Eaten Alive

Down under you know all about the sharks, and you are probably well aware of the spiders and the crocs.  But my mortal enemy is the Mosquito.

Whilst playing crazy golf (something we must do with HWMBO on holiday if only for a quiet life) I was bitten 14 times.  I react really badly to them, big red sores that often turn into monsoon blisters and usually end up in me taking a course of antibiotics.

Agent Pleakley’s relationship with them has nothing on me. 

This restaurant had a cooling system that sprayed a mist of water all around the edge, it cooled and brought in even more mosquitoes, but only to me.  HWMBO and daughter weren't bitten once! 

Well now the weather has warmed up here at home too and the Creek/Brook/Mosquito Luuuurv Shak at the bottom of my garden has been really helping those little blighters into an early breeding frenzy.  I think I may be needing a transfusion soon the amount they are taking out of me.

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No honestly, I really don't give a ...

I give you the Australian member of the family's thoughts on the Royal Wedding:

He really never goes bundle on anything involving the Union Jack!

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You got the best of me...

Notes is asking in the I ♥ Me series this week  "What is your best blog post from the last year?"

This is related to the MADS nominations, which I am very proud to say I have been nominated for.  It was a lovely thing to do and I really appreciate it.

If my stats are to be believed then this is my best post : http://kelloggsville.blogspot.com/2010/11/elephants-child.html
But I suspect that is because the photos are so very incredible and I take no credit.

In truth I think this is my best post, it is short but moving :

http://kelloggsville.blogspot.com/2011/03/cradling-dead.html

But for Notes' purpose neither of those would make a keynote speech, so I reluctantly pick my post about my infertility:
http://kelloggsville.blogspot.com/2011/03/pain-inside.html


But I want to give you something that is the crux of me and my blog, so if I were you I would skip the other links and have a laugh here:

http://kelloggsville.blogspot.com/2011/02/bible-of-face.html and http://kelloggsville.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-think-my-bums-ok-actually.html

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Green Hope

This week's Gallery is Green.

In the Christian Church the colour green signifies hope.  Perhaps the original thoughts for that hope weren't those of finding the exact bead you need.

But it is a lovely feeling when you do find it.

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What would you call a Bug House?

We were out on a walk and friend's daughter was pestering her for a pet:

"Muuuuuuuum, can I have a dog?"
"No"
"Can I have a cat?"
"NO"
"Can I have a fish?"
"more hassle than they are worth"
"Can I keep ladybirds?"
"If you like"
"So can I have a buggery?"

There were sooooo many possible answers to that question!

Whilst we are on Ladybirds, do you remember the old LadyBird books? Fond and Happy memories.

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Aaaaah-tish-chooo

The current reason for my suffering, come on harvest!

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Perfect day and Pain

I pitched the tent in the evening, so the day started with them crawling out of the tent into lovely sunshine.

We went to my most favourite place and did what I like best, we walked, paddled, picnicked, walked some more, ice-creamed.  It was the most perfect day.

The deer were hanging around in groups under the trees all over the park, they reminded me of  kangeroos chillin'

We walked lots.

And when we got home I walked some more, with the dogs across the fields, still bare waiting to be planted.

The most wonderful day.

Until I realised why my heel was so sore.  How on earth am I going to deal with this whilst trying to run 7k.  Answers on a postcard please.

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You are feeling very sleeeeeepy

Notes is asking in the I ♥ Me series this week  "Is there something you love that you would like to do more of just for you?"

The obvious answer is sleep.

I've always needed a lot of sleep and it's been proven to be genetic not a 'failing'.

I might be able to manage on less sleep than I need but it is a state of existance and managing, not a comfortable place to be.

HWMBO needs considerably less sleep than me so it can cause problems.  Quite often I am nagging him to come to bed, if I fall asleep and he wakes me when he comes up then I just can't get off again.  But really we are both night owls, if I'm not asleep by 11pm then I will happily stay up until midnight or beyond but regret it the next day.

I have to be on-call for work and getting up in the night to work makes me very tired, it's the same as getting up to look after a baby but harder to a certain extent because you can't be half asleep, you have to wake your brain up and be instantly alert to deal with the problem.  This means I often struggle to get back to sleep.

If I don't get at least 7 hours solid then I really start to struggle.  I get teary and find myself unable to cope with stress so well.  I struggle to manage logical problems at work.  The physical symptoms are the hardest though, I tend to go dizzy.  The room may move, my desk feels like it is sliding or as I finally lay down to sleep the room starts to spin.  It's like being drunk but without any of the bravado benefits!

My daughter is already showing signs of carrying the 'need extra sleep' gene but maybe she is just making up for all the hours she didn't get as a baby.  I am quite ashamed to say we now struggle to be up in time for the Sunday morning 10:30 service, and I given up beating myself up about it.  We need our sleep!

