Stamps are Gold!

Who knew that those sticky little squares that are stuck on the corners of all those letters and cards that come through your door every day could be so valuable. PreemiesUK take donations of stamps and sell them to make money to purchase wool and other materials to make tiny baby items which are then donated to Early Baby Units all over the country.

Tiny early babies need to be kept warm but their turnover of clothing is really high, all of the items have to be soft, warm but also have to be washed at very high temperatures for hygiene reasons so they don't last long in a hospital setting.

So take a pile of these.... 

and trade them in for some of this....

and then create lots and lots of these....

To keep delicate new lives warm and cosy when they are at their most vulnerable and need the most loving care. 

All this work is done by the lovely volunteer ladies at PreemiesUK just because they can! 

And you can help just by sending your donations of stamps or wool, buttons, ribbon and fabric to:

PreemiesUK

138 Farmers Green
Droitwich
Worcs
WR9 9EH

If you want to offer help with knitting tiny items that is welcome as well, knitters, crocheters and sewers are all helpful and welcome,  more information about PreemiesUK can be found on their FB page just click on the link PreemiesUK Facebook Page

Technology is Cool

Technology is such a cool ting, every time i turn around there is something new out there! I love my iPad so much it is now the one thing i don't leave the house without... Ok that's a lie... I don't leave the houae without quite a few things if I am honest, keys, phone, purse etc are kind of essential, unless you want to be locked out of your home with no way of telling anyone whi could rescue you what a numbnut you have been for leaving without your keys and phone... But I do leave the house with a lot less "stuff". For instance, i don't need to carry a book anymore (that was an essential for me) Nor do i have to carry a calculator or a pen and paper. I have entertainment in the form of games at my fingertips and I can even sit and draw a picture if I want to or take a photograph and manipulate it on the go!

If we are out with the kids we can keep them entertained with stories and games and workwise... There are apps for every kind of function you can imagine so I can just pick up my IPad and work anywhere, be that in the car, waiting outside school on the school run or sitting under a tree on a nice day.

So whilst I did think the IPad was the ultimate geek toy when it first came out, I have been converted even down to having Facetime calls with the other half when he is away on work trips. It's official I am a geek!




- LisaP

Location:Wellingborough

Book Review - The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory

I was really looking forward to reading this book,   I finished The White Queen, the previous book to this one and had enjoyed it, even if I did find some of the airy fairy witchcraftery a bit repetitive... but I am a Philippa Gregory fan on the whole, the relaxed historical fiction usually has enough historical fact and attention to detail as well as just enough fiction to make it enjoyable.

But I have to admit The Red Queen was a struggle for me,  it's not Ms Gregory's writing... or maybe it is but I found the main character Margaret Beaufort really hard work.  The story follows exactly the same events of history as The White Queen but from the other side of the battle and that part of the idea was really interesting, seeing just how "right" both sides think they were and how actually they both claimed to be fighting for exactly the same thing and both claiming that it was "gods will".  

For me the big question there is... who is to say what exactly God's will is and how do they know???    It must be a very comforting to be so convinced that you know what God wants.

The book follows Margaret Beauforts life from her earliest childhood where from the very earliest time in her life it is made clear to her that she is merely a pawn in the political games of others and that she in and of herself is of very little value apart from her station in life and her only task is to produce a male heir for the House of Lancaster. 

I don't suppose I should be surprised that this unwanted unloved child found her only comfort in her religious beliefs and being that pious should have made her likeable... but it doesn't. Throughout the book I found her bitter and jealous, vengeful and filled with venal pride, all of which she tries to say is God's will.  She spends most of her life on her knees praying and yet doesn't seem to recognise that the way she behaves and her vengence and jealousy are sinful! There were times that I found myself flinging the book down and muttering "what a hypocrite".

By the end of the book I actively disliked the woman, which is a shame as I didn't want to.  But in some ways that's not a bad thing, the whole point of a story is to get across the characters that are being written about and in this case Ms Gregory nailed it if what she intended was to make Margaret Beaufort out to be an angry, bitter, jealous, spite filled woman whose whole life was an endless stream of disappointments.

Army Rations

I am a massive fan of one pot dinners.  Having teenage boys means needing to provide hearty and when I say hearty I mean hearty meals, they eat like it is going out of fashion!  And teenage boy cannot live on cereal alone, although they would certainly like to try... and do seem to be trying to prove that they can.

One of my favourite one pot meals is what we call Army Rations,  it's not particularly glamorous to look at but it's very tasty and filling and you can make lots of it for quite a low price tag.... got to be a good thing in this economy.

You will need:

500g Minced Beef
1 Large Onion or 2 small ones

1 Beef Oxo Cube

1/2 pint of Beef gravy

1/2 bag of 1kg Mixed Frozen Veg

Seasoning

Use a deep frying pan or a large pot for this, it starts off looking small but volume will increase hugely so you need the extra cooking space. 

Chop your onion and fry it to soften it in a touch of olive or vegetable oil and once the onion is soft and golden add the minced beef to brown it.   Add your oxo cube and stir.  

Once the beef is browned, add your seasoning,  a little salt, lots of ground pepper and I like to chuck in a couple of slugs of Worcestershire Sauce. You could also pop in some ground chilli if you like a bit of heat in your food.   Now put in half a bag of mixed frozen veg,  brand is unimportant, pick what you personally like, my personal favourite is the farmhouse style with broccoli and cauliflower in it. 

Stir the veg in and add your 1/2 pint of gravy, turn the heat down low pop a lid on and let it simmer away for 20 minutes. if you find you want more gravy you can always add more just before serving.

 

You can have this on its own or with lots of crusty bread or you can serve it with rice and my boys particular favourite with pasta.

