Meet Your Maker

There are 'makers' for everything!

Well there are and they are all living inside my kitchen except one. Thanks to my friend I am going to end up with yet another maker, a yoghurt maker. I wasn't going to but I will probably succumb...

I cant see my kitchen worktops, and my cupboards are full.

The makers are taking over slowly, one by one.

I have a bread maker, which doubles (or trebles or maybe quadruples) up as a jam maker, pizza base maker and jam maker.
Then there is the ice cream maker which I am using a lot at the moment. I have a smoothie maker which was leaking but now with a bit on imagination is fixed. I broke it because I put it in the dishwasher without taking the blades out so the seal ring and it seals no more. I got some plumbers tape, you know that white stuff that goes a bit stringy, and its all better now back to making smoothies.
I got a rice maker, it doubles up to make something else I forgot what ... maybe its porridge.
Oh I don't have a chip maker or chip pan, cant stand those wretched things, nasty, stinky, have you ever put one in a dishwasher?
I did have a pie maker, it make gorgeous neat deep pies in 8 minutes, sealed them and they were the most delicious pies I had ever eaten. Trouble about the pie make was that it was a b****r to clean so I got rid of it. the burger maker quickly followed suit. Ooh what I would do with a pie maker or burger maker with removable plates.

Anyhow, please tell me about your makers, I am always on the look out for new ideas.

Oh and while you are at it, shall I get that yoghurt maker?

I Hate Insurance Companies (Well just this one)

Insurance - you need it, you can live without it but that's not a good idea.

So the people who work in these non-UK call centres, what makes them think we were born yesterday.

Last week some guy rang and started going on about insurance, so I said "Stop, I am busy and cant do this right now call back". Okay that is simple to most people, it does not mean I am giving the insurance company permission to torture me and take me for an idiot.

So they rang back this morning as instructed and got to speak to Roy. Roy gave them all our details in order for them to give us a quote and they said they would ring us back. Okay so far - except our phone has rang every 20 seconds all day - literally! It would go in little spurts, ten minutes of these calls and hang ups then nothing for an hour. Each time you picked up no one was there.

This evening, again the phone rang. I picked it up no one there, hung up and it rang again. Finally there was this 'guy', saying I am ringing to tell you that someone will ring you in two minutes with a quotation.

WHY THE HECK WOULD YOU RING SOMEONE TO SAY WE ARE GOING TO RING YOU IN TWO MINUTES? Alarm bells are ringing! It this person royalty they need a call announcing their call.

So I said "why cant you just give me the price", the 'guy' said "oh that's why we will be ringing you", he was dead serious as well. I commented to him that it was a funny way of doing business, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Sure enough the phone rang two minutes later, another 'guy', he called himself Robert, but I will say he didn't sound like a Robert. He had a whole spiel to give me - I said "just give me the price please, I don't want all the spiel", he said "oh no I must, and I need more details". I was really miffed at this stage and tried my best to give him more details again and then he started his spiel once more.

"Please just tell me how much you are quoting me for my house insurance", "Oh madam you must give me your sort code and account number, what bank do you deal with Halifax, Natwest ...?"

Why on earth would I give some 'guy' my bank details just because he called me on the phone. I am so cross with him by this stage, but determined not to lose this battle I continued talking with him.

"I just want the price or a written quotation please", "Well madam just for you today I can tell you that you will have xxxx cover, and it will only cost you £24.55 for ten months then two months free"
"Ahhhh at last a price thank you for that, would you like to post the quotation to me so I can read it through" He then informed me that he had already given me the details, I gasped "You spoke far too fast and I didn't write it all down, I need a proper written quotation so I can compare your policy to my old one"

"No Madam I cant give you the quotation in the post until you give me your bank details, remember we are giving you two free months of insurance", I was raging at him"If I called your house would you give your bank details to me then just because I asked? I just want a written quotation"

"No"

So I continued to talk to him, "Could I have your head office telephone number please so I can call them and make sure you are who you say you are?", Robert was very put out by this and explained to me that I was not allowed to do that. "Well Robert, I can assure you I wont be dealing with you. I have dealt with many insurance companies like More than, TSB and none of them have ever acted in this way. Usually its one phone call and a written quotation THEN I give them my bank details not 3 calls and a refusal to let me see the quotation". Robert was still begging for my details when I put the phone down.

