Now, some of you more observant type would have noticed by now the counter widget displayed on the right side of my blog with a countdown of the number of months until I hit forty. Just so you know, this is by no means a countdown to the end of my life as I see it, but more of a kick up the butt for me to do various things before I intend to retire to a lifetime of lunching and leching after Ed Sheeren.

So here is the list. Rather than opting at random, I have given this some thought and I will try to highlight the reasons why in future posts.

1. Pass my roller derby minimum skills test.
2. Take part in a roller derby bout.
3. Crochet a granny blanket.
4. Do up my miniature shop.
5. Deep squat 125kg.
6. Write the family recipe book.
7. Write my first novel.
8. Do Warrior Dash.
9. Marry Slaveboy again. This time intentionally.
10. Bring in a personal income of £1000 pcm.
11. Be on an 80% Paleo diet.
12. Have a healthy waist-hip ratio.
13. Engage in one act of civil disobedience. This one might not count. I’m not sure. I’ll consult with peers.
14. Draw my first graphic mini novel.
15. Learn to swim. Currently shopping around for an appropriate swimsuit (22.01.12)
16. Replace the plaited hair in my remembrance pendant with a one made with a strand of each one of my children and Slaveboy’s.
17. Get a throat tattoo. Appointment booked with Katriona MacIntosh for the Liverpool Tattoo Convention weekend (22.01.12)
18. Take a monthly self potrait. First one due 14/2/12.
19. Acquire a full sized carousel horse.
20. Acquire a candyfloss machine with my spare change.
21. Read a Noam Chomsky book which is not language related.
22. Complete the NROL4W weightlifting program.
23. Complete the NROL4A weightlifting program.
24. Build a barbeque.
25. Make one thing a week from Dan Lepard’s recipes. The first one will be attempted on 31st January. 
26. Organise a tea party.
27. Open my teashop.
28. Have an awesome 40th birthday party. This could be combined with #9.
29. Paper cutting.
30. Complete a Rubik’s cube. Without peeling the stickers this time.
31. Make raspberry, vanilla and pistachio nougat.
32. Move.
33. Double my annual blog traffic.
34. Do the box split again.
35. Make an embroidered bunting.
36. Go visit Chief Fucking Arsehole in Edinburgh.
37. Go to Glastonbury festival.
38. Participate in sumo wrestling. There must be one somewhere. Hit me up, people.
39. Go to a German Christmas market.
40. Snog Tom Petty. Someone make it happen. If he’s too aloof, I reserve the right to switch him with William Elliot Whitmore. He’s in London in the summer. Aarrrrggghhh. So close but yet do far away. Sigh (22.1.12)

So……. Who’s joining me?

 I’m currently ignoring the Small Shouty One who is doing a 40mph pilgrimage around the laundry basket in the middle of the living room. She is going at such a speed that she’s causing a draught and since our central heating is broken, I’m actually developing frostbites.

 I asked Spiker on Facebook today if it would be a bad thing to post about what a shit mother I am being today. I suspect since she’s just burnt the motor of her Kenwood mixer, her laptop battery giving up the ghost and her offspring snapping her violin’s string, Spiker isn’t all too concerned about my suburban introspective woefulness.

I’ve also failed to properly instruct Potato Bottom on the art of making meringue. I don’t think by any stretch of the imagine can you call shouting instructions at your daughter in the kitchen from your armchair constitutes homeschooling, no matter how far down the radical unschooling continuum you are. 

Despite my browbeating analysis of how perhaps her meringue was too floppy to form peaks for a pavlova, Potato Bottom rises above this and accepted the suggestion that she made a meringue roulade instead. She also took it on the chin when I turned into some World War One housewife on a tight ration and berated her for throwing away the four egg yolks. She didn’t even say a word when I pointed out to her that she had over-whipped the cream. 

And I’m not even sure she has learnt anything from that experience. But I have. I’ve been reminded that my children are forgiving, protective and see me as a real person. 

Which is why that roulade ended up on a plate and not on my face. 

I am thankful. Amen. 

 

]]> http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/and-the-award-for-the-worst-mother-of-the-year/feed/ 2 flourvonsponge http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/the-scream/ http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/the-scream/#comments Tue, 03 Jan 2012 23:30:25 +0000 FlourVonSponge https://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/?p=1534 ]]>

Depression is…………

Waking up in the morning, not looking forward to it and wishing the day would end. Then getting to the night and unable to sleep.

Sorry for being down, SniffSnorters, I never claimed this blog to be all happiness and light. I seem to have misplaced my proverbial happy pills. Be better tomorrow.Promise.

