Flump

F is for Flump

I was teased quite a lot as a child,

By those who were wicked and wild.

I was always quite plump,

So they called me a flump

As a nickname, though, that was mild.

Compared to a ball of fluff!! Original image.

To Casserole, Or Not To Casserole, That Is The Question...

 Mark, being the delusional bloke that he is (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) was bound to give me at least one topic suggestion that would stump me at least a little bit. But I never dreamed that of the five requests he would make of me, casseroles would be one of them (and if I'm worried about this post, I still have darts and Noel Edmunds to cover in the next few days *faints*).

I'm not a fan of casseroles, in fact I've never liked them at all. Possibly because my mother used to make them every week during the winter (along with the obligatory stew, which I also disliked), and there would inevitably be several vegetables lurking inside that would make me cringe with every forced mouthful. The thing is, I was brought up to eat everything on my plate whether I liked it or not. If I wanted 'afters', I had to eat my main meal. An odd sprout left here, a spoonful of peas left there, that was allowed, but the majority of the meal had to be consumed.

We also had set meals for certain days, depending on the season. Summers were cool because we basically lived off various salads, which I've always loved, but winter meals were a different deal. Sundays would obviously be dominated by the roast chicken dinner (which fortunately I love), Fridays would be fish of some sort (I detest fish), Mondays were ham, mashed potatoes and parsley sauce (hate ham, loathe parsley sauce), and Wednesdays were stew days (or casseroles, one or the other). Luckily the other days weren't so structured, and we had things like steak pies (yum), corned beef hash (yum yum yum), curries and pasta (yumminess all round).

Anyway, when it was casserole or stew day, I would dread sitting down to eat because I knew I would have to hold my breath so as not to smell the food, and bypass chewing as much as possible and move straight to swallowing, thus avoiding much of the tasting process. I still cringe at the memory of those times when a hint of swede or parsnip hit my taste buds and I had to stop myself from... well, you get the idea.

You may think I'm a fussy eater, but I'm actually not too bad. I like way more than I don't like. If you want to know what a fussy eater is, then you should meet my kids. My son lives off a diet of cereal, cheese spread sandwiches and chips (that's fries to those of you in the US of A). My daughter is not much better, though she will at least have ham, eggs (but only the yolk, mind you), sausages and fishcakes. Offer them real fish, and they would laugh. And meat? Uh-uh. As for vegetables, you can forget it. I do a lovely Sunday roast every week (well, actually the hubby does it now because I work every Sunday), and out of all of the meat and the trimmings, my kids have potatoes. That's it. My daughter will have a sausage on the side rather than real meat, and they'll both have the gravy, but as for the idea of giving them a proper roast dinner, I might as well talk to the wall.

Now you might think that I should follow my mother's example and tell them that they have to eat their meals whether they like them or not, but you haven't met my kids. I've tried so many times to be firm with them, and each time they have gone without food for the night, or they have literally made themselves sick after forcing a mouthful down their throats. I'm sorry, but even though I know they're manipulating me, I can't stand back and watch my kids vomit, or go hungry. Plus having my own bad food experiences in my youth makes it doubly hard to force my kids into eating stuff they don't like. 

So to answer the original question, it's definitely Not To Casserole. It's just not happening in the Smith household, no sirree.

Perfect Getaway

Here I am with day three's post for my October Marathon. I'm still working through Maria's suggestions, and today's lovely subject is 'your favourite childhood hideout/ or fort/ getaway space' (Maria's come up with some good ones, don't you think?)

Technically, I never really had an official hideout as such, as I was never an outdoorsy kind of girl. If I wanted time for me I would simply go to my bedroom (which I always shared with one of my sisters) and pull out - and this should come as no surprise - a book. I can't ever remember a time when I didn't enjoy reading. I don't have any specific memories from my earlier childhood, but I do know that reading was always something that I did.

