nearly 4ft, so I'm happy with that, and will start on the double digging next (so hopefully by the time the warmer weather arrives, I'll have finished this much). Somehow, though, over the winter the compost container shifted and sunken slightly, with the base-opening bit (it opens like a door) fallen behind the patio slabs. Maybe it was a silly place to put the compost heap, but it's conveniently using up non-used space and is hidden from the kitchen view by a large bush. I'll need DH to lift the container back up onto the edge of the slab, so I can open the door again, to get my compost out.

So, my plans are to grow strawberries in a hanging baskets, tomatoes from a grow-bag over the trellis-arch, and carrots and onions in the ground.  I don't want to be too ambitious, but I would like to grow something tasty.