but it’s still burnt. And I’ve done everything everyone has said, some of the twice.
So today I went pot shopping.
And found a 4 qt non-stick at TK Maxx for £19.99.
I am still working on The Burnt Pot, but I really can’t live without a good size sauce pan any longer. So I may wind up with two.
Or I may chuck The Burnt Pot in the bin.
It could go either way.
but I just tripped over a paradox.
Of course, with Dr River Song around, the show has a pair of docs.
And, if Rory was a doctor, rather than a nurse, and Amy wore a doctor costume for her singing telegram gig, we’d have a double pair of docs.
Thoughts like these are why I rarely sleep well.
🙂
With thanks, and apologies, to Robert A Heinlein and The Number of the Beast
If breast feeding makes you hungrier than being pregnant. Breast feeding didn’t work for me. I do know, however, the being pregnant made me starving.
What it’s like to hold your baby immediately after birth. Both of my arms had IVs in them, one with saline, one with glucose/insulin with them stretched out like Christ on the Cross on those board things, so Simon held him for the first 20 minutes of his life while they stitched me up and unplugged me.
How to care for an umbilical stump. Adam’s was cut off by SCBU staff so they could put a line into his belly button. I do know, however, that cutting the stump off creates a slight outie.
If raising girls is easier or harder than raising boys. I will only ever have a boy. I do know, however, that my brother and sister in law have 2 very different girls.
Baby and Toddler groups. Everyone said I should go. I said no, I have nothing in common with those 20somethings except that we have children. Now, however, it’s a moot point because Adam gets plenty of interaction at nursery and I can continue to be a misanthrope.
What do you, as a mother, know nothing about and never will?
So today was my first truly free Friday since Adam has started going to nursery 3 days a week. The other Fridays I have had to catch up on work or go out or do some other thing rather than just relaxing, which is the point of him going 3 days a week now. So I can have a day to rest.
So what did I do?
Simon gets up with Adam on Fridays anyway, so I slept until 730.
Then I got Adam and Simon out the door at about 815.
Then I put a load of wash on and set the burnt out pot to boil with some vinegar. Still isn’t completely unburnt. 🙁
Then I had breakfast and an entire cup of hot coffee (only mothers and fathers of small children will appreciate how wonderful that is).
Then I played my game for a bit. It’s a video game.
Then I went back to bed. And read. And read some more. And then I slept until 11. And then I read some more.
And then I had a bath. And read some more.
Then I got out of the bath and had crack, aka Stove Top Stuffing, for lunch followed by the rest of a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food. Yes, really.
And now I am writing this blog post.
I still have an hour and about 45 minutes until I have to leave to get Adam.
I think I’ll go have a nap.
One thing that heightens my anxiety is having to take a bus to somewhere I’ve only been once or never been at all. I have a total panic that I will get on the wrong bus and get lost. That panic is heightened when Adam is with me.
The rational side of me realizes, of course, that if I wind up on the wrong bus I can always get off and call a taxi. Especially as I have an account with a local firm so I don’t even need to have any cash on me.
The anxious side is postive I will be lost forever, Adam and I wandering around Belfast, alone, hungry and, probably, needing a pee.
So when I get on the bus I always confirm it is going where I think it is. For some reason this annoys Belfast drivers. I have no idea how tourists cope. I also put the destination address in my GPS on my phone so I can keep an eye as to when I need to get off.
So Adam and I were off to view a house today. I have been to this part of Belfst before, just not by bus. I had a pretty good idea where I was going, but because it was the first time going on a bus, I was anxious. So I confirmed with the driver that the bus was going where I thought it was going, he grumbled but confirmed. So I got on, settle Adam’s pram in the wheelchair space (fully intending to move if a wheelchair user needed it. It was our smaller push chair, so easy to fold if necessary) and sat down with my phone in hand to watch the progress of the bus.
Except the bus went what appeared to me to be 100% the wrong way. Small panic. I breathed and kept an eye on the map and the street signs and my watch. I had left plenty of time. And the bus still seemed to be going the wrong way. And I contimplated getting off. Or asking the driver again if the bus was going where I thought it was. But they don’t typically answer questions when driving. And then he made a right. And went around a roundabout. And we were suddenly going the right way again! Whew.
I got to my stop and got off, thanking the driver. And we went and saw the house. Which would have been a great place to live for the right price except that it had no bathtub!! Forget the fact that showers scare Adam and I think he’s too young for a shower, anyway. I cannot live without a bathtub.
So I got another bus home. And now that I knew which way the bus actually went I didn’t panic on the way home.
I felt very brave.
And I was.
The title of this post was said by an American President. I am just not sure which one. It might have been Hoover. I’ve tried look it up on the ‘net but I am not getting anywhere. I know I read it in a Cook’s Illustrated Magazine but I am not sure what issue. If anyone knows who said, do please put it in the comments.
