Chatting, ranting and some stepping! Come in and have a brew with us.

[carrotsandcelery]

A place to have a blether, and a . All chatters are welcome, stepping or otherwise.

Come inside and settle down on the sofa.

carrots perhaps blogging about the beads would give you the oportunity to practice writing?

I am of your beads & cats painting. I'm going to start exercising again next week after a few weeks of enforced bum on sofa so at least I will get to do something for myself again soon. Must try to find a yoga class too, as my teacher has retired

carrots try googling for "beading blog"! Both Wordpress & Blogger have reading lists, which enable you to search for & follow blogs you are interested in

and of course lots of people on Pinterest have "beading" boards

Good idea bessie. Thank you.

I don't know how to advise how to find a good hobby bessie. I just stumbled upon this one when dd had a jewellery making birthday party.

What are you good at?

I would have been able to tell you that I enjoyed arts and crafts, reading, cooking, horse riding, all things to do with animals etc.

My friends would have seen me running some sort of rescue sanctuary, or baking for a coffee shop, or doing something intellectual.

Who knows where you will end up. It's quite exciting to surprise yourself sometimes.

FWIW I don't actually own any bead jewellery myself, apart from a Pandora bracelet, which was a gift, and I wouldn't be drawn to wear bead myself either. Life is very odd sometimes.

bessie maybe you should write a cookbook.

That's why I started annotating my recipes carrots, I wanted to publish (via Lulu or similar) our favourite recipes, but it seems like such a con to just pass on other people's recipes! That's why I like the blog - I can easily link to where I found it so can make it obvious I didn't invent most of them.

I can't think of anything I'm good at. I'm not arty or crafty. I'm not sure I actually have any creative spark in me! I enjoy running, keeping fit & gardening. I did think about changing career to become a personal trainer, or a gardener, but it seemed foolish to move from a boring cushy desk job to something so active/outdoorsy at my age!

Anyway, enough winging. I'm off to bed - have to take DD1 swimming in the morning, then take DD2 to her one year check. Then back home for lunch, get the DDs in bed & do house blessing & finish cleaning the oven!

A group of my close friends have started a gardening business and they have more work than they can cope with. They love it and have some very "interesting" experiences with clients. They don't do hard landscaping but do planting and design as well as maintenance etc. They are all in their mid forties and only started the business a couple of years ago so, being the young thing that you are, I don't see why you couldn't, especially if you are fit. They work it round the kids quite neatly and are totally flexible with it so it is a good job for someone with young kids at home. The only downside would be that they don't really work through the Winter or in really poor weather. You would need to not rely on the income over the Winter. They do get paid a fortune each per hour though. I imagine where you are there would be a lot of very busy, very wealthy people who would be delighted if someone took over the responsibility for maintaining their gardens.

As for the recipes, if you read Nigella or similar, they pass on recipes with the odd tweak here or there to make it their own so I don't see why you can't. Recipes are like Art, they are always partially inspired by what has gone before them ;0)

MrScout's gone off to work. But actually he's using two of his charity days to volunteer at the school he's a governor at and is helping sort out their IT system. After the day from hell yesterday (an hour at the walk-in clinic and four hours in A&E) I'm glad he's quite close. It's a shame it's raining or I could take Toddler to the park and so I can slowly die in peace under a tree. Flying, or anything really, will probably not happen today (and probably not tomorrow while I get myself sorted).

I need to go back and catch up on the thread. to everyone and hope the first day back after half-term is a good one!

Scout what on earth is going on? Are you not well? What happened yesterday? Did I miss a post?

WARNING SERIOUS RANT BREWING

I am seriously cross. Really, really cross.

I have been a parent helper at sports day all morning and have never experienced such poor discipline and child care in all my days.

I was asked to help with a class that ds isn't even in, the ones that he has been separated from all year due to the horrendous bullying he experienced, and they were bl*dy awful all bl*dy morning. A small group of boys sucked up all the attention all morning and left the kids who were being nice, behaving well and getting into the spirit of things, totally ignored.

I am disgusted.

Why would there not be some discipline in a situation like this? Their class teacher was off doing something else so it was left to the classroom assistant, another Mum and me to try to control them. We had no sanctions we could employ so there was no punishment if they misbehaved. They were absolutely blinking awful. I am shattered. I offered to take the ones who were spoiling it for everyone off to the bus to sit there as a punishment and was treated like I had suggested excecuting them

Then I suggested we got them doing some circuits or similar and was dismissed completely. Then the staff moaned that they had nothing structured to do. Well Hello!

I am so, so, so, so cross

I feel the event was ruined and the kids who were misbehaving were given no guidance or consequence so were let down as well as they will continue to behave that way.

It is all very

Rant over.

As you were!

No, no missing posts.

