Midlife Singlemum

#SilentSunday

2012-03-04T00:37:00.000+02:00

#LifeCircle 8 - Just Say 'No' And Get Over It

2012-03-03T18:44:00.003+02:00

This week our LifeCircle assignment was to say 'no' to something you'd normally find hard to refuse or, worse, would say 'yes' to and cause yourself significant inconvenience as a consequence. The last time I tried to put my foot down and say 'no' (actually is was a case of 'no more') this happened. Another time I did manage to say 'no' to a good friend who made it clear that she expected me to bring my then 2yo out in the evening to an event she was holding. I got this response. So you see it's not always as easy as just being firm and saying 'no'.

On the other hand, it usually is just a case of being firm and saying 'no'. One problem is that I often want to do whatever it is. I like organising. I like being involved in community stuff. I enjoy the whole being part of something gig. But, of course the biggest problem is not wanting to let people down, worrying that they may think less of me or be offended (in the case of declining an invitation).

I made the decision that when DD is at nursery I must use the time to work. I made this decision a few times and every time something more interesting comes up, I relent. I reason that what's the point of doing freelance work if I can't be flexible with my time? Of course I can be flexible with my time - I could stay up working all night if I wanted. However, even if I wanted, I'm often too tired to do any work when DD is finally asleep. So it's a nice idea that just doesn't work and I have to use the hours I have during the day.

Last week I went out for breakfast with a friend who teaches at a college. As he was on mid-semester break, it seemed silly to pay for a babysitter in order to see him. Then a good friend from New York was here on a (literally) flying visit. I get to see her once every three years or so - how could I not have lunch with her? This week another friend asked if I were free for lunch. I would love to meet her for lunch. Believe me it'd be a lot more fun than planning 28 hours of English language lessons for next semester (which starts on Tuesday and I've not started).

I admit there was a little guilt as this particular friend has to come in from Tel Aviv and I'd said 'no' to her last time she was in Jerusalem for similar reasons. There was a little angst in the form of: will she think I don't want to see her? She emailed me the suggestion we meet at the beginning of the week and I uhmed and ahhed at her, pushing off the final decision until today. Partly because I didn't like to say 'no' and also partly because I was hoping against all hope that I'd be in better shape workwise - there was about 0% chance of this happening.

This afternoon I emailed her explaining that I wouldn't be able to meet her for lunch tomorrow. She'd second guessed me and had already made alternative arrangements. How much better if I'd simply told her 'no' in the first place. I wouldn't have had it on my mind all week and she would've known what she was doing much earlier without having to second guess my plans.

I have another friend who, at the slightest hint of guilt-angst, says, 'get over it.' She's so right. No one cares about these things as much as yourself. In future I'm going to just say 'no' and get over it. (btw, it helps if you say 'no, sorry'.)

#ArtIHeart 2 - Bought For Marriage (2nd Mar.'12)

2012-03-02T00:00:00.000+02:00

Art I Heart

Share the art you love from your walls, a birthday card, what your child drew at school, that you saw in The National Gallery in London...

1. Choose one piece of art that has a short personal story behind it. It could be something on your wall, something you've seen in a gallery and love, homedrawn, on a postcard, on a birthday card, something by Degas or something by your DS.

2. Take a photograph, scan or download a picture of your picture and post it along with the short story about why you are drawn to it, have it on your wall, bought it, or hate it. Don't forget to link back to the linky so your readers can see the other entries.

3. Link up (it's open till next Thursday, 4pm GMT), leave a comment, et voila!

Here's mine:

Butterfly Hunters by Yosl Bergner (b. 1920)

Many years ago, when I first came to Israel, I gave some English lessons to two brothers in their parents' penthouse in Jerusalem. We sat at the dining-room table and when I gave them exercises to complete, I was free to let my eyes wander round the room and appreciate the artwork on the walls and objets d'art on display. Opposite the table was an enormous painting by Yosl Bergner.

I fell in love with that painting. It was dark and somewhat haunting but yet full of surprises. The picture consisted of many windows, columns and arches. Figures were hidden behind the columns or peeking out under the arches. I would have loved to own a picture like that. I would have loved anything by Yosl Bergner. I had fallen in love with Yosl Bergner.

Fast forward 15 years and I have moved into my present flat. A friend who was studying Chinese medicine and heavily into Feng Shui, came to visit. She saw my favourite picture (a framed poster) of a girl with lemons and my print of the rabbi on his bicycle rushing to prayers. "Do you ever want to get married Rachel?" she asked me, "because if you do, get rid of these pictures. Just get rid of them!"

I suggested that If I hung them close together they might cancel each other out. Or they could be seen as a couple (incongruous but not impossible). "Just get rid of them!" she repeated. Reader, I didn't get rid of them but I found this Yosl Bergner, signed, limited edition, print in a local framer's shop. I recognised it as one of my best friends has had the exact same print in her home for 20 years. (Coincidently, hers is 223/250 and mine is 222/250 - I win). With this purchase I intended to balance my Fung Shui for getting married. No luck so far :~).

To see more of Yosl Bergner's paintings look here.

DancingInTheRain: Leap Of Faith

2012-03-01T15:10:00.002+02:00

The prompt for the 100 Word Challenge this week is...

A leap of faith.

This is Dancing In The Rain's heartwrenching entry. Mine is here (please click) and there are many many more at Julia's Place. Every one's a winner, so different, and so clever. And, anyone can join in.

Show me, he said imperiously.

But I'm still shy about it, she replied tremulously. If she didn't show him he would feel rejected, offended that she didn't trust him. He would become cross and distant, withholding the comforting aura of his presence, a presence which she even felt from afar. Yet if she showed him her scar, and worse, the accompanying distortion, he might not be able to contain his disgust. Taking a leap of faith, she fearfully peeled back her clothing while looking for involuntary changes in his facial expression.

Seconds later, looking up with tears in his eyes, he silently moved closer to kiss her.

A Leap Of Faith

2012-02-29T12:35:00.000+02:00

The prompt for this week's 100 word (not including the prompt) challenge is, appropriately, in honour of the leap day in this leap year. The piece must be connected to the theme:

A leap of faith.

After you've read mine (and I invite you to leave a comment), pop over to Julia's Place to find the other entries.

A Leap Of Faith.

She hadn't noticed the date when she'd invited him to lunch. They were on mid-semester break, exams graded, and with a few days to chill.

She'd only realised that morning. She needn't be a social historian to know the significance, the implications. He, on the other hand, was a geeky bachelor from Sciences. He'd be oblivious.

Ten years of exchanging, 'Morning!' in the university carpark. The odd conversation at various annual events. There may've been one dance at a Christmas party once, or was that a dream?

But he would be here in her flat on February 29th. It would require a leap of faith.

Teenage Cooking: Voodoo Sausages

2012-02-28T00:00:00.000+02:00

I saw these photos on facebook and I just had to try it. So after I'd bullied Big Chief Recipeshed to make this week's theme cooking for kids I set out to design a recipe especially for teenagers.

Voodoo Sausages

1. Give each teenager a sausage and ask them to imagine that the sausage is their worst enemy. You may employ some group discussion in order to share and empathise, etc...

2. Hand out sticks of dried spaghetti. Explain the concept of voodoo and voodoo dolls in particular.

3. Stick the enemies through with spaghetti pins.

4. Put the voodoo sausages into a ~~cauldron~~ pot of boiling water and watch them boil ~~to death~~ until the pasta is cooked.

5. Serve and eat. Good topics for conversation over dinner would be; the satisfaction of revenge or cannibalism by proxy.

6. Sit back and wait for bad news. This could take several days or even weeks.

Disclaimer 1. My kitchen really is meat free. I used Tivall vegetarian sausages.

Disclaimer 2. For a real children's treat read about my vegetable nugget pancakes.

Disclaimer 3. For a really funny recipe read The Whisky Lovers' Christmas Fruit Cake.

New Stars Over Bethlehem?

2012-02-27T09:58:00.000+02:00

On Saturday night I was doing the washing up and happened to glance out of the window to see a sliver of new moon like a smile (or a cereal bowl) in the night sky. Aha, Silent Sunday! I thought and rushed to get my camera. However, on posting the picture, there was more to it than I had originally realized.

Here is the photo from the night of 25.2.12, looking west over Jerusalem. Just above the moon to the left is a planet. When I first saw it I purposely tried to incude it in the shot as I thought it was a bright star. But in fact, alerted by the one of the comments under my post, it is a planet.

I did some googling (as one does) and found out that on that night the sun, the moon, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus would all be aligned and visible to the naked eye. Some reports say that Mars was also present earlier in the evening but soon slipped below the horizon. And the show was due to continue on Sunday night 26.2.12.

So last night I took some more photos and I definitely got both Jupiter and Venus (below the moon) in these shots. Also interesting to see (if you can) is that the moon was partially eclipsed on two sides - the top and the right. One of the eclipses was the earth and the other... Mercury maybe? Anyone with a bit of knowledge on this subject is invited to leave a comment to enlighten us. Thank you.

Before I leave you with these pictures I want to mention that (the little town of) Bethlehem is about 10 minutes drive to the south of where I live. Some accounts speculate that what the Magi (the three wise men/Kings) actually saw in the sky may have been Jupiter. They came from the east and so they were looking west. Jupiter to the left of the moon would look like it was pointing south of Jerusalem (earlier in the evening than when I took this photo). Reader, I didn't follow the star.

#SilentSunday

2012-02-26T09:06:00.000+02:00

See the other Silent Sundays here.

DancingInTheRain - The Flip Side

2012-02-25T17:28:00.000+02:00

The 100 Word Challenge this week was in honour of Shrove Tuesday, paying particular homage to the humble pancake. The prompt...

The flip side.

I didn't do one myself this week but DancingInTheRain has sent me hers. When you've read it (and left a comment, obviously) pop over to Julia's Place to read the other entries.

Rag Day, Pancake Tuesday, 1960's

Hurriedly bundled up in anoraks, wellies, balaclavas and the rest of the paraphernalia necessary for a wintry day in Manchester, they clambered onto the back of the bus into town.

Crowds lined Market Street waiting for the procession. Shuffling her feet, she remembered her cup of tea, now getting cold on the kitchen counter, "Come on kids,' she decided, 'we've got five minutes....'

But, due to a tangled mitten string, it was more like ten as they emerged from the cafe. "Flippin' 'eck", she muttered, as they stared at the back of the last float trundling down the street.

#ArtIHeart 1 - Paris Reunion (24th Feb.'12)

2012-02-24T00:00:00.000+02:00

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Art I Heart

Share the art you love from your walls, a birthday card, what your child drew at school, that you saw in The National Gallery in London...

La Place Du Tertres, Paris, by Georges B.
(This is a print I found on ebay as my attempts to photograph my own copy were unsuccessful.)

In the late 1960s four little girls went to primary school together in England. Then they went to the same secondary school. At 14 one of them emigrated with her parents to America. In her 20s another emigrated to Israel (me!) and ten years later, one moved with her own family to the south coast of England. They sort of kept in touch by heresay, gossip and occasional visits. Then came email, then came Friends Reunited and they reconnected.

It was 2002 and an idea was born to celebrate our 40th birthdays with a trip to Paris - 4 friends, 4 days, turning 40. In fact I was already 41 when we finally made the trip but it was wonderful. We fitted together like long lost friends (funnily enough). We needed to learn about each other's lives now (then) but there was no getting-to-know-you involved. We knew each other's childhoods, families, even the wallpaper in our teenage bedrooms. Surreal in a way but so easy to talk and talk and talk and talk. We also walked and walked and walked. And ate these (see number 5).

I had recently bought my first home and moved in. I'd wiped out my savings and was on a tight budget. I desperately wanted a souvenir of this trip and I really wanted a painting. The artists' market in Monmartre had beautiful scenes of Paris - starting at about 250 Euro. I resigned myself to not buying art.

Stopping to buy postcards I found this large-size (A3) postcard of a painting of La Place Du Tertre, Monmartre. It cost half a Euro. When I got home I found an old frame bought in John Lewis years before and mounted my postcard. I had my piece of art from Paris for 50 cents and I love it. Here it is in situ above my kitchen sink:

#LifeCircle 7 - The Discomfort Zone

2012-02-23T13:03:00.003+02:00

Kate asked the LifeCirclers to step out of their comfort zones this week. Last week I wrote about my list philosophy and the advantages of positive procrastination. The reason last week's list got almost finished was that I was running to do any task other than phone the plumber. Here's a brief history of the situation:

Nine months ago the 20 year old tap on my bathroom sink was leaking at the base where it's fixed to the sink. I called the building insurance people and was told, obviously, that taps weren't covered but they'd send their plumber to make sure there was nothing wrong with the pipes in the wall which are covered by my insurance.

A nice man came and confirmed that the tap was leaking, it wasn't covered by insurance and he could fix it through his private business. He fixed it, along with a couple of other things, and I paid him 850nis (about 140 pounds - sounds incredible but services here are very expensive if you're anything more or less qualified than a teacher with an MA and 25 years experience).

Nine months later the new tap is leaking. Step one was to file months of papers, bills and receipts in order to find the receipt from the plumber. I put this off for a couple of weeks but eventually did it and couldn't find the important receipt anywhere. I probably threw it out. Who would think that a new tap would need fixing after nine months?

So now I didn't have a leg to stand on vis a vis guarantee. I didn't have a number for the plumber, nor did I even remember his name. I don't have another 600nis or so to pay for a new tap and the leak isn't exactly gushing out water. Thus I did what I do best and ignored it, meanwhile doing everything else on my long list of tasks except deal with the tap - positive procrastination at it's best. My life hasn't been so efficiently in order for months. A result of sorts but a leaking tap will only get worse....

After acting out the worst case scenario whereby I explain the situation to the plumber, he laughs at me in a nasty and condescending way and tells me to get lost (slightly humiliating but I've been through worse things), eventually I faced my demons and picked up the phone to the insurance company. They had the original visit on their computer and could give me the name and phone number of the plumber. Plumber remembered me and happened to be in the area so he dropped in to assess the problem. There was a wobbly "I knew it!" moment when he explained that the tap company (for the tap he bought me) was responsible for the guarantee. But as he had bought the tap he said he would go back to the shop (his regular supplier) and see to it all. That was all last Thursday. Today I called him to see what the situation was. He still hasn't done anything about it but it's on his list. It's no longer my problem so I'm not stressed about it anymore. The whole thing last Thursday took maybe one hour after weeks of worrying about it. Why? Why? Why?

Art I Heart

And tomorrow I'm stepping out of my comfort zone again by launching a new linky on my blog. Art I Heart - read about it here and do come back tomorrow, thanks :). Now that wasn't too difficult either.

#Listography - Happy High Five

2012-02-22T00:03:00.001+02:00

After last week's spectacular display of mugs an and *ahem* my winning post, this week's Listography is the top five things that make me happy (apart from my winning mugs of course). If you're not feeling too chipper yourself and need some good ideas about what might perk you up you can visit the Listograpgy Linky and read loadsovem.

My Happy High Five

1. Mozart's Clarinet Concerto (2nd movement). Just click and listen while you're reading the rest of this post and you'll know why.

2. Bedtime stories. No not for me, although I do enjoy reading in bed. Stories for my 3yo. We lie in the bed together, sharing the pillow. Her warm little face pressed up against mine. We negotiate how many stories she can choose depending on the hour. Then I read with her commenting and contributing throughout. And then she starts to yawn and her input becomes less and less. A kiss and a cuddle and I turn off the light. She then spends the next two hours coming out of her room to go to the toilet, tell me something important, collect a stray teddy, have me kiss an imaginary wound...

By the way, if you want to know why bedtime stories are essential read what happens if you don't do bedtime stories.

3. Making order out of chaos. This includes writing lists, sorting out clothes cupboards, folding and putting away laundry, tidying in general and rearranging to make better use of the space. Mad I know but it really does make me happy and it actually makes me more productive, less likely to eat too much, and less stressed all round. As I write I'm wondering why it should be that this is any more strange than gardening or jogging to nowhere for the shear sweatiness of it.

4. Writing and blogging. The combination of writing and, with the click of a mouse, sending it off to be read by an infinite number of people (in theory) is simply intoxicating. And if anyone comments, well then I'm just in seventh heaven. Stats? Better than uppers on a good day. As soon as DD's in bed it's blog o'clock and I'm off!

5. Love and laughter. Sharing a good time with friends whether it be actually in the same place together or bantering on fb has to be the best feel-good medicine there is. Old friends, new friends, or friends I haven't even met yet (not so strange for a blogger), I'll always appreciate a little humour.

So there you have it. Please don't feel you have to rush off before the music finishes. Why not take the time to write a comment or six?

Pancake Crazy For Vegetarian 'Meat' Meals

2012-02-21T00:02:00.002+02:00

Sweetcorn pancakes and broccoli pancakes

How can a vegetarian kitchen serve meat and two veg? (Disclaimer: I say vegetarian kitchen as my kitchen is vegetarian [with tins of tuna] but I am not. I have good reasons which will be in another post... one day.) Of course it can't. However there are reasons why you might want to serve something of similar weight and texture. Here are my reasons:

1. Cook meat, add potatoes or rice, a couple of cooked vegetables and a salad et voila - a dinner party! With meatless food it's somehow never as simple as that. Whatever I serve (vegetable strudel, lasagne, quiche, stuffed vegetables) and whatever I add (kugel, latkes, curried rice with everything) I'm thinking: why am I adding more starch when the main item already has pasta/rice/pastry in it? Ditto for the vegetable sides - more vegetables?

