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(Not So) Extreme Make over: Home Edition

By Mum's the Word on May 17, 2013 in Home

Now that we’ve lived in this house for three years, our landlord has become a little more easy-going about letting us add our own touches to the place. We’re planning feature walls in both bedrooms, pink for Sausage and a gorgeous sage-green for Husband and I. The one hurdle that we’ve faced is buying curtains or blinds for the rooms. Both rooms have huge windows, with Sausage’s being the most awkward, her bay window measuring about 11 feet wide!

Just recently we’ve discovered these Perfect Fit blinds from Web-Blinds, which fit inside the frames of UPVC windows. They don’y have a pull string, which makes them perfect for a child’s room as, like many parents, I would seriously worry about the safety risks associated with conventional blinds. They come in a gorgeous range of colours too, so Sausage won’t need to sacrifice the girly theme that she’s got going on with just about every shade of pink possible somewhere in her room!

Another thing we’d love is laminate flooring. I’ve mentioned on more than one occasion on this blog that living in a house with a beige carpet when you have an almost 5 year old and a dog is not idea – I’m not sure I even remember what this carpet is supposed to look like anymore, such is the extent of the swirls of mud/Ribena/crayon stains that are dotted about and despite our valiant efforts to clean it last year, I think we need to admit that our pile has had the guts knocked out of it!

This Butter Oak laminate flooring is absolutely stunning and would look so fab in our lounge, especially if we were to scatter a couple of coordinating rugs around. It would be fabulously easy to clean and would definitely be a lot more resilient than our carpet, which is now so flimsy that the Dyson sometimes pulls whole lines of thread out of it!

I think that makes me pretty easy to please – a lick of paint, some blinds and a nice floor and I’d be a very contented blogger!

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Your Hoard May Be Worth More Than You Think!

By Mum's the Word on May 16, 2013 in Happiness

I am a self-confessed sentimental lunatic.

I am married to another self-confessed sentimental lunatic.

“What does that mean?” I hear you ask.

Well, I’ll tell you. I means that we hoard. Husband and I are absolutely terrible when it comes to placing emotional value on inanimate objects, which means that when decluttering our very storage-less house, we struggle.

“Oh no, we can’t get rid of that scrap of paper, Sausage might have breathed near it for two seconds last Tuesday!” is not an entirely unrealistic sentence to hear uttered in our house during spring cleaning bouts.

One thing that we did take a stand on recently though, was our media collection. The majority of what we watch and listen to is stored on very large harddrives on Husband’s PC, which is served to the main TV, Sausage’s TV, the iPad and the Nexus 7 via a wireless media server, meaning that we save space and have really flexible entertainment options in the house. What it also meant is that I could sell my old DVDs

That’s where Music Magpie came in. The website is super easy to use, we literally just spent an evening holding barcodes up to the webcam on my laptop, and we made over £50. Some of the items were only worth 50p, some of our rarer ones were worth slightly more but all of them were worth more than they were by just sitting on our shelf and taking up space! We printed off the forms, boxed them up and waited for the courier to collect them and it really was as easy as that. There are even smartphone apps which allow you to do the same thing using your device’s camera.

We’ve made ourselves some money, created some space on our shelves and ultimately helped the environment by preventing our rubbish from ending up in landfill. One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure and all that!

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Closer to Nature – Meet the Robins

By Mum's the Word on May 16, 2013 in Closer to Nature

Something very exciting has been happening this week…we’ve just found out we’ve got babies! Baby robins, that is! Let me set the scene…

A few weeks ago, I was on the phone (probably to my Mum) and I was gazing out of our patio doors when I noticed a robin, standing INSIDE my garden shed.

“No”, I thought, “I must be hallucinating…” (like that was a FAR more reasonable explanation)

I put the thought out of my head until last week, Husband proclaimed “A robin just flew into our shed!”

“Aha!”, I thought, glad not to have been in the early stages of a psychotic break.

