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I found this on Youtube, and I really couldn’t resist sharing it. I once had to introduce a teensy kitten to two adult cats and the process was pretty similar. We had our cats eye each other up through glass doors for a few days, but the steps seem to be pretty common and I still get asked how to introduce cats.
The cats protection league has a section titled : How can I introduce my new cat to my existing cat? which gives us good pointers on how to make the introductions slowly and with care to make sure that they accept each other.
The general steps for introducing cats to each other seems to be.
1. Allow the animals to smell and see each other through a door for a few days, each cat with plenty food, water and comfort.
2. Slowly introduce them to each other by scent on your clothes, and on hands until they get used to the scent of each other.
3. Allow them to be in the same room in your presence where you can supervise and ensure that a vulnerable cat is safe.
4. Take your time as some cats will take longer to get used to new cats than others.
I challenge you not to say awwwww at the end of this video introducing a kitten to a cat …
STAR RECIPE WINNER – for June 2012 is Mama Cook with her recipe for : Spanakopita (spinach and feta pies) for the whole family. Congratulations.
JULY FUNKY FOODIE LINKY IS OPEN
Apologies for being a couple of days late with the start of the linky.
Funky Foodies is a monthly linkie, which will be opened on the first day of the month and will close on the last day.
A medal will be awarded for the Star Recipe every month, and the fabulous trophy in the blog badge will be awarded at the end of a whole year of the Funky Foodies. If you want to find out more about it, read here.
All you have to do is share as many recipes from your own blog a month as you’d like. If you struggle to add your recipe, send me your link and I’ll add it for you.
Try to pop around and share the comment love with other funky foodies. We all like a little love and might come across some fabulous recipes.
Simply add the link to your recipe on your own blog, and share your latest recipe with everyone taking part. If you don’t want to miss the linkie being opened, subscribe to RSS or by email in the blog header.
I’ll add recipes of mine to share, although I don’t count in the recipe challenge.
Feel free to copy the badge or use the html in the widget at the bottom of the page to add the small blog badge to your own blog / post. It makes finding you easier for other funky foodies.
If you want to add the July blog hop to your own recipe, get the InLinkz code and add to the html.
This post isn’t one for bleating or winging about what some of us can’t get, or miss out on for our disabled or elder care families. This one I am actually very pleased with and at the same time, massively surprised about as it seems to be UK wide, but at what levels I am not quite sure.
It started at parents night at middlers special school. The alarm system man was there to show off the systems that can be used to help families who need to know what is happening through the night.
Imagine waking up by hearing a crying child who’d been kicked out of their bed. Imagine hearing a noise downstairs and then investigating to find a child with front and back doors open and four burners of the gas turned on !!!!! The potential is enormous for many parents of special needs children. Our solution was to have one adult sleep downstairs permanently.
I had asked doctors, consultants, social workers and more for solutions to it, and the only answers I could get were to lock the doors so he couldn’t get downstairs, or put new doors on so that they could be locked. I had visions of horror in the event of fire, or if something happened and the kids couldn’t get downstairs or out of the front door as the key is under my pillow.
Cutting a long story short, coming across these alarms is kind of bitter-sweet. We’ve struggled for years, when there was a solution on our doorsteps, and one that the council also provides for free here. The only charge is for things like elder care fall alerts at £1.80 a week to link up to a call centre.
The equipment is free for us in Aberdeen, and it looks free from a lot of the local authorities I’ve had a look at. I think Aberdeenshire is £4 month, but I think most people could stretch to that for peace of mind.
After persuading my mother that she needed an alert too after falling downstairs and making this mess of herself, she finally gave in to the fact that there needs to be some way of raising an alarm when I’m here as well as when I’m away. I was two rooms away and had no idea she had fallen face first from the top to the bottom of the stairs.
The picture was 2 days after falling. By 5 days, the bruising had joined up under her eyes and cheekbones. The kids said that her bruises were “growing”. Although she looks nowhere near her 77 years, she has arthritis which makes falling actually quite easy. There were no broken bones which amazed me.
She has two pendants and a wrist watch style fall alert. If she falls with the watch on, it automatically sends an alert to my wrist watch and to the care centre, just in case I don’t hear it. She can use the pendants to either just get my attention, or to go to a call centre for help if I am not here.
