Normal play resumes

My boys are back home and the balance is back to normal. I love having a break from them but I love it even more when they come home and populate the house with their toys and dirty clothes and funny sayings (Little Pickle's one tonight was "Where's a cheese gone?" when I stirred some into his pasta bolognese at teatime). They are delightful and a pleasure to be with and they make this house sparkle with their presence.

Coupley stuff

A rare night without the boys enabled me to go for a run straight after work, get a delicious bolognaise cooked for me by Mr Gherkin, go to the cinema (like we used to do regularly in the pre-kids days but NEVER get to do now) to watch a crappy but fluffy rom-com/action movie The Bounty Hunter, blog bit and still be in bed for 10.30.

Bonus!

Growing a colony

I am expanding the gherkin family and getting a wormery! I am so excited! I bought the hardware yesterday and have to send off for the worms in the post tomorrow and they will arrive all wriggly in a packet - I can't wait for it to come! I have had a compost bin before but never in this house as we have not had the room for it. Now we have opened up a channel down the side of the house and I planned to get a compost bin for the corner there. I went to a bin sale yesterday in Ikea and was going to spend £20 on a compost bin but they had bins for £5 and wormeries for £20 so I pushed the boat out and bought an extension to the gherkin family too! I set the wormery up with the boys today and explained how they work and Cornichon seemed fascinated with worm poo!

Can't wait until the little darlings arrive!

Blogger's Block

I have had a bit of blogger's block for the last couple of days, caused mainly by logging on to t'internet, surfing, reading other amazing blogs and coming to an uninspired dead end. I have decided to post before surfing the night away. I heard a quotation on TV the other day

Better to write for yourself with no audience than to write for the audience with no self.

I am sure I got the words wrong but the sentiment is a good one to remember.

New little obession

I don't know why I like it, but I am hooked on the TV programme Glee!

Have you seen it?

It is a drama based in an American High School about a singing club, full of stereotypes but all of whom love a bit of the big show-stopping singing number. I love it! I am not a fan of the current talent show-style TV programmes like Pop Idol and X-Factor but I do like the early rounds when the contestants flog themselves for the over-hyped "judges". Mr Gherkin does not share my love for musical TV so I am confined to watching such programmes late at night with a pile of ironing after he has gone to bed.

I don't care if I have a dirty secret obsession that I hide from my husband. Just don't tell anybody!

Cocktail Party

My husband and I have been invited to a "Cocktail Party" tomorrow night. I have only been to a couple in my 34 years but not for a long time and I am rather excited about this one! It is a 40th birthday house party for one of Mr Gherkin's old friends from his hometown who he has seen once in 16 years and has maintained contact with through Facebook. It just so happens that his friend is best friends with a girl in my office - it could be a fab night! I have not had a grown up party in so long, I went out and bought some false nails and lashes! Woo hoo! This is quite possibly the girliest thing I have done in years! I am wearing a dress and everything! Goodness knows how tomorrow is going to go though - the in-laws are coming down in the morning to look after the boys, Mr G and I are going out to watch the rugby in a local pub/RFC depending on weather, coming home after the match and then going to the party in town for 8pm soberish. I don't want to make a twat of myself to the hostess and potential new circle of friends! Update tomorrow of sober, Sunday if not so.

Wordless Wednesday

Not-so-Happy Mother's Day

Hmmmm, well yesterday was a bit of a disaster. I slept in Little Pickle's room as Mr Gherkin was throwing up all of Saturday night, then took Cornichon to a birthday party in soft play (fine as BPs go but not the kind of place you want to spend Mother's Day) then I came home, had a sandwich and spent the afternoon throwing it up! Mmmmmmm.

Illness - be gone from this house!

I think we are OK now - we all had a good night's sleep and today was positively awesome, but I how we all all well now! Mr G had a good day in work (unusual), I did some errands this morning whilst out walking with Little Pickle then bumped into a mummy friend and had a cuppa before picking Cornichon up. We did another errand after lunch and then went down the local playing field with 2 footballs and took a load of photos of the blue blue sky. Let's see how they come out tomorrow. Lp is awake. boo.

Photo Meme

I have been tagged (oooh my first time!) by Julie B at TheSardineTin (a fellow BMB) who is continuing a photo meme (had to google that!).