Anyway, whenever I am feeling overwhelmed by life, which happens quite a lot with a toddler, a company and house to run and constant aches and fatigue, I pull that quote into my brain and look around. And I find the thing in front of me that a) most needs doing and b) I have the spoons for.
Today it was folding the laundry mountain. My laundry mountain comes out of the fact that I have combination washer/dryer and the dryer takes, literally, hours to dry things. So if I put a load on in the morning, it might be dry by lunch. But it might not. So then I have to wait to fold it. I know a lot of people will do things like that after their child is in bed. I am not a lot of people. By the time Adam is in bed my spoons are gone.
Now, this was a particularly high laundry mountain. You see, in the last 14 days I have taken 2 days to be ill. One day with a migraine and one day with just general” OMG I hurt”. And those 2 days off put me about a week behind. Due to my fibro I can’t really count on being able to do a lot all at once, so I do it in small bits. I “do the work that’s in front of me”. And doing nothing for 2 days really got things piling up.
So today the thing in front of me was the laundry.
Tomorrow it will be work I am paid for and (hopefully) some work on the marketing I am trying to get together for the company.
After taking Adam to nursery and having a cuppa at my favourite coffee shop.
Also, remember this?
After a boil with a dishwasher tab, a scrub with bicarb, a boil with bicarb and another scrub it now looks like this:
So I live in hope.
So today we are test driving our new slow cooker by making Nigella Lawson’s Gammon in Coca Cola. So far so good. Seems to have cooked well.
To go with it, I make my own apple sauce. It’s very easy to do, is a good way to use up oldish apples and has nothing in it but apples. Adam tends to wear his food, as 2 year old’s will, and we have noticed that when we have jarred apple sauce, his cheeks get very very red. I assume it’s from the sulphates. I think he has other allergies, which is a whole other post.
Anyway, I cut up my apples, put in some water and turn on the burner. Usually, 15 minutes later I have apples to be smushed into sauce.
I also had both of my ovens heating, one for roasted potatoes and one for glazing the gammon and when I smelled something burning I assumed it was something in one of the ovens, because they certainly could use a clean.
I was wrong.
Here is the pot, with the apples scraped out:
It is currently on the stove with baking soda and water and I am praying. I am not hopeful, however, as the outside of the bottom of the pot is black as well.
Hanky standing by as the tears form.
The ham was delish, BTW.
We have a computer for the family again. It was touch and go for awhile, but it’s okay. And being upgraded to Win 7.
On top of that the laptop I use for the company was having ishoos, as we say on MN. An hour on the phone with the Tech guys, fixed. Or as fixed as it can be as it’s actually a known Microsoft issue that they’ve had many many calls about. The tech guy thinks Microsoft will release a fix in a week or so. So if you’re having ishoos with updates, don’t sweat it. It will fix itself eventually.
What this means, of course, is that I still haven’t gotten to have ‘feet up Friday’. Fridays are now my day. Adam’s at daycare all day. I will have done work for my clients on his other daycare days. And Fridays are mine mine mine.
Except last week, I was ill on Monday. So I didn’t work. So I worked Friday.
And this week, although I took Wednesday off to rest, I didn’t have work to do, but Simon need to get the PC to be fixed, so I had to take Adam to nuersery. Then I had to run errands. Then I had to call tech support about the laptop. So still not Feet Up Friday.
Ah well. Maybe next week…
So our family PC has been behaving badly. Freezing. Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) and stuff like that there.
I traced the issue to the upgrade to Firefox 6.
So I did a system restore.
Now it won’t boot up at all.
So not Firefox 6’s fault, then, eh?
So glad I back up regularly and just did one last week. May have lost some pictures that were in obscure folders, but I’ll live. At least I haven’t lost our financial stuff.
Waiting to hear from tech support, erm my brother, to see if he has any ideas. Probably not except to haul it into a repair shop.
Good thing we have 2 other computers in this house, although one is specifically for my company.
Le sigh.
It started yesterday when I decided to read through my blog from the post saying I was pregnant until Adam came home from hospital at 9 days old.
I knew today was the day a friend of mine was coming to help me haul all of Adam’s baby stuff; his cot, his Amby cradle, his jumper and his two bouncy seats, to a consignment shop for selling. And for the most part, I was okay with that. In fact, I was glad to get the storage space back.
But at the same time, it’s the end of an era. Adam is 100% not a baby any more. And I am 100% not going to have any more babies.
So I read back the announcement and the weekly newsletters I wrote to him. And everyone’s comments to my bump pictures! Man was I huge by the end!
And before my friend got here I took some pictures: –
His jumper, play matt, bouncy chair.
His cot and amby in pieces and in a bag.
And so, everything is gone. And I’ve got a half a closet more space.
And a small tear in my eye.