LET THEM EAT CAKE

WHEN IS NOT A GOOD TIME TO ASK FIONA TO DO SOMETHING FOR YOU?

EVER!
But seriously.........just when you have asked her to put her tall boy BACK into her bedroom out of the doorway of her sister's bedroom so her sister can move the last of her things out.
And what did I want her to do? Find me Belle's wedding website which I had just read about on Anastasia's blog.
RESPONSE.
'Why hadn't Anastasia told me how to find it'.
'Perhaps she didn't want me to see it'
Teenage girls are the best! Next time I want something I think I will feed Fiona a six pack of energy drinks first! A pinging and excited Fiona is so much better than the possible alternatives.




















HEALTHY EATING UPDATE
Going good! Only one lapse but I didn't put any weight
back on. Fiona made a cake with Galaxy butter icing
which she called FAT LASS CAKE, she also thought it
looked like the SH*T monster on the film Dogma but it
didn't taste like SH*T, it tasted fantastic.



















Last night I watched the film Stigmata.........again. The bit where Gabriel Byrne is qustioned as to how he can be a scientist and believe in God always makes me think. Science is the one
thing for me that makes me think that the world could not have just happened by one Big Bang, somebody big and clever just had to have made it.

TEN REASONS THAT I THINK THE WORLD COULDN'T HAVE JUST HAPPENED

1-Beauty in nature-flowers, the sea, mountains......it is endless.
2-Clever people-not being the brightest biscuit in the barrel I just think where did that come from and why.
3-Beneficial inventions-washing machines, dish-washers, tumble dryers, microwaves, cars, central heating etc
4-Medications
5-Karma
6-Mankind's capacity to show love
7-Barney or any cartoon that will entertain my autistic 5 year old for long enough to catch my breath
8-Beauty-even though she is autistic she is perfect in every way.
9-Diet food
10-Carbohydrates

KEEPING IT REAL

So Warren Jeffs, one of the FBI's most wanted has been arrested. Obviously the fundamentalists will say that Warren Jeffs is a martyr and he and his 'church' are being tested and they will also say that the world is also being tested and we will all have something to learn from this.
So what have I learned?
I have learned that the fundamentalist mormon chuch has male members who are just there to be 'married' to lots of young girls. A lot of these young girls have very little education, a lot of them live in poverty, have poor health care and many suffer sexual abuse. In the 21st century this cannot be right! I know the world is not a perfect place but the USA is not a developing country and these young girls have certain rights which are being denied them and perhaps the case against Warren Jeffs may highlight their case and the situation for them will get better. I feel that the tv show Big Love has really helped to show what these poor girls who live in the fundamentalist compounds have to suffer every day. If they want to live in their compounds then fine but they don't have to live there uneducated, in poverty , with poor health and
enduring sexual abuse.
So I hope that we see some magor changes in the lives of these girls in the near future.



Off the wall comment- from somone who prefers dresses and skirts, I do like those Prairie dresses that they wear.
(I felt today's blog was getting a little too serious)












On a less serious note. Yesterday I spent a lot of time sorting out the middle room and the back room downstairs ready for when the builders arrive to install the doors. When you go into the middle room the armchair is to the left of the door and the bureau is to the right.Last night, leaving the joining doors open, I sat in the living room watching tv and Beauty went into the middle room to play. When all became quiet I went in to check what was happening. I found that Beauty had climbed up onto the back of the chair, trying to get to see what was on top of the bureau she had tried to cross the door area by putting her foot into one of my bags that was hanging on the door. And that is where I found her! Suspended from the top of the door clinging to the top of the bureau, stuck! She is mad! As mad as her sisters because Anastasia did something similar when she was little. Anastasia climbed up onto the first handle of the chest of drawers in her bedroom when she was little to get something off the top of the chest and could not get down. So that is where she stayed and fell asleep. She was meant to be in her bed having an afternoon nap. But she napped sleeping standing up leaning over the chest of drawers! However unlike Beauty who was suspended appeoximately 4 feet off the ground, Anastasia was only about 6 inches off the ground. I don't know which was funnier!














ON TV NOW!
I sometimes wonder about the sanity of the tv shedulers. Doodle Do Chris(you know, intelligent Newport boy!) is showing us how to make snap cards from old christmas cards, in AUGUST! What next, cutting snowflakes in June? Making sunhats in December?
Thankyou BBC for your sense of humor! You kill me.

BEST TIME OF THE DAY

When the off-spring are still asleep!
Why? because when they are awake the only thing they do is argue about whose turn it is to go on the computer. And thankfully the worst insults they sling at each other are confined to
who is the biggest chav! Totally insane, the lot of them.



Open invitation..........we have found a Sing-A-Long-A-Sound of Music at the Parc and Dare in the Rhondda on the 21st of September, Sno-White, Ariel and Fiona are all up for it but any men who come along with us have to wear Lederhosen.
And yes I am being serious!



Did anybody else read that letter the girl in Vienna is meant to have written? I hope somebody comes forward and says it was written by the solicitor or someone else because it was so wierd, if she really said all those things then now is the time to worry. She seems either to have or is on the edge of loosing the plot and the letter is really scary. The letter is such a'legal'construction that a genuine plea from the heart written by the girl herself would have allayed the fears of most people. I also feel that the 'experts' need to have the parents and child together more often instead instead
of giving the namby ass excuse ,'well she hasn't asked to see her parents'.
What's wrong with a 5 minute visit now and again?
Sometimes 'experts' create more problems than they solve.