Addendum: so I wrote this yesterday decided to trash it. Thought it might be too depressing but the reality is, I like many other women, struggle with their sanity from time to time. Then I thought about how even more depressed I got when I would come across blogs written by perfectly groomed women about their perfectly ordered life, and they perfectly ironed out two-dimensional children and their painted white solid gold picket fences. I swear these blogs do to the soul what trashy beauty magazines do to one’s sense of self worth.

So I thought fuck it.

Today is better in parts because I can identify how ridiculously fatalistic I’m being. And that people are dying, children are starving when I was busy feeling sorry about the state of my house.

Tomorrow, I have skating. The sheer speed will turn me giddy and I shall return recharged. Giggling like a little girl, but hopefully minus the grazed knees.

]]> http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/the-scream/feed/ 1 50.838119 -0.776038 50.838119 -0.776038 flourvonsponge http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/resolution-2012-01/ http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/resolution-2012-01/#comments Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:00:19 +0000 FlourVonSponge https://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/?p=1526 ]]>

This photo makes me snigger. I honestly think my legs look like someone has twisted them backwards and shoved them into the shoes the wrong way round. I’m pretty sure a podiatrist could diagnose my crappy arches from just this shot of my wonkily angled right ankle.

But today’s post isn’t about that or the fact that I think my right leg (the leg that works harder skating leftward at roller derby) is slimmer with a more defined ankle. Neither is it to discuss whether the tribal ink ought to be lasered off to make space for something more in-keeping.

This post is about the first of my many resolutions for this year.

And that is to wear high heels daily.

Besides the reasonable amount of vanity involved in this quest, which was somewhat fuelled by my most recent purchase, there is a certain type of crazy Sponge logic to it.

My feet ache most of the time. Since being pregnant with the Seventh Wonder, the feet pain has intensified. I had assumed that the pain might alleviate itself once I lose some weight but that hasn’t been the case. Instead, since taking up roller derby, I spend a lot of my time skating in excruciating pain. The middle of the sole of my left foot endures this ripping sensation from the heel to the ball of the foot within ten minutes of skating. There is crushing pain in my arch and the outer side of my foot.

So, with the orthotic insoles not really helping, the anti-inflammatories not quite working, and the arch strapping, and the endless cans of Deep Freeze, I’m going to apply some reverse psychology on my feet.

I spent my early twenties in ridiculously high high heels. Daily. I learnt to put up with the crushing pain. So that’s what I’m going to do again. I’m ditching the MBT (Masai Barefoot Technology) shoes and I’m getting those heels back on again. I’m going to be so used to the pain, the agony my feet feel when they are in skates will be nothing in comparison.

Here’s to this little resolution. Send me Slaveboy weblinks of high heels that you think would compliment my cross dressing rugby player’s legs. Or send me shoes!!!!

]]> http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/resolution-2012-01/feed/ 2 50.838119 -0.776038 50.838119 -0.776038 20111229-224123.jpg flourvonsponge http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/out-of-the-mouth-of-babes/ http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/out-of-the-mouth-of-babes/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 17:45:45 +0000 FlourVonSponge https://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/?p=1498 ]]>

Today’s words have been to, bed and see.

I’m sure ours is not the only household that has these magnetic words. Ours is about 10 years old and even now, they haven’t quite realised their true potential. The children have always pretty much ignored them, because let’s be honest, there aren’t any really good words in the collection, is there? My children can’t be the only young humans who didn’t regard words like the above as being worthy enough to stand in front of the fridge door for long enough without opening the fridge to suss out what treats might lay within.

However, don’t let it be assumed that I do not spot learning opportunities when they present themselves. Afterall, I am an old hand at this homeschooling lark.

So when the Seventh Wonder appeared from the kitchen, this time NOT with the giant tin of golden syrup, but with the magnetic word see in her mouth, I seized the moment for some impromptu Literacy (metaphorical) Corner.

Having retrieved see from her oral cavity, confiscated bed from her and vigorously explaining how a19 month old shouldn’t have to eat her words, the Seventh Wonder displayed clearly how young children do learn better when the learning is divided into small easily digestible pieces by popping into her mouth a tiny morsel of magnetic to.

And to think the annual form sent by the local Elective Home Education department does not have a tick box for such educational milestones.

*bed is keen for readers to know that it had no part in this and it was an innocent bystander.