2. I'm always looking for that elusive meaty taste and texture. It's a mindset I have to get past but I'm not there yet.

3. Sometimes I want a burger with all the trimmings.

4. I like the old familiar foods even if they are meat-centric. Hence spaghetti tofunaise and vegetarian cholent.

I know the answer is to get over the traditional meat and two veg as the ideal meal but until I do I've gone a bit mad with pancakes. Make them thick and dense and full of flavour and you have something that can look like a burger, a chicken nugget, a sausage or a shnitzel. We're into nugget size at the moment as DD is 3yo and it suits her for dipping into ketchup.

Make nuggets with teaspoon size portions

Use fried onions, onion soup powder, soy sauce, tomato puree, curry powder, ground cumin or coriander, salt and pepper to experiment for a more meaty taste. Or use these ingredients to make a piquant sauce to serve with your pancakes.

Tuna pancakes (Yes I know!)

For the main pancake ingredient you can use any vegetables. Put them in the processor with eggs, flour and any of the above seasonings. Then spoon the mixture (teaspoons for nuggets, tablespoons for burgers) into hot oil and fry on both sides.

I'm linking this to Recipeshed at Chronicles of a Reluctant Housedad where the theme this week is soups and vegetarian. And I wish you all a flipping good Shrove Tuesday.

Linkies, A Prize, And Art I Heart

2012-02-20T00:00:00.000+02:00

I love linkies. I love the traffic they bring in and I love the ~~competition~~ ~~comparing~~ comraderie of everyone writing to the same theme. This week was especially linkalicious because of the mug listography from Katetakes5. Not only did I become addicted to seeing other people's mug collections, but there were prizes, and I won one of them with this post!

I'm not going to say I've never won anything before because I have. However, in a year of blogging I have yet to see a competition that wasn't for UK residents only. This time I wrote Kate a note saying that I would be visiting my sister in London very soon so I could therefore pick up any prize that I might win within the UK postal area and I just wanted her know in case it made a difference. She wasn't fazed by my geographcal location and I was thrilled to read this post today - Thank you Kate. Which all goes to show: it doesn't matter where you are, it's where you're at.

Art I Heart

So I decided to start my own linky. On Friday morning I will be launching Art I Heart. The format will be as follows:

1. Choose one piece of art that you love and that has a short personal story behind it. It could be something on your wall, something you've seen in a gallery and love, homemade art (a picture not sculpture or instalation art), on a postcard, on a birthday card, something by Degas or something by your DS.

2. Take, scan or download a picture of your picture and post it along with the short story about why you are drawn to it, have it on your wall, bought it, or hate it. Don't forget to link to the linky page so that your readers can see the other entries.

3. Link up, leave a comment, et voila!

I have white walls with lots of artwork and I love pictures so I'll be busy doing this forever. I'd love you to join me, obviously. Now I just need to find out how to upload a working linky and maybe work on a more original badge.

#SilentSunday

2012-02-19T07:52:00.003+02:00

#LifeCircle 6 - List Philosophy

2012-02-17T23:31:00.001+02:00

Kate, our mentor ( @kateab ) saw that time management was an issue for many of us so she advised writing a list (read how the others did on The Five Fs Blog). Simple. She gave suggestions of course. There's the urgent/non-urgent grid, the list website, prioritising and shifting items accordingly. Me, I just like a straightforward list. I've said it before, I am the List Queen. I write an action list every day (almost). I write a list of things to do from the master list (this may be prioritising). I do it in my Filofax. I love it. I don't always do the things on the list. Some items appear daily for ~~several days~~ weeks. This is called procrastination.

A word about procrastination. Procrastination is very good for lists. While you are avoiding the thing that is paralysing you for whatever reason, you zip through the rest of the list with an efficiency fuelled by dread. Anything not to have to face the dreaded thing that's freaking you out. I had one of these dreaded things to do and was avoiding it at all costs. Consequently my list became a great success. It has an official name: Positive Procrastination. (Btw - the dreaded thing required me to step outside my comfort zone and is the subject of the next LifeCirlce post.)

So here is my list philosophy:

1. I write a list of up to 60 things to do and give myself the whole week to complete them. Obviously some things have to be done on a certain day or at a certain time. Other things are as and when I feel like it. I tend to feel like it more if there is the satisfaction of crossing an item off the list to follow.

2. The items are not all equal. Some are merely making a two minute phone-call or paying a bill online. Some items are big projects like grading all the papers from a course taken by 100 students. This takes several days and many hours. Other items can be lumped together and accomplished on one trip to the shops - deposit a cheque, buy a new kettle, weekly food shop, post a letter, get a spare key cut, etc... It doesn't matter. I tend to do a short task; wash dishes, put on a wash, hang out laundry, etc, during 10 minute breaks in the longer projects.

3. During the course of the week some jobs will become obsolete - I found the spare key so no need to cut a new one, the phone-call phoned me first. Thems the breaks, just cross 'em off the list.

4. This is the crucial one. Do not expect to do everything on the list. Once you've done say 50/60 and reached the end of the week, cut your losses and start again. Write up a new list for the next week. Some items from the week before will be rolled over - it doesn't matter. Some things like food shopping are repeated weekly. Somethng that started as a big project may be able to be chunked down now that you're into it. For example, grade all the papers that came in on time and grade the late papers as two separate items. Or grade papers on option A, option B, etc... Spring clean my bedroom might become; sort out my clothes and clean wardrobe, sort and clean bookshelf, sort and clean dressing table, wash bedroom window, etc...

I accomplished my 50/60 last week and I'm itching to write the list for next week. Part of the ease of it is that you don't have to finish anything by the end of the day and you aren't aiming for 100% completion so you never get upset.

And here is the most exciting thing for a certified procrastinator like myself - when you have done about 70% of the list and the things left to do seem very little and totally manageable, when you get to that point, the dreaded item that you've been avoiding doesn't seem so daunting. You've got the time and clarity to tackle it as you've already done so many of the other things that were dragging you down. You are feeling virtuous. It makes you strong. You're willing to take the risk and step out of your comfort zone. But more of this next time - I've got a list to go and write :~).

#Expatblog - Doing Sponja

2012-02-16T22:28:00.002+02:00

The Expat Blog prompt from Tales From Windmill Fields (click on it to see the other entries) was to find one thing that you never used back home but that you use all the time in your new country. I couldn't think of anything except food items and that's been done. So I put the question to my fb friends and there were some interesting suggestions.

1. Solar heating panels. In London we had the boiler on water constant and central heating timed for all the years I sat on the downstairs loo and read the metre. Here we all have solar heated water tanks on the roof. About three times in the winter I have to put the immersion heater on because it's been cloudy all day. It doesn't have to be hot outside, only a clear sky is necessary. I never think about hot water and I certainly don't pay for it.

2. Drip irrigation. It's an Israeli invention and obviously used here and around the world for crops. But here every garden has the thin brown pipes laid over the flower beds dripping drops of water at regular intervals. And many people even have it threaded through the planters and pots on their balcony. We've gone a bit drip irrigation crazy.

3. Most people have tiled floors throughout; ceramic, marble or stone. This is how everyone cleans the floor. Forget squeegee mops or those old fashioned institutional mops with the special bucket attachments to squeeze out the dirty water.

We have a goomy on a stick which you wrap a wet floor cloth (shmatta) around and mop the floor. After a bit, as the cloth becomes dirty, you wash it in a bucket of soapy water and wring it out. There is a Middle-Eastern technique to this that gets the last drip out, leaving you with a perfectly damp cloth. You re-wrap the goomy and continue mopping the floor. It's called doing sponja.

Nowadays some people have their bedrooms carpetted and, as everywhere, the wooden (or faux-wooden) floor is also trendy. But most of us still have tiles and everyone has the goomy and shmatta. I would say sponja is a national pastime enjoyed by all ages on a weekly basis.

#Nameaday - What if we all ate less?

2012-02-15T17:40:00.002+02:00

I read Chris Mosler's article on Thinly Spread about Save The Children's campaign to get David Cameron to lead a worldwide push to end world hunger. The facts and statistics are in the article and if you're still not convinced you should watch the short video below. There are ways you can help which are also detailed in the article. So when you've watched the video and read Chris's post, take a few minutes, if you don't mind, to follow me as I wondered, 'What if we all ate less?'

As I write this I have a mug of coffee and a slice of cake on my desk and it's not my first slice. I'm not writing that to try and be funny. It's actually sad and pathetic that we all cry over the starving children whilst filling our supermarket trolleys with snacks and treats that are far in excess of the calories we need. I was partly inspired by Natasha of The 1970s Diet (fascinating experiment) but it is something I've been thinking about for a long time. If we all ate less would it help the starving children in the developing world?

So I googled: If we all ate less would it reduce world hunger? The articles that came up were all about how vegetarianism (veganism even) is the only solution. I'm not telling you all to give up meat but here are the basic arguments so you know what I found.

1. The amount of grain used to feed dairy and beef cattle uses up the supply grown in the Western World. Rich countries like the USA then have to import grain from e.g. African countries to provide for their needs. The money goes to the developing world but the governments there use it for all sorts of things, not necessarily food. The grain that was exported would have fed their country.

2. The carbon and water used to rear dairy and beef cattle is a big part of the problem of diminishing fossil fuels. I read this in an article published by the UN.

As I said, I'm not telling you to be vegetarian. I'm not talking about the evils of fast food, for that you can read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2001). I'm simply talking about the vast amounts of food we consume even in our own homes (and food that we pick up on the go). The snacks we eat in between meals. The portions we serve. The non-stop supply that we graze on continuously throughout the day. As Natasha says - food used to be fuel. There was nothing to eat between meals except a piece of fruit. What we call a snack now is often the size a small meal used to be.

Watch an old TV programme or movie in which a family are sitting down to eat. The main course would be a plate with two slices of cold meat, a couple of small boiled potatoes and a portion of greens or small salad. Add to that a small bowl of soup to start, a bit of pie for pudding, and a cup of tea to wash it all down. Even when I was a child I remember my father carving the chicken into thin slices and one chicken would feed the family of five with leftovers for chicken risotto on Monday night. Nowadays you get your chicken cut into eighths and allow two portions per person.

So what would happen if we all ate less? Would the excess be sent to countries where people are starving? I don't think so. If our demand for food decreased I expect we would start feeding our cattle with our own home-grown grain due to more excess grain and fewer cattle. Eventually we may begin to produce less. At the very least we would not have to import grain from people who don't have enough for themselves.

The lack of waste, the health benefits, the medical resources used to combat obesity related deseases that would be freed up, the moral issues of stuffing our faces whilst children starve... I can only think of good reasons to eat less even if my knowledge of global politics and economics doesn't allow me to give an academic answer or even an educated opinion. I'd be happy to read comments from anyone who 'knows' or even from anyone who just 'feels' like I do.

I'm linking this post to MUMenTUM over at New Mum Online. It's not strictly about my weight loss story and I didn't lose anything this week anyway. However, it is a good post to read if you want some sound reasons to eat less.

Family Day

2012-02-14T00:00:00.000+02:00

It started off as Mother's Day, mainly the commercial aspect of it but also to honour the mothers. It was a funny custom for Israel to adopt as Mother's Day in the UK is definitely a Christian based celebration formerly known as Mothering Sunday. I was never entirely sure if it was referring to the young girls in service going back to visit their mothers (with gifts from the big house) or if the Mother referred to Mother Mary. Anyway, strangely enough, it took off in Israel. Or maybe not so strange as mothers tend to be worshipped here.

However, not all families have mothers and what about fathers? What about children living with other relatives for whatever reason? We're a sensitive lot when it comes to family and so Mother's Day evolved into Family Day. And it's sometime next week.

Word came from the nursery that DD was to bring in a photograph of her family. Well it's just the two of us so not difficult to round everyone up. You'd think. But if both of us are in the picture, who going to take it? So we sat together with my arm outstretched in front of us clicking away blindly in the hope of some decent results. This is what we got.

Mugs I Have Loved

2012-02-13T00:00:00.000+02:00

This week's Listography from Kate Takes 5 is strangely personal. It's a case of 'I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours'. So here are mine. I dedicate this post to past mugs I have loved. The best loved and most oft used are obviously the ones that don't survive. RIP

1. I was in Los Angeles in 1987 and my friend took me to the most amazing place - no not Disneyland, although we went there too, obviously. It was a Dollar Store. Of course we have Pound Shops now but back then I couldn't believe that this whole vast store sold everything for a dollar. I bought eight of these coffee cups. Two broke in my suitcase on the way home. Another four were faulty in that the handles heated up when the coffee was hot so you couldn't hold them. These two are perfect. $4 each in the Dollar Store. Who's the mug?

2. A good friend from New York stayed with me one summer. During her trip she went on a five day mini break to Turkey and bought me this set of six tea glasses with saucers and tiny teaspoons. Instead of coffee after dinner I love to bring out a pot of delicate herbal or green tea and serve everyone in these beautiful glasses. I try not to hate the guest who says, just as I'm about to pour, "have you got coffee?" And the other two who chime in with, "oh I'd rather have coffee too, if there is any," they will be a long time waiting for another invitation.

3. Two mugs that stack to make a multistorey tableau of roosters roosting. Silly really as they're only ever stacked in the cupboard with the door closed. If I take them out I'm unstacking them to use them. They were a gift but I could be tempted to go out and buy a dresser for several hundred pounds in order to display them.

4. This one comes in three parts. The mug, the tea-strainer insert, and the lid that doubles up as a saucer for the strainer (with soggy teabag inside) when you remove it from the mug. Nice idea and very pretty. It was a present from a student at the end of the year. Did I mention how well it works? No I didn't. Nuff said.

5. I taught these two young boys to read when they were seven year olds. Every week for two years we sat at one of their kitchen tables and had an English lesson. They bought me this mug at the end. That was 18 years ago as they're now 25 year olds. I still see them occasionally in the neighbourhood.

If your appetite for other people's mugs is whetted, pop over to Kate's Listography for more.

#SilentSunday

2012-02-12T00:12:00.004+02:00

Fighting Back Against Winter

2012-02-11T16:59:00.000+02:00

I marched into 2012 with with determination and vigour. I had it all sussed out. The year I turned 50 was going to be the best yet. The year I made everything happen - financially, physically, socially, you name it. I was half way through January and blogging every day. I had so much to say and so many memes on the go, I was almost tempted to post more than one a day. Almost - it didn't feel right even with drafts backing up and ready to go. I had plans guided by Kate at the Five Fs Blog as part of the LifeCircle programme. I was losing weight with Liska at New Mum Online through the MUMenTUM group. I was invincible. I was so sure of myself. I was too sure of myself. I was heading for a fall.

Three weeks into January winter attacked in the form of a bad cold, sinusitus and a hacking cough. It could have been flu but there was no fever involved so I think it was the cold. Everything fell apart. I took DD to nursery every day and came home and slept. I cancelled so many lessons and neglected work on the computer that I lost about 1/4 of my expected income for the month. The house went to pot. I ran out of kitchenware, all types, as everything ended up in and around the sink awaiting the washing up that I just couldn't face. DD was getting an apple, a lump of cheese, a yogurt and crisps for supper. Except for the evenings when she chose the other option - a peanutbutter and jam sandwich. I almost made it to the end of the month with my daily posts but on Saturday 28th January I made the decision to go to bed with DD at 7.30pm rather than blog. It was a surprisingly liberating decision which I don't regret and I finished the month with a 30/31.

After flaking out for two weeks, I gradually re-entered the land of the living. And 'surprise!' I still had that 2012 optimism going on. I did the washing up, tidied the house, put in some extra hours on the computer. And now I'm catching up on a couple of the blog posts I let slip. I'm fighting back against winter.

MUMenTUM. Being sick was great for losing weight. I lost almost 10lbs in January along with my appetite. Then, as I started to get better, I lost nothing during the first week of February. And I've stayed the same this week aswell. Now I'm desperately trying to eat very little today so that I can at least report a loss on Monday. You can go to Liska's to read how the others are doing.

LifeCircle 5. In which we were supposed to report on the SMART tasks chosen in LifeCircle 3: Taking Action.

1. I committed to meal planning for the next two weeks in order to save time and money. DD has breakfast and her main meal (meat, greens and potatoes or rice) at nursery so the picnic suppers she ended up having didn't send her spiralling towards malnutrition. I certainly saved time and money, especially as I wasn't eating. However, the meal plans were forgotten.

2. I committed to getting up at 6.30 every day in order to get DD to nursery an hour earlier. This gives me an extra work hour in the morning and DD goes to sleep earlier in the evening, giving me more evening time as well. I pushed myself to get us out of bed by 8.30 and had a mad rush every morning to get DD to nursery in time for breakfast at 9.15. As I was sick, I'm giving myself an extension and we'll be trying this one again over the next two weeks.

3. I committed to not wasting work-time by blogging only in the evenings. Not difficult as I was sleeping all day. So I blogged in the evenings until, burnt out by my January marathon posting and still feeling s**t, in February I practically gave up blogging altogether for the first 10 days.

4. I committed to joining three employment websites to try to find more work. Obviously I didn't do this and I didn't even follow up leads that friends who are on these websites, sent me. I'm updating my CV and sending it somewhere this week. I'm not sure about the websites anymore as I seem to have enough work to fill the time available even if it doesn't bring in enough money to pay the bills. I need more time to think about this one.

