DD's birthday

Yesterday was DD's birthday, she was 22. We hadn't planned to do much, she is really tired and struggling at the moment, so we decided we'd spend the day watching silly films and eating nice food. The day started well as DS1 skyped to chat to his sister and wish her Happy Birthday.

The present I'd ordered for DD hadn't arrived but I'd got DD some 'gourmet' chocolates which she loved, she liked them even more once she'd tried them. The flavours were odd and she didn't feel they really worked so she got the excitement of trying new flavour combinations, the pleasure of giving chocolates to her little brother and no calories...excellent chocolates.

We watched 'Victor/Victoria' first and it was not the film I remembered. The first half was fun but the second half was not great but we still enjoyed dissecting the film and remaking it to our satisfaction. DD got biscuits and gravy for lunch. She watches a lot of 'Diners, Drive-ins and Dives' and loves American style food, and she's been wanting to have biscuits and gravy for years. Well I finally got round to making it for her and making a dish you've never seen so have no idea of basics, like how thick the sauce should be, was an interesting experience. Fortunately DD loved it and its something  I can easily make for her again.

I then had my lunch and got tea sorted, we had then planned on starting our next film but DS2 came home and needed sorting and I had other jobs I needed to sort...I even tried to read an article from The Guardian...all of which took time. We were just about to put the film in when DP came home from work early. NOT GOOD!! what a horrid end to a birthday, cause once he was home it was the end of us having fun. DD put her headphones on and watched stuff on her ipad and I surfed the internet. Not what we'd planned. To really make sure the whole rest of the day sucked DP then announced he was 'in two minds' about going out to his class in the evening. The fact he goes out every evening is all that keeps me sane some days!

Talk about ruining the mood! As it was such a gorgeous day DD and I went out to a quiet local park after tea, we were the only people there so the fact she was in pyjamas and slipper mattered not at all. DS2 asked DP to take him to the park to play some football, he apparently agreed but was so incredibly grumpy that even though they left after us they were still home before we got back, and we were only out for a few minutes. What a knob! DP proceeded to stay grumpy until DD went up to bed when he was very happy to rush into the living room and watch TV...he does get unreasonably grumpy that DD has the temerity to sit in HIS living room, on HIS sofa and watch HIS TV...as I say, what a knob!

You may have noticed that in all the description of the day I haven't mentioned the part where DP wishes his daughter Happy Birthday...DS2 did, he had made her a card and was really sweet and lovely when he got in from school, DS1 skyped and chatted, spoonie friends sent cards and presents. Her father NOTHING...he didn't speak to her at all the entire day.  Okay the not speaking to her was hardly unusual, he's barely exchanged a word with DD in months and months, probably years. DD can only recall him speaking to her AT ALL once this year. But you'd think on her birthday however much of a knob you are you could manage  to rustle up the grace to say 'Happy Birthday'. Well not if you are my DP. To add the cherry to the top of this particular crappness DP announced he was working from home today...oh yeah what fun...he will be around all day being obnoxious and crappy another day and then we go into a weekend! I am just sooo lucky.

So I'm trying to loose some weight.

I have been over weight most of my life. I put on weight in early puberty and my Mum made me feel as though I was enormous and gross. Even before puberty I thought I was big, some of my earliest memories are of my Mum telling me how big I was and 'joking' about my size. When I put on weight in puberty and realised how repulsed my Mum was I tried to diet, I had no idea of sensible dieting and so ate a totally crazy diet. I was lucky to avoid anorexia and looking back I think my Mum would have been quite happy with me ending up anorexic...well maybe I'd have been thin enough for her then!

So ended a cycle of dieting and putting on weight again that lasted me for far too much of my life, adding it up I was dieting for about 30 years. Such a waste especially as I wasn't exactly over weight when I started, 10st 8lb (I did look shocking in old photos, I admit,  think 70's fashion and hair styles and a badly needed brace but I wasn't over weight). At my heaviest I got as high as 16st and at my lowest I got down to 10st 7lb (briefly)...I did manage 8st 7lb when I first dieted but that was stupid and didn't even please my Mum then!

I finally gave up dieting about 10 years ago...I put on about 2-3st when I began fostering, something that's not uncommon if you are an emotional eater as I am. I ate all my anger at how DS2 had been treated, I ate all the anger and frustration at how difficult his behaviour was, I ate my exhaustion from having no sleep for weeks/months as he nightmared, I ate my unhappiness at having to give up work and stay home to care for DS2 full time. I ate all the time. But I decided dieting was not for me and that I needed to live with who I was and just get on with my life, which was my sanest and healthiest decision.

