You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real!)

Using the Saturday Guardian to protect the table from paint. Seriously, all it was good for this week with a massive SMA advert across the back page.

You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)

Did you watch "The Joy of Disco" last night? Fantastic!

In someways today hasn't felt like a Saturday. The Daddy One had a hair cut first rainy thing and has, this sunny afternoon, been at the allotment setting up the automatic irrigation system. I am rather hoping he is going to write a little blog post or two about it but basically using a solar panel to charge a battery to power a pump to send water (from a huge tank) around a system of porous pipes inside the raised beds he is hoping to make watering the allotment all together more easy this summer. This explains why I have answered to the door to 7 or 8 deliveries of "T"s "elbows" and connectors this week!

The rest of us have, in no particular order of importance or chronology: made some anniversary cards for Grandma and Grandie who celebrate their 43rd next week, played chess, hoovered out both cars, biked in the garden, painted stones from the beach in bright acrylic metallics (they were water colours that washed off!) and read a (argh!) Jacqueline Wilson book - How do they sneak in the library pile!? skipped in the garden (me!) whilst E counted and we played catch inbetween times giving me a chance to catch my breath! Interval training for home edders! Since my post yesterday a few readers have mentioned to me that I am inspiring them in the world of fitness and diet and to that end I thought you might like to know that this is what I have eaten today

~~Breakfast~~

2 eggs scrambled with snipped chives (100 calories) a diet mocha I have invented which is 40 calories worth of Cadbury's hilights with two strong illy espressos mixed in!

~~Lunch~~

Home made broccoli soup 2 fruit ryvitas (108 calories) and 60 calories of cottage cheese with a big handful of spinach, watercress and rocket salad. For supper tonight we have chilli chicken mini fillets with steamed cabbage, leeks and carrots followed by stewed rhubarb and low fat yogurt.

Writing it all down makes it clear to see. For drinks today I have had fizzy mineral water with slices of lemon and lime (1.5 litres of) and some herb teas. Herb tea has never been my thing until these Dr Stuarts winked at me from the shelf in the health shop in our village and it must be said they are in a different league. Not at all dusty!

When I compare this to the: sausage sandwiches, biscuits, cheese sauces, wines, luxury crisps and crumbles with ice cream of weekends a few months ago! There are no snacks in my list but I have been eating Ryvita minis, fruit and go ahead bars as in between snacks (100 calories or so each.) Fruit is an issue. Too much information coming up! If I don't eat fruit then I have found that I don't go to the loo so it is a fine balance.

O has this funny thing he says at the moment "Are you wearing lick stick?" instead of lipstick! He loves to be the shopkeeper in the wooden shop, he jumps and jumps behind the counter. I notice some of the chocolate bars have been nibbled! There is a photo of our shop here, it has been under a bed for a while and only comes out occasionally as we have so many items of wooden food and drink. This is because for a while when S was small we sold wooden toys as a business and these are left over from that. Bumped into a La Leche League friend today whose son shares the same birthday as E, 5, often this happens to me after a bad day with E, I read or hear or see something that makes me think that the grass is not always greener. S made this funny box of Scooby Snax! The boys love this cereal, they have eaten a box since yesterday and it does look a bit like Scooby Snax too! Here is my daughter reading earlier quietly on a bench in the spring sunshine. and here alongside her are her brothers, my sons, fighting with swords. Of all the things that parenting has changed my view about gender roles must be in the number spot. We watched his great program on iplayer last night all filmed around where we live and do our gallivants and this one guy on it remarks how he was always playing with sticks as a boy. Oh I envy those mothers that relax whist their offspring charge around with weapons and sticks. Today, as everyday, this game ended in tears. Those of you who have been with the blog since the beginning will know we didn't have violent toys at all until just about this time last year. As an only child my view as a child was that faced with the situations my friends with siblings were in I would call the police! If you were raised with brothers and sisters you can imagine that my learning curve as a mother of three has been a steep one! Learning all the time. Loving life learning.