Get Out of Self and into Him

I’m in a funny old place right now. There is nothing particularly wrong but if I’m honest I’m discontent, something is off-balance. It’s not that I’m wanting anything materially but there are a few areas that feel off-kilter.  The word that is coming to mind is that I am discombobulated and that is really strange as I could not even have told you what it meant but having looked it up, it is perfect –

Discombobulate – to confuse or disconcert; upset; frustrate (ie: The speaker was completely discombobulated by the hecklers.)

That does feel just right for where I am at the moment.  Since I received some horrifying comments on my review blog a few months ago I’ve been all over the place. I realise I’ve lost my joy and I don’t have any kind of vision of where my blogging is going or even if it should be going anywhere.  I’m tempted to chuck it all in but as with everything I need to seek where God is in all this and do His will, not mine.

So I figure I need a break.  Yep, another break, all I seem to do nowadays is have blogging breaks but it feels right and necessary so it is what I’ll do.

I’m going to be focusing my time in a few areas –

• Taking the focus off myself and putting it onto God and His agenda for me by spending more quiet time in the prayer centre
• Eating well and exercising to ensure that I lose some weight but not making it my be-all and end-all.
• Reading the 5 Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman and then putting into action some of what I have learnt to ensure that my kids are feeling love in the way that speaks to them most
• Digging out my copy of Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie O’Martian and reading a small chunk each night as I need to reconnect with my husbandfollow and what better way to do it than via my Heavenly Father. (As a Christian we often speak of marriage being like a three-legged stool, one leg is the wife, another the husband and the third God and the stool only balances when we all rely on each other and carry the weight evenly.

So there we go, my four big focuses for the months ahead. I’ve no idea how long this break will take. I’m just going to be led by God and not feel obliged to either stay away or to blog.

Psalm 37:39-40
But the salvation of the righteous is from the LORD; He is their strength in time of trouble. The LORD helps them and delivers them; He delivers them from the wicked and saves them, Because they take refuge in Him.

Take care of yourselves, leave me a comment or send me an email if you’d like some prayer and I’d be really happy to oblige.

Be blessed, Mich xx

Great Excitement with Vertbaudet

I've not seen my little girl, Miss E so excited for a very long time. We picked the parcel up from the post room and she was beside herself with joy, 'do you think they are in there Mummy?' she asked and luckily for me they were. What is the 'they' in question? A pair of denim dungarees that she fell in love with upon first sight.

Both my twin girls have winter coats fromVertbaudet currently and they are wearing brilliantly, they wash up well, have kept their vibrant colours and the mock fur remains soft and beautiful. Therefore when they asked the girls if they would like to choose something else they both happily sat down with the laptop and started to choose.

In honesty Vertbaudet clothes are more suited to Miss E as she likes clothes designed for her age group, that are comfy and fun in design. So the denim dungarees she picked are a perfect example of this. Miss M on the other hand, despite being just 8 years would love to dress like a 14 year old and I have to hold her back and limit her clothes choices to things that fit with my modesty code. I'm pleased to say that Vertbaudet do not offer the mini adult clothes that so many of the high-street shops do.

I'll Raise My Voice for You #PovertyisSexist #PledgeForParity

....and you .... and you.  Yes I'll raise my voice for all women and girls the world over and that is not because I'm a staunch feminist, it is because it is the right thing to do, whether you are male or female.

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy. 

(Proverbs 31:8–9 NIV) 

Image Credit: Karen Walrond for ONE

Look at these girls above, they are all aged between 10 - 15 and are part of the Bright Future project in the Merkato slums in Addis Abba, Ethiopia. I wrote about them back in 2012 when I visited Ethiopia with ONE to see the living proof that international aid really does work.

They are a beautiful group of girls, so full of life and hope but each one of them had a devastating story to tell us of how they came to be a part of this project - slave labour, gender based violence, sent away by their parents to earn for the family but it hadn't worked out and deaths of parents to preventable diseases and HIV/ Aids. They were so excited to hear that the group of western women who had visited them would go away and share their stories and people across the world would know what was happening to girls and women in Ethiopia.

We all know there are both men and women the world over who are passed by, shoved aside and not given the respect or dignity they deserve but the statistics tell us that women and girls fare far worse than their male counterparts in all parts of the world, especially where poverty is at its most evident.

Last year I wrote about the #PovertyisSexist report launched by ONE, this demonstrated two truths:

1. Poverty and gender inequality go hand-in-hand. In 2016 half a billion women still cannot read, 62 million girls are denied an education and 155 countries still have laws that differentiate between men and women. 
2. Yet, ironically perhaps, it is widely accepted that investing in girls and women lifts everyone out of poverty more quickly. So it really does seem like a no-brainer, doesn't it?  Ensure women and girls in the world poorest countries receive investment and the countries start to lift themselves out of devastation. 

I look at that graphic there on the left and if I'm honest it makes my stomach churn. How can it be that in 2016 there is nowhere on earth where women have as many opportunities as men? Gender parity is of course the focus of International Women's Day today, but we are not fighting for a world where women are treated better or differently from men, just one where we are given equal opportunity and judged on our merits rather than our ability to have children or our body parts.

Furthering the cause to ensure that men and women are equals is of course a good thing but I am fearful that many people only consider the issues affecting those of us in the developed world. Like the glass ceiling on the corporate arena or the lack of female political leaders.

