Glummy Mummy

Rant, rant, rant.

2011-03-03T15:19:00.003Z

Lately, on an average of once a day, maybe more on a special occasion, I have found many, many things to rant about in my life.

Today's is to do with Daughter's cookery class.

She chose Chinese food as her cultural topic, and so her group has to make their own course for a meal. Daughter chose 'side' and then found a recipe for spring rolls, which I had to then find the ingredients for.

Let me tell you, it was not bloody easy.

First of all, I was angry because most of the ingredients listed were some I'd never use again for any type of meal (a tablespoon of soy bloody sauce? That's it?), so was pretty bloody pointless.

Secondly, what the hell is groundnut oil and when the hell am I going to use it again ever in my life?

Thirdly, I wouldn't really prefer to provide the wok. I'd say you, as a food technology room, should provide the bloody equipment yourself.

And since Daughter is too afraid to use chicken in it ("I don't trust myself with raw food, and will probably poison the whole family"), I have to find some sort of substitute in the back of my cupboards, which will not be easy at all.

Will 4-year-old Heinz sponge pudding do?

Our windscreens remained un-smashed by angry pensioners.

2011-02-24T12:28:00.004Z

It was boxing day 2009. We were on our way home from Couch Potato's mother's house where we had a buffet and exchanged gifts while continuing to stuff our faces with sausage rolls and ready salted crisps.

The motorway was pretty clear, due to the amount of cars whizzing up and down, clearing whatever snow was there right away, so we did not expect what was coming.

We drove through the far-end of town up a few main roads to get to our street, and turned onto it.

"The snow's getting worse over here," I said, my eyes widening in horror when I realised we couldn't go any further. We were stuck!

Couch Potato and I (we were in separate cars) both tried to free ourselves, but neither of us could.

"Mum, what do we do now?" Daughter asked.

"Well, we're only around the corner from the house. Take Son back, but be careful: it's deadly slippery out there."

Daughter nodded and got out, walking carefully up the road in her high heels (bad choice of footwear on a night like that).

I then tried again to free myself, but I just couldn't do it. After negotiating with Couch Potato, we decided to leave our cars there and come back to free them in the morning when some of the snow hopefully had melted - what else could we do? Rev all night until neighbours came outside shaking sticks and pelting rocks at our windows? We could, but it wouldn't do our reputation and our cars any good.

So, we followed the children inside and slouched on the sofa, absolutely whacked.

This post was a part of Mama Kat's Writing Workshop, under the prompt: Describe your worst winter weather story.

I have the memory of a dumb umbrella stand. Who just had a knock on the head

2011-02-23T22:04:00.002Z

Why is it that whenever there is a TV programme on that I actually like/would love to see, I always miss it?

Last night I randomly decided to go shopping and missed something that I'd liked to have seen. I'm fairly used to it, of course: rarely a day goes by when I don't miss something and curse out loud when the thought enters my cluttered mind. It always seems to happen when my 11-year-old son is around, also. "Shit" flies out of my mouth, and he stares at me with horror in his eyes, even though I catch him swearing all the time at his Playstation when Fifa doesn't work and his footballers collide on the pitch.

I have Sky Plus, okay? Now, I'm not boasting or bragging about how much money I have, because frankly I'm not. Sky Plus is about the only thing we can afford in our house, so we like to keep the lighting down to dim, which makes up for the never-ending use of my kettle.

The reason I'm mentioning the Sky Plus is that since I have it, it enables me to recording my shows to watch later, or to at least remind me when that programme is on. I thought I'd be in when the show was on, so I stuck "reminder" on the show and got on with my housework (along with my kettle boiling, housework is never-ending also), completely forgetting about it. Then I went shopping, because it had escaped my mind and ran off somewhere to snigger at my messy hairstyle.

I forgot to record it.

Now, it may seem like I am making a fuss over nothing. But it was a programme I had been waiting to see FOR TWO WEEKS and when the time finally came...BAM. I decided to trudge round the local shopping centre and chug caffeine from Starbucks instead. I'm an enemy to myself, I think. Excuse me while I go and sob into a pillow.

