Diana's Cottage

Red Current Semolina Mousse

2011-07-22T17:25:00.002+03:00

For some reason or other I don't think people in other countries apart from Eastern Europe and the former USSR countries use semolina as much as we do. I'd like to show those of you who don't know this food how easy and delicious it is. In Latvian it is called "debesmanna" which literally means "manna from heaven" (mostly I believe because semolina is called "manna" in Latvian and also in Russian).
Let's start with some red currants. I personally am not a fan. There is no other way apart from mousse that I could ever eat these sour berries. (I might blame my Mom who ate truckloads of those when she was pregnant with me but sadly I am beyond the age when one is entitled to blame their parents, my dislikes are mine and I own them.)
So let's start by picking the berries. You can pick them with the stems, don't bother cleaning them, a little rinse under the tap is all it takes.

I can't tell you exactly how much you are going to need - but know this - the amount in the picture? Waaay too much. You can use any berries, syrups, jams, whatever you have handy.
Put the berries in some water - for the sake of an argument let's say two litres Boil them until the water gets pink and the berries get pale. (Unless you've chosen blueberries - you might not live to see them pale).

Now strain. (Don't strain yourself, just the berries.)

Now you've got some very sour juice (or not sour at all if you've been indulgent and used, let's say, raspberries).

I suggest you try just a bit - if it's very strong you absolutely must add water or you'll end up with something nasty. At this point you have to make something that seems fit to drink. Not too mild though but drinkable. So add sugar. Lots of it. I used two full cups. You might not need as much if you used sweeter berries or perhaps no sugar at all if you used some jam or other preserves (I don't recommend pickles or meat preserves for this type of dessert). Just experiment with the "juice" until it seems pleasant to taste. Now get it to boil and add semolina.

Now this is where it gets tricky (I bet you could see it coming, the trickiness I mean). I can't tell you exactly how much semolina you will need. It depends on so many factors, sometimes it even seems to depend on whether it's rainy or not or whether I am angry or happy. This time I used 19 tablespoons and it was just right. You must never pour semolina in a hot liquid from a cup or something, it will definitely get lumpy and you don't want that. You have to strew it from a spoon kinda like sowing seeds. (No, that can't be right. I have never nor have I ever seen anyone else sow seeds from a spoon.) As for the amount - the liquid has to get thicker but not thick like glue because semolina will swell. If you will add too much the mousse will be heavy and not frothy. So just add semolina intuitively and in a couple of minutes you will see. It will thicken. If you see that it's more liquid than thick, add some more semolina. Stir so it doesn't burn and boil for some 4-5 minutes. This is how mine looks. You might get some idea of the thickness from the picture.

Now let it cool. It has to be warm when you beat it but not hot. And not cold. See how pink it looks?

Now the magic part - take out your mixer and beat it for full five minutes. I just count to 300, works either way. I have a hand-held mixer that gets very hot after five minutes, and I don't recommend going on if that should happen to yours as well. And anyway, five minutes are enough.
Look at that dreamy frothiness! It's - I can't believe it - it's manna from heaven!

Now don't get discouraged by my lengthy and incomprehensible instructions, just try it if you haven't. You eat it with milk!

Oh, I could live on it! Ah, in fact I am. I have a full pan of it and it's too hot to cook anything else.

Compliments

2010-11-14T21:33:00.004+02:00

Compliments are rare and hard to come by these days. For some reason - or no particular reason at all - the compliments so generously offered by my husband don't seem to do the trick just now. Perhaps I'm taking them for granted or perhaps I don't quite believe when someone calls me beautiful after a sleepless night spent on my bachelor's paper and work, work, work, there's always too much work and too few hours to do it. But yesterday I got a compliment that made me turn around and say thank you to a person I would most probably not even muster a smile for. Some neighbourhood bum told another of his kind - "there goes the woman I've always liked very much". And the simplicity of these words really got to me. It was like a bucket of water in a very long drought. Because these days I feel anything but pretty. I was flabberghasted, truly, to hear that somebody likes me very much. It made me change the way I've been looking at people lately. Someone that I smile at just to be polite might actually lift my mood at the most unlikely moments.

This night I have to work again after having spent the whole day on that blasted paper. But that's alright, it's finished now, printed out and awaiting the binding and handing in tomorrow morning.
In my despair to get everything done on time I've overachieved on heating the house and it's really hot here.
I've got a whole night's amount of work before I go to the city early in the morning, and I don't quite feel up to it. But here I am, and change is gonna come. And then some. That bachelor's paper, fondly referred to as "the Batch" around here, is about the weight-loss motivators and demotivators (it's not really a word, I checked) for adult women. It has made me think so hard at times it felt my head would explode. The whole 129 pages of pure emotions, obsessions, control-freakiness or helplessness, and still there is hope. Not for weight loss per se, but for peace of mind and for loving your body.
This staying up all night and translating movies and some pretty worthless stuff is not loving my body. I might say it's survival, but now I'm 129 pages smarter, and I know it's punishing myself.
So, good night, I'm off to do some work and then slide blissfully between the sheets, oh, I do enjoy sleep!

