FREEEEEEEDOM

I had an interesting conversation today with my voice activated telephone banking system. Where I went from sane person to Mrs Ranty yelling "no I don't want to pay an f'ing bill, OPERATOR, OPERATOR, no I don't want a bloody balance, I want an OPERATOR"

I know there is more to the Scottish independence question than people painting their faces and yelling Freeeeeeedom. Although you mustn't tell NB I said that. But everytime it is discussed I do internally hear Mel Gibson shouting.
Stick with me here.

Today, as I yelled "OPP..ER..ATE..OOOOOOOOOR" down the phone I remembered the 'Scottish Voice Activated lift'.

I watched it again and what do you know, they yell "FREEEEEEEEDOM" at the end.  This isn't going to help me get all politically correct aboooot this one.

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Why must there always be tears before triumph?

"You have to get that application in, you must start it"
"Will you help me?"
"Yes, why don't you write about this... and this...and this.......no not that....is that your writing now, no that's not good....."

Insert lots of teeny/mum angst difficultness here that finished with:

"...are you going to finish that or not?"
"No I'm not applying any more, I don't want to do the thing now anyway"
"but it was so important to you, you said you really wanted to do it"
"You've spoilt it all now"

Ouch

And she was right.  I had.  And it was like looking at myself in the mirror, so many times I have turned to my husband and said "I don't want to do that now anyway, it's all spoilt".  And I really mean it, and she really meant it too.  I don't even know how to get myself away from that 'it's tainted now' feeling, let alone how to move a stubborn, defiant teenager back to shore.

I tried telling her she was a fool, she was cutting off her nose to spite her face, I knew the game she was playing...hey guess what? the heels dug in further..."you don't say" I hear you all cry!

There is only one way to go really isn't there...an hour or more later after the dust had settled:

"yes, you are right I have spoilt it and I am truly very sorry. Why don't you throw away everything done so far and sit down on your own and start from scratch?"

and bless her she did, and she had the kindness of heart to say "and with what we did before I have an idea of what I can say, but it will be all my own words"

and she wrote a letter so much better and so apt that if she doesn't get this place it won't be through lack of trying.

When am I going to learn to have these sorts of conversations from the beginning, why must there always be tears before triumph?

Which probably still puts me in the same camp as most parents really:


I wouldn't want to be leaving the dad's out(apologies to the single parent dads)

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Tooling up with Photo-hell-shop

 This week's gallery is My Photography Resolution.

Well I have enough photography tools to shake many sticks at and a spanking new Olympus 14 megapixel. None of which I'm bothering to use. So my resolution is to stop just whipping out the iphone every time I want to take a photo and hoping for the best and actually making an effort.

So this weekend I spent 6 hours messing around with Photoshop. Wow, I hate it. Intuitive NOT.  Which is why I must make an effort.

I did manage to remove the eye shadows from this photo fairly easily.

Messing around with filters is not hard.

 

And then I spent an amazing amount of time creating this mess.  I feel like that's 4 hours of my life I'll never get back.  And actually I think I prefer one of the early stages of the picture.

I will make an effort to get to grips with my new camera but I'm only going to try to waste some more time with Photoshop when hell freezes over.

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A Timely Reminder

Not Tonight Dear showed a picture in her most wanted list that set me off on an on-line hunt for something similar.   I found this picture at Fabu-licious.   I find it a great source of strength on my Shirley Valentine wall.

But the ultimate definition of irony as I stand next to it whilst yelling at COG.  One day she'll be brave enough to point it out and I'll probably crown her with it!

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The sure fire way to lose weight and keep it off

That title looks like a Google advert doesn't it but seriously, are you ready for the truth: the way to lose weight is to use up more than you put in. The way to keep it off is to not put in more than you use up : simples.

But "how? how?" I here you beg...simples again..WALK

A few years ago a friend took seriously ill and I started to walk her dogs for her. I discovered 2 things: my serenity lives in the fields and I could eat a whole lot more than I used to without gaining weight.

Walking turned to running very easily, I wanted to go further but hadn't got the time and now injury has forced me back to walking but I still haven't gained weight.