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We so don't sing at Breakfast

This weeks Gallery is 'My Blog'.

I choose KelloggsVille as my blog name because it is precisely what we aren't. 

We are the exact opposite of those adverts where mum always smiles and 'They all sing at Breakfast'.

We are more...well.....

Disperate

  

Disorganised

or, if I was being polite, individual





But in the morning we are definitely not singing from the same hymn sheet!  Much like my blog posts.

Whilst I have your attention about My Blog did you know I added an about me page a whole while back, look up, further, top right...bingo...if you are that way inclined I have my DBA hat tucked away up there too, go have a clickety!

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Top Blogging Tipp

I recently discovered the wonder fall world of spell checker in Blogger postings.

This has of coarse saved me endless amounts of thyme as eye know longer knead two proof reed my posts.  It is making my posting experience a hole lot less hassle.

I decided too share this with you sew you to can also have a more immediate and reel time feel two you're postings.                    

Once you have written your post simply clique on the abc button and blogs pot will tell you if you have any miss takes.  If you don't have any yellow boxes then everything is fine and you can just publish you're post immediately.

A grate egg sample of this is if you type "misspelt" and click abc, it will be highlighted yellow.  Click on the yellow box and Blogger will tell you how two spell it properly. It quickly becomes the correct "miss pelt".

Brilliant tool don't ewe think?

If you want to bee doubly sure you are on the write whirred track try the homophone machine.  It's heaps of fun.

I plan to dew a regular technical up date four you awl from now on.  If you have any tails to share please let me no and you can deep end on me to publish them for you.

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Come on a walk to the Love Shack

It was a lovely day for it.

Look what hitched a ride home.  It turned up on HWMBO's collar...he wasn't impressed at being used as a Love Shack!

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Thinking about Divorce?

Have you thought about divorce?  Do you find yourself meaning to say "pass the milk" over the breakfast table but inadvertently saying "You son of a bitch you had the best years of my life"  No? Just me then!

But seriously, my daughter just came home from a weeks school residential trip. I hung around waiting for the bus, brought her home, fed her and immediately she went off to her Dads, leaving me with nothing but a lot of smelly washing.

My friends were all texting and posting on Facebook about what a great time their kids had, and I don't know about mine because she wasn't here.  She's wasn't sat with me excitedly telling me about what she did, or even getting miserably teary because she was overtired.  I miss her more now than the week she was away.

Sometimes people talk about staying together 'for the sake of the kids' but I would take that one step further and say consider if it's worth staying together for what you would have to suffer.

Shared birthdays, half day Christmases, and generally not being together at times when you wish you were.  Weekends without her mean I go to places for a day out but spend so much time thinking 'she would have liked this' or watching the families in envy.

I've always known the answer is to make the most of time alone and do things I wouldn't otherwise do but it really isn't the same.

I'm very happy in my second marriage and my life as it is now. I wouldn't want to not be where I am today but if I had known at the end of my first marriage what I know now, I would have taken a second look at my life and considered a little more before we split up. Tried a little harder to appreciate what we had as a family.   I know there is so much more to a relationship than just kids, but when you have them, having them part-time can sometimes be very hard.

I'm going to take the opportunity to have an extra long run, a lie in and catch up on all that washing before she comes back and I hope she can still be bothered with sharing just a few more of her 'whilst I was away' tales with me when she comes home.

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Cycling Woes

The cyclists seem to be getting it in the neck this week. MPs could introduce a new offence of causing death by dangerous cycling.

Yes, the speeding cyclist hurtling through the traffic is dangerous, they suddenly cut across in front of you, jump lights and all the rest but a lot of it is down to the way the roads are designed in the first place.

Do you know how dangerous it is to turn left on a bike at the same time as a heavy goods vehicle?

Have a look at some of these:

How many times would you dismount before giving up on this one?!

Should the cyclist now go head on into traffic or into the pedestrians?

The intent of this one is beyond my simple thoughts!

I hope the cyclist enjoys a bumpy ride through the drain and then the speed hump camber in the inadequate width lane?! 

But, as always, the Americans come out on top.  There really isn't anything else to say!

All these pictures are from the Warrington Cycle Campaign facility of the month.  Something I have enjoyed (in the most macabre sense) for sometime now.

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The 'just don't eat it' diet

I'm probably in for a flaming but this annoyed me so much today. 

Surgeons are talking about giving people weight loss surgery on the NHS because it will save more money in the long run than the costs of the side affects of obesity. 

Well I don't think it's fair.

I worked hard to lose 5 stone and I work hard everyday to keep it off.  As I drag myself out into the pouring rain to run the same route again and again one of the few things that keeps me at it is the thought that this is the difference between me now and that fat women.