]]> http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/out-of-the-mouth-of-babes/feed/ 0 50.838119 -0.776038 50.838119 -0.776038 20110909-221348.jpg flourvonsponge http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/this-is-our-2011/ http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/this-is-our-2011/#comments Sat, 31 Dec 2011 08:30:27 +0000 FlourVonSponge https://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/?p=1496 ]]>

And I am ready to lay it to rest. This year has been bittersweet, seeing us giddy and nauseous from the roller coaster ride that 2010 had presented us. Steeling our bellies, and struggling to regain equilibrium and initiate some momentum into our lives as a family. 

Blogging has been a release. A channel where I could focus on harnessing the ever-decreasing circle which had inhabited my mind for the past to years. It has also made me take up writing creatively as i am a passionate believer that everrything hinges on the telling, not the tale itself. 

Baking was an exercise in re-learning that some things are just a process, that you could mess up one component of a process and slow down its completion but these components are fixable, replaceable and afterall, part of the process. I sort of like to apply this concept to life itself, that rather than short, brief moments defining you forever, you’re actually involved in a process and that there is no race. You can see no one chasing you in the wing mirror. All you have is this unreaching horizon of what is the future and all you have tangible in your hands is the now.

Roller derby was a way to make peace with my physical self which at some deep rooted level, I felt had failed me when I was pregnant of the 7th Wonder. My physical self and I can look each other in the eyes now. 

It’s been an interesting exercise extracting the blog posts which I feel have caught the essence of me, and also the SniffSnort family this year. I’ve enjoyed reading again the posts I had written months ago, at a different point in my life, with probably slightly different aspirations.

So, here is my list of favourite blog posts. I would be very honoured if you accompany me in revisiting them, and perhaps leaving a comment, if you are so inclined.

See you on the other side, blogsphere.

Wonderwoman In Control Pants 

Rules Of Engagement In A Large Family 

Do You Always Believe What You Read?

Invasion Of The Familial Kind

Acting Your Age

Ditching The Mummy Mask

Sponge Bakes With The Small Shouty One


10 Things To Remember If You Choose To Home Ed

London Calling

Dirty Word

Objects In The Horizon

Changes

A Rose Is A Rose
Occupy Moffat

What is there not to like? They are reasonably heeled. They’re pink. The have cuteskie bling bling skulls on them. They smell of bubblegum.

And the PVCness of them are gonna so chafe my feet that I fear I might have to purchase some talcum powder. Do they still make the stuff?

And to those who are waiting for me to post something remotely baking related? I REFUSE to be typecast!

Every year, a group (say 30 plus in number) of women loosely connected through midwifery and some, random strangers in real life, embark in a pilgrimage to Scotland where they then proceed to spend the weekend together in a youth hostel all to themselves. For the organiser, lovingly known as Chief F***ing Arsehole, it’s a year’s worth of planning, negotiating, setting up a matrix of phone numbers and setting up an Asda food delivery order (this year, our order filled the entire van).

This year, we were in beautiful quaint Moffat, a small town/village with two pubs, one hotel, one bank, a hardware shop and a mofo of a sweet shop.

And if it weren’t for the fact that a dear friend of mine, Parp, had decided she would come as a tent for a fancy dress party, my most recent act of civil disobedience would not have been born. It all started when I left the smoking porch at 2 in the morning and bounded up to our Poop Deck room, which I shared with several others. I was ambushed by N.Zoo and AB(normal) who instructed that I was to stay put and wait for their return. Whilst waiting, I was to pad out my duvet to make it look like someone was sleeping in it. Both N.Zoo and AB(normal) had stuffed balloons under theirs and in my nicotine induced intoxication, I suppose it looked pretty realistic.

Disclaimer: I only smoke in Scotland.

By this time, I must have somewhat developed Stockholm Syndrome and fell in love with my captors as I willingly conspired with the plot they were unveiling to me once they returned. We were to mobilise Parp’s red tent out of the youth hostel without attracting the attention of the drunken and merry revellers downstairs and set off for Moffat town centre.

At 2:15 in the morning. In Moffat, Scotland, in November, in the rain. With a tent that was broken because it got stuck in the doorway on the way out.

I impressed myself by doing a lazyman shimmy shuffle commando crawl past the window of the hostel’s living room. N.Zoo and AB(normal)just had to point out that there weren’t anyone in the living room anyway. So, at 2:15a.m, we ventured into town, in our pyjamas, carrying a red tent, a handful of balloons and a large piece of paper which originally was stuck on the hostel wall with the nicknames of the weekend attendees on it.

2:15a.m.: we assured ourselves that the chances of bumping into anyone would be near on impossible.

2:20a.m.: we spotted two men having a cheeky cigarette outside their house. A swift crossing to the other side of the road meant that we escaped from being potentially identified at a line-up. The chaps complimented us on our tent, “Nice tent.” AB(normal) was swift to reply with a curt “Thank (don’t-you-fucking-dare-follow-us) you”.