Walking, no skill required, no fitness entry level, no specialist clothes, nada...just walk. Walk to the shops, walk a dog, walk to post a letter, walk to school. Yup, it's takes longer, but the time seems to melt into my day from somewhere.

If I went to the office I'd walk an hour at lunch, it was about 5k.  Now I'm at home and it's dark early, I watch tv and walk 5k on the treadmill. If I'm a very good girl and I get lucky, I get to go out over the fields, alone with my thoughts. The wind blowing at me makes me want to raise my arms high and shout for joy (I can't lift my arms high of course, not with my back!!!).

Instead of having coffee with a friend a will take friend for a walk, occasionally I'll ask HWMBO to come along but mainly I just like it to be me and with every step I crush one of those little calorie creatures that hide in my wardrobe at night trying to sew my clothes tighter. 
 I love the time I spend on my 'usual' walks, I know it so well by season.  Well enough to know that this crop of rape seed really shouldn't be around in January.  It's a self seeded 2nd crop and most unseasonable.

Now my operation is pending I trying really hard to walk gently so I can still go the distance without breaking into pain. And the healing exercise after my operation, you guessed it, to walk.  I understand it should be for no more than 10 minutes for a while and it's going to be hard but I'm hoping that soon enough I'll be back to my round field strides maybe in time to see the real rape crop coming through.

And just in case you don't believe me about walking, why not pop over to family affairs, whose backing walking rather than running as a safer form of exercise.

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How do I know he loves me?

This weeks Gallery is Eyes.

This picture was taken by me.  I was messing around with the camera at COGs birthday party.  She was off with friends painting pottery and we were sat in a very civilised area drinking coffee and reading the papers whilst they got on with it.  When I was looking at them later I was struck by the love in our faces still even after all these years of marriage.

Closing your eyes to kiss instinctively allows you to feel the emotion, to become absorbed in that moment and that private bubble of love.

And if you aren't so sure I took it myself here's another one that didn't go quite right and the rest are just dreadful!

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hostipal

Well all I have going around in my head right now is:

Baldrick: I, too, have a cunning plan to catch the spy, sir.

Edmund: Do you, Baldrick, do you...

Baldrick: You go round the hostipal and ask everyone, "Are you a German spy?"

Edmund: Yes, I must say, Baldrick, I appreciate your involvement on the
        creative side.

My current consultant has thrown in the towel and handed me off to the next contender in the long waging war to fix my broken back.  Given how quickly I'm going downhill I don't stand this one's chances much either.

Have you ever googled your symptoms?  Don't.  Big mistake, huge.  Generally you end up with either cancer, MS or ME.  It doesn't matter what you start with the symptom safari outcome is always one of those 3. 

I have diagnosis so googling the cure should be safe right? Wrong.  I have never seen so many morbidly depressive forums of people saying "yup tried that, didn't work" and "the operation crippled me, never walked since" etc etc.  I did find a forum where one guy said his recovery had gone quite well, but he was flamed out for being positive and happy, I am deadly serious.

So things aren't looking so great!  I think my post rate is likely to dry up to a drip as I'm finding sitting fairly impossible now and I have to save my tolerable minutes for the fun stuff like paying bills.  I can however, read blogs whilst walking on the treadmill holding the ipad so expect badly typo'd comments coming your way.

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It would be like eating off a toilet seat

Do you always wash your hands after going to the toilet? "of course" I hear you all chime in unison.

We all know toilet seats are a sordid den of germs right?  Well, there's worse.  Yes, my current time waster of choice with a capital T led me straight to 11 things germier than a toilet seat. 

Do you wash your hands every time you touch a hotel bed spread?  You should, bodily fluids abound.

What do you do with your handbag when you go to the loo when out?  I try to put mine on a hook, hooked over my shoulder (awkward) or on knee but god forbid it should go on the floor.  I never ever ever put it on the kitchen work surface or table at home though.  Do you?  The bottom of a handbag is seriously germ laden.  (Pseudomonas, staphylococcus aurous, salmonella,e-coli, fecal contamination)

The cash machine keypad?  I suspect all the keypads we are punching our pin numbers on.  Watch the man in the queue before you as he picks, flicks and then touches the pad. Euwwwwwwwww. (Bacillus Cereus)

The office telephone, or the office anything, particularly keyboards.  Did you turn yours upside recently and give it a bang?  That's the gross you can see.