As I mentioned before, I'm not a very good mixer, and add to that the slightly over-protective parents who didn't really let me go out to play very often, plus a sister who was frequently too ill to join in the fun, and another sister who was manic depressive probably from birth, I was definitely a bit of a loner as a child. Oh, I had friends that I saw at school, and a couple of kids from next door that I would play with off an on, but usually I would make my own fun. I did all of the usual things that most girls do - I played with my Barbie dolls, and I played dress up with my mother's clothes and made extensive use of her make-up and perfume, that sort of thing - but when you don't have company to share the fun with, you do your best to make new friends.

So that's what I did. I became friends with all of the characters of my favourite books. My parents had little money to spare when I was younger, so my mother made frequent trips to the charity and second-hand shops and came home laden with clothes to get mucky in (we had a large backyard that was used for more grass and mud fights than anything else), dolls that needed nursing, and books. Lots and lots of books.

I don't really think there was a particular book or series that was a 'craze' in the 1980's, but being a girly girl, plus a child who would read anything and everything, I soon began to get hooked on dog-eared copies of Enid Blyton's books. I became fast friends with Darrell and Alicia from her Mallory Towers series, for example. Of course, the books were set in the Evergreen Jolly Hockey Sticks era of posh Britain - which is about as far away as you can get from a council estate in one of the poorer areas of Cardiff - so they were definitely rather dated, even in the eighties, but the underlying message of friendship appealed to me I suppose because I wasn't very social. Of course, I didn't know that was the reason they appealed to me back then - how many eight and nine years can self analyse? - but with hindsight I can definitely see why they attracted me.

One of the books that sticks in my mind most from my youth was Little Women by Louisa M Alcott. I absolutely adored this book for a number of reasons. Mostly, I loved the characters, especially the feisty Jo, with her sometimes misguided way of doing things, and her enduring love for her family. I'll never forget the part of the story where she cuts off her hair to make a little money - which, in the time that the story was set, was a huge deal for a woman because her hair was viewed as her crowning glory - and her elder sister, Meg, exclaims; "Oh Jo, your one beauty!" (or words very similar, I haven't got the book to hand), and that definitely struck a chord with me. Meg, indeed all of the family, loved Jo a great deal, but even at the fairly tender age of ten, I picked up the fact that they definitely weren't seeing Jo's inner qualities as much as they should.

See, this is what I mean by making friends with my favourite characters. This is what I would do when I wanted to get away from the ever-present concern for my elder sister, and the constant stress that my younger sister caused. I would pull out my latest favourite book and pretend that I was one of the characters. I would be one of the girls at Mallory Towers, drinking hot chocolate in a freezing dormitory and trying to keep the chills at bay, thoroughly enjoying myself as we all took the mick out of Madame DuPont and her funny little glasses.. Or maybe I would be one of the March girls (probably Jo), acting out the man's role in a performance for Marmee on Christmas Day.

In my later youth I progressed to slightly more dramatic books, and took my pleasure in writing first chapters of the non-existent sequels. I'd never go beyond writing that first chapter -somehow I never could spoil the original story by going too far into the characters' futures - but writing a little extra scene, as it were, would finish the story off nicely for me. I'm rarely happy with the way a book ends (I'm a fussy mare), and even now I usually find myself rewriting the final chapter of most books that I read.  When I was younger, I did most of the writing in my head, granted, but I guess the habit never died, and was probably the first strong indication that I wanted to write books of my own.

So there we have it, my personal spin on childhood getaway spaces. Though to be truthful, I still do it now, which goes to show that some habits never die.

That Was The Year That Was....

Today is the last day of my thirty-third year, and what a year it has been! I think that the last year has probably had the most life-changing events for me personally than any other in the past (barring the birth of my children, that is). There has been  a fair few ups and downs this past year, and most of them have contributed to the person that I am now on this, the eve of my thirty-fourth birthday. Sure, events from every year of our lives shape the people that we are today - experiences alter our view of things, mistakes help us to learn to do better, and successes help drive us forward - but it sometimes happens that some years are almost non-eventful, while others have a spate of occurrences that somehow wake you up from the Plodding Through Life slumber.  My thirty-third year definitely falls into the latter category.