2:25a.m.: we hid the tent in an alleyway and pretended to be interested in the window display of a plumbing supplies shop whilst a party of youths walked past.

2:45a.m.: still yet to retrieve the tent from the alleyway, we decided that we could not tie the black balloons o the tent in account that black balloons are special and that the black balloons tied to the hostel gate would give us away. Operation ‘let’s deflate the black balloons by biting them’ commenced. I couldn’t bite mine so stuffed it under my jumper.

Little did we realise until we returned to the hostel that the inside of the tent was filled with black balloons.

2:50a.m.: N.Zoo and I decided that we couldn’t use the back of the piece of paper with our nicknames on it to write our political message on as we might be identified that way. AB(normal) pointed out that it might have been different for both N.Zoo and I, but her passport does not have AB(normal) as her name.

2:51a.m.: we proved AB(normal) previous point as moot by reminding her that between the three of us, she was the only one with a professional registration potentially at stake and that the Man knows everything. This was in between taking photos of the miniature toilet.

Between 2:15 and 3:30a.m., I reminded both my partners in crime repeatedly that I indeed had most to lose on account of not being a British passport holder and that the government has zero tolerance towards permanent residents who engage in acts in civil disobedience.

3:00a.m.: Tent retrieved from alleyway and set up in the centre of town, right where the town monument stood. We avoided the only CCTV in the town as it was rightfully (snort) monitoring the RSBC bank. I received friendly bitchslaps for the sudden anarchy dementia syndrome which rendered me overwhelmingly concerned about being done for littering.

3:10a.m.: We left the tent erected and proud, in full site of passing traffic with the sign OCCUPY MOFFAT on it.

We waited for the postage stamp sized revolution to kick in. I was quietly thankful that I took a train to Scotland and needn’t go through passport control.

We spent the next 24 hours giggling to ourselves, posting photos on Twitter, hoping for a viral meltdown, but alas the tent was gone by the next morning. There has been nothing in the news and Have I Got News For You did not get back to us.

*all names have even changed to protect the civil liberties of those involved*

Discovered from the deep depth of an iPhone Messages folder. I could wade in there, making judgements but seeing that it was my iPhone…..

 

Daughter: Do you need chicken saved for you? 
Mother: Nope
Mother: That was random
Daughter: Sorry, we is hungryyy
Mother: No worries. If you need buy a Chinese.
Mother: Not man, but dish.
Daughter: You what? 
Daughter: Ohhhh……Why would I want a Chinese man…..
Mother: Exactly
Mother: Unless it is Brandon Lee
Mother: Google him
Mother: Brandon Lee in the crow
Daughter: Watching glee, no can do
Mother: Brandon led
Mother: Lee
Mother: Even. 
Mother: Better
Mother: Schlurrp
Daughter: Ewwww
Daughter: *pukes*
Mother: Like bootylicious
Mother: You wouldn’t want to puke on Brandon lee
Mother: He’s Bruce Lee’s son
Daughter: I might do… Yu never know
Mother: He’s dead
Mother: Like his dad
Mother: It would be unfair
Daughter: Ohh
Mother: He cannae puke back
Daughter: Why are you getting in a tizz about a dead dude? 
Mother: Cos he is beautiful
Daughter: Not anymore he’s not
 

 

Mother: He will always be beautiful

Daughter: Ummm

Mother: What?

Daughter: *cough* he looks charming *cough*

Mother: That was from a film

Daughter: I’m sure it was….

 

Mother: Try this one

Mother: It’ll cure you of your ginger addiction

Daughter: I have no ginger addiction

Mother: Ok. Secret closet problem

Daughter: No

Daughter: He was a one off

Mother: ******* would be ginger if he was shorter and skinnier

Mother: He’s diluted

Daughter: Ummmm

Daughter: That doesn’t even work

Mother: Yes it does

Mother: But Brandon Lee was beautiful, or must agree

Daughter: Yes, he was

Mother: Ok, I’ll leave you in each now

Daughter: But I is enjoying this conversation

Mother: Above and beyond glee?

Daughter: Of course

Mother: Michael Pare is beautiful too. I don’t think he’s dead yet

Daughter: What do you have with the dead dead thing? 

Mother: Need to prioritise

Daughter: Oohhhhhhhhhh

Mother: Uh huh

Daughter: Mmmmmhhmmm

Mother: Beaten up boys.

Mother: Better than beaten up eggs

Daughter: Can I say nom or is that inappropriate considering I fell out of your hooch? 

Mother: I wouldn’t need rice to eat him with

Mother: Nope. Share alike.

