The Jan Recap… (by sarah)

It's the end of January so what has gone on in the household snell-pym in the first month of 2017?

For a start there was the end of Christmas, I am still making the last few Advent vids ready for Christmas next year. We delivered presents though sadly not all the presents so we still have a back log!

Also mine and Mary's birthdays - mine involved a coffee, meal and shopping with Al before hospital stuff but we have only just done the proper celebration with kids and friends this weekend just gone which was also Mary's birthday. There was also posh vegan/Gluten Free brunch. Mary has so far played in the Waterstones cafe with her friend Lilly as her party is going to be in two weeks time. We've planned the party and got stuff ready for it.

This includes me working out how to make upcycled unicorn head bands and tail belts and little roll and pop up horses for the kids to make.

My mother was hospitalised so there was a trip to Essex and the adventures of getting home on the train which were unexpected.

DIY wise we have fixed several toys, remounted a coat rack which had pulled off the wall, dealt with networking and upgrading Jean's computer.

We got a telescope - an amazing thing which was a pool of Christmas money instead of presents for Al and Jean and part of mine and Mary's birthdays. We've seen binary stars so far. It was an undertaking to assemble and we now need to build a storage/transport box but it is assembled and being looked through though we've only had like three clear nights!

I've had three lots of testing at the hospital which took it's toll and norovirus hit the household. I missed a theatre meeting about performing a monologue and a poetry recording evening but I am being given second chances at those so that's all good.

I also missed my Krav self defence one off class and a poetry book launch which made me sad but on the other hand I was live streamed reading poetry at Food For Thought.

Talking of poetry I have also been typing up and editing poems from the BOOKCASE (Not shelf) of notebooks I have. The shear number is insane obv. not all of it is usable but a lot is so I have been organising Turquoise Monster and have even started submitting work again (as in 2 poems so far). I've written three poems this month predictable all about Trump. Of course I am doing my poetry writing challenges so I've drafted a good few more mostly not about Trump.

Jan has also been me gearing up for the poetry writing challenge that I host over at Wopo.

I have also designed, refined and created mini poetry scrolls, story scrolls, made bookwallets etc... for blank scrolls for others to write poetry on, personalised pencils and made write your own poem kits, made and put together 100 mini zine surprise pouches, story boarded two more zines, drafted half a short story, edited a couple of flash fictions, tried to write daily on this blog and started on the mammoth task of trying to sort out the Salaric Craft blog.

Also Storystorm - what used to be Picture Book Idea Month has rebranded and moved to Jan. so I have been idea generating and expanding on those ideas for kids books.

Alaric has been making a cufflink holder for the cufflinks I made him for Advent, the girls have been making invites and decorations for Mary's party and we have all been working on the cosplay outfits for True Believers Comic Festival which is this weekend coming. This has involved sewing, sticking, painting, metal twisting, papier mache and buying new wellys.

I had to get a third print run of my colouring book Love: A Stranger Dream made and in general have been trying to sort out The WigglyPets Press.

I have been teaching myself origami and have folded lit. hundreds of things from geometric modules to make bigger things from to little stand up foxes to pretty little boxes.

We've organised things for getting back down the allotment, so just sorting out containers for soil etc...

I've knitted four hats, made an Ironman craft kit, taken the kids to two (not us) birthday parties. Three projects are still currently being designed and refined including mending a rocking horse that is older than me. I accidently made a pair of slippers from an old coat whilst trying to make a portal gun (please tell me this happens to other people!).

Alaric made my laptop usable again (for now) and we had a chicken fatality 🙁 and we had to fix the chicken run and stuff and general animal stuff to sort out. We've got our new electric car and there was pie making!

NB pie was not chicken Al is veggi!

Jean is still at Scouts, Jujitsu, and Drama and Mary is doing her Ballet, both girls are missing climbing but for one of the parties we did get to go "caving". Alaric is still doing Krav and Hackspace each week. Oh and of course we had to do my tax (sobs!).

