sweet potato soup for the soul

What a muckety few days. I know this is a pointlessly negative attitude, but I can’t help but feel this weather is a punishment for the two days of blue skies we got. Or at least meant to wipe them from our memories.

To bring some cheer and cosy to the house I made Sweet Potato Soup, and it was so tasty I thought I’s share. I don’t have a recipe, but here’s what I did:
Chop one large onion, fry (saute even) til soft in a good bit of olive oil
Add a rounded teaspoon or more of Cinnamon
Dice about two large-ish sweet potatoes (I used three thin ones this time – maybe two and a half cups? Doesn’t really matter.
Add the sp’s and stir, as the cinnamon sticks (har, geddit?) Let them cook for a bit.
Add enough water to more than cover them.
Add some stock – I use Marigold Reduced Salt Bouillon Powder.
A wee bit of pepper.
Bring to the boil, then simmer for about 15 mins.
While the soup is cooking or even sooner, open up a red pepper and put it under a medium grill til it blackens.
Take it out and put it in a plastic bag or wrap in clingfilm for 5 mins, then peel off the skin.
Pop it in the soup about 5 mins before it’s ready.
When the time is up, blend the lot together. Mine was a bit runny, so I put in two tsps of cornstarch. You mix a bit of the soup with the powder, then add the lot back in and mix.

It's so good with fresh buttered bread!

Olivia wouldn't consider trying it, but Bodhi scoffed it and wiped it all over himself in equal measure.

I should have taken a photo – but it’s all gone!

Milk Moon

I got invited to something lovely today. Milkmoon, the blog of the mum of someone in Olivia's class. And it's full of gorgeous photos and creations and positive sentiments about home and art, nature, creating and baking, and it all seems exactly right to me.

So now I'm wondering, should I blog a little more like Ciara, and focus on the things that give me joy, and not share with you that Bodhi headbutted me in the shoulder before he went to sleep tonight, bless him, and I think he's bruised the bone... mf-ow!

He was cute apart from the gleeful violence, mind.

Rainy windy pissy morning

Home, Olivia finally at school, all fusses over, Bodhi ensconsed at his granny's, with rice crispies.

Wet trousers off, comfy trousers on, central heating, porridge, the rare luxury of an empty house and being able to go to the toilet without interruption.

I'm going to work in bed.

Ahhhh.

...so...

handbags

When I was a scruffy little goth type teen I cared not jot for handbags. I scoffed at them, them and high heely lady type shoes.

Then I hit my mid twenties, maybe, and both started drawing me strangely. Til I would stand at shop windows, staring, staring.

Strange, isn't it?

The lure of the external womb. But pretty, like, with colours and pockets, and ideally, if you're me, little dogs hanging off them, not mucous and blood and such.

The best thing about a new bag is taking all your things out of it, and putting them into the new one. A pure and simple joy.

This post was inspired by Darren's confusion on spotting a man on the Dart with a sparkly pink handbag, full of his own stuff, no girlfriend in sight.

I want this man to just like his pink handbag, and for his fellow passengers to be unphased, unnoticing, toting their own. The era of the manbag should really have fully dawned by now. Surely it's time?

Perhaps we could start off small, with a testicular coin purse, and work up from there.

pre-action venting

One of the not-on-the-lease neighbours of mine has a boxer. A big skinny one. Who is nervous, but seemingly friendly with kids. And smaller dogs, though I haven't experimented if that includes mine yet.

The problem is, that said neighbour lets her out to do Ruby-poobies all over the lane. He does clear them up, but only after a while, after they've been mashed into the ground by the car, or stepped in. She (the dog) also spends a lot of time in the other neighbor's garden, filling it with dino-sized, incredibly smelly crap (what is he feeding her?).

This afternoon, he'd cleaned up the stuff in the middle of the lane, but managed to miss the one at the corner of my gate post, the fresh, semi liquid, stinking one she must have done while he was shovelling the others.

So I was faced with a dilemma. Park short of the house? Drive over it? I drove over it, and it splattered behind the car, so I had to skirt it while carrying Bhodi, retching the while, as the smell filled the car and surrounding area. Bodhi's out there in the car now, happily playing driving, unbothered by the stench. But I have to have the door open to keep an ear out for him, and the smell is evident. Held siege by poo.