So, we’ve been watching two robins flying in and out of the shed for a couple of weeks, watching them frantically searching for food, knowing that there must be babies in there and on Monday, Husband managed to sneakily get this snap through the window:

Isn’t he a beauty? We’ve learned that robins don’t get their red breast until they reach maturity, although you can see the beginnings of orangey patched on this little dudes’ chest. He’s not alone either, we’re pretty sure there are two babies in there as we’ve seen them hopping around together. Mr. and Mrs. Robin work tirelessly to feed their young, we’ve sat and watched them for whole afternoons, zooming in and out, hopping through the hole above the shed door with worms and berries in their beaks.

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On Monday, Husband and I decided that we’d help our lodgers along in their daily toil to feed their young and we bought a variety of bird food, which we’ve secreted in various locations around the garden. Suet pellets, mealworms, soaked raisins and robin museli have gone down a treat! We didn’t want to put a bird table up, as we’ve heard that they attract cats as we had to come up with some other, impromptu ways of dispensing the food. Husband came up with the great idea of getting a carton from a dozen eggs and cutting it into sections, which we then taped on windowsills and outside the shed, and we even hid one in our trough of strawberries!

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed observing the robins and getting a little bit closer to nature (did you see what I did there?!) and we’ll be sad when our babies fly the nest, something that we think isn’t far off, given the size of them. We’d love to see your nature photos too, so please get involved by linking up any recent nature-related posts and you can even stick one of our badges on there too, if you like. (code in sidebar)

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Why I Love Malta

By Mum's the Word on May 14, 2013 in Holidays

When I was 16, I went on my first holiday without my parents to stay in an apartment belonging to a friend’s grandmother. We were both sensible girls and were trusted to be able to cope without any parental units for two weeks, though my friend had family living just around the corner from the apartment, should we need any help. So, Summer 2000, just after my GCSE’s had finished, I set off for my first Malta holiday and the beginning of my love for that tiny, Mediterranean island.

We weren’t your average 16 year olds so although a few nights in Paceville, the clubbing district of Malta, were on the cards we also took in a lot of the rich history that Malta has to offer, visiting the Natural History Museum, catacombs, the medieval town of Mdina which is situated high in a hill, smack-bang in the centre of Malta, the Barracca Gardens and many of the markets around the island, which sell a huge variety of things, from CDs and DVDs to handmade glass and silver items!

I was truly enchanted by Malta during my first trip, so much so that when my parents suggested we go on holiday together in 2004 I didn’t hesitate to recommend Malta as our destination. This trip was entirely different from my first.

We stayed in a resort which was half hotel and half apartments, with my parents, sister and I sharing a two bed apartment and catering for ourselves for the two week stay. We had access to a pool, which was something we’d not had during my first trip and our evenings out were to nearby towns where we enjoyed many an alfresco meal. We were actually there during Euro 2004, and on more than one occassion we’d happen upon a town square which had massive screen set up so that people outside bars could enjoy the football together, which was a great experience for us all.

FBY749

We spent less time sight-seeing during this holiday, but we did take a lot of shopping trips, enjoyed a day-cruise round the island and sampled many of the local beaches, braving the crazy yellow buses that Malta is famous for.

Each of my Malta experiences has been different, but equally rich in it’s own way and I’d love to go back one day with Husband and Sausage to see what a family holiday as a parent would be like. For me, Malta is an ideal destination as it offers superb beaches, culture, nightlife, family-friendly dining and activities and a climate which is markedly better than the UK. The perfect combination between city break and beach holiday.

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Swimming Saturday

By Mum's the Word on May 13, 2013 in Parenting

One of the things that Sausage and I love to do together is go swimming, it’s a fun way to spend a Saturday morning that doesn’t cost a fortune and gets us both up and active, rather than sitting indoors eating sugary cereal! This Saturday just passed was the first time we’d been swimming in a while and the first time since Sausage started having weekly swimming lessons at school. She’s lucky enough to have a pool within the grounds of her school and although it’s an outdoor pool, it’s well heated so come the spring term they’re out there every Thursday morning.

Naturally, she insisted we buy her a new swimming costume for her lessons and despite my reservations, she sports a snazzy crossover number which is apparently the envy of all of her friends!

