Category: Lifestyle

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Appetite for Disaster – My Fight with Flab

Ok, here we go.   For me, weight is an issue.  

I am not one of those people you read about in papers or magazines who say that they are happy in their skin and that they are comfortable overweight.

At the moment, I have three stones to lose to feel comfortable and get into the lovely clothes in my wardrobe that have been squirreled away for the last four years. 

I have been up and down, I lost two stones last year in January and February, only to put one stone back on again over the year.    This time, I want to lose the three stone. 

I started on January 1st, but there have been many more family issues this year than last year, and I am a comfort eater.  When I am stressed, I eat, then feel guilty, then I eat some more.

I have bad feet, so that rules out jogging, or cycling when they are bad.  I also have a child at home who is not able to be put into a creche etc, so I can’t do my exercise of choice this year, which is swimming. 

What I do have, is all of you.  @livingwithkids on twitter started a weight loss journey with a group of women who are all wanting to lose weight, and although I have not answered this week (sorry Liz, if you end up reading this), I have had an awful week.  I am hoping to do better next week.

The one thing that I really would like in my quest to regain my old body, and that is an appetite retrain facility.  If one of those was available, I can imagine that the person who made it up would be a millionaire overnight.

I have an awful appetite.  It’s not hunger.  Unlike some people, I do know what hunger is as I used to starve in my 20’s.  Not that you would know it now.  I regularly used to go for 2 – 3 weeks on end eating nothing, and I mean nothing.   Perhaps the odd cup of coffee with milk in it, and a cup a soup or two.  And I worked 12 hour shifts when I was at University.   Not once did I ever pass out, or feel faint.

This appetite is the overriding feeling of the fact that you must put that thing into your mouth, chew, and then swallow it, despite all that your head is telling you.  I used to starve without any thought of hunger or appetite.  Even now, I rarely feel hunger, although I recognise when I am peckish.    I don’t need it, I certainly don’t want it, but yet I still pop it into my mouth.  I also find it difficult to look back on the girl who starved for years, and understand how I did it.

I often now, find myself pacing the floor to stop myself from eating.  The craving is so strong, that it is totally unreasonable.  I suspect it is a replacement for what I really need.  The only problem is, that I have not figured out what it is that I actually need.  My desire is to be thin, fit and healthy.  That’s when I feel good, yet I am the one that is doing so much to ensure that it doesn’t happen.

I am putting this out there, as a reminder to myself, that this is the year that I want to crack it properly.  I am resisting the urge to do a starvation session, and I am trying to do this sensibly.  It is taking longer to come off, and I am slipping back and forth with sticking to the diet.

I may need a kick up the derriere a few times this year to get back on the wagon, and the magical button to banish appetite is just not going to happen for me.   This years quest, is simply to be able to ignore it rumbling away in the background.

Maybe I should post a picture of me where I want to be, and have that looking at me every time I log in.  Hmm, that might just make me raid the biscuit tin……

Wish me luck.

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Education Cuts & Protecting the Vulnerable – Budget 2011/2012 – Aberdeen

 

10th November was the day that the council in Aberdeen voted once again on the budget  cuts.

The statement is here for anyone local to Aberdeen http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/council_tax_benefits/council_tax_home.asp

As with the other statements which will be being released up and down the country, they make for quite light reading, touching on issues, and promising to deliver on what looks like good practice.

Some of the main priorities in Aberdeen are :

  • providing services for the most vulnerable people;
  • ensuring all schoolchildren reach their potential;

Initially, the council were planning to remove 50% of the PSA (Personal Support Assistants)  in classrooms across the city, in both primary and secondary provision, and that is in an area where inclusion has been heavily carried out with PSA support.  This was after already losing 300 at the last round of cuts.

There are children being excluded for not being able to cope now.   How much is that going to increase when more support is taken away, is anybody’s guess.  Excluding is easy where the staff cannot, and will not take responsibility for the issues that arise from placing children inappropriately.

Our children in mainstream schools now share classes with the ASN children who would, probably in our generation have attended the stand alone special schools, or childrens institutes in the area.  We have a high PSA ratio in our schools, as they are now there supporting the children who need help.  I have heard many excuses surrounding why they should be cut, from people outraged that they are pinning up things to make classes look pretty, to sitting “babysitting” children with bad behaviour.

Both of these arguments are irrational.  Yes, teachers could pin up the sticker charts, the projects, the work that the children are doing, but then we are eating into teaching time.  What do you really want??    And as for the “babysitting……..    From my perspective, in a school where there are children not coping, there will be bad behaviour.