Returned from my...hiatus

2011-02-22T22:32:00.002Z

Hello! I know I told you I had officially moved to Wordpress, and I had, but it didn't feel right after a few posts. I don't know why, but the exhilarating (if you can associate blogging with that word) feeling of posting an entry just wasn't the same as on Blogspot.

Anyway, to cut a long and boring story short...

I'M BACK!

I feel like I have said this before. I don't know, maybe I have: my memory isn't like it used to be. I've gone from elephant to umbrella stand.

I don't even know why I left. I guess I just forgot the real point, or just didn't feel like blogging much more. I knew that when I left it wouldn't be forever, that I'd be coming back in a few months to continue where I left off, as I couldn't leave it forever. So, instead of "leaving", let's just say I was taking a short hiatus from the blogging world to get my head around things that were happening outside of cyberspace. The house is pretty cluttered, as ever, and my mum is currently staying with us so things could get more chaotic than ever without me even being aware of it. That's what it does with me - instead of facing me like a real dilemma, it creeps behind me and then when I'm feeling my best it catches up with me and bites me on the arse, which could explain all the stress I'm feeling - maybe the chaos injects it into me like botox or silicone. It seems a reasonable explanation, I suppose.

So, as I was saying, the chaos in my house is like a poisonous gas, and is hitting all of us like a bag of bricks being swung from a digger. Not one of us has stress levels under 50%, for more than an hour, and at the moment we're all in danger of becoming intoxicated by it all.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating.

Or not.

It's hard to say.

Hopefully it'll ease off, but even as I write it I am laughing out loud. Everything in this household is crazy, so we all try and fit a laugh in at some point, but fail most of the time and yell instead. What the neighbours might think of us...

Cupcakes Galore!

2010-07-28T16:20:00.005+01:00

Okay, so I said I'd have a fortnight's break. I was going to, but before I got the chance to relax in my sun-lounger with a failed Sangria (by failed Sangria I, of course, mean Sprite) my daughter told me about a really nice cookbook she'd come across in Tesco (the thing we do is, to keep their boredom levels at a low percentage, my children look at what they want to look at, ie books, toys etc, while I just go ahead and get all I need to get, and it seems to work quite well).

When asked what it was, Daughter replied "Eat Me!"

Now, I, being the worrier I always am, mistook this for a mistake in her wording. I thought she meant "bite me!" (what can I say - she watches Two and a Half Men...), and so was getting prepared to quietly yell at her (remember, I'm in the garden here).

She then said "it's fantastic. It's called Eat Me, and it has all sorts of cakes and cookies and stuff. Can we buy it and do some baking please?"

I nearly drowned in the flooding of relief, and just said "sure".

I didn't know how much this bloody cookbook was.

I went to Tesco with Mum and Daughter, and, like always, went to get the bits and bobs I'd gone there for, whereas Daughter was showing Mum round Tesco, introducing her to her favourite shower gels and the books on her wishlist. She found Eat Me, and showed me the glorious pictures of iced cupcakes and lemon fingers.

Naturally, I asked how much it was.

£15.00.

FIFTEEN QUID! For a cookbook full of cakes! I nearly fainted in the middle of the shop, for God's sake.

I told her quite plainly that it wasn't gonna happen, and thankfully she understood and put the book back.

Now, I do want to bake with her, it'll be a nice thing. But does anyone know a cheaper, but pretty cookbook?

Thanks :).

Hellish Holidays...

2010-07-20T17:43:00.004+01:00

We're only 2 days into the Summer holidays and already I want them to be over. I yearn to drive the kids to school and wave to them, before driving back home and relaxing. I don't know how I'm going to cope the next 6 weeks...

I already have a sore throat from practically screaming at random things. I don't suppose it'll be long before I'm yelling at inanimate objects. Yeah, I'm warning you Mr Toaster. You're next.

"Mum, can I have a Magnum?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Pretty please?"

"No."

"PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEA---"

"Okay, fine!! Remember to close the freezer properly..."

Honestly. I'm becoming more and more of a pushover by the minute. I suppose soon I'll be letting them sell the house and let them negotiate. I hope that won't happen...

I used to love Summer. When I was a kid, I used to kiss my parents goodbye and skip off to the field up the road and frolic around in the long, daffodil-growing grass in my t-shirts and shorts and sandals. Those were the days.