Anyway, I digress. Having not seen her new swimming skills in action since before she started formal lessons, I was absolutely blown away on Saturday to see what a difference it’s made. I’m a fairly good swimmer (fitness levels aside) and have tried my best to teach her the basics, but I truly take my hat off to her swimming teacher who, in four short weeks has obviously imparted some serious knowledge. Sausage, though still in armbands, is now swimming on her back for almost a whole pools width, doing a respectable version of beginners breast stroke and has gained so much confidence that she’ll now jump in from the side with no assistance!

I’m so impressed with the way she’s come on leaps and bounds in such a short time and can’t wait to see where she’ll be with it by the end of term. Swimming is such an important skill to have and aside from that can be a really fun way to spend time. I was a bit of a daredevil when I was a kid and spent many a happy summer with my parents on different parts of the South Coast, learning to boogie board and surf. I’m not very good at either, mind you, but had I not had the skills to swim, I’d never have been able to try.

Sausage and I have decided that swimming will be part of our Saturday morning ritual now, we’re aiming to go every week and I can’t wait to see how her swimming improves every time.

Commissioned Post

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Win a Personalised Print from Name Art

By Mum's the Word on May 13, 2013 in Giveaway

I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to start the week by offering Mum’s the Word readers the chance to enter another fabulous giveaway and I’m particularly happy because I’m a huge fan of this brand. Name Art offer personalised gifts of the funkiest variety, with the Original Twitter Addict Mug being the most famous and coveted item of all, owned by the likes of Kirstie Allsopp, Theo Paphitis and Sarah Brown!

I love the uniqueness of Name Art and the clever way that Charis has made her highly recognisable brand into so many different products. There are prints for just about any occasion from the birth of a child to weddings to cocktail hour, and there are even clothing, door plaques and mouse mats available, amongst other things.

Charis, the lady behind the Name Art brand, has kindly offered Mum’s the Word’s readers the chance to win a personalised, unframed 25x25cm print of your choice with some truly lovely options to choose from (these are just a couple of them):

(frames not included in prize)

For your chance to win this awesome prize, just fill in the Rafflecopter widget below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Next Swimwear Review

By Mum's the Word on May 10, 2013 in Fashion...that's what I want., Review

So, in my want to shape up, I’ve taken up swimming.

I know, no big deal, right?

WRONG.

This is a very big deal for two reasons:

1. I am scared of sharks. I am WELL aware of the fact that my local leisure centre isn’t in the habit of letting their pool be used by the local tiger shark swimming team nor am I under the illusion that a creature with gills could live in such heavily chlorinated water. I didn’t say it was a rational fear. But the fact is, although I am a decent enough swimmer, I panic in water and feel like there’s something chasing me, regardless of whether it’s an indoor Olympic training pool or not.

2. Swimming costumes. ACK.

I should probably elaborate on that last part.

If you’re overweight, the thought of donning what is essentially a very tight-fitting piece of shiny material doesn’t fill you with huge amounts of glee. If you have a bosom that’s so ample that the word ‘ample’ itself doesn’t even do it justice, as well as being overweight, then those two words – swimming costume – are enough to make you break out in a cold sweat. Which is not a good look when you’re wearing a swimming costume. SELF PERPETUATING NIGHTMARE.

I have a costume that I bought very cheaply last year so that I could take Sausage swimming but it’s not the most flattering garment. There’s zero support for boobage and it more or less makes me look like a mummy orca. So here’s what I did; I threw myself at the mercy of a few different clothing companies and asked if they could help. Next was the first to say yes and here’s the costume I chose (£34):

This isn’t me, but I look ALMOST identical to this in it…*ahem*

The material that the costume is made from is reassuringly good quality and the double-layered tummy control did a valiant job of holding in my paunch. There’s enough fabric covering your bottom that you don’t feel too exposed and the internal wired cups did a far better job of supporting my bust and keeping everything in place while I did my lengths. I felt confident in a swimsuit for the first time in years, which is no small achievement, and it felt nice enough to be worn on the beach or poolside, if you were looking for a flattering, well-covering suit for a holiday.

If I had a minor negative comment it would be that the halterneck, whilst flattering and pretty, meant that the full weight of my boobs were carried around my neck, but it’s one of those things that’s probably only an issue to me and let’s face it, the weight has to be distributed somewhere!

I’m thrilled with my new swimming costume and would definitely buy from Next again. Their E-G cup range is full of flattering suits and separates that offer comfort and style and they’re all reasonably priced too.