This is a photo of the buses that ply the streets of Marmaris looking for punters. They are cheap and efficient compared to the UK but they look as if they wouldn't pass their MOT . This is the type of bus that was involved in the explosion that injured 10 people, they pack you in like sardines so it is a wonder that people were not killed. It was a great holiday destination but it was a place that made me feel uneasy. It seemed to me like the hard sell capital of the world and the best time I had was going into town on the bus alone to get some money from the cash machine. I was alone and I was totally ignored but when I went out with Beauty and Runningman the sellers would not leave us alone. We talked to a girl from Swansea who was living in Marmaris and she said it is because they assume if I am on my own then I have no money BUT if I am with a man then I have money. I also did not like it that in the evening there were huge groups of men everywhere just walking around, they were clean and tidy but where were their women? Were they at home? Men and women in area of Turkey that we visited seemed to live separate lives and men got the better deal.

Today seems to be a series of comments on news events so I best not forget the JonBennet Ramsey case and the suspect being released. Well I felt all along that John karr who was arrested was just a 'confessor' going along for the ride. What a sad story! I hope they find and punish the real killer.

THE LONELY GOATHERD

I don't know how Austria will feel about this but Beauty's song of choice at the moment is the Lonely Goatherd from the Sound of Music and she is almost word perfect, complete with yodel!
Of course she also loves anything Barney but hopefully Austria wouldn't care about that. I love the Sound of Music , it beats me why Austria are not so keen as it puts such a positive slant on the situation. Poor France didn't get off so lightly in the films and remember Remains of the Day? Did you know that in real life they escaped by catching a train to Italy and the youngest was actually a boy? And the grand-daughters(I think) are a singing troupe and will be performing in the UK next year? Perhaps it is to coincide with Andrew Lloyd Webbers new production. I would love to go to a sing-a-long Sound of Music and dress up as the Mother Superior. Any one else want to come? It would be better than Minskys AND we know all the words. Anastasia could be Maria, Belle you could be Liesel, Sno-White could be Louisa, Ariel could be Brigitta, Fiona could be Marta and of course Beauty could be Gretl. If we were to invite the continental family then the boys could of course be Friedrich and Kurt and Mama and Papa could be the Baroness and the Captain( but I know that will never happen). And for the only daughter of the continental family the only characters left are nuns or the housekeeper and that's not much of a choice at all.
HOWEVER, people also go as all sorts of other things such as the things listed in my favourite things. You know raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens and brown paper packages tied up with string kind of things. Some even go all in green, they are the 'hills'. I think I would really like to go as a girl in a white dress with a blue satin sash or a snow flake.
Definitely on my to-do list.

WHY DO WE DO IT?

BREAD OF HEAVEN















Torture ourselves daily by not eating the food we love of course!
I love bread , potatoes, cakes, sweets and savouries...........these are my drug of choice! I do not want to imagine a life without them.




PEAR DROPS
SWEET HEAVEN











HEAVENLY SAVOURIES



















CHOCOLATE HEAVEN








Is this how other addicts feel? At lunch time when I have finished my weight watchers meal and huge dish of vegetables I have a wonderful feeling of a full and warm stomach and I love the feeling. I don't want alcohol, drugs or any other addictive substance, they just don't do it for me. My daily life is a torture becauseI cannot eat the things I love but I still have to eat. That is why I think obesity is a problem because alcoholics and drug addicts to recover have to stop their addiction of choice completely, me I have to take my drug of choice daily to live! Are fat people weak? Hell yes but so are any other kind of addict. Are fat people stupid? Hell no, not more than any other addict. As a hospital nurse I of course saw a lot of sick people(duh!) but the majority of them had certain things in common, they drank too much, they ate too much and they smoked too much. But we were there to deal with their accute illness not the other kind of sickness that brought them there in the first place. And do I have another kind of sickness?
Probably, I grew up in poverty- not relative but real. Nothing in the cupboards or fridge so I couldn't eat. When I became an adult I was still poor so I ate what I could afford, cheap unhealthy carbohydrates but carbs are warm and comforting and give you a hell of a buzz. So now I am addicted to lovely , wonderful, gorgeous carbs.
I want somewhere to go, not Weight Watchers-that wouldn't do it for me, where I can stand up and say, 'I am an addict' and the people around me know how I feel. I will always be addicted to food, like alcoholics will always be alcoholics even when they have stopped drinking.
A lot of money is spent on helping people to overcome their alcohol, drug and smoking addiction but my addiction must cost the NHS millioms of £'s every year and not enough is spent on helping mea and people like me to deal with our addiction.
AT 12st 2lbs I am a healthy BMI but I can get down to 9st 10lbs and still be in the healthy range and yes I will pursue that goal and why? Probably there is a little bit of Posh in us all that thinks ,'when your thin your in' and we want to be slim so other people will not look at us and think , 'stupid fat cow',and yes for most people FAT and STUPID does go together perfectly.

I'M PHAT NOT FAT!

On Ariels last visit she was appalled to hear how much weight I had lost and how quickly. She told me I was anorexic. However, Fiona was happy to confirm that the stir fry I make each evening fills the entire wok and would feed a whole family and I eat it all myself. Fiona was unable to confirm the bread, fruit, weight watchers meals, vegetables and weight watchers fromage frais that I eat in the day because she never gets her 23.5 BMI ass out of bed before lunch-time to see what I eat. I feel that even though the vegetables that I eat are good I do over do it a bit on the amount. I keep the carrot farmers of the UK in business, as long as it doesn't turn my skin orange though.
The BBC continues to put stories on it's website about obesity and how out of control the UK is. I never cease to be amazed at what obese people in Asda buy, a lot of their trolleys are overflowing with fattening food and they do not appear to be worried . Whenever I buy Beauty's food such as cakes, quavers and crisps( low fat) I always hope that people don't think they are for me. I never eat the cakes but once or twice a week I might have a packet of Quavers or a packet of crisps.
So Ariel I am not anorexic and I promise that I am not bulimic, there is no way I could ever waste money by eating it and then puking it up and chew and spit is just so wrong, I'm afraid I love food too much to mess with it. I think that I am lucky enough to love all vegetables and
salad.