I ended up settling around 15st, not a size I was ecstatic with but I could live with it. DP was getting more narc and showing more abuser style behaviour which left me without any support as I dealt with DS2 growing up, a rollercoaster of a ride, DD working towards Oxford with depression (not related), getting an offer and then being too ill with ME to go, DS1 finding what he wanted to do and finally going off to Uni. I had a lot to cope with and did not have any spare energy to care about my weight...also being fat makes you invisible and  I was happy not to be seen.

But I stepped on the scales last week and discovered I had put on 7lb and decided enough was enough I had to loose some weight. I had no intention of actually dieting I just thought I'd eat more sensibly for a week or so and get back into my comfort zone weight wise and then go back to my diet of junk food. I stopped eating junk and bread and found it surprisingly easy and have already lost most of my 'excess' weight. Unfortunately for my junk food days there have been unexpected side effects of my healthier eating, I have lost all the anaesthetic effects of excess eating and DD is so much happier with the fact I can offer so much more support now I have more emotions available. Eating suppressed my negative emotions but it suppressed my positive emotions too which is not brilliant when I am DD's only support. So I am going to have to stay with the healthy eating permanently which may have other unexpected side effects for DP as I now have zero tolerance for his silliness and, I'm wanting to say manipulation but that's not quite right I think the word I'm looking for is entitlement but whatever, I am getting a LOT less tolerant and I wasn't exactly an enabler before (more of an ignorer). Not sure how he is feeling about the new me, or even if he's noticed. We will see.

Not sure what the future holds either weight wise or emotion/personality wise but its a new journey and I'm keen to see what happens.

Update: well I have now been eating healthily for about 2 months and have lost about a stone, so not a fast weight loss. Given how big I still am I'm fairly surprised how slowly the weight is coming off and will freely admit I would not still be dieting if I was looking to loose weight as my only motivation for the way I'm eating. Its still fairly easy, though yesterday was crazily hard as we drove back from holiday and I was beyond exhaustion and all I wanted to do was eat as many calories as possible to give me an energy boost. But I didn't which impressed me no end, the scales were less impressed but that's life for you. I will either loose weight or not but I am offering more support to DD which is the important thing.

Update 2: I am still slowly loosing weight...whole weeks go by when I loose or gain 1/2 a lb, it really doesn't seem worth the effort. But to be honest its not really a major effort, I don't get any of the cravings I have experienced in every diet I've ever done...there have been 100s!, so I keep plodding on. I would be happier if my scales loved me more but I can live with it. In order to loose weight even as slowly as I'm managing I am eating less than a 1000 calories a day, so should theoretically be loosing weight steadily, but as all dieters know bodies just don't work that way. I have lost about 30% of the weight I plan to loose...at this rate I will have lost all the weight I want to loose by the end of the year. It will obviously take longer, but it will be interesting. Its been sooo long since I was less than fat!

Update 3: I have now lost almost 50% of the weight I am looking to loose. Still no one has noticed I've lost any weight at all which is bit disappointing but hopefully the next 50% will be more noticeable. I am still managing to eat low enough levels of calories that I loose some weight most weeks but its getting harder. I think its the dark nights that are making me hungry!

The Longest Week

My DP is off work this week...supposedly to help keep the youngest occupied as he is on half term. Well  its not working out that way as DS2 is busy and not wanting be a toy so he is 'answering back'. This is the most serious crime any child...well anyone really...can commit as far as DP is concerned, he goes ballistic if DS2 has a different opinion never mind actually responding to comments made to him. DP actually shouted at DS once 'how dare you disagree with me!!'...as you can tell DP is not the most normal person and does have very narc tendencies...he also matches a number of the abuser profiles in Lundy Bancroft's book. (I know he's not nice, I have already said I'm only with him because I don't have the money to leave).

Anyway he is home all week and is bored and so flopping and wanting to do stuff with me...like going shopping. He came shopping with me yesterday and was honestly less help than DS2, and less company. He talked at me a bit but basically we said nothing to each other the whole time. He was just looking for something to do and nothing better was offered. I am presumably supposed to organise activities he and DS2 can do, so that he can be 'martyred' (his favourite pose) whilst actually doing stuff he wants to but DS2 isn't really bothered for...a total win as far as DP is concerned. But I gave up organising stuff years ago...I found being told I was 'bossy' for organising stuff too much, especially as I was left to do everything. An example...this post is really rambling but as I'm the only one who reads it who cares...DP decided he wanted us all to go out on a picnic, telling me his plans the morning of said picnic which meant I'd no chance to plan anything food wise. I decided I'd had enough and so left organising stuff to DP, well he was the one who wanted the picnic after all and I was constantly being told I was bossy so presumably my organising stuff was not appreciated. No prizes for guessing we didn't go on the picnic...or indeed any subsequent picnics.