We have a door alarm on middlers door which is actually quite small (wandering alert). It goes to a unit which I keep beside my bed and wakes me up if his door is opened. He doesn’t know how I know that he has left his room and I can usher him back to his bedroom and safety.
Alert Handset
In Aberdeen, they are raising awareness of the systems as too few people seem to know about them. My first question was “how much will it cost”. Sceptical as usual…. The equipment was installed within 2 weeks of my initial self referral. An assessor came out to do an assessment of what would be needed, and two fitters came a mere few days later to install all the equipment.
The service was absolutely amazing, and I don’t say that lightly.
If you know someone who could benefit from peace of mind, let them know to look for it in their area. They really are worth having and I have to say it again, I have been enormously impressed by the Aberdeen Telecare Information Service.
We’re sleeping easier and the wrecked lounge come bedroom is getting a makeover to celebrate it’s return to being solely a lounge.
The puff pizza – does it exist? I have no idea actually and perhaps I should really go and look it up. I keep it in reserve for days when the fridge is coming to the end of its content and needs a help along with some tinned goodies (shhhhh) to fill some empty bellies.
I always have a block or two of puff pastry in the freezer. I never make it as it’s such a faff, but maybe one day I will and then get myself converted to fresh puff from then on, but for now, it’s always on hand.
Today is an almost at the end of the fridge day and the kids have played footie, cricket, done chores, and have not sat still in the lovely sun that we rarely get to see.
Puff Pizza
With no passata on hand, it’s just a hodgepodge of what was available in my fridge and cupboard today.
Ingredients
500g block of puff pastry
300g wafer thin ham
500g grated cheese
small tin sweetcorn
tin of hotdogs
salt
pepper
Method
Flour an oven dish, I used a very rectangle tray that we use for making oven chips.
Roll out pastry to cover the bottom of the tray.
Sprinkle all your toppings of choice onto the puff pastry.
Cover with tin foil, shiny side down.
Bake in oven at 200 for 25 minutes.
Remove tin foil and bake for further 5 minutes.
Serve with whatever is left in the fridge salad wise.
Your oven may run hotter or colder to make sure you keep an eye on how your puff pastry is progressing.
Last weekend was the Brit Mums Live conference event for bloggers. I couldn’t make it so I gave my ticket away for someone who wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise. Chloe from Cookie Jar Life went instead of me, and I’m not sure how she dealt with having my badge to tootle along all day with her, so hopefully she remembered a nice thick marker pen to write over it.
Chloe has written a post of how she found the day, and I’m glad she had a nice time as it can be a little daunting entering a room of 500 people when you don’t know anyone.
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Saturday 23rd June I put my usual routine to one side as I set off to London at the crack of dawn for the event of the month #BritMumsLive.
To say I was a little nervous was an understatement. By the time I reached The Brewery I was already a bit shaky, this was to be my first ‘big’ blogging event.
Welcomed by lovely people I soon headed off into the hub to observe and see what was going down.
Wonderful people everywhere, feeling a bit taken back by it all I kept my space at first then @helloitsgemma and @northernmum1 turned up and I felt more settled. Walking around the businesses tables there was so much to offer, and of course brilliant freebies as well.
The first session I attended was the ‘Blogging for the Greater Good’ which I found very informative, and I hope some amazing things come out of what the ladies said. I learned that we can of course help many charities if we wished, but a message will be stronger if you focused on that one thing close to your heart.
Next I disappeared off to ‘Secret and Lies – bad behaviour online’ which to be honest opened my eyes up to how people truly react to trolls and abuse. I having only experience being sent hurtful comments once, just went for the ‘ignore and delete’ method.
At lunch I was joined by the lovely @dorkymum who put up with me for the rest of the afternoon, and we had some fun having a look round the tables again in the hub and attacking the photo booth. We also found the fruity cocktails and cake! I was in love 😉
The afternoon workshops of ‘sod the stats’ which I love it was an amazing group of ladies talking, and it was plain and simple to see why blogging should just be about what makes you happy. Finally I went to ‘writing about your life for non-fiction and memoirs’ which to be honest wasn’t for me. I did feel a little bored and realised that I wasn’t far enough ahead in my blogging ‘career’ to have any use of it.
The evening was by far the best part of my day, totally shocked by the fact I actually got speaking to Cherry Healey, put me in a great mood.