THINNER ME NOW!(MY ARMS AND STOMACH LOOK THINNER)



















FATTER ME IN CEFN ONN ABOUT MAY(INCLUDING ROLY-POLY TUMMY)























FATTER ME IN ROATH PARK(COMPLETE WITH FAT ARMS)



















FATTER ME IN WATERLOO GARDENS

I DON'T LOOK LIKE A RUSSIAN SHOT PUTTER HERE BUT A RUSSIAN PEASANT WOMEN WITH HUGE ARMS FROM HANDWASHING ALL HER LIFE!

















FATTER ME IN FUERTAVENTURA

ACTUALLY HERE I LOOK FAT BUT I LOOK LIKE A ROUND, HAPPY MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN ON HOLIDAY(I WASN'T, I HATED HAVING MY PHOTO TAKEN)


















BEAUTY BEING CREATIVE-SHE ATE THE PAINT!















NEW HAT ALERT(SHE LOVES IT AND SHE LOOKS CUTE)

TWINKLE, TWINKLE LITTLE STAR..........

BEING A HEALTHY BMI IS SO BIZARRE!

HEALTHY EATING UPDATE

As I said in an earlier blog, today I wanted to be able to say I had lost a whole stone and reach the magic BMI number of 25. Well I have and more!
However, yesterday was a bit of a TWINKLE DAY.
Remember the tv series Dinner Ladies? Remember series 2 where Twinkle gets all skinny and goes to a slimming club? Well in one episode she is p*ssed off because another group member has lost more weight than usual because she found a 2 day old kebab in her bag AND ate it! With the resutling bad stomach she lost most lbs that week. Well yesterday I had my own TWINKLE episode, I ate a weight watchers frozen meal of the vegtable chilli variety.Phew, I am still paying for that one!
My children can still not tell that I have lost weight but my Doctor who doesn't see me that often noticed when I went for a re-assessment of the medication for my arthritis.

So..................What am I?

I am 12st 2lbs and a BMI of 24.3 and yet I still have a roll of fat around my stomach! AND weight watchers say that I can still lose up to 2 stone more. But my clothes all fit better.
Medical theory has it that a person who has arthritis feels better when they lose weight but that does not seem to be the case for me. My hips seem to be more painful when I lie down, could be the reduction in padding.

CONGRATULATIONS to Runningmans sister who passed
her finals and is now a fully qualified nurse and will be going to work in her local casualty.ONLY A JOB FOR THE BRAVE AND FEARLESS.

SO HE GOT HIS CANDY-ASS FIRED!

SORRY TOM, I AM CONFUSED. 'YOUR CONTRACT WAS NOT RENEWED BY MUTUAL AGREEMENT'. OK.
Hands up who feels sad for the boy.........ok please yourselves!
Oh sorry, I didn't see you alien's in the volcano at the back putting your hands up.



This is the basket that we gave to baby Hayden, SnoWhite's friend's baby. It includes the crocheted blanket that I made called,'Little Boy Blue'.
Fiona didn't want her face in the photograph so I obliged.
I love teenagers!

When she is a rich and famous designer and she has her photograph splashed over every celebrity magazine I shall remind her of this photograph.









Sorry the photos of the kitchen took so long. As explained ,
I had to move the furniture out of the room by the kitcken
door as the builders are coming in september to put in
a door between the backroom and the middle room.


Less room of course but it is ok. Sorting out what is left in the room is a long and arduous task.
Beauty of course is now fascinated with sitting at the kitchen table, just like a little puppy!










I shall now have to find a new place to put my over large station clock that used to be on the wall where the shelves now are. No problem.
If I bought a new clock I would have to find somewhere to put it!( I have perfect logic, that's because I am a woman!)
The logic of a woman who prefers clocks, mirrors and paintings to Jimmy Choos, yes there are some of out there who could not pay£400 for a pair of shoes. I would suffer
shock if I had to pay over £50 for a pair of shoes.






Two of Ariels birthday cards.



The baby card is from Ariel's friend Shoo, she is a star and I love her to bits.















The 2nd card is from Fiona and yes SnoWhite I did make you wear a green check dress in the 90's that was from the 80's and the sooner you get to grips with retro Kitsch and just be grateful that I didn't dress you in ra-ra skirts or MC Hammer trousers or shoulder pads the better. Hell girl you're an art student , what did you want me to dress you like? Miss Preppie USA! A Madonna Mini-ME! You're just jealous that I got to wear hot-pants and a kaftan the first time around!(Go figure it out-I am officially old!).

TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED!

MORAL OF THIS STORY- ALWAYS EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED.

I know I am getting old-keeping up with Beauty proves it. At 5am(which is not a bad time), Beauty came slamming(no not slammin') out of her bedroom. 5am wake-up calls are not usually that bad but 0-60mph in 2 seconds can really be a shock to the system. So with Beauty in tow I go to the kitchen to get her another Tippee as her night time drink has already been drunk. Whilst making the drink Beauty is going quietly nuts beside me and being an adult I assume that I know the reason why. I assume the 'going nuts' behaviour is because she wants the drink NOW! Oh the arrogance of being an adult who who thinks they now best. On passing the Tippee it instantly becomes a missile that just misses my head, my Le creu set pans and my sink which scratches if you so much as look at it. Legend has it that before you die your life flashes before your eyes well I saw perfectly in a' blink of a Hooby eye' the Tippee connecting with whatever and the lid exploding off-soaking me and the kitchen floor. As I have said before many times, I am not psychic and can not see through my ass(though it is big enough!) and the Tippee came to land upright on a T towel on the draining board!Whew!
Q-So why 0-60 in 2 seconds?
A-Because one of the tapes on her nappy had come undone and she wanted it done backup.
WELL..........she only had to tell me! or better still Beauty is not stupid, she could have done it up herself or even better-forget nappies altogether and just use the toilet!
MORAL OF THE STORY
Aways expect the unexpected and never assume ANYTHING with an Autistic 5 year old.
This reminds me of a book I once read. The Nun's Story which was made into a film starring Audrey Hepburn. I bought the book years ago in a charity shop and I have read it a number of times. The young nun who is recently qualified as a nurse goes to work in a mental health institution in Belgium. The institution is run by the sisters of her order and they have to work day and night shifts so they do not always follow the daytime routine of the convent as they have to sleep after a night shift. The other nuns say that you can tell the ones who are nurses as their eyes are always darting around, a habit from taking care of unpredictable patients.
One night the young nurse goes on duty and looks through the glass door of the ward to see a fellow nurse 'asleep' at the nurses station. Not wanting to get the nun into trouble she rattles the door and makes a noise before entering but the nun does not wake up as she is dead with a knife in her back. The other nun had probably fallen asleep for a few seconds and forgotten her Guide promise about being prepared(or is that Scouts?) As a nurse, working nights, I was never able to sit unless my back was to a wall. Nothing ever happened but that book had scared me into a state of preparedness, thankfully my book was like Holby City and Casualty, never like that in real life.