You can go to Kate's to read how the other LifeCirclers did.

So there you have it. I jaunted into the New Year, winter attacked, I was out for a while, then I fought back, and now I'm back in the running. Midlife 1 : Winter 0 :~)

DancingInTheRain: Late Again

2012-02-07T10:33:00.003+02:00

The 100 word challenge this week issued the prompt:

But it wasn't my fault.

Read what Dancing In The rain had to say about that and then pop over to Julia's for more entries.

Late Again

He retreated from her proffered kiss. "But it wasn't my fault", she insisted. "The traffic simply wasn't moving." Thinking how to placate him as she removed her coat, she could read his thoughts, "this time the traffic, last time a rush job, before that....."

"If you loved me", he stated icily, "you wouldn't want me to sit here waiting. If you respected me, then you would realise that my time is just as precious as yours." Striding out of the cafe, he left her with one arm still dangling, faintly protesting, "but I've never been more than ten minutes late".

#SilentSunday

2012-02-05T10:20:00.000+02:00

DancingInTheRain: A Slave To Her Nails

2012-02-03T15:11:00.001+02:00

Here is dancingInTheRain's entry to this week's 100 word challenge. The prompt was: Wedensday. You can read my entry here and all the other entries at Julia's place.

A Slave to her Nails

Having drunk too much wine the previous evening, she made futile attempts to focus on 'snooze', jabbing at her phone in frustration. Oh why hadn't she cancelled last night's dinner party?

She continued to berate herself, regretting having agreed to swap days at the last minute. It should have been tomorrow morning - every third Wednesday. And for nearly six years now she had been forcing herself to have an early night the day before.

Yawning, she dragged herself out of bed. Rumour had it that Gail, the best acrylic nail technician in the village, never gave second appointments to latecomers.

Wednesday's Child

2012-01-31T00:00:00.000+02:00

Yes I know it's not yet Wednesday but this is the prompt for the 100 word challenge this week. Just that - Wednesday. A good choice when you think about it. We've got Sunday as the Sabbath Day (or Saturday where I live), Monday starts the week, Thank God it's Friday, Tuesday (used as a pretty girl's name) is when you're just getting into your stride and by Thursday you're almost home and dry. But Wednesday? Well precisely. Do pop over to Julia's to read more entries.

Wednesday's Child

In our Nursery Rhymes book, Wednesday's child was full of woe. I knew why. I was Wednesday's child. There are two little fairy-folk standing with Wednesday's child who were my twin baby siblings. QED.

There are four girls in this rhyme who are wearing pretty dresses and have ribbons in their long hair. Wednesday isn't allowed long hair and her Mummy makes her wear trousers. She looks like a boy.

Years later I found out that I had actually been born on Tuesday. "What made you think you were born on Wednesday?" I answered my mother honestly, "because I looked like a boy."

Picture from Hilda Boswell's Treasury Of Nursery Rhymes.

Every Silver Lining Comes At A Price

2012-01-30T11:30:00.000+02:00

This past week has been the worst one yet this winter. I've been laid up with a bad chesty cough, sinusitus headache and blocked nose (think industrial glue), and possibly a low grade fever - the cold pastey type. I'm very tempted to call it flu but I had flu once in which I basically died for a week and took three months to completely recover. No, this was not that (TG), this was the worst cold this side of being flu.

Every day since last Wednesday I have taken DD to nursery, come straight home and slept until pick-up time. Of course not every day as we had Friday/Saturday in between. On Friday we got home from nursery at 1pm and I just let her play until about 11pm. This was a good move because she then slept until 10am on Saturday morning - considerably shortening the day.

I lay on the sofa and helped with puzzles as they were brought to me. For some reason the puzzles never made it back into the boxes afterwards, let alone back into the cupboard. But one day soon I will go through the carpet of puzzle pieces in the living-room, sort them and put them away.

More serious was the fact that I had to cancel some lessons and didn't do many many hours of work on the computer - none of which I will get paid for. I also mentioned last week (somewhere) that I had two exams to prepare for tomorrow. If I'd not got my act together by this morning (which thankfully I have to a small extent) I was seriously worried about my job.

However, every cloud etc. etc. Yup, down 1.8kg in a week (almost 4lbs). That makes my four week loss a very acceptable 4.2kg (9 1/4lbs). In a way I'd like to wait until Wednesday and see if I can report 10lbs lost in January. But it's never a good idea to get too neat with these things - a neatness like this in dieting is rarely repeated and the cost was too high. I don't think the lemontea with honey diet, supplimented by two slices of toast and butter in the evening, the occasional yogurt and a slice off your daughter's apple, will sell any books. I hope I will not be repeating it any time soon.

Read the other MUMenTUM entries from Liska at New Mum Online. And please feel free to join the blog hop yourself - if you've something to say about struggling with that Mum Tum. I've also linked to Tea And Sympathy over at All About The Girls - because I deserve some.

#SilentSunday

2012-01-29T10:20:00.001+02:00

LifeCircle 4: The Five Year Plan

2012-01-27T18:11:00.002+02:00

I could just play it safe - in five years time I want to be making enough money to cover our expenses and have some over to put aside for holidays and other treats.

Or I could think big - in five years time I want to be.... I don't even know what I want. But surely the sum total of my dreams and aspirations for the future cannot be to merely be making ends meet plus a few treats?

I don't want to limit myself by committing to option one but, on the other hand, I don't want to look stupid by announcing that I want to marry a prince, be a bestselling author, and living in a Manoir in the South of France. If that is indeed what I want, but I'm not sure that it is.

There are some lesser goals I could concentrate on - I want to have completed my 30 years of voluntary contributions in order to get my basic British Pension when the time comes. Well that's exciting.

I want to have maintained my Fabulous at 50 weight and figure (which I haven't achieved yet but fully intend to by the said landmark birthday).

Apart from that I really don't know. I would love to have savings of a nice size but I honestly don't know how practical that is as a single mother with no childcare back-up. Would I like to be in a serious relationship? Well I've got this far on my own. From experience, love and romance does seem to pop up every few years. While it's great to have the company and share some of the burden, it's also kinda nice being a free spirit.

In five years time DD will be 8 and in 3rd grade. I think I'm just looking forward to life being easier as she gets more independent. Being able to invite friends for dinner again because I'll have the time to clean the place and cook without having to stop every five minutes to play puzzles. A sleepover once in a while when I can go out for the evening without paying a fortune in babysitting fees.

So what do you do if you don't know where you want to be in 5 years time? We are supposed to also write about 3 years time, and then one year. Sorry Kate, the best I can do this week is to say that next week I want to feel better as I've been sick all this week. Maybe when my head is clearer I will be able to come up with some worthy dreams.

DancingInTheRain: What She Really Needs

2012-01-26T19:17:00.001+02:00

The prompt for this week's 100 Word Challenge is:

...you bought her what...

My friend DancingInTheRain has written a powerful piece. Pop over to Julia's for more entries. (I didn't write anything myself this week as I'm sick and a bit burnt out - details here.)

What She Really Needs

His son stared at him, "You bought her WHAT?".

"I bought your mother time", he repeated.

"But why?", countered his son. "We agreed that the best thing for her would be to go back to work. She's a workaholic - once behind her desk she'll soon be back to her own self. She'll forget she ever had cancer and everything will finally be back to normal. And now you've gone and persuaded them to give her three months convalescence?!!"

"I know", he replied "but I realised that we should listen to her needs for once. And what she needs is time to simply enjoy being alive."

Nadge Gets To The Point

2012-01-25T20:22:00.000+02:00

God works in mysterious ways. Just as I was about to give up on posting every day in January for the reasons I wrote about here, Nadge sent me an article. I was especially pleased because, having rejected an article from him a couple of months ago, I was sorry that I seemed to have dampened his writing spirit. So, not only has he come back (hooray!) and at an extremely timely moment, he's addressed that whole rejection thing. He may have a point.

I have been verygratified and not a little embarrassed at the favourable response I havereceived to the various articles and blog posts I have written. It all startedwith Midlife Singlemum asking if anyone would care to guest blog on her blog,as she’d just guested on someone else’s. This, I understood, was something ofan honour. And so I thought to myself why not give it a go? So I wrote, and Iwas really chuffed (and honoured) when MSM thought it good enough to beincluded on her blog. As I’ve said, the response was so enthusiastic that mymotivation to write more needed no further encouragement. (Thanks Rach!)

I have been asked manytimes as to why I don’t start my own blog. Again – to those that asked, thankyou for the compliment. My first response is that I’m probably too lazy.Hosting a blog, at least a regular one, is extremely time consuming. There’s awhole load of logistics to contend with, all the marketing (i.e. getting peopleto read it), joining many and varied blogging lists and forums, and endlesssocial networking to up the stats. All this is apart from the fact that youactually have to be continually writing and creating, looking for material thatmakes it worth putting fingertips to keyboard.

There also needs to bean angle, a reason for people to want to read you. I’m not a yummy mummy, noram I a single parent. I’m not (thank God) suffering from a terminal disease,and I haven’t (thank God) suffered a terrible bereavement. Apart from the oddrant how much can one write about being an ex-pat in Israel, and though it’s obviousthat football (read Manchester United) plays a large part in my life it’s not asubject that endears itself on a continual basis. So in the face of mywell-known laziness, coupled with my shortcomings of having no outstandingpeculiarities or idiosyncrasies, guest blogging appears to be an idealsolution. I can write when the mood takes, I don’t have the hassle of theupkeep, and my hostess is relieved of what I feel must be a chore on occasionof finding material to publish.

As I see it, a blog onthis personal level (coined from the original term 'web log') is a diary orjournal, rather than an online magazine seeking to inform or make a particularstatement. It gives the owner the opportunity to share as much or as little ashe/she likes, the opportunity to merely recite or report on events, or reflectmore deeply how those events have affected him/her. If I so choose, I couldmake up a blog of elongated facebook statuses. So my question to you all; doesthere need to be a point to a blog?

Why do I ask? A coupleof months ago I sent a jokey type of article to MSM to put in the next time shehad a space. It was about thread rods. Thread rods are boring. Very boring. Iinteract with thread rods during my work day on a regular basis, and I waslooking for a way to write about something mega-tedious in a quirky way. Apartfrom that, there was no point to the article, no agenda, no statement, nomessage. Midlife rejected the article on the grounds that “there does need to be a point to it nonetheless” and “however goodthe writing and however you pitch it - those rods are boring. Even if you writeabout them with all the tongue in cheek sarcasm in the world the reader isstill going to get to the end and say, ‘yes they are boring aren't they.’So why make them read it?”

This left me wondering. Why does it have tohave a point? Are there no articles in newspapers and magazines that are forentertainment only? And don’t people share experiences just because? And maybe,just maybe, if it leaves a smile on the face of the reader then that’s the bestpoint of all. Thoughts, anyone?

Collectors And Bloggers Beware

2012-01-24T22:49:00.000+02:00

Collectors and bloggers can become slaves. Rather a bold statement I know but I'll explain with a story.

A friend's parents in California have (or had back in 1987 when I met them) the largest collection of antique china cookie jars outside of a museum. My friend told me that it had started out as a fun item to buy when they came across one in an antique shop or fair. As the collection grew they started going on cookie jar hunting expeditions, even cookie jar hunting weekends and holidays. At some stage they gained a reputation and the dealers started to call them when they had a good specimen. They always felt obligated to buy for the sake of the collection. They built special display cabinets all around their house and the insurance was phenominal. They had become slaves to their collection.

I feel a bit like that about blogging this evening. Last November Britmums issued a challenge to write a post per day for 30 days. Some of my bloggy friends took up the challenge and I happily supported them with daily comments, never feeling the urge to do it myself. I had been tempted, however, by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) - as I am every year - but too many new things were starting in November and I just didn't have the time to commit.

Then about half way through the second week of January I realised that I'd posted a blog every day of 2012. I didn't make a big song and dance about it but I decided to see what effect it would have if I continued every day until the end of January. I was pretty confident - I had loads of topics in my mind and had joined half a dozen memes. What with hosting my friend DancingInTheRain who enjoys the weekly 100 word challenge, Silent Sunday, Recipeshed, LifeCircle, Day Zero Project, MUMenTUM, The #50club.... I've even had to double up on posts to fit it all in. However, I was also very laid back about it - if it didn't happen that was fine too.

It was fine until I hit a brick wall. Then suddenly it became urgent that I post something today. There's a new prompt for the 100 word challenge - a meme I sat up waiting for on a Monday night only a few weeks ago - and I'm drawing a blank. This week's LifeCircle task seems to be too personal for me to write about in public. Recipeshed this week is meat and I don't cook meat. Day Zero? What was that again? To be fair, I am sick (cold, sore throat, cough) and can't sleep for coughing. I also found out today that a course I've been teaching needs to have two exams written and submitted by this weekend and all the grading wrapped up and calculated by next Tuesday - ton of work. Plus other work to do. And I'm only concerned that if I don't post tonight I've let 23 days of consecutive posting go down the drain. I've become a slave to the blog.

And yet I want to see the month out. Even though folk wisdom has stated that three posts a week is optimum, I can see that my averge monthly pageviews are up by about 1000 hits. Until today I was enjoying it. Today I just feel like a slave. A sick slave to boot.

PS There are about 10 places I could link to other blogs and websites in this post but don't have the energy. I may come back and do it later. Until then just think of it as Midlife Unplugged.

The Biscuit Diet

2012-01-23T00:00:00.000+02:00

It was a good MUMenTUM week this week, you can tell because I'm getting my post done early instead of giving myself an extra day to lose a bit more weight. Week 3 saw a loss of another 800g (almost 2lbs) wich makes a grand total of 2.4kg (5 1/4 lbs) in three weeks. Hooray. To celebrate I'm also linking up to Kate Takes 5's Listography for the first time. This week's theme caught my fancy - with the emphasis on fancy as I'm not eating any of my Top 5 Biscuits - just drooling. Btw - the Listography is also a blog hop but I'm committed to dispaying the MUMenTUM linky and I think two on one post may get confusing - sorry Kate. So just know that the links below are for weight loss stories not biscuits. The biscuits are through here.

MY TOP 5 BISCUITS

1. Squashed Fly Biscuits. You may know them as Garibaldi. Whatever, either you love raisins or you hate them. I love them and could eat a whole packet of these in one sitting, or even standing, easy peasy simple pimple.

2. The classic Chocolate Digestive. Expats have people bring them out and invite friends round for tea on the promise of a real chocolate digestive. Perfection in a biscuit no less.

3. Actually I'm not a chocolate person at all. I usually go for the caramel toffee option (if there is one). I really did discover stroopwafel (syrup waffles) in Amsterdam, long before they had them in Starbucks. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Then I discovered that one stroopwafel contains an entire day's calories. Continue like that and I would be dying and going to heaven sooner than intended. So now I see them in the supermarket, aknowledge their presence and move on to the cottage cheese.

4. Merba Apple Pie Cookies made with the Famous Strudel Recipe. You know, the Famous one that tastes like Strudel? They come from America and I buy them in Israel. I joke about the advertising blurb but the thing is, they really do taste like apple strudel. And they look crumbly enough that I have been known to take them out of the packet, put them in a tupperware and take them as a gift to a dinner party. Well I never said they were homemade... although I never said they weren't.

5. For our fortieth birthdays, four women who had been little girls in primary school together went for four days to Paris. One of the highlights of our trip was tasting the macaroons in LaDuree. I don't know how many flavours they have but the shop is a rainbow of colours and every colour a different flavour. We ordered 12 macaroons of assorted flavours ("Surprise us.") and cut each one into quarters. Think of that scene from Harry Potter when they're sitting on the train trying all the every-flavour jelly beans (only not the nasty ones). It was quite magical actually.

6. Oh, are you only allowed 5 on the list? Sorry it's my first time, I didn't know. Next time. My friend Sharon makes Golden Syrup Oat Biscuits. Golden Syrup is hard to find in Israel and it's expensive. However it does pop up occasionally. The trick is to buy it when you see it and give it to Sharon as a present. Clever eh?

So what are your favourite biscuits now or from childhood?

#SilentSunday

2012-01-22T12:20:00.000+02:00

IVF: Don't Test Early

2012-01-21T23:46:00.002+02:00

It is about time I continued with the IVF Journey, especially as I left you after my first IVF return of four embryos (of various grades) and about to begin the notorious 2WW again (2 week wait - not Second World War).

June 2005

The bits of paper they'd given me to bring home told me to take 2 Estrofem a day, continue with the folic acid and to vasginally apply 8 Uterogestan (for in the morning and four in the evening). These are basically thick cream enclosed in a thin plastic spherical coating which dissolves quickly. If you think this sounds like a country you wouldn't care to visit, you'd be right. It's as inconvenient as it's unpleasant. Nuff said.

I was to return in two weeks time for a blood test. This time I couldn't resist buying a home pregnancy test from the pharmacy. It was negative on the twelfth day. However, on reading the printed material that came with it, I learned that the drugs I was taking could interfere with the results. And what's more, after IVF they suggest waiting even longer for a more reliable result. I wanted so much to believe it but I was now more anxious than if I hadn't taken the test.

Two days later I went back to the hospital for my blood test. I had to go anyway to get a renewed prescription for Estrofem and Uterogestan. "Call at 10.30 for the results," said the nurse. "Good luck." The nurse was hopeful, after all it was IVF so there's no reason that it shouldn't work, right? I still didn't feel anything but, on the other hand, I still didn't know what I was supposed to feel.

