Colour change

PICTURES!

computer break down

....can't blog....playing castlevania....monsters....vampires....must....kill....bad...guys...!!!!!

Lock up your sofas!

I really wanted to put this on my blog but the technology failed me (or I failed it or something) but I urge you to go to this place which is Weebl's site and watch the 'peer pressure' video. After you have picked yourself off the floor from laughing SO VERY MUCH watch the Weebl piss take and laugh at some more.
But seriously...you can stop laughing now, wipe those tears away and let's look at why these poor sad fools thought that this a) would appeal to women as a sexay dance and b) didn't look completely gay.
Clearly the answer is TOO MUCH PORN!!!!
They have watched so much gyrating simulated sex, pole dancing, lap dancing, stripteases that their poor brains have stopped working. They think "how can I be sexaaay to a laydee and seduce her into my bed. I know, I will do a sexay sex dance just like the strippers who really turn all the guys on".
MISTAKE!
First of all women's approach to sex is very different to men (SURPRISE - NOT). It is clear that these guys think sex=thrusting penis in vagina (or soft furnishings) while most women feel that sex begins a long time before any flesh has even touched. We like the trimmings better than the turkey if you get what I mean.
Secondly: women tend not to be so visual as men so performing a simulated sex dance is only going to attract people who like to watch to be turned on ie. MEN!
Thirdly: Five guys all dry humping the wall and furniture in a small room together...
G A Y
G A Y
G A Y

Please note I am not gay bashing, just bashing tossers who think women are men without dicks

Food tag

Oh yesh....food! You love it or you hate it but you can't live without it! Please feel free to be tagged just by reading this.

1. What is the last thing you ate? A biscuit just before I went to bed last night, I haven't had a chance to get breakfast yet.
2. What was the last meal you cooked and who was it for? I cooked last night for 4 kids and 3 adults. The two youngest kids had spaghetti on toast, two oldest had spaghetti bolagnase on toast, My sister-in-law and I had Butternut and cheese tartlets with green veg and mash, Rob had burgers in bread.
3. What was the last meal someone cooked for you and who were they? Rob cooked ramen on Thursday. He's really getting into Japanese cookery. It was lovley but took him two days to prepare.
4. When did you last eat out? What did you have and where was it? I went to a Japanese place in Cheltenham at the weekend and had raw fish (YUM) miso soup, rice, scallop tempara and lots of saki.
5. Do you have any allergies? I shouldn't really eat milk but i do so I am covered in excema. Some nuts are not good for me and I can't go near a pineapple.
6. Are you a meat eater, vegatarian or vegan? What would you like to be? I eat meat and I've come to terms with it! I used to be a vegy but I really like meat.
7. What was the last time you did any home baking? Are you any good at it? Well...the scones are in the oven as I'm sitting here. I love baking and people seem to eat what I've made. Mind you, you can't go wrong with scones covered in cream. I love making bread - so yummy!
8. What is your favorite pudding? Cheesecake!
9. Do you have a starter? Not very often. My mum always makes a starter for Christmas dinner, always smoked salmon.
10. Do you eat breakfast? If so what do you have? I didn't used to eat first thing in the morning. Now I have to get something together for the kids I might join them but not always. I prefer to have a mid morning snack of toast, an egg and a cup of tea. I used to feel really ill in the mornings when I worked and what ever I ate tended to come straight back up again! This is why I can never have a job!
11. What's your dream meal? I love a good roast dinner. Roast duck and all the trimmings, bread sauce, veg, roast potatoes.
12. What do you like to snack on? I'd love to answer this question with 'nuts and seeds, raisins and fruit' but you know that isn't true. I eat CRAP, packet biscuits, chocolate, full fat yougarts, little puddings, cake. This is why I am overweight, I've come to terms with it!
13. What is your indulgence? I'm afraid I like a naughty maccy Ds sausage and egg mcmuffin
14. Do you live to eat or eat to live? Hmmmm live to eat
15. Ultimatly is food your friend or your enemy? It's been both. Comforter, guilty secrets, and I guess in the end as much as i love it, it is still the enemy.