There are girls and women in the poorest countries that cannot go to school, own land, speak in front of a group or men or give birth with dignity as they are denied these rights purely because they are a woman. It's an outrage, right?

As I was reading the new 2016 Poverty is Sexist report from ONE, I came across the following statement and this hit me so powerfully -

If you care about gender equity here, care about it everywhere.

It's simple. It's time we all looked outside of our own lives and offered some help to those who need it most.

How to get involved

1. Sign the petition and urge world leaders to put girls and women in developing countries at the top of their agenda. It takes just seconds - http://bit.ly/1Qz7kdy

2. Share the petition on any of your social media channels. After you sign, there are very easy share buttons that you can press and help spread the word.

Of course there is loads more you can do if you want to. Go ahead and write a blog to encourage others to share, meet your local MP, talk to your friends, host a coffee morning, inform the students at your school during assembly, give a presentation at the local W.I. meeting. Whatever works for you, just don't let all the voiceless girls and women go on being unheard. They all have powerful stories and we need to stand with them.

And if you want more information then read the open letter to our world leaders and also the full Poverty is Sexist report which is just launched today - You can find them here.

Thanks for any help you can give. With blessings, Mich x

I'm linking this post up with Lucy over at Lulastic and the Hippyshake for her International Women's Day 2016 blog linkup. Hop over and have a read of the many varied and inspirational blog posts there.

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Setting some Targets and Rewards

I wrote this post just over a week ago but due to my haphazard approach to blogging right now, it has taken this long to see the light of day!

It’s practically March and I’m assuming that I’ve not really lost any weight this year despite such good intentions. I say I assume as I’ve not weighed for a few weeks and when I have weighed it has been across three different sets of scales, so that is no help to anyone.

I started out well in January, I got my bedtimes sorted so I didn’t feel so vulnerable and then I let it slip again and since half-term I’ve just not been able to get my energy level back up. I’m not sure if the menopause in on route (I am nearing 43) but I’ve got near continuous heavy bleeding, headaches and cramps coming and going every couple of days. It is so draining and all I want to do is curl up and read a good book. Maybe I should just give in to it?

Today I’ve been thinking about blogging and writing a post and everything that comes to mind is negative. Something is missing in my life right now and the post titles I’ve been coming up with are not very inspiring. They have all been about my lack of interest in, well, anything much at all really. ‘I can’t be arsed’ is probably the phrase to sum most everything up right now.

I’ve just cast my eyes towards the keyboard as I type this and I can see my right hand where my fingers are pulled apart and the skin all around my nails is red raw. It always seems to be something I do when I am low. I suppose it should have been a sign really to wake me up to there being an issue I needed to confront.

So what is the issue you might wonder?

And that’s a good question. I’ve been debating it for the last week or so and it’s not that easy pinpointing something as the cause as generally everything in life is very good. I just keep coming back to that old nugget of my weight and how I’m not happy with my body and this then impacts on my relationship with my husband.

So I must set some targets so I have something to aim for. I can’t keep going through life unhappy with how I look and the example I’m setting to my kids. I’ve been stuck in the mud and stagnant for far too long. So this is what I WILL achieve this year as a minimum –

• By my holiday to Spring Harvest on 4th April – lose 1 stone
• By two gorgeous friends wedding celebration on 10th June – have lost 2 stone
• By my family holiday to Bournemouth on 6th August – have lost 3.5 stone
• By the time I see a great friend again for the first time in 14 years on 10th September – have lost 4 stone

I realise that without targets it has been very hard to keep track of my weight loss and I was just floating along with nothing firm to aim for. Realistically I have far more than 4 stone that I need to lose but I must start somewhere and 4 stone will make such a difference to my health and what I feel I can achieve. I’m pretty sure that when I have gained enough momentum by losing 4 stone that I’ll be able to keep going and head towards a normal BMI and a healthy weight for the rest of my life.

I now need to think about what rewards I might like to give myself for persevering and doing well on my journey toward a fitter and healthier Mich. A Pandora bracelet and a charm for each stone lost feels like a nice idea, I better investigate what that would cost me! lol

Sheffield Park Garden National Trust, East Sussex

In March 2014 we headed out one Sunday, after lunch for an exploration of our local area to see what we might find. With no fixed plan in mind, we travelled for just under an hour in the direction of Uckfield and stumbled upon the National Trust's Sheffield Park and Gardens. Of course, as devoted NT fans, we headed in for a look around and found a really lovely formal garden set around four lakes. It was a particular delight for us to find influences of the great garden architect Capability Brown as we live in a Capability Brown designed home.

March 2014 on the left and February 2016 on the right

The kids did what they do best and climbed trees, ran and played games together and posed for my photos (I'm so lucky they humour me). The ducks and swans love to be fed and there are some really unusual trees and shrubs in the gardens. After a couple of hours, we realised it was getting late and we needed a drink so off we went to the coach house for a very tasty cream tea and by the time we finished we realised it wasn't practical for us to now explore the 250 acres of parkland around the garden.

We vowed that we would come back another time to explore the parkland and enjoy the wildlife, meadows, springs and woodland play trail that the National Trust always do so well. Time passed and we visited lots more local NT sites and never made it back to explore the parkland, so when we were faced with the same kind of circumstance on Sunday last we decided we would head over to Sheffield Park and have a good explore.

Just one issue when we got there Sunday, I hadn't packed any wellies and whilst it had been a bright and beautiful day when we visited in March 2014, this February was awful - cold, wet and exceedingly muddy. With our sensible heads on, we decided another look round the garden would be a better idea than venturing into the parklands.