BORING DAY, BORING BLOG.........SORRY!

Tiring day spent doing boring housework(Yes Anthea, BORING). I re-arranged the kitchen to fit the dry cuoboard and the Ikea white box shelf so the builders can get into the room next to the back door to put the door in between the two rooms. I couldn't imagine a more fun filled day!

Last night the film 'Fire Down Below' was on starring Steven Seagal so I had to watch it( I love kick ass move fims). I was surprised to see the actor Harry Dean Stanton in it, he plays Roman Grant in Big Love. I was totally shocked to find out that he is 80 years old this year, I would have put him in his late 50's. He has a very weathered face but it doen't make him look aged.

Sorry, boring day, boring blog! I really feel tired and unwell and my back and neck have been hurting really badly for the last two days, I must be grateful it is not the West Nile disease which Blurbomat thought he had. Lets just call it Beauty-doesn't-sleep-well-and runs-me-ragged-disease!

HEALTHY EATING UPDATE
I have been waiting to say that I have lost a whole stone and that I have reached 12 st 9lbs because this is a magic number as it means I will be 25 on the BMI, the top end of healthy. But our notorious, pain in the ass scales are not co-operating. Last night I weighed myself and it said I was 12st 10lbs and so I thought GREAT, next stop 12st 9lbs but no! this morning the scales say that I am 12st 3lbs..........no matter how many times I weigh myself. Now that means they are definitely broken!
Last night I tried on a dress that I haven't worn in a while and it fitted me great. I have this really unattractive fat-back thing going on and now that I have lost weight the top of my dress fits brilliantly. I can also tell that I have lost weight off my face, I'm just waiting for someone to notice my weight loss. My children are too close to me to notice, I think I could streak through the Millenium stadium with a red dragon tatooed on my ass and they wouldn't notice as long as there was enough food in the fridge and freezer to keep them happy.

BLESSINGS ON THE CHILD

SHE SLEPT 'TIL 9AM! THANKYOU, THANKYOU, THANKYOU!

Last night Beauty fell asleep at about 11pm and I went to bed at midnight but sleep was not forthcoming due to to really bad pain in my right hip. I lay there for about 1/2 an hour trying to psych the pain out(ok it works sometimes!) but at 1/4 to 1 I gave up when I started thinking about morphine based injections. So I took my painkillers and crocheted for about an hour whilst watching, wait for it........Supernatural! Probably randomly placed to fill some early morning slot on tv, it was the episode where the Striger(I think that is what he is called) takes the form of a doctor to steal the essence of children. Sam, Dean and their Dad had previously encountered the Striger approximately 17 years earlier when the Striger had tried to steal Sam's essence. When Sam hears the story from Dean as he himself was too young to remember, Sam says he now understands why Dean obeys their Dad without question, and Dean's reaction, 'please kill me now'. That boy needs to get in touch with his feelings before Meg and her posse mess with them.
I fell asleep after an hour or so but within approximately ten minutes of falling asleep Beauty was yelping for a drink, I was so tired and dizzy from lack of sleep and probably the painkillers that I almost tripped across the kitchen floor. All I could think of was if she awoke properly before 7am then I would be crying, she slept in until 9am and I really did not feel too bad.
THANKYOU, THANKYOU ,THANKYOU.

WHY ARE DVDs BETTER THAN VIDEOS?
Because you can't play a DVD constantly on rewind! Yesterday in Asda(Walmart without the guns for the US family)I found an episode of Barney on DVD so now I do not have to watch that wierd little friend of Barneys coming down a fireman's pole repeatedly whilst on a journey trying to find 'blankey'!
Also in Asda yesterday I found 410g s cans(tin of ordinary size beans can size) of strawberrys in fruit juice(not syrup) for 35p. For something to thrill me in this way it shows how exciting my life is! As part of my healthy eating I prefer to eat fruit for breakfast but preparing fresh fruit first thing is really too tiring and too much effort after sleepless nights so opening a can of fruit(in fruit juice remember...no syrup) is so much easier. Asda also sell tins of guava and plums in syrup, are they mad. I would love to buy the tinned guava, do they really think that the people who would eat the guava would really want it in syrup?
I will reveal my weight on friday, hopefully I will have lost a whole stone. When I hit that weight I will also hit 25 0n the BMI scale and for me that is the top end of healthy.
I stick to a an eating plan though I do vary the actual contents daily.
BREAKFAST
Bread- to take tablets
Fruit- today a mix of fruit salad and strawberries
LUNCH
Weight Watchers meal with lots and lots of veg, yesterday I had carrots, green beans and mushrooms. I also like brocoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussel sprouts and swede.
EVENING MEAL
Sir fry using LOW spray
Usually a combination of aubergine,tomatoes, peppers, onions and courgettes.
Vegatable stock cube
SNACKS
No more than 2 weight watchers fromage frais a day

*NEWSFLASH*




OH MY G*D!