There were also visits from and too various family.

So that was January - it snowed and it rained and there was scary fog.

Future Shock (by sarah)

A cold frosty morning with delineated skies of faded ice cream colours, we look out over Gloucester with it's historical buildings as they puncture and frame the ancient landscape around them. The air is misty cool and I feel sick at the sight of a frost covered sleeping bag hidden in a corner, the occupant is alive and I sigh in relief, the air tastes of ozone and fumes and rotting food until it is all over lain by the sugar-fat smell of the doughnut van cooking their first batch of the day.

The progress of time marches on, we seem to have been stuck for a long time, at least ten years we failed to roll with the waves of advancement, we barely noticed them.

Before that we thought we'd march singing and triumphant into a future of virtual reality and medical advancement and the healing of our societies and nature. We are 80's childs though Alaric was born in the 70's - just.

When the mysterious x-box was sent to us for Christmas a couple of years ago and we found we could do physical games with it, we knew the future had arrived and we had somehow missed it.

We think on these things, we park our car... we plug it in.

We have FUTURE SHOCK.

When we drive we can plug in and charge our books, my friend charges her cigs. My mum is in hospital but she is alive, alive because of amazing medical advancements made in the last twenty years, made in my lifetime. My dad is the same, a hundred years ago he would have died in his early 30's, he turns 70 this year. I am alive, one of my children is a c-section babe, we walk paste the homeless on the way to dance classes and I swollow the bile that rises. The future is being good to us but it is rather too threaded through with cyber-punk dystopian chords than I would like. Our eldest complains that people live in apartments with all they could want and swimming pools on balconies that over look slums.... how could they?

I frown how different from that are we?

But we do stuff she insists. Yes we do, we don't know what others do or do not do. The Future is full of mental and moral pit falls I never saw coming, like Brexit... like finding myself on the side of the haves and seeing what it would do to the have nots and despairing as I knew which way they would vote and why and neither side would listen, dipolling themselves further.

The divide is growing. But uneven.

Sometimes it overwhelms me, all the thinks to think about, all the interconnect facets of our time and world and society. The environment, housing conditions, health, respect for others, not becoming an oppressor when you have been repressed but not slipping in the victim mentality, stopping cruelty, allowing freedom. Sometimes I can't process it all and I have to ignore it to function and do anything and that maybe selfish but if I don't then we can't do anything. When overwhelmed we can not organise fundraises or gather supplies for food banks or try and remember to shop ethically when we can afford to do so.

Adaption is key and not being judged for buying primarny when there is no time or money but looking nice is an imperative and the way our society works yes you do need to sometimes look nice... like job interviews etc... I am not saying that is right, but it is a reality.

We are lucky, having had times of not being lucky we are acutely aware of the contrast and how fragile that can be. Yes we've safe guarded ourselves this time - as much as we can - because we can. But we are more determined than ever to make a good future - the future maybe here but that doesn't mean we can't improve it and more importantly it is not here for everybody.

So we change what we can where we can, sometimes the difference is so minute we can not even appreciate it and sometimes it is for many and sometimes it is just a packet of sani pads sent to the food bank or a conversations with someone.

Sometimes it is saving up money to try and pay for surgery privately for a parent and not getting there before the nhs sorts them out and then having a deposit and luck to get a new car on lease, a car that will help the environment and our long term spending as it is cheaper to run. Sometimes it is then giving the other car, the old polluting the air car, to your parents because they no longer have a mobility car because... austerity and the damage it causes especially to older folk who drastically go down hill if they can't get out and about, ending up in hospital costing the tax payers more money than their mobility allowance ever cost.

To miss-quote Terry Pratchett - we can't make everything better but we will make the little bit we can see and touch as bettererererrrrr as we can. Granny Weatherwax says it better in The Shepherd's Crown.

It took us ages to work out how to unplug the damn car so you know the future is never going to be plain sailing.