The company he was claiming to be with Royal & Sun Alliance! I tried to ring their customer services line to complain (supposing it is them that called), but they are closed now till Monday. If this is a call from their company I will be taking this further as this is no way to treat a prospective customer.

todays things

Oh this is going to be the stupidist blog post ever!

Just had a really stupid day.

The day started early for me - at some point after one am my younest daughter woke. After positioning her on the sofa so I could go make a drink she leant over and barfed down the back of it. YUCK. Then she held her hands to her mouth so she could fan out the next barf. Okay Okay too much detail I just wanted you all to know. I knew there was a reason why we bought furniture with removable covers - today our sofa looks like a checkers board with white cushions and terrecotta cushions.

I think it was somewhere around three am was the next time I was up, then eight. I felt totally punch drunk and I had an queezy tummy too. Mag got up and complained of a sore tummy, he disapeared of to the bathroom to be sick.

My cleaner arrived at ten - the plan was that she would do her two or three hours and then I would head off to a friends house for a late lunch and a chat. Well that didn't happen, just the thought of driving to Carrickfergus with sick children in the car was enough to put me off. The day wore on I discovered a couple of things amiss in the kitchen - I found the salt grinder hidden behind some jars in the cupboard. hhhmmmm thats odd, then on closer inspection it was empty and wet inside. I questioned the children but it seemed that Mr Nobody was at work (do you have a Mr Nobody in your house?). Later a BFO (blinding flash of the obvious), last night Mag and I ate dinner after all the other children went to bed, we had the salt out and it was working!

Later on last night my glass was sat in the kitchen I still had juice in it so I took a swig - urrggghhh it was salty! Why would my orange juice be salty? So back to the salt grinder - all the little children were in bed, Mag ate with me, come to think of it Mag carried the salt and pepper through to the kitchen (he gets his pocket money if he clears the table each night) .. it wasn't me who poured out the salt and wet the inside of the grinder, it wasn't me who salted my orange juice .... hhhmmmm will he admit it? NO.

Day out to W5 - PART 1

I am saying part 1 as the most of the day went great for us, but we did have an incident this morning.

We headed off fairly early this morning to go to W5 at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast. W5 is a science museum for kids, and the children all love it so much we usually just spend the day there.

We parked up in the main car park as usual. You have to cross a main road to get into the complex, fortunately there are two pedestrian crossings with lights. I lined the children up at the crossing that takes you to the main entrance. When it was time to cross I saw a car speeding toward us. Thankfully I had my wits about me and I just 'knew' that the car was not going to stop so I pulled the children back. It was a scary moment for us all. The driver did not stop the car despite my attempt at flagging him down!

We were quite shaken by the incident and went into the main complex to report this to security staff. They in turn called the police and luckily for us the Roads Service lorry behind the car called in too. Long story short the police contacted the police stations local to the complex and viewed the CCTV, they also viewed the complex's CCTV and were able to track this car's journey through the town. They were also able to see us on the crossing and that we had done nothing wrong. Although we did not get a number plate the car had a distinctive paint job, and we got a good description of the driver inside, because of the paint job and the other things we noted that were inside the car's window they are hopeful.
The police and staff were absolutely great with us, they took statements and nothing was too much trouble for them. I apologised at using police resources but they reassured me that I did the right thing in reporting this to the security staff.

They said they are hoping to get this guy though it could take a few weeks if he was to be prosecuted, and we will just wait and see what happens now.

Spills 1st December

December is going to be a month for crazy stuff - I can just tell - feel it in my water or whatever!

Yesterday the 1st was an ordinary morning, then lunch time we decided to head on up to B&Q to get our kitchen paint.

I did get to test the paint before I bought it - Roy only managed to spill it on the floor and over mine and Toni's new Timberlands. *sigh* then Seb broke a snowglobe.


B&Q I apologise!

Oh yes and while I am on that subject - glowstick bangles ... when they burst they make everything glow. My children thought it would be funny to shake them up and down the hall! My hall glows in the dark now.