The negative home pregnancy test weighed on my mind though. These things are pretty reliable. If they say you're not pregnant then you're probably not pregnant. I didn't need to use the prescription for more Estrofem and Uterogestan. I made another appointment to see one of the doctors and start again.

LifeCircle 3: Taking Action

2012-01-20T19:54:00.000+02:00

For this week's LifeCircle assignment we are asked to take two problem areas from last week's Drawing A Line In The Sand and commit to two courses of action for each. The tasks we set for ourselves should be SMART - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. Not too challenging but not too easy.

My two lowest scores were for time-management and finances (which is closely linked to my career which, as I wrote, needs developing in a way that generates more income). So here are my commitments in the areas of Time and Money for the next two weeks:

1. Time and Money. I commit to meal planning for the next two weeks in order to save time and money. (This includes not eating extra stuff throughout the day because I'm bored.)

2. Time. I commit to getting up at 6.30 every morning. Here's the rational - I take 30 mins to dress, etc, and wake DD at 7am. We leave for nursery at 7.45 (she gets breakfast there) and I am back home to work from 8.30. This gives me a full 7-hour working day. It also means that DD is ready to go to sleep at 7.30pm, giving me the evening to myself. This wasn't happening when I let her (us) sleep until gone 8 of a morning. Also we can do the morning thing without the stress of being late.

3. Time and Money. I commit to restricting my blogging to the evenings and to using those 7 hours during the day for work related activity.

4. Money. I have just finished a job teaching English for the winter matriculation exams which were last week. I commit to re-joining three English employment websites and searching them every day for suitable work. (I also need to update my CV).

These will be my actions for the next two weeks. They're all SMART and I hope I will be smart too and stick with the programme.

Five-Minute Cheese'n'Olive Flatbread

2012-01-19T21:43:00.000+02:00

Pizzas, flatbreads, whathaveyou was the directive from Big Chief Recipeshed, a.k.a. Keith from Chronicles of a Reluctant Housdad. I never met a carbohydrate I didn't like so anything with cheese and dough has got to be a winner. I absolutely adore pizza and we have it (homemade and healthy of course *polishes fingernails on lapel*) just about every week. There are some fabulous pizza recipes on the linky and even a vlog. So with all the pizzas linked up, I obvioulsy had to go the flatbread route.

Sitting round bonfires is a national sport in Israel. We sing, tell jokes, ~~smoke~~ and eat...lots. We do that whole Beduin role-play thing with black coffee in glasses and we make pita bread. Now the thing about campfire pita is, it's delicious - chewy, smokey, sprinkled with a bit of salt and za'atar (dried hyssop and seseme seeds). And the other thing is that it takes five minutes to make. You mix some flour, water and oil, make a dough, roll it out and fling it onto an upturned dustbin lid on the fire. When it's dry enough to start sliding off it's done.

When I see recipes for pizza dough with yeast that requires proving (or is it proofing?) and relaxing and waiting a few hours between each stage, I think of the campfire pita and want to ask, "why?" Ok, I know why. But I also know why not and here it is...

Friday being shopping day, this is what I found to work with: white cheese (I think it's the same as quark), flour and some olives. Later I added salt, pepper and olive oil.

I put 2 heaped spoons of the cheese in a bowl with about 1 cup of flour, salt, pepper and some olive oil.
Then I formed it into a dough (adding some extra flour to make it malleable) and pressed it out into a round shape about the size of a side plate and 1cm thick.
I sliced the olives and sprinkled them over the top, folded in the edges like making an envelope, and pressed the dough out again (this time with the olives inside - clever eh?) back to the side plate size.

Into a hot oven for about half an hour et voila!

Honest verdict: It is delicious but it's not chewy at all. It's more like a soft cheesey pastry than bread. It would make a great pizza base though.

Last Night Of First Year

2012-01-18T23:59:00.004+02:00

Tonight marks the last night of my first blogging year. I started this blog on Wednesday January 19th 2011 with The first Question About Daddy. A modest little post about a subject I thought would be huge. It's still on my Popular Posts list but slipping slowly towards the bottom.

Funnily enough, DD and I were dancing to a song from her Hanukkah CD last week, that we'd danced to at the Hanukkah party at her Nursery School. It's a song about families and the teacher had invited all the children to get up and dance with their mummies and daddies. As we danced in our living room, she suddenly said, "DD hasn't got a Daddy."

"No." I replied, "DD's got a Mummy."

DD agreed, "Yes, DD's got a Mummy."

And that was it. So I guess she knows and that's her reality for now. I'm sure she'll have all sorts of emotions and questions about it as she gets older but that first post was about the first question. I didn't even use my prepared and rehearsed line as it wasn't even necessary to make the point.

I could write loads more about what a fantastic year it's been for me in the blogosphere, where I've been, where I'm at, where I'm going with it all (who knows?), who I've met, friends I've made, things I've learned.... but I think I'll leave this as another modest little post to reflect the full circle of my first blogging year.

Happy Blogiversary to me.

A Weekly Carnival

2012-01-17T23:30:00.000+02:00

Fact one: I live in a quadrant of roads (with a couple of tendrils) that contains two primary schools, a high school, a teacher's training college, an art college, a residential student year-programme school, and two purpose built synagogues. And each of the afore mentioned buildings also houses a synagogue on Saturdays.

Fact Two: Every synagogue has to have a Sefer Torah (Torah Scroll). This is a large scroll of the Five Books Of Moses, otherwise known as The Old Testament, and we read a portion from it every week (several times). It is entirely handwritten on parchment, in a particular style by a qualified scribe. It takes months to complete a Sefer Torah and it's obviously very expensive. Some people commission one in someone's memory or to mark an important event in their lives. This is usually accompanied by a lot of fundraising in order to pay for it. They then usually donate it to a synagogue for a community to use. Some Torah Scrolls are 'saved' from dying communities and re-dedicated to newer, younger communities. Many Torah Scrolls were saved from Europe after the war and taken to the UK, America, Israel, and other places where they were needed.

Dedicating a Sefer Torah is a big thing. It's a party and a celebration. It could be welcoming a scroll lost in Europe after the Holocaust that has recently resurfaced. Or it could be a new scroll arriving after months of fundraising and following the progress of the scribe. It is the custom to hold the Sefer Torah under a wedding canopy and dance it through the streets to its new home. Obviously this is followed by a meal.

As my immediate neighbourhood is intitution heavy, there is relatively little traffic after dark. Did I mention that this all happens after dark? So every so often (with the emphasis on often), we are arroused from our viewing of Eastenders by the loud blaring of European shtetl music from speakers on an adorned van. Bright lights flashing and up to 100 people dancing behind. Think 'Fiddler on the Roof' comes to Notting Hill Carnival. We rush outside to watch. DD stands on the balcony, dancing, clapping and squealing with delight.

Then the procession turns the corner and we return indoors to see if Massood and Jane have finally run off together or not yet.

I Will

2012-01-16T23:30:00.000+02:00

MUMenTUM, with Liska (New Mum Online), week 2. The fact that I'm posting a week 2 is an achievement in itself. Most of my losing weight efforts last 3 days tops. So after the spectacular 1.5kg (>3lbs) loss of week 1, I am proud to announce that in week 2 I dropped 100g! That's about 1/4 of a pound (not even).

I have no more to add to that other than I will try harder this week. I will not be giving up on this.

I will be turning 50 in September and I will be fabulousand... Before that, however, we will be going to London in the spring to spend time with family and friends. I will want to buy clothes. I will. And there is a long hot summer before September during which I will have to take DD to the pool and the beach. I will have to wear a swimsuit. I will want to enjoy the whole experience rather than dreading it. I will.

I will do my fellow #50Club members proud. JazzyGal and Looking For Blue Sky, both in Dublin, I will stand tall(ish), slim and glam with you both.

I will.

#SilentSunday

2012-01-15T00:25:00.000+02:00

SPKSZUYWWN8D

LifeCircle2: Drawing A Line In The Sand

2012-01-14T00:00:00.000+02:00

)The first LifeCircle assignment from @kateb is to complete the wheel of life below, grading yourself from 1 to 10 (10 being completely satisfied) in each category. I tried it on a couple of interactive sights and the resulting shape (when you join your scores) was a pleasant sort of conch (which I admit I tidied up a bit for the sake of aesthetics.) It's supposed to show where the kinks in the smooth wheel of your life need pumping up or ironing out. I don't totally get it as you could have a perfect wheel of discontented 1s - not a happy place to be in but certainly smooth enough to roll along. Anyway, I'm not technical enough to reproduce my efforts here so instead I'll give you a run down (literally) in words.

Romance/Significant Other 10 - Just kidding :)

Fun and Recreation 9 - As I wrote in my Introduction post, I am where I am at the moment and my fun is close to home. This is how it has to be for a while and I'm fine with it.

Friends and Family 8 - I'm blessed with both but the family bit is long-distance for most of the year so no physical support there such as back up for childcare, holiday meals together, etc... However, as I'm not relocating to London ~~yet~~ this isn't somethng I can change.

Environment 7 - I have a nice home which I own jointly with the bank and I could easily do with spending quite a bit of money I don't have on improving it. However, I am so thankful that I don't have the insecurity and expense of having to rent. I live in a lovely area of Jerusalem and were Jerusalem situated in the English countryside just outside London my cup would be full.

Health 6 - Thank God, but I do need to lose weight and do a bit of stretching, etc...

Career 5 - I have one but I need to develop it in a way that generates more income. This is quite urgent.

Personal Development 4 - This is the area I want to concentrate on so that I'm in the best position and ready to do whatever it is I have the time and freedom to do in a few more years.

Finance 3 - A bit dire at the moment but DD goes into the state education system in September which is supposed to be free-ish.

See my conch? I'm only missing 2 and 1. Incidently, you can choose any categories for your wheel of life. So to use up the numbers and for the sake of a perfect curve...

Time-management 2 - The word procrastination comes to mind.

1 - Nothing I can think of. I am actually very blessed with the gift of contentment. Or it could be the curse of inertia, in which case it's an extension of procrastination. Yawn - I'll figure it out tomorrow.

Cheesey Cornbread Pie

2012-01-13T00:00:00.000+02:00

Pies this week! (Go check out Recipe Shed for a whole selection of them.) I love pies, I could eat an old boot if it were wrapped in pastry. However, I couldn't find a good recipe for Old Boot Pie and anyway, I really wanted to look for something a little different. You can put almost anything between two pastry crusts and it's a pie by definition. But what else is there? Well I found a recipe for a pot-pie with a cheesey cornbread lid. It was with a hot chilli filling and called Mexican. I'd love it but I'm cooking for a 3yo so I dispensed with the Mexican element and came up with the following. I'm very excited to be sharing this, it's delicious and satisfying in a vegetarian meaty sort of way.

Cheesey Cornbread Pie

Select a variety of pulses and vegetables for the filling. I happened to find garlic, a potato, some aubergine, frozen sweet corn, frozen chick-peas, onion, frozen green beans, and some red paper. You will also need tomato puree or crushed tomatoes.

Cube the vegetables and saute the vegetables (and pulses) in cooking oil. Then add the tomato puree (or crushed tomatoes) and salt, pepper, and soy sauce to taste, a generous tsp of onion soup powder (or a stock cube), and a cup of water (maybe 2 cups I can't remember). Let it simmer for about 15 minutes while you make the cornbread topping.

Mix in a bowl: 2/3 cup cornmeal, 1tbsp flour, 2tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt.

Beat 1 egg with 1/3 cup milk and 2 tbsp corn oil.

Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture and combine to make the cornbread batter.

Put the filling in an oven-proof dish (I made 5 individual pies each measuring about 1cup) and top with the cornbread batter. Sprinkle grated cheddar cheese over the top.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 220 degrees for about 30-40 minutes, until golden brown on top.

As I'd made individual pies it was easy to go round the edge with a sharp knife and tip the pie upsidedown onto the plate. This meant that the filling was on top of the cornbread and it soaked up some of the gravy. Also it was an easier and delicious way to eat the cornbread and filling together.

Yum!

DancingInTheRain: How I Met My Husband

2012-01-12T00:19:00.000+02:00

Dancing In The Rain's response to the following prompt: Acted, Aeroplane, After, Aghast, and Aquamarine, plus the usual 100 words. While you're here please read my own entry: Mile High Meltdown, and then pop over to Julia's Place to read the other entries to this week's 100 word challenge.

How I Met My Husband

She still harboured the fear that, after floating in the Dead Sea, she wouldn’t be able to stand up. The fear, born from experience, prevented her from enjoying that feeling of effortlessly floating forever. She had lain in the aquamarine sea, following a stray aeroplane, until the guide called. With her legs refusing to sink and nothing on which to brace herself, apart from the treacherous dividing waters, she looked round aghast. A young local, to whom she would normally have acted very coolly, was nearby. Without further ado he firmly pushed her legs down.

You can read a critique of this piece by Snellopy here. Thank you Snellopy.

Mile High Meltdown

2012-01-11T00:00:00.000+02:00

Acted, Aeroplane, After, Aghast, and Aquamarine, plus the usual 100 words. Pop over to Julia's Place to read the other entries to this week's 100 word challenge.

DD stood in the aisle pointing towards the exit screaming, "HOOOME! BEEED Mummy!"

"Is she always like this?" asked the snooty cow in the aquamarine twin-set.

"I don't know, I don't usually force her to stay up till 2am."

Seeing my expression Snooty Cow tried to backtrack. "I-I-I meant on aeroplanes," she stammered.

"She's two - she's not exactly a frequent flyer."

I acted aghast but actually I was beyond caring. When your 2 year old has a meltdown on an aeroplane at 2am there's little you can do.

After a while I persauded DD to sit on my lap and she eventually fell asleep.

Post script: Taochild has written a critique of this 100 word challenge entry which you can read Here. Thanks Taochild, I love it.
And you can read a critique by Snellopy here. Thank you too.

Auditing My Soul

2012-01-10T00:00:00.000+02:00

I promised Liska at New Mum Online I'd join the MUMenTUM blog hop this week. Of course I'm not doing it just for Liska - although why not? She's a nice person. Seriously though, those of you who read me know that I'm up for big changes this year. Here are the reasons:

1. I turn 50 in September and feel the need to be somewhat more sorted than I feel at the moment.

2. Impending trip to London to see family and visit The Harlequin Centre in Watford for the first time in over a year. All those relatives and clothes shops would be unbearable at my present [over]weight.

3. Happy, healthy, blah, blah, blah...

We have a saying in Hebrew: cheshbon nefesh. It's what you do at major milestones or crossroads in your life. It means taking account of your soul. In other words introspection. Weighing up what you have achieved, where you are, where you would like to be, are you happy, what changes need to be made, etc... Approaching fifty is a major time for cheshbon nefesh. And I'm into it big time. (Even though I am only able to make small changes at the moment as explained on my LifeCircle introduction earlier this week.)

JazzyGal and Looking For Blue Sky, both in Dublin, have started The #50Club (notice the snazzy badge) for all us 1962 babies. (Feel free to join if you fit the description.) I'm already feeling better about the big five-oh knowing that I'm in such good company. And I think a lot of insightful writing will come out of it that just might tip the balance from shell-shocked (how can this have happened so soon?) to OK (new decade new opportunities/experiences/confidence/whatever).

So first step is to conquer the mum-tum, again, along with all the other flabby bits. New Year's Eve found me making the annual pledge and this week I lost 1.5kg (just over 3lbs). Don't cheer yet, it's a mere drop in the ocean. However, every drop counts and I've run out of ways to continue with this metaphor. More importantly, will I be able to post my very first blog hop linky? Watch this space...

Women Dancing Towards Change

2012-01-09T00:00:00.000+02:00

So here's what's happening in Israel. We are in the midst of a religious war between some sectors of the ultra-orthodox (known as Haredi) communities and women - including women from religious but non-Haredi communities.

It started as a gradual and largely unnoticed eradication and exclusion of women from public display - no women on poster adverts in Jerusalem, segregated buses in orthodox areas where the women have to sit at the back, separate performances of concerts and shows for men and women. Not everywhere and not all the time. But in certain very religious neighbourhoods and with more and more frequency. And recently it's been creeping over the invisible religious borders into middle Israel. Several Religious State Schools (supposedly non-Haredi) had Hanukkah concerts for children and Mothers only as it's not modest for men to hear the girls singing.

How can this happen in a democracy where the Haredi sector makes up no more than 10%? The government has given so much power to religious leaders in return for their votes that it would fall if they broke ties. How many religious leaders are there that their votes carry so much weight? I'll explain with a story...

A few years ago I was working in an office of a company who were very pro employing orthodox women whose husbands studied Torah all day in Yeshiva. These women bring up the (usually many) children, run the home, work full time and, as I said, their husbands study. One day close to a general election we were all discussing who we supported and who we were planning to vote for. A few of these women said they didn't know yet. Fair enough - there's a lot to consider right? However, this comment was followed by: My husband's rabbi hasn't told us yet. He's telling us tonight. I was shocked, but this is how it is.

Bet Shemesh is a small town about halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Driven out of the ultra-orthodox neighbourhoods of Jerusalem because of high property prices (and rents) and lack of space, Bet Shemesh has seen a big increase in its Haredi community over the past decade. And some of them are becoming more and more religiously extreme.

