Reasons to be cheerful

My ultimate reason to be cheerful this week, comes from starting up my new business venture Skittlebugs.

It is still very very new but I have high hopes and heaps of ideas, so much so that I couldn't get to sleep until 4:30am this morning. I really need to put a pad of paper and a pen on my bedside table to record any ideas that spring to mind while I'm settling down to go to sleep.

My main aim is to create hand-made items for the home or as gifts, if you would like to pop along to Skittlebugs and let me know what you think, but again please realise that it's a very new venture and I'm still creating items.

My other reason to be cheerful is that I'm finally getting on top of my anxiety, although I still get bouts of it, I am putting actions into place to bring myself out of it, it's bloody hard work and at times I just want to curl up in my bed and stay there all day, but I have life whereas too many people are being denied this wonderful thing.

Woodlice as pets??

Damian came into the living room after finding a Woodlouse in the hallway, he seemed quite taken with this little creature, so I wondered whether they were suitable to keep as pets? Armed with my 'best friend' Google, we researched the Woodlouse and found the following:

Woodlice are fairly easy to keep as pets at home or in the classroom. Plastic containers make the easiest housing. And all that is needed to keep them happy is a layer of soil, a piece or two of bark, and perhaps a stone and some dead leaves.

A small piece of carrot or other vegetable can be added once a week. Spray with water occasionally to keep conditions humid. It is important not to make conditions too wet or too dry. One of the ways to do this is to spray just the one part of the box. In fact if you have a large box and different species of woodlice this can be used to study the differences in species preferences.

We also found out that they eat their own faeces, which while a bit gross, makes them the perfect pet in my eyes. So with the above in mind, we set out to find bark, stones and dead leaves in our garden and along with an old ice-cream tub, some moist soil and a sprig of old lettuce, Woody the Woodlouse now has a lovely new home.

We were quite pleased with our little project, until Erin got a tad jealous that Damian had a pet and she didn't. I suggested we find her a woodlouse to keep but she said she would much prefer a small horse that she can carry around in a bag. I thought she meant a toy horse but she was quite adament that she wanted a real small horse. Maybe another day Erin!!!

My weekly Meal Plan

For some reason or another, we didn't stick rigidly to last weeks meal plan, so we have a lot of meals left over which we will have this week, taking that into effect, I did not have to buy an awful lots this week.

This week's meal plan consists of:

Breakfast:
Cereal and toast with milk to drink

Lunches:
Scrambled egg and spaghetti hoops
Bacon in rolls (I use the part baked rolls)
Left over curry
Left over chicken pasta bake
Sandwiches
Mini sausage rolls
Pizza muffins

Dinners:

Fish cakes, potatoes and veg
Sausage and chips
Chicken Fajitas
Chorizo fried rice
Chicken Pasta bake
Chicken curry with rice and poppadoms
Spicy Pepper pasta bake

Snacks:

Apples
Carrots
Cucumber
Crisps
Fromage frais
Biscuits

I spent a grand total of £19.33 this week but still could have spent less, I treated myself to chocolate hobnobs and I forgot to buy milk so had to buy it from our corner shop. If I had bought the milk from Iceland and not bought the hobnobs I could have saved £2.64, which would have made the total spend at £16.69, but there's nothing I can do about that now and treats now and again are a good thing.....or at least, that's how I'm justifying it.

I also received a Price Comparison voucher for £1.20 off my next shop, Every Penny Counts right!!

From what I already had in, I only had to buy:

Bacon
Crisps
Muffins
Part baked rolls
Poppadoms
Bread
Rice
Fish cakes
Chicken Nuggets
Biscuits
Apples
Fromage Frais
Chips
Ice cream
Cucumber
Carrots
Salsa
Milk

I will be the first to admit that our meals aren't always the healthiest and we do eat a lot of the same food, but it suits us and we're happy with it.

Linking up with 'athomewithmrsm'

Origami Bookmarks

As I've said before, I'm an avid reader and I'm trying to instill this into my children, it's not working too well with Damian as he's more of a visual person rather than imaginative, but he still reads the odd book now and again,  Erin loves to read as much as I do.

I was looking through my beloved Pinterest again and stumbled across these wonderful Origami Bookmarks.

The author's creations are so much better than anything I could do and I didn't want to steal her wonderful ideas, so myself and the kids made our own designs.

If you feel like giving it a go, the author of the original blog gives excellent step by step instructions on how to fold the paper and believe me, once you've done it once or twice, it will stick forever.

Erin's learning today

Erin really enjoys her Rainbow Fish book.

I thought of incorporating some activities for her to do which relate to the story, but without a printer I had to improvise and this was what I came up with.

I hand-drew this picture of Rainbow fish for her to colour in (I'm so proud of this, I'm not very good at drawing at all, but I think it's really good)

Then I created a wordsearch with key words to find.

Erin was very impressed with my efforts and quickly got to work.

She used her book for inspiration when colouring in.

She really enjoyed her wordsearch but made 2 mistakes.

All in all, it was a success, but I'll be glad when I can buy a printer on Wednesday.

I've written out my lesson plan for the kids to learn tomorrow and I've already prepared them for what will happen. Since they've been out of school, I've just let them do whatever they wanted but made sure they completed some Maths and carried on with reading, but as from tomorrow, I will be introducing Science, Art, Languages and History but I'll blog more on what we cover tomorrow, along with work the kids have completed.

Reasons to be Cheerful

My ultimate reasons to be cheerful have names....they are called Damian and Erin, they bring their own stresses but at the end of the day, they are my reason for smiling, my reason for getting out of bed in the morning, everything I do is for them and I'm so proud to be their mum and that I've been given this almighty job of guiding them through childhood so they can fly the nest as well adjusted adults. My last reason for being cheerful is knowing I am in control of my own life, anything is possible and the world is my playground.

Erin hearts painting

She is definitely my daughter, I remember when I was her age I loved to paint, so everytime she asks to paint, I don't think of all the mess, I think of how much I loved it and how much she enjoys it.

Erin also learnt about mixing colours to create new colours.

Red + White = Pink
Black + White = Grey
Blue + Yellow = Green
Red + Yellow = Orange
Red + Blue = Purple

She just paints whatever it is thats on her mind, which normally involves people or flowers and I'm happy for her to do this, even if it gets quite repetitive. I want her creativity to come from within.

This is todays creation and the next photo shows one of my living room walls