Let me share with you some photos of the gardens, some from 2014 and more recent ones too. I think perhaps we need to visit in the Autumn as well as I can imagine the colours will be magnificent. This is one of the beauties of living in a variable climate like Britain, we do the seasons really well when it comes to nature!

For my father – a legacy for my step-sister

Girl playing Doctor from Shutterstock

Ground breaking low cost annual insurance for working parents to protect their salary in the advent of a child getting sick or injured.

For 12 years Max Robinson’s father, cared for his sick daughter.  His father, Malcolm, divorced and re-married and started a second family. Malcolm’s first daughter’s birth and life were straightforward. He was not expecting problems, but his second daughter showed just how much can go wrong in a child’s life.

During the years of treatment father and son witnessed other parents, whose lives had been torn apart by the consequences of a child’s illness and a reduced capacity to earn money.

Max, a professionally qualified insurance practitioner had 29 years’ experience covering many different roles. His experience gave him the confidence to develop a new insurance product for working families.

What is Love?

I suspect many of you reading this think I have gone a little bonkers and are wondering why a half-eaten pack of ready pancakes could possibly suggest love but they do.

One of my eight-year-olds had a pancake or two for her breakfast before I got up and instead of leaving them open on the side to go hard, she got a bag out the drawer and covered them up. She cared enough to emulate me and to tidy away and make sure they were still good for the next person who fancied one.

That person was my son, four years older than my daughters but did he put the pack back in the bag to keep them fresh?  Of course not, it didn’t even occur to him, he just left them on the side and the crumbs everywhere, confident in the knowledge that Mum would do it.

So back to the original question – what is love?  Well for me love is often an action. It is something that a person chooses to do, it isn’t always a feeling. That day love was about making an effort and going out of her way to make things better for the next person. That kind of love took thought and effort and it pleased me immensely.

I’ve often wondered about love as an action, especially in marriage. You hear so often nowadays of people getting divorced because they do not ‘feel’ in love anymore and personally I think that you have to put hard work into marriageand choose to love each other. Of course, there are times when you are bubbling over with love but equally I’ve found in the last twenty-odd years that there are times when I do not have those feeling so much.

I recall a while back speaking to some older friends who had fostered children for years about how it must be difficult to deal with some children and how do you show them love, so they can feel secure? They assured me that if you treated them the same as your own child and you carried on as if you loved them the child would feel the love and gain the reassurance and security they needed. ou didn’t always have to actually love them, just ‘act as if’.

Then this morning at church we were again exploring the book of Ephesians and one of our pastors was talking about how God loves us and dwells in us and this got me thinking about love as an action and I realised that there are two ways to love someone. There is the all-encompassing unconditional way that God loves us and I love my children and there is also the love that we make an effort to show, the love as an action. Like making a cup of coffee for my husband even when he has been a grouch all day or helping my girls to tidy their rooms even when they have been back chatting.

So it is OK that sometimes I don’t feel an overwhelming love for everyone in my life, I can choose not to be led by my feelings and make an intentional decision to act out love.

Being a Good Friend Isn't Always Easy

I've got to the age of 42 and if I'm honest I can probably count on two hands the number of really good friends I've had in my life. I don't find it that easy to make close friendships and certainly not to keep them going. I suspect there are all sorts of reasons for this but today doesn't feel like the day to dissect it and examine it.

There really is something about friendships shared over a long period of time though. Take those three ladies I'm pictured with above, I've known them since I was 18, that is 24 years and there we were earlier this month supporting our friend Kate who had lost her sister. Julia and I had a coffee before the funeral and I felt tears in my eyes as I said to her 'gosh I miss you' as I hadn't seen her for about three years. Purely because we had moved house and she had moved house and now we were a couple of hours apart. This reunion made us both take stock and we will be meeting again very soon.

I'm in a comfortable place now where I realise that friendships come and go with different seasons and stages in life. It was quite a wretch a few years back when a couple of friendships just started to tail off and I didn't see people as much as I had before and this was just because I/ they had gone back to work, or our kids had grown older and were not so friendly any more. Moving away has also had a big impact and I'm not the best person at keeping in touch, as much as I might think about it. I just don't like telephone calls, they make me all sad.

Review: Lunch at Jamie's Italian Trattoria, Tunbridge Wells

Our family love to go out together and enjoy some good food and it is always nice to try somewhere new and explore a new town too. So last Thursday we headed into Kent to Tunbridge Wells to have a browse and also lunch at Jamie's Italian Trattoria. Now obviously we all know the Jamie Oliver name but none of us were familiar with this restaurant concept so we were excited to try it out, especially as my twin girls really love pasta.

We were pleased to see that Jamie's Italian Trattoria is an easy walk from the train station in Tunbridge Wells. It is situated on the High Street between the main shopping mall and the more up-market Pantiles area. The high street is a great one to browse along as there are loads of very nice shops to both look in and also just window shop.

Jamie's Italian Trattoria was easy to find with double shop frontage and it looked very authentic Italian from outside, when you go inside it is heavily themed and very pleasant but we couldn't really put our finger on what style we thought they had gone for. There are exposed ceilings, paintings on walls made to look old, exposed pipe work and lots of sanded wood - my husband commented it looked almost Cuban and I could see where he was coming from.

What is your child's favourite day out?

