I Started Pumpkin I Couldn't Finish - 10 / 10 club

[FrannyandZooey]

For anyone who wants a boost to their general health. The suggested goals are:

EAT 10 PORTIONS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES EVERY DAY - if you don't usually eat much fruit and veg I would build up gradually or you could upset your digestion.

DO (AT LEAST) 10 MINUTES OF EXERCISE EVERY DAY - can be yoga, stretching or something more energetic. The plan is that the idea of doing 10 minutes is not too daunting, and having started you may well find you want to do more.

There are no restrictions on what you eat so long as you get your 10 fruit and veg as well. The focus is not on weight loss but on improving our energy levels and hopefully our general mood and well-being. Sign up below and post here to tell us how you're getting on and how you are feeling.

Basic guidance on what constitutes a portion of fruit and veg here and you can download more detailed information by following the link at the very bottom of the page

This is the perfect place to have your crisis. We will mop your brow with cocktail-soaked linen handkerchiefs and make you fruit salads.

Should that actually be handkerchieves?

It depends what degree of crisis you plan on having. Dramatic haircuts and clothes are fine. You mustn't run away with young men or get a motorbike though.

But that's just it, I can't run away with young men any more

I can only sit sternly and tell them they 'mooost practice their scales everrryday' like Angelina Ballerina's ballet teacher and wear 'interesting' scarves and pass into middle-age wearing the wrong clothes and having lipstick stained teeth, and big droopy breasts.

I must go. I have a midlife crisis to organise and dh is picking up dcs so I can do important things, and I shouldn't be here moaning about my fading youth and uncertainty around make-up.

Hello again.

I had a prawn salad thing with lots of vegetables for lunch. And a drink with some sort of fruit in it.

I am bored. Is it home time yet? DH and I have been emailing. He sent a lovely photo of DD and DS and the other ones at the childminders this morning. I may post it.

I have put them on there .

Or even here.

Avi - you may join me as far as the end of the road, but if it's okay with you I don't want my mid-life crisis in a hippy commune AT ALL. I want it to happen in the South of France in large sunglasses and a loud kaftan, and possibly with a gambling habit and a gigolo.

I am not concerned about plates or the state of the world, only about my sexual allure and dramatic hair.

Idris - your pictures are very nice. I like the one of all your 'dragons'.

Toot - Thank-you

I understand crises about age and sexual allure. I will be 30 soon, and before you say, 'oh only 30' it is about how you feel and a lot to do with having children. So if you're 29 or 39 it is ok to feel like you still want people to find you attractive, is it not? New haircuts are always a good idea, as long as it isn't a sensible one that makes you feel older.

I had my hair in quite a short bob once after I had DD. I saw my friends (terribly glamorous) mother shortly after and she looked at me in a sympathetic way and said how I used to have lovely long hair, and wasn't it a shame that as soon as us girls had babies we felt like we needed to go and have out hair cut like social workers.

I grew it again.

I had a mid life crisis..at least once

Oh I had one 2 years ago and started going to the gym and wearing unsuitable young person's clothes

I would still be doing it only I am too thick round the middle right now

I am planning to resume it as soon as I have finished being pregnant and fat and breastfeeding and fat

so in about 5 years time

will you wait for me please?

Wow. It has phases then?

OK. I am in Phase One. The earthy one will come later.

The problem is though that MrsC thinks she's in Phase One too, and so off we'll go to Cannes to sit on the beach side in our sarongs to make eyes at passing boys BUT I will know and gravity will know that even though MrsC is feeling a bit frumpy and past-it, she really, really isn't and as I'm a good ten years older than her, she will look beautiful and all upright and her eyes will still be big and the boys will stop to chat to her, and I will just get drunk as I am properly in Phase One, where there ain't no getting anything back.

We'll have a laugh I suppose. And MrsC will come back feeling youthful. Which is important at 29 MrsC.

what are you talking about? Aneglina ballerina's dance teachers droppy breasts? God I forgot how surreal it can get in here.

Good to see you boco - computer fixed am guessing.

Hi All, hope you all survived Halloween o.k.
I have not been on the PC at all the past few weeks, or when it was so fleetingly....it's totally mental here right now, I worked lots of shifts, etc.
Tomorrow is Yannic's Birthday...cna't believe he is 5 tomorrow...!
F&V wise...I have been completely Off track....if I get 2 portions into myself, then I am doing good....shocking really and I can feel it, too
I have not read any messages, sorry, so, am completely out of the loop...but hope you are all well!

I want some company for my midlife crisis. Sadly, I am not allowed to have one until DH has finished his. We could be here for some time....

Nice to see you 3&nogore, hope Yannic has a good birthday tomorrow.

Bee my internet connection only went for one night, it was a very worrying night though as i was convinced it was dps fault.

We've all seen 100x looking all good cheekbones and young anna ford, this crisis is not washing. And MrsC i have seen in the flesh and she has perfect and youthful skin and big eyes and glossy hair and is just simply not allowed to have any such crisis.

Bee i've been thinking a lot about you and your African dancing - i'm seeing you in Masai outfits doing bouncing and clapping - what's it really like?

Happy Birthday to Yannic for tomorrow 3aNM! (I love that name)

I have a day off tomorrow and the temptation to stay in bed all morning and then piss about on MN all afternoon is overwhelming. But I must do some revision for an exam next week. And shop and clean. And do some allotmenteering.

Some people never seem to have midlife crises. I wonder if I am alone is worrying about the fact that I want one yet feel I am not grown up enough to have one yet? Or is the fact that I am a crappy Kiddult the reason I am having MLC? ie, I feel if I have one, I will come through the other side having grown up? Does that make any sense?

It's like my home. I had a person round for the first time today and I could tell she was a little freaked out by it, in that although it has the usual things one would expect in a family home,; dishwasher, washing machine, car in drive, lawn etc, inside it is painted sunshine yellow and it a bit messy and arty and full of random things.
She is younger than me, single and childless. I almost felt she was having to reassess her image of me as a 'grown-up'. She was disappointed I felt.

I want to see 100 - is it on her profile?

african dancing was really good fun - kind of quite sensual and earthy and aggressive. I don;t wear a costume but we have bare feet and have to stamp and 'show love' with our bodies. It is very good fun - a bit like that dance that those maouri rugby players do - well not - but more like that than anything else.

I hate computers playing up- it is most scary.

mid-life crisis - There are young(er) boys on my course - I do laughing and flick my chiffon scarf. I imagine I all Mrs Robinson but I think in reality it is a bit more Mrs Slocombe.

perhaps she has only shown the pic to her MNmates ...

oh no MrsC has mastitisisissisis again - how awful - you have only just got over it haven't you?

poor you.

hi fmf

how are you - all howling at halloween?

My pumpkins were much admired. I miss my full moon mania though, it only lasts a couple of days and now I am my usual, can't-be-bothered, lethargic self, despite a zillion and one things I ought to be getting on with....

Lol at Mrs Slocombe

I have been in Phase I since my last birhtday when I was 37. I am about to turn 38 and it isn;t showing any sign of passing, so I think now I am on the downhill slope to Phase II, which I imagine will kick in just after my 40th Birthday.

I say just after, because I am planning a huuuuuuge party for my 40th, which will take my mind off things until it's all over, whence I will descend into momentous depression

Unfortunately my Phase I does probably involve men and quite possibly motorbikes (in my head anyway )

The men (in my head) seem to be getting younger