Flylady day 5 plus other news

A successful day yesterday at controlling the chaos in my kitchen, even though Mr. Lacer still, despite the dishwasher being open, showing space for more dirty dishes, dumped his dirty plate on my clean chopping board. I’m looking forward to the Flylady system taming the rest of this chaos.

Today on day 5, I’m meant to be writing down any ‘negative thoughts’ and turning them around, well I am writing (this), can’t say I’ve got many negative thoughts though except maybe I’m being a bit too cynical about this.

On other news, I’ve just submitted my first ever piece of work to a proper publisher (have submitted to an e-publisher before and never heard from them again), it’s the Egypt story that my word count widget on the right is virtually stationary bordering on going backwards (in fact it went down 60 words recently), luckily then they only wanted a synopsis and the first three chapters! It’s a competition run by the publisher, so it’s nice to know that it’s more likely to be read (fingers crossed) and not lay in some slush pile somewhere, but it’s also rather terrifying that it is going to be read, judgement eek! I’m also going to submit a short story to a story competition today as well.

Flylady day 4 – Post it Notes

Ok, Flylady day 4! How did I do yesterday? Yesterday was to get dressed to lace up shoes, well I’m going to even stop typing the laced up shoes bits because I’ve stated here before that I don’t agree with that bit but I did get dressed promptly as I always do. I had to read some of the Flylady e-mails, which I did for the first time in ages and discovered that it’s that time of year when they’re trying to flog their calendars (I have a very good calendar thank you, I use Organised Mums calendars which actually sound very similar to Flylady calendars). And I ‘shone’ my sink, it was completely clear of dishes (although there were a few on top of the dishwasher that couldn’t fit in when I loaded it), so last night I let the sink soak in some bleach, just bog standard normal stuff I’d normally put down the toliet and when I just checked it just now, wow most of the stains have gone! I know, I know, I should of done this the day we moved in, as the sink was pretty stained then (it’s a plastic thing remember) but it’s only just occured to me that I could do it, instead of occassionally half heartedly and unsuccessfully scrubbing away at it with normal kitchen cleaners. The sink still doesn’t look ‘perfect’, I’m sure once upon a time it was whiter and now it’s kind of a speckled off white but still, not quite so embaressing!

Today, we’re meant to be sticking up post it notes to remind us of what we’ve done before, i.e. the getting dressed and shining the sink, not living in chaos! I don’t think I even own post it notes and I thought the whole idea of doing this is to make the house look tidy, arn’t post it notes messy? But from what I remember of my attempts to do this last time, writing stuff down on post it notes is probably useful as the routines are about to get a whole lot more complex.

Somewhere, some how my mum is laughing at me

Right now I’m getting the distinct impression that some how, somewhere, my mum is laughing at me. You see as a child I was a fussy eater, famously my parents could only take us all out to a resturant if they served omelette, as this is all that I would eat. I’m still a bit fussy I have to admit, I don’t like white fish or sea food generally, not keen on great big lumps of meat and I don’t like most beans, also can’t stand raw tomato, but that’s me, at least I eat vegetables now, which is something my two children don’t. So history has turned around on me and now I’m cooking for fussy eaters and my mum somewhere is having a good old laugh about it, I’m sure. Today in an attempt to tentalise their tastebuds with something else, I made a rather yummy Japanese salad, attractive ribbons of carrot and cucumber, tossed in a yummy Japanese dressing and sesame seeds. I presented it to them, Girl Lacer being the only one who can really talk out of the two, did all the talking “You know I don’t like that” (she’s never seen this particular combination in her life) and this is without a morsel passing her lips, which it didn’t for either of them, for the whole meal, sigh, it’s very frustrating. I don’t know what to do, just give up preparing veg seperately (they at least eat fruit) and resort to hidden veg recipes? But they’re not exactly going to learn to appreciate veg that way. I do cook with Girl Lacer, but it’s normally baking due to time (and space constraints) in the kitchen, maybe I should get her to help cook the main stuff.

In other news, the job I applied for, the deadline passed a week and a half ago now and I haven’t heard anything . I’d imagine that they’d want to be interviewing fairly sharpish if they want a teacher to start at the beginning of term, so I guess I didn’t even get to the interview stage, which I hate, being failed on paper like that (although I guess if I want to be a writer, better get used to it!). It’s such a shame though, would of been an ideal job, just two mornings a week, giving me some non-mummy time, some money but still leaving me plenty of time to spend with the kids (hopefully a more refreshed human being) and time as the kids got older to write more. I can’t imagine who’d apply for such a part time job like that other than mums with small kids wanting only a few hours work or people of the verge of retiring looking to downsize for a few years to a part time job. So I’m sure I can’t of been a particularly unusual candidate, I’m even a qualified teacher which wasn’t actually specified, maybe my previous work experience, working in a school in the East End wasn’t posh enough for them? (This was for a private school job). Oh well.