There is nothing my family loves more than a day out together exploring somewhere new, especially if it is outdoors. It makes me laugh when we announce to the kids that we are off to the beach, a country park or perhaps a National Trust property and we get a groan as they say they would rather stay home and play on the computer, do some colouring or make believe.

Then magically it is as if they come alive when we arrive and the four year age gap between my son and daughters is forgotten and off they all run to play amongst the trees, to look around the living history exhibits, or to collect stones on the beach. Wherever we go they have fun and I am so glad that we just tell them they have to come with us and get on with it.

Of course it wasn't always like this, JJ never used to be the cool gamer that he is now, as a youngster all he wanted to do was be outside and run off his excess energy. Nothing pleased him more than a day to a theme park like Chessington where he could enjoy some rides, have a picnic and perhaps meet up with his grandparents.

Thorpe Park Annual Pass Sale & WIN an Annual Family Pass

I've written before how Thorpe Park holds fond memories for me. I grew up just 20 minutes away and it was somewhere we visited often, especially as in those days you could gain entry to the park pretty cheap if you just went for the last hour or so. It was a very different place back then though with low-tech rides and minimal thrills.

Nowadays Thorpe Park has earned itself the reputation as the thrill seekers paradise in the UK. it boasts over 30 thrilling rides and attractions including some of the scariest about like Stealth, Nemesis Inferno and SAW - the ride.

Play to Their Strengths

Last Thursday morning I was watching a parenting DVD with a group of friends and I was really struck by some of the content. The focus of the mornings session was on teens and identity, looking at how important it is for your child to work out who they are and what is important to them.

There was various snippets of interviews with both parents and teens and the example that really struck me was a father telling a new friend that he had three sons. He talked of his oldest boys being 18 and 16 and both very academic. Then when he came to talk about his 13-year-old son he said he was very worried for his GCSEs as he wasn’t academic at all and he’d just taken a maths tutor for his boy to help him ‘come on’ but actually he wasn’t too enthusiastic about it.

The friend then asked a very pertinent question ‘what is it that lights him up? What does he enjoy doing?’ and he was told that the 13-year-old loves to cook. To which the friend then joked ‘well maybe get him a cooking tutor and help him excel in something he loves, rather than something he dislikes and has no talent for’ and when you think about it, how true is that? I suspect most of us have built our careers or achievements on the things that we enjoy or are naturally good at. God gives us all-natural giftings for a reason, so we may use them, it’s an unusual person that pursues a career which includes skills they struggle with or dislike.

These thoughts of encouraging your child within their natural strengths stayed with me throughout the day and kept coming back to the forefront of my mind. It was easy with two of my children to be able to say where their natural strength or preference lay and I could easily think of examples of how I might encourage them.

I had to think for some time though before I could come up with a natural strength for one of children though. She is a good all-rounder and as yet I couldn’t decipher what it might be that she is shining in but when I really spent time thinking about her it was clear to me that her natural gifting must be in hospitality. Even though she is only 8 she loves to welcome guests to our home and my husband's work. When people leave here they often comment about how she was the first smiling face they saw and she made them really welcome.

It would be all too easy to think that her skills of hospitality are less important or tangible than her brother or sister's giftings in maths and art but actually, I think they are perfect and we really ought to be encouraging each of our children where they naturally excel. It never works when you try to stifle a natural talent, all we want to do is build each one of our kids up and raise them to believe they can do anything they want. That sense of ambition and perseverance will serve them well.

Our world has become too focused on academia and the pursuit of A grades. I want my children to be well-rounded, there is so much more to life than the grades they come out of school with and I refuse to put immense pressure on them at this young age. When they all received their reports last week I reiterated again that the most important thing to my husband and I is that they are making progressing and trying hard.

My son's report was full of A grades but there was the odd ‘could do better’ or some such wording for his homework and we told him this isn’t acceptable. Not because he has to improve his grades but because he needs to apply himself to his school work in the same way he does to Minecraft. He is fortunate enough to find study and academia easy and thus must not rest on his laurels and coast along.

The reports for the girls were not so high achieving and that is fine, with them we had discussions about good attitudes, doing our best, and looking for progression. Each of us is created unique and we do not have to be judged against a standard that the government say they must meet, all they have to do is try hard, be kind and follow their natural calling. The rest will take care of itself by the grace of God.

The Spirit of God has made me;
the breath of the Almighty gives me life.~ Job 33:4

Our Guilty Pleasures on NOW TV

We've had NOW TV for around three months now and I have to admit that my family have been firmly converted, it is the on-demand TV service that is best providing all that we want to watch. It's good that between us we can all watch in the way that suits us, be it on our tablet, in the lounge via the NOW TV box or even using our laptop, but to be honest with 5 of us in the family it would be good if we could have more than 4 devices on our account as JJ, dh and I would all love to have both our iPads and laptops registered for use at different times.

Of course there are three strings to the NOW TV bow but we don't really watch much sport so it is the movies and the entertainment options that are really working for us.

3 East Sussex Seaside Towns to Visit with the Kids in Half-Term

I know some people are put off visiting the seaside when the weather is not so good but actually, we just go for it. Of course, it helps that we are only 20-30 minutes from numerous beaches nowadays but even when we lived further afield we used to take a day trip and enjoy the fun of the seaside whatever the weather. The big pull of visiting in the Winter of course is that there aren't any crowds and you really can enjoy all that space with your kids.

There are loads of great seaside towns to visit in our home country of East Sussex and you can take your pick but the three I am giving a shout-out to today are Bexhill-on-Sea, Eastbourne and Hastings.

