and Adam is feverish and vomiting. So much for hitting the ground running today getting things checked off my to do list.
I’m getting some bits and bobs done, but mostly giving cuddles and soothing cool clothes on forehead.
I’m hoping for a good nap time so I can make some phone calls.
And if they don’t make some new Fireman Sam episodes soon I will not be responsible for my actions…
This post is part of Belfast Bloggers over on Tumblr. Twelve Belfast Bloggers. Twelve topics for 2013.
If you’re on my Facebook or Twitter you’ve probably seen the pictures already, but I thought I’d add some text here for context.
See? Helpful!
We started, as most people do, with decorating our tree about 3 weeks ago, I think it was. Adam was, for the first year, helpful in this!
Done!
And he seemed to have fun as well. I managed to let go of my ‘it must look like *this*’ tendencies and just let him (and, I admit, Simon) hang the ornaments wherever they like. I usually like to make sure they are well spread out and that the lights are on better and the branches more spread out, but everyone was impatient to get to the decorations part so I dealt with it. Barely. Next year maybe I’ll put the tree up myself, add the lights and *then* invite them to come help. Me? Control freak? Nah!
I’m also still very annoyed with the top strand that claims to allow you to set it to *not* blink, but we’ve never been able to figure out how to do that, so just the upper third of the tree flashes. Again, have had to just live with it. New lights next year, I swear!
So we enjoyed our tree for a few weeks and started getting excited because Granny and Grandad (Simon’s parents) were coming down to spend Christmas with us. Until Grandad got ill. Nothing serious, but it hung around for a bit and he just didn’t feel up to travelling or staying in someone else’s house and who can blame him? So it wound up being just the three of us. Not nearly as much fun, but we had a nice time anyway.
We started, as many do, with our stockings:
Snake and chocolate coins!
Where to start?
And then Adam moved on it his actual presents. We don’t exchange gifts among the adults in my family, just from us to the various kids and we get things from Simon’s parents. My mom sends money (which she actually gave us when they were here earlier in the year) and my dad sends a cheque for me to spend on Adam. Simon’s parents get us things but since they didn’t make it down, we’ll have to wait. What this meant is that everything under the tree was for Adam!
He had quite a haul with a lot of train track, some DVDs, an easel and some Mega-Blocks. All in all, a very good Christmas for a small boy.
Adam and Simon started setting things up right away while I went to work cooking Christmas dinner.
Playing with daddy
Our Christmas dinner was all the traditional things: turkey, sprouts, stuffing, sausages, bacon, roasted potatoes and cranberry sauce. It was yummy, if I do say so myself!
So it was a good Christmas, if quiet. Perhaps some excitement next year?
But for right now:
I hope you and your family have a happy, healthy holiday of your choice and a very lovely New Year.
People tell me, sometimes, that they can’t believe how much I put on the internet. My real name, the name of my son and husband, my general location, my health issues, both mental and physical.
But what they don’t realize is how much I don’t put on the internet. About my childhood. About my parent’s divorce. About my journey from being a troubled child and teenager to being an adult with those mental illnesses.
About my running away.
I’ve run away twice in my life, once when I was about 13 and once when I was 25.
30 years on I have no idea why I ran away when I was 13. A fight with my mom and step-dad no doubt. About…who knows?
But run I did. Out the door and down the street and, I remember, to the left. To the right was known and led to major roads they would be able to find me on. To the left was unknown and led to I didn’t know where.
I was just looking at a map and I can’t remember how far I went or where I ended up. I do know a nice lady stopped and tried to help me, but I jumped out of her car at a light, stories of kidnapped children in my head. And then was picked up by the police and taken home; the nice lady had called them. It was dark and cold at that point. I was gone for at least a few hours.
My parents were, of course, relieved. My step-sister, who was home from college, was really mad, but still ran me a bath to warm me up.
I have no idea what my mom said to the police to get them to just leave me and not investigate further. But that’s what happened.
And I was lucky. I was on the street for hours. Not days or months. And at this point, I don’t remember the aftermath. In what way, if at all, I was punished. All I remember was thinking I had to get away from them. From myself. From my pain.
My second running away at 25 was the beginning of my mental breakdown that led to my diagnoses today. But that one was by car, with my cat and isn’t what this post is about.
It’s about runaway children. It’s because Mumsnet and Railway Children and Aviva have come together to help young runaways. The ones who don’t get taken back home in hours. The ones who are on the streets. The ones whose home lives are probably filled with horrors I can’t even imagine; horrors that make the streets better than home.
For every blog post, every Tweet, every Facebook status, every comment on this blog and all the others writing about this, Aviva will donate £2 to Railway Children, up to £200,000 by the end of 2013. Money that will go towards helping runaways, like I might have become.
If not for one nice lady and some police.
I realized the rules called for an original recipe and the curry recipe I used isn’t mine. It belongs to the BBC.
But I’ll tell you about using the Gourmet Garden herbs to make it anyway. Just without pictures or the recipe. Okay?
So I used the chilli, garlic and ginger for this recipe.
Once again, it made no difference to the taste, but in this case did help in the prep, sort of.