A Fresh Start, A New Page

2010-06-27T17:39:00.003+03:00

I have actually found a pretty funny site about weight loss facts we all know, but I love the imbecile attitude of it. It's free and it offers the very basics - i.e. "you lose weight when you burn more than you consume".
For the fun of it I tried the calorie maintenance calculator which said that for my age, height and activity level I consume 2350 calories a day. The author suggests consuming 500 calories a day less than usual which should equal a weight loss of a pound a week. As I'm a European girl and pounds turn me off, I'd love to strive for a kilo a week which means I have to increase the number of calories I burn.
Further on the kind man explains that you should divide that newfound calorie number in 5-6 meals every 2-3 hours.
I know from experience that I feel best if I eat at 5 a.m., 8 a.m., 11 a.m., 14 a.m. and 17 a.m. That equals 370 calories per meal. It seems an awful lot if you ask me. Which means I can stick to this plan easily.
Then the man tells us that the right amount of protein for a person of appr. my weight is 90 grams a day - which is one egg! I take it to mean that if I have an egg a day I should be fine in terms of proteins.
So I'm cutting sugar, sticking to 370 calorie meals five times a day and weighing myself once a week. Let's see how that goes. Now I must get back to work. Tomorrow I will try to find an ideal workout plan.

Hi there, just a brief report

2010-06-27T15:49:00.004+03:00

I haven't written in a long, long time.
Life has come full circle. Half a year ago I was desperate because everything changed in my life. Now it's all in the past. In time perhaps I will tell more. Now I will only say that my husband has lost faith in his newfound religion and is now living the way he was living before it. He has resumed eating meat and smoking (alas!) but his overzealous fanaticism was much worse than smoking. Pride comes before a fall, and he has crushed down from his ivory tower with a loud bang, and still, it's better that way. We both have learned a lot and come out all the wiser.

I'm back. In more ways than one. I have another blog which I am writing in my native language about and for children, but lately I've been more and more aware that I need a blog of my own. A blog where I might write about things that move me and touch me and do not necessarily concern children.
I have a fantastic woolen sweater for my dearest husband (and after being so close to divorce I can really say "my dearest" and mean it more than ever) on the needles, and I want to take care of myself more often, and I want to show off some work I'm doing in the garden and at home. I feel a need for a blog of my own - and what luck! I have just the thing!

I have so many things to do, so many debts to settle, so many bills to pay, so many pounds to lose etc. that it seems at times there's way too much on my plate to think about some growth and "me time". But I'm sure it gets better further along the way.

Life Is Truly Wonderful

2010-01-26T10:55:00.002+02:00

Thanks to all those who commented on the issue of intimacy between a husband and a wife but I have to say, never in my life have I felt more loved, adored, cherished and spoilt than I am now. My husband has a whole new appreciation of me. I'm afraid I've been too graphic in the previous posts and I will not go into any details any more. Suffice to say, a man who has chosen a more spiritual path, is a true blessing to a wife, in all the aspects of life, bed included, even if the things we do are different from what we used to do there. Thanks.

A New Beginning

2010-01-02T20:51:00.004+02:00

Thank God for blogging, it's a great way to vent one's feelings without really (hopefully) hurting anyone. I cannot talk to my friends about my marriage, that is out of bounds, I wouldn't do that. But I can blog. So when I began the "this marriage is going nowhere fast" conversation with my husband I was able to think more clearly and I had already worked out for myself what the most troublesome issues were.
The conversation was a long one, it took most of the daylight to sort it out (which is not that much at the moment, it gets dark shortly after 4 p.m.). The celibacy thing is certainly still on, but now we both are willing to try out new grounds. There's this whole tantra world in which the male is not supposed to be ejaculating and exchanging bodily fluids but still the feelings are supposed to be very strong. We'll see how that works out. I am willing to try. There have been times before when I would welcome a bit less sex so that I would have some creative energy to use for other purposes. One thing in my endless "to-do-before-I-die" list is writing a children's book. I don't necessarily have to have it published. It would just be nice knowing that I have begun and completed it - with illustrations and everything. My Mom is a painter, there's always the choice of asking her to illustrate my book, but I intend to at least try myself and if nothing works out, involve other people. So I'm hopeful.

Today I'm translating an old and a bit weird Michael Douglas movie "Falling Down". I have to finish it before going to bed. I'll get to that now, there's work for some 2-3 more hours, so - see you again, perhaps tomorrow. I have great plans for tomorrow.