I Never Want to Tidy Toys Again!

I've been feeling a bit poorly over the last week and to be honest it has made me a tad grumpy at times and certainly my patience and tolerance for noise and mess has been low. After a number of nights with interrupted sleep and only limited rest we decided not to go to church Sunday morning as I just didn't think I'd be able to function for the rest of the day and my husband had been out at Night Church until the early hours of the morning.

The girls and I had made a deal to get their homework done and to tidy their bedrooms before lunch and then the afternoon would be more relaxed with a photography walk and a cream tea after. The morning started well as I had managed to get about six hours sleep and we got all the homework out the way pretty early and with minimal fuss.

It was then time to start the clear up of the bedrooms and before we could even start that I realised the lounge was a mess from where the girls had been up before me. In truth they had been really good and got themselves some breakfast and turned the TV onto low to chill and do some colouring whilst I continued to rest but for a few minutes all I saw was the mess in the lounge.

Term Time Holidays - Yes or No?

Image Credit: Mayan Ruin from Shutterstock

It's quite a major debate, isn't it?  I am constantly seeing posts across my social media feeds with parents asking other parents if they should take their child out of school to go on holiday. We all know that the price of holidays depends on the popularity of the time of year and it is pretty logical really.

When JJ first started school we took him on a term-time holiday each year as it meant we could enjoy a break with my parents for next-to-nothing and seeing as I wasn't earning major money it was just what we needed. Time to be a family, have fun together and recharge our batteries. We didn't have any qualms about doing it as he was just 4 or 5 years old and the the few days he missed school were not crucial in the overall scheme of things - he is a bright boy.

Then things changed, the twins became old enough to go to school and JJ was learning different kinds of subjects and we felt he might miss out by not being at school. Also the ten days discretionary leave that a Head could issue changed and now Head Teachers can only authorise leave in exceptional circumstances and those circumstances are left up to the Heads discretion. It is a bit of a minefield to be honest now.

Adventurer Mens Waterproof Boots from Mountain Warehouse

JJ came home from Scouts a couple of weeks ago with his new programme for the term and it looked like they were going to have lots of fun - explorer camp, hiking, life skills, emergency aid, buggy races, tending their allotment and a water camp. As I scanned the list I noted the remark that all scouts would need to make sure they had sturdy walking boots for the hike as it would be over rough terrain and shoes, however study, just do not give the ankle support that is needed.

I recalled that last time we had gone out for a ramble JJ had been moaning that his walking boots were pinching, so I got them out to have a look and low and behold I found they are only a size 7 and he is now between an 8-9. I therefore knew it was time to have a look on the Mountain Warehouse site and see what was available for JJ at a good price. I was super impressed that there were walking boots on there ranging from just £19.99 for a basic pair up to £159.99 for top of the range Apex Isogrip ones.

As JJ is still a growing lad (he is only 12 years afterall) I didn't want anything too expensive but I wanted his feet to be comfy, dry and well-supported so I opted for a pair of Adventurer Mens Waterproof Boots  in a grey and orange colourway. I see the other colour option - blue and dark grey, which is also very nice, has gone into the sale and is just £29.99 now too. The boots are available in sizes 7 - 12 and I think they come up true-to-size.  We went for a 9 for JJ as he can wear thicker socks or even two pairs whilst they are on the larger size and then grow into them, making them a wise investment.

Designing my Dream Kitchen.... One Day!

Image Credit: Custom Kitchen Design from Shutterstock

I've got to a point in life where I really am very content. I've achieved the things I want and now I am content to follow God's will and see where He leads me. Right now that means I am down in East Sussex volunteering, mothering and supporting my husband in his work.  In the future who knows...

But if I am really honest there is one thing that I am a little sad I'll probably never get to do and that is design my own super stylish kitchen. My husband and I bought our first house in 1997 and we changed the old-fashioned brown tiles to a mix of bright and cheerful ones but that was about it as eighteen months later we were moving into a house that came with our work and we knew we'd only be there short-term so no point in doing any more than a lick of paint. The next place we bought was a brand new flat where we got to choose the tiles, worktops, cupboards etc which was nice but it was only a small place and I wasn't that excited.

Then in 2002, we moved into our forever home. My husband and I could see ourselves living in this house for the rest of our lives. It might only have had three bedrooms but we quickly converted the garage into another room which became JJ's bedroom and the plan was always to put an extension on the back and to knock the kitchen and dining room into the extension so there was a large, open-plan and very light space that I could pour my heart into and design.

I had the vision of how it would look, a light kitchen probably with simple shaker style kitchen units, a large island where I could cook and prepare the food whilst the kids sat up on high chairs on the other side and did their homework or some drawing. We'd have one of those enormous American style fridges with a water decanter on the front and all the white goods would either be built-in or hidden away in the utility room at the back.

The kitchen would open straight into the dining area which would be able to seat eight or ten so we could happily have guests around and then a comfy sofa and TV would encourage the kids to relax close by so that our lounge could remain an adult sanctuary to be enjoyed in the evening. I remember costing and planning it all out one evening and discovered that to achieve what I desired we would need around fifty-thousand pounds, that was a big wake-up call and the project quickly became just a dream. What I should have done is have a look at Kitchen Warehouse for an affordable solution.

Parenting: What to do?

