Sister blog

I've decided to branch out and blog about my trials and tribulations of being a plus-size woman, you can catch up with me over at Life on the Plus Side.

'I will be experimenting with new fashion styles, make-up styles, hair styles, I will be researching what the plus-size market has for us here in the UK and hopefully be inspiring people along the way'.

I don't know whether I've taken on a lot more than I can handle; home educating my children, starting my new crafts business, my beloved blog here and now taking up a new blog, but I'm a fighter and I want to give it a shot. I hope you'll all continue to support me on the Plus Side too.

Life on the Home-School front

We haven't completed much structured work, but what we have been doing is talking, playing and generally spending time together.

The other day, walking into town the subject of life on Mars was brought up, which reminded me about another fellow HE family who were talking about aliens after watching the film Men in Black, so I asked my kids if they believe in other life forms and aliens to which they replied that they did. We talked about if aliens came to Earth and would we know about it, then I asked them if they thought that the story line from Men in Black could be real, and did they think that alien life forms are living on our planet in a human body? They both said they thought it could happen but we'll never know....it was a very fun and light-hearted conversation which I hope opened their minds to what could be happening right before our eyes that we don't see.

We have also been learning about the Human Body, Erin has been using this template to match the words to the body parts. She has done very well and the only word she gets stuck on is navel.

I've been using a different approach with Damian, going by his age and ability, so we've been using this template for him to learn the different bones before we move onto the blank template and he can match the words to the bones.

Both templates were printed from Early Learning HQ

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.

Skittlebugs

My new baby is up and running...my ickle business venture Skittlebugs has been reborn. I used this name when I was selling my hand-made cards, but unfortunately, no-one wants to pay out for greetings cards anymore. Never one to sit back and sulk, I've put all my efforts into creating other more sellable items, and will carry on using the Skittlebugs name. Why Skittlebugs?? It's slightly kooky and unique, just that little bit different, which I hope will show in my products.

I will be selling my items via the great and powerful social network of Facebook, in the hopes that my business will take off then I can think about creating my own website. I would love for you all to pop along to Facebook and like my page if you feel it is something you would buy for your own home or as a gift. Just click the link here.

My first item (which I only finished making today) is quite shabby chic 'Hearts and Buttons'

I know I am very biased, but I think they are very cute.

I will be adding products to my Facebook page as and when I finish them. I'm not looking to become rich via my new business, just enough to treat ourselves, so taking this into account, along with knowing not everyone can fork out lots of money for gifts, I will always try to keep costs down, which will reflect in the prices.

It's very nerve-wracking going down this route, but even the mega-money businesses had to start somewhere right??

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my ramblings, please pop along to my Facebook page to see what items will be added next and please, please share with your friends and family, you just never know, if it's not your cup of tea, it may be someone else's xx

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.