'TEN DEAD IN MOSCOW MARKET BLAST'

This is Izmailovo market in Moscow. I have been there at least 2-3 times and if I ever went back to Moscow it is a place that I would love to visit-I am very shocked. I would love to return to Russia but this is just too scarey.
We visited Anastasia for her 21st Birthday when she was doing her Uni year in Russia. We went to Moscow and St Petersburg and whilst we were in Moscow we stayed at the Izmailovo hotel, we could see the Izmailovo market from our room and we visited it 2-3 times as it was a minutes walk from the hotel. The Izmailovo hotels were built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the athletes stayed there and it was a great hotel with brilliant room service(bargainous).
Only recently I thought the world was getting better and soon I might be able to visit Israel(well look what happened there!). Now it seems that a return to Moscow is not going to be anytime soon. So I'm going to settle for Austria, so Austria please behave yourself and everyone else just leave them alone.

How to fold a shirt!!!

ARE WE COOL OR WHAT?

WHAT THE COOL PEOPLE DO AT 1.30AM ON A SUNDAY MORNING!
Party?
Stumble home drunk?
Watch a DVD curled up on your sofa with George Clooney?
NO!
No the really cool people learn the Japaneese art of T shirt folding. SnoWhite was on the computer when I told her the latest thing I had seen Anthea doing( SnoWhite mentioned that she thinks Anthea has too much time on her hands-I agree)..........Japaneese T shirt folding, so to keep me happy she searched Youtube for T shirt folding and we found a brilliant video. We then spent the next 10 minutes T shirt folding until myself, SnoWhite and Fiona had a basic ability to T shirt fold.
Hilarious.......sure beats getting p*ssed and no headache in the morning. Pity I don't have very many T shirts and the ones I do have I wear to bed and Japaneese folding is too good for them and you have to iron the T shirt for it to work properly anyway and sorry Anthea even if you were coming to visit I would not be ironing my for-bed T shirts. And Beauty's T shirts are finished off in the tumble dryer and so I don't have to iron them either. I am sure that SnoWhite and Fiona however will delight in Japaneese folding all of their T shirts!

Saturday night so I took the girls for chips, I bought Beauty her very own piece of fish. Absolutely no tomato sauce involed she ate all of it apart from a few really rough bits and bones. Beauty was totally silent for about half an hour whilst she ate. Any one who knows Beauty knows that her gob goes into overdrive after 8pm, you can set your watch by it and it can be almost impossible to hear tv or even yourself think as she chats and sings to herself. Not a peep, she was absolutelt thrilled with her food. I was happy too as I was able to watch The Transporter and Jason Statham in peace. Oh my-oh-my he is gorgeous, I loved him in Mean Machine and Snatch but here the whole black bodyguard suit thing going on was amazing.
Now lusting after Jensen Ackles from Supernatural is wrong as he is only 28 and he has this man/boy thing going on where you simultaneously want to lurve him and mother him whilst
Jason Statham is 35 and my-oh-my he is all man.
Have you seen his kick-ass moves? He was also an olympic diver-he certainly has hidden talents.
I think the object of my affection George Clooney may have been replaced.

WHEN TO GET A LIFE?

WHEN YOU SPEND YOUR DAY THINKING UP HATEMAILS!
Who does that?
I read DOOCES latest blog entry this morning (Friday 18 August) and I never cease to be amazed at the hatemail that she gets and the horrible things that people say. I believe that these people should go and do something more useful like stop taking all those drugs or see a doctor and get a legal prescription. My blog is a little blog, an un-noticed in the world kind of blog and there to communicate with my children kind of blog and after reading DOOCES hatemail I like it that my blog is that kind of blog. The woman has cancer and they accuse her of whining! They accuse her of talking too much about her child, her dog and the mormon church...........I am sure I didn't get it wrong but isn't she a housewife with a 2 year old, a dog and family who are members of the mormon church? You have just got to love the nut jobs of the world, they are not sent to try us but to entertain us. My life would be so less full without the likes of Tom Cruise, Sinead OConner, Imran Khan, Ruth Kelly........oh stop me please!

SnoWhite is in the process of moving out so there is a lot of reorganizing going on upstairs. Yesterday Fiona moved(well tried and failed miserably anyway) a wardrobe from her room to SnoWhites room. Fiona sounds as if she has elephants helping her to help sort ou her room. Yesterday one of the elephants must have sat down on strike in the room as there was an almighty bump from the room and a smoke detector on the ceiling below fell off! I chose not to go and investigate-I can live without that kind of verbal attack. A few minutes later Fiona emegred unscathed so all is well in zion.




Here is my latest healthy eating production.
Yum Yum Yum!
I love food, especially vegtables.

ARMAND, LUIS AND ANGEL-ANGELS OR DEMONS?

YOU DECIDE!

July 9th 2004 George W Bush said, 'GOD SPEAKS THROUGH ME'.
That's fine with me, Mr Bush believes in his God and his God talks through him. I am pleased for the man that he has a belief in something and it aids his coping mechanisms. It is something I wish I still had.
Yet a judge in the Philippines who talks to three 'imaginary' dwarves loses his job. This judge never claimed that the dwarves influenced his actions but helped him in healing sessions. It was decided that the judge was suffering from a psychosis. Was Joan of Arc? Bernadette of Lourdes? Those at Fatima? No? So why is it ok for a christian world to hear God, a being we cannot see or touch but a Philippine judge who believes something else has a psychosis!
We live in an increasingly secular world and many believe in alternative belief structures, are they all suffering from a psychosis?
Some people believe in spirit guides and angels, is that who Armand, Luis and Angel the dwarves are?
Native Americans believe in spirit guides and so do many other cultures around the world, do they all have a psychosis? This judge believes he was being helped spiritually on a personal level, surely to sack him would be religious discrimination. Perhaps if the judge went into the court room with a gun and shot all the lawyers and the bad guys and said, 'the dwarves told me to', then you would be safe in saying that the judge and his dwarf friends were Loop-the-Loop.
Personally I think I would prefer to be friends with the trio of dwarves who just want to help heal people, 'imaginary' or not.
Do you believe the judge is sane?
Maybe ........... maybe not, he also believes that it is his purpose to cleanse the Philippine justice system of corruption(now that's ok) and calling down illnesses on his tormentors! Now that's not nice...I just hope the dwarves are not involved in the tormenting!