Not a Happy New Year

2010-01-01T10:23:00.003+02:00

A very sad day, I'm feeling very downhearted, I don't think I have ever looked into the future with less hope, less courage. I feel like my marriage is crumbling and there is no way that I can save it. My husband has gone the way I knew he would. I've known it for some time now. When he got into all the vedic stuff I knew there would come a day when he would decide in favour of celibacy. It's been a week since we've had sex for the last time and although he says we're still going to go for it, I know he will not enjoy it as much any more. He will be aware that he's "wasting his seed", his resources for growth, and I will feel just the way I'm feeling now - like I'm something dirty, some evil temptation that he's supposed to resist. From having sex every day to having it a couple of times a year - that is a very sudden and an extremely unwanted turn of events. When I got married I thought the only thing that could smother the flame would be some sort of alienation on my part or his, or getting tired of one another. That would be something that I could fight, that I could control. This religion thing is out of my reach, I see no way that I can mend it. I know for sure I don't want to live with him like a sister. If it goes on like this I will definitely get a divorce. This is so devastasting, I love him more than anything, but I can't go on knowing that I am an obstacle on his path, a way for him to test his weakness. We don't talk about it, in fact, I'm crying all the time in my room (yes, I've got my own room now where I can work alone), he sees the wet mascara, but does nothing, and I'm starting to suspect this is going to be the worst year of my life.

Hi!

2009-12-17T18:20:00.005+02:00

I haven't written since September, I still can't seem to decide where I prefer to blog - on my local blog or on my other blogger blog which is in Latvian.

But at times I really feel like writing here. This is the time. I am rather well known for some of my activities, mainly my job and some other public stuff, in my own country and in my Latvian blogs, but this I feel is a safe haven where I can be very open and frank. My family, friends and employers read those other blogs. The past few months have been quite busy and it was that sort of busyness that one lets her friends and family know of. Now there are some significant changes in my own family going on right now, and I cannot tell other people about that - I mean those people that know me in real life.
But I need a safe place to vent my feelings.

First of all, in September I kicked the sugar addiction and did not eat any sugar (apart from that which is found naturally in fresh fruit and vegetables). Yesterday was the first time in 3 months that I had a cookie. By cookie I mean 6 butter cookies, self-made. I'm cooking cookies to give people for Christmas, and something happened that I snapped for some reason or other. I had some today as well, but that's about it. I won't eat cookies any more.

The second significant change is that my husband has become almost obsessed with vedic philosophy. In a fortnight he has completely cut out meat, fish and eggs from his diet (let me remind you that we are keeping hens that now serve to him as a constant reminder of his "former faults".) He has changed his routine beyond recognition. He used to get up at 11 a.m and go to bed at 2-3 a.m. At times I felt hurt and jealous because I am the only bread-winner in the family, due to the fact that I am quite good at it. I have never reproached him for sleeping in, but at first I really welcomed the change. I am a morning person myself and am used to getting up at 5 a.m. when he is basically in the first phases of sleep. But now he gets up at 5.30 each morning and goes to bed at 10 p.m. I have my own routines that work for me, but now he just cramps my style. I hate that he's up before me. He has taken up a lot of housework, and I salute that because I truly hate housework. (Now we have a 3 months old puppy, so there's always a lot of fluid to mop up.) I'm glad for that. Another change in him is that he is finally (!) ready to make the third child. I've been pestering him for more than a year - let's buy a dog, let's have a child. Now he thinks that in a couple of months time he might be ready (meaning healthy enough) to knock me up.

But. (And it's a shameful butt.) Since he doesn't eat any more eggs and meat, the basic proteins, he has lost a lot of his libido. Too much information, I know, but we used to have sex every day for the last six and a half years. Nothing stopped us (apart from my period). I suppose it's partly because he had so little to do and he was often bored. Now he's got the whole vedic thing going on and he is inclined to try and live a more ascetic life. I've asked him again and again to warn me when (not if, but when) he would come to the point when celibacy would seem necessary. Every time he laughed at the thought, but it's come to having sex two times a week. I feel liberated in a way because I have more time. At the same time it's not a time I have on my own, he's always up at the same time. I know my body and its limitations, I know I could never ever turn night into day, but his everlasting presence is driving me mad. He's trying to convert me and the kids as well. I have to say I know quite a lot about ancient religions, I have studied them and I know the basics, so his discoveries are nothing new to me, but it's getting harder and harder to strengthen my character and be patient with him.
Many good things have come from these changes, he's making all the meals (Indian meals), and most of the food I love. Some I don't. Children don't like any of it. He's angry with them and suggests raising them up more strictly, not letting them choose what they want for dinner or breakfast. I resent it and surely end up spoiling them whenever I can.