IT'S COLD OUTSIDE AND A SMALL SUCCESS

BRRRR it is cold out there today. I even saw a few flakes of snow coming down along with plenty of hail and rain. On the hills over the other side of Belfast Lough there is a dusting of the old white stuff. Its an Arctic wind apparently, but I dont really care where the wind comes from all I know is that it would freeze the balls off a brass monkey.

I was talking with a friend today and I realised I had forgotten to post some news I had. We have had a small development or should I say success for us as a family, a step which should pave the way for other families in our shoes too. I finally managed to get Sol's patches paid for by the NHS. After being allergic to the ones the hospital provided I was left to source different ones and pay for them myself. It is not the money that got me, but the difficulty in obtaining these patches which are latex and rubber free. Each three months it was the same trouble - pharmacist saying supplier doesn't do them, me saying they do, me speaking to supplier, persuading someone to order them in from manufacturer ...blah blah, and it was the same every single time. The patches cost £12 per box for me, apparently they would cost the hospital £7.50, my daughter was turned down this inexpensive yet very effective method of treatment based on cost. I complained every time I went to the hospital, and the answer I had got last time was "try source them cheaper on the Internet". The hospital would not even supply these patches for Summer - even passing the cost onto ourselves would have been preferable to the trouble each time I wanted to order.

So in the end I spoke to the manufacturer and they went into a little rant as to why other children get free patches why not us - he named hospitals that supplied the patches for free and one of those was also in the Belfast area. So I went back and informed the neurosurgeon's secretary and the orthoptics department that I was going to our local parliament member about our child with low vision being denied treatment. Before I knew it these guys were ringing me back saying this and that - talking of making preliminary enquiries of costing. Then came the call that Sol has been given authorisation to get her patches on the NHS but still not other children (it is a start). then the manufacturer called me congratulating me for 'paving the way for other families'. The manufacturer had received a fax through from the hospital that very day pricing up the patches for Summer.I paid for this three months supply, but after those patches run out hopefully things will be set in place for Sol to get hers at the hospital at no additional cost to ourselves.

Empty Fridge Syndrome

We have no perishable food in the house, none! Yesterday we were fed up with having nothing nice the children decided to 'bake'.



They made TOPHATS, which to the person who doesn't know how to make them simply melted chocolate poured into the base of a paper bun case, a marshmallow added and a little smartie or jelly tot stuck on the top with a little more melted choclate.



This is Hollie and Ellis showing off their buns!






On to the topic of why we have no food .... I haven't bought any!



We are going on holiday tomorrow, and I must say out of all the holidays we have ever been on this is the one I am most looking forward to. Like you couldn't tell we were looking forward to it, we have bored everyone with our talk of escaping.



Before I start I shall express my sympathies to anyone suffering severe weather like Hurricane Gustav, or any other extreme weather.



The weather here in Northern Ireland has been down right depressing. I am not talking about miserable, I am talking months and months of heavy rain. The dry days this summer can be counted on one hand, even during those dry days it did rain at some point. I myself suffer in the cold weather, I have health problems which make my joints sore and that alone is making me down. I am not one to complain, but I tend to hibernate in the winter but this year it feels as though I have been hibernating all year.

Just now I look out of my dining room window and the sky is grey, the grass is green through all the rain, and the driveway is pretty much one giant puddle. The children are fed up as they cannot go out side and play on their lovely new garden toys that they got this year.

The only saving grace for us is that we are leaving it all behind for a couple of weeks - and for that reason we are all entirely ecstatic.

We had made many plans to go out an about this summer; meet friends, do the garden, paint the house, go cycling ... well as you can imagine they all went out of the window because of the weather (or is that a lame excuse?). I feel guilty I hadn't made more of an effort but my other half assures me that no body minded too much and it seems that no body in the house is going to hold it against me. Just as well I reckon.









Funny quotes this week



The children were talking about dieing.

Seb says "I wont die as I dont go into the kitchen"

Toni replied "Awe Seb, everyone dies once in a while".

I am having a bad week, and its not getting better.