The other options for those children struggling without support are limited to quietly not receiving much of an education, and exclusion.  With the right support, they are living a full life, and integrating with the school.  I thought that was the whole point!!!!!!!   Maybe I misunderstood the point of integration / exclusion all these years.   Any arguments, or issues people have with PSA’s should be taken up with the individual headteachers who allocated them, and they should not be not used to denigrate PSA’s overall.

One of the options tabled was to cut music in schools and another was to amalgamate two secondary schools, which was sensible in terms of the school roll.   Both of these options raised high profile campaigns, that parents AND the children themselves fought.   The councillors very quickly decided that these options were going to cause them some problems, and might likely affect their future election prospects.  Both issues were taken off the table.

Taking those issues off the table, meant that for education, there needed to be cuts from somewhere.   The other potential eduction cuts that run deep in Aberdeen included

  • Increasing special school class size from 1:7 to 1:10  (this means losing approx 27 ASN specialist teachers)
  • Cutting PSA’s between 50 – 100%  in mainstream  (we are talking possibly 300 more support staff)
  • Not fulling educational psychologist positions (so reduced access to support for additional support needs)

Now, I am not being unreasonable to say, that doing all of this up front, without the training of the staff who are left to cope, is madness.  All I can see are the unsupported children struggling, and with no prospect of assistance.  These children then add to the social care system, but sorry, that is being cut as well.

And in the process, hundreds of thousands of people up and down the country are being made redundant in the name of paying back the debt our banks got us into).

Now who, in the cutting process, is going to be left to pay the debs off?

The demand on benefits is increasing with the redundancies.  With less money to spend, more people are having to give up their small businesses – oh wait, that means yet more on benefits again.

Now forgive me for being pessimistic, but the people making these decisions don’t live in the real world.  They live in their comfortable, well paid little bubbles, with their comfortable and well paid little friends, living their perfect little lives, with nannies, cooks, cleaners and bottle washers on tap.

Those of us in the general public can’t fight the upper classes, but we have  to live with their bad choices.  I have nothing but respect for the parents in the constituencies who decided to boycott school for a day in protest at the education cuts.    All power to them.

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“Belonging” Doric Poem

In twa thoosan an eliven
We’ll mind it fir life
Iss wis yon year wi muckle bleed
Fir thae fa canna stann up fir themsels
 Oor cooncil took awa their aid
An’ll mak em wait fir yeers oan end
 Bairns wi needs canna find help
Stuffed intae skewls thit canna cope
 An admittin it noo micht help mebbe ane
If they blabber the truth tae us a
 If inclusion’s a wye fir us tae see
Oor bairns’re nae a fit fir them fancy wyes
 Foo sad it maks me tae spy misery
Oan faces o bairns nae wintin tae be
 Find em a space fariver it be
An pit back oan a smile
Fit mair greetins tae see

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Bloggy Reasons to be Cheerful 1,2,3 – Week 6!

This is my first go at this so bear with me until I get it sorted.  Doing blog hops has not been my speciality yet, and the only one I have tried, ended up with me just messing it up.  Here is hoping that I manage to get it right this time.

Okay – my reasons to be cheerful.

1 – I have a fantastic mother who does so much to help me, that I cannot even begin to describe how much she means to me as a mother.  She struggles with diabetes, thyroid disease, arthritis and has just passed her 5 year mark for breast cancer.  And yet, she still always thinks of me and my children first, and never complains.  I landed an angel.

2 – My relatively new circle of friends (1 year plus),  has brought me back into a fantastic life, that revolves outside of my own little home bubble.  They took me in, made me one of them, and now I would be lost without them.

3 – I found twitter and blogging.  While I am not Mrs Wonderful Blogger, I am loving it.  I have the opportunity to interact with other women like me.  I can meet and talk to people as and when I need support, a talking to, or just a bit of gossip or banter.

4 – Like some of the other bloggy mums, I have recently been contacted by some PR’s wanting to work with me, which is fantastic.  This is an amazing boost to confidence considering I had to start from scratch when I lost a few months of posts in October.   I have only been going again since November under my new name, and I am happy with how things are going.  This is fun for me, and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

5 – This is a holiday weekend, and I don’t have to rush getting the kids up for the next 5 mornings.

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@scottish_mum / My Top 5 Reasons for Twittering

Yada, yada, yada.  I see the look on the faces of anyone that I mention twitter to.  It is normally met with some kind of snigger, and snort, or some comment of how they have far too much to do to spend time on twitter, or asking why I would want to talk to strangers every day.   After that, I don’t tell them I tweet. 