DP is also being annoyingly clingy this week...yes I know I am only half way through the week but it already feels like the longest week ever...he is constantly coming to ask me how to do stuff and checking he is doing something right...he never asks my opinion on anything or ever acknowledges I might have more skill in any activity, so him asking me how to mix cake batter is just annoying and pathetically creepy!

Its DS2's birthday today and even though DP has taken time off work to be with DS2 he has planned other stuff for today...what a knob! Luckily we are all having much more fun without DP around. I can't wait for the week to be over!

Update...well we survived the week if only just, my DD was left seriously overtired and struggled to cope with the stress and noise during the week. DS2 escaped for some of the week but even he found DP being home all the time too much for him.

The relief is enormous!!!

Well the election results have come in and what a surprise. The Conservatives have a slim majority, its such good news. The prospect of Ed Miliband as Prime Minister was so scary and embarrassing but seemed so inevitable. Luckily the opinion polls were universally wrong and the Labour Party lost a pile of seats. My favourite moment was Ed Balls loosing his seat...a fine moment and one I managed to see live as the count, and recount, took so long I was more than up and ready to watch TV by the time the result came in.

It will be interesting to see the new Cabinet listings and see if people like Ian Duncan-Smith are left to continue their excellent work on reforming benefits. My preference is for Gove to be given Education back again, the teaching unions really need to be brought into the C21st. I will also look forward to the Boundary Reforms, that were attempted last time but scuppered when the LibDems broke their promises and voted against, can be set in motion.

All in all a really good result and a testament to the basic common sense of the electorate. There are problems in the system, SNP got 1.5 million votes and 50+ seats while UKIP got over 4 million votes and only 1 seat. Doesn't seem fair, but a basically good result for the country, especially without Balls and now Miliband has resigned so, theoretically the Labour Party can reflect on what they did wrong and rebuild. Though judging by their comments today the Labour Party feel their problems were caused by right wing media, negative campaigning(theirs was the most negative campaign, followed by the LibDems according to academic research) and so on.

The real problem the Labour Party needs to address is that they have taken their supporters for granted for many, many years and have no idea what they want. Too many Labour Party officials are metropolitan, Southern and from comfortable or wealthy backgrounds. Hardly representative of their constituencies, which tend to be Northern and poor! As was said in Scotland 'we didn't abandon the Labour Party, they abandoned us', which is true. The Labour Party has turned so inward and spouts so much dogma they have no connection with their supporters. We will see if they learn this, plenty of commentator have been saying the same all day, so they can't say no one has told them.

Update: well Ian Duncan-Smith has been left to continue his reforms of the benefit system which is really good news and while Gove hasn't been given Education back he has been given Justice and can get to work on reforming the Human Rights legislation to stop criminals using a 'right to family life' as a get out clause, even when they have deprived other people of their 'right to a family life' by murder!   I will look forward to seeing what happens.

The press and twittersphere have been in overdrive the past few days with the Left deriding the results and generally being unpleasant and nasty. As far as they are concerned anyone who voted Conservative is evil and only Labour should ever be allowed to win....only to be expected but, God what entitled babies!

Some people are too stupid to be allowed out on their own.

Well on Tuesday DP was supposed to be flying out to Poland, for work. He had the flight times and all that but managed to miss his flight as he got to the airport late and hadn't left enough time to get through security. Given the levels of security at airports nowadays what made him think he was so special he would be rushed through security I don't know.

I then got a text asking is he could book another plane ticket, we don't really have enough money but it was the only way he was going to get to work so I said he could. I didn't say he could spend £100 on an hotel room and get some Polish money! He has left us really short of cash, not that he cares he seems to assume cash will be there for anything he wants when he wants it.

I don't envy him the phone call to work explaining he missed the plane...though somehow doubt he mentioned it was because of his stupidity/arrogance in arriving late. I imagine he stressed the length of time it took to get through security...we all know it takes ages which is why you arrive so early!

He does have previous for being really stupid getting on a plane. He has packed a bag to get on a flight to Ireland that included his Wing Chun knives...he likes to pretend he is so dedicated to his martial art that he needs to practise all the time. Anyway, he got to check in his bag and, what a surprise, it was too heavy and he had to pay for the excess! What a moron his ticket will have said the baggage allowance he was allowed.