Here's one I hadn't considered before: Restaurant menus and condiment containers.  The flu virus can survive for 18 hours on a hard surface.  Who held that menu before you?  You've touched the flu bugs and now you're going to pick up that bread roll.  (Started to think about your salt and pepper pots at home yet?  how often do you wipe them?)

Shopping trolley handles!  Coughing,  sneezing caught in hands and pusssssssssssh. Children sat inside trolleys (not the seats actually in them) with dirty shoes and then in goes your partly wrapped baguette  (E. coli, salmonella, and Staphylococcus)

How about your steering wheel?  You push the trolley back to the bay, climb into the car and drive off.  Germs transferred again.  Now you're holding a snack whilst you drive home because the small of cooking bread all round the supermarket means you are starving hungry. (bacillus cereus, arthrobacter)

Got to go burn it off at the gym.  You'll be needing to touch all the equipment then. Seriously you should see the germs they found on the gym equipment including MRSA.  Well you got to scratch that itch whilst working out, then moving those bugs around.

Don't even start thinking about the kids at the playground, they found human poo, bird poo and the usual viruses on those monkey bars.

You feeling like getting up and washing your hands already?  Think about how clean your tap handle is? your hands are dirty as you turn it on : raw meat, eggs, poultry.

source

All this has reminded me of the Scout I caught (fully clothed I might add) weeing in the shower tray at Charnwood Jamboree and when challenged he said "but everybody does it don't they?" *sigh*

To be quite honest once you think too hard about it all it's amazing we are all alive at all but seriously I've got to go shower now and I'll probably have a bottle of dettol in there with me until I can get these images out of my head.

You too?  You're very welcome!

Read the original report here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/113103#ixzz1jHexTa40  at mental_floss.

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She's her mother's daughter.

"Mum, I was the only one in outdoor PE today that remembered to take a spare pair of socks.
We were really covered in mud and wet.
Some people borrowed socks out of lost property.
E laughed at me, she said I was too organised.
I said, I don't know what you're laughing at, you're the one with cold wet feet"

This would only be said by the daughter of the woman that travels everywhere with spare loo rolls, hand wipes, plasters, the list goes on.

You (you know who you are) may mock because I don't do travel light, but you all want a borrow of my loo roll when it matters!

Oh yes, COG also said:

"My PE kit's still in the bag and it's covered in mud. BYE"

and off she disappeared for the weekend. She may be good at being prepared but she's A+ when it comes to avoiding chores. And that she doesn't get from me.

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If you choose an answer to this question at random, what is the chance you will be correct?

Thomas Kyte (a god in my work world and a pin-up in my office) questioned this question.  Anybody that is familiar with Tom knows that he tends to question any question.  There is a problem in general that questions tend to be remarkably ambiguous and often the answer is "it depends". 

Here is your question:

If you choose an answer to this question at random, what is the chance you will be correct?
a) 25%
b) 50%
c) 60%
d) 25%

Seems really simple at first glance doesn't it? 50%: Now think about it.

I'm going to quote Tom word for word and hope that he forgives me if I tell you to buy one of his books.  If you are an Oracle DBA and don't own a TK book you should be ashamed of yourself.

"They are missing the correct answer in the list!  And adding the correct answer would change the answer - so that it might be incorrect as well.  Meaning - there is more missing here than supplied.  You don't stand a chance of answering the question at all.

I put forth that the answer is "e) none of the above" - making the right answer "20%".

Looking at the problem, if you assume the right answer is 25% - because you have a 1 in 4 chance of selecting any one of the items - the probability you will get the right answer randomly is 50%.  So, it cannot be 25% - if it were - it would be 50% (confusing, yes).

Moreover, if you assume 50% is correct, then the right answer is 25% - because the chance of picking 50% is 1 in 4.

If you assume 60% is correct - well, I don't know what to say.

The question itself seems to somehow affect the answer - the act of answering the question changes the answer.  Sort of like when you run a program in the debugger and it works perfectly - but when you run it standalone it crashes (that has never happened to me, nope, not a chance...).So, my answer is "e) none of the above"

The problem can be pushed further is you replace the 60% with 0%.  If 0% was correct, the odds would be 25%, but there are 2 25%'s so it would be 50%, but there is only 1 50% so it would be 25% and so on. Infinite loop.

