Saturday 23 January 2016

Friday news on Saturday.

 Friday News time. Yes, I am aware that it is Saturday! So, I am a day late. I have been busy and not 100% well and frankly my get up and go, got up and went around Tuesday. Still waiting for its return. It's 9.45pm and Simon is watching a film so I have come up to rest in bed.

Last week, I said that any future Friday News posts would be positive stories only. Happy, nice, uplifting stories. I have been looking around to see what I can find. So here goes.

International.
I am well aware that a big chunk of that country across the pond is suffering a terrible blizzard right now. Our news reports are full of it. Over 2 feet of snow in some places. It looks pretty horrendous. But it seems that there is one little guy who is loving it. Tian Tian, a giant panda who is a resident of Washington's National zoo is having the best fun ever. This video certainly put a smile on my face. Just watch him. That's pleasure right there.


UK.
Well! Did nothing good happen in the UK this week? No happy stories? I am sure there must have been plenty but after spending an hour searching the internet, I have come up with a zero. That is not good.

Local.
OK, nothing here either.

You know what? Those of you who said positive news would be hard to find were right! I have spent ages reading rubbish stuff and now I am feeling grotty so I am going to miss out Entertainment news altogether.

So I don't end up feeling depressed at my failure, I am going to watch Tian, Tian again. He is one happy panda.

They say the snow storm is headed here next week. If it gets as far as us, maybe I will go out and roll in the snow. Now that would be news worthy!


Wednesday 20 January 2016

Wednesday Hodgepodge. 20th January


It's HodgePodge time again. I must be on a roll, I think this is the third one of these I have done!

The Wednesday Hodgepodge is brought to us courtesy of Joyce at 
 From this side of the pond Pop over there to see other posts and if you want to join in add the link to your Hodgepodge blog post to the Linky List at the end of Joyce's post and don’t forget to visit at least your neighbours on the list. Have fun.

1. Speaking of skating...when did you last 'skate on thin ice', 'skate over the details', 'encounter a cheapskate', or just plain skate?

It is at least 15 years since I last went skating. Where we used to live there was an ice rink just a mile or so away and we occasionally took our children. Not often as it was too expensive with 5 children. We went there for birthday treats and the like. I am not bad, I can stay upright! As a child I used to enjoy roller skating. Do you remember the metal skates, the ones that had the wing nut in the middle to adjust the size and they fitted over your shoes? I had those. No plastic boot styles for us.

2.  What would you say is the biggest problem of people your age?

Staying fit and healthy. I think when you get to your middle and later years you can't take things for granted the way you did when you were younger. The body no longer deals with excess so well! If you want to live to a good age then you have to get serious about taking care of yourself. That is my main concern. I suspect that for a lot of people the problem is more about money. Will they ever have enough to retire? How will they manage? Retirement is a big issue for many. My OH retired from teaching back in July last year and so far we are doing fine, with every aspect! We haven't got on each others nerves, too much…….Yet!

3. What's your favourite accessory? Is it something you wear every day, often, or only on special occasions?

Well if we are talking every day then it has to be my rings and my earrings. I have 4 rings that I never take off. My engagement ring, wedding ring, eternity ring and another ring which OH got me on our 30th wedding anniversary. All 4 are permanent fixtures. The earrings are gold, creole, hoops and were my Mum's. Another accessory I like but don't wear daily are scarves. I have a fair size collection.
4.  January 20th is National Cheese Lover's Day Are you a lover of cheese? What's your favourite dish made with cheese? Last thing you ate that contained some kind of cheese?

Who comes up with all these “days”? It is so random. I don't dislike cheese but I am not a big lover. I like soft cheeses more than harder ones. Brie is my favourite. I prefer milder cheese to strong cheese. My OH likes strong Cheddar but that is a bit much for me. I hate blue cheese and don't get me started on Parmesan which I think smells like sick!

I do like homemade lasagne which we have really cheesy. Last time I had cheese was one day last week when we had homemade courgette (zucchini) soup with a dollop of soft cream cheese stirred in.

5. What's something guaranteed to make you roll your eyes?

Middle aged women in leggings and cropped tops with their belly on show, hanging over the top! Saw one just the other day and it was gross. Don't get me wrong, I am not totally against this mode of dress but there is a time and place and it isn't a look that I feel is appropriate in the local supermarket. I also think you need to have the body for it. I do come down on the side of “if you’ve got it, why not flaunt it”? On the other hand if you haven't “got it” best keep it hidden! I haven't “got it”! 

6. Your favourite book series?

As a child I was a massive bookworm and devoured everything I could get my hands on. This continued through my teenage years and into adulthood. Recently, not so much. I read every day but short articles, not often whole books. Something I intend to remedy this year. Consequently I can't think of a recent favourite series. When I was a child, I loved all of Enid Blyton's books and my favourite series was the Mallory Towers books. The ones about the antics of girls at a boarding school. Then of course there was the Famous Five series and the Secret Seven. I LOVED those books.