Sometimes parenting is the most difficult job in the world. You are desperate to get it right and then situations present themselves that you have no idea how to tackle and you just have to learn on the job. Yes there are tons of manuals; books ready to tell you the best approach and there are online forums and web articles and in fact dozens of resources but really does anything beat your own intuition?

Every child and every situation is different, I've seen that with just my three children and if I am honest I look at my oldest JJ at age 12 and think that my husband and I aren't doing such a bad job. Yes he is addicted to his computer but he is a good guy all round. He's smart, he cares, he tries hard, he is polite and he is fun to be with. So I think we are right to be trusting our gut and parenting in the way that feels natural to us.

I'm having behavioural challenges with one of my girls at the moment. They are having a tough time at school and keep pushing the boundaries and acting out. This of course leads to consequences from the teacher and the last thing I want at the end of the day is yet another email to tell me of that days mishap!

The Source of my Satisfaction

All my life I’ve been looking to the wrong place, the wrong source to fill the holes and to help in all situations. When times are tough and I feel down I turn to it, or equally when times are great and I feel elated and high, what do I do to celebrate? I eat; I appear to stuff my face in all situations and it is not at all healthy.

I could tell you I am a real foodie and I just love food but when I really think about it, that is not true. I’m not interested to try all the new tastes and to seek out the very best foods to satisfy my curiosity. In honesty I’m more interested to just eat those things I enjoy and to overdose on them. Food has become my drug of choice.

This needs to change, I’ve known this for many years but what has eluded me is how to change it. Willpower alone is certainly not working, I hate just sitting with that empty feeling when I want to eat. What I need is a different focus and the clues have been there for years but praying instead of eating has never really held a strong enough appeal for me. Luckily last weekend the penny dropped when I heard the same message from two different speakers at our Sunday Celebration.

I need to move my focus from myself to the Father and I have to do this through continued worship. It is my job as a child of God to be continually worshipping and praising Him, this focus on Him will ensure that I do not have time to just wallow in my small issues, I have to focus on the bigger picture. I’ve already being practising the principle of gratitude for many years now and I know the power of praise, I just need to up my game and when I feel that pull to eat, it must act as the trigger to sing and to lose myself in worship for a bit, because when I focus on God rather than myself, I have the natural order right and I feel certain the urge to eat needlessly will go away.

Of course, alongside this I need a god eating plan (I intended that to say good eating plan but actually decided that maybe the typo was God-inspired and I should leave it, as indeed I do need God to be in the plan!) to ensure that I’m getting all the nutrition I need and eating the right things to be able to keep my yearnings under control.

As someone who has had food issues all their life, the changes I need to make will not be easy. Many of the best things in life are not easy but they are necessary, so however hard it feels to change, I have to do it. At the moment I’m on a one way ticket to hell, a living hell on earth where I am trapped in activities that are not glorifying To God. To keep eating and stuffing my face with food to block my emotions and to feed my habit is disrespectful and neglectful but I have to get past chastising myself and I need to focus on the good. He loves me as I am and by making some simple changes, with my focus moving from self to Him, I can love me too and only then will many other elements fall into place and I can find the peace that I so dearly covet.

My dear friend Gordon who has gone through so much just recently encouraged me to grab Gods hand and walk with Him in 2016 and Nicole reminded me that we must give thanks first and then the miracles happen. I’m really looking forward to the miracle this year and seeing how the changes in me impact many other people.

Thanks for reading, Mich x

Sturdy School Shoes from Hotter Shoes

Back in September JJ started secondary school and he had a new pair of what looked to be really sturdy leather shoes. Here we are just four and a half months later and they still fit him, but he has worn the leather away at the heels and they now rub. Also the insole is really worn and quite uncomfortable to wear.

With this in mind I got in touch with my shoe store of choice and asked if they might like JJ to put a pair of their men's shoes to the test. Hotter shoes are available online and from over 70 stores in the UK and I am an avid fan. I got my first pair of Hotter boots back in 2010 and I still wear them now, I also have trainers that travelled to Ethiopia with me and a couple of pairs of shoes and they all last this heavy-footed woman really well.

Getting the New Year off to a good start

I feel like Christmas is a distant memory now and I'm happy the new year is here; there is still that feeling of expectation and new beginnings. Like anything can happen as it is a fresh canvas awaiting me to draw the picture of 2016.

To be honest I came into the new year without too much thought of what the year ahead would hold and what goals I should be thinking about. I'm really not into New Year's resolutions and I just assume they will be broken, so I stopped making them some years back but I do believe it's good to have a focus and change is the only constant.

Better Health 

Over the last couple of weeks I've spent quite a bit of time in prayer and quiet contemplation of what I should be doing this year and a few focus areas have made them self apparent to me. First off I really need to get a grip on my health. I've been on too many diets in the last thirty odd years since I started to try to lose some weight. The evidence from those last three decades tells me that diets do not work for me, I now realise what I need is small, gradual changes. So I am working on changes a couple of things each month and making them habits for life. It is going to be slow and I'm sure at times boring but it is so necessary and if I can establish all the better behaviours as my norms then the weight cannot fail to fall off and my health improve.

Know your Worth Bloggers.... Pfft

Success on Blackboard from Shutterstock

'Know your worth bloggers' is a phrase I see or hear again and again. On Facebook, in blog posts or spoken about at conferences and let me say from the start I agree you are worth a lot.

But I do resent the blog police telling you what your worth is. Who's business is it if you decide to accept a sponsored post for a payment of £25 or a review for a 75p tin of beans?

