Stressed Mum

Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

Time, methinks, for a little review of the year.

2011 has been great in many ways. I have spent time with old friends and made new friends. I have been to Wembley for the first (and second) time. I have seen my beloved Manchester City go from strength to strength, bring home the FA cup and fire goals, seemingly as many as they want, past almost every team they have encountered and be sitting at the top of the Premiership as we go into the new year. There’s a long way to go to the end of the season but I’m certainly enjoying it so far. Memorable highlights were beating Manchester United 1-0 in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley, beating Manchester United 6-1 at Old Trafford and my first away match for years when we beat Blackburn Rovers 4-0.

I have met up with lots of people I have talked to on Twitter and they have all been lovely, not encountered a single axe-murderer yet so I’ll carry on meeting them I think!

My family continue to grow up and away and it’s lovely to see. My eldest daughter spent time this year as a nanny in Wales, Portugal and Sardinia before moving to Madrid to teach in a primary school there. My youngest daughter spent the summer living and working in Ibiza and my middle daughter got ill on her 6^th, and possibly last, pilgrimage to Lourdes. My son also seems to have got the travel bug and went off to France on an exchange trip. I managed Anglesey and a few days in Ibiza and Dublin but I’m planning a couple of trips to Madrid very soon.

My daughters seem settled into jobs or courses and my son is enjoying school, he also played Julius Caesar in a production in the summer and was excellent, his love of Shakespeare means he is getting very good at being killed!

My course has been hard work but enjoyable and the end is now in sight and anyway how hard can a degree in Facebook and Twitter be?

A good year but I can always hope for better so here’s to a great 2012 for me, my family, friends and all of you!

“If I could have ONE whole day to myself, I would…”

This blogging prompt from BritMums caught my imagination today as I actually have a day to myself. Well, not, strictly speaking, an entire day, but from 8.30 till 4 so not bad.

The trouble with a day to myself is that I actually like spending time with my family! So an entire day with one or more of my daughters, my son or my husband would be a real treat but a day on my own, not so much. Today also happens to be my Birthday so really I would prefer to share it with the family! I have some college work to do but I’m going to leave that till tomorrow and have a day off.

My husband gave me a Kindle for my birthday so you can probably guess how the day is going! Firstly, I got it charged up. Then I downloaded a book, just because I could. It was actually some short stories by Michael Connolly just to try out the download process. The first story has been read and I am now thinking about which full length book to buy. I could happily spend the rest of the day choosing and reading a book, accompanied by fresh coffee at intervals. In fact, that is exactly how I will spend the day and, as it is my birthday, I will even put the heating on, plump up the cushions and settle myself down on the sofa. Bliss!

Later, I may do a little baking. Mmm… I can already smell the cake in the oven and the coffee brewing and my Kindle saving my place for me in a good book. The perfect day.

Today is the day it feels as though summer is over. Back to school for my teenage son, back to routine for me. In a few days the first day of the final year of my degree course.

It has been a busy and enjoyable summer. I spent a week in North Wales with my son and we enjoyed beautiful weather to go with the beautiful scenery.

My son and I also went to Ibiza for a few days to see my youngest daughter who was working there over the summer. It was very hot, pretty noisy and generally suited to a younger age group than mine! It was lovely though and old Ibiza Town was beautiful. The flight out was the noisiest I have ever encountered and I think plenty of alcohol was consumed! The flight back was much quieter with mainly families on the plane. Much pleasanter, and a reminder that I don’t really want to revisit my twenties!

A final trip to Dublin completed our travels this summer. A couple of days with friends celebrating a 50th birthday and then a couple of days in the centre of Dublin in a nice hotel. My husband finally got to visit The Guinness Storehouse and we checked the quality in a pub too!

It’s been a lovely summer but I’m glad to have my daughters back from working in Ibiza and Sardinia and I’m ready to get on with my course.