In more other news, Mr. Lacer is still working down south and Girl Lacer is missing him and consquently being obnoxious. She has become obsessed by time and what day of the week it is, so I’ve been researching into kiddie calendars, I had been thinking about a felt velcro type affair, that showed the day, date, weather and season, see My Calendar at John Lewis but it’s expensive and doesn’t really show events other than the weather. I found another magnetic calendar that showed the days of the week, but I thought the magnets that went with it were restrictive. I found an even worse example of a magnetic calendar in the toy section at a local department store, so I walked out of the toy section in disgust that someone hadn’t manufactured and marketed the exact product I was looking for lol and wishing that I was just the little more creative so that I could make my own, when I came across the adult calendar section and thankfully I found this from Organised Mum, the Family Organiser.

So obviously being a bit hampered by the fact that Girl Lacer can’t read yet, everything has to be accompanied by my rather bad drawings, but she can interpret it and work out how long it is until daddy comes home again.

And finally, came across a rather nice surprise when I came across the cover of the latest Radio Times.

Nigella’s got a new TV series, bliss! She’s going to knock those Cook Yourself Thin girls socks off (am I the only one getting a bit bored of those girls, it doesn’t help my attitude when the recipes in their book so far don’t actually seem that successful!). Anyway Nigella Express is on BBC2 Monday 3 September 8.30 – 9pm, the blurb for the first episode is as follows.

Everyday Easy: Nigella returns with a show packed with delicious ideas for good food fast. There’s a no effort roast dinner for her father Lord Lawson and crispy squid for an after work supper.

Can’t wait for that and her new book to come out, which I think will be delivered to me courtesy of Amazon, along with Jamie Oliver’s new book, Tana Ramsays new book, a book on vegan cupcakes and the new Young Bond a week on Thursday, can’t wait, oh I said that already didn’t I!

Well just typing that has cheered me up, we’re all a very grumpy bored household at the moment, the end of holidays blues where I don’t know about anyone else but I just want to start the new term NOW!

Flylady day 3

Day 3 today in my efforts to control the chaos that is my house by using the Flylady system, something I’d flirted with back in January, but had fallen off the Flywagon. Each day you add a new babystep to your routine, the last two days have seen me meant to be shining my sink and getting dressed to lace up shoes. The getting dressed thing I do anyway (minus the shoes) as soon as I get up, the shining the sink thing is more difficult. My sink for a start is incapable of being shined, being a stained white plastic thing, also you’re meant to do it as part of your bedtime routine, I have enough trouble prising myself off the sofa at the end of the night, cleaning the sink not high on my list of priorities. However, I have learnt from my last attempt at Flylady and have started to do the majority of the sink cleaning during the day, so last night when I went to bed, ok there was a colander in the sink but the draining board was clear which was the first time in a long time.

What’s today? Do as you have been doing plus reading some of Flylady’s e-mails. Ah the e-mails, now I never unsubscribed from Flylady’s e-mail list when I last fell off the flywagon and consquently despite the occasional clear out of my inbox, I have currently have 1189 unread e-mails in my inbox, most of them from Flylady! You get I’d say about 20 – 30 e-mails a day! Alot of them testimonials from very satisfied Flybabies whose life has changed after shining their sink. You get product testimonials about how wonderful Flylady’s duster etc. is. E-mails from the various associated people attached to Flylady, such as menu planning, wardrobe planning and somehow a country and western singer. You also get remainders of routines and special tasks for that day, you even get an e-mail to tell you to go to bed! Reading the e-mails can be to be honest a pain in the neck but I think they’re part of the secret why Flylady works, they refer to it as Flywashing, constantly reading (supposedly) all these positive messages about how wonderful Flylady is and how your life can change if you just stick to a bit of routine, kind of sinks in subconsciously and you find yourself believing it.

Still, I need to stick to this. We had more physio with my youngest, Boy Lacer yesterday, who is being taught how to walk (he’s nearly 2). As well as his possible hyperextension, he also seems to have inherited my pes cava (funny that, me writing about that yesterday). Anyway he has special boots and now he has been loaned a little minature OAP style walker, which he loves, however (and anyone in a similar space-clutter predicament as me, I bet you’ll know what’s coming), there’s hardly any space in the house for him to move the walker around. Even without clutter there would not be much space anyway, but with clutter, well virtually nothing, despite the recent investment in some good toy storage (which has got a lot of stuff off the floor), so I need to get more stuff off the floor!