Update

I haven't been online all week because the children have been ill and I am still getting over Rob's birthday night where I only got 2 hours sleep!
Bless her, my mother-in-law had the kids on Saturday night and she said I should just stay out all night and have a good time. It's been a little while since I last did that. We ended up in 'The Pigs' in Cheltenham which was full of alternative people so I wasn't the oldest woman (something I have been noticing about being in pubs recently) or the only person with dreadlocks. We stayed there until 3am then caught the night bus home. What a great idea the Night Bus is, I only wish it had been around when i had been a teenager; I've stayed in some pretty dodgey places in Chelters because there was no way home.
It took us a while to wander back home to Tredworth ( a 15 min walk usually, 30 mins with pram, an hour with drunken mates trying to skin up slyly) and then played drunken Wii!
All in all a sterling night until the kids came home at 9 and I realised that I had had bugger all sleep.
This week has been Breastfeeding Awareness week where I should be out spreading the good word of the boob but unfortunately my children have both been running fevers of 39 degrees so we ain't been goin' nowhere! I feel like I've let the cause down but I'm sure other mums would rather I not infect their babies and children with fever, vomiting, sleepless nights, crusty eyes and crying illness! It would be this week wouldn't it?
Anyway I'm off to wipe my babies eyes down with breastmilk before taking his temperature and worrying for another day that I haven't taken him to the doctor (who will prescribe Calpol and nothing else 'cos they are crap!)

ow ow owy owy

oh my head/body/lungs/brain ow
ow
ow
ow

Tickle me emo

ok, I know emo bashing isn't that cool but as an ex-goth moody kid (we weren't called emo back then) I find all this emo stuff quite amusing.
Jokes about self-harm...good, lets get it out in the open!

Doll Face

Happy Birthday Rob!!!

Robert is 24 today.
I managed to make a cake. I'm usually really rubbish with cakes but I seem to have made quite a good one this time. I put 'ROB' on with icing but because I have only one brain cell I started the 'R' in the middle of the cake so the word is kind of running off the side so I did an icing heart next to it to look like I meant to do it. Rob said it was a bit weird that I iced a heart on his cake. Weird and soppy. Never mind, his family all know I love him and I am a bit of a soppy weirdo!
He received a DS (thanks to IRGxana) with a castlevania game that should keep his hands busy for the next few days. Tonight we are going to a Japanese restaurant sans children with a few friends and siblings; should be nice! I'm really looking forward to it. I love trying new food.
Rob is going to stay in town with his mates and go on a birthday mash up, I'm going home to the kids. Arh well...I do believe the world would explode if we were ever to get a night out together!
Anyway, Happy Birthday Rob!!!

Ten years is a long time in politics

Today Tony Blaire said he would be standing down as PM in a few weeks. Cameron said it is now "The government of the living dead". I don't usually blog about politics but for all the Brits out there I thought I'd have a moment to remember what it was like 10 years ago when the Labour party came to rule us...
Even though the theme music 'Things can only get better' was VERY cheesy we felt as if, yes, things could get better now. We had had a long hard time under the Tories. I am one of the bright eyed generation who was raised on the anti-thatch rants of Ben Elton, who watched 'the young ones' when it was first aired on television. We watched as the 'Red Wedge' tour of funky cool musicians had failed to win the last election for Kinnock and knew that this time surly the rest of the county would see what a terrible idea it would be to let the Tories back in again.
And they did! They agreed with us! There was Tony, tie off, coffee cup in hand looking cool, in charge.
It's easy to trot out things like the war, Foot and Mouth, tuition fees as his legacy but what we have to ask is: Would it have been any better under the Tories.? I think not.
I wonder what we are going to do now, my generation, at the next general election? I want to still be putting my cross in the red box but it's getting harder to believe that there are any socialists left in the 'left'. But what is the alternative? The 'new' Tories who think scribbling a tree and turning their banner a bit green will make us all forget Thatcher and Major?
I need a new party, one with a clear agenda...let's form the Feminist party!

I am sad for the thin girls

What with all this moaning I have done about being fat I thought I'd redress the issue and say what a wonderful thing being fat is and what it has done to my life.

• I know women are not intimidadted and think we are competing over men
• I have been able to have good friendships with men that are not full of sexual tension
• I know Rob loves me for who I am, not my body
• I've realised that it is the world that has a problem, not me, quite quickly
  
• I can never be anorexic
  

I have spent the last hour looking through 'pro ana' websites that are dedicated to anorexia. They are often presented as being dangerous places that young girls go to that encourages them to starve. After spending a little time in their world I've had to eat an entire bag of cashew nuts to recover.
Page after page of poor women hating themselves for eating 100 calories. Images of girls hospitalized and staving, ribcages collapsing, bodies devouring themselves. Top tips about the amount of water to drink, what temperature it should be (warm water makes you feel more full apparently) and weirdly this person, a specta that haunts all their writings, Ana. They say they have 'let Ana down' when they have eaten, 'I must do this for myself and for Ana'.
Wow, scary stuff. So my little binges seem fairly normal and, dare I say, healthy.
Ho hum....where did I put that chocolate?

