Meal Planning Monday #1

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I've never taken part in this before but have long read the contributions of The Five Fs and GeekMummy with interest and a note to try it the next week. However, this week I'm doing it. There are a number of reasons for this:

  1. I have recently lost my imagination and my desire to cook, therefore beginning to eat a great big pile of stodge and take-aways as a matter of course. This is not healthy for my body, my wallet or my fridge. The food waste bin is happily consuming the good food that I'm buying and can't be bothered to cook. I think this stems from being shattered when I come in from work and not having the brain-power to concoct something. If I plan it then I have no excuse (and neither does my husband! Hint, hint).
  2. As previously mentioned, I'm wasting food and money. I don't like wasting food, it goes against what I was brought up to do, is wasteful of the Earth's resources and, at a time when Mr. TheBoyandMe and I are trying to save money, is incredibly wasteful. On Saturday, I threw away; half a brie, a bag of salad, three carrots, a cucumber, five vitality health drinks, a block of goat's cheese and some leftover baked beans. That's ridiculous!
  3. I need to lose weight, and rather than diet (which never works for me), I'd rather take control of the content of the food we eat and monitor the fats and sugars going in. I need to eat more fruit and vegetables, this will help.
  4. Final point, my mother's complaining that she doesn't know what to give The Boy for lunch (when I work) because she doesn't know what he's had the night before or is going to have. Now she has no excuse, especially as I've written it on the blackboard in the kitchen!

I know that this plan should probably start on a Monday, but for me the week starts on a Sunday so that's when mine does. Work days are italicised. For those who can't read my 'teacher's whiteboard handwriting', it says:

Wish me luck at sticking to it!

—

I'm linking this up to Meal Planning Monday over at At Home With Mrs. M.

The Boy Wears…

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Here comes a truth: when it comes to children's clothing I'm a little bit of a snob. I'm particular in what The Boy wears, or more importantly, what he doesn't wear.

I don't like dressing my son in bright and loud colours and I don't like mini-men clothing. He is two years old and I'd like him to look like the child that he is. I am not in a rush to age him prematurely and dress him in shirts, waistcoats and ties, just so he can look like a smaller version of an adult male: he's two! I also dislike character clothing. I refuse to allow my child to be a walking advert for the latest popular television show, he may as well wear a sandwich board with the television channel and a time written on it.

When he was under 24 months old, finding clothes that fitted this bill was relatively easy. The high-street stores and online shops were full of sweet, baby-blue and soft-coffee coloured clothes that allowed him to look stylish but cute and babylike at the same time. Then all of a sudden he turned two years old and he had to wear faded and 'aged' denim, bright colours (which don't suit him) and be older than his delicate years.

Luckily, one of my favourite stores for buying baby clothes has maintained the same classic styles in their little boy ranges that are indicative of their general ethos. But then you can't go wrong with fashion influenced by the French. Vertbaudet (the children's division of La Redoute) is where I bought many of his dungarees, jumpers and cardigans when he was a baby…

Classic navy and white pinstriped dungarees with sensible poppers on the inside, I was devastated when he outgrew them.

Now, however, I can buy clothes like this for him instead…

Which is just as cute and will look much better than having his stomach emblazoned with a pig, train or sports car.

Empowerment: Pass It On

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Today is International Women's Day. Last year I didn't understand the point of it, we live in a modern society where women have the same rights as a man, and conditions in the workplace are basically the same. However, this year I understand a little more as to why it's important, because while most women in Britain have these basic rights, there are still a great deal, a quarter, who do not have the freedom of others.

Back in August this year I wrote about the Avon and Refuge campaign to raise awareness about domestic violence. In this post today? No extra nifty little anecdotes here, the subject deserves to be read for what it is.

Domestic violence is not about a row going wrong or someone losing control.

  • One woman in four will experience domestic violence at some point in her life.
  • Up to two women are killed by current or former partners every week in England and Wales.
  • Every single day in the UK, 30 women attempt suicide as a result of domestic violence.
  • The police receive a domestic violence call every minute in the UK.
  • In 90% of domestic violence incidents in family households children are in the same or the next room. 50% of those children are directly abused.
  • Only 16% of domestic violence incidents are reported to the police – the majority of women suffer in silence.

