A jolly good day

Yesterday was amazing!

Glorious sunshine

Friends visiting

Dad coming round for a cuppa

A baptism at church

Lots of chatting after the service

Cleaning out all the chooks - very satisfying

Friends winning two rosettes at Crufts on Saturday

Girls making a bike dash to the village shop for sausages

An impromptu BBQ with an old disposable BBQ

Sausages in buns with salad

Marshmallows roasting near the embers

Warming our toes over the dying coals

Wrapped up in rugs and chatting together

Seeing two very bright stars in the west and finding out that they are planets

Getting the school ironing done

Watching the last in the series of Wild At Heart

Lots of snuggling on the sofa with the girls

Sinking into bed quite exhausted and finishing off my library book!

Trying again

I haven't got a list of meals to share yet as with the children being off colour, the meals haven't been particularly inspiring, and the EFG in particular has been off her food this week. She has still recorded a 2lb loss this morning, but having lost more in previous weeks, she felt disappointed with that. I know that when you don't eat a lot, your body holds on to what it has got, so I will be encouraging her to eat more this week!

The sun is shining gloriously here just now, although we have had showers and cloud on and off all morning. Hope you all have a great weekend xx

And slapped again...

The YFG has woken up with symptoms this morning, so they must have both caught it at a similar time rather than the YFG catching it from the EFG. As I write, they are both fast asleep!

Slapped!

The EFG has got slap cheek, the viral infection - I haven't been beating her up! She had very rosy cheeks this morning and felt rather off-colour, so I rang the school and told them that I wasn't sure what the matter was, but I wouldn't be sending her in on the bus. I gave her an antihistamine, in case it was an allergic reaction to something - she's allergic to horses and cats so we know what that looks like in her, and I am have an allergic reaction on my face if I eat fresh cherries - and she held a cold flannel on her face. The school advised me to speak with the doctor's surgery, who confirmed that the slap cheek virus has been reported locally, so they diagnosed her over the phone!

She'll be off school tomorrow as well, but I hope she'll be back at the coal face on Thursday. The doctor told us that once the rash has appeared she is no longer contagious and could go to school, but she feels quite rough, so I am not rushing her back.

The EFG went to the climbing wall at the local activity centre with the Guides last night - it was subsidised so it only cost £2.50 to us, which was excellent value for money. It wiped her out though and she didn't come to gymnastics tonight.

Hope you are all well!

Meals for the EFG

I will keep a note of the meals that the EFG eats this week, and then I can share and pass on ideas.

Tonight the rest of the family has had a mince mixture (like bolognaise for spag bol) with rice and broccoli, but she has had a sort of pancake made from 2 eggs, beaten up and then just poured into the flattest frying pan and allowed to cook through. I then put it onto a baking dish, put a couple of spoonfuls of mince onto one side of it and flipped the other side over it and sprinkled some grated cheese over it, popped it under the grill for a couple of minutes and hey presto - a savoury pancake which she had with some broccoli. She said it was nice!

For Rainbowchild and others

Rainbowchild asked about the regime that the EFG is using for her weightloss. I am sharing it here, but feel free to ask questions if you want.

I will say now that I am not opening up a debate about the health, safety, scientific proof, efficacy or anything else of this particular regime - I am JUST sharing information.

The rules we are following work like this:

• Fruit only on an empty stomach (first thing in the morning or at least a couple of hours since the last food eaten)
• Carbohydrates eaten only with non-fat foods. NOT with proteins or fats. Carbohydrates should be wholegrain, so we are using wholemeal pasta, and wholemeal bagels/bread. I would be using brown rice if the EFG would eat rice!
• Proteins can be eaten with fats, and with vegetables. NOT with carbs.
• There should be at least three hours between meals of different sorts - so between carb based and protein based meals for example.
• No sugar.

So a typical day for the EFG might go like this:

• Breakfast - omelette made with a couple of eggs, cheese and bacon.
• Mid morning snack - fruit
• Lunch at school - smorgasbord collection of raw veggies, salad stuff and cheese/cold meat type of meal
• Snack at home time - a re-run of lunch as a salad on a plate, perhaps lettuce, tomato, cucumber, cress, hard boiled egg.
• Tea with the family - whatever we are having modified slightly - bolognaise (mince, tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, onion, etc) but with veggies instead of with spaghetti; roast meat (chicken, pork, etc) with veggies; etc
• Supper - wholemeal bagel with Quark and chopped onion; wholemeal bread with salad and fatfree dressing; wholemeal pasta with salad veg/veg and fatfree dressing.

There are a lot of vegetables and salads, a fair amount of protein and fat, and not that much carbohydrates in this case.

It works for the EFG and we will continue for a while with this regime. On Friday evenings we get home from gymnastics at about 8pm, and she is allowed to have whatever she wants for her tea, and a sweet treat if she wants one.

If something like this helps others, good luck. At the moment we are following this pretty strictly and using simple recipes. I know that there is a lot of scope for using more interesting recipes to develop this as a longer term lifestyle. It is likely that the EFG will have to avoid sugar as a lifelong choice in order to help her insulin levels. I just hope that when the doctor reviews her again, he notices the difference!

Proud mum feeling

The EFG has achieved a further 5lb loss this week, and I am SO proud of her. She chose some Ben & Jerry's cookie dough flavour ice cream for her treat for tonight, and she certainly deserves it! She is allowed a treat on a Friday night, so that she has something to look forward to, and it is a little splurge from the rules of the regime. Last week she had a few oven chips with her chicken, which would not normally have been allowed, before having a little ice cream. You have to have a little treat now and again!

I just wish I had her dedication...my backside isn't getting any smaller....

We are on our Co-op bandwagon for March, and are planning to save more money for the holiday payment at the end of the month - we have until the 22nd, I think, to get together about £700. It is a good job I like a challenge! I have paid off the credit card bill which had the two car insurance payments on it - bad timing that they both went on the same month's bill - I'll have to try to spread it out a bit further next year. I do prefer to pay those in one annual payment rather than having dribs and drabs going out of the account each month.

There was a meeting at school last night for the EFG and I - we received her school exam timetable for her remaining GCSE exams, and found out all the arrangements for study leave. The upshot is that it seems that most of her exams fall before the June half-term, and then after that, she will have one week for further study and then her final two exams fall on the following Monday and Tuesday - and she's done! She seems to be free then from about the 18th June until she starts Sixth form somewhere in early September - whatever will she do? We know that she will have the opportunity to attend induction days for Sixth form, but she is also thinking about getting some work experience in there too.

And the YFG? She's badgering me to allow her to start Ballet...can we fit it in? Do I want to fit it in? Will the FH co-operate with the transportation because it is not that local...how much will it all cost? More thinking about this one required!