I HATE dog shit, it makes me vomit at the best of times. Heave heave heave. This stuff is super-odiferous.

What to do? He has a concrete back garden area he could let her out to shit in before letting her out the front. Is it acceptable to leave your dog out and about while you're not there anyway? She's a big dog, between that and the shit I don't really feel like letting Olivia out there anymore.

Do I ask him to keep the shit out the back? My other neighbour had just cleared two shovel loads from his garden, was considering ringing the owners. But it's nicer to go to the source, right?

I don't know. My instinct is to send Axel over for a manly chat. Though I don't know how soon that would actually come about, he's no fan of confrontation. Or, eh, doing stuff.

Speaking of which, I need to put on a wash. We'll be pantsless otherwise in the morning.

dream

Axel came in from an utterly fabulous acoustic gig last night - one that I am now sorry I didn't publicise - at some time after three. I was up as I'd fallen asleep with Bodhi and woken up again and I wanted the post mortem.

He told me on the way home he'd been stopped on the way into Bray by two garda cars and a special branch car, asked where he'd come from and they looked into the back to check there was no-one else in the back. The special branch both had sub machine guns. I hate to think who they were looking for, gave me the willies...

Anyway, to the point: this reminded him he'd had a dream the night before, that he and his brother were driving around in his car, with a 19 year old girl in the back. In a black bin bag.

He didn't know why, and in fact they wanted to let her out. He stopped, and his brother got out of the car, said 'Well, I'll let you deal with this,' and closed the door. So he sat there, planning her release, and deciding he'd go buy duct tape and tape off the reg and car insignia, and let her out somewhere quiet and whizz away.

He said he had no idea what it's about.

But I think I know.

It's me. I'm the girl in the boot.

I was 19 when things stopped being so good. And now he's got me silenced and closed off and a bit trapped, and he wants to get rid of me but he doesn't know how to get out of it or make it better. So he's just driving round in a holding pattern, not knowing what to do or how he got here.

It sounds a little OTT, I know, but the minute he said it, it made perfect sense.

floatyfloaty

This picture isn't quite right, but it turns out that pictures of sleeping elephants and dead elephants are pretty indistinguishable. And this encapsulates sleeping elephants and floating at the same time.

When my daughter was in the throes of not sleeping, I went and did a flotation session in one of those sensory deprivation tanks. Apparently the relaxed state you go into is equal to hours of deep sleep. I think I sent Axel first, and he loved it. As is his wont, he switched off straight away, and had a blissful hour to himself.

You go in to a little room, shower, cover any raw bits of yourself with the pot of vaseline provided (actually, I hope it was something more hygienic than a pot) and climb into a plastic pod, and bravely shut the door after you. You lie back in salinated warm water and drift around, drift away. It's meant to be good for everything from back pain to weightloss. When your hour is coming to an end, soothing music starts playing.

My inlaws gave me a generous present of a three session voucher after I did my one, and sadly by the time I'd got round to going, the company had sold out to another, which I could never track down. I feel so guilty about wasting their voucher, and sorry to have missed the opportunity.

Mostly because (well, ok, I'm a bit strung out these days for a start), unlike the uber relaxed husband (who falls asleep in seconds), I tend to be too in my head. As you might imagine.

I liked the experience fine, but I spent a lot of time actively thinking about stuff. Like the water lever rising and the door being stuck (of course), or there being someone in the room outside. Or the fact that I wasn't relaxing fast enough, how much time was left, you know the way. Not that I was in there biting my nails, more just a lack of letting go. Worrying about the fact that I'm not relaxing.

I do it when I'm having sex too...

So I would have liked a bit more practice. Does anyone know where the business that used to be in the Beacon Court sold to?

But the real point is something I think is great. I did a brief bit of TM once, and the Maharishi's suggestion about coming across stressful or distressing thoughts as you meditate is a lovely one. He compares the experience to walking through a herd of sleeping elephants. You don't run up and poke them with a stick and wake them up. You see them there and you walk around them carefully and move on out of the herd into a clearer space. Gently.

I love that analogy.

Tomorrow, some more about elephants, I hope.

things I think about

In no particular order...