July 2009

My birthday falls on the 24th, so technically I can't include all of July in my recap of the last year, but the last week of July in 2009 can definitely be mentioned. I remember waking up in a mixed mood. I was feeling a bit down because my husband was starting his annual two weeks of working away from home that day, so I only got to see him for an hour or so - not the best start to my birthday. But then I logged into Facebook and was bombarded with lots and lots of lovely birthday messages, which cheered me up no end. I saw my husband off and spent the day opening cards and gifts, then finished it with a few friends sharing a celebratory drink with me. Lovely!

August 2009

August can best be described as a blur of madness. Most days were spent trying to entertain my kids in the limbo that is The Summer Holidays. *cringes* All would be well and good if we actually had decent weather and plentiful funds, but when most of the days are rainy and miserable, and finances are tight, entertaining two highly active children for almost seven weeks is exhausting. Yup, August was a bit of a blur.

September 2009

Back to school joy-ness! Soon to be followed by back to school annoy-ness. *snort* Schools tend to hit you with purse-emptying events in the first month of the academic year. As if being skintified by the Buying School Uniform Gloominess wasn't enough, we are bombarded by school photos, school trips and 'fund raising' events in the very first few weeks of term. Still, at least we don't have to worry about entertaining the kids so much now, eh?

October 2009

I started blogging! The first big 'up' of the last year.*grins* I never thought I would ever start blogging - it's not really something that a procrastinator does because blogging generally means commitment. I did really well in my first month, and blogged every day. I made a few new friends, had a ball writing the daily blogs, and discovered that my personal brand of craziness was mostly accepted by the blogging community. Awesome!

November 2009

I wrote a novel! Seriously, I did! *faints* NaNoWriMo sucked me in for the first time ever, and not only did I finish my 50,000 word novel, I also blogged every day too (well, I missed one day, but I don't hold it against myself *winks*). I introduced requests to my blog this month too, and also let loose on the general public the loony-ness that is Taff. Best month ever, November. *nods*

December 2009

December passed swiftly, what with the Christmas build-up and the general busy-ness that it brings, and the extra excitement added from the daughter because her birthday falls so close to the festive season. Mostly a good month, but with some underlying tension which was a prelude to what was to come....

January through March 2010

Dire, very dire. New Year's day brought with it a change in my personal circumstances, and this change led to a very big dip in my well-being. I've always been prone to periods of depression throughout my adult life, but usually I pulled out of them all by myself. This time it took my GP to pull me back from the abyss. After several attempts, my doctor finally found the right medication for me, but it wasn't until the end of March that I started to feel more like myself. Although the first quarter of 2010 were the worst months of my life, they actually caused me to take a step back and reconsider a lot of things. I finally lost the bulk of the weight that had literally been bogging me down for the last seven years. Okay, the first twenty pounds fell off me with no effort at all - not eating or sleeping properly for a month will do that for you - but the next twenty pounds came away through sheer doggedness and refusal to slip back into bad habits. Coupled with the new determination to look my best was a change of attitude in general. After too many years of plodding along through life, I finally took charge and allowed myself to be heard. I let myself speak up for the things that I wanted, and for the first time in a long time I didn't always put everyone else first. I'll never say that I am grateful for the circumstances that started this chain of events, but I can honestly say that I would probably still be stuck in a rut if they hadn't have happened. It's funny how the worst things in life sometimes lead to the best things. Maybe there is a God up there after all, and maybe He does work in mysterious ways.

April/May 2010

I really started to get back to my usual self around about here, which could be taken two ways. For the good, I no longer turned into a cry-baby on a regular basis, so the episodic depression was thankfully under control. Unfortunately, the return of my normal self brought with it the return of the Procrastination Princess, so while it was nice to be in control of my feelings, the downside was knowing that my bad habits were slowly but surely creeping back into my life. But do you know what? Despite the fact that procrastination isn't really something to be proud of, I actually like being like this. I think if I became this organised person who did everything properly and kept to deadlines and what-not, I wouldn't be me. And for the first time ever, I am happy with who I am, procrastinator or not.