The original question was posted here, the comments section is worth a read.  Nearly every time I read a different answer I agree with it.

Source

The problem really is with the question.  Knowing what you are asking is in someways more important than the answer.  Which leads us right into the Ultimate Question.  The answer to which we know but the question has never been quite understood.

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Size matters and it's got to be huge

This weeks Gallery is Phone Photos.
Whilst out walking I have taken some pearlers with my phone, skys are always my favourite.  I love how huge it is and it is so hard to actually capture that size in a photo.
I think this one did it: a hang glider in the evening sky.



Or this weather front that came in on a summers evening and saturated me.

And finally where size is everything.

click on this one to see it's full power.

All taken on iphone 3GS

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Interesting Reads

I tried to be a big wide bloggety circle blogger for a while.  I tried to read lots, and my word there are a lot of interesting blogs out there but I just don't have time to commit the interest I think longer term readership involves.  Now I tend to stick with the ones that entertain, make me laugh, make me cry and generally stir up some emotion in me.

Funky Wellies is one of the blogs I read.  She has a different angle on photography (I like photography), lives in Germany (I like Germany) and a life very different to mine (I'd like one of them too!).  I like reading different.

Well she's passed on the  Liebster award. This  is given to bloggers with fewer than 200 followers.  (What Funky Wellies may not remember is that I used to have a lot of followers and I accidentally deleted them all; trust me it can be done! So now I have no idea how many people read my blog.  Actually It would be quite nice to know but then if it was more than the handful I know about I would feel under pressure so maybe it's best just leaving the answer blowing in the wind.)

Anyhoo, To share my favourite reads with you:

RTFM
NB is amazingly entertaining and with an educated angle,  his writings on the middle east and politics are easy to follow, he goes to different, bizarre and extremely interesting places London and has a fine interest in art (street art being a firm favourite of him and me) 

Auntie Gwen
She makes me feel good about my own life!  What her teenagers don't get up to isn't worth crying with laughter over. But what her teenagers do get up to is.

Ayaks Turkish Delight
Ayak married a Turk and moved to Turkey some time ago.  A grandmother to her UK family, she has an extremely interesting life in Turkey on the back of old motorbikes, working at holiday resorts, and generally dealing with the difficulties of a women (and foreign at that) in Turkey. and the weather there isn't all it's cracked up to be - read about the leaking house!

A Bavarian Sojourn
Formally from the UK and recently moved from Scandinavia to Bavaria, she has an amazing writing talent and shares so much about the customs and happenings of the country she is in.  I learn so much from this blog in its easy to read way and of course she has fantastic photos, which I adore.

SquidgyBoo
Squidge is the daughter of an American mum growing up in the UK.  Really this blog for me is about Lindy's photography and it's a bit like watching my family 6 years ago.  We had the Australian asking all the questions that Lindy now often poses!

These were a hard 5 to pick, the blog list down my left side is worth a trip through if you find yourself sat with a cup of coffee.

If you are named here and want to pass on the links then this is the science bit, there is no obligation:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your 5 blogger picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Hope that the people you have sent the award to will forward it to their favourite bloggers.

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Women Objectified

You know that our young adult's self esteem is something I am passionate about. I have spoken about air brushing before and how our children are growing up with such unrealistic models that there is no way they will ever meet the expectations they place on themselves.
This is a short video that explains very succinctly what is going on, how we are all being manipulated.





If women didn't feel the need to have breast implants (excluding mastectomy rebuilds - I'm talking vanity not illness) they wouldn't need to be having them taken out.

Why did they feel it was necessary to be enhanced to begin with? How are you going to help teach the next generation that they don't have to be enhanced that they truly are worthy exactly the way they are?




Please remind your children that health and fitness is what matters and that they are already the most beautiful people.

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I am not me

I've been managing severe pain now for 6 months.  Sometimes I can walk, sometimes I can't.  Most mornings I struggle to dress and at the moment I can't drive.  I'm trying to have a normal existence and do the things I have always done but now it all feels like I am watching someone else doing those things.