Daughter: xD xD xD xD

Mother: Just don’t google recent photos

Mother: Not good

Daughter: Wrinkle-ness? 

Mother: Pancake facedness

Daughter: Noice

Mother: Might be an acquired taste this next one

 

Daughter: Yeah………No……

Mother: H is six foot four and I can vouch for his manhood

Mother: He has a small head

Mother: Would make pretty babies

Mother: Still alive

Daughter: Does ******* have a big head? 

Mother: Err. Yes

Daughter: Lol

Daughter: Big head

Mother: Yup

Daughter: ** had a small head…..I think

Daughter: I can’t remember

Mother: Just keep on going. Don’t stop at that thought.

Daughter: No… it was an average sized head

Mother: Just big hair

Daughter: That’s true

Mother: Anyway. John is packing up. With any luck the van will run and we will be home no problem.

Mother: Is baby behaving?

Daughter: No she turned into a fire breathing dragon and singed off what exists of her eyebrows.

Mother: Ooooo. Did you take photies?

Daughter: Nahh, I was on the toilet.

Mother: Nice.

Mother: Number one or two?

Daughter: Duddddeeeeee

Daughter: Not cool

Mother: I know. I’m your mother

Daughter: That’s wrong on so many levels

Mother: I know. You should have rescued your sister.

Daughter: she was a dragon, what was I supposed to do? 

Mother: Couldn’t have been that big.

Daughter: Size isn’t everything

Mother: You’ll learn 

Daughter: Ewwwwwww

Daughter: Major cringe….

Mother: So would you presented with (place arbitrary number here) inches

Daughter: ****** inches of what, may I ask?

Mother: Willy!!!!

Mother: Erect!

Daughter: Mummy.

Mother: You need to know these things.

Mother: some men would use that to get sympathy shags.

Mother: Do not fall for it.

Daughter: I don’t think you’ve imparted anything that was worth the amount of cringe I am going through right now

Mother: You’ll thank me later.

Daughter: For what?

Daughter: You haven’t really told me anything…..

Mother: Yes I have.

Mother: No big heads.

Mother: ****** is a diluted ginger

Mother: ** has a small head

Daughter: So?

Mother: An men will try anything to get a sympathy shag. Even the one with a small willy. They have no scruples.

Daughter: Ummm, I already knew all of this

Mother: What??? Even the bit about men with small willies will probably try to stick it up your jacksie? 

Mother: Cos they can’t feel anything otherwise.

Daughter: Ewwwwwww

Daughter: Please stop now

Mother: See. I still have things to teach you.

Daughter: I puked

Mother: Ok.

Mother: We have no dettol

Daughter: We have dettol floor stuff

Daughter: is all good

Mother: Ok. Shall go now, my is done today.

Daughter: *dies*

 

 

 

 

 

]]> http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/textual-proof-of-how-misguided-some-mothers-can-be/feed/ 6 50.838119 -0.776038 50.838119 -0.776038 Da Brood flourvonsponge http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/dare-i-mention-it/ http://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/dare-i-mention-it/#comments Tue, 27 Dec 2011 22:38:11 +0000 FlourVonSponge https://sniffandsnort.wordpress.com/?p=1474 ]]>

The Seventh Wonder, I am ashamed to admit, does not get to go out very often. It’s a carried on habit of mine, from when she was really ill and us still recovering from the experiences we had. It was only last week that she acquired her first ever winter coat.  

 
So what happened after her first ever outing in a very long time? Seventh Wonder caught a cold. And boy, hasn’t she made us ALL know about it.  
 

 
It’s approaching that time of the year now, when you feel compelled to make New Year’s resolutions. I’m often plagued by these lists late at night when the Seventh Wonder is refusing to go to sleep and I’m practically stapling my eyelids to my eyebrows.  
The biggest bane of my life, here in the SniffSnort household is keeping some modicum of order. I am quietly anally retentive and much as I adore the idea of flexible living, I simply can’t abide mess. It’s a complete amazement, I’m sure for those who know me in real life because our house is never organised and we are forever drowning in stuff. I think I do try to achieve it but when you have seven children and home educate them in a three bedroom house with no garden, it was bound to be a losing battle.  
 

My bed looks like this most morning when I wake up. We are the living embodiment of that favourite book of ours, The Biggest Bed In The World. Chaos and mess seem to breed like rabbits and all it requires is for me to make a slight attempt to have a life.  
 
So this coming year, Flourvonsponge is giving this method a go. I have the iPad app and the whole shebang. It’s the mother of all lists.  
 
So what’s your plan?  
 
 
 
 
 

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