Flylady day 2

Well, I started Flylady (again) yesterday, a housework system, I’m starting over with the babysteps. The first babystep is to shine your sink before going to bed, well did I do it? Unfortunately I now have my second cold in two weeks , I must be pretty run down sigh, anyway you know what colds are like last thing at night, so no shining for me. However, I had started cleaning the sink when Mr. Lacer was putting the kids to bed, however, Mr. Lacer then had a rare (for him) night of cooking, so the sink is stacked full of dishes again, even though the dishwasher had actually been left open with space for more dirty dishes. Oh well, better luck tonight!

On with day 2, getting dressed to lace up shoes. Ok, the getting dressed bit I learnt by myself, back when Girl Lacer was a baby, getting dressed for me would occur about 11am, even later sometimes, but I quickly learnt that to feel just that little bit better about yourself, you need to get dressed! So I’m always the one to get dressed first now, as soon as my feet hit the floor in the mornings. As for the lace up shoes though, I have some disagreements with this, the whole idea is that if you’re wearing lace up shoes they’re harder to take off and keeping them on means that you feel more energised about doing your housework, can more easily and readily do things like take out the trash and are less likely to hurt your feet, all very well and good, but I have a history of feet problems (I have pes cava for anyone out there who knows what I’m talking about) and since I was a teenager all the physios would say was “Wear shoes as little as possible” and it wasn’t just people with feet problems physios reckoned this advice applied to, they thought this applied to everyone, as they quite correctly stated the human foot did not evolve to be constrained in a shoe, even sensible ones! So I tend not to wear shoes in the house, in fact if I keep my shoes on after a long walk it’s actually downright painful. However, I do have a pair of crocs in the kitchen, that means I can slip them on quickly if I need to go and do something in the garden. Flylady also states that you should ‘fix your hair and face’, well I’ve brushed my hair, as for face, well I don’t wear makeup and I’m not going to start, just for the housework!

Flylady versus Diet

There’s an old Boots (British chain of high street chemists for non-UK readers) advert that is normally on around January to cash in on the whole new year resolution thing, you know the cartoon of the girl running on the treadmill, whilst trying to eat carrots, give up smoking, apply a new beauty regime, all at the same time and then ends up falling flat on her face. I so associate with that girl; if that advert were about me, it would feature cartoon me running along in some park somewhere (I don’t do treadmills), whilst simultaneously trying to write the next childrens publishing phenomenena, read more, cook more nutritious food for my children that they will actually eat, keep my house from looking the slovenly pit it normally is, diet, be more outgoing and develop a social life and develop a beauty routine, cue me falling flat on my face (actually running just on its own has been known to make me do that).

Last January I wanted to develop my writing career, diet, keep my house clean and tidy and get fit.

• My writing, well I’m taking it more seriously and I’m more determined but I could do better.
• Diet, I could do with loosing about a stone, I’ve tried Weightwatchers twice and Paul McKenna once, Weightwatchers is great for making you think about what you’re eating however on the negative side it’s bad because it makes you think about what you’re eating too much and you end up making yourself hungry and miserable and then bye bye diet. Paul McKenna’s ‘I can make you thin’ was actually great; I hadn’t held that much truck or really that much interest in McKenna previously but he really helped a friend of mine personally and so my opinion in him changed and I tried his book. It worked on the great point that it wasn’t a diet, you could eat what you want as long as you followed some simple rather obvious rules; like eat what you really want, stop when you’re full, eat when you’re hungry. However, it’s been a tough year in certain respects and without food as my guilty pleasure, that year became tougher, so I stopped following the plan.
• Get fit, I started running in January and completed my first 5km race in May which actually was quite an achievement for a complete unfit novice like me. I still run, although not as often as I should. So that at least is a success.
• Keep my house tidy, now this is a very big one for me. I’ve always been on the untidy side. Not too bad when it was just me, but now with a house and two kids to look after, a problem, compounded by the fact that we are a family of four living in a very small space. I’ve always used the space issue as an excuse, a case of “When we live in a bigger place, I’ll be better”, however how long am I going to be using that excuse for? We’ve lived in this flat now for 3 years and have been a family of four in it for nearly 2 years, I love the area we live in with a passion so we’re not moving unless it’s to a bigger property in the same area and for that to happen, well I’ll need to write that bestseller or Mr. Lacer will go and have to code something that even Bill Gates hasn’t thought of. So in all realism we could be here, in this flat for another 6 – 7 years (I figure after that point we will have to move as Girl Lacer would no longer be able to share a bedroom with Boy Lacer). So am I going to be using that excuse for that long? It can’t happen, for my sanity alone and for the sake of my children actually having a social life, Girl Lacer has had one play date here, the preparation for which took a week of crisis cleaning and afterwards the play dates mum suggested future play dates should be somewhere bigger (she didn’t say it that bluntly). In January I did try Flylady, which is a cleaning system for better words that works on a system of babysteps and it did work for me for a while, however I have quite a dislike of being told what to do and having to stick to routines and Flylady is basically routines, so that’s where it fell to pieces for me.