To listen to the blogger’s keynote speeches, well what can I say… I have never laughed and cried so much in the space of an hour or so. There were some truly beautiful words read up on that stage. Overall I just loved meeting so many new faces, having the opportunity to experience it all.
I will definitely buy a ticket and return next year.
To put it simply, we all know that Google Page Rank counts for some things, whether we want to admit it or not. It’s google for heavens sake, and they are the law of he who must be obeyed for good search engine results. It’s easy to check google page rank, but we need to know roughly where we are so that it actually means something.
An increase of page rank seems to factor as a multiplier, ie it is 10 times more difficult to get move up each step of the ladder from Page Rank 0 to Page Rank 10. Rumour has it that there are now into the trillions of websites out there, so a little perspective when looking at the numbers helps make us feel a bit better about where we sit in the great Google empire.
We don’t know exactly how Google works it, but going by the guesstimate that it seems to work to, this is a simple way of explaining it. The even harder thing is that we have no way of knowing at which end of the scale our sites are at. I’m a 3, so I could be anywhere between ten million and a hundred million. My next goal is just to slog along to get to that Page Rank of 4.
Google Page Rank 10 – THE top 10 websites in the world.
Google Page Rank 9 – The top 100 websites.
Google Page Rank 8 – The top 1000 websites.
Google Page Rank 7 – The top 10,000 websites
Google Page Rank 6 – The top 100,000 websites
Google Page Rank 5 – The top 1,000,000
Google Page Rank 4 – The top 10,000,000
Google Page Rank 3 – The top 100,000,000
Google Page Rank 2 – Low, going by the factor of 10 means within the top 1000,000,000
Google Page Rank 1 – Low, multiplier added means within the top 10,000,000,000
Google Page Rank 0 – Very new, or penalised for breaching google webmaster guidelines.
Find out what yours is with a google page rank checker.
This is a lovely featured guest post with some handy tips on redecorating a child’s bedroom.
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As parents we’d love to give our kids the best of everything, but unfortunately more too often our hearts say one thing and our purse strings another.
As our children grow older one thing that must also grow with them is the interior design of their bedroom, and for a lot of parents just the mere thoughts of this renovation can cause palpitations of the heart as they see the proverbial hole in their wallet grow crater-sized. However, redecorating your child’s bedroom is something that can easily be done on a reasonable budget, and is also a good way to involve your child and help them learn about practical decision-making.
Take note of these practical tips for redecorating your child’s bedroom on a budget, and think about where your child might be able to get involved along the way.
A Splash of Colour – Picking a new shade for the walls is one of the thriftiest ways of making a big overall change to the room. There’s no reason why you can’t choose a mix of different colours for the room, perhaps colour-coding different areas for different activities. A calming pastel blue for the bed area will help your child relax at the end of a busy day.
Choosing a Theme – Being on a tight budget means wanting to avoid having to redecorate every single year, and so choosing broader bedroom themes – such as under the sea or a jungle adventure – is a better bet than choosing specific cartoon or television characters, which your child may well tire of as they grow older.
Getting Practical – Redecorating your child’s room is a great way to clear out clutter and to create more space. Affordable and functional divan beds are a good option to save money on buying extra storage space, and specialist retailers such as Silentnight offer a wide selection of these bed types, as well as their Silentnight mattress range that will give your child the comfort and support they need for years to come.
Stuffed Animals – Your child’s stuffed animals can actually be a handy resource for basic bedroom decoration. Why splash out on expensive ornaments and trinkets when you can just rearrange what is already there? If your little one is a teddy-bear obsessive, create a special corner of the room to house them all. This can really help your child to develop his or her imagination.
There’s no reason why redecorating your child’s bedroom should send you into a financial black hole. Treat it as the fun project it should be, and get a little creative. A handprint on the wall is just as effective as an expensive accessory when it comes to adding a little of your child’s personality to their personal space.
Our newest delivery from Scotty Brand arrived on Friday. Lovely Scotty Brand Ayrshire new potatoes. I resisted the temptation to throw a couple of bags on for the evening meal over the weekend, and plan to do something different with them over this week.
Packs of Ayrshire New Potatoes are run with a fabulous promotion to win family adventures in Scotland, and is inspired by Disney Pixar Brave. You can find lots more on the Scotty Brand website, and promotional numbers from each pack of new potatoes to use on the website and see if you have won a prize. To do it, just peel back the sticker below and enter the code to see if you’ve won.