Because of the reactions, very few people know that I tweet.  My husband and kids know, and they snigger and snort at it.  I have two people in RL apart form that who know, and they are fine with it.  So much so, that they even know about this blog.   If you are reading this, yes, you know who you are.  That’s it though.   To other people, my twitter doesn’t really exist.

My enjoyment of using twitter is totally founded on the fact that I have met new friends very quickly.  These are friends, whom we rarely meet, or hardly know, yet we talk to each other nearly every day.

Pre twitter, it was hard for me to imagine that I would enjoy it so much, or that I would end up setting up a blog, and writing away into the cyberspaceworld.  I would like to go public as some of you do, and reveal my face to the world, but I am not comfortable doing that at the moment, so I am doubly grateful for the lovely people who have come into my twitter stream. 

My top 5 reasons for tweeting

1 – I have someone to talk to at any time of day.  There is always someone on the other end of the keyboard in my timeline now.    And that is not just anyone.  They are going to be people like me, with kids, with problems, and not pretending that everything in their lives is rosy.

2 – I don’t have the time with special needs in the family to do the coffee mornings, lunch groups, or mummy socialising locally, and twitter offers me the opportunity to mix with both special needs and mainstream mums.  I get the best of both worlds, which doesn’t happen in real life.

3 – I am doing something that I would never have done before.  Thanks to twitter, I am travelling 500 miles to a place I haven’t been to before, to meet a few hundred other women who have met through blogging at Cybermummy in London.

4 – I found blogging.  Through reading some other peoples blogs, and deciding that I needed an outlet to keep me sane, I started blogging last year.  I messed up when I transferred across to my own domain and lost it all, so it was start all over again.   This blog started in November / December and will take time to build up, and at the moment, I am enjoying having somewhere to splurge.  Do I want to take it further, not yet, as it’s fun.

5 – I thrive on the sometimes multiple, fast conversations going on.  All those  people who join in, all the people helping each other when someone asks for help, and the fact that it keeps me sane. 

That’s it from me.  I think I have been lucky in that I have not managed to get myself into any twitter arguments.   This is the secret though isn’t it.  It’s like a little secret society of fast moving conversation followers.  The speed it moves in comparison to facebook is astounding.

Thats it from me, and if you haven’t tried twitter, it takes a little time to find your circle, and expand to follow the people that you like.   I tried three times before I really got into it.   I’ll have withdrawal symptoms on holidays this year !!!!!!

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My Top Kitchen Gadgets

I thought it might be fun to write about my most used kitchen gadgets.   I’ve already written about my close relationship to the soda stream (here).

Favourite gadgets are not always the things you think they are going to be when you buy them.  Pre children I had loads of things that were tucked away at the back of a cupboard, never to be used, and were eventually ebayed or thrown out.

Now I find myself buying some of the same gadgets that I threw out.  Having 6 people in the house means that having enough of any one thing to go around everyone can be difficult if you are buying from supermarkets, as you need to buy multiples of everything.

If you buy a standard large pie from a supermarket for a family of 4, thats one thing, but you need two pies for a family of 5 or 6, or someone has to do without and have something else.  Having to make two different meals is irritating for me.  I like one lot of cooking, and everyone eats the same things.

Yes, I might have one child who only eats the potatoes with cheese on top if its red meat, but basically I like one lot of cooking, and people can work around what is on offer.   Things like bread, cakes, scones, pizza, quiche etc etc are easily sorted at home and will be future gadget blogs. 

I love my Panasonic Breadmaker, my budget price Slowcooker (19.99 from Aldi), Kenwood Mixer, and DeLonghi coffee maker.

I have an electric hand blender, and it comes quite close to my now must have gadgets, but I would happily live without it.

The five must have’s are the ones I would now go out and urgently replace if they broke / wore out.    I am going to do individual reviews on each one over time, but at the moment, I would love to find out which gadgets other people think of as their “Must haves”.

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Cuts to Services for and of the Disabled

With one special needs child, and two others who need some assistance at school, but who cope with a little extra support, it fills me with horror to read the stories of what is going on around Scotland this year.  The support staff from different authorities seem to be targetted.  The cuts are savage, and directed at the welfare of the disadvantaged population. 

When other cuts, such as music have been mentioned, people have been up in arms and complaining about it in huge numbers.  It is sad that ASN children are not seen as an attractive enough issue to warrant the public rising up to protect them.