This is what you have to do

- Open the first (oldest) photo folder in your computer library

- Scroll to the 10th photo

- Post the photo and the story behind it

- Tag 5 or more people to continue the thread

Here is my offering

This is a picture of some of the renovation work we did on our last house in December 2001 (was it really that long ago?). This is was our lounge, known as the Middle Room and we had the walls replastered, cut a fireplace into the blocked up one, put up new plate rails, took out the louvre doors and re-did the shelves, had new carpet and sofas, painted and made it look like this eventually.

The renovations time was a tough time for us as we lived in 1 bedroom which had ALL of our stuff in it and had to cook, eat, dress, chill and sleep in it for about 3 weeks which was NO fun and ruined takeaways for us for a long time. We also had our loft converted and kitchen ripped out and fitted. The house was great once it was all done and we loved that house. It was only the imminent arrival of Cornichon that forced us to move. Happy daze.

Anyway I am tagging

Diary of a Mad Mammy

That Crafty Fish

redwitch

Ordinary Days

Have a look at this here.

It is sweet and helped me to remember today's ordinaryness as special.

Earning my parenting badge

I love being a Mummy and enjoy every day of it and think it is the best job in the world and my two are a breeze to be fair, however last night was one of those nights when Mr Gherkin and I really earned our parenting stripes!

I was messing about on the laptop late last night trying to decide what time is the VERY LATEST I should stop messing and go to bed when at 1130 Little Pickle cried out and I went up to him. He had a cuddle and went back in the cot but would not settle so I picked him up and he vomited all over me. Poor little sweetie! Tea did not look so good second time around! I shouted for Mr G to help whilst I cleaned myself up and congratulated myself on containing all the fall-out and not getting any on the carpet and only minimal washing! I did not put the washing machine on as I did not think I had seen the last of vomiticious clothing for the night. How right I was! I got back to Mr G and Little P snoozing and clean, only for Little P to then puke all over Mr G. Mr G does not have the strongest stomach but managed well and had a shower whilst I looked after poor Little P and then Cornichon woke up and puked all over Mr G fresh from the shower, then puked over me and the landing wall and the bath.

It is safe to say that between us, Mr G and I were up for most of the night attending to poor little vomiting gherkins, cleaning afore-said vomit, showering, changing pyjamas, bedding, washing afore-said, splattered things, snoozing next-to clean sleeping gherkins, waiting for the next session.

I shall expect a badge in the post tomorrow.

That said, the two little gherkins are asleep and almost asleep and free of the vomit for now and have brightened considerably after a quiet day in PJs watching TV. I hope we can have a normal night tonight!

Who are you? (woo-hoo woo-hoo)

I thought it was time to put a little post about how I came up with my blog name. It is quite simple really. I love gherkins! I have loved pickled things all my life - my mum tells the story of how I once ate half a jar of pickled onions while she pushed me in a trolley around Tesco when I was about 1. Give me anything pickled and I am happy - onions, cabbage, chillies, eggs, cucumber, mussels, ginger, herring, whatever. Give me a jar of anything in vinegar and I am happy. Except for walnuts, but I am working on them!

Anyway I have a thing about gherkins and can eat a jar whilst watching TV or working, like others might eat their way though a packet of crisps. I love how you can get tiny sharp little French cornichons and big soft sweet American dill pickles and everything else in between. Mum made some home-made ones once and they rocked and took the roof off my mouth. I found an amazing jar of firm, chewy, salty ones in my in-laws' house about 10 years ago and have never found the same type since. Every year my best mate buys me a jar of them for Christmas and they never make it to Boxing Day.

OK so I like my gherkins and many people really dislike them - why on earth would anyone take one out of a burger? Why? They make the burger! Whilst I was pregnant with my first I would snack on gherkins in work and it really brought the lovers and the haters out of the woodwork. I'd get the lovers sidling up to me to confess their guilty gherkin passion, and then the haters would be bemoaning the foul stench and questioning my hormonal balancing, not knowing it was not just a pregnancy thing!

So gherkins are a dirty little passion for me so I chose the gherkin as my little symbol and as this blog is about my little life in my family in our house, where do gherkins live? In The Gherkin Jar of course! So I am Gherkin (aka Jen), I am married to Mr Gherkin (aka Jon) and we have 2 beautiful little gherkins, Cornichon (aka Dylan) is nearly 4 and Little Pickle (aka Rhys) is nearly 2. More on the contents of The Gherkin Jar on a later post.