P.S. The judge insists that he never said they were 'dwarves' or of restricted growth, that was said by a tormentor!

Talking of tormentors....Beauty has been awake since approvimately 4.45am, thanks to a momma of all storms, thunder, lightning and enough rain to scare Mrs Noah into bringing the washing in. I personally like storms but I find it un-nerving when beauty insists on playing with the DVD and tv whilst standing in the window. Great May, June and July but a wash-out of an August, here's hoping for an Indian summer.


ON BEING STUPID
I just get to the point where I think,'no I'm not stupid, just pretty average', then Blurbomat posts another entry on his blog that I only understand barely half of and I think,' is it just me?'
Blurbomat is very funny, sarcastic, highly caustic and very intelligent and his blog entries are brilliant but half of it is wooooooosh.......way over my head. What is a MacPro? Ransom note typeography? A feed reader?
I feel more and more like Marjean from Big Love every day, however, even though I feel like her I still know when the first Gulf war happened. And, unlike Imogen from Big Brother '06 I know the definition of the word SABOTAGE. I should give my degree certificate back( perhaps if I could find it).

UPDATE ON BEAUTY TRICK LIST
At 1:38im GMT Beauty tried to get into the washing machine, backwards!
I am glad Beauty cannot reach the tumble dryer( thankyou Pollyanna!)

ONLY IN WALES!

How many people in Wales speak Welsh? Obviously not many in the Vale of Glamorgan Council hence this mistake being blamed on an online translation service which they say must have confused cyclist for cystitis, of course this is the kind of mistake I make everyday. NOT.
I love living in Wales.


I JUST PUT BARNEY IN THE VIDEO PLAYER!
Yes it was me and why you may ask............. well, sanity intact, it is because Beauty was watching Lazy Town. Lazy Town is wierd but good but Beauty was becoming hysterical at Robbie Rotten dressed as a cow trying unsuccessfully to get into the mailbox! I have no idea why, I know my children see me as the fountain of all knowledge and get quite put out when I don't know everything and I tell them to 'Googgle it'(and yes Google I do mean Google as it is my favourite search engine) but this one was a mystery........any light shedding would be helpful.

Life was so much easier when I was Beauty's age, very few childrens programmes and all very predictable. This was one of my favourites, Sara and Hoppity. Sara's Dad had a toy hospital and Sara used to help him, Hoppity was an old toy that had been brought in. Hoppity was old and missing one leg when he came in and Sara's Dad had put on a leg slightly shorter, hence the name Hoppity.




I am so pleased that the someone has been arrested for the murder of JonBennet Ramsey, the family complained that they were wrongly persecuted because of what had happened and they were not responsible. I remember a program about the case and it portrayed the family as evasive and refusing to be interviewed by police. At the time all I wanted was for them to be interviewed properly and to be found not guilty and everyone to know the family were not guilty, I really wanted them to co-operate fully and just show people they were not guilty. But they wouldn't. I will be really glad when there is a trial to show who was really guilty. A parent killing a child is an unimaginable thing and any evidence that could prove this not to be so would be wonderful.

HEALTHY EATING UPDATE
Years ago I read about when Jane Fonda first started her healthy eating and how she described her children's birthday cakes as a healthy, heavy lumps and how she learned that enjoying yourself at celebrations with massive sugary creations was ok and IMPORTANT! Well for Ariel's birthaday I fancied the maltesers(me who only fancies chocolate about twice a year!) so I had some and they were lovely and healthy eating is back on track.
No guilt just a chocolate memory.
I look in the mirror and I see weight loss in my face and it is not my imagination, I used to hate the mosaic mirror in the downstairs bathroom(really,really hate) because my face looked huge but now my face looks fine. Fiona says she can't see the difference but then she says she can't remember me looking fat at 18 stone, it must be love. I LOVE KIDS.

CREAM CRACKERED

I was so busy yesterday with Ariel's party that I didn't get a chance to blog. I am so glad that I cleaned the garden last night as today I could not have managed it( and it is peeing down). Ariel had a Trailer Park Princess party in the back garden and as I have said before, anyone who has seen my back garden will agree, it is tiny. Due to the extension our garden is half the size of everyone elses, so we put Beauty's toys on the extension roof(house, cooker, car and chair). I don't know what the neighbours must have thought. SnoWhite exited the house via the back bedroom window and pulled everything up onto the roof(she loved it!).She asked if it was safe to be on the roof and I told her what the builders had told me,'you could have a party up there'. Big mistake, they wanted the party on the roof! It may have been a trailer park theme but Tescos sell a lot of Hawaian theme party decorations so we were able to use those, we had lanterns, balloons, streamers, alligators, limbo pole etc.
Fiona cooked the cake, it was beautiful. Chocolate heaven, complete with maltesers and chocolate fingers! All the 'moose' came and Steve. And no Grace BB, you will never be cool enougth to be a' moose'! Highlight of the party...... 'Shoo' trying to kill the Pianata! Oh and the moose falling on the pinata contents (cool 16, 17, 18 year olds-it was quite sweet) and shoo counting her stash. Shoo's hair looked brilliant, more bayou than trailer park but it was brilliant.
This morning I must truly look like a trailer park Mom, hair...pre-brush fluff, pj's-shorts and top and Khaki jacket(it's cold!) and flip flops!
When we came in last night from dropping Ariel and SnoWhite off at their respective homes, Fiona put Beauty to bed, I found Beauty in bed this morning complete with sandels and jacket on! Fiona you are a star!
HEALTHY EATING UPDATE
First goal achieved, I am no longer 13 stone something but 12 stone something......hurrah!
My next goal will be 12st 9lbs as I will have lost 1 stone AND I will reach a BMI of 25, which means that I will be at the top end of a healthy weight. If I look sideways into the mirror I can see that the weight has come off my trunk. Belle phoned last night and frightened me by saying that the wedding would be in september, september 2007 thank goodness, time to save and slim. I will be a size 12.