June 2010

The epic fail of BuNoWriMo should really have put me back into the Pit Of Doom, but thanks to the new-found acceptance of myself, I wasn't bothered that I didn't manage to complete my second WriMo. Oh, I felt disappointment in myself, sure, but it wasn't the kind of disappointment that sucked me into LaLa-Land and made me want to crawl into a corner and hide. I was able to shrug off the failure and see it for what it was - a blip in the general plan, but not something that would affect the rest of my life. I also started back at my old job this month, which in spite of the impact it will have on my writing, is actually a good thing. Getting out of the house for a few hours every week is actually fantastic for getting you out of a rut, and although I was feeling better in a lot of ways, I was still stuck in the Waste Time Just Because I Can zone. Now that my days are structured according to whether I am working or not, I have to fit things in as and when I can. Gone is the There's Always Tomorrow attitude, and it has been replaced with the Acckkk!! I Have To Do It Now Or Else It Will Never Be Done attitude. So despite having to get up at stupid o'clock three days a week, and having to deal with snarky customers and figures that don't always balance, going back to work was a good thing.

July 2010

Arriving back at my birthday again, in summary I would say that although the badness of last year probably outweighed the goodness, I am still in a much better place than I was on the eve of my thirty-third birthday. I'm healthier (dropping 40lbs was the best thing ever), I'm happier, both with myself and with my life in general, I've written a freaking novel - ! - and although far from being Blogger of the Year, I have mostly stuck with it and not delegated this blog to the Abandoned Projects pile (which is precariously teetering on the brink of collapsing owing to the size of it).

So that was the year that was.

HPANA Rules!

Today's request comes from one of my newest online buddies, Leesh. It's sort of fitting too, because the topic she suggested was HPANA - the very first internet home that I adopted - and also the place where I originally 'met' today's requestee (that's not a real word, I know, but you know how I like to make up words).

Where do I begin? Well, I should probably start by mentioning that yesterday was the fifth anniversary of my joining one of the most popular Harry Potter fansites on the web. I don't know why I chose this particular site - it wasn't the first 'hit' from google when I originally decided to type in 'Harry Potter' in the search bar. I think I was attracted by the simple layout more than anything (me being one of the most computer inept people on the planet). I'd only been actively using the internet for around three months when I joined HPANA, so a simple format to navigate was a must.

I initially ventured into the canon discussion areas, where I dived straight in and posted a theory about one of the characters. I don't know how it happened,  but eventually the topic became so popular that it became one of the elite 'pinned' threads. Nobody was more surprised than me, let me tell you. Anyway, a few months after joining, I gained a bit of confidence and began to explore the site. Up until that point I hadn't ventured much further than a couple of topics, and I really only posted in one or two.

Then I clicked on the link for Fan Fun - and opened up a whole new world. For the first time in my life, I discovered fan fiction. I seriously had never heard of it before, and it wasn't long before I became addicted to several of the ongoing fictions. It was only a small leap between reading and writing fanfic, and that's how I started writing again.

I've always loved writing, but in the years filled with stressing over bills, working horrible shifts, and bringing up a family, I sort of forgot my dream of one day being a novelist. Now I freely admit that my first fanfic was truly atrocious. Honestly, I look back on it now and cringe at how badly written it is - the plot was mediocre, the structure was terrible, and as for spelling and typos.... well, you probably get the picture. Nevertheless it proved strangely popular, despite its failings. Buoyed by the fabulous comments that I received throughout the posting duration, my brain started connecting my serious HPANA self to my fanfic madness HPANA self. I decided to make my original theory - that was still going strong in the discussion forum - into a fanfic.