I received a free swimming costume for the purposes of this review, however all words and opinions here are honest and unbiased.

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Be Ruthless About Your Wedding Budget!

By Mum's the Word on May 10, 2013 in Money

With the average wedding now costing around £22,000, controlling your wedding costs has never been so important. But how can you have a day to remember whilst on a budget? Don’t worry; it’s entirely possible with some forward planning. Let’s look at several easy ways to trim the costs.

Don’t tell organisers that you’re having a wedding

Make enquiries instead under the guise of a party or event, as some suppliers automatically bump up the costs when they hear the ‘W’ word!

Keep the guest list under control

You only need to invite close friends and immediate family; avoid inviting long-lost relatives and people you haven’t seen in years. Simply explain that you are keeping the wedding small. Some people choose to exclude children as well, although they tend to be less costly guests than adults.

Consider going abroad

It can actually be less expensive to book an overseas wedding package for a small group of people and it saves on honeymoon costs too. Look at Eastern Europe, Italy and Morocco for popular destinations that do not cost the earth.

Pick your days

Saturday is the most expensive day by far for a wedding and you will pay a premium. Try to book your wedding on a Friday or Sunday instead and you’ll pay less for the venue. Consider having the entire event at one venue too, which saves on décor, transport and hire fees. You could even have a marriage later in the day, which would avoid the need for a sit-down dinner and allow you to serve just one buffet meal.

Choose food carefully

Apply wisdom to your choice of menu. Do you really need to serve a full sit-down dinner, or could you arrange a cheaper, quirkier choice? Options include a Sunday fête-themed buffet, a vintage tea party or even an Asian-inspired meal. Do you need dessert when you have a wedding cake?

Avoid an open bar

This is a quick way to damage your wallet, particularly as many venues will charge high premiums for their bar drinks. People also tend to drink too much when the booze is free! Instead, consider offering to pay for everyone’s first drink. Remember too that sparkling wine is just as good as Champagne for toasting – and costs far less!

Funding the day

Avoid getting into costly and complicated credit card debt and consider a secured loan from a specialist such as Evolution Money so you can manage the repayments within a certain time-frame and avoid having the debt hanging over you for many years afterwards.

In collaboration with Evolution Money

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AIDS vs. Christianity

By Mum's the Word on May 9, 2013 in Anger, Charity

Husband sent me an email the other day with a link to this photo in it:

I’ll give you a second to absorb the information in that photo…

Can you see the message it’s putting across? The map on the right shows the distribution and severity of the AIDS virus in Africa. The map on the left shows the concentration of religions (notably Christianity, in red) by country. There is an ALARMING correlation between the two maps, is there not?

When are we going to realise that religion is responsible for almost every major world issue that we’re facing today? The Catholic church is sending missionaries to African countries and spreading the belief that not only will they burn in hell for eternity if they use contraception, but that condoms do nothing to halt the spread of the disease which is grossly wrong. The Wikipedia page on ‘Religion and HIV/AIDS’ says “Pope John Paul II strongly opposed the use of artificial birth control, and rejected the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV.^[8] Pope Benedict XVI stated in 2005 that condoms were not a sufficient solution to the AIDS crisis,^[9] but then in 2009 claimed that AIDS “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.”"

The irony of the statement above becomes even greater when you factor in the fact that the Catholic church considers AIDS and HIV to be a ‘gay’ disease and punishment for promiscuous behaviour, yet actively blocks gay marriage and the concept of monogamy for gay couples. We’ve let religion dictate our political decisions for far too long.

I’m by no means lumping every Christian into this category, but there are extremists in every denomination and the western world needs to wake up to the fact that telling citizens of a country which has an AIDS pandemic that condoms don’t protect against AIDS is religious extremism in its worst form.

It’s being reported that rape is being used as a weapon more than ever in many African nations since the explosion in infection rates of HIV and AIDS. The Unitied Nations University said “One striking difference between the use of rape as a weapon of war in pre-1990 conflicts and in latter-day wars is the emergence and “willful” transmission of HIV to the victims. Serious questions have been raised in the social science literature about the actual time of transmission and infection, and whether the “intent” of the perpetrators could conclusively be to infect the victim with HIV. Nonetheless, there is evidence from the victims’ accounts confirming the deliberate nature of these acts.

