Friday 28 October 2011

Into the woods

So I woke up and wanted to go for a walk, turns out a) my Mum and little sister were busy and b) the bus doesn't go to Milton anymore!
Therefore me and my Brother popped to Brownsfield for a walk and stuff.


It was nice being out in nature and stuff, sometimes you just need to get out and get a bit lost!




The pond was a) empty and b) there was quite a lot of debris about, some idiots had obviously used it as a bit of a dumping ground, this makes me sad! People should really take more care of their environment! It's a real shame to see it in such a state!



There were some amazing mushrooms! I think mushrooms are very pretty, esspecially when they're covered in frost!



Very pretty autumny stuff out there! Pretty leaves and berries and nutty seed poddy thingies.



The trip made me all smiley! Horray!

Thursday 27 October 2011

My week in pictures



A compilation of the pictures I have uploaded to twitter this week (and a few others)!

Rocking Black and Brown
I started this week delivering condoms with the charity I am volunteering with, they're genuinely great so I hope I'll be helpful to them!

pretty row of houses

I tweeted this picture as me and my brother walked back towards the Grafton Centre after lunch, I thought it was one of the prettiest things I have seen in a long time!

Bloody pretty boots!

I then bought these boots rather than sensible ones as I fell in love, what it is to be female eh? Primark, £18 - BARGAIN!


I took some photos coz I had fiddled with some stupid looking avatars for twitter! Note the very Laura Ashley style top.... hmmm! Not sure I like it really!

       

I spent time at my grandparents with my baby sister (half term), she's the most lovely person ever and I am SO proud of her!



We pulled lovely faces which I think make us look GORGEOUS!


Felt really ill with an MS blip and needed to come home a bit early, this lovely rainbow appeared at the same time as my muscles started to unspasm!




Got woken up by a very enthused kitty deciding he wanted to snuggle up with me which is lovely!

Anyways, that was my week in pictures, try to catch you next Thursday!

Sunday 23 October 2011

Words

Humans hate, I don't know why, I'm not all that good at it to be honest with you, I tend to not hold grudges in general.
There has been some discussion about words and their use in hate, while I agree that certain words have bad associations for people I would argue that it's not the words themselves that hold the power, it's the hate that has the power.
I'm fairly sure "White" or "Brown" or "Green" or "Homunculus" have no hate in them as entities, they are just words, words that are used to describe feelings, it's the feelings behind the words that are offensive.
That being said, there are words that I just will not use, this is because I recognise that their use within society is as a word associated with hate, it's like the name "Hitler" it's not in itself a bad, or angry, or evil name, but the man that is associated with it is full of hate and prejudice. I think we are ALL guilty of using prejudicial terms, I, for example have been known to use the word "Tory", the word "Toff" and I'm sure loads of others.

What we need to try and do I think is become more tolerant, as we have had the ability to discriminate based on race and disability "restricted", more words have come up in their place, for example "Scrounger" and "Black culture" used to attempt a pseudo-acceptable form of prejudice!

It has become more and more obvious to me over the past few years, there is far more hate than I even thought possible in the world and it would just be nice for us to stop.

What I say is, blame the hater not the word!
Language is beautiful

Friday 21 October 2011

Bus Stop Biggots

So I got on the bus at the hospital, not noticing that the bus which normally goes all the way to my house only went into the city centre (blooming cuts)! This, mixed with static traffic on one of the main roads leading up to it lead to 1 full hour with no bus, then one arrived, with a wheelchair user already on board.

Nightmare for the 2 people with wheelchairs already at the bus stop as they couldn't get on!

Then during the 20 minutes it took before I took a different bus to my Mum's house I was talked "at" by the daughter of one of the wheelchair users, this was a tirade about somebody they obviously knew who was in a wheelchair on the bus that just went.

She claimed that she was "entitled" to say what she liked because she was pregnant and then proceeded to say that this lady was cheating the system, stealing DLA, that her mum can't get it because of scum like the lady on the bus who was "walking last week".

Her mum looked embarrassed to be frank and said nothing.

I am SICK of this animosity! I even asked her what was wrong with this person who was not here to defend herself, she didn't even KNOW!

I was on my way home from a neurology appointment, having just explained to him about the 3 times at least I have resorted to crutches in the last 2 months, he was amazed I wasn't more variable and was pleased with how well I'm doing.

To be presented with this hate on the way home was more than I can bear, I have no idea why I didn't say something more than I did, I should have done but I was tired and just got the next bus going to my mothers to escape.

Thursday 20 October 2011

My two penneth


Why do we humans feel the need to inflict pain on others?

I would love to say that I'm above such things but I know that I'm wrong, I know that I'm a human and small and petty, I'm easily lead and all the other mad, crazy things that humans are in order to get them through the world as social creatures.

I have to talk about an unpleasant subject with someone I care about but they're making themselves completely unavailable, this is not only bloody insensitive but also irritating. It's causing me pain to think of the impending pain I will bring them. Therefore it plays repeatedly in my mind.

When I think about it and become upset, I at some point switch. I stop being the chaser and start saying not only "screw it" but because I don't like the lack of control over my own life I then think "let's cause maximum pain, make them sorry for ignoring me!" It's not clever, it's not me and I've not followed through on it but Oh my goodness are moments where it's tempting to go down that route!

This brings me to a recent twittergate/twitterstorm over a certain person; their insensitive remarks and apparent lack of care over the pain they caused. What it appears to me is going on is that when people are so out of control of their own life, have been so ignored that they simply cannot function, the old adage that any publicity is good publicity applies (even though simplistic) and it's at least some attention! When we are so removed from any power over our lives we become shells, so removed from love, our only outlet is causing others pain: at least a slap is some form of contact after all.