Winning the lottery

Babies - mine, other people's, the fantasy third baby...

Cupcake flavours and business

Having to get myself and my children out of a submerged car

The deaths of those close to me and What It Would Be Like

My dream home

Things I need to do in the house

Work work work

My depressing relationship

My mother's death. Sometimes

War

Friends I've lost touch with

Oh, I forgot one - what to make for f-ing dinner!

Feeling the sun on my face

Global warming

Sex

Writing

Sleep

Entertaining

Holidays

Losing weight and all my bad habits

My murky past.

NOM-IN-A-TEEED!

I haven't had time to look properly, but someone nominated me for personal blog. I am extremely touched, as I was just sort of thinking this was the kind of blog you'd read but not nominate, if you know what I mean.

Oh dear, I'd better tidy up in here. Do the hoovering. Bake some bread and brew some coffee, and the like. New drapes!

Er, or maybe not. If there's a judge looking though, welcome. No need to wipe your feet.

beautiful

I could look at this little girl all day.

Best wishes,Fustar and and family.

Fisty heroes

I just got reminded poignantly of my younger brothers' obsessive childhood love of He-Man. He Man was great. Giant muscles, tiny loin covering and strap ensemble. Strange bob. Astride a tiger with a Clark Kent cover persona. Deadly. And equal opportunities heroism - She Ra!

But best of all, who can forget - Fisto! I'm a bit sad, I remembered him as Fistor, but maybe that was Skunkor I was thinking of.

So if you're ever in the mood for a bit of fisting fun, check out the giant silver glove on this guy.

light a candle

Think of it.

A flare in the darkness. A flint-flicker of sparking light. A raspy flick that makes the walls glow red for a second. Beat. Beat. Flicker.

And then sparkle. The stop motion light show of a sparkler. Tiny. Deep down, can you a see it? Hold the sparkle, watch it flare. Watch the room light up.

We know how desperate Xbox is, on the 23rd try. Desperate enough to ask for a little psychic backup. Close your eyes. See the path. See the life starting. Flicker, spark.

The silent fizz of a new life coming into being. Tonight.

Lady Bloggers' Tea Party

Hurrah! Plans are a foot.

Sabrina has some fine ones, though she's neglected to mention they involve my cupcakes. Sprinkles for all!

Sign up here, and make it fab.

an article

I just read this. I like it. An article, originally from Lustbites, by Kristina Lloyd, on the use of the word cunt in erotica and daily life. I think I'm with Kristina, who is a writer and general cool girl.

A lot of people don't seem to want to recognise the mysogyny behind the word that makes it so loaded. But I don't ever want to be slayed by the word were it to be used against me, nor do I want to be paralysed by disgust and fear in its presence - I think I agree with KL - I'm for demistification rather than remistification. Especially in this world of rude blogging boys.

Filthy butt fun?

Not as naughty as the bad girls with cupcakes, my offering for Maxi's sex toy comp is a bit of fun, I think, and can be found here. Give it a vote if you like it, and drop a comment to let me know if you want it ruder next month...

waiting room syndrome

Lately I've been feeling a bizarre, septagenarian urge to tell you all about my various physical ailments. I have no idea why. I resisted discussing the mad-attack-of-diarrhoea-cramps-combined-with-misplaced-mooncup from the other day, despite their labour like intensity!

But during my dentist visit yesterday, a chip of enamel flew off the tooth he was grinding down and flipped into my eye. Sharp! Pointy! Ow! I thought I'd got it out at the time (thinking ugh!ugh!toothinmyeye!) but later that evening I had a sudden pointy pain again,and for a second thought I could feel the bump under my eyelid.

I thought it had gone again, despite not being able to find it - you know when a scratch feels the same as what did it - but last night before I went to sleep, the agonising scratching started again. After variously fiddling around, I noticed it had slid out onto my lower eyelid. A little pointy piece of my tooth. In my eye. All day.

BLEH!

three fillings

It seems I have a strange condition, whereby anaesthetic refuses to work on me fully. Thankfully Dr Drill is a soft spoken, gentle-dentist, who obligedme with twoextra injections, the second of which may have penetrated my skull. Finally, a result. Iwouldn't mind thesensation if I was guarantedd it would stay at that level. But my fear of the drill suddenly bashing through the tooth into nerve is too strong to find out.