Friday 25th July was our wedding anniversary. I went out to do some errands and bought a "me to you" cake for the family to enjoy. We weren't planning on going out anywhere that evening due to the fact we had no reliable baby sitter that night, but we had decided that we would just order in some food instead. On arriving back home I turned the car so I could reverse in our drive - its much easier to get out of our driveway if you reverse in. Usually when I arrive home my cat Tigger comes bounding over to see us, but this day I noticed she wasn't there. So I proceeded to reverse in checking for Tigger as I did, but somehow I managed to run her over. She came from the hedge maybe, I don't know?

Long story short I called the vet and took her right over, probably what saved her the fact she was there within about 15 minutes of the accident. The children were pretty shook up by it, Hollie she was in shock especially as that night she was talking like a washing machine on full spin.

As the weekend has wore Tigger's situation has changed, at the minute she has just undergone surgery to put a metal plate and 12 screws in her broken pelvis. The vet has called in the last couple hours explaining that one of her legs is numb and they are talking about amputation now. The bowel and bladder situation is not clear right now, but it was a case of doing the surgery because of the pain she was in. It still may be a case of all the surgery and she not make it - I feel rotten about the whole thing.


To add insult to injury I am feeling a bit "attacked" by a so called friend. It's been building and the last while she has been 'talking to me' about my children's behaviour which is supposedly in her eyes is not good. My same children whom I can take anywhere and have no issues what so ever about. Just seems that they always manage to be naughty when she is about, just my luck *rolling eyes*. This morning Toni was blowing a little trumpet thing, and I told her she could not take it in the car with us when we went out. Toni said "no" So after a count of three I had to take it from her and tell her off as she was disobeying me. My friend said "my child never says no", I saw red but smiled sweetly and tried to tell Toni off in such a way not to cause a scene. Another example - this afternoon same friend was sitting telling me how she isn't going to go to Lanzarote next year, Tenerife is a much better place to go ... *rolling eyes* just so happens that WE ARE going to Lanzarote in the very near future. She continues on how "no way am I putting MY son in the kids club, even if I had three or four kids I would NEVER do that", well she knows there is a kids club at the hotel where we are staying, she knows the children have been in these clubs before, and oh coincidentally I have four kids. I feel she is having digs at me, maybe she is jealous? Feels like she wants me to feel uncomfortable because I allow someone else to take my children for an hour!

The children are going to the local summer scheme this week, it is on for only a week for two hours a day - they love it, they belong to that same youth club and go to camp with the same people so why would they not go to the summer scheme. So the comment went as they were going to the scheme today and she was going home with her son, "Oh my son is not going to that scheme, no way would I send him there".

Every time we go out there are more comments about us "sitting at home all day", "Toni is a wall flower, she needs to get out". I don't justify myself or what I do but we DO NOT sit at home all day, we home educate our children we are not house bound.


GRRRRRR I am upset and angry about it. I consider myself to be a good mum to our four well balanced children. I have eased up the last week or so on this friendship I feel it may have run its course, I am going to wait and see what happens next visit then decide if it will continue.

Hedgehogs and Fruit

TODAY - well where do I start ... this morning I was rudely awoken by the day break! Getting up I braved a lovely hot shower and a vitamin drink! After the couple small pleasures of the day it was time to tackle more laundry, putting away all the boys things and managing my own, hubby's and some of the girls' clothes I realised it was almost 10am. My cleaner arrived to help me with my housework, ooohhh I do love my cleaner friend. She is a friend too but her job is a cleaner and she does mine woohoo happy dance. Afterwards we do get to sit down to a cup of tea and a gossip.

This is my princess Sol, when she hears the presenters on the radio talking about "the summer".


My shopping arrived this morning as scheduled so I spent the remaining part of the morning sorting groceries out and making space in the freezer. Lunch time brought on a sudden urge to make hedge hog buns with Ellis.

RECIPE

Ingredients
24 fairy cakes chocolate or plain
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
hot water
125g margarine
250g icing sugar
chocolate sticks like match makers
silver ball decorations
chocolate sugar strands
jelly tots or something similar size eg smarties, cherries

Instructions
cream the margarine until pale
Mix the cocoa powder with half a tablespoon of hot water, adding more if need be to make it into a paste.
Mix cocoa powder mix with the margarine, then add the icing sugar. Beat until mixed.

turn the 24 fairy cakes upside down on a baking tray - make sure the paper cases are removed of course otherwise this wont work.

cover the fairy cakes in the chocolate frosting - I just dipped mine in, but if they are too fresh they might crumble.

dip or sprinkle each frosted fairy cake with chocolate strands.

add silver ball eyes, jelly tot nose and broken up chocolate sticks as spikes.

here is our efforts - despite how these look they are fun to make and delicious to eat.