Domestic abuse can be physical, emotional, financial or sexual.

This is why today Aleisha Dickson, who has personally been affected by domestic violence during her childhood, has teamed up with Avon to become its Beauty and Empowerment Ambassador. Today she has helped to launch the cosmetics new Empowerment necklace and Pass It On campaign.

The necklace costs £3.50 and the proceeds will go directly to Avon's charity partners Refuge and Women's Aid to fund support services to women and children who have suffered from domestic violence. Avon has already donated £1 million just in the UK alone through sales of products like the necklace.

And here it is…

I'm wearing this necklace due to an idea from the marvellous Mummy Mishaps who explains why I'm wearing it here:

"I want to help the Pass It On campaign via my blog and I have an idea. 

I am going to open up a linky and I will send this necklace onto another blogger and she needs to take a photo of herself wearing it and link the photo back here and then she needs to pass it on to another blogger who needs to do the same and so on."

I'm sending this necklace on to Yummy Mummy Flabby Tummy who will be helping to publicise this campaign to help empower women and break the cycle of domestic violence.

 

Bluestone Responds

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About a month ago we went away to Bluestone Resort, west Wales for a much needed recuperative break after the ghastly Novovirus had hit the entire family. The five-star resort with an excellent reputation was a natural choice as it's only an hour and a half down the road from us, and the lack of commercialism is exactly the type of thing we look for when searching for a relaxing break.

Unfortunately, two rather important errors in the accommodation during our stay, prompted me to write this blog-post sharing the failures, and successes, that happened to us that weekend. It seems I find it very difficult to go anywhere now without my review hat on. I e-mailed them the link and waited to see what would happen.

I received a phonecall within a few days from one of their customer service representatives who assured me that my complaints had been referred to the board of directors and were being investigated fully. He was incredibly sincere and co-operative, and I thank him for his attention. I've since had this e-mail which I thought I'd share part of it with you:

I am writing in response to your correspondence regarding your recent visit to Bluestone.  Please be assured that we have taken your comments on board.  We value your thoughts as we operate within a culture of continuous improvement at Bluestone and without our customer feedback, we would not be able to fulfil our objectives, which is to improve our standard of services from one guest to the next. 

Thank you for your honest review of Bluestone. We would like to take this opportunity to thank for the depth and detail that you have included.

I am very pleased to hear that you were happy with the Adventure Centre facilities and the Customer service you received during your stay with us. I have passed on your comments to the relevant departments who are delighted to receive them.

With regards to your buggy hire, the current rate is £70 for your stay. The daily rate is only available to guests already staying on park and is not available to pre-book as the buggies are subject to availability.

Please accept my sincerest apologies for the level of cleanliness of your accommodation. This certainly is not the standard that we expect at Bluestone. I have been in touch with our Housekeeping Manager who has assured me that the toilet area is included on their check list, however it does appear that this was unfortunately missed in your accommodation. This issue has been highlighted to all supervisors and all members of staff have now been re-briefed to ensure this type of incident does not happen again

I have noted your comments relating to the mattresses. Our new lodges (Gateholm lodges) which are currently in the completion stages do contain new and different mattresses to the ones used in our current lodges; we also have an ongoing renovation program of all lodges during which we are replacing mattresses in all current lodges.

There was obviously some additional information relevant to our particular situation, which I won't be sharing. However, I am thoroughly impressed with the level of care and attention that Bluestone have given to our experience at their resort. I can accept that the dirty toilet was a one-off situation that slipped through the net, my main concern was the mattresses and so I've very pleased to see that they are replacing them all with a different type of mattress as part of their renovation process.

Well done Bluestone, my faith is restored!

Marks Out of Five

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Crispy seaweed should not have sugar in it. Crispy seaweed should be salty and you should need a glass of water after every mouthful because of it.