I am ashamed of my country, my government, and my local council.

There, I’ve said it.

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“Burns Nicht” (Doric Poem for Robert Burns “Burns Night”)

Hive ye iver wonnered fit thon Burns Nicht wis a aboot, an fit they did.  Read oan fir hoo them that likes tae celebrate Rabbie Burns birthday wi a supper dae it.

Eence mair comes roon the 25th, the birthday o the baird
Fir Rabbie’s supper eence agin, the tartan clamored laird
A ower the warld, folk gaither wi freens, an beat thon Selkirk grace
Tae celebrate a man o words, a poet fu o grace

We start wi soup, an hud oor weesht, afor mair grub is seen
The chunter soonds the warning, thit the haggis is oan its wye
An oan a platter, fit fir a king, the beast is piped oan in
Tae an address, an pomp worthwhile, is slit frae end tae end

Wi neeps n tatties, the dish doled oot, an a dram o whiskey rare
We’ll hae a toast, tae the Queen, an then’s oor Rabbies turn
Mair thanks tae a, fa did the wirk, tae mak a crackin nicht
An then them lads and lasses joke, wi jibes tae ane an a

An efter a them tales are ower, the dancin micht begin
Or mebbe jist a tale or twa, lik Tam o Shanter playin
An fan its ower we’ll a gie thanks, and link oor airms a hither
Tae pay respects an sing a roon o Auld Lang Syne thigither

Author: Lesley S Smith

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Disability Injustice and Cuts to Services

I was absolutely astounded to read the case of  Riven Vincent, but not surprised.

In case you have not yet heard of her, or read the news over the last couple of days, she has asked social services for residential care for her daughter, as she can no longer cope at home.    She asked for additional respite to help her, and it was refused. 

For one, I am not surprised that this has happened, and I do believe that it is going to happen more and more often as the cuts that the Government send down to local councils bite.  In my own local council, there are several cuts to disability and ASN childrens services which have been given the green light for swathing cuts.

People who have never lived with severe disability, or mental illness, have actually no idea of what stresses they and their carers are often under.   The long term effects of people who do not access help are far reaching.

1.  On average, it can take years for requested services to come into effect.  Thats if they are offered at all.  Contrary to popular belief, it is quite difficult to be allocated a social worker for a disabled child, even if you ask for one.

2.  DLA to which disabled people are entitled, make applicants jump through hoops, and expect people with disabilities to manage to complete a novel sized application form intelligently.   Many give up trying to get it. 

3.  Parents with disabled children are often not in a position to fight for their children, as they are exhausted by the day to day caring.  They are an easy target.

4.  If services, respite and additional care is not offered when it is needed, suicide rates and passing off to care services will increase as people cannot cope in their homes.

The fact that Riven Vincent has asked for her daughter to go into care is not surprising.  She has other children to look after, a huge workload with Riven, and being denied enough support for her to be able to nurture her family properly.  

I do not pretend to understand how hard it is for her with a doubly incontinent child, not enough incontinence pads, and insufficient support to allow her to care for her other children.  I know how hard it is for me with my family, and my heart goes out to her, and those like her.

She gets no sleep, and it cannot carry on like that.  I have huge respect for her, and the fact that she has asked for help shows how strong a lady that she really is.  

Leave the political stuff aside.  This is a family that is struggling, who asked for help and were denied. 

I wish Riven Vincent all the luck in the world, and I hope that she gets all the help she deserves. It sounds like an awful situation that she can neither move forward, nor backwards from, unless someone takes charge to help her.

Moving the blame back onto local government is a disgraceful cop-out.

Thats my opinion.

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Seven things you don’t know about me.

Here are the guidelines
Link back to the person who gave it to you.
Give 7 facts about yourself.
Award up to 15 great bloggers you’ve recently discovered

I’ve been tagged by Carol Finds Her Wings (via twitter) and Mummy Alarm (via twitter) to share seven things that you don’t know about me.  I blog anonymously so this is going to be a difficult one to do.

1.  Rollercoasters and huge fairground trains, loop the loops, and aerial display rides terrify me.   Not just slightly scared, but out of the ordinary, pathetically panicked.  I won’t go on one, even for kids, but Disneylands Vertical Hollywood Towers I could do all day long.

2.  I don’t like peppers.  Red, green or yellow.  I swear I could smell a piece of pepper in a meal from 100 paces.   In restaurants, I always ask for my meal, “with no peppers.”    A third of the time, the meal comes out right, the second third, they have fished the peppers out of the pre-cooked meal and I reject at the first forkful.  The last third of the time, the meal arrives, with the peppers intact, as if nothing were wrong. 

