Old Photos of Jean Being Cute (by sarah)

I think she is about 3 in these photos - it's definatly pre-school 🙂 If I remember correctly she is being a super hero in two of these pictures and the other one she was doing some random classification of nuts and berries which I was going to blog about but never got around too!

The End of the Festive Season (by sarah)

Today we had our last Christmas visitor, Barbara, so I put out the minced pies and cut up Christmas Cake and we apologised as we seem to have lost her tea towel with Mary's print on it that we were going to give her - so we gave her same homemade jam instead.

She gave Mary some lovely Hello Kitty wellies which is brilliant as it was starting to be a squeeze to get her into the ones she has and the previous bigger set she lost one of whilst we were out shopping one day. Jean got an art casse which she was excited about and Al got cheese which is always a hit with him. I got a pot of tulips which shall be going outside the front door.

Jean also tidied the front garden, litter picking the litter that blows in and sweeping up the leaves - mainly as she is whipping through her worst witch books and wants to earn money to buy the missing ones.

There would be photos of today but unfortunately Jean was taking photos yesterday and dropped it and today it has gone completely screwy 🙁 It was on it's way out anyway which is why I had saved up money to get a good one but I spent it on the TV so that we could use the X-Box, I do not regret this but I do now find myself with out a camera - right at the point where I am trying to launch myself back into things seriously - sigh.

On the other hand I do have a rather serious back log of photos to sort out anyway so maybe this will give me time to do that?

After Al's aunt left we started taking down all the decorations to general chagrin of the kids - Mary was walking about saying 'Oh! No!' whilst Jean was whining that the room was starting to look so bare which we felt too. Somehow Christmas went so fast this year.

It has been a fun one though.

Of course tomorrow I have one of my best friends from school visiting in a sort of post-Christmas/pre-birthday type of way which is going to be ace!

And last night I forgot to go to the pub with one of my local friends which I feel really bad about - It wasn't a good day medically for me but still...

Anyway the good thing about the decorations coming down is that I am in the mood for Spring Cleaning to be honest. We started today with putting hooks up to hang various house type things up, such as sun catchers and wall art butterflies and the broom and duster and carrier bag suasage.

Today also marks the constructed language Lojban's 25th Birthday - this is the language that Alaric has been learning for the past few years and that he has been teaching to Mary. So we have begun work on a little language comic type thing - we came up with the idea ages ago but haven't had the time to act upon it!

Apart from that we made bread in the bread maker and made our own sauce for the chickpea hodge podge we had for dinner - January is already a month of highs and lows but net effect seems to be positive at the moment.

Exercise and A Diet That’s Wise (by sarah)

Today whilst out for a walk we decided to pop into a Lidel and there we found a 7 quid exercise bar - we have been after one of these since we lived in the flat in Essex but it had some how never happened. So we fitted it - the above picture shows it took both of us! And yes Jean took the photo 🙂

We then all had a go on it - you are not seeing the photo of me trying as well - Alaric said it made me look bloated :/ I can not lift myself at all but just trying I think will help things. Also today is not a good day as anemia stuff if acting up and I've had a bit of set back with muscle spasms so am a bit weak at the moment.

On the other hand I am doing the Kinnect Adventures game each day - I earn a cloth badge a day and that is enough to get me very breathless and sweaty - this is great. The problem I've had before is that by the time I get anywhere to exercise I am shattered but this is I can just turn on and go!

The other restriction to one game (plus the warm up it makes you do) is that the pelvis still can't take prolonged amounts of strain. I am not seeing an improvement yet but then we are only five days in!

Food wise I am grumpy - as I was before Christmas - ever since they started giving me hormones in various ways to stop the bleeding I have been hungry. I mean hungry all the time. And I thought that it was because I was eating the wrong types of food etc... but no I am still hungry all the time. The only time I have ever experienced anything like it is during pregnancy and I suppose that is the problem the hormones are mimicking pregnancy.

Still the damn thing is coming out at the end of the month though god knows what will happen to the bleeding then but I really do not want one back in - it was fine whilst I thought that it had just slipped but to have it stuck... Anyway I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

I am making sure I drink the 7 glasses of water a day having herbal tea etc... I also picked up some dried cherries and things today to have as a sweet snack as I'm down to only savoury seeds and things.

I made a lovely chick pea thing yesterday as part of my whole foods thing - not raw this time but whole food is good as it makes the body work to digest - of course raw does this more so but I hate cold food that's not salad or fruit or sweet things!

It does seem stupid though that I am having to use martial arts training to not scoff my face off. It probably wouldn't be such an issue if I was properlly mobile but I am not!

Oh well all I can do is try my best.

Jean Programming Again :) (by sarah)

So I resigned myself to the fact that Alaric would turn the new TV into a giant computer screen.

Of which my main concern is that he will work on it rather than going down to the 'lab' to work, but instead he set things up so Jean could play with Turtle Graphics which is a new version of an old thing he has implemented. Basically she has to actually programme in order to get a little turtle to draw. She has produced me some lovely flowers and a house and things 🙂

The pictures she's created are on Al's laptop so he'll have to pop them on here when he gets a spare moment (haha). She is using Chicken Scheme and using a programme called Simple Graphics which is what Al created initially though I believe it is open source and others have since added stuff 🙂

She also started to 'compose' scenes for photography today - which was a shock to me!

Child Benifit 0.o (by sarah)

Thankyou government for giving me a mini mental break down tonight - the issue is not that our Child Benefit is being taken away, as we no longer need it for food (which we have in the past) but more the complete lack of notice and the only reason we knew was a random thing on the radio sending me into a panic.

So now I have completely mis-budgeted for the year, feel like a complete waste of space, had a worse panic attack that I would be done for fraud as I have no idea what my this and that numbers are and there is now not time to find out.

Another issue is that I now can't afford the child care (that is already arranged) that I need to launch me back into the work space. Poor Jean overheard things and came down to ask if she would still be able to do Ju Jistu and the answer is I don't know.

Alaric has had to calm me down and help me with the form and site as it was the classic dyslexic's nightmare. Now I am sitting here with my decaf coffee, sense of nonentitlement and pain from yet another balls up nhs palava - a cardboard box has been destroyed whilst a string of bad words such as 'I hate F..... Politicians and cr.. how are x, y and z going to manage - they need it for their rent'

I have never before declared that I hate a section of society and this makes me feel bad and worse. 2013 was going well but to be honest tonight I feel like I've just had the rug pulled out from underneath me.