The latest incidents have seen religious women being spat on and verbally abused because thay dare to walk the streets with elbows or ankles showing, or in open-toed sandals. We're not talking skinny jeans and vest tops here - just not Taliban enough for the extremist zealots. And it's escalating because the religious leadership are not speaking out against such behaviour which 1. conveys that they secretly agree with it and 2. makes the extremists more bold and demanding.

Working, tax-paying and rate-paying, army serving, Israelis are angry, we've had enough. To try to impose their laws on non-Haredi Israelis and to become violent when they don't comply is the last straw. It is literally biting the hand that feeds them. Last Friday the women of sane Bet Shemesh made a stand against the eradication of women from public life. I keep going back to watch it and it has me grinning every time.

#SilentSunday

2012-01-08T19:50:00.001+02:00

Ladies Who Lum...pect 2

2012-01-07T10:20:00.000+02:00

Back in September 2011 I wrote:

My good friend, DancingInTheRain, is a career woman, a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a friend to many, a writer, and a dancer. This is her story:
It was actually only the beginning of her story and we were left wondering what the impending test results were going be. Here's what happened next:

Take it step by step I was cleverly advised by other ladieswho lumpect (LWL). And so on to the next step. Radiotherapy. Not that theprevious steps were as straightforward as they sounded at the end of my lastpost. ‘lumpected and then relumpected’ is what I wrote. Well itwould have sraightforward if they hadn’t actually lost what they were lookingfor.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The first lumpectomywas actually 2 operations in one. Theystart by injecting your boob with turquoise dye. This cleverly works its wayinto the underarm lymph nodes and stains blue one or two of those very lymphnodes which would have become cancerous if the cancer would already have spread. They whip them out, test them on the spot forcancer and if all is good (remember, ‘negative’ in the vernacular) they sew youback up again. If they think the lymphnodes are affected then they remove a whole bunch of them and start worryingabout the rest of your body. Fortunately the lymph nodes were clear.

The second part of the operation is the removal of the lumpitself. After undergoing a weird andagonizing piercing procedure you enter the operating theatre with one, two orthree wires sticking hedgehog like out of the affected breast. The idea being that the surgeon digs insideand cuts out the diseased part which should be located between the wires. In mycase, I think he was put off by the turquoise nipple because according to thepathological report of the removed specimen, there was still a bit leftin. All the invasive part had been removedbut…. a bit of the high grade stuff was still there. Tip: Good idea to remove all the ‘hg’because it has a tendency to metamorphose into ‘invasive’ given time.

Well they had indeed warned me of a 50% chance that a re-lumpectomymight be on the cards. What they hadn’twarned me was that although the pathology lab would diagnose any remaining cancerouscells after the first op, they might also, by mistake, grossly mess up thespecimen. Meaning that it simply wasn’tclear whether the bit of lump that was left was at the top, bottom or one ofthe sides of the residual hole.

The surgeon was somewhat at a loss. Scalpel very much at the ready but not surewhere to aim and not keen to perform a needless and totally unexpectedmastectomy (full breast removal) in order to catch a few roving cells. Patient (me)certainly not keen to have a mastectomy just because the lab had made a mistakeand ‘it might be a good idea to be on the safe side’. Now was the time to call in reinforcementsand the Heads of the Breast Oncological Department and the Breast RadiationUnit officially joined the team hunting for the elusive lump. Tension was rife and the waiting seemedinterminable.

The powers that be decided that an MRI scan should do thetrick. MRIs are uncomfortable and noisyand extremely claustrophobic – especially if you have recently had operationson your breast and underarm, not to mention a slipped disc. Results indeed suggested the presence ofunwanted cells and a re-lumpectomy was performed. Mr Surgeon and my dear Hubbyensured that the resultant specimen was delivered to a more reputable pathologylab (between them they smuggled the ‘body in the bag’ out of the hospital) and along 3 weeks later we were informed that some pre-cancerous cells had beenremoved. However, the high gradecancerous ones which we had been looking for were still lurking in one of theducts.

The surgeon insisted there was nothing left to remove - butthe pathology results had shown otherwise. Fear (on my part) and indecisiveness was in the air. Appointments with various oncologists onlyenhanced the tension. The threesome reconvened and agreed that a strong dose ofradiation would kill off anything that might still be around. No need for moresurgery.

And then they changed their minds. A mammography scan would determine the needfor a re-re-lumpectomy. But after 2painful operations there was simply no way that my sensitive, still-turquoise,distorted breast would subject itself to being squeezed mercilessly between 2platters in order for the scan to take place. The surgeon agreed with me and mayhem ensued – dissension in the ranksat the weekly departmental committee meeting.

Special permission was eventually given for 7 weeks of dailyradiotherapy (with weekends off for good behavior). With 250 daily patients, and the same numberof personalized radiation treatments, it takes a while for the doctors,physicists and technicians to prepare each individual technical program whichincludes simulation sessions and tattoos. One missed angle and the radiation hits your heart or lung - anunpleasant, long-lasting side-effect. But the waiting was difficult. Ithad been 5 months since the original diagnosis and I was becoming more and morescared that the detected, yet still unremoved ‘hg’ might that very minute bemetamorphosing and invading.

Now more than 5 weeks into treatment, although I amsuffering the expected side effects of local soreness (imagine sunburn in avery sensitive place – ouch!) and extreme fatigue, the hospital team ofdoctors, administrators and radiologists are simply fantastic – not to mentionfriends and family who undertake the daily 1 hour+ journey to ferry me to thehospital – since the original slipped disc/degeneration of the old backbone is preventingme from driving myself.

Step by step is the mantra and, talking of steps, it isthese same friends and family who have been there for me every step of the way.

I have an appointment next week with the oncologist. I amexpecting only good news and will be dancing all the way there. I’ll let you know……

DancingInTheRain

Here's One I Didn't Make Myself

2012-01-06T09:55:00.000+02:00

This week's Recipe Shed is all about healthy food. A very good way to start the new year. It's quite hard to think of healthy food in the winter as it's not the season for salads. The obvious answer is soups. I live with a 3yo who doesn't do soup brilliantly yet so it would be a waste for me to make it as we eat together. However, last night I went out to S's for the annual Winter Soup and Sweets Party (she does a summer party as well). The soup was minetrone.

Served with parmesan, croutons and pesto to put in the soup or on the sour-dough bread sticks that were also on the table with butter, of course. A glass of red wine and so far so healthy.

Desserts included an apple cake, a cheese cake with cranberries, brownies that were almost liquid chocolate and date and coconut truffles. I didn't put sugar in my coffee though.

As I didn't make the delicious soup and as you can find Minestrone Soup on google, I'm not actually going to post a recipe. Think of it as more of a Recipe Suggestion Shed. :~) But do click here and see how others have been more pro-active than I have on this one.

LifeCircle: Intro

2012-01-05T12:47:00.000+02:00

A few months ago @kateab from The Five Fs blog started LifeCircle. I fully intended to join in and benefit from the group life coaching course, coming out the other end with all my dreams and ambitions well on the way to fulfillment. The first assignment was an overview of the different aspects of our lives, taken sepaerately and each given a score from one to ten. I balked. I didn't want to share the exact state of my finances and my romantic life with the world wide web. With the new year, Kate has restarted the LifeCircle and I still wanted to do it (btw, anyone can join, just follow the link). This time, with more understanding of what is to come, I thought about how I could make it work for me and still keep my (selected) privacy. This week we are asked to introduce ourselves.

A wise person once told me that there are times in your life when you are ready to get up and do, move and shake, etc.. And there are times when you just have to be. As a single mother with a 3yo, I am in one of those 'needing to be' places. However, there are plenty of things I need to prepare, while I am being, so that when the time comes for me to 'get up and do' I will be ready.

Today met R in the street as I was walking home from the supermarket. I always admire how R gets dressed every day. Obviously I don't walk around in my pyjamas but pullng on a pair of trousers, a jumper and running a brush through my hair doesn't constitute 'getting dressed'. I complimented R and she admitted that it takes a lot of effort but that in her job (an estate agent) she has to. Well I have to too, if I am going to look and feel like the woman I want to be.

And all this grooming takes time - something that I can waste with professional aplomb. So I guess some anti-procrastination work is in order and finding the motivation to use the minutes productively.

In a book about being elegant and sophisiticated on a small budget the first directive was to be slim. As the book said (it was many years ago and I don't have a reference), it is much easier to look elegant in crisp jeans with a simple white shirt and some shiny accessories if you are slim. Overweight people have to pay a lot more money for a similar effect. There's a lot of truth in this. So, apart from all the health reasons (obviously), this is my third area of concentration.

In addition, I want to achieve small goals (some of them listed on my Day Zero list) towards being ready (as described in New Year's Eve) for the moving and shaking when the time comes. In particular I think it will be helpful to define precisely what I would ultimately like to do and where I would like to be so that I'm at least moving (or shaking) in a straight line towards it.

DancingInTheRain: 100 Word Challenge

2012-01-04T07:25:00.000+02:00

And here is DancingInTheRain's entry for the 100 Word Challenge. 100 words written from the persoective of the lady with the arrow over her head. You can read my entry, You Can't Be A Mother, here and all the other entries at Julia's place. Enjoy.

I Might As well Be Invisible

Everyone is having such fun on this Christmas vacation study trip apart from me. They all get on so well with each other and finish the assignments so easily. After seeing all the tourist sites today, we're now waiting in line for a festive dinner in Santa's grotto. Who should I sit with tonight? I just don't seem to fit in. Is it because I look a bit different from most of the others? Or fatter? Or maybe because I keep losing things, making everyone wait? Even now, I can't seem to find the dinner voucher in my pocket.

You Can't Be A Mother

2012-01-03T00:00:00.000+02:00

The 100 word challenge this week is to write from the perspective of the woman under the arrow. I immediately knew what my subject was, it's something I see a lot in Israel. I meet women like this and it breaks my heart every time. I took my title and the final line from this article. Read it to find out more. Then go to Julia's Place to see the other entries.

When I have second baby I must follow sister and leave the Philippines for work. Daughters, like cousins, live with grandmother. I send money.

Being Santa's elf is fun job. Most elves are Vietnamese and Thai but we get along fine. Hardest time is Christmas. Not only it is busy season, obviously, but it is emotional hard.

I go down chimneys on Christmas Eve and see many children who wake up in morning and run to mother's bed for cuddle. It is very hard. I am also mother, but you can't be mother when you are not with your children.

My 2012 Mood Board

2012-01-02T00:00:00.000+02:00

I've already written a New Year's Eve post in which I describe my almost spiritual approach to the magical night of fresh starts and new leaves. But then I came across, at notSupermum (it's a Blog Hop so go and see some of the others), the idea of expressing my focus for the coming year as a mood board. I couldn't resist. Except for the family picture, all the others are from Google images.

Our family.

European parks with trees and water.

Healthy vegetarian food.

The suppleness, the grace and the lightness of being.

A place to work and time to revisit favourite
books in uncluttered elegance.

#SilentSunday

2012-01-01T17:10:00.001+02:00

New Year's Eve

2011-12-31T23:13:00.000+02:00

If I did nothing else today I had to write the final blog of 2011. New Year's Eve to me is like a religious festival. Having got past the age of wild parties and, although it would be nice to spend the evening with good friends, having entered the phase of staying at home with a young child, I use tonight to do all those introspective, contemplative things that I also do on the eve of my birthday and Rosh Hashana (The Jewish New Year).

In previous years I've opened a bottle of wine and ordered a pizza (the last one ever of course, as there's always a diet starting on January 1st). This year I'm too tired to indulge in the wine and the pizza is a total waste of money when I can do grilled cheese on toast with ketchup to similar effect.

I always write my list of New Year's resolutions - some of them have been on the list and remain not done for 30 years. Others have only recently (within the past five years) joined the list but, nevertheless, remain not done. So I could, in theory, just write: All the usual, and leave it at that. But I won't because I love the anticipation and hope that this year, despite the evidence of past experience, I just might be able to become the accomplished person I'd like to be with the self-discipline that I crave.

With two hours to go (I live in GMT+2 which is a small country just east of Europe) I have finally got DD to bed (though not to sleep) and I can give my full attention to the twelve months that lie clean and unspoiled, like a new carpet, before me. This year is an important one as it's the year I turn 50 so in fact I'd like to have myself all ship-shaped and perfected by September. This is the year I prepare myself for the second half of my life (assuming I'm going to live to 100 and why not?). This is the year my DD becomes old enough to start learning how to live her life from my role modelling (now that is scary enough to whip me into action!).

However, contrary to the impression I've given so far in this post, I'm not stupid. I'm not going to be speaking perfect Hebrew and French, playing the piano, have written a novel and a cookery book, lost #kg (mind your own business), and have kept the house sparkling clean, my feet pedicured and my body toned... all by September, or even next New Year's Eve. So my clever plan this year is to activate my Day Zero Project (101 things to accomplish in 1001 days - which is about 2 3/4 years) to start on January 1st 2012, in about one hour's time. Sorted.

Happy New Year to everyone everywhere and may all your resolutions, goals, manifestoes, no-pressure vague ideas, dogmatic anti-New Year's non-resolutions, etc... ~~come true~~ (haha would that it were so easy) be accomplished with much pride and smugness.

All illustrations are from Google images except the happy New Year badge below from We Don't Eat Anything With A Face who's hosting a New Year Resolutions Blog Hop.

The Best Present

2011-12-27T23:47:00.001+02:00

Today we upgraded from the 'Bimba' (I don't know what you call it in English - the little red lorry thing) to the big girls' bike. It was a birthday present* from Grandma and Grandpa in London, niftily executed with the help of an international credit card and my good friend with his car.

I was concerned that I'd not had time to buy a safety helmet for her yet, but as DD can't work the pedals I don't think the bike will be going outside until the spring. At the moment it's for climbing on, squeezing the squeaky duck (in lieu of a horn or bell), and me pushing it for rides up and down the apartment.

*I am very aware that DD didn't get a Hanukkah present from Grandma and Grandpa. I am determined that she is not going to fall into the well known December birthday trap of only one present. It was partly my fault for not having time to get the bike sorted out earlier, but there will be some years when DD's birthday does actually fall on Hanukkah. I'm ready to fight her corner.

Thank You Military Wives

2011-12-26T12:30:00.000+02:00

Anyone reading this in the UK will obviously have heard this track. It has made the Number One spot in the UK charts for Christmas and so well deserved. I wanted to share it here for all my non-UK friends to hear and to document an important topical event.

It made me cry. Maybe because I live in a country where most of the men have been in the army and many of them do regular reserve duty for up to a month every year. Sometimes it's routine but at other times, in emergency situations, it can feel as though the northern border or Gaza are as far away as Afganistan.

I cannot imagine what it must be like to live in perpetual fear, as a single parent, while your husband is giving selflessly for the ultimate safety of us all. Thank you Military Wives everywhere, for the sacrifice and thank you these Military Wives for the music.

Silent Christmas Sunday

2011-12-25T00:14:00.002+02:00

Latkes

2011-12-22T15:34:00.001+02:00

Miscellaneous was the first grown-up word I learned when I changed schools at 11. And I learned how to spell it aswell as its meaning. I'd never heard of it before then and now, 38 years later, it's cropped up as the theme for this week's Recipe Shed from Reluctant Housedad. So, as I'm not doing Christmas Dinner this year (it's the Cinderella thing), I thought I'd give you a recipe for latkes and tell you a bit about them.

Basically they are potato pancakes and, along with sufganiyot (doughnuts), are the traditional food for Hanukkah. The theme is food cooked in oil to remember the miracle of the eternal light in the reclaimed Temple lasting a full eight days instead of only one. The story is that they found only a small amount of oil and it took eight days to get a fresh supply.

Latkes is the Yiddish name, in Hebrew they are called levivot, they are also, as I said, potato pancakes. But whatever language you use, they are delicious, full of calories, and very easy to make.

Latkes

potatoes
onions
eggs
flour
salt and pepper
cooking oil

Grate the potato and onion into a bowl. Mix in some eggs and flour. Season with the salt and pepper.
Put tablespoons of the mixture into the hot oil and fry on both sides until golden brown.
Serve warm with... and here opinions differ.

Traditionally we ate them with meat (corned beef) and pickled cucumbers. Then people started getting trendy and serving latkes with apple sauce and sour cream. There are no rules except to enjoy!

PS We ate ours before I had time to get the camera out so the illustrations are from Google images.

The Season: Continuations and Endings

2011-12-21T15:36:00.000+02:00

This post is for continuations and endings of the 100 word challenge. Others wrote the first 50 words on the theme of The Season (as I did) and you can see them all at Julia's place. The next part of the challenge was to choose some beginnings and write the end (or continuation). Nifty idea for a Christmas parlour game played in your own parlour, eh?

My first ending is for the beginning by Gill: The Meaning of the Season. Read it first or you'll have no clue what I'm going on about.

The last question on the exam was multiple choice. But on pondering all the options, she found she couldn't honestly exclude any of them. Taking up her pen she wrote: f) All of the above, and circled it. She knew she'd sacrificed valuable points but some things just feel right.

In response to Domestic Godesque's The Mail:

They'd made a pact, once, long ago, on a tropical beach - 'If anything happens to one of us we'll find a way to make contact from the other side'. It was sealed with exotic cocktail drawings on their bodies and dried in the sun.
"That was quick," she whispered.

Terry's beginning from The Incredible Lightness of Seeing is called It's All About The Season, Not The Seasoning. Who could resist writing an ending for a title like that?...