When it comes to taking on work, you have to make the decisions, how much money will you accept? What is the lowest value product you will accept? Will you work for goodwill or an owed favour? Whatever you decide is OK, is just that - OK for you.

Personally I've now been blogging for eight years, I have a large readership and a good social media reach. I therefore make the decision that I do not undertake sponsored posts for less than £125 and it is extremely rare for me to review low-value products.

However spin the clock back to 2010 and I'd of happily reviewed some toddler snacks worth about a fiver and I know for sure that all the low value reviews I undertook gave me valuable experience of crafting a good review and developing a strong relationship with PR agencies and brands. Some of my fabulous early opportunities came about because I put in the hard work to nurture a relationship and to learn my trade.

As a new blogger in this completely saturated market, you cannot expect to arrive and be offered the chance to review a holiday and £200 vacuum without having put in some serious work to develop your blog and following first. So yes, please do know your worth but do not allow others to define it for you and make you feel bad.

If you are not being offered £100 for a sponsored post as you do not yet have the reach and domain authority to warrant that then agree a price that you feel is fair and you are happy with and don't listen to any other blogger who tells you that you are letting the side down and devaluing us all. It's just not true,

For years I've been offered £25 posts and been turning them down, there are always dozens of other bloggers willing to take them and that is OK. I've made the decision to say no and know that better opportunities will come up for me, My personal decision is that I'd rather do 2 posts at £150 a piece each month than 12 at £25 to make the same money. You decision might be totally different and I respect your choice to make that decision.

I'm a live and let live kind of woman and I think life would be a lot easier if more of us were but I'm always open to (polite) debate so do share your opinion if you think I'm talking nonsense.

Mich x

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I'm talking Bladder Weakness - Because we Should!

Pop Photo Art Oops Image from Shutterstock

I've always been very honest on this blog and to be fair, my raw posts are often the ones that I've received the best responses to. The ones where comments, emails, tweets and even phone calls have poured in. It's not as if I'm shy - I've blogged about my issues around food and overeating, giving birth, having a miscarriage, bleeding all over a swimming pool floor and my foray with PND but I've never (yet) written about bladder weakness.

It's just not the done thing, is it? Do I really want to put it out there and say that I have to wear a pad each day and that I am avidly practising my pelvic floor exercises any time I remember. Yes you could be chatting to me in the playground and I look as if I'm concentrating but really I am squeezing and releasing with the hope that things just might improve down below if I'm a really good girl.

1. Stop the taboo and start talking about it
Sometimes I hear or read friends joking about sneezing or using the trampoline and having a worrying moment of 'wee leakage'. 'Ohh make sure you are wearing a Tena lady' is the standard response but bladder weakness really is still one of those subjects that we just do not talk about in a serious manner and I think we need to.

Little Steps, Big Changes

It’s that time of year again, when we all reflect on our lives and the year gone by and many of us decide to make some changes and set some goals. I’m not a big fan of making resolutions as they feel like pressure I do not need and I’m tempted to break them very quickly, so I struck resolutions off my to-do list quite some years ago now.

I am however passionate about change; things do not stay the same and that is a good thing. As a Christian, I’m learning and growing every day, just like Jesus did and even though on the outside it might look like my life is pretty much the same as this time last year it is the inner me I know that has changed for the better.

There are still plenty of changes that need to be made and the biggest one of all is losing some weight and becoming healthier. In the last year I have been diagnosed with cough variant asthma and early onset arthritis in my knees and that can’t be right for someone who is just 42 years of age. Losing weight has been a goal of mine for near on thirty years so this isn’t going to be an easy one to achieve but then the best things in life are never easy.

I’ve had a bit of a revelation in the last few weeks though and it is encouraging. I’ve been asking myself why I think I can have a different result (i.e. weight loss) when I keep doing the same things? I’m in a terrible pattern of trying to diet or ‘be good’ as I call it at least once a year and for two or three months I am motivated and I can manage to drop a few stone. Then it gets boring and my true love of food rears its head again and off I go in that same spiral of eating and dieting.

My revelation this year has been that I need to make small incremental changes and introduce new habits into my life. Habits for life in fact. The current NHS programme to help educate our nation is called ‘change for life’ and that is exactly what I need to do. Not diet, not ‘be good’, not anything for a short period of time but make long lasting changes.

It’s been fairly easy to identify that I lose all will power and determination as soon as I’m tired so the first change I’ve been making in January has been my bedtime. In bed with the light off by 11pm has been my rule, there has been the odd time later but massive improvements have been made in general. If I want to read my book I go up at 10pm so there is time before the 11pm lights off, not just tag it on the end and find myself still awake at gone midnight as had become the norm.

Hand in hand with this earlier bedtime has been an earlier wake-up time. I like the morning and thus it seems sensible to make the most of it before the house awakens, so at 6.30am I’ve been creeping into the lounge and reading my bible, writing my journal and praying. It’s been a very blessed time.

I now need to ensure that these patterns continue for the foreseeable future. Researchers seem to say that the minimum time it takes to form a habit is 21 days of continuous activity, but the more complex and difficult it is for you to personally adopt that habit the longer it will take. There is no strict formula but UCL suggest a good estimate is 66 days, that’s just over two months, yikes!

I’ve also had a health assessment in January and found out I am 47% fat and that feels like a scary figure but it is just that, a figure. A place I’m starting a journey from, it does not have to define me. There is no more ‘hello I’m Michelle and I’m fat’, it is now ‘hello, I’m Michelle, a child of God’, that is what defines me. It will be incredibly satisfying to watch this fat figure decrease, in more ways than one!