Newt in a teacup aks about body issues

Name: Erika

Age: 33

Height: 5 foot 4

Weight: Yeah right, like I'm going to put that bit of top secret information out on the net. But big, ok, fat, overweight.

Do you consider yourself attractive? hmmm, no.

Do others consider you attractive? Rob must love me, Goddess knows why! Not many other people though and plenty of people feel free to tell me how ugly I am as I'm walking down the street.

What is your biggest insecurity and why? Weight also I am covered in excema and scars so even if I was stick thin I would still be unattractive.

Have you/Would you consider using plastic surgery? Why or why not? No. I used to want to when I was growing up but now I'm working on changing the world and not myself.

What is your relationship with make-up? Not anymore thank you! I used to not be able to leave the house unless I was covered in slap. Now I do not use it or even own any.

How much money do you/think is reasonable to spend on your appearance? I buy clothes, nothing over £20, about one item every three months. I buy soap, shampoo, toothpaste, spend money on heating water for a bath...is that what you mean?

What is your experience of dieting? Argh....don't say the 'D' word. I was put on diet after diet as a child and teenager. I grew up hungry and guilty and sad.

Have you/ anyone you know tried any specific diet programs i.e. Lighter Life? How did that affect your health? your moods? your relationships? Tried everything going in the 80's and early 90's. The dieting cycle: Public declaration of 'new' diet started today, first week is easy, feeling great, loose lots of weight. Second week is HARD, cheating, guilt, less weight loss, week after week passes and you 'cheat' and end up eating secretly, lying about your weight loss to people who ask you how the diet is going, binge in secret, feel disgusted with yourself, binge more, purge, vomiting or laxatives, binge some more, lie some more, self harm because you are so pathetic. Next day wake up and decide you are going to try a whole new diet and start telling people how this is 'the one' that will help you loose weight, this is it, no more cheating....back into the cycle.

Do you have any experiences of eating disorders i.e. either yourself or someone you know? yep, ticking all you boxes here.

How did other people react to this; what was the fallout? HA! They all have their own eating disorders to deal with.

Have you had negative experiences relating to your appearance and people’s reactions to it? My grandmother took my mother aside and told her she had to sort me out because I getting so fat as a teenager. All my life it's been the first thing people notice about me. I have dreadlocks simply because it is something else they can focus on. 'How can she let herself get that fat?' has turned to 'What the hell has she done to her hair?'

What about positive reactions to your body?Hmmm...hard one this because occasionally people do say 'you look nice' or something like that. I've started to believe them now.

How has your body image and attitude changed over the years? Wow, I could write a whole post with the answer to this question. Short answer - I used to want to die and now I am learning to live. My body hasn't changed but my attitude has.

What do you love about your body? I made two children and I feed them with my milk. I've got limbs and eyes and ears that work, I can talk and think! People who say their lives are crap because their boobs are a bit small need to go down to a burns unit and count their lucky stars.

What is your opinion on the media portrayal of women’s bodies? Urgh...the revolution will come one day.

What would you change about the way you/ your friends/ your family/ general people see their bodies? Women are taught to look inwards, to believe that it is their body that is to blame, but one day we will all look at our oppressors and realise what they have been doing to us all these years. We are all beautiful but we need to remove the male gaze.

What makes you feel beautiful? My smile, my brain

and just for fun… Do you shave legs/pits/upper lip moustache? Hairy hairy legs and armpits! I pluck out the hairs on my chin, i wish I didn't have to.