This year I have decided to break with tradition and actually make some New Year’s resolutions. This is not something I have done in the past as I never felt the need, I don’t smoke, gamble or drink too much so I didn’t have anything major to ‘give up’. This year, though, I have begun to feel there are positive changes I could make to improve my life and those of my family. Obviously I don’t really need to make those resolutions public but putting them here on my blog will, I hope, make me more likely to stick to them!

Here goes then. The resolutions are in the form of instructions to myself, reminders to keep me on track, I want them all to be positive so there is nothing to give up. (I couldn’t give up my two main obsessions – Manchester City and Twitter – anyway!)

Don’t do anything for the family they could easily do for themselves. I know it sounds negative but it isn’t really. Having three adult children living in the house as well as a teenager and a husband creates a lot of work. They all need to be independent so I am going to encourage them to take greater responsibility for clearing up after themselves, getting themselves to where they need to be and doing a share of the household chores. It will be good for them as well as me!

Eat more healthily. As a vegetarian I consider myself to have a fairly healthy diet, although it could be improved, but I cook for the family and don’t think they eat as healthily as they should. So I am going to make an effort to plan and cook cheap, healthy meals which suit everyone. This is something which I have let slip recently so family beware, I am going to be working on this one. More veg, less meat, proper home-made meals. If they don’t like it they can always buy and cook their own, so long as they clear up after themselves!

Get more exercise. Since having some problems with my foot I have walked much less and I can tell! So the plan is to take a walk every day for thirty minutes. This is no problem on match days as there is a long walk to the stadium from the car park, no problem in the summer when it is lovely to get out in the fresh air but will be more of an effort in rain, snow and wind. I have a new camera so I will take that with me and hopefully persuade someone to come along for company but I will still go whatever the weather.

That’s all. Nothing too difficult but it will take some effort on my part. All of these things will have benefits for myself and those I love and I hope to be seeing those benefits sooner rather than later. It will not be a great failure if I slip sometimes, I will be able to get back on track and hope the benefits I see will spur me on.

Happy New Year to you all and do share your resolutions.

Neat and tidy - how long will it last?

I have been having a sort out. You need to understand that there are currently seven people living in our house. Two of them have moved back home complete with all their student house possessions and one is just here for the summer. One has a collection of shoes to rival Imelda Marcos and one is into music. He has keyboard and digital drums in his room. The main problem is the piano which is being delivered tomorrow. It has to go in the lounge.

I began by moving a pine bureau from the lounge into the hall. I opened the drawers and found many photos from when the children were young. I couldn’t just put them back without looking could I? So I spent an hour looking through them, remembering good times when they slept at night and played out during the day, unlike now. Then I moved the shoe rack in the hall into … nowhere because I need to clear out the cloakroom to make room for it. In order to clear out the cloakroom I need the owners of the coats it contains to identify and remove them so that only those which are actually worn remain. Ditto shoes. Everyone was asleep or out so I gave up and made meringue instead!

When I managed to pin them down they didn’t want 90% of what was in the cloakroom so I now have a lovely streamlined look. I also have a big bag of good coats for the charity shop and a few items to freecycle. There are still a few stray items but a job well(ish) done I think.

Now does anyone have any idea where to stash the contents of two student houses?

It has been a while since my last post. Life has been busy, and stressful. I have been ill and one of my daughters involved in a car accident, fortunately she is ok just a broken ankle.
I decided it was time to get back to my blog and back to baking so this post combines the two!
Latest fun thing for me to make is bagels. I have to follow a low fat diet at the moment and they are great for that. I have tried out different types of flour and different toppings and decided that I like fennel seeds as a topping and 75% white, 25% wholemeal mix for the flour (although all white is good too!).
I use 450g flour, 1tsp quick yeast, 1Tabsp sugar, 2 tsp salt and 300ml warm water to make the dough. My trusty Kenwood Chef makes short work of the kneading and then I leave the dough to rise for an hour.
The fun aspect is dropping the bagels into boiling water with three tablespoons of sugar dissolved in it. After the dough has risen and the bagels shaped (twirling them round the handle of a wooden spoon is quite fun too!) they are dropped, 3 or 4 at a time into the water. They rise up to the top and you turn them over. After a couple of minutes you lift them out, drain off any water, sprinkle them with yummy seeds if you like and then bake them for 25 minutes. Delicious!
Check out my photo and give them a try, they really are easy. Let me know how you get on

Well it has been a busy month so far. Back to school, college and university for four occupants and a new degree course for me has meant a lot of time spent shopping, sorting, driving and working so I have decided now is the time for a major clutter sort out.