3.  I have absolutely no sense of direction, none at all.   I struggle with maps, and get lost with perspective.  In theory I can, but put me somewhere strange, and in no time at all, I’m twirling in circles.  London should be fun.

4.  My very first concerts were Thin Lizzie (first boyfriend took me, honestly),  Paul King (dressed to the left), Duran Duran, (that was worth seeing) and Simply Red (umm ok, but stuck at the back), & Suzi Quattro (who, I hear you ask).  The first record I bought was Donny Osmond “Puppy Love” and I used to imagine being picked out of the crowd to be sung to.  Ok, I was only about 5, but still.   In public my favourite singer of all time would have to be Marti Pellow from Wet Wet Wet, but I cheat with Robbie Williams.   My secret passion is rock, and I’d love to see Bon Jovi, and Aerosmith.

5.   I don’t get David and Victoria Beckham bashing.   They worked hard, played hard, took advantage of opportunities, made a fortune out of some very clever marketing, and seem to be happy.

6.  I can make candles, all sorts of candles, big and small, in glasses or pillars, plain or scented, and I love them all.  A hobby that became an obsession to the point I’m pretty good.    Anyone who comes into my house is likely to have their noses offended by the notes of wildflowers, bakery, fruit, or spice.   I use them all the time, so have grown accustomed to the stench.  Its good when a relative comes to visit and you only have instant coffee.  Light up the candle in the kitchen and they really will believe, the percolator is going, for a special treat.

7.  I moaned and winged about getting a real bike, to go out with the kids for a cycle ride.  After four years of wingeing, the bike was finally mine, and it’s already been relegated to the back of the shed as it never sees the light of day.  This spring, I AM going to dust it off and actually get round to using it.

The blogs below are the ones I am about to tag for their 7 secrets.   I don’t remember seeing theirs, and I am sure nearly everyone else has been tagged by now.

Twinkly Mummy
The Boy and Me
Soft Thistle
Crystal Jigsaw

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How a Soda Stream broke my addiction.

One of the things I used to do regularly was buy diet drinks.  I was totally addicted to them.  I would have a raging headache if I didn’t have any, so it was not good.  Last year, I decided that I needed to stop the ridiculous cost that I was spending monthly on drinks if I wanted any money to spend on anything else.

I was drinking up to 4 litres and sometimes more a day, and nothing else if I could help it.  Drinks also had to be super cold to be totally enjoyable, and give the breath taking feeling in the back of the throat when drinking.    All that caffeine and artificial sweetener was not doing me any good.  I had tried to stop a few times, but always gave in with the headaches and went back to my old habits.

The brand I liked, I won’t mention, but it was not easy to stop.   I had terrible headaches for about a week, and a sore throat.  I decided to stick it out, and had one or two cups of coffee a day to try and alleviate the caffeine withdrawal symptoms from such a long term caffeine habit.  Using the coffee did help, and I saved one for bedtime so that the headache would go down a little for trying to get to sleep.

I tried drinking water, which is just yeuch to me.  Ok, I know people like it, and it’s the lifegiving nectar, but I just don’t like it.  If I have to drink it, I will, but I’d rather have something flavoured.  I began to use cordials and got fed up of how boring it was.   Then I bought some bottled fizzy water and that was great with the cordials.

Carrying around lots of bottles again, nearly had me revert to picking up the brand I so desired, and on a whim, the next step was to buy a soda stream (just to try it, as you do).  I bought it when we were on holiday and it was reduced in price, so it was a bargain.

I didn’t really expect very much from it, and at first I thought it would be a flash in the pan, and believed I wouldn’t bother with it once the gas bottle ran out.  I didn’t bother with the soda stream syrups, and use the fizzy water it makes to add to lime juice and cordials.  I have even fizzed up some boring wine to make it more fun to drink.

I order enough CO2 bottles to last a few months at a time from Lakeland, and they cover the returns cost so it works out pretty cheaply now to have fizzy water on tap all the time.  The kids and Mr Scottish also use it a lot, and the buzzing is a frequently heard noise in this house.

I’ve kicked the caffeine and now use decaffeinated coffee, and I can have a caffeinated drink now and again without stressing about it any more.  Freedom from 20 years chained to a brand of diet drink may seem silly to some, but it was a big deal for me.

I love my soda stream, and it is THE most used kitchen gadget in our house next to the kettle, but shhhhhh, I would never admit that in RL.


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