I did offer to take my cleaner friend home later in the afternoon and discovered yet again the car would not start. As luck would have it I had parked the other car in front of it last night so we were able to jump start it. This happens a lot and its pretty annoying when you want to go somewhere and you have to jump start your car.... so off I went to the garage leaving Roy in charge of two children and one came with me (the other one is still at camp). The man at the garage tested the battery and it is fine. As the problem is intermittent there was nothing more he could do for me at that moment, I have to wait till it wont start and call him out to the house. This is the point where I am banging my head on the wall. As the only time I know it wont start is when I get in the car to go somewhere, and the only time I get in the car is when I AM going somewhere which means I will have to drop everything one day and wait for a mechanic. Similarly if Roy is using this car, which sometimes he does as its a 'bus' then he will have to drop all instead of working to wait for the mechanic to come and rescue him. Its a pain!


On a more fruity note - we were out in the garden this evening and noticed our fruit trees are bearing fruit. Last year we had 16 apples, and our neighbour's little girl came in and picked them all while they were still small so we did not get any fruit! This year she has been warned - and the trees are a little bigger. We have loads of apples on two of the trees, some plums on another, and the cherry tree well it is pathetic and has nothing at all so far. We also have raspberries by the dozen and one single solitary strawberry, well we had three strawberries but Toni ate two!

Families

I am not talking about my immediate family i.e. husband and four children but other (so called) family members here.

I had the wind taken from my sails last week - I found some nasty things written about me on an Internet blog. There is an old saying that goes something like "you can think it, but you cant say it", oh I don't know the saying but you get the gist. Well this was written, and it shocked me at the desperate measures some people would go to to try damage my family, and my reputation of being a good mother and wife. Well it didn't work - sure I was hurt, and to be perfectly honest I was devastated that such things could be said about me.

That person wont win, never, ever - I will always be better than she. I guess I don't have to live with her, and that I am thankful of. Those writings which I discovered led to a family dispute which ended up in me questioning the last 37 years of my life. With both my natural parents dead now - the people I thought loved me, I have discovered don't - turns out everything was a charade. Past 30 odd years of believing gone because people took sides, rather than facing up to a few days of disharmony and discussions.

My children are devastated. I broke the news to my eldest this week he knew something was wrong so we decided not to lie to him, and my second eldest came to realise things were not right either. Tears shed, young fragile spirits broken and sadly they got their first taste of real hurt - I ache for them.

26th April 2008

Here she is Miss T - tooth no2 gone! Another 18 dramas to go. Less said the better .

I want to write more on my week but the children are fighting over balloons right now *sigh*, I am going to pop them.

Good start to the day (not)

5.08 am this morning Toni decided to get up. She banged her way down the hallway to the bathroom, banging the bathroom door and noisily locking it. Then she banged the door on the way out, banged up the hall to my bedroom asking for a tissue. I explained to her to go quietly and she banged into the dining room and banged out of it with the "snowy white" tissues that she had to tell the world about. By 6.00 am Toni, Seb and Sol were playing at full force in Toni bedroom. Its amazing how loud these role play games can be when you ask them to hush.

It seems the quieter you want them to be is proportional to the more noise they can possibly make.

To top it off the water people are digging up the road to replace water pipes and they said our water will be off from 9.30am till 8pm - JOY.

14th April 2008

I was speaking with a teacher today - not your every day teacher but a man who taught my husband at school who now runs a private tutoring place. Anyways - you would think being a private teacher he would be a bit more open minded about home education ...

He was a real go to school advocate - got to get no1 son to mix with other kids his own age. LOL The son in question goes to Boys Brigade, Two different Chess clubs (is close to be playing at championship level for seniors), Games Club, Youth Club, Bible Class, Goes to camp in the holidays and believe it or not he DOES in fact have FRIENDS.