 I really need some more space in the study so that I can work whenever I get some time so that will be my number one priority, the kitchen is okay for now as it is quite new but the kids lounge and all the bedrooms could do with some attention so they will be tackled one at a time once the study is sorted. The garage also needs major de-cluttering but I hope that task will fall to my husband!

 We are major hoarders in this house so not only will we have to let go of some things which are rubbish but also those things which one day may come in useful and those which conjure up memories when we look at them. A lot of the children’s old stuff falls into that last category but as three of them are now grown up I am going to be strict with myself.

 Clutter not only looks untidy and makes it difficult to clean but it causes emotional stress too. It is frustrating to have to search every time you need something. I know it will take time to get the clutter under control but I also know it has to be done. So I am going to make a start by clearing the pile of papers on the right hand side of my computer. I knocked my coffee all over them this morning so they are slightly damp and have to be sorted NOW.

 If you have any tips or strategies to help me I will be grateful to hear them. I will keep you posted as I go.

I took my son to Imperial War Museum North yesterday. If you haven’t been and you are in striking distance of Manchester you should go.

I was immediately impressed by the dramatic architecture of the building and the inside impressed me even more.

It was educational, moving and entertaining all at once. It is hard to describe the sound and picture shows each hour which cover the high, white walls of this ultra-modern space with the images and memories of war, which touch your heart and make you wonder how anyone could wish the horrors of war on their own people or any other yet also bring out the courage and humour of people who coped because they had to.

My son is twelve and the exhibits contained the right mix of facts, images and artefacts to keep us both engrossed for almost four hours. A timeline from the start of the First World War to modern times explains how wars started and who was involved, a special exhibition on prisoners of war gave a different perspective to the conditions of their lives and their escape attempts than any film I’ve seen.

There is a pleasant café overlooking the canal and the added benefit of The Lowry Outlet being only five minutes walk away across the bridge! An excellent day out.

They did this

I did this

Is it only me that hates Alton Towers? I took my 12 year old son there this week, the first time I have been, and it was awful. We queued on the road to get in the entrance, we queued all the way to car park J, we queued to get the monorail to the park entrance then we queued for half an hour to get our tickets. We had been there an hour before we got into the park! Now, I am British and know how to queue but this is ridiculous.

I used Tesco Clubcard vouchers to pay for our tickets so it felt like a free trip but I had actually had to buy £3800 worth of groceries to get the tickets for myself, son, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend. Daughter and boyfriend were essential to the trip as I no longer go on rides since getting a whiplash injury at Blackpool Pleasure(??) Beach 20 odd years ago!

The weather was fine but not too sunny, we were armed with a picnic and a map and headed off into the park to spend the day queuing! The queues were so long that in the eight hours we spent there they managed to go on only seven rides. I spent the majority of the eight hours walking or standing around as there was nowhere to sit to wait for them as they queued for half an hour or so for a two minute ride. To crown the day I got stung by one of the several million wasps that were buzzing around!

The one pleasant part of the day was a peaceful hour sitting in the beautiful gardens reading Mansfield Park on my Sony Reader but I don’t think that alone would be worth the entrance fee of £37. My son had looked forward to this trip for weeks as a highlight of his summer break and he did enjoy it but was frustrated at the lengths of the queues and the number of rides he couldn’t go on, including most of the big ones he was looking forward to most. I suspect it will be a long time before we go there again.