I don't know why, it's been happening some years now - a friend told me women respond differently to drugs after childbirth. I must rush out and see if my heroin tolerance has changed too...

So now I'm gently sucking a white roll to a pulp so I don't have to chew it, and waiting for the sensation, to return, bringing bruised gum pain in its wake.

My teeth aren't meant to be still decaying in my thirties! It's a gyp.

UPDATE: the anaesthetic's wearing off. Motherfucking ow!

FURTHER UPDATE: When the anaesthetic wore of, it felt like my teeth were shoving together as hard as possible, and down into my gum, which was throbbing and sore. Two arnica 30s later, the pain was nothing more than a slight feeling of pressure, and today it's fine, despite the dentist telling me expect it to hurt for 2-3 days. This placebo homoeopathy thing I've got going on here is great! I'm magic, me!

devilgirl

'Guess where I have to go tomorrow', I said to Olivia in the car.

'The Dentist!' we said in unison. A pause.

'Is it Doctor DRILL?' she asked, with unbridled glee, then laughed evilly at my chagrin.

I refrained from telling her she's gonna know all about Dr Drill soon enough, poor kid. She should yuk it up while she can.

In further dentist related news, a mother in Olivia's school today was chatting to me with a scarf over her face as she was bleeding after an extraction. It turns out the nice lady dentist I brought Olivia to fired her as a client, as she missed two appointments. Strict!

'fantasia links

The wind has made Holemaster wax poetic.

And, if you're in the mood for something pornalicious, I came across (heh heh) this photo while Google Image searching 'cupcake tattoos'. Not safe for work or those who do not enjoy things pornagraphic. I sent it to Maxi, as one should, but then I reconsidered and decided to share :) He may be a bad influence on me.

OH MY GOD I want them all!!

Badges!

Something for everyone. If not several somethings.

atinypost

The other day the space key on the lap top stuck, and I took it off to clean it out. There was an astounding mount of crap under it, including many kinds of hair...

If only I had a soft brush, I thought. Aha! The little wooden baby brush I have because my mother bought it for me, once, years before I had children. 'What's this for?' I asked.

'What do you think? Brushing the soft liddal head of a sweet liddal baby!' she gooed uncharacteristically. I was somewhat flabberghasted at the time, but I'm glad she got it - I'm so sorry she missed the chance to shop for my babies and lavish gifts on them!

Anyway, I vigorously brushed all the gunk off the space bar, only to realise I'd brushed out two of the little rubber doodits too. So now the bar doesn't bounce anymore and it feels extremely weird and dead, even though it works ok, mostly. But it's hard to say if it has or not. It's a really odd feeling, as if a part of me is weirdly paralysed.

heat

So the boiler was off over Christmas. It could have been worse, as there's a gas stove in the sitting room. But leaving that room was well chilly - Bodhi's just had his first bath in weeks. And the sick kids, etc...

It made me think though, about how dependent we are on central heat and hot water and light etc. The people who sold this house unfortunately took out the fire place and replaced it with the gas stove, which tends to get too hot and makes the tiny room airless and gobbles money, as we have (sigh) bottled gas. I think they did it to sell the house. I'd love to put it back in. Partly because I like a fire, party because I feel that if the fuel ever runs out, at least we can burn the furniture.

Remember life before conveniences? I read a book as a kid, I think by Robert Westall, about a brother and sister in some sort of post apocalyptic Britain which had gone Luddite and rejected technology and returned to the soil. There's a line in it about the girl remembering being able to get dressed outside the covers in winter, and warm Christmas mornings. They go to London, which is deserted, and rediscover a train. But the concept stuck with me. We lived without central heating in both the houses I grew up in, for a long time. The only way the upstairs was heated was by bringing a hot water bottle up to warm the bed. We had an open fire, and a storage heater in the hall, and an Aga. It was a big old, cold house, you could see your breath in the air in the bedrooms. I'd sit reading by the storage heater in winter, shifting about as it got to burny on one patch, sitting on it, then leaning against it, it was nice, though full of asbestos, apparently. Still, it was never the same when my parents got an upright stove afterwards.