The price of thinness

This is Geri Halliwell at her super slimmest. She is a woman well-known for her weight loss and eating disorders. There is a trend at the moment to make programs where you can see just how thin woman can get and then talk about how terrible they are for doing it.
I am drawn to these programs, not as car-crash tv, but because I am perversely interested in seeing thin women. I am overweight, always have been, always will be and have been told all through my life that being thin would solve all my problems. It's strange for me to see the results of this attitude played out so starkly in images of emaciated women glorified and then ridiculed, depending on the angle of the lens.
I often think of what it must be like to be that tiny. Now it makes me feel fearful, someone could pick you up, break you, take you, so easily.
Back to the point of this post, on a recent program that focused solely on how thin the spice girls are, they said that Geri was so thin at one point that her periods stopped....crashing music, close up on picture of Geri's tummy, pundit saying something like "It's unbelievable that she would go so far as to put her fertility in jeopardy". They went on about this aspect of anorexia as if it was the MOST IMPORTANT thing: you can't loose your fertility!!! Lordy no!
....and yet women are on the pill everywhere and that puts your fertility in jeopardy, doesn't it? ...and the coil and all the other very harmful ways women protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy. Have you read the side effects list on the leaflet in pills? Of course you have!
So...don't get thin, not because you might kill yourself but because of all the 'ikle unborn babies you carry in you ovaries. Selfish women. Wouldn't it be better if we could take their ovaries away from them and hand them over to the government who would look after them responsibly.

Oh look, ebay!

My gorgeous tie dye top for £15.

I've just bought this lovely shirt for Rob and it was only £12.99 with p+p. what a bargain!

Not much to blog about

So I've nicked this of Grace.

A - Available or Single? I'm glad it said 'or' not 'and' because you can be single and very much NOT available. No, I am with the father of my children and intend to be for a long time (Goddess willing)
B - Best Friend Well, I don't really have best friends, I like to know lots of people. I have some old friends who know me better than most, Owen, Polly, Olly, I am great friends with both my brother and sister and of course the person I spend most time with and have most fun with is Rob.
C - Cake or Pie Hmmm. Good question. Pie followed by cake? Oh the're both good.
D - Drink of Choice Fizzy elderflower with lots and lots of ice to crunch on. If it's cold I like a cup of tea but I have to make it as I'm VERY fussy about the way I have it.
E - Essential Item A good book to read
F - Favorite Color Purple tie dye
G - Gummi Bears not sure what this means but I don't really like gummi sweets
H - Hometown Born in Melton Mowbrey, where they make pork pies and cat food. I live in Gloucester now.
I - Indulgence CHOCOLATE!
J - January or February blurgh I hate both these months; no money, big bills coming in, and it's too miserable to be thinking about spring and Christmas has gone.
K - Kids 2: Solomon and Osiris. The apples of my eye.
L - Life is incomplete without… other people to talk to who know what you're going on about. Cuddles with Rob. A peaceful bath with a good book. Learning how to love your body (and all the wobbly bits).
M - Marriage Date HA! it will be a cold day in hell when I get into a silly dress. Not bloody likely matey! I don't agree with it and I don't want it. If we want to spend a lot of money on a party then we don't need a crap excuse.
N - Number of Siblings 2 .
O - Oranges or Apples? Oranges are like little bombs of pain if I eat them. My stomach can't take that much acid. Apples are amazing if you eat them straight from a tree but crap if they are in a supermarket, several moths old and imported from Israel.
P - Phobias/Fears the dark in houses, not in a wood or outside. That the next phone call is another person dying.
Q - Favorite Quote "A man who does not read is no better than a man who cannot read" Mark Twain
R - Reasons to smile It's all going to be ok, really it is, honest.
S - Season Summer
T - Tag Three Maia, Irgxana um...
U - Unknown Fact About Me I did some smack once; it was crap! Chocolate is better.
V – Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animals Haha. I love meat. I was a vegetarian for ages before meeting Rob but the bacon got the better of me. I really like lamb and duck. YUM!
W - Worst Habit eating too much. Shouting at my kids. Being stroppy.
X – X-rays or Ultrasounds I've quite a few of both in the last few years, having had two children, a gall bladder removed and swallowing glass.
Y - Your Favorite Foods Something that has lots of flavor and interesting things in it. Roast dinner, Chinese, pizza. I really like all food and I love eating out (not that we can afford it much but we are going to a Japanese place for Robs birthday)
Z - Zodiac Virgo. Don't really hold with this sort of thing. Us Virgos are very skeptical.

I love this

Ritchie talks about trouble he has had from other men when he suggested that women weren't responsible for rape.
What a breath of fresh air; a man who 'gets it'. See, it's not impossible! If he can do it then there is hope.

A funny thing...

...when you type 'feminism' into the You Tube search you get a HUGE AMOUNT of men spilling their vicious diatribes on why feminism is evil/work of Satan/upset men and the 'natural' order of things (arh, didums) into a camera. This is presumably because all the real people who know them have left them and/or heard to the point they have cut their ears off.
Place this in counterpoint with the fact that any female name typed into a search engine will give you porn.
Shut up you bastards.
Not that they will read this.
Good.