The next year the generation in waiting decided sweet, calico-clad grandmother deserved a rest and they would take over Christmas Dinner on a rotational basis. Her youngest and favourite son, Claude, was dispatched to gently break the news.
After he'd left grandmother broke open the sherry - her plan had worked.

And here's an ending to DancingInTheRain's The Holiday Season:

She chose the red velvet and arrived fashionably late. The music was blaring with help from a scantily clad DJ who she could hardly see in the darkness. "This is intollerable," she grumbled. It was too much. She went to the adjascent lounge and ordered a straight laced pot of tea.

DancingInTheRain: The Season Parts 1 & 2

2011-12-20T23:30:00.000+02:00

As usual I am hosting my friend DancingInTheRain for the 100 word challenge. She has written the first 50 words for this week's parlour game on the theme of The Season. You are invited to post your own ending or continuation and we will link the two to each other. My own effort is here and to see all the entries you can go to Julia's Place.

The Holiday Season

Every year, the Christmas Do at the top hotel in town was not only an excuse to choose a new outfit for the season but also to show that she wasn't really that straight-laced administrator they saw every day. The swirly, crushed red velvet or the little black number, she wondered.

This has been continued by Midlife Singlemum.

And it's also been continued by Anna at Mrs Halford's Blog:

In the lift she glanced at her reflection, smoothed her tight black satin dress and adjusted her mask. Would they guess it was her? A masquerade ball had been a last minute suggestion and everyone had loved the idea. Finally she could let her hair down and be herself.

ENDINGS AND CONTINUATIONS

DancingInTheRain has written some endings/continuations too. The first is for Sally-Jayne's brother's beginning, Christmas Concert:

Looking around, already missing the camaraderie that had formed so quickly once we had begun rehearsing, I viewed the empty year ahead as if through a telescope. "Just do it", tooted my trumpet as the case closed shut. "Anyone up for a spring recital?", I suggested tremulously, holding my breath.

And two endings for Loving The Season which was my beginning:

Paying for her purchases, she walked briskly back to the waiting car. Hurry up darling, she said, we just have time to drop these off at your mother's before we leave for the airport. We don't want to miss the plane. Mummy and Daddy will be so disappointed.

And:

Paying for her purchases, she carefully made her way to the bus stop through the thickening snow. Peering into the semi-darkness she gingerly alighted, tottered up the path and rang the doorbell. Made it, she joyfully exclaimed, proffering her purchases. Let's see what you've bought and we'll start getting ready.

Here's a last Harrah in the form of an ending for Domestic Godesque's The Mail:

They're not coming, she wept. Again she stroked the names of her young grandchildren. The grandchildren who should soon have been playing under her Christmas Tree. Crumpling the envelope she felt a slight resistance. She peeled open her son's note: Check your email for eticket to Australia. See you soon 'Nana'

Loving The Season: Part One

2011-12-19T23:30:00.000+02:00

This week's 100 word challenge is a sort of party game. This week you write 50 words on 'The Season' (not including the two title words in the count) and next week you come back and continue someone else's entry with the remaining 50 words. I love the way Julia comes up with such original prompts every week. You can read the other entries for The Season: Part One by clicking on Julia's Place. The picture is from www.decuisine.co.uk

Loving the season of joy and goodwill, she shopped for Christmas Dinner at Tesco's: one turkey breast, two small potatoes, a tin of peas, Bisto. Hmmm, an individual Christmas pudding or two mince pies? What the heck, she threw in both, a bottle of sherry, two dvds and Woman's Own Christmas Special.

This beginning has it's first continuation by Sally-Jayne over at Aiming High.
I would think it appropriate to invite anyone to continue S-J's story as well as the open invitation to take it from where mine left off. All continuations will be linked here. This is turning out to be a lot of fun!

DancingInTheRain has written two endings to my beginning and you can read them here: DancingInTheRain.

And Tracey at Snagglewordz has also niftily proven that you can't judge a book by it's cover.

A last 'Harra'h from Taochild makes me wonder what it is exactly that's making her so happy :).

Twitter Dailies - The Jury's Out

2011-12-17T01:37:00.004+02:00

When I started social networking back in January of this year, everything was a learning curve - blogging, twitter, fb - and everything about them. One day a tweet popped up from XY saying: The XY Daily is out. I was following XY (obviously) and I thought: Oooh what's that? Must go take a look. I was amazed by what I found - pages of articles, at least 50, in XY's personal newspaper. Now XY has a full-time job (a very demanding one at that) and several children housed in a sizeable house that needs running.... how did she get the time to trawl through all the articles every day in order to fill her daily newspaper? Baffled, I asked one of my blogging and PR gurus. "It's autogenerated," was the reply.

One Saturday I was online and XY's tweet announcing her daily appeared again. Did I mention that XY is an orthodox Jew and so there is no way she would be online on a Saturday? I knew that my guru had been right. So what was the point of having an online newspaper that came out daily in your name with 50 random articles from around the net? Guru didn't know.

As with most things beyond my grasp, some mysteries gradually became clearer over the months. I am regularly included in papers such as the Thriving In Midlife Daily created by @drdebbiegrove and also in a number of IVF and fertility dailies as I've been writing about my IVF Journey. This told me that the articles included are not entirely random although they are still somewhat hit and miss. In the Thriving In Midlife Daily they are just as likely to choose a post about the Nestle Boycott as anything on topic. I could write a post saying I was totally depressed about my age and not coping at all but the search engine would only see another post from Midlife who fits the key words description.

However, on the whole I totally get why these dailies (set up by paper.li) of a particular topic are useful. If you are undergoing IVF you would be happy to have a daily roundup of relevant articles all on one page and you could subscribe to an IVF or fertility daily. Likewise, you may be very interested in the whole midlife phenomenon - as a subject experiencing it, a healthcare professional in the field, a business catering to, etc... Other dailies focus on financial topics, IT, environmental issues, vegetarianism, living gluten free, etc... I totally get it.

Every so often I am included in a Daily created by someone who follows me on twitter and, although I know they may not have even seen it, I usually do a quick reply saying 'thank you for including me'. They usually reply back saying 'you're welcome' - which all goes to make it more personal I suppose. Occasionally I go into the daily just to see which of my posts they have included but I don't usually bother. And the fact that I don't usually bother makes me wonder what the personal dailies are for. I found this article by Shel Israel which raised a few more questions but he couldn't really fathom it either. Some of the comments are interesting though.

Last night I received a tweet announcing a daily and giving me the usual heads up: top stories via @midlifesinglem (among others). I replied to the 'host' with my usual 'thank you' and for some reason, clicked on the link to find my post. I couldn't find it. I trawled every article included (which you can also see in a list) but I was definitely not there. After a few directions from other tweeps, I eventually found my name under another post whose link I had retweeted. And the link under my name was to the retweeted tweet not even to my blog at least. I was pissed off. Not at the creator of the paper but at the misinformation - a link to an RT is hardly a top story today.

After a few backwards and forwards among tweeps I understood that via doesn't necessarily mean it's my article, it may be that I merely recommended the article by retweeting it. Although, as Shel Israel points out, if I'd tweeted 'I totally diagree with this' it would still have been brought to the paper via me with no indication that I did not endorse it. It also looks like I wrote the article in the daily as my name appears under it (of course on opening it you would see otherwise). Ok, nitpicking aside, I still didn't understand what it's for. There's no advertising for example.

One woman who has her own daily, explained it to me thus: It's a page of articles written by or recommended by the people I follow. It also increases my page hits. I can see that it would be useful for the host to have such a document in order to see what the people you're interested in are writing or are interested in themselves. Thus taking it further than a simple blog roll by including RTs from those without their own blogs, and also including RTs about newpaper and journal articles. And we all want more hits or we wouldn't bother to blog publicly.

But I still have a couple of questions. Why would loads of tweeps be interested in a round-up of the articles that are likely to interest me, according to my key words? Surely it would be like using my Stumbled Upon account instead of setting up your own profile or not using it at all? Do people read the personal dailies that are tweeted to them? Do you? I'm interested to know if I've missed the point on this one and would be very happy to be enlightened. I understand that it's a handy tool for personal use but further than that I am quite frankly intrigued.

I'm The Christmas Cinderella

2011-12-14T22:31:00.010+02:00

When I was a child we didn't celebrate Christmas (much). Well in some ways you couldn't help but celebrate it. There was no school obviously, great TV - The Sound of Music, The Queen's Speech and Morcambe And Wise's Christmas Special - and the radio was full of wonderful carols. As it was a bank holiday we often had the family round for lunch which was absolutely not to be called Christmas Dinner, although my Aunty Rene made a mean steamed fruit pudding which we set alight with brandy. And my mum made her own mince pies.

After lunch we would play pontoon (21) with about eight people sitting round the table each with a pile of matchsticks to wager with. Did I mention that in the morning we were always invited round to our nextdoor neighbours for Christmas drinks and to see their amazing tree?

Of course we did it all at school. Swapping Christmas cards with friends, carol singing in music lessons. The Jewish girls were allowed to opt out of the school Carol Service and gleefully spent the day shopping in Brent Cross. What idiots we were to miss carol singing in St Martin's In The Field by Trafalgar Square. Later as an Old Girl I received an invitation but felt too ashamed to go after opting out all those years. Yes school is definitely wasted on teenagers.

We do Hanukkah. Same but different. I'm preparing to be shot for saying that but, on a superficial level regarding the feel-good factor it's similar. We light candles for eight nights to commemorate the miracle of the oil for the eternal light in the Temple lasting the eight day wait until more could be brought. We give presents because after so many years living alongside Christians we have adopted the custom. (Many diehard families only give the more traditional money - symbolizing the gold coins donated to the Temple I think.) We have our traditional foods of potato pancakes (latkes) and doughnuts (sufganiyot) because they are cooked in oil (see the connection?). The real meaning of Hanuka? Usual joke: they tried to kill us, we won, let's eat.

Yes we do Hanukkah, it's a family affair, it has its own foods and songs, we have Hanukkah Parties... and yet, somehow, at Christmas time I feel like Cinderella not going to the ball. There's a meme going round at the moment called: My Favourite Christmas Song. I was going to join in and offer 'I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas' which I love. I also love almost all the songs on my Kings College Choir Christmas Album which I listen to religiously throughout December. But only in December - other times it just doesn't feel right. However, I came across this on Youtube and it sort of summed up my feelings nicely so I hope you enjoy it.

Away In The Kitchen

2011-12-13T09:46:00.000+02:00

Hooray! My friend DancingInTheRain is officially hooked on the 100 Word Challenge. This is her re-wording of a well-known Christmas carol in 100 words or less. And if you're already in my blog, please click here to read my own entry: Not So Silent Night afterwards. Then, if you're swept away by the festive atmosphere, go to Julia's Place to find all the other entries. It's a real fun one this week - go on, you'll surprise yourself.

Away in a Kitchen

Hidden inside the kitchen

Feeling so full of doubt

Still wrapped in my apron

Looking for a dropped sprout

The table's well-laden

And the glasses all shine

The guests are impatient

Asking where is the wine

I can't find the corkscrew

It must be somewhere

Cooking makes me so uptight

Time to let down my hair

It's all come together

Feeling flushed with success

Now that dinner is over

Please clean up the mess

Not So Silent Night

2011-12-12T23:25:00.006+02:00

The 100 Word Challenge from Julia's Place (click to see the other entries) is getting into the Christmas spirit this week with a re-wording of a popular carol on the theme of Christmas Dinner. We all love it and have fond memories of stuffing our faces till we're fit to burst. All the traditional foods, the minions of family and other guests around the table, the excitement of the first carve of the turkey, the brandy alight on the Christmas pudding, the mince pies with coffee afterwards. And, yes a wee drop of Baileys in the coffee, thank you, I only do this on Christmas you know... But how did this fine feast appear on the table? Maybe we should take a moment to remember the cook? The woman, usually, who didn't have such a Silent Night....

Last night, long night
Stuffed the turkey tying it tight
Peeled potatoes setting them right
Round the turkey as squashed as I might
Put in the oven at first light
No wonder I'm looking a fright.

Last night, eternal night
Brussel sprouts taste like shite
But they're still a Christmas rite
I made the pudding to set alight
I was up cooking past midnight
No wonder I'm looking a fright.

Last night, all night
Baked mince pies for carollers' bite
Sausage rolls that always delight
Kitchen cleaned shining bright
Bottle of Baileys eased my plight
No wonder I'm looking a fright.

*The picures are from Google Images under Exhausted Woman

Memes I've Missed

2011-12-10T21:51:00.002+02:00

I have to admit that when I'm tagged for a meme I'm in two minds. On the one hand it's extremely flattering to be singled out and very nice to have my blog linked. And sometimes the memes are a lot of fun and I really enjoy doing them. The truth is that you can usually be flexible with the instructions and pretty much do what you like. On the other hand, there is a bit of pressure, especially when the theme doesn't immediately inspire, you're rushed for time, have blogs planned for the forseeable future (who does that?), or you've done something similar before. What do you do? Apologise and say 'I'm not doing it.'? In fact there's no polite way to opt out. My coping mechanism has been to ignore it for a while until my conscience gets the better of me, I find the time, and the mood strikes. So thanks for your patience Rosa, Rebecca and Anna and sorry if it's not what I was supposed to do. I appreciate the love.

On November 19th (yes that long ago) I received a tweet from Rebecca at Here Come The Girls saying 'Tag, you're it!' She had tagged me for the meme described by the badge on the left. There is the usual thanking and appreciating the person who tagged you - not hard as Rebecca writes hilarious accounts of coping with three girls (a 5yo and toddler twins). She's especially graphic about how to respond to the inevitable comments people make when seeing you out and about with twins. Read this, it's LOL.

Then the meme invites you to say a few things about yourself. Well, I actually did this back in April when I was awarded the Kreativ Blogger Award. So you can see what I wrote then and, honestly, I'm still the same person I was back in April - except that I binned Klout this month as I refuse to be a product to further their business.

So blow me down with a feather if I wasn't then tagged by Rebecca again on December 2nd with the Liebster Award. It was obviously a big thank you for ingoring her completely the first time.

This one is all about spreading the love. I actually received it once before from a great writer, Rosa, who, in her own words, is still looking for Mr Right in the back of the fridge. She blogs at A Farewell to Horizontal Stripes and is guaranteed to have you wiping away the tears - either kind, or both at the same time.

Meanwhile Anna at Adventures of a Middle Aged Matron tagged me for the I'm a Celebrity Get me Out of Here meme. It involves questions like: What special skills do you have that would equip you for survival in the jungle? (I could scream anything that looks alive to death maybe?) And, what is the bravest thing you've ever done? (Walked across the main road when the red man was still standing. But only because I was about to miss the bus on the other side and I checked a million times that nothing was coming.) So you see this one just isn't for me. I can't even watch the program on tv as it grosses me out. Sorry Anna.

However, the final part of the meme is to say why your nominater is a star. Well that's easy. Anna has a way with words, a turn of phrase, and an observant eye that just hit the mark every post. Every one is a LOL gem. Definitely one not to miss at Adventures of a Middle Aged Matron. You'll never look at the Vicar's wife in the same way again.

And as for the tagging... I have 70 blogs on my Blog Roll, consider yourselves tagged!

Dancing In The Rain

2011-12-09T22:25:00.005+02:00

My good friend DancingInTheRain doesn't have her own blog but she once wrote a guest post on my blog: We Ladies Who Lu... mpect. She's in the process of writing a follow-up post as the last one left us waiting for vital test results. Meanwhile she was inspired by this week's 100 Word Challenge and has written two entries. The prompt was:

Is it me or are there bells ringing?

You can read my own entry here. And if you click on Julia's Place, you can see all the others. It's fun and some of the writing is excellent. So from DancingInTheRain....

Mingling with Society she was glad her loose yet elegant black dress hid the ravishes of her recent operations. "Good evening. Welcome. Thank you for supporting our cause."

Suddenly smiling before her, blue eyes looked directly into hers. It'd been so many years. He knew, she felt his sympathy. The way she looked now... Unexpectedly, he leant forward and kissed her on the lips. Her heart pounded, thunderous. Is it me or are bells ringing? Maybe, just maybe, it's not sympathy after all...... And then, just as swiftly, he moved away, motioning to his wife to join him as the theatre bell rang a second time.

Did I mention, not one but two pieces....

She had always known that upon arrival in Jerusalem she would visit the Wailing Wall. But now on the bus how would she know where to get off. Packed into the aisle, asking her fellow passengers seemed to be an impossibility. She clung to the overhead strap, closed her eyes and waited for divine intervention. Is it me or are bells ringing she wondered and, intuitively opening her eyes, she joyfully got off without thinking twice. As the passengers alighted the driver mused, why do they all ring the stop bell when we get to the Wall. They should know by now that it's my last stop.

Whisky Lovers' Christmas Fruit Cake

2011-12-08T13:18:00.002+02:00

Recipe Shed time again and this week it's right up my alley - not. Christmas Recipes! Being Jewish, I'm not cooking up a storm for a festival we don't celebrate (much) so I thought I'd share this fantastic Whisky Lovers' Christmas Fruit Cake recipe with you for pure fun. I didn't write it myself, it went round the internet about five years ago with no name attached. If anyone knows the origin I will be happy to give credit where it is most definitely due. Meanwhile it's too good a recipe to keep to myself for lack of an author.

Check the quality of the whisky!

Ingredients:
8oz self-raising flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup dried fruit
Itsp baking powder
lemon juice
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter
4 large eggs
1tsp salt
1 bottle whisky (sample whisky to check quality)

Method:
Take a large bowl. Check whisky again for validity to be sure it is of the highest quality. Pour 1 level cup and drink. Repeat just to make sure.