So, now it comes to today, I was preparing the kids food and discovered insects in the bulgar wheat, cringe. I have to do something and if it’s not going back to Flylady it’s going to have to be trying dieting again (it can’t be both, I’ve been there done that and seen both fail). So what do I do? Make a more rigourous attempt at dieting in an attempt to shift that stone? Or go back to Flylady and start those babysteps all over again? And before anyone adds any comments to this, yes I know Flylady also has a ‘diet’ book (I’ve referred to it as ‘diet’ as I know it’s not really a diet more a way of life like Paul McKenna), but I can’t do both. I think it has to be Flylady, school term is starting again soon, Girl Lacer will be starting nursery where she’ll be starting in a group which will be her classmates for the whole of her time at primary school, if her friends are going to come over, they can’t see it like this. So baby steps it is and to encourage myself I’m going to keep a record of those steps here, if I know I have to write about them then maybe I’ll do them.

So lets make this day 1 then, when I have to shine my sink, which from what I remember is the key to the whole Flylady thing and where therefore I possibly fell down last time as it’s impossible to shine my sink, it’s this horrible, white (supposedly) stained plastic thing, which was stained when we moved in and well we’ve added to it! You’re meant to do it as part of your bedtime routine, my bedtime routine is normally fall asleep in front of Newsnight, so we’ll see.

Bank Holiday Monday Thoughts

Mmmm, now I’m no longer doing encyclopedia of me and it’s not a day when I’ve tried out a new recipe, what am I going to write about? Well here are some random thoughts that have been buzzing round my head -

• Christmas Cake- Am I the only person to be thinking about Christmas Cake already in August? But I can just taste it now and my lips are smacking in anticipation! Last year I made Nigella Lawson’s Easy-Action Christmas Cake from Feast as I was short on time. I live in a household of non-Christmas cake eaters (strange people) so I timed it’s creation to coincide with a trip to the mother-in-laws where I was to ‘give’ her the cake, but in reality scoff vast quantities myself. So, that’s what I did, but oh my goodness I could only manage one slice! It was the richest, heaviest, most moist christmas cake I’d ever come across, it was completely delicious but one small slice and you feel like you’ve eaten a 3 course meal! And I’m normally a girl of large appetites! So do I make the same cake again this year (possibly to be refused at the door by the mother-in-law, I don’t know if she actually ate all the last one) or the ‘proper’ christmas cake also to be found in Feast (and Domestic Goddess)? I suspect it will be the latter on the hope that by making a proper christmas cake it would actually be able to hang round quite a bit, so it’d be something I’d be able to visit again and again and again, you get my drift, whilst the rest of my non-Christmas cake eating family go eat something else (last year it was apple pie – very festive I know).
• Writing – the deadline for the competition I decided to enter, to write an ‘old-fashioned’ children’s book, is getting very very close. A quick recap, I’d written about half a story a while ago that had quite an old-fashioned feel to it but I abandoned it because it was set in Egypt and it required me to do a lot more research than I had the commitment to do, that was until I saw this competition. So I did some more research, which was great as it gave me loads more ideas for plot points but the very act of me stopping this story all those months ago meant that I was now struggling to keep a consistent voice throughout the story and I’ve been finding every considerable excuse not to write it because of this. Plus I don’t submit my work to anyone, then I can live in the little dream world in my head that I might be a good writer, submit my work and oh reality comes crashing down! So my original plan, to complete the book (in first draft) by the deadline has gone by the wayside, as I have progressed hardly any further than where I left it originally. However, luckily the terms of the competition are for the first 3 chapters and a synopsis. I have edited my first 3 chapters, although I’ll check them again before the deadline and the synopsis will be written hopefully in the next few days (I have a synopsis but it needs writing properly instead of the jumbled notes it currently is). So I will submit and if I have no luck, well I will finish this story, as I think its got legs and I might have luck elsewhere and it will really do me some good confidence wise to have finished something full length, as opposed to the short stories (and one series of short stories) I’ve written before (and not published).