I was listening to a man this morning saying that surgery was the only way he lost weight, he had tried everything else.  My uncharitable thought was "no mate, you didn't try the just don't eat it diet and the bugger me this is hard work exercise regime"

They aren't easy and it is a relentless battle.  If only I'd have known I could have continued to enjoy a bag of donuts a day (yes, some days I would eat 6 donuts) and just tell the NHS later "I really tried".

I'm sure my sympathy for these people will return and no doubt as soon as I have an illness or injury that means I can't maintain my lifestyle, I will start to gain weight again but today, just today, I want to scream......"just don't eat it"

 

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Sun down, Surf's up

This week's Gallery is Tomorrow.

Whilst the sun is going down here:

Surf's up here :

And whilst we are going to bed, all the early morning human flotsam and jetsam will be sat in the water waiting for the wave:

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It was the mash, the phobia mash - Potnonomicaphobia

I haven't just said that so make you hum the Monster Mash for the rest of the day (but you are already aren't you?!).

It's because I've just had to fill out the school residential trip health form.  I hate the question "Is there anything else you need to tell us?"

I have to explain my daughter has a mash potato phobia.  It isn't just a dislike in terms of eating it, it's a phobia.  Let me explain:

If you don't like spiders you probably wince a bit as you try to flick it away with the edge of newspaper.  If you have arachnophobia then you may have excessive sweating, rapid breathing, a quickened heartbeat, nausea and dizziness.

That's what happens to daughter.  If she is sat at the table with someone eating mashed potato, she will get nauseous, start to shake and cry.  Annoyingly, I have known her to eat homemade mash potato and sometimes be right on top of her fear, but other times she goes into complete meltdown.

So I complete the form, sounding like a completely over protective mother and feeling like a right nellie.  I think the teachers need to understand if she goes into meltdown at a meal time that there is a reason for it and to be sensitive to it.

At primary school around year 4 she was carried out of the dining hall by the arm whilst in an uncontrollable state, she was shouted at and taken to the headmaster for bad behaviour.  I was furious. Her father had to go to the school (I would have just got very angry if I'd have gone) to explain that she completely panics at the sight of others with mash potato and was unable to control her shaking, crying and was unable to move.

I got a letter home once asking if she could participate in mash potato biscuit making for the World War II day in class.  They only wanted to know about allergies, I bet they weren't expecting the response they got!

You are rarely completely individual in the world and a quick Google soon let me know she isn't alone but I think it is one of the odder phobias I have ever come across. 

So the next time you fill out a health form spare us a thought of sympathy!

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Disney Princess Twosome

Daughter and I have been watching our way through Jane Austin. Starting with 6 hours of Pride and Prejudice, followed by Emma, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility and finally Northanger Abbey.

In every case our heroine gets loves true dream. She gets the right man, her true love, and often accompanied by enough money to be financially secure too.

I'm starting to worry that these fairy tale dreams of how life can be, will affect her when finding footings in her first relationships. Life, in these stories, for the patient, good hearted, always beautiful heroine will always come good.

Disney follow the same story mill. And whilst more modern heroines are feisty and more assertive, they still settle down with man and babies.

I've recently been reading Singled Out about 2 million 'spare' women after World War 1, trying to make it on their own without the opportunity of marriage. How being brought up to believe happiness through marriage was the ultimate goal and dealing with the reality as a failure.

What do tales like Cinderella, Snow White, Shrek teach our girls apart from a princess has an impossibly small Barbie waist and perfect hair?

Where is the story that ends with Cinderella saying "dream on Charming, I'm not spending the rest of my life slaving over you, I'm off to New York to shack up with Belle"

But even our many threaded personalities,split into different characters by Sex in the City, ultimately are seeking love and male validation.

I suppose you just can't fight nature, but maybe I should try to find a film for tonight that won't leave her believing that life always comes good? Maybe Little Women...I have always wanted Jo to marry Laurie! Or Wuthering Heights? Yes the Brontes tended to throw in a sad twist into the plot.

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Baby On Board

Board on Board, Little Person Inside, Princess Carrier...what are you trying to tell me?

Is it that your driving may become erratic because of wayward thrown dummies and bottles?  Are you asking me not to rear end you today?  Because to be quite honest I wasn't intending to try to rear end anybody today regardless of the age of the passengers.

Should I have a sign :  "slightly annoying and quite frankly possible Alzheimer's parent on board" ?  The only problem there being that my mother can read and my driving will be even worse than usual, as she will nag me constantly about my rudeness as well as continually telling me that she always takes the old London Road and never goes this way.

Can HWMBO have a "my wife pissed me off this morning so expect erratic lane changes and angry glances" sign ?

Whilst wasting time on the  interthingy researching my post I stumbled across some more amusing signs.

 Ahhh God bless the American language, maybe lanaguage is like colour/color or centre/center?!


 

I know which camp I would want to be in.






And this has to be my favourite. 

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