I say sort of because I do hate slicing chillies, so that was a plus. However, the recipe calls for a 1cm piece of fresh ginger. Gourmet Gardens instructions on the pack say a teaspoon of their’s equals a teaspoon of ginger. Yeah. That doesn’t help.
In fact, all recipes I have ever seen that use fresh ginger, measure it by size of piece, not teaspoons or tablespoons.
So I’m obviously not going to win this competition, since I am hardly recommending the products…
Once again, Gourmet Garden have sent me various herbs to test. I have accepted no money to do these tests. All I get is an entry to their contest and the possibility of winning a trip to Oz. All views are mine.
Tonight comes the news of a horrific tragedy in Newtown Connecticut, just 20 miles north of where I grew up.
And so the gun laws will be brought up again. And they should be. And people will say “Well, we have a right to bear arms. It’s in the Constitution.”
No, it isn’t.
What is in the Constitution is:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
A specific reason to bear arms. Not so some 20 year old asshole can walk into a kindergarten class and open fire on babies. So that the United States can defend itself against enemies. Whose enemy were those children?
I am so angry. With the shooter. With the US government. With the fucking gun lobby who will say “Hey, if the teachers had been armed, it would have ended differently!”
Yes. With many more dead.
And don’t get me started on what the State of Michigan passed this week…
My prayers going out to all of the families and the children and the community of Newtown Connecticut.
Yes, that’s right, gentle reader. I’ve entered a contest. Not just a contest. A cooking contest.
I learned of this contest through the Mumsnet Bloggers Network. It is being sponsored by Gourmet Garden, who make a range of herbs and spices in tubes for ease of use, or something like that.
The truth is, I had never even heard of them until the contest was highlighted on Mumsnet. I never use such things as I prefer to use my herbs unadulterated and they mix them with…things. But I figured, hey, what the heck? Could win a trip to Oz!
So tonight I tried them for the first time.
Lasagne was already on the menu for the week, so I just substituted my regular garlic and basil for these:
Garlic and basil.
My recipe is a vegetarian one, usually made with either courgette (zucchini in the US) or aubergine (eggplant in the US). Tonight’s had both, as the aubergine sent in my grocery order was very small and I couldn’t get another one today in town.
Aubergine and courgette, ready to go under the grill.
So, the recipe:
1 T Olive Oil
Black Pepper
3 T Lemon Juice (about 2 lemons)
3 Courgettes or 1 Aubergine, sliced
1/2 C Breadcrumbs
3 T Parmesan
1 Onion, finely chopped
2 Cloves Garlic, finely chopped (substituted 2 t Gourmet Garden Garlic)
1/2 C Tomato Purée
2 T White Wine
1 t Oregano
1 t Basil (substituted 1 t Gourmet Garden Basil)
Pinch Cayenne
4 Sheets Lasagne
6 Oz Ricotta
1 Ball Mozzarella, Sliced
2 cartons Passatta
What goes in lasagne. Camera shy: Wine and Passatta
Combine olive oil, lemon juice and black pepper. Brush over courgette/aubergine and cook under broiler until done, about 5 or 6 minutes a side.
Combine bread crumbs and parmesan in a bowl and reserve.
Sauté onion and garlic until soft, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Onion and Gourmet Garden Garlic.
Add Passatta, spices, wine and tomato purée. Simmer for about 15 minutes.
Gourmet Garden Basil
Layer the lasagne:
1/3 sauce
2 sheets lasagne
1/2 breadcrumbs mixture
Veg
Ricotta
and repeat
Top with slices of mozzarella.
Bake in 190 C oven for 45 – 60 minutes.
TA DA! Lasagne.
So, what did I think? Eh. It made no difference in the taste to use the stuff in the tubes versus doing it myself. Maybe it saved me 2 minutes with the garlic, but since I chop my onions and garlic in my mini-chopper, it doesn’t make much difference.
During the coming week I am making my curry. I’ll see if they sent me anything for that and do another post.
Gourmet Garden have sent me various herbs to test. I have accepted no money to do these tests. All I get is an entry to their contest and the possibility of winning a trip to Oz. All views are mine.
and gave Adam his meds and took my own and cleaned up a bit of a mess and organized school uniform and dug through the clean laundry looking for a matching pair of socks for Simon, I remembered something my mom asked me when she was here:
‘So, do you enjoy being a hausfrau?’
Yes. That’s me. Really.
I can’t say I like the term or the English translation housewife, and I’m not exactly one anyway, since I freelance, but the overall answer is yes, I do.
It’s not something I ever expected to be. Or thought I would enjoy.
I don’t like cleaning, who does? Well, I guess some people do, but I don’t. If we had a few extra quid we’d hire a cleaner.
But I like the overall satisfaction of taking care of my family. Of cooking them nice things to eat and organizing our Christmas and our lives.
I do think it needs a new name, as I am not my house’s wife, and I am also not just a ‘stay at home mom’. Not even people who do no outside work are just that.
It’s my life. And it makes me happy.
but I am also in London this weekend for the DRINK CAKE TOUR 2012.
You may recall last year’s edition, which was in Manchester.
There will be drink. And cake. And touring. And laughing and gabbing and secret santaing and (quite possibly) petty theft…
The Ladies of Forty Towers Are Hitting London.
And we are as excited as school girls. 🙂