Today in work, one of the LSAs told us about the hygiene ratings of various take-aways and restaurants in our home-town. Our favourite Chinese take-away had a rating of 0. 0 out of 5, 5 being the highest, 0 being the lowest.

So yeah, our favourite Chinese is a bit scummy.

Therefore when Mr. TheBoyandMe suggested Chinese for tea, I relayed the story to him and we found the highest rated Chinese in town to have take-away from.

It cost £5 more. The crispy seaweed had sugar in it. The fried bean-curd was tough as old boots, and it had vegetables mixed in with it! The spring rolls were incinerated and the chips were like french fries.

If that's what hygiene does for you, give me rats' tails anyday!

Preserving Memories

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Seven years ago, a family member had a housefire. She had to leave the property quickly, and she was only able to grab her handbag on the way out the door. She stood in the street, next to her boyfriend, and watched the evidence of their life together go up in smoke. Ever since then when she lost all her possessions, including every photo, I've been pretty meticulous on backing up our photos (every month or two) onto a portable hard-drive which we keep by the front door in case we need to grab it in an emergency.

However, this habit has resulted in something quite sad happening; I never seem to print out my photos anymore. I have thousands and thousands of photos, yet only a handful that I can actually physically touch. I therefore made a conscious decision last year to start displaying my photographs more. And I don't have to have them in frames on every wall, there are a variety of ways I've used our photos: jigsaws, snow globes, placemats, photobooks and my school diary.

I'm not the only person who's noticed that people aren't printing out their photos, Bonusprint have as well. Which is why they are campaigning to 'free' the photos from our computers and into our 'real-life'. Bonusprint's Print Them To Preserve Them campaign aims to ensure that we are enjoying our photos everyday without having to resort to turning on the computer. They have an honestly impressive range of products, many of which are practical and useful, and you can take all those special digital photos and transform them into photo books or gifts in minutes. I have, and it is an incredibly easy to use website.

Now here's to the exciting news for the participants of the Project 366 linky. For the next two weeks (Sunday 4th March and Sunday 11th March), Bonusprint are going to be viewing the entries and will choose three winners each week. The prize for these winners is a personalised iPhone 4 cover.

Pretty isn't it?

Don't worry! If you don't own an iPhone 4 then Bonusprint will provide a £20 voucher instead.

This competition is open to people who take part in the Project 366 (or Project 52) linky, and will require a tweet and a 'like' on Bonusprint's Facebook page. Not exactly onerous though, is it?

So quick recap: link up to the Project 366 linky for the next two weeks and you could be one of (in total) six lucky people to win a personalised iPhone 4 cover (or £20 voucher).

At the moment, Bonusprint have 20% of all Mothers' Day products, but hurry they need to be order by 11th March 2012 so you are able to give them to your mums on the 18th!

Money, Money, Money

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Starting a family was a huge shock to the system. Obviously not the whole baby part, my growing stomach, constant heartburn and lack of lung capacity were a fairly good indication of that.

The part that sent resounding shock waves through our little household was the impact to our finances; one month we were bringing in two comfortable salaries and not really worrying about monthly expenditure, the next month I was on half salary and we were beginning to tighten our metaphorical belts.

I launched into full-on money-saving mode, drawing on the skills of my mum exhibited in my childhood. I made pasties, lots of pasties. I’m a bit of a dab hand at making a few root vegetables, a small block of cheese and some shortcrust pasty stretch to accommodate a fair few meals during the month!

Other money-saving tactics involved walking as much as possible to cut down on petrol used, not going out as many times a month, cutting right back on take-aways to one treat a month, and re-evaluating our subscriptions and energy deals. As my husband is not such an expert with a rolling pin, and walking forty-five minutes to work every day wasn’t feasible, he was in charge of tackling the subscriptions. Out the window went the movie packages, we changed providers for broadband and telephone deals, and we reassessed the electricity prices that we were paying.

As we are beginning to contemplate the possibility of having another addition to the family, I think it’s time we started to reassess the finances again.

Now, where’s my apron?

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