Turn on electric mixer and beat 1 cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 peastoon of sugar and beat again. Make sure whisky is still ok. Cry another tup. Turn off mixer, break 2 leggs and add to the bowl, then chuck in the cup of fried drute. Mix in the turner, check shisky. If fruit gets stuck in the beaters, pry loose with a screwdriver. sample whisky again to check tonsisticity and to make shure it hasn't gone off.

Next shift 2 cups of salt or something - who cares! Check whisky again. Now sift the lemon juice and strain the nuts. Add 1 babblespoon of brown sugar or whatever colour you can find. Wix mell. Grease oven. Turn cake pan 350 gredees. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Throw the bowl out of the window. Check whisky again and bo to ged.

Note: A rootle of bum say be mubstituted for tthththeee whissssky. The wesults will bill sthe shame.

Is It Me Or Are Bells Ringing?

2011-12-06T00:01:00.003+02:00

The title above is this week's prompt from Julia's Place for the 100 word challenge. Please enjoy mine and then click on the link to read the other entries. The bells are from Google Images.

Even in the dimly lit restaurant she could see something was wrong. She waited, not daring to ask.

"You should congratulate me. My ex-wife got remarried today."
"Did you go?"
"I was invited but I wasn't expected to accept."
"Are you OK?"
"Yes." There was no conviction in his affirmation. "We've been divorced for two years. We had our chances."
She squeezed his hand gently. "It's still hard though."

He swallowed slowly and nodded. He was grateful for her understanding. She returned his gaze with sympathy brimming in her eyes. But inside her heart was singing: She's remarried! She's remarried! Is it me or are bells ringing?

The First Return

2011-12-05T00:03:00.001+02:00

It was June 2005 and my IVF journey continued...

I called first thing on Sunday morning. They had 4 embryos for me. Again I was surprised. 16 eggs retrieved and I end up with only 4 embryos? I went to see Dr. B and he explained it to me:

"We had 16 eggs. As this was your first IVF we did an experiment. We put eight of the eggs in a dish with sperm and waited to see if any of them would be fertilized. None of them were. The other eight we fertilized by ICSI (actively putting the sperm into the egg). Four of them took and we are going to return these to you today."

I went down to 'Day-Surgery' and undressed up to my waist. There was no anaesthetic so no pre-op procedures. I was told to drink a lot as the embryos are easier to place on a full bladder. So I lay on a bed sipping from a little bottle of water. I finished the water and waited. I was desperate to wee and the nurse said it would be another 15 minutes until I went in. Impossible! I was advised to go and partially empty my bladder. Well you try doing that on a full bladder. Whoosh! I was empty.

I quickly refilled my water bottle and gulpted down 750ml in one go, hoping it would have enough time to reach my bladder before I went in. Twelve minutes later I was called in. I gave my name to the ~~Cheshire Cat~~ face in the hatch and put my legs up into the stirrups. "Have you drunk?" "Yes," I replied truthfully.

The metal clamp was inserted into my vagina and the doctor began to screw the two lips apart. This was the most painful part, having your vagina stretched to the circumference determined by the doctor for her convenience. The rest was a doddle. The slight twinge as the catheter touched the internal nerves was so slight compared to the stretching pain that it was almost a welcome distraction. She didn't mention the state of my bladder so I wasn't about to ask.

Then it was all over. They wheeled my bed in from outside and had me slide carefully on to it. I was wheeled back to the before-and-after room and told to lie still for at least half an hour for the cervix to close. Then I could go home.

I got out my book and started to read. The effects of the 750ml of water suddenly hit me. I looked at my watch. I'd only been there for 10 minutes. My bladder felt fit to bursting and I had to lie there like that for at least another 20 minutes. I tried concentrating on my book. I made myself read to the end of the page before checking the time again. Less than two minutes had passed. Another page read - another two minutes. Still 16 minutes to wait.

I worked out that five minutes was 300 seconds so if I counted to 1000 slowly I would be over the time. I started counting. Strangely enough it was easier to count than to read. When I reached 500 I did a time check. I'd counted so slowly that ten minutes had passed. 360 more seconds and I could go to the loo! I made myself count to 400. I was comfortably over the half hour but uncomfortably about to wet myself. I tried to walk smoothly to the bathroom, not wanting to jiggle the embryo if it had found a nice place to implant itself, but it was at best a fast-smooth walk. Needs must.

Greatly relieved in every sense of the word, I took a taxi home. I asked the driver to drive as smoothly as possible but I don't think he understood the importance of the request. I attempted to glide up the three flights of stairs to my apartment and, once there, I slid into my bed for the remainder of the day with a pile of magazines I had prepared earlier.

#SilentSunday

2011-12-04T12:01:00.000+02:00

IVF 1

2011-12-03T15:34:00.001+02:00

I recently recieved a comment under a post from my old friend Anonymous, asking if I wouldn't mind conitnuing my IVF story. I looked back through the archives and found that my last blog on this subject was back in July. I hadn't meant to leave it this long so thank you for the push to resume the journey. We had left things just as I'd been switched from IUI to emergency IVF as I had far too many eggs to leave things to chance.

I went up to IVF at 8am on Thursday as intructed and one of the nurses, Anat, took me down to 'Day-Surgery' in the bowels of Haddasah Hospital. "I'm coming with you as it's your first time," she told me, "next time you can come straight down here yourself." What next time? I've got 22 eggs, why would I need a next time? At some point I noticed that my phone had no reception. It was like Journey to the Centre of the World.

I went through all the preliminaries with the nurse on duty - medical history, weight, blood pressure/pulse. I undressed, put my belongings in a locker and returned the key to the nurse. I kept my glasses, my book and my watch - time is more manageable if you know how much of it has passed. The woman in the next bed went in and came out again within half an hour. And after 40 minutes I was taken in to the operating theatre.

Dr. B was there with his big smile. He had that Tony Blair/Ehud Barak thing about him - like a big schoolboy about to have fun with cutting things and technology. The politician's first commandment: look like you're enjoying all this immensely (except when someone has died) and everyone will think you have it all under control, nothing to worry about. If this was the case, it worked. I felt safe and relaxed. As I got to know Dr. B better I learned that there is nothing calculating about his behaviour and it was his sincerity that led me to trust him completely.

The anaesthetist started sticking little round patches in strategic places around my upper chest and shoulders. These are... well actually I meant to ask but I never did and so I still have no idea what that was about. Suddenly a grinning face appeared through a hole in the wall. It asked me to say my name. wished me good luck and disappeared. If I dreamt about the Cheshire Cat I'd know why. The drip was connected via my arm and I was told to count to ten. I don't remember how far I got.

I woke in the recovery room. I call it the recovery room but it was more of a corridor half-way between the operating theatre and the before-and-after room. It was cold and my stomach hurt. Not really my stomach of course but rather like a bad period pain. There was no one else around as far as I could see in front of me and I was still too out of it to be able to turn over and do a full recky. I decided that groaning would help. The noise detracts from the discomfort and it may attract a nurse. I wanted a blanket and a painkiller.

Someone came. It was Anat from IVF. She found a blanket and put it over me. "I'll get you something for the pain," she said. Then she put her hand on my forearm and stroked. Three quick strokes up and down followed by a gentle squeeze, and she was gone. I cannot express how much comfort that brief moment of human contact gave me. This wasn't a warm room with a picture on the wall, a bedside table, and a comfortable chair by the bed. It was the corridor with the air-conditioning on too strong and not a soul in sight. I just wanted Anat to return and and put her hand on my arm again. I was reliving that moment like it was the most desireable of fantasies one could ever have.

They must have put me back to sleep again as the next thing I knew I was waking up in the before-and-after room. I was warm and the pain had gone. My glasses, watch and book were in the drawer next to the bed where I had left them. All was right with the world. The nurse popped her head in and told me to wait for the doctor. About 20 minutes later Dr. B arrived looking very pleased with himself.

"We got 16 eggs." he said. I was surprised as there had been 22 eggs measured and listed on the ultrasound chart, what happened to the other six? I didn't like to ask so I just said 'thank you' in my terribly British way.

I stayed and rested for about an hour, drifting in and out of sleep. Dr. B said that the test was if I could walk to the door and back without falling over I could go home. I needed to go to the bathroom, which killed two birds with one stone as it required walking even farther than the door. On the way back I retrieved my locker key from the nurse and picked up my clothes and bag. "Take it easy for the rest of the day and be ready to come in on Sunday morning as we may be putting back embryos."

I got into a taxi and went home leaving them to make my baby in the lab.

Mildly Curried Rice With Everything

2011-12-01T15:16:00.000+02:00

Big Chief Recipeshed (aka Reluctant Housedad) issued the directive - One Pot Wonders. Tbh, I've done one of these as my vegetarian cholent has to be the ultimate OPW. And the not the carrot tsimmes was pretty much an OPW except that I served it with rice on the side. However, I rose to the challenge and came up with Mildly Curried Rice With Everything. Certainly makes one wonder, eh?

You can use any vegetables you happen to have for this dish but I would say that the onion and potato are pretty much essential, along with the rice and lentils of course. I used the following:

Mildly Curried Rice With Everything

1 cup rice

1/2 cup lentils (soaked for an hour in cold water)

1 potato

1 onion

3 carrots

a chunk of cabbage

a handful of frozen sweetcorn

what was left of the frozen green-beans

oil for frying

water for cooking

Seasonings: salt, pepper, curry powder, soy sauce.

1. Soak your lentils

2. cut all the fresh vegetables into very small cubes.

3. Put the oil in the wonder pot and saute all the vegetables until they are starting to brown.

4. Add the lentils and rice and saute for a further 1-2 minutes.

5. Add about 6 cups of water and bring to the boil.

6. Add the seasonings. I used about a tablespoon of curry powder for a very mild curry taste.

7. Simmer with the lid on for 20 minutes.

8. Turn off the heat and let it sit for a further 10 minutes to absorb the last of the liquid.

Easy peasy lemon squeezey! :~)

Going Home

2011-11-28T23:10:00.002+02:00

The 100 Word challenge is a picture again this week. As an expat torn between two worlds, it evoked all sorts of emotions. I think it was the greenery reflected in the window. After reading you can go and see what it did to the others by clicking on Julia's Place.

Going Home

She always talked about going home. The cottage, a copse, rolling hills, cousins dizzy with happiness and freedom. We slept in the summer house. I'll take you there one of these days.

The children grew up. Three adult fares were out of the question. But she needed to go home.

It wasn't in the depths of the country after all. She found it just past Watford, near the M25. A 1950s semi, quite a big garden with a few trees and a rotting shed - the summer house?

The place was all wrong. But home isn't a place - it's a time.

#SilentSunday

2011-11-27T06:53:00.001+02:00

Not The Carrot Tsimmes

2011-11-24T13:18:00.002+02:00

Yes folks, two badges today. This week's Recipe Shed is all about stews and casseroles. I thought I'd kill two stews with one carrot and link this week's kitchen fiasco to Working London Mummy's One Ingredient Cooking Challenge (there's a prize) for November, the one ingredient, always simple and family friendly, being the humble carrot.

A word about tsimmes. Another traditional Jewish Ashkenazi (European) dish from out of the shtetl. This one is a favourite on Rosh Hashana (New Year) because of its sweetness (for a sweet year geddit?). What I never knew is that there are two types of tsimmes. The basic one is a baked concoction of carrots, sweet potato and dried fruits all glazed in honey or syrup. I'm not partial as I generally don't like the taste of dessert in my mains. However lots of people make it and love it. Here is Martha Stewart's tsimmes to show you what I'm talking about.

The other tsimmes is more like cholent. A sweet casserole of meat, potatoes, carrots and dumplings, slow cooked for many hours. I like this one better because of the potatoes and dumplings but I don't cook meat so what's a girl to do?

I call my version Not The Carrot Tsimmes because I make it more salt and peppery than sweet (although I do put a bit of sugar in it as it goes well with the peppery taste).

Not The Carrot Tsimmes

Cut into chunks - one aubergine, one onion, 4 carrots, and two potatoes.
Fry them over in a big pot with plenty of cooking oil, salt, pepper (lots), and ground cumin.
Add about 3/4 L of hot water with 1 heaped tablespoon of demarera sugar dissolved into it.

Bring to boil and simmer while you make your dumplings.

And now a word about the dumplings. I don't mean the oriental type which are wrapped parcels of filling. I mean the traditional floury balls cooked in broth or gravy. All my recipes called for binding the flour with suet (what we call shmaltz). I should have subtituted this with butter or margerine but I had neither so I used oil and made them far too loose. This meant that my dumplings all fell apart in the stew. On the one hand I didn't have any dumplings to serve but, on the other hand, my tsimmes had a lovely thick gravy. Anyway here are the dumplings just after I put them in and before they disintegrated. Notice the chopped fresh coriander inside.

After finding your own dumpling recipe and adding them to the pot, let it simmer for at least an hour. Mine looked like this.

Adjust the seasonings to your taste. I added more pepper as I like it peppery with just a hint of the salt and sweetness coming through. I served it with rice.

That's an effigy of my Grandma in the background who may have made propper tsimmes and who I'm sure would not be looking at my re-creation with pride. Oh, and unlike Big Chief Recipeshed, I forgot to sprinkle some more chopped fresh coriander over the top to make it look professional. Although they probably weren't that big on garnish in the shtetl.

And for my final confession - I picked out the carrots and displayed them prominantly for the photo as the One Ingredient Challenge (with a prize) is for a carrot recipe. Before I ate it for lunch I put most of the carrots back and picked out more potatoes and aubergine because I don't really like carrots that much. I hope I win :)

#TheGallery Something I'm Proud Of

2011-11-23T14:21:00.005+02:00

The title says it all. This week's prompt from Tara for The Gallery obviously had me thinking about photos of DD - so much to be proud of there. On the other hand, when you're handed such perfect material you'd have to be pretty stupid not to end up with a lovely, happy, beautiful three year old. And I write about her a lot - obviously as this is primarily a Mummy Blog. So I started to think about other things in my life that I'm proud of.

In the end I chose the thing that took me the longest time and required the most amount of work. And, after being an academic C+ all my life, I finally, at the age of 38, got myself an A grade. Granted, it's not a very exciting photograph but I'm very fond of it (the paper not the picture of it).

This is the soft copy of my MA dissertation. There are a couple of hardback copies somewhere in the Intitute of Education, London University library but I couldn't afford another hard copy for myself. It's called: Reading Preferences of Bilingual Children - The Implications for the General Promotion of Reading. Basically it hypothesises that if bilingual children prefer reading for pleasure in one of their languages over the other (where the children are equally proficient in both languages, the two languages hold equal status and suitable books are readily available in both languages) and we can isolate the factors that encouraged the children to make their language choice, we will have a valuable tool towards promoting reading for pleasure among children generally.

The feedback from the examiners included the recommendation that I should get my findings published. I was so chuffed I promptly did nothing about it and it's sat in my bookcase gathering dust ever since. However, the real irony is that having discovered how to teach reading more effectively, getting the MA enabled me to leave school teaching and teach at college level, where all my students can already read. Remember the Peter Principle? I'm living it.

The Writing On The Wall

2011-11-22T23:19:00.004+02:00

Has a whole week gone by already? Julia threw me this time by offering a choice so it took me a bit longer than usual. The prompt is a celebration of 400 years since the publication of the King James Bible. Choose out of three well-known phrases from The Good Book:

the powers that be / the apple of his eye / the writing on the wall

This piece may be a tinsy bit autobiographical, but with a large exageration factor. Enjoy and then go to Julia's Place to see the other entries.

Come in my lovelies. Shoes off by the door please. Nephew Major I'm giving you a plate to eat your ice-lolly over. I don't know why your silly mummy bought you one just before coming to Aunty's house. Minor, go wash your hands, I don't want the park all over my white sofa. Becky, I've put a plastic mat on the carpet for Little One to play on - he's not crawling yet is he? TG for that...

Becky, your sister is insufferable...

Shhh Leon, she's pregnant. Things will have to change around here. The writing's on the wall.

It took less than two years.

Btw - I did not commission the featured artwork for this post ;)

Tracks Of My Years: Three Songs I Have Loved

2011-11-21T01:20:00.005+02:00

This post is a result of being tagged by Liska, who is New Mum Online. The original meme was started by Mammy Woo (see the badge) as Music Therapy by sharing the lyrics that have touched your soul over the years. As with all memes, it didn't take long for peeps to 'make it their own'. I particularly enjoyed Anna's choices, I think it may be a generational thing :)
However, Jen at Mum In The Mad House used to have a regular Tracks Of My Years meme - this was my first TOMY post. My choices are definitely tracks of my years.

Back in the 1960s and my SAH Mum (was there any other kind?) always had the radio on in the kitchen. This is one of the first tracks I remember hearing regularly and even knowing some of the words to. It was recorded by The Seekers who were my Dad's favourite group. I didn't see the film till many many years later but the song, Georgy Girl, is one of my earliest musical memories.

1976 must have been the height of easy listening. It was wall-to-wall Radio 2, even for the young and trendy. I loved it. We had songs like this...

And one of my all time favourites...