I am watching me do the living whilst I am totally self absorbed by pain.

The other me that is doing the doing isn't really doing so well. The New Year party was flatter than normal because the other me didn't put enough effort in to the entertainment.

The decorating is getting left, there are still holes in the repiped radiator walls from last November, because the other me isn't as good at doing that sort of stuff as the pain ridden me.

Am I making any sense?

There is no longer a day goes by when I don't consider whether death is an easier option than life***.  The other me ignores those thoughts and keeps on working, mothering, making Guiding plans.

I have become a shadow of myself

***Update***

I am very sorry I have worried so many people and I really appreciate your concern and support.  I needed an outlet to let go of some of this desperation I am feeling right now.  I am quite stable, truly.  Just fed up.  It will all be fine.  Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.

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You and whose army?

Did the Defence Secretary Philip Hammond really just tell the Iranians that we won't allow them to close the Strait of Hormuz?

This has given me the vision of a really angry child punching and kicking out like mad whilst the bemused and amused father holds the child at arms length with one hand placed on their forehead.

"You and whose army?" mock the Iranians
"well we could see if the cheese eating surrender monkeys will lend us the planes and our mates the Ameri..."

Ahhh yes, today Obama decided to move the US defence strategy away from Europe delaying the F-35s.

Nothing like punching above your weight when it comes to our 'defence' strategy, I'm sure the Iranians are quaking in their boots...not..they are too busy in the labs, happily getting on with the stuff that Iraq were accused of doing years ago.

Here's something interesting from this link:

In 1988, just a few miles to the south of Qeshm Island, the United States Navy cruiser, USS Vincennes (accidentally?) shot down an Iranian Air Bus passenger jet with 290 people aboard, and to this day that controversial action has yet to fully explained to the satisfaction of all parties.

I'm not quite sure how Iran Air Flight 655 managed to pass by me unnoticed, it certainly doesn't get the same airplay here as Lockerbie, which happened the same year.

Perhaps that's how we plan to fight it out without appropriate hardware.  We'll go back to the 1914 method of just wasting innocent lives over and over.

At least it'll give us something else to think about whilst the economy crashes around our ears.

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Jamais vu

Well Christmas has been packed away, the New Year party came and went and all signs are gone.  I loved having Christmas around this year.  I had a great pleasure from looking at the special ornaments, the lights, the red, the gold, the familiar and now it's all gone.

It's strange it's almost like it didn't actually happen, I enjoyed, I blinked and it was over.

Things seem to pass so quickly, I take time to saviour, I appreciate, I feel the joy and they still just pass on by.  I feel like hanging onto them tightly and refusing to let go.  Why do things keep moving so fast, I'm struggling to keep up with the pace.

So was Christmas an illusion?  Did it happen?  I'm guessing my credit card bill will be the moment of truth!

Everything just seems a little surreal at the moment.

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Happy New Year?

Happy New Year? I hope so, but I'm in trepidation of how much happiness it is likely to hold for me.  Oh don't get me wrong, I expect the usual bouts of happiness that drop in and out of life as they are prone to do, but the things I have wished and hoped for in 2011 that failed to arrive are highly unlikely to come skipping into my life in 2012.

I guess I need to learn to love life without being able to exercise, without any more babies and always feeling like my marriage is on the brink of disaster.  Seriously if I can learn to embrace that lot I'm on the yellow brick road to smilesville.

Learning to stand up straight, brace the shoulder to the wind and just dammed well smile might be a start.  It's hard this time of year to imagine being able to do that when I actually want to just curl into a ball under a quilt and just disappear.


"Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not." : is a Vaclav Havel quote I read today.  Being too serious about anything is not good for the soul, and serious people unsettle me.  Maybe I'm unsettling myself.

"If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got.  If what you get isn't what you want then do something different"

So there's my answer.  Time for change.  I don't know yet what it is but I know it probably doesn't involve sitting here quite as often.

I'm not entirely sure why but these thoughts took me to here:




Which in turn led me to the song we played at my father's funeral, which is the way he lived and really where I should be too.



I'll be back (I mean smiling, I'm unlikely to actually stop blogging!)

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