This is why I personally believe that that someone is to be pitied, just imagine being that unhappy, having so little self worth you must invent it, how sad that life must be.
Although we are animals, the curse of a brain is that we pick ourselves apart, maybe we should spend more time trying to be less bloody shitty to each other!
That would be a damn good start!

(rewritten a little 5 mins after posting)

Wednesday 19 October 2011

My Family is ODD!


My brother and I just had a ridiculous debate!
The things you do at 2am eh?

I was talking about how I was trying to find out the mathematical probability of life coming into existence. As I had recalled the probability is so tiny as to be impossible in mathematical terms, i.e. the mathematical definition of impossible is very, very unlikely.
Anyways, I was frustrated because I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t a discussion on religion and that’s not what I was after!

So yes, where was I? That’s right, I was explaining the whole idea that life on earth began on quartz crystals because left handed amino-acids [stick?] to some facets and right handed amino acids to the other facets, which is a very crude explanation of the evolution of proteins as I recall from my brief studying of the subject in 2004.

He then chimed in with a discussion he had with our Dad about Chirality (basically left/right handed amino-acids and their proteins) and how this would make most communication with alien species with right handed amino-acid based life difficult at best because “We wouldn’t be able to digest them and they wouldn’t taste right!”. This is interesting in itself to me, however, me being the dirty-minded person I am the following thoughts developed in my head!



“Unable to digest them” became the automatic assumption that we would try to kill and eat them. (i.e. being unable to digest if their proteins were right-handed) OR (this is where the dirtiness comes in!) that they “didn’t taste right” which could only be interpreted in my mind as Oral sex!



It strikes me that this is an unintended but interesting theory on human motivations:
“Can I eat it? Can I screw it?” if the answer to both of these is no, then there is obviously nothing in it for us!

Tuesday 11 October 2011

SOUP! Hooray!

I have been making soup!
In my slow cooker, it has been an experiement and I think a sucessful one!

That carrot soup gets EVERYWHERE if you're not paying any attention!


I have made some Carrot soup and some Onion soup...

Recipe time (Ceri Styleeeee) for those that asked

Carrot Soup
Makes approx 1.75 litres
Cooking time 8+hrs (I did about 18-20) on low
Ingredients:
2 Medium size potatoes
6 medium/smallish carrots but essentially enough to fill the tub about 3/4 full
Italian herbs a dash
some salt
some pepper
some ginger
about 3 desertspoons of honey
boiling water
2 desertspoons of vegetable gravy
a hand blender

Right, I pealed the carrots and potatoes and chopped them into stew size pieces, popped them in, added about 2 desert spoons full of gravy and poured the water up enough to cover the veg.
then I added a dash of herbs. put the lid on the slow cooker and left it for about 18 hours (checking now and then to make sure it wasn't getting low on liquid but it wasn't.
I then whizzed it, then added honey, a few shakes of ginger and salt and pepper...
Sorted!

Carrot Soup!
Onion Soup
Makes Approx 1.75 litres
Cooking time 8+ hours (I did about 18-20) on low
Ingredients:
6 onions
75g of stock mix (mix of lentils and pearl barley, I guess either would work fine)
Italian herbs a dash
some salt
some pepper
boiling water
2 desert spoons of vegetable gravy
a hand blender

I peeled and chopped onions, then I popped them in the slow cooker through tears (damn onions) then I added the gravy, then poured water in to almost the top of the stock pot, added herbs and cooked for about 16 hours.
I added the stock mix about 2 hours before I finished it...
It might have been a bit better if the stock mix had had more time to soak!
I  added salt, pepper and blended it.
The recipe may have benefited from meat stock rather than vegetable to be honest but I was trying to be veggie friendly.

Onion Soup!


When I can be bothered I'll add a stew recipe too!
Fab!

Monday 10 October 2011

How do people do it?

Right, I really don't bloody get it! I don't get this life thing at all!

This is what that little voice is saying all the time! I am unconvinced of its helpfulness


I have different aspects of me, Mainly I have the creative jewellery/beadmaking part of me, I made this blog because I didn't think it was right to mix up that blog with this one!
I also have my OUie Health Sciences side, it's left wing and wants to support people in general, the ones that can't or aren't equipped to help themselves, so I'm thinking of starting a blog for that too.

On top of all this I have the other stuff I do, I live by myself and so have to do the shopping, the cleaning, the cooking etc. etc. etc. by myself.

I want to volunteer for a local charity so that I can gain experience which will help me move into employment later.

I get the feeling many people do these things easily but yet with MS and Depression I am finding it difficult to cope with this level of stuff to do! I try to get everything done and yet end up coming up short on a regular basis!

I'm doing slow cooking and freezing to help cut down the number of takeaways I eat when I'm feeling ill, some days it's a struggle and a real achievement to get to the loo, how can I hope to cope with being grabbed and pulled by invisible ropes in every single direction?

If you know the trick please let me know!

Friday 7 October 2011

Hair Wrap/Turban review/video



Some things that are good are expensive, some are complicated... this is neither, this is a simple har wrappy thing from the pound shop. It would at first glance seem a bit gimicky but in all honesty it's amazing.

I have a love hate relationship with my hair, it wont go nice and straight and it wont go nice and curly, it goes puffy and weird and frizzy! It also takes forever to dry! While it's drying it makes EVERYTHING it touches damp or if I have a towel on it it's then very difficult to actually get anything done!

With this wonderful bit of kit I can keep my hair up and out of the way while it dries, I might look like an idiot but really, at least I look like a slightly more productive idiot.

Now my hair looks like this! (I got bored so blow dried it a bit!) It doesn't normally do the curly thing by itself! Thanks to Lush hair stuffs, a little friz ease and this turban thing it now is okish! Horray!