Seems we don't learn enough either, my children 'need' to be in school so they can learn a wide variety of subjects. hhhmmmm I was wondering when the last time my kids were just restricted to the handful of subjects on offer at schools these days - makes you wonder what people think about us.

TODAY

Was a funny day, I got Mah kicked off doing some work out of his English books today. He doesn't like English but I like him to do some sort of formal study on the subject ... though sometimes I wonder whether or not I should push it, as he loves learning about everything else. He learns by many means too so it is something we need to explore for English, I have tried different books but it still doesn't light his fire. Toni read to me for a while and then drew pictures of things from her books. Her art work is brilliant these days, she would ask to draw virtually every time she sits at the table. She also copied some words from her book to make a little story.
I didn't push any of the children as I am pretty tired after the 4.30 start this morning. Hubby was heading off for Scotland and of course when he is up showering, having breakfast and so on everyone else knows about it. I never known anyone to make so much noise when trying to be quiet, seems to me the harder you try to be quiet the noisier you get.

My friend came round at lunch time and we both got stuck in trying to make the rest of the house look a bit more normal, seems to me that when you are decorating one or two rooms the mess migrates outwards at an amazing speed. She left in time to go collect her son from school and I just got some other bits done around the house.

Tomorrow morning my tesco.com shopping arrives, just as well as we have no cornflakes left. Also the boys' new bedding and some other bits for the rooms, so it looks like I am building up flat pack tv units tomorrow.

Early Hours 23rd January

Is it ever going to stop raining?

All this global warming stuff - well you can stop now if you like. I hate it all, I hate the cold, I hate the damp, I hate the winter. i have a bad case of SAD I think.

It has rained non stop for ages here and no sign of drying up yet. Yesterday the road above us and the road below us was flooded. out village had flooding and I pity those poor people who don't live up the hill. I don't know the extent of it all yet as I haven't been brave enough to stick my nose out the door for a day or so.



I did speak to civilisation (if you could call them that), AOL that is - my modem router decided to stop working. I don't know what is going on there, if it was the bad weather or a power surge or what but it just died. So I rang my current supplier of Internet hoping they could get me going again ... they did better than that, they are only sending me out new equipment and a PS3 for free. HAPPY DAYS, no 1 son has not yet come back down to earth, now we just got to get some games for it ...hhhmmmm weren't they a second mortgage last time I looked? Forty squid a game - well it looks like I am going to be working for another few years to pay for all this. Joking aside I am happy about it.

We had this big debate at Christmas ... Mag's friend got a Wii for Christmas, which we were absolutely delighted for him. But us having four children has explained to Mag that we could not justify a present of that value, a Wii and a hand full of games was running close to £500. That's all fine and dandy then you got to be fair to the other children too, and before you know it you could go over board and in debt just to keep up with the trends. So feeling guilty because a friend suggested we should 'save up' and Mag's other friends got Wiis and Xbox 360s and wot not from the man in the red suit. we wondered if we were being bad parents, after all how do you explain to a child you cant justify it when its not you who brings the Christmas presents anyway, surely the elves could knock something together in a few minutes?
BUT we have the Internet in virtually every room, 3 computers and 3 laptops in our house, millions of games including many up to date ones ... we also have an extensive book library, a wealth of knowledge at our finger tips in the written form and electronically - so why should we feel guilty for not providing what is deemed to be a compulsory toy?

So after all that has been said we get one for free - now that is a smug grin which is coming across my face ... our children got their Christmas gifts and an up tp date games console, and that is our reward for being patient.

13th January 2008

Not that I mind - advice that is.

We home educate, and as a family we always have our ears open to new ideas and things.
This little mini rant is about a friend, who shall remain nameless and has experienced the ups and downs of the difficult and long drawn out decision to home educate. She was there when we researched and dug up all sorts of statistics regarding how good it was for children. Don't get me wrong this isn't an attack on the schools system (well not really) but we made our choices based on what was available to us in the rural area in which we live. I have read and read about what the children need to learn, spent money on books and downloaded the curiculum guidelines. Anyways - this friend went to an open day held at a school which isn't too far away from her home, she loved it which is wonderful. I am sure it is the right school for her child. So on returning from the school she advised me that I should go and look so I know what to teach my children next year.

Ever feel like banging your head off a brick wall!