This time he has packed his new running shoes. He has finally decided, after many, many years of talking, to take up running and seems to think he will be doing the London Marathon next year. He went out running for the first time on Monday and was actually running for maybe 10-15 minutes. Given that it had been raining most of the previous day and the place he claimed to have run is notorious for being a muddy walk I expected him to come back covered in mud and with his shoes having lost that brilliant white newness. No his shoes looked pristine and still has their just out of the box newness. Not sure he actually made it out of the car park. Such a bull shitter! He has such a high opinion of himself, not sure why but he truly believes he is infallible and omnipotent!! You may get the impression its not an opinion I share!

Sense of humour bypass

I put up a thread on Mumsnet asking why anyone could bring themselves to vote Labour. I have many reasons why I could never bring myself to vote for them ranging from the arrogance of Brown and his handling of the economy in good times...ably supported by Balls and Ed Miliband, North Staffordshire NHS, the NHS in Wales, the education system, the toxic effects of benefits, their inability to make hard decisions about pension ages and of course the effects of political correctness in Rotherham and many other Labour run Councils. The rampant hypocrisy of much of the Labour front bench also turns my stomach.

Anyway I posted the thread in a fairly jokey manner mentioning Ed Miliband's inability to eat a bacon sandwich and other such silliness. While I do feel the incidents show how out of touch the whole Labour machinery are, having a photo opportunity with your leader eating a bacon sandwich to show he is a 'normal person' is a bit silly if he then eats the sandwich is a really dorky manner. Also given his Jewish background a bacon sandwich was a tad ill considered and slightly rude I felt. Also if you are photographed in your kitchen to try and portray you as 'normal' rather than mega rich its going to make you look stupid when it emerges the following day that this is not your actual kitchen but a second kitchen...yes really a 'normal' person then. Obviously non of this would matter if the Labour Party wasn't trying sooo hard to claim they are all 'real' people just like the rest of us unlike those evil, nasty Conservatives!

Anyway, as I guessed the posters on Mumsnet went ballistic and were foaming at the mouth about my 'reason's for not voting Labour. They had a total collective sense of humour bypass and totally failed to read any of my actual reasons and just went nuts over my...patently...'humorous'  reasons. Okay maybe my post wasn't as funny as I thought it was, humour is very individual after all but the vitriol that came out was out of all proportion to my comments. It has been noted by many commentators that when the Left disagrees with an idea they demonise it and will attack anyone who espouses the idea, often in unpleasantly personal ways. The Right tends to attack the idea but accept that people have different ideas and that holding a different view does not make you stupid or evil.

I still hope, a fairly unrealistic hope I know, that Labour won't win the election. They will given how skewed the electoral system is to them and the fact that so many people vote tribally and seem to believe the propaganda spinning out of Labour Party Headquarters...the last Government had nothing to do with the last Recession, even the economy is worse under the current Government, not sure how anyone believes that but there is no telling what a true believer will accept! My favourite silliness to come out of the thread was the belief, which more than one poster seriously seemed to think was true, was that Ed Miliband came from a poor background! Given his parents were both lecturers and his family lived in a big house on Primrose Hill in London I fail to see how 'poor' his background was!

Anyway I can certainly recommend stirring up the hornets nest that is Mumsnet by casting aspersions on one of their pet ideas and see how quickly they loose any sense of humour!

Getting my life onto an even keel

I haven't posted in ages because my son has been home from University and taking up ridiculous amounts of time. He has also been taking up far too much of my daughters energy! Neither are because he is anything other than polite, helpful, kind...but extremely lazy in the way boys can be.

He had the whole of his holidays to do work on a puppet he is making for his course...so while he did fiddle around with it during the 4 weeks he was home he didn't start doing any real work on it until the last week. Realistically the last 2 days. This resulted in me having emergency dashes to Hobbycraft to get him supplies and endless visits to town. All I can say is that my bank card is having a lay down in a dark room...poor thing is exhausted!

My daughter is also left beyond exhausted, not good as she is just getting over a nasty flair that has left her with significantly less energy than she had before anyway.

To add into the mix the youngest is doing 'Travel Training' so he can catch buses on his own and, theoretically, have some independence. He is finding the process extremely exciting and scary and he is acting up just a touch...read massively. As he is finding life hard anyway with changes coming as he moves to College in September he is volatile and hard work.

There have been various other stuff happening which has all left me with little time or energy to do anything. The prospect of Ed Milliband as PM as also sucking the life out of me...the embarrassment is just too much. The man is dreadful...heaven only knows why anyone would vote for him!

I will post again soon as I have plenty to say...always!...but will wait till I have spare room in my head