When is a Woman not a Woman....?

Sounds like the beginning of a really funny joke doesn't it?  Well it's not. It's not funny and it's certainly no joke. A few years back a talented young South African athlete by the name of Caster Semenya was dragged into fame in a really unpleasant way, instead of being praised and made famous around the world for her talent... running and my word can she run! She was dragged into the limelight because some saddo's at the IAAF decided that she possibly wasn't a female at all.

Now once upon a time knowing what sex you were was a very simple thing, if you had testicles and a penis ... simple, you're a man,  if you have ovaries, boobs and a vagina then you're a woman... it's a given!  Although granted there are some men who have the testicles, the penis and a set of impressive boobs as well  but they are still men. Yes?   Well apparently this is no longer the case.  Now it seems you can have the requisite bits and pieces that are indicative of your sex and yet still have some smart alec stand up and say "ooooh no you're not that because you have too many hormones."

What???? hormones?  When did hormones come into it?  When did all these other "tests" become essential to decide what sex we are?  I have polycystic ovaries and therefore I have too much testosterone in my blood and hair in places that men get hair... does that make me a man?  Well if it does I should be rich then cos I already am the first man to have a baby by about 18 years!

What has been even more irritating in this particular situation is not only did the IAAF keep Caster out of athletics for 8 months whilst they decided amongst them whether or not she was a woman but they only backed off when a court case loomed.  Good on you Caster for standing your ground say I.

The IAAF didn't in the end give in to common sense or science that Caster is a woman, no the real reason they found in her favour and finally let her compete again was because if they had been taken to court their testing policy would not only have been legally tested but it would also have opened the door to them being challenged by all the other athletes they still have hanging around in limbo.

Let's be clear here without science there would not even be a question of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman... if you have female sexual organs, you're a bird, enough said.

So I guess the punchline to the joke... When is a Woman not a Woman?   Has to be... When you're a woman good at something that men feel threatened by. 

Still not funny is it...

Who Said Life Was Fair???

My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for about 5 years,  it's weird but until we got married I thought my "baby making" days were long past me, with two boys hitting their teens I really did think I'd done my bit for the continuation of the species and I was done with all that.   But getting together with Pie and seeing what a great stepfather he was and how much he missed his own children it reignited in me the desire to go through the hellish experience that is pregnancy.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy, pregnancy never is for me, but I did think it was possible and I thought it would be worth it.  But I didn't think it was going to be this hard.  When we started trying I thought we had lots of time but it's amazing how fast that time slips away from you and suddenly you are 5 years down the line and it's pretty much too late.

After seeing Mr Shehata in April and discovering that my problem with getting a pregnancy to stick was killer cells I was prescribed steroids to surpress the killer cells, aspirin to keep my blood thin and high doses of vitamins.  I came away from that appointment feeling so positive,  at last there was an answer and a possibility of having a baby.  I'd been getting pregnant regularly so I didn't doubt that we could do it again.

But here we are, the year is coming to a close and we still aren't successfully pregnant and it appears that the very drugs that were meant to help me stay pregnant may have ended my chances of getting pregnant at all.   Since I started taking the steroids I had noticed that my cycle had changed radically,  I had gone from a strict 26 day cycle to a 35 day cycle and then experiencing mid cycle bleeding as well. Using ovulation sticks every day it also appears that I am no longer ovulating, the first month I thought ok maybe I screwed up the tests and I missed the day but after 2 solids cycles of testing I know I didn't miss it, it just isn't happening.

So how do I feel? I can't honestly say yet,  I don't think it's actually sunk in quite yet, the part of me that should feel sad is so numb at the moment it isn't feeling anything, but part of me feels guilty for feeling relieved, I haven't had to make this decision myself my body has done it for me, my body has quit on me!  

.  

Soft Play Purgatory

Recently I had my first re-experience (hmmmm is that a real word???) of soft play, you know,  those indoor playgrounds that are full of climbing frames, ball pits and slides etc. Oh good god the torture of it.  My boys are 17 and 14 so it's a very very long time since I have set foot over the treshold of one of these places and I had forgotten totally what they were like. The first thing that hit me was steam, I mean I know it was raining outside (really heavily... in fact I was at that point considering googling plans on ark creation) so I guess an element of the steam might be kids and parents coming into this hell hole slightly damp but I think also that the steam might have just been the sweat off the kids and the constant CO2 created by their open mouths as they screamed.

And scream they did!!!

We were there because my stepchildren were down visiting us during the school holidays and at 7 and 4 they are a lot younger than my boys so I am having to re-learn how to entertain small people again... not easy I can tell you, but probably good practice if we ever do achieve our aim of having a baby.

The second thing that struck me was the wall of noise.  I am wondering is tolerance of softplay venues, parks etc something you get an immunity to?  I ean when my boys were small I remember taking them to these softplay places and sitting quite happily with a book whilst they ran themselves into exhaustion and the noise never bothered me, yet here I am a few years later and it was like being locked into a room with 100 howler monkeys all screaming at the top of their lungs and it was absolutely excrutiating.  I looked around and there were all these other mums sitting quite happily chatting with each other and yet I could not even hear myself think!!!

I ended up digging into the bottom of my handbag and fortunately found some earplugs which I gratefully shoved into my ears... trust me you could still hear the screaming and shouting... and crying as little Johnny bashed some other kid or vice versa... it was just now at a reasonable dull roar.

I did have a genius thought though if the armed forces ever decide they need new methods to extract information from detainees they could always tie them to a chair and stick them in the middle of the ball pit and just let the kids have fun throwing those plastic balls at them and let the detainees endure a few hours of 100 howler monkeys... oops I mean darling children... a few hours of that and they will be begging to tell what they know.