Well I was 14 years old in 1976 and this was my idea of love and romance. I had visions of singing through life with Capital Radio providing the background music. I don't apologise :)

#SilentSunday

2011-11-20T17:05:00.000+02:00

#RecipeShed Roast Aubergine with Falafel, and Tehina Sauce

2011-11-18T16:49:00.002+02:00

Recipe Shed was a challenge this week as the theme was roasts and I don't cook meat. Then I remembered this dish that I had in a restautrant about two years ago and loved. Obviously others also raved about it as it has become somewhat of an Israeli favourite, appearing all over the place with variations in presentation and extras. It has all the ingredients of a national dish: roast aubergine, falafel, and chopped salad in lemon/olive oil dressing. So without further ado...

Roast Aubergine on a bed of Israeli Salad, served with Falafel and Garlic, with Yogurt Tehina Sauce.

1. Roast your aubergine, a whole garlic, and some cherry tomatoes (oil and salt)
in a very hot oven for an hour until the aubergine is collapsed to a creamy texture inside. From this -

To this (after half an hour I turned the aubergine over and added some fresh coriander) -

2. Meanwhile make your salad - chop 1 tomato and 1/3 cucumber (UK cucs) with some onion. Dress with olive oil, lemon juice and salt/pepper.

3. Also prepare your sauce. Mix tehina paste with natural yogurt, chopped coriander, salt/pepper, lemon juice and ground cumin. To taste is the best guideline I can give you for amounts.

4. Put the salad on a flat dish. Slice the aubergine lengthways and lay it on to of the salad. Mash the flesh a bit with a fork to break it up. Arrange your falafel, the garlic and cherry tomatoes on top. Drizzle with the tehina sauce.

NB1 - This time I bought the falafel balls but you can make your own from scratch or buy a packet of falafel mix.

NB2 - I am no food photographer and next time I'd probably try a neater presentation but it really did taste delicious. You can squeeze the garlic over the top and discard the peel.

#TheGallery The Usual Friday Magic On 11.11.11

2011-11-17T13:27:00.001+02:00

It was 11.11.11. It was supposed to be the luckiest day of the year. The day that most looks like corduroy, according to The Guardian (was tempted to link to the article but you can google it). I had been looking forward to it for months - I can't quite remember why now but surely something special would happen. And, in the end, I spent it much like any other regular Friday. However, even regular Fridays have their own little bit of magic. For a start I turned this...

into this...

Go over to The Gallery at Sticky Fingers to see what everyone else did on 11.11.11.

The Last Chemistry Lesson Online

2011-11-14T23:23:00.010+02:00

Death by chemistry lesson is a subject dear to my heart as I did, in fact, nearly die from a chemistry lesson once. Not, as you might imagine, from the chemicals or other laboratorial hazzards, but from sheer boredom.

This week the 100 word challenge has stretched to 150 words to accommodate the extra needed for dialogue. I've discounted the prompt: Are you sure it should be that colour? as instructed. I've also not counted the two names of my interlocutors as they are purely functionary. Click on Julia to read the other entries.

Computer: Online-Chemistry-Final-Lesson-The-Litmus-Test
Lara: I hate this.
Computer: Is there-an-adult-present
Lara: They're out so let's just get on with it.
Computer: I-repeat-is-there-an-adult-present
Lara: Okay, my mum's here.....[whispers] not.
Computer: There-are-two-cups-in-the-kit-one-contains-deadly-acid-the-other-an-alkaline-solution
Lara: Yeah, yeah.
Computer: Take-two-strips-of-litmus-paper-dip-one-strip-into-each-cup
Lara: So what do I need the other strip for?
Computer: Miscomprehension-repeat-instruction
Lara: Sorry, no time. [clicks 'next']
Computer: The-acid-shows-pink-the-alkaline-solution-shows-blue
Lara: Hmmm what colour is this?!
Computer: Drink-the-alkaline-solution-to-prove-the-litmus-test-is-accurate
Lara: No clue, it's all one muddy colour.
Computer: Abort-experiment-immediately
Lara: And forgo my final grade? Not likely. [clicks 'next']
Computer: Are-you-sure-it-should-be-that-colour [blue light flashes]
Lara: Stop flashing, dirty old computer [drinks one solution]
Computer: Are-you-sure It-should-be-that-colour [blue light flashes] Are-you-sure

#SilentSunday

2011-11-13T18:55:00.000+02:00

The Blogging Charter

2011-11-12T15:25:00.008+02:00

Where there is community there are customs, rituals, and conventions. Nothing enforceable by law but unwritten rules nonetheless. Recently in the blogosphere the community of parent bloggers has been hit by yet another scandal of epic proportions. Not an attack on the rule-breakers in the usual mild manner of naming and shaming, boycotting and stalking (quite hard to achieve simultaneously), bitching and revenge. This time the very rules themselves were challenged.

The overwhelming reaction was that there are no real rules and that you can do what the hell you like on your own blog - as long as you don't harm anyone else. I was left feeling somewhat bereft. No real rules? I went to a Public School for girls, I'm Jewish, I'm a teacher, I'm a Virgo for God's sake. What is my life if not a collection of rules and regulations to live by?

Luckily Michelle at Mummy from the Heart has come up with a Blogging Charter and tagged (read challenged) me, amongst others, to come up with my own. As I think it's about time someone (or someones) took charge around here, I am only happy to oblige.

The Blogging Charter - A set of rules to blog by for the individually and independently challenged

1. Blog Content - Most blogs have two purposes, to record the lives of you and your family for future enjoyment and to fulfill your dreams of being a writer for fame and profit as well as entertaining the masses. Therefore your blog must be first and foremost of interest to PR reps, literary agents and, ultimately, film producers. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Potty-mouth always seems to succeed as does a lot of sexual reference, preferably under the influence of alcohol. The most successful bloggers are those who sell their family, boss or colleagues up the river in the hope that their husband can give up his job in order to manage their multi-million pound blog empire.

2. Dedication and Frequency - Try to blog at least once a day, more if you can. The idea is to keep your blog at the top of everyone's 'latest posts' blog list. If you've nothing to say post a cute picture of your child (wipe its nose first for Gawd's sake) or a flower from your garden (if possible with one perfect dew-drop). In addition you must spend a few hours daily reading other people's blogs and leaving comments. Sooner or later they will feel it rude not to visit you and leave similarly inane remarks at the bottom of your posts. Remember - traffic is money. If you're worried about the adverse affect on your family as you neglect them in favour of your beloved laptop, keep in mind that no child ever died from too much Blue Peter and eating fish-fingers and oven chips for supper.

3. Advertising - Google Adsense will pay you tuppense ha'penny for messing up the aesthetics of your blog with irrelevent and obscure plugs that no one reads. Far more impressive is to bag real companies that your readers patronise anyway such as John Lewis, Lego and Next. If a company offers you affiliate advertising rights, this means that you advertise them for free and if someone remembers to click on the ad on your blog when they order, you get a payment - if they bother to tell you. Bottom line: a blog filled with adverts is ugly, irritates your readers and compromises your credibility as a serious writer. So what? You also have bills to pay.

4. Reviews and Freebies - Many bloggers receive freebies in the form of toys for their kids, personal gifts (cosmetics, bags, etc...), household appliances, and even holidays. In return they have to use the freebie and write about it favourably (including a disclaimer swearing that they are impartial). Why shouldn't you get these too? As soon as you have a follower on your new blog, google PR reps and directories and send every one an email begging to review anything for their clients. You can also contact companies directly. You will officially be called a Blagger. Yeah, so? Precisely. And don't worry about driving the PRs mad as they will get you back by clogging your email with offers to delight your readers by telling them all about their products - for the warm, fuzzy feeling of it all.

5. Memes and Tagging - Memes are basically blogging chain-letters which you pass on by tagging a few blogs at the end of your post. There is usually a nice badge which makes it all look terribly smart and official, and 'says' - I'm part of a whole blogging thing. It's not just me indulging my ego with journal entries online, it's a whole professional movement with conferences and awards, and stats/rankings and memes with badges. And it's terribly important to be involved otherwise you're just not blogging right. So if you like someone telling you what to write in your own blog or if you are yourself a control-freak, memes are the way to go.

6. Statistics and Ranking - Blogspot has it's own built-in stats. They bear no correlation (directly or indirectly) to the number of visitors to your blog. The 'All Time' pageviews actually go down as much as they go up. If you're bored you can sit and click on 'Home' at the top of your blog 200 times and smugly watch your stats rise. Be sure to display your all time pageviews prominently on your blog. The people who claim not care about the stats as they write only for themselves (what does that mean anyway? That I'm positively altruistic?) usually also advertise their Wikio rankings (in three different categories), Klout Score, Tots100, and any other website that will play the numbers game (expats, travel, professional dog-walking clubs, life coaching, etc...).

7. Comment Etiquette - You comment on my posts enough times and you'll shame me into commenting back. It'd be rude not to. That's the name of the game. Did I mention that traffic is money? Sometimes you do have something of great interest to add to a particularly informative or entertaining post. Don't bother - if you know so much why waste it on a comment for someone else? Better to write your own post.

8. Publicity - Facebook for your real friends, friends of friends, and anyone else within six degrees of separation who's not savvy about newsfeed and privacy settings. This could run into the thousands. Twitter is good for reaching total strangers, befriending them (following) and infiltrating their already functioning community. With the nifty application of RT, #ff, reply, #anyandeverythingremotelyconnected, etc... you can become a minor celebrity in the blogosphere. Try to tweet a link to your posts on an hourly basis.

9. Sharing and Crediting - In publishing and academia it's called plagiarism. In primary school it was called copying. On facebook it's called sharing and, it seems, in blogging as long as you credit your source, you can nick anyone's ideas as much as you like. In fact, if you link back to their original post on the subject, they will be positively flattered and eternally grateful. All in all an essential tool for sourcing content for your blog.

10. Guest Posts Carnivals and Linkies - Think about it... group publicity for your blog. Duh! A no-brainer, it'd be rude not to.

So there you have it. The Blogging Charter. You don't have to stick to the rules and I fully appreciate that there are those who revel in anonymity, shunning any form of praise or even recognition.

I'm tagging the following people for this meme:

Clever Clogs over at the Biggest Best Blog Ever
I've never read her blog but she is the World Top Blogger with thousands of readers and, if she does it, she'll have to link back to me.

Anyone else who sees the need for a bit of decorum in the blogosphere.

This post has been featured in The Boy And Me's ShowOff ShowCase as an example of a post that did better than expected. The link will take you to other posts that surprised the author. It has also been linked to the Blogaholics Blog Party by Here Come The Girls. Again. the link will take you to other Blogaholics at various stages in their recovery programme. Thank you to both of these blogs for providing the opportunity to link.

Gefilte Fish

2011-11-10T12:11:00.011+02:00

This week's Recipeshed theme is seafood. Well I do fish, but I don't do seafood. And tbh, although I love eating well cooked fish, I don't often cook it myself as I'm a bit scared of it. I have a number of quick things to do with a tin of tuna and I can buy vacuum-packed smoked salmon from the deli along with the best of them. But it's Recipeshed innit? Gotta be something special...

Made into balls

So I thought I'd talk about gefilte fish. The recipe is very approximate because I'm not actually going to make it and neither are you. I have made it in the past. When I worked for a caterer in Jerusalem we made vast quantities of both the Polish (sweet) and the Lithuanian (peppery) kind every week. My mother and all her generation made it regularly. Nowadays most people buy it ready made or in a jar from the Jewish Deli. And the photos are Google Images.

Along with cholent, kugel, tsimmes, and beigels, gefilte fish is a quintessential Jewish food, albeit an unlikely delicacy. A dense doughy concoction of chopped and boiled white fish. Why would we? Well it's tradition innit? Originally a collection of all the leftover bits of white fish (mainly carp), minced up, mixed with breadcrumbs, eggs, salt and pepper, and stuffed into another fish. gefilte means stuffing in Yiddish - now you know why. Eventually the stuffed fish was left out and the fish stuffing, or gefilte fish, was made into balls or a loaf which is sliced to serve.

This is what you do: mince your white fish with the ingredients mentioned above. Then you form balls and drop them into boiling stock (made with the fish heads, carrots, celery, onions, parsley, salt, and loads of sugar or pepper, depending on your ancestral affiliations - see above). Let it simmer for about two hours. Serve cold with a little carrot hat on each piece. The old joke goes: How do gefilte fish keep their carrot hats on when they're swimming about in the water?

Bought in a jar

And if all this isn't delicious enough, you can leave it in the fridge overnight covered in some of the stock so that the stock cools to an aspic jelly. Either you like the jelly of you don't. Many people discard the stock. I like to reheat it and drink it as a fish consomme - a sort of bouillabaisse if you will.

The traditional condiment is chrain - chopped horseradish, beetroot, white vinegar and sugar. You can see it in the photo of the sliced gefilte fish above. Also best to buy it.

So there you have it - what we and hundreds of other Jewish families serve as an hors d'ouvres for a truly festive meal. And... we love it!

Lest We Forget

2011-11-07T23:28:00.009+02:00

It's the 100 word challenge again curtesy of Julia's Place. I haven't been blogging very much over the past few weeks but I seem to have got 'into' this meme and find myself waiting for it (even nudging Julia on Twitter for the prompt) every Monday night. Last week was pure fun, this week's prompt is a little darker.

'Lest we forget' is an oft used phrase among Jews as most of our holy-days are about remembering challenging times. There's an old joke: how do you define a Jewish Holiday? - They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat. But there is one subject we don't joke about...

History and yet a part of my life. Peers without grandparents, uncles, aunts, or cousins. Friends' parents sobbing behind closed doors. Children who are replacements for beloved families lost. Roles they can never live up to. I know them.

Born only 17 years after, I've spent my whole life trying to squash those 17 years smaller. Watching every film archive, reading every book, trying to get closer. Why? Because I was bequeathed the collective memory to carry and safeguard lest we forget. I remember something I never experienced. We all do. Like stories of your babyhood you remember only from the repeated telling.

(100 words not including the prompt)

Nervous Breakdowns Are Offensive

2011-11-04T14:36:00.005+02:00

I should have added the word 'apparently' to the end of the title of this post because obviously I don't think nervous breakdowns are offensive. But what do you do when you tell someone you're heading for one and they're offended? Before anyone starts getting worried, I won't be having a nervous breakdown because having recognised the fact that I'm totally overwhelmed by obligations at the moment, I'm re-organising, de-cluttering, and generally off-loading that which I can no longer deal with.

Some of it is my fault, not just regarding too much procrastination over essential tasks and some lax time-management, but also too much volunteering. Or at least being persuaded to help out in all sorts of community spirit type committees and actions.

Here's a short story to illustrate the point. Many years ago in my single days and sharing an apartment with D, we went to the inaugeral meeting of a new Synagogue started by our group of friends. The purpose was to establish a working committee and deal out the various jobs. "I don't care what we do," said D as we walked to the meeting, "but we're not doing the Kiddush." I absolutely agreed with her. The Kiddush was the pits. Essentially it is providing light refreshments for the whole community every week after the Saturday morning service. It involves shopping, setting it all out and clearing it away afterwards. You get a budget to work with and everyone supposedly helps with the clearing up, but it's a lot of work nevertheless.

"Now, Kiddush..." started the chairman of the meeting. Both our hands shot up before he'd even asked the question. On the way home I asked D, "what just happened there?" Neither of us could explain but we were stuck with doing the kiddush for the next two years.

In my old building I somehow found myself on the building committee even though I was only renting. It's a thankless job. You have to organise the cleaning of public areas, organise the maintenance, collect residents' dues, manage the building's bank account, deal with insurance, etc.... The neighbours start avoiding you because you are always asking for money and you start avoiding them because they always have a complaint. When I moved to my present home I swore I wouldn't get involved. It took them less than a year to recruit me.

When I was pregnant I resigned from the building committee but this left only one person doing everything. I tried to persuade him to call a meeting and deligate some of the burden but instead found myself persuaded to only deal with collecting the money and taking it to the bank while he took care of all the maintenance, cleaners, etc...

A new family moved in and I begged my co-worker to bring them on board but two years later he still hasn't spoken to them. I managed to find another resident to collect the money but I still had to go to the bank as the new guy's name isn't on the list of people who can deposit cheques into the account. And, he is very laid back which still left me worrying about who hasn't paid up and asking people when I meet them on the stairs. Of course people should just pay but they don't, you have to chase them.

My life has changed this year. The savings have run out, I am taking on as much work as possible and I am still earning less than I need to reach the end of the month. DD needs more quality attention from me. I'm fed up of living in a tip because I always have something more urgent to do than clean the place. On top of all this, I did something to my back a month ago and have lost hours of productivity through being in pain and having to lie down.

This week I took a sick day from work. Teachers don't do this unless they are dying. If you work in an office and desperately need a mental-health day you take one. However, if you have 40 students waiting for you and another teacher will have to cover for you - well you just don't do it. I was genuinely sick with an inflamed throat, no voice and coughing for England. But I have no doubt that I would not have felt so physically ill if I hadn't been so mentally overwhelmed by the backlog of work.

When I find myself being short tempered with DD because I have too much on my mind, sommats gotta give. So today I took the cheque-book and various other bits of paper and receipts round to my co-worker and returned them to him. "I can't do it any more," I told him and his wife, "I'm heading for a nervous breakdown, I just can't do it at the moment."

Reader, he was offended. The truth is that no one has spare time and our building is particularly problematic. So he has to call a meeting and find some other suckers to take on the job for a while. It would be much easier for him if I were to continue to suffer. It was a hard choice for me: offend my neighbour or have a nervous breakdown. I chose my sanity.