A Flambe Lunch (by sarah)

So yeah - looks like I still can't really cook on my own. I'm fine with popping something in the oven to heat and nuking stuff in the microwave and even things that cook quickly in the frying pan though I still tend to burn them. But yeah I was grilling some bacon, I knew it was an off day, I couldn't find half my craft supplies that turned out to be exactly where I left them and so on.

Issue - weekend was busy with poetry performances, kids parties and tax returns. I think it might have been the tax return I had to think about which years stuff happened in and that is often different to the year it was paid for in which might be a different calendar year to the tax year and might not. Al did the reciet checking but I still had to work out dates and where I'd filed (or hadn't filed) various invoices etc..

Basically I am on my own during the day, Al normally makes food for me to just nuke for lunch or I have dips and veg etc... but there wasn't time to organise that because the weekend was busy and I didn't even do everything we were supposed to do! ie I was supposed to have a self defence class - something kind of needed after the van being smeared in shit and yobs throwing sexual insaults at me and my daughter.

Getting back to it - I decided what I wanted was bacon because it was being a slow day and I couldn't get my head around anything so working was a no go. Everytime I tried to do my naps someone was at the door delivering stuff (yes Christmas stuff is still arriving at our house!!! And we still have presents to hand out - go us!). I put the bacon on, I don't like cooking it when Al is around because it stinks and he's a vegi and its not nice for him.

Not really sure what happened, I was in the kitchen, the bacon was under the grill, it smelt like bacon cooking and then suddenly it smelt like bacon burning and when I looked there were flames coming out of the grill and I was like "AARRRGGGGGGGG" I oiked the grill tray out singing my oven gloves (booo hissssss) and popped it in the garden where the flames where leaping and spitting as the rain hit the hot fat.

I looked for our fire putting out thing... cylinder. It wasn't there - this is because it is actually in the workshop where it is more likely to be needed but Al says we can get a fire blanket for the kitchen which will make me happier.

When I looked the flames had signif. calmed down in the rain and I thought it would be ok so I got my camera and took a pic - because you know that is just what I do! Here's a picture of my lunch or rather the lunch that would have been.

Of course I was then too worried about burning things to attempt making the kids dinner and was just setting them up with cheese and biscuits (remembering Mary can't eat cow milk and is refusing peanut butter I wasn't very sure what I was actually going to be feeding her - we were going to be having fish fingers but the grill tray was/is still in the garden and I am not sure it will be much good). To the girls delight and my relief Alaric came in brandishing shopping and started cooking pasta.

This meant Mary went to bed an hour past her bed time as he comes in just before her bedtime. So kind of failure - kind of funny - kind of scary - very frustrating but also I am starting to see the correlations with things. I did heavy brain load stuff (tax) whilst not having my naps - I will get there with this one but it is why Al worries about leaving me on my own.

An Origami Birthday (by sarah)

This is backblogged because I was kind of too frazzeled on the day to write as I had tests at the hospital but I still wanted the pictures and stuff on my birthday date on the blog 🙂

In the morning Mary gave me the screen play of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them - the latest Harry Potter-verse installement. Alaric gave me a book on Allotments broken down month by month 🙂 And an origami book.

So we went to get a brunch at Ed's Diner but it was closed down - really closed down as in all the kitchen stuff was out in the main restaurant and the website says it's perminately closed 🙁 But we went off and got a coffee instead or rather I did - still soya, decaf but this time with SYRUP!!! Alaric read his book whilst I sorted out a list of to-do's from my new allotment book 🙂 These things make me happy.

Then I folded some bits from my new origami book for Alaric including a jumping grasshopper that actually does flick into the air much to my surprise!

I improvised him a mouse and thought about how I could combine my drawing art with folding paper 🙂 True it is not a brilliant mouse but I still like it 🙂

We then went shopping and to Hobbycraft and TheWorks and bought me craft supplies including some lovely pastel cotton textured card from which to fold things from!