PRINCESS OF THE TRAILER PARK

If Ariel had a hearing problem then that might be the reason why she is so loud but she insists her hearing is fine so I have to control my desire to tape her mouth shut. She really makes Beauty nervous at times and me for that matter. Ariel will be 17 tomorrow, I could have sworn she was only 12.
Busy day tomorrow as we will be preparing for the Trailer Park party for Ariel's 17th birthday, hot dogs and burgers, crisps and pop(really classy!).


HEALTHY EATING UPDATE
Scales had a bit of an emotional moment this morning and tried to tell me I was 15 st 10lbs! After a shot of verbal valium it calmed down and told me that I am continuing to lose weight and I am on track to be a size 12 for the wedding. I have a t shirt style sundress which I wear as a nightie and last time I wore it it was tight around the stomach and uncomfortable and now it is not tight and uncomfortable. Yippee!
I am sure that people who are not fat think that it is easy to diet and wonder why fat people like me do not just diet, well the biggest problem that I have is lack of incentive. If I could SEE where the fat had gone from it wouldn't be so bad and whilst I am trying to lose weight I am still fat and you start to think....why bother? I just get some days where I want to go out and scream in the street,'I USED TO BE A SIZE 8'. Not that the locals would care.

SUPERNATURAL OR APOLLO 13? NO COMPETITION!

A little bit of compensation for SnoWhite

Life for SnoWhite is officially not fair, last night's double bill of Supernatural did not appear as was expected and in it's place was the film Apollo 13! I'm sorry.....Apollo13 or Supernatural? no competiton, Supernatural wins hands down. I am still considering counselling for SnoWhite, to get her through the grieving process. I however was compensated with seeing about half of the film The Peacemaker which contained my all time love George Clonney.....it is all in the eyes (oh and he looks lovely in his dress uniform at the end). Hubba Hubba!
HEALTHY EATING UPDATE
Weighing scales are still working perfectly or just plain lying to me as they continue to tell me that I am steadily losing weight. At this rate I will HAVE TO join a weight watchers group just for the thrill of someone saying,'Wow you're doing so well'. It is nice to feel some benefit straight away with the flattening of my stomach, all I need now are for my 'shot putting' arms to go(and then my upper body fat and my leg fat......well everything really!)My 'mother's apron' is disappearing and only the sides really still exist. A size 12 is me, A size 12 I will be.
I always find the 1st week easy but by the time the 2nd week comes it all catches up with me and all I want is to binge on carbohydrates. I am not hungry now but I could devour a packet of crumpets or 4 pieces of butter dripping thick toast or a six pack of crisps or a full British breakfast. I love food.
I went to get a can of grapefruit salad out of the fridge and guess what idiot here has done....... I went and bought the in syrup kind, oh well Running man will eat them( with all his running calories do not touch the sides and when he has fresh grapefruit he loads it with sugar, all I can say is yuk.I hate the feel of sugar on my teeth, I hate the feel of sand on my teeth more though and that happens a lot with Beauty as she loves to sling sand around. When I walk around the house in bare feet I can always feel sand. However I do have a nice fresh melon in the fridge.......yummy.

THE FACE OF DISGRACE

Penultimate week of Big Brother and I never cease to be amazed at how fame hungry people can be. Horse-face Grace has no shame and did not care a fig that she was boo'd excessively because of her behaviour and her nastiness, she just so wants to be famous. Even with the fact that she knew Ashlyne disliked her because of what Grace had done to Suzy, Grace still wanted to go back into the Big Brother house. I am so glad that I KNOW that none of my girls EVER have the capacity to be like Grace. I was so pleased that the crowd chanted Lea's name and were nice to her because she is very sensetive to the publics opinion. The reunion of Nicky and Pete was the thing of fairy stories and it was very sweet, very rarely does Big Brother have anything nice like that and it has been a particularly nasty year. Roll on the eviction night drama. My predictions for the final
#1-Pete
#2-Nicky
#3-Glyn
#4-Richard
#5-Ashlyne
#6-Jennie
BUT as with politics .......... a week is a long time.
Remember Eugene? Well he might have won but public opinion was swayed by the fact that he took half the prize money. Heck I would have taken it too! No problemo.
When we went to Turkey a waiter was touting his restaurant by telling punters that they had Big Brother live and when I asked who the latest evictee was the waiter told me that he was surprised that someone my age would be interested in Big Brother, perhaps it was my zimmer frame, inconti pads and false teeth falling out on the pavement that threw him! Or it could have been the fact that in a country where men are #1 the fact that I spoke to him was more than he could cope with so he was sarcastic to me ! Nah, nobody would be that childish.
NEWSFLASH
SnoWhite has taken possession of her new flat and she spent her first night there. Her flat is very good, a large lounge with a kitchen, a fair sized bedroom and a shower room and SnoWhite seems HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY. Hopefully by the end of the week her room here will be empty and I can get to work on decorating it for Beauty. I need to plaster the walls, paint the ceiling and the floor, new skirting and radiator cover and hey presto.........finished!.
HEALTHY EATING UPDATE
My scales are still working properly and I am still sticking to my healthy eating. I made my pasta sauce with vegtables and herbs and it was so much better than the spicy weight watchers variety. At 11pm I so needed a snack(but I know I wasn't hungry) so I had a tin of raspberries in fruit juice and they tasted lovely and it is amazing how good you feel just knowing that you are not eating food filled with fat. I know they were tinned but at 11pm I was not going out to find fresh ones!
My fave breakfast at the moment is grapefruit and of course my bread for my tablets.
My mantra of encouragement is A SIZE 12 IS ME. A SIZE 12 I WILL BE
Poetry is a bit basic but if it does the trick who needs Shakespeare or Browning or Tennyson.
Serious searching for Mother of the Bride clothes has begun!