There will be more for me to update you on in coming weeks, but that’s it for now.

First two small steps, early to bed and early to rise. You know what they say about that? I’d be content with healthy, wealthy and wise!

What about you, have you got changes planned this year?

10 Family Movies to enjoy on NOW TV

During the run up to Christmas and this last week whilst the kids have still been off school we have been enjoying at least one family film every day. Sometimes all the family together, occasionally just the kids and a variety of family members at other times. It is definitely one of my favourite things to do, snuggle up with at least one of my children and watch a very good movie.

I'm  absolutely loving the variety that NOW TV is giving us. The movie package is probably the one that has been used the most (so far). We have been gifted this but it costs just £9.99 per month and I think that is great value, a trip to the cinema costs nearly that for just one adult. Also the films on NOW TV are good quality and there are over 1000 movies to choose from and up to 16 premieres each month. You won't get bored or run out of things to watch - I promise you!

Wishing you a Very Happy Christmas

All the preparations are done, the kids have finished school and we are now off visiting family and friends. 

Our Christmas will be a large and busy one but with plenty of moments of peace and calm thrown into the mix too.

I pray you can take time to feel joyful over the holidays and I wish you peace, good health and a life full of contentment in 2016.

You might have noticed I've had most of December away from blogging and I'll be honest it has been liberating, at the moment I feel no real pull to come back and blog again, so I might be away a while yet......

Be blessed, Mich xx

Image credit: Shutterstock - Christmas Cross

Fun at church last weekend.

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If you like what you have read and want to stay up-to-date then subscribe by email for free and receive blog posts directly to your in-box - just click the link Subscribe to Mummy From The Heart... by Email or perhaps you like to keep all your blog reading in one place, if that is the case you can follow me on BlogLovin too!

Doing Christmas Large!

I love Christmas, it is such a fun time and one I always look forward to. In the old days it meant time off Uni or work and plenty of dressing up, going out and having a tipple of two. For the last decade it has been about staying home and enjoying the time with my family. Building memories and traditions, some that have stayed with us and others we have had to adapt or even scrap completely.

One of the earliest traditions we adopted was wrapping all the kids presents on Christmas eve whilst watching a Christmassy film and having a Chinese take-away. My husband and I loved this and it was so easy when we only had one child and he went to bed at 6 or 7pm. Then even when we had three children all of a younger age it was still doable but over the last few years we haven't been able to start wrapping until about 10pm at night and with three kids and lots of gifts it started to get very tiring. The final straw was when we moved to East Sussex two years ago and our nearest Chinese take-away did not deliver and is a 10 mile round-trip.

Sadly that tradition had to stop but really it is no major issue as the conference centre where we live closes at midday on Christmas Eve and all the community and many of our returning friends come together to celebrate Christmas together. This year we expect there will be about 110 of us. Can you imagine how exciting my kids find this?

Every Day is a Roast Day for this Family - Toby Carvery Review #ManicMumDay

We all know that Mums generally lead a busy life and let's be honest many dads do as well. Recent research commissioned by Toby Carvery showed that most mums do not get to sit down on an evening until 8.07pm and I think on average this is probably about right, although some nights it is closer to 9pm!

It is for this reason that Toby Carvery offered my family and I to go along to our local restaurant (which in our case is Willingdon Drove, Eastbourne) on a week night and enjoy a meal that is cooked for us and involves no washing or clearing up. Result!

We booked a table using the online booking system, which is super easy and I have to confess that I have no idea you could book a table for Toby nowadays, as you never used to be able to. I was very aware from the start that the email confirmation (and reminder emailed to me the day before the reservation) stated that the table would only be held for 10 minutes from the reservation time and thus we arrived promptly.

A new Hobby for JJ

I was super pleased when our small gym was given a make-over recently. It is in the basement of the main house at the conference centre where we live and it has always been dark and dingy.

However, hard work from many of the young volunteer team has meant that a window has been unblocked and new equipment has been purchased and it has all been spruced up with paint and new safer flooring's.

This complete change has meant that my 12 year old son JJ has started to show an interest in using the gym and let's be honest, anything that gets my computer loving son out of the house and doing something physical is alright with me.

It's also fabulous that many of the international volunteers who live here are very into personal fitness and we even have one qualified personal trainer amongst them, so JJ has been given some great tuition and tips of how to exercise safely.

It was great timing that JJ received his Adidas Terrex Boast GTX trainers (with GORE-TEX® technology to ensure your feet stay dry even during the wettest of weathers and activities) some weeks back as they have been perfect for exercising in - light weight, good grip and able to keep his feet dry and sweat free. I went down to capture JJ in action at the weekend and I thought I'd share some pictures -

Encouraging Your Child's Imaginative Play

I'll make a confession to you and I'm sure I'm not the only parent who feels this way but I really dislike having to play make believe with my children.

I know, I'm terrible, right? I just find it so boring. I am a realist and I'd much rather be doing something that my logic says is worthwhile and is achieving something. You know, perhaps crafting some cards, baking cakes or going for a ramble.

But the research shows how important it is to encourage your children to take part in imaginative play. A key article in Psychology Today cites benefits such as increased creativity, enhanced empathy, your child gaining an understanding that others thoughts differ to their own, advanced language skills developing and even a reduction in aggression to name just a few of the major plus points.