In her 2004 book, The Right to Survive: Sexual Violence, Women and HIV/AIDS, Françoise Nduwimana reported the testimony of one of the many rape victims during the genocide:

“For 60 days, my body was used as a thoroughfare for all the hoodlums, militia men and soldiers in the district.… Those men completely destroyed me; they caused me so much pain. They raped me in front of my six children.… Three years ago, I discovered I had HIV/AIDS. There is no doubt in my mind that I was infected during these rapes.””

People may blanch at the term ‘pro-choice’ but for me, being pro-choice isn’t just about abortion. Pro-choice means that EVERYONE has the right to choose. They have the right to choose to protect themselves against disease and poverty just as they also have a right to follow religious doctrine if they choose to. Preaching anti-contraception propaganda to vulnerable masses is dangerous.

Marie Stopes is doing fantastic work in Africa and other Third World countries to try to eliminate HIV and AIDS by providing contraception and family planning advice, as well as access to safe abortions and sexual health treatment. If you’d like to help them by donating to their cause, or simply educating yourself about the work that they do, you can GO HERE.

Do me a favour. Take another look at that map. Really think about the implications. Then think about the fact that 12 years ago, some Muslim extremists flew a plane into some buildings. 2996 people were killed that day and the USA and UK went to war with Iraq, leading to around 655,000 excess deaths, 601,027 of which were violent, according to The Lancet.

Through reading various publications, I found the following facts: Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 68% of all people living with HIV, however is only home to 12% of the world’s population. The vast majority of people in the region acquire the viurus during unprotected heterosexual intercourse or through breastfeeding as newborn babies. Of the estimated 22.9 million people living with AIDS in the region, 59% are women. Between 1999 and 2000, more people died of AIDS-related diseases in Africa than all the worlds wars combined. In 2010 alone, HIV/AIDS related diseases killed 1.2 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. Almost 90% of the 16.6 million children orphaned by AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 2 million adolescents aged 10-19 are living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of them don’t even know they’re infected.

Why aren’t we going to war over that?

SOURCES

http://www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/assets/files/Materials%20-%20General/SLF_HIV-AIDS_factsheet.pdf

http://unu.edu/publications/articles/rape-and-hiv-as-weapons-of-war.html

http://www.one.org/c/us/issuebrief/760/

http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/epidemiology/2012/gr2012/2012_FS_regional_ssa_en.pdf

http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm

http://www.globalissues.org/article/90/aids-in-africa

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Cinco de Mayo with a Healthy Twist!

By Mum's the Word on May 8, 2013 in Food, Review

turkey fajitas

Last week, I got an email from the delightful ladies at BritMums, who had partnered up with Discovery Foods to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, asking if we’d like to try some of their range. For those who aren’t familiar, Cinco de Mayo literally means ’5th of May’ and is, according to Wikipedia (oh, font of all knowledge…) “ a way to commemorate the cause of freedom and democracy during the first years of the American Civil War, and today the date is observed in the United States as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride”

We’re huge fans of Mexican food in the Mum’s the Word household and we make fajitas quite regularly, but we’re on a health kick lately so I thought we’d try them with turkey. Lean turkey can contain less than 3% fat, which makes it healthier than chicken. We also added a couple of handfuls of chopped mushrooms which gives extra nutrition and bulks the mixture out, which means you effectively need less meat. We used a yellow and an orange pepper as they’re our favorites and they add an element of sweetness to the flavour combination.

Accompanying our fajitas was Discovery’s Soured Cream topping which really helped to cool things down for Sausage, who’s pretty good but not able to take a whole lotta heat, and some shredded lettuce. The perfect fajita!

The Discovery Fajita seasoning gave a lovely smokey flavour with a hint of heat and actually worked really well with turkey. We’re thrilled with the result of our experiment and happy to know that we can continue to enjoy a favourite meal but with a healthy twist. We’ve also been sent the Cajun Season and Sauce to try and I’m really looking forward to giving this a go. We may even use turkey again, so that we can enjoy it without diet guilt!