Then it was Pizza time!!! This had not been the original plan as I had frozen pizzas at home for my evening meal as Wednesdays are Scout days and quick dins were needed. But it was a bit tricky having found the diner closed as it is one of the few restaurants I know can cater for the gluten free and not accidently make me ill! I would have loved to have gone to the cinema but as I was having neurological tests done to see what whacks my brain out I didn't think I should go and do something I know will whack my brain out!

Pizza Express now have gluten free dough balls!!! I can not tell you how happy that makes me!

The meal was lovely and I did more folding, including this box which I am most proud of!

It is a nice box, easy to fold, easy to make a lid too and thanks to stickers larger versions will be perfect for some of my little publishing and craft projects!

Jean made me a card at school on lined paper and presented it too me with the words "see I didn't forget" her friend had made me one too though with a higher age than I am on it 😀 Jean's card had butterflies and shooting stars on in 🙂

Alaric insists he's organising something else for me too - no idea what.

Food Frustrations (by sarah)

Mr Alaric made pasta bake for our dinner this morning, this is because I'm still burning stuff when I cook unsupervised and he now doesn't get in from his new job until Mary's bedtime - so we are trying him pre-cooking and me bunging it the oven for half an hr to feed the kids on time.

Also we are trying to do him packed lunches to save money as there are quiet a few DIY projects that need completing around the house.

This is brilliant and wonderful of him... but he did almost get himself skinned alive over the weekend when he suggested I have a snack because I was hungry and at 2:30 was saying I needed to eat and not wait for elaborate cooking. Issue, I normally have my lunch at 12 at the latest, I put on some weight over Christmas (I am now 10 and a 1/4 stone BOOOOOOOO and flapping when I run), this mucks up my sugar levels and my pelvis so there is no choice the weight is going. Meaning I am HUNGRY. I am always hungry unless I have 1600-1800 cals a day unfortunately I was quiet sedenatory over Nov with colds and chest infections and what not and then went straight into Christmas and somehow failed to do my walks and stuff.

Because I know I get hangry and fainty (blood sugar drops etc...) I'm not cutting straight down to 1400 cals but am taking Jan at 1400-1600 cals with the hope that I can actually just ramp up my physical stuff so I don't have to drop right down. I miss the nice dietician/diabetic/thyroid nurse at the surgery but her role was axed and that was that and I was left on my own and I think I am mostly managing it and hey she was there when I really really needed the help with this stuff.

Al has always verged on the underweight end of the spectrum and consumes so so so much food :/ so he just can't get his head around it sometimes.

And also we've had to shift my diet to be more protein, I now recognise when I am protein hungry. This was not compatible with his vegi cooking 🙁 We are sure there are ways of doing it but we can't seem to find it (bare in mind I can't have too much soya and no gluten and they were my main protein before).

If you have suggestions for high protein that's not fish then bung below 🙂 And yeah it is mainly fish I crave, I ate lots and lots of fish during my pregnacies as well - so I have a cupboard full of tuna to try and deal with this. But for joint meals it makes things a bit carni smelly for him which isn't really fair.

My birthday is on Wednesday - I'll spend it at the hospital having cognative stuff done and then it is Scouts night so half my family will disappear. I'm doing a krav one off workshop thing at the weekend which I'm kind of wondering why I agreed to it - I mean I'm just going to flab everywhere and trip over my own feet!

Planking... so I was letting Al do the timings and so I know I can go over a minute but I do not want to do that at the mo. Jan is about doing the minute planks due to c-section scar still complaining. Current pattern is 2 days of 1 min planks and then a couple of days off other wise the scar goes "oi!!!" and then I can't even do my kind of pull up things.

I trying to keep in my head how far I have come, how I origonally could not reach the pull up bar, how I can now wear heels instead of stooping over a walking stick....

Still no idea how I am actually going to celebrate my birthday, the kids are both adimant that I must but what with the krav thing and what not I'm kind of running out of dates to do stuff on!

And lastly - I miss cheap pizza and crusty white bread especially when the two collided. Sigh.