And so the dream truly became solidified in my head. My second fanfic was probably my most popular story on the boards, and nothing I have ever written since has ever surpassed it. I've written three complete longer length stories, am still procrastinating over another three, and have numerous short stories under my belt, not to mention my 15,000 word novella that doesn't fit in either the 'short' or the 'long' category. They've all been fun to write, and when you compare my initial work to my later stuff, I firmly believe that I have improved a hundredfold. It's definitely a brilliant way to hone those writing skills.

Now onto other stuff, because as much as I love HPANA for giving me back my writing mojo, I also love it because I have made a ton of friends on there over the years. Every member of my writer's group, The Burrow was originally a member on HPANA, and it is on that site that we first connected (The Burrow as a name loosely inspired from our Harry Potter roots). I don't think I'll ever be able to express just how grateful - and proud - I am to be a member of this group. These people are fantastic in every way possible. They encourage my writing, they are enthusiastic about everything, they give honest feedback, and most importantly for me personally, are just the best friends you could ask for. A few of us managed to meet up in 2008 - no mean feat when you consider we are all from different countries - and it was astounding how well we got on together, it was like we had known each other for years. Which, of course, we had, but only in an online way. That's pretty incredible. The picture, left to right, is Jess, Leanne, Tami (Confessions of a Watery Tart), me, and Mari (The Giraffability of Digressions)

Besides my writer's group, I also have a bunch of other fantastic friends on HPANA, mostly my readers, and also other authors from the site. Prior to The Burrow, I was a member of another group, also a writing group, but perhaps not as serious. The NCWC (or Non-Comedy Writer's Club in its full dress) was crazy fun, writing challenges, glomping, poking and all sorts of other things rolled into one. We eventually vacated HPANA and moved to our own closed forum, and although we aren't nearly as active as we used to be, we have all remained the firmest of friends and still have a fond laugh for Barnbledore (a cross between Albus Dumbledore and Barney the Dinosaur) and the Fart Button. Good times....

Of course, now that the Harry Potter books have long finished, and the movies are almost done too, the participation on HPANA has dwindled a fair bit, but we still have that lovely community that, for all its smaller size, is still as addictive and fun as it ever was. I'm still making friends on there, even after five years, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I'll always have a soft spot for Harry Potter, but I believe that it is HPANA that will inspire the fondest memories for me in the years to come.

Don't forget, first person to post gets to have control over me for my next blog post!

Thank You

Dear Amber,

It's your sister's birthday today. Believe it or not, she's eight. I can't believe how fast the time has flown. You would have been approaching your tenth birthday if you were still here. We probably would have been discussing the plans for the party, what you would wear, and how you would style your hair, just as I have done with your sister. I'm pretty sure you would have had long blond hair too, and I bet it would have had that little kink to it, making it curl slightly at the ends.

Would your eyes have been blue like your brother, or brown like your sister? Either way, they would have been sparking with the Smith mischief, without a doubt. Sometimes I wonder what your personality would have been like, but I've always been convinced that you would have been as stubborn as me, just like your brother and sister are. You'd have inherited your father's sense of humour too.

I wanted to say thank you. I carried you for such a short time, and we never had the chance to get to know each other, but you're with me every day. I couldn't give you the promise of birthdays to look forward too,  I couldn't give you kisses and hugs every morning.  Your brother gave you your name in lieu of sibling rivalry, and I gave you my name too, so that we would always have something to share. It wasn't anywhere near what I wanted to give you, but it was all I had.

You gave me Ellie. Without you, I wouldn't have a daughter celebrating her birthday today. Without you, I wouldn't have a little girl who brings joy and exasperation in equal measures. Your tiny shot at life may have only lasted a few months, but those months paved the way to my family being complete.

So as I celebrate your sister's birthday today, always remember that I am thinking of you too, just as I think of you every day. Your footprints are displayed just as proudly as the pictures of your brother and sister, and your name is never far from my mind. Thank you for completing my family.

Love Mum xxx

In memory of my first daughter, Amber Marie Smith, who was born on September 26th 1999, and taken from us the very same day.