♫Heaven♫

♫Heaven, I'm in heaven, I'm in yarn delivery and organisation of yarn into neat little drawers that replace the pink basket mess of wool, heaven♫

Thea from That Yarn Store gave me a Sunshine award this morning. How utterly sweet, and totally replaced the lack of sunshine here in NJ today

With this shine comes great responsibility so here goes:

Here are the rules for accepting the Sunshine award:

1. Place the logo within your blog or post. (√)

2. Pass the award on to 12 bloggers. (cheating and doing 7 just now, but they are from all over he world)

• Firing one straight back at http://thatyarnstore.blogspot.com/
• Across the Hudson to http://www.knittingknoobie.com/
• To my lovely knitter twitter in England Tiggerjen http://withneedlesinherhand.blogspot.com/
• All the way to Aussie http://zanzthingz.blogspot.com/
• Over to Finland http://its-about-amoena.blogspot.com/
• Doing a fling over to Scotland http://kitschycoo.blogspot.com/

3. Link the nominees within the post. (√)

4. Let the nominees know they have received the award by commenting on their blogs. (give me a sec...)

5. Share the love and link to the person from whom you received the award. (√)

Smiles all around...

It's me, slackermum

I'm affectionally known as slackermum.

Alright, well I named myself slackermum and it's perfectly apt.

My involvement in all things 'school' is usually limited to walking the kids to the bustop and cursing if I have to pick them up if they are ill. Last week or so Kia comes home with a letter about 'Immigration Day' where they will celebrate the trip our ancestors made on the boat over to Ellis Island (or in our case the 7.5hr flight on a Virgin Plane to Newark). The letter has the words 'volunteers needed' and I immediately switched off.  If I wanted to be surrounded by 30 children I would have become a teacher or Trigint-mum (hah you Duggars beat that!)

There was also a wee bit about sending in a traditional dish from the country your ancestors came from for the classes to sample. In true slackermum style I ignored that bit too. My cooking skills aren't exactly top notch. I am not her        ------->

Then Kia has a playdate and the friend's Mum, who if we were in a comic would be my arch nemisis in her very nonslacker "I'm in daily email contact with the teacher" way, raised her eyebrows in true shock and horror when I mentioned that I wasn't lovingly preparing a gourmet meal of epic proportions for this major 2nd Grade event that they will remember for the rest of their lives (rest of the week maybe) and that they were pretty short on main course dishes as many were sending in desserts.

Well the gaunlet was thrown.

I won't say I'm competitive because that would be too weak a word!

Trouble is what on earth could I cook that's 

a) British 

b) within my limited repertoire 

c) portable to school without needing warming 

but mostly b)

Thanks to Twitter suggestions, Yorkshire puds won out considering they have, like, 3 ingredients and are pretty much idiot proof, or should I say Cara proof.

So I told Kia's teacher at Parent's Conference that I will bring in a dish of these yummies, oh and I'll throw in some Marmite sandwiches for good measure, because then that's two dishes, two separate 'British' things, all be them far, far from gourmet, and even though I was screaming to take in a Haggis with a side dish of Black Pudding. Yumm-a-licious!

Problem is, I'm ashamed to admit, even after spending 5 years of my life in Yorkshire (admittedly in a Stella haze) I've never made Yorkshires before, Aunt Bessie did that for me, because they are perfect every time. 

We scoot to today and I deliver the delights of the creme-de-la-creme of British cuisine, the Yorkshires came out mighty fine (if I do say so myself, and I do) complete with little notecards explaining what they were made from and what on earth Marmite was, and Kia informs me after school that only her and her teacher tried the Yorkshires and noone cared for the Marmite Sandwiches.

Next time I'm keeping my slackermum pants on.

Friends in all the right places

Those of us that are Twitter, Facebook, and Blog happy people probably started off on the odd forum or two. That's certainly where I started as once upon a time I found myself 21, six weeks pregnant and in need of people in the same situation, I stumbled across a pregnancy forum, nine years later I still talk to the ladies I first found there.

Some of us met in person, some of us meet regularly, some of us fell out, some of us don't get on, some of us disappeared, some of us returned, some of us experienced loss, illness, heartache, and some of us are going through bad, bad times. We were kicked off our original board because we weren't mothers of babies anymore so we made our own little chatting and sharing haven, we've been there for each other for the past 9 years and I truly hope that will continue.

The internet and my friends that live on it have been a lifeline for me since moving here. It's been a steady constant in my changing world. People I talk to on Twitter, Facebook and my forum friends didn't go anywhere. They stayed right where I needed them and I for them. Those people I don't, didn't or never saw on a face to face basis were still right there day and night. This contact with people, whether it be from my old magnolia painted, beige carpeted living room in the UK is no different from this, also magnolia painted, but tiled living room in the US.

Of course my 'real life' friends didn't go anywhere either, it was me that did, but most of those friends were never into the social media scene, these two worlds I had were and still are totally separate so communication with them is old school; phone and email. I dearly, dearly miss my friends I did see on a regular face to face basis, I miss going for coffees, all round mine for wine, the school run and the long chats in the playground, hugs and smiles like nothing else and I am counting down the days until I go see them for a weekend in June.

Now one of my bestest friends whom I met online all those years ago is very soon about to undertake what I just did, although unfortunately she will only be a little bit closer to me, given that she is off to California and I'm here in New Jersey, the flight time between isn't much shorter than to get back to London! But I am planning a trip there as soon as she gives me the nod that she's settled and I can come! I hope that she feels this steady constant too and that her new found twittering and, I hope, blogging helps her and I wish her, her husband and three beautiful children all the luck in the world on their new journey.