So there are my reasons for being a Gherkin. Why do you call yourself what you call yourself?

Too much information

I love the internet. It is pretty good. I have been sat at my computer now for about and hour and a half, intending to write this blog entry but managing to just have a look at this site and mooching about this one and had the obligatory squiz at Facebook and then a trawl around my blogger reading list which is so full of inspiration I often wonder why I bother to look at such beautiful crafty things from such amazing people and don't just get my box of bits out and create something, take a pic of it then sling it on my blog and amaze other people at how clever I am.

Or I could just go to bed. Before my brain melts through my tearducts. Bugger it.

Update

Auntie M has opened her eyes, knows her date of birth and has made her son go home to pick up her teeth as she did not want to be seen without them. She sounds good! The in-laws will be coming down tomorrow to look after the boys as usual but we will be on amber alert in case they have to drop everything and go back to the hospital. I really feel for my mother-in-law. Auntie M is only 5 years older than her and they are very close. I just hope the next few days are good and that she can get through this. Much love.

Moderation

"Everything in moderation" is a good theory to live by. Mr Gherkin's favourite Auntie had a massive heart attack yesterday and is in hospital in a drug-induced coma. She is 75, slim, eats like a bird, does not exercise, and smokes 40 fags a day. We knew this day would come. She must have known it would come. We did not want it to happen but it did. We are on pins waiting for Mr G's Mum to phone with news but so far no news which I suppose is good. What can you hope for someone who smokes 40 a day and has done for most of her life? I hope she comes through this I really do.

Conversation over tea (of smily stars and fish-fingers and peas. I NEVER "cook" this kind of crap but Mr G was feeling naughty and had his way with the menu tonight)

Cornichon : (picking up smily star) What's this?

Me : It's just mashed potato made into a star shape with a face on it.

Cornichon : Is it healthy?

Me : No

Cornichon : Can I eat it?

Me : Yes of course Sweet Pea!

Cornichon : Will it do bad things to me?

I have never drilled the whole good v bad food into him or really talked about one food being better than another, we just eat healthy food, mainly cooked from scratch and occasionally have a treat. Of course I told him he would be fine if he ate them but just not every day. He (and Little Pickle) loved the smily stars but I won't be buying them again for a loooong time as they are so addictive for me too!

Conversation after tea

Cornichon : What's for afters?

Me : Blueberries (guilt for badbadbad first course)

Cornichon : No, I don't want fruit, (makes face) I want something else.

Me : How about blueberries with yoghurt and meringue on the top?

Cornichon : Ooooh yeeeeesssss!

Yay!

Moderation. A good vibe to dance through life with. I will be thinking about this and sending good vibes to Auntie M,

WW Wagon comes home

I am back on the Weightwatchers wagon because I am so FED UP of binge snacking and not eating proper meals and stealing from the boys' plates.

I CAN do WW. I have got to goal in the past. I lost 2 stone after Little Pickle was born. I have just over 1 stone to go and it will go before I go on holiday.

I will track every day online before I blog (generally last thing at night) and I WILL lose this week.

SO THERE. :Plllllllp

zilch

Sometimes it is better not to blog.

Baddy Brain

Brain is a mess.

Too much to think about.

Work hurts.

Brain in neutral.

Family stressed.

Cloud over the Gherkin Jar

A new month, new goals

Just had a quick squiz at February's goals and I have to say I have achieved a fair few!

Here :

1. Meet a neighbour - DONE-the lovely Wendy and Rob and their lovely kids

2. Have a day shopping all on my own, just me = roll over to March I think!

3. Clear out one lot of cupboards - DONE - Cornichon's cupboards and drawers and Little Pickle's drawers are all sorted.

4. Start running - bad knee has hampered efforts. All fit now so no excuses!

5. Sign up for 5k - will be done tomorrow night

6. Finish Cornichon's quilt - DONE and started on one for Mr Gherkin

I suppose I could have done better but I won't beat myself up over it. There's always March...

Goals for March

1. Sign up for 5k and start training plan.

2. Finish Mr Gherkin's quilt.

3. Have a day shopping ALONE and BY MYSELF.

4. Get back on the WW wagon and lose 2 lbs.

5. Clear out a cupboard space again

6. Shop around and change energy providers

Not very interesting but a focus at least.