Love Me For What I Am

I AM ME AND YOU ARE YOU

'LOVE ME FOR WHAT I AM. FOR SIMPLY BEING ME'

HEALTHY EATING UPDATE
DAY 1 healthy eating going fine-bread and fruit for breakfast, 2 weight watchers meals with loads of boiled and stir fry vegtables, lots of water and 2 weight watchers yoghurts. Oh and an options drink at approximately 11am.
Every time I thought about snacking I thought ,'Am I hungry?' and I realised that I never was.
At the end of the day, even though I wasn't hungry, I was thinking about all the wonderful things that I would eat. I could have happily eaten a three course meal and managed it easily but I know I wasn't hungry. I must have a stomach stretched to the size of a football! I do not eat because I am bored and I do not comfort eat, I eat because I love food.
This morning my stomach feels so much smaller(probably initial water loss) and my weighing scales still seem to be working properly and have recorded a loss (yes I know it is that water).
However, I will not be buying the weight watchers meals again as they had way too many spices in them for me, I shall make my own pasta sauce meals and only add herbs.
Any further healthy eating updates will be relegated to the bottom of the page as it is not really a very exciting subject but I promise I will make a big thing of it when I become a size 12!
I watched a program on tv last night called Far Beauty contest and all the contestents were size 16*, it was a brilliant programme. Until I was 25 I was a size 8 and after Beauty I was a size 22, after going to weight watchers I got down to a 14-16 and now I want to be a size 12. I really understood how all these girls were feeling. When you are fat people ignore you because they think you are stupid to let yourself get so fat. Lots of people would love to be able to say,' I have health problems that make me fat', well newsflash my Dercums makes it impossible for me to lose all of my fat as the fat is encapsulated and so they are benign tumours. And does the fact that I know I have an illness that stops me losing all my excess weight make it any better? Heck no....in fact it makes it worse as I feel that I have to work twice as hard as everyone else.
I also want to live a long and healthy life so I can be there for all my children....hence the healthy eating.
The program Fat Beauty contest encouraged the women to be happy with their body and I think that is very important, yes we are fat people and one day we may lose weight but we need to be happy now, happiness isn't just for people who are a size 6.


Charlotte Coyle the organiser of Beauty Reborn, the pageant for larger women
























Why have I never looked like this?
Because I have my father's genetics I have always
looked more like a Russian shotputter?
There's nothing wrong with Russian shotputters,
I just want to look more feminine than an athlete
in action
Mother of Many x

EAT, DRINK AND BE HEALTHY

Tigger has been bouncing since 5am and is singing along with her DVD. 'I Hear Thunder' seems to be her fave song at the moment closely followed by 'The Muffin Man'. Perhaps if she listened more to songs like 'Rock A Bye Baby' she might want to sleep more, YEH WHATEVER!
As the old adage says , 'There's nothing like an execution at dawn to concentrate the mind' or something along those lines anyway. A wedding in the spring(new date!) can certainly do that for you. Healthy eating has begun! Not diet...
Bread and fruit for breakfast( bread to take my tablets)
Weight Watchers meals with lots of extra vegtables for lunch and dinner
Weight Watchers yoghurt for snacks
Lots of water(ready and cooling in the fridge)
Even the scales seem to be on my side as they worked properly for once and didn't tell me I was 5 stone heavier than I really am.
The Weight Watchers chart says that I can lose 4 stone but that would be in the alternate universe where crisps contain no calories, I am married to George Clooney and there is World Peace. My goal at the moment is dress size reduction....I want to be a size 12.
Another example of how I know Beauty knows what is going on........
At 9pm I got up to use the downstairs bathroom, Beauty saw me going so she rushed to get my shoes, thinking she was just being helpful I put them on and carried on to the bathroom. Just as I was completing my trip to the bathroom(all my dignity covered!) Beauty slams the door open to check I was still there. Of course I then realise that Beauty knows what time it is and thinks that I am leaving to take Running man home without her and she is not going to let that happen!
I head back to the living room and sit down for another 15 minutes and I can see that Beauty's stress level subsides rapidly.When I call her to go in the car she is up like a shot and all is well.
This kid knows exactly what is going on.
Beauty knows all the words of all the children's songs, even the ones that I make up for her. In the car I sang, ' Twinkle , Twinkle little star, My mum drives a big black ......' and I left off the last word and Beauty finished the line by singing the word CAR. She's such a clever girl.
In the end quite a poorly day, such an early start left me feeling really ill. When Fiona got up I was able to go for a lie down but with very little rest as the neighbours-of-the-noisy-kind were being Noisy. I know I didn't rest very well as I was dreaming constantly, it was like watching the film 'From Dusk 'Till Dawn' when the Vampires or whatever they are appear in the film and you say to yourself,'well I didn't see that one coming'.My dream was a long dream with lots of wierd things happening with no real connections...... the main part of the dream was me and a group of other people who believed that we had aquired an illness that would allow us to time travel and we wanted to be tested for it! I also dreamed that I ended up in a tent with Pete from Big Brother and there was no sign of his Tourettes! How I long for deep rem sleep.........
Finally I have finished my blanket for Hayden, I shall call it,' little boy blue', I have started my next blanket and it is in earth colours and it is for Beau's mother. Hey Anastasia do you think I shoud make one for the mother of our continental family?Let me know, no is fine but they do have cold winters!
Mother of Many x