I love potato salad, and so do the kids, but I buy it far more often than I should, as making fresh is much nicer. With the lovely new potatoes, a bag did get boiled to make potato salad.
Luxury Potato Salad
Ingredients
1 bag Scotty Brand new potatoes or approximately 750g.
sea salt.
1 level teaspoon honey mustard.
5 tablespoons of mayonnaise.
4 tablespoons of double cream.
2 teaspoons of chopped chives.
Method
Wash potatoes and boil with a few pinches of sea salt for 10 – 15 minutes.
Leave potatoes to cool before cutting into thick slices.
Fold in mayonnaise and double cream. You may need a little more or less mayonnaise, so add it a tablespoon at a time.
Add the teaspoon of honey mustard and fold in gently until it is fully mixed. Leave this out of you don’t like mustard.
Serve with chives sprinkled on top for a decadent potato salad.
Update 27/6/12 – Olivia has flown back to the UK from Mexico.
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Update: Over £140,000 has been raised so far and the plane is on it’s way to get her. Hopefully she is released from hospital in Tijuana and can come home with her family.
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This is Olivia. She is 7 years old and she has neuroblastoma, which is a form of cancer. She lives in Aberdeenshire in Scotland, so it is my neck of the woods.
SHE NEEDS OUR HELP TO GET HOME – Her parents are only allowed to spend 45 minutes a day with her in Mexico.
Could you imagine being in the position of having a very sick child who is stuck in a foreign country after taking a turn for the worse? It might never happen to us, but it has happened to Olivia and her family.
She is now so gravely ill that she cannot be flown home on a chartered flight, and needs specialist help to get back as she is dying. Her family can’t afford to get her home again, and there is a just giving page set up to enable them to raise enough cash to take Olivia home.
As at 4pm tonight, the fund is sitting at £79,000 and it needs to get to £110,000 to get her home.
If you have a few pounds to spare, please visit her just giving page at Olivia Downie Appeal.
You can donate by text. Text OLIV95 and your amount £1 – £10 to 70070.
Head on over to the Appeal page and leave what you can and pass it on using one of the two twitter hashtags on the go #getoliviahome #bringoliviahome
Olivia hasn’t got long, I am hoping everyone can get her home.
If you don’t have the money to donate to the appeal, please tweet, facebook, digg, stumbleupon, reddit and more.
Don’t comment here, go and visit the just giving page. Olivia Downie Appeal.
Forget that it’s summer now as the weather has been atrocious. I had the kids with me last week when we went out and about to get some cheapie new curtains for the lounge I am decorating. Ok, the curtains didn’t end up as cheap as I was hoping to get them, but they’re certainly a bargain compared to the old faded drapes they are replacing.
Popping in to the Staples at Berryden, which is pretty close by, we really just went for a browse. We came out with a basket full of cheap goodies and new school bags for August. The kids were most excited about their find of some cheap artists canvas boxes, and the prospect of painting with acrylics.
Fab tracing by littlest.
A whole afternoon was spent dabbing, dotting and drawing and my kids were engrossed until their canvas masterpieces were finished.
Middler wasn’t interested so I tried my best to get some sort of semblance of some kind of abstract flower. Am completely ok with how amateur it is, but we all had a fabulous afternoon and are now eagerly awaiting some more blank canvases arriving from Amazon.
My “cough” masterpiece.
The kids bedrooms will be full of their own pictures soon. We’re planning on possibly painting a larger canvas sheet with dots and dabs to match the new lounge when I eventually get it completely finished. It’s a tempting blank canvas at the moment.
Littlest creation. He regrets adding the dark black line around his figure.Eldest gave his dad this for fathers day, saying that it was a picture of his dad when he gets old.
I half wish I knew someone who was a street artist to do something fancy, but you can’t win them all can you.
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As an 88 year old American, after reading the article(s) and all of the comments, I say "nothing is now…
Been stretching for this song nobody I know knows it I sing it every year my gran use to sing…
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As an 88 year old American, after reading the article(s) and all of the comments, I say "nothing is now…
Been stretching for this song nobody I know knows it I sing it every year my gran use to sing…
Can I put cooked garlic mushrooms in the fridge for a couple of days