I would like to have a heating system that won't fail and plunge us into crisis. I wish they'd get it together and build something that works, properly, with a clean, sustainable fuel source. I read about one person who built a wooden house and has a stove that puts 20% out of it and the rest into the underfloor heat system. That sounds more like it. But also to be a bit more sensible. I like a hot water bottle at night, but I rarely need one. Axel has a tendency to go round in a t shirt in the mid winter. My daughter won't wear anything on her feet or more than a long sleeved top. As Lottie said, there's a lot to be said for putting on a jumper rather than turning up the thermostat. But it's hard when your daughter has nudist tendencies.

Sorry, this is boring! But it's been playing on my mind for a while, and I'm going to be lazy and leave it at this. I have filth to write for Maxi, you know.

stupidity tax and SAD

So we've been for out paediatric dental assessment. He kindly didn't castigate me as the facts spoke for themselves - three cavities and cleaning and capping the absessed tooth, plus the assessment and four xrays will total €1,025.

The morning we went, I was sitting at the table finishing off corrections, I'd been up til 4 am getting the others done the night before so after four broken hours of sleep I was feeling a bit dazed. I looked out into the garden and noticed the sun shining goldenly, and my heart leapt. Sun! Light! It occurred to me that a sun holiday might be just what we need, a dose of vitamins and a rest. In my fragile state, the idea of just sitting in warm sunlight brought tears to my eyes I wanted it so much. Sadly the dental bill is a yank back to reality though.

I went and stood at the door, teeth chattering in the icy sunshine, looking at the frozen socks littering the deck and Axel smoking and shivering. No, it just wasn't the same!

nightmare

Test 300 or so, 300 or so essays on a book set in post Holocaust Jerusalem, about a people shadowed by atrocity and suddenly, the idea of Sophie's choice leaps into my head (thanks, Xbox) in technicolour empathy and the breath whooshes out of me in the full horror of it. There's an iron weight on my chest. That that must surely have been someone's true story, what would you do, what would you do? Go too, with both? Better to die all together than forsake one, knowing what you were sending them to? Or worse to condemn them both, and yourself. But how could you live?

Perhaps I should be taking a pill for this, this condition of over feeling.

bad bad bad

Olivia had toothache last night, and once before a week or so ago.


I hadn't got round to bringing her for her first check up yet - she's 5 and a half...


She has an absessed tooth, and another small cavity needing filling.


My options are extraction under general anaesthetic in James' or IF I can get a place with the paediatric dentist quickly enough, then she can get a cap on it - it's going to cst quite a lot.



The worst thing about this is, my own part in it. I kept her sugar free til she was nearly two, but then as soon as I said she could have a bit, the flood gates opened. Her grandmother plies her with biscuits, cake and ice cream at every opportunity. Jellies and mints and all sorts of things I would never have let her have. And now that Bodhi is there too, he gets it all. 'Oh is he not allowed have that?' as she hands it to him.

Her father buys her packets of sweets at the shop, sweet drinks, jelly beans and bars after the pool.


And I'm the worst, because I've let her have all sorts this year, especially, even though I was well aware that this was what this would lead to. The other two seem oblivious.


Yesterday I found myself in the middle of the realisation that if I'd really understood the weight of the responsiblity of parenthood, I wouldn't have done it.


Axel earns the money to pay the mortgage at the moment, but the decisions and the carrying out of anything to do with health and behavior and emotion seem to lie on me. And the blame for things not working out so well.


Getting it wrong, trying to make right decisions, being the one who is responsible for their health and adjustment, when they won't eat anything, won't wear warm clothes, want nothing but sweets, have constant stomach pains, scream all the time, watch television all the time... I don't know Before I had children I think I had a vision of myself dealing with all that better, of knowing what to do, of finding good ways to deal with it, of managing it all. But the reality isn't so like that, it's just hard, and scary, and guilt ridden. Sure there's good bits too. I was shocked at my own little thought, I've never had it before. But this week, yes, if I could do it all again, I don't think I would. Not that there's any purpose to that thought. I just surprised me.

And I can't really put into words how I feel about the absess. It's pretty much a manifestation of lack of care, isn't it?