7. Why did you choose your profession?

I have never had a profession unless you count housewife and Mum which actually in my opinion equals any profession you care to name. When I was doing my final year at school, I wanted to be a nursery nurse. I wanted to do the NNEB course at college. My parents and the head teacher of my school had other ideas. Back in those days any kind of nursing was for girls who were less academic. The less clever girls. The head and my parents thought that I was capable of more. I didn't want more.

Long story short, I left school and got a job. Initially for a few months just as a supermarket cashier. Then I got work as a clerical assistant at Her Majesty's Land Registry. I loved that job and worked my way up to clerical officer and then executive officer. Then I got married and moved away and a year later the first of my children arrived. Since then I have had various jobs for short periods, ranging from office work, shop work, waitressing and even cleaning. My last job was as an exams officer and invigilator in my OH's school. I haven't worked for about 10 years now. I have been very lucky, that I have never HAD to work. It has always just been for a bit of extra money, not to pay bills. No, we are not wealthy, we have just learnt to manage our money very well.

8. Insert your own random thought here. 

I really must get off the internet and go get on with the ironing!



JILLY




Monday 18 January 2016

Loulou

Today we are remembering our beautiful girlie Loulou who we lost last year.  Miss her so much. 



Loulou 28-03-2000 - 18-01-2015

Rip Baby. 

Sunday 17 January 2016

Update on the challenge I started

Who remembers my blog about the Challenge? A sort of self improvement thingy that I supposedly started on the third of January. It was inspired by my friend Melanie and 2 Facebook posts currently doing the rounds.

See them here if you are interested:


I promised an update so here it is, for what it is worth. The word fail is in my head!

Week 1. Purifying the body and mind

Step 1 - Get up earlier.  My goal was actually to make sure that my light is off by midnight and that I was up by 8.30. I did manage to stick to this for the whole of week 1 but week 2 has seen me slip back to reading, browsing etc. until the wee hours. So little time during the day. I can't say that I noticed any real difference in a few more hours of sleep because I didn't really sleep anyway.

Step 2 – Better nutrition.  My goal here was to try to eat more light, healthy but nutritious meals and they needed to be easy to make, quick to cook and relatively cheap. I wanted to try a new recipe each week. I did actually do this on week one. I cooked Mujaddara which is a kind of pilaf made from rice and lentils. It isn't particularly light, but it is nutritious, healthy, cheap and easy to do. It was OK but could do with being a bit spicer. I might make this again. Find the recipe here

Step 3 – Sport I.E. Exercise. I am going to try and incorporate some simple stretches into my day. BIG fail here, it simply didn't happen. Lack of time I think. I did keep to my 10,000 steps everyday though and actually lost 2lbs. (8stone 10lbs now).

Now to the list of 52 new things to try. The idea is obviously one a week for a year.

Week 1. Write a handwritten note and post it to someone you haven’t been in touch with for a while.
Another big fail. I did not write a letter. I have decided who I am going to write too though so that is positive. Just need to stop procrastinating and just do it.

So all in all not the best of starts! I haven't even looked at the week 2 goals and it is nearly week 3. I'll take a quick peek now…………

Clean up your personal space. This one is about de-cluttering and getting rid of unnecessary “stuff”. I think I can put a tick against this one. I am pretty good at doing this anyway and the last few weeks I have had a bit of a purge on several things. I have gone through all our DVDs CDs and books and have sold a lot of them on Ziffit.com to raise money for 3CDR. I have also sorted out all of our shoes and boots and winter coats and jackets and lots have gone so I am happy that I have a result here.

Sort out your personal business. This is about completing those promises that you have made to yourself but not got around to doing anything about. The author says that you either fulfil them or strike them from your list forever. I have been promising myself that I will find the time to really learn how my Cricut machine works and what I can actually do with it. I think I can put a tick here too as I have managed to have several sessions on it this week. I have also made a note for next week to prioritise time for this.

Sort out your social life. This one is about surrounding yourself with positivity and so ditching those friends and acquaintances that make you feel depressed and miserable with their negativity. Learning how to say no. Not sure what I could have done here as my friends are not like that anyway. Maybe the best thing to do here is to just be kind and offer a smile to anyone I meet. I shall try to carry that on to next week.

And lastly from the 52 Week list: Make someone a birthday or celebration cake. It was little Jackson's 3rd birthday this week but my cake making skills are nowhere near Verity's as she makes cakes for a living. So another fail! I might carry this over to next week and make a cake for everyone at the kennels to celebrate Beanies birthday.

To be honest, I have realised that this is not a good challenge for me. It is just another pressure and more things on the never ending to do list. So I am ditching it. There will be no further updates. What I am going to do is to keep an eye on that 52 week list and try and do some of those. A new thing each week is a lot more doable. I think it also needs to be something new. Trying out new things and getting a little outside of your comfort zone has to be good.



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