Nowadays, Summer means 'Hot, but downright wet!". Never a day goes by without rain pouring at least one time per Summer day. I try to arrange days out but have to check the weather forecast before doing so, which is terribly frustrating as I don't even know how to (online, I mean).

This morning I was thinking, "Maybe if I take a break from blogging then my Summer might be a bit better, and less hectic". So I decided to take a fortnight off from blogging. I'll still come on to comment on blogs and such, but not so much post entries.

See you in a fortnight!

Fat Lip Returns: The Final Frontier

2010-07-13T20:45:00.004+01:00

Son has had his fare share of fat lips, whether it's colliding head-first with a brick wall, or just having an accident at a football game (how he manages that, God only knows).

Yesterday, Daughter and I went to pick Son up from his Monday after-school club, and as usual, Daughter ran ahead while I went to park the car in a more convenient spot than right in front of the school with oncoming and ongoing traffic blaring beside me.

After I had parked the car in one of the side streets, I followed Daughter. She was nowhere to be seen, had ran off to find Son who was playing football with a friend.

The woman who runs the club, handed me a Biro and a black book for me to sign.

The Accident Book.

Apparently, Son had been playing a game of football (in goal attack - silly boy) when he was running to save the ball that was careering towards the goal-post at maximum speed, when he, not looking where he was going, embraced the wall head-on, busting his top lip and causing it to bleed ferociously. Luckily, he had a cold paper-towel to soothe the pain, but he still cried "a tidge".

The only bad thing about it was whenever he wanted to eat, he'd put something in his mouth and five seconds later would be on the floor, banging his fists on the carpet, his legs imitating, and bawling his eyes out.

This goes without saying - I had to assist him in the eating department. Boy, does that bring back memories...

Now, one day later, he is sitting beside me on the sofa (and by me I mean his dad, as always), his eyes closed and his lip a shade of indigo.

My New Routine.

2010-07-06T22:24:00.005+01:00

Mummy-Blogging, for me, feels very weird.

I think it's because, when I'm reading others', they have got little children, whereas mine (at least Daughter, maybe not my son exactly) are on the verge of becoming more and more mature. In less than a year my little girl will be a teenager, for crying out loud. How the time flies...

I've decided, since nothing interesting really happens daily (honestly - the most interesting thing that happens on a daily basis would probably be the iron breaking or the garage not being able to open, that sort of thing) I will blog weekly. If I do blog on a weekly basis, hopefully my blog won't be cluttered with nonsense about helping Son with his homework or details on what I'll be cooking for tea that evening, but instead perfectly tidy with funny and interesting posts about weekly habits, and what has been going on in the past 7 days in my life. Fingers crossed it works out that way.

So, what's been happening with me recently?

Well, Daughter has been quite ill with a stomach bug (or something along those lines - don't want to go into it too deeply) for the past couple of days.

Oh, and speaking of Daughter, remember how I mentioned in a small post that she had sunburn? Well, I used calamine on her shoulders and arms, and hey-ho, it had all peeled days after. So, for those of you that have children with mild sunburn, or are burnt yourself, just use a bit of calamine (it's available pretty much everywhere, if you look hard enough) and it'll be gone in a matter of days.

Anything else...nope, that's about it (see what I mean? What a boring life I live) for this week, so catch you soon.

GM xo.

Sunburnt.

2010-06-28T14:16:00.006+01:00

Daughter and Son both went to Daughter's friend's house at the weekend, to play in their outdoor pool.

Unfortunately, ruining their lovely fun, Daughter got sunburn. It isn't too bad, but it does hurt her an awful lot.

It's all over her arms, shoulders, face and chest, and a little on her back. I have to keep applying E45 cream and After-Sun lotion onto these parts, and it's not easy. I hate seeing the look on her face when I touch the sore parts, watching her hurt. I just wish that it was a little milder.

So, we know that E45 cream hydrates the skin, but I need a good lotion/cream that helps soothe and ease the pain properly, and so far all I've had is the After-sun lotion, which is quite good, and Benadryl, which wasn't so successful.

Any ideas?

Much appreciated.

Oh no.

2010-06-20T11:36:00.002+01:00

I don't know what's happened, but all my posts have been deleted!