After not being right for a week or two (feeling sick every time I went to the loo) I decided I'd call the doctor on Monday. However, yesterday, after a trip to the loo I got really unwell, on top of some very stabby pains that made me stop everything and lay down, I went to the walk-in clinic. I was going to wait until after my picnic with my boys but started vomiting in the car so MrScout took me straight to the clinic and then took Toddler for his picnic and to play at the playground (the walk-in tends to be very busy and poor TS needed his lunch). The doctor at the clinic thought I might have a kidney infection and given my medical history sent me to A&E to confirm and give an IV. A&E ruled out a kidney infection but said it could be the start of appendicitis (but they can't diagnosis that until the appendix comes out). Not home long from A&E and I vomited up the only food I had had all day (a lone banana) and all of the drink I had in the afternoon.

I've just had lunch not long ago (plain jacket) and am feeling quite queasy again and the stabby pain seems to be returning (it never really went away, just dulled). Toddler's down for a nap so I'm sitting here in bed not moving, doing some online window shopping for presents.

carrots, that is bl**dy awful. I see that sort of thing in a lot of schools around here, even in the little classes, which is part of why we're going down the educational route we are. I remember when I was student teaching I used to tell the kids anyone naughty on a field trip had to walk holding my hand and if it several kids misbehaved I'd get them into a kindergarten bear train.

It's a shame when a few ruin it for all.

How is everyone else feeling today? Has everyone, and their DCs, recovered from all of the half-term bugs and germs?

Hello everyone. Back after a few days mother entertaining. It was fine really (although she was still pretty outrageous at times) but now I feel really disconnected/disassociative and I'm finding it difficult to get my head into gear for working!

We went to visit one of my friends. This friend stayed with me for 6 months while her new house was being completely renovated and we took my mum to see it in October when she was last up here and the house was basically a gutted shell. So she was interested to see it again now it was all done up. After the visit my mum was saying things like.."Well I like your kitchen but I like x's better" and "Well I thought your living room was nice until I saw x's"

All I can say is that it is a good job I am really used to her!!

Scout Oh dear ! That sounds horrible

Carrots I am about your morning

I have a bad case of CBA! I don't know if it's a case of boredom, first day with DC back to school/nursery, DH back to work. I am !! This morning it was nice to be alone but now I am missing them all. I have DD here but there is limited conversation with a 3 year old. I went to town this morning.
The weather looks grey and dull!!
I have been eating all the wrong foods today too. --bad mummy--
I feel fat!! --but am not that fat--

DD wants to play on the computer so I might sit with her and let her have a go.

hope as i type this you are feeling better

we saw dp yesterday and was just this side of a disaster with him leaving afer only 3hours of our company and he didnt even say goodby or give me a hug or anything...

i jumped head first into the crap food cupboard and am suffering terrible heart burn today and i know its my own fault

ive got soaked through doing school run,nursery collection and pick up from school
on these grounds i felt a comforting dinner coming on so ive popped some jacket potatoes in the oven and am attemptinga baked jam rolypoly with custard for pud

i have no jam though except a jar tiptree peach so it may be an intresting experiment!!!!

Scout that is awful. Shouldn't you be with someone incase it does get really, really, really sore and they have to do something about it? I am shocked that they sent you off. Are you doing ok? If in doubt go and hang around A&E just incase

Zoo the weather sounds pretty bad down south! You have done well on your Ta da's I on the other hand have been quite useless today!
Jam rolypoly with custard sounds lovely!!

I seem to be in the mood --for eating crap-- eating comfort food. I have eaten greggs sausage rolls and chocolate this morning

I'm okay-ish. Stabbing pain isn't crippling and is better than yesterday. Have managed to keep down what little I've eaten today (didn't really want to eat but last meal I had was Saturday dinner). Think I'm going to ring the GP to try to get an appointment. I keep googling (I know, I shouldn't!) and I don't like what I'm reading.

Should add MrScout's home so I'm not alone.

Scout Leave Google alone!!!! I have scared myself silly reading things on Google. I'm glad Mr Scout is home. Hope you feel better soon!

STEP AWAY FROM GOOGLE SCOUT

No good will come of it.

Dr Google is evil.

He is also full of shit scout!

carrots sounds ridiculous - what are you going to do?

arti glad to hear you survived your mum's visit - no slacking off now she's gone though!

zoo I am that you have no jam in the house. What on earth do you have in your peanut butter sandwiches?

I've got work tomorrow. ugh. had better goto bed.

bessie I have been wrestling with the "what to do?" all afternoon and started a thread about moving schools. I am not at all comfortable about ds spending the next 4 years with the little... horrors.

Ds would be devastated to move as he has worked really hard to forge friendships. They have also worked really well with him this year and have gone out of their way to support him.

They refuse to tell anyone what teacher and what group of children they will be with next session though. They tell the dcs on the last afternoon of the session and they visit their new teacher and group and class that afternoon. They come out of school with a tiny little slip of paper telling you who their teacher is and that is it. They don't even tell you if it is a composite class etc. The secrecy makes me nervous and lack faith in them.