OK, I've got to get back to work. I have no idea what will happen to us. My psychology studies have made me change as well. I'm learning more about myself, I'm uncovering my own demons, and now it's all happening at the same time.
See you.

79 Days To Go

2009-09-27T09:20:00.002+03:00

I've been very good the whole week, dealt with my term paper and other unsettled courses at the university, and I've also gone back to counting Weight Watchers points because I almost feel the 100 day challenge has served its purpose in pushing me in the right and healthty direction. I've lost 1 kilo during this week and am now going to move forward one kilo at a time, not getting overwhelmed by the big picture.

I'm feeling very content and even rested to some point now, hopefully all runs smoothly and hopefully I will have another lost kilo to report by the end of next week.

82 Days to Go

2009-09-23T08:10:00.003+03:00

Monday and Tuesday were good, no time to post, I have to present my term paper tomorrow, and I still have the whole statistics part to do. See you!

84 Days To Go

2009-09-19T09:02:00.003+03:00

This week has been HELL, but many things have changed, one of them is that I am going to study this year after all, but it means all the more exhaustion. That's alright, fate has decided for me, I'm willing to go with it.
Yesterday was rather good, and at last I found an hour to exercise.
I feel there are some great changes happening in my thinking, and I hope they lead to something good.

85 Days To Go

2009-09-10T20:26:00.005+03:00

Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain. (Mark Twain)

What a great quote! I know what I will do tomorrow that I really don't want to do.
Today's joy - I received a package of yarns for the kids. That's some Turkish yarn, and usually I don't like those, but this time it's going to be OK, I hope, because the boys will grow out of the sweaters soon anyway, and I don't want to use anything too expensive for a piece of clothing that will only last one season. I received some books as well - mostly for the kids, but I ordered Daphne's du Maurier "The Birds". I absolutely love her books but had never read that one. Having translated the Hitchcock movie last week I felt an urge to order the book, it's very small, but I hope will bring me some insight. It's always like that with books - they always come at a time when they can bring some use to the reader.
Another book that I got was Tove Jansson's "Comet in Moominland", one of the very best pieces of literature this planet has to offer. It was one of the great joys of my childhood and I hope my kids will appreciate the beauty of the language and the story.
Today I am thankful to
* my husband who has started the repairs of the house (my "only" contribution is all the money for everything that has to be bought);
* the kindergarten teachers that make me feel like a free human being from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day (oh it is so good to be able to work without distractions!);
* to Tove Jansson for all her Moomin books!

86 Days To Go

2009-09-09T18:21:00.003+03:00

This one is for yesterday, I had no time to blog.

Monday was fine, I stuck to the plan but had no time to post it. Saturday and Sunday were great too, but I missed some parts of the plan so no post for those.

88 Days To Go

2009-09-04T07:39:00.003+03:00

89 Days To Go

2009-09-03T08:31:00.002+03:00

Yes, yes, yes, the children are away at preschool, I have my very loooooooooooong awaited chance to have breakfast in peace and quiet! (I hear sighs of relief all over the country as the kids have started a new school/kindergarten year! Yes, moms and dads, I'm with you!) It's going to be a great day, I'm at peace with all the world.

90 Days To Go

2009-09-02T08:08:00.000+03:00

Today is the one hour workout day, I'm looking forward to that.

91 Days To Go

2009-09-01T09:50:00.002+03:00

I squeezed in a whole hour yesterday for shaping exercises and was very pleased with myself although that meant I had one less hour to sleep. I made some ice-cream yesterday because a neighbour brought us some 700 grams of fresh cream. Certainly home-made ice-cream is one of life's true pleasures - especially with fresh raspberries and blueberries (well, frozen, not exactly fresh - the berry season is over). I tried not to feel guilty eating two portions, but after all - these 100 days are not about a diet. My main goal is to introduce a whole hew habit of exercising every day - for 20 minutes at least, but for a whole hour every other day. Another habits for these 100 days are: no eating after 6 p.m., drinking 8 glasses of water a day and keeping the house tidy. I get a tick and a picture with a number only for those days when I've done all of that. I don't really expect to lose weight because I don't think it's possible without tweaking the diet, but at the very least I hope to gain some healthy habits. Diet - that's another step for another challenge maybe.
OK, back to work - I'm translating a horror movie today - for cinemas. Hope it won't be too terrifying, I get scared easily.

92 More Days To Go

2009-08-31T08:09:00.001+03:00

This is for yesterday, I worked so late into the night I didn't have time to post this.

93 Days To Go

2009-08-29T20:21:00.001+03:00

Today I'm feeling down. This was my 31st birthday and as a rule I love birthdays. I loved this one as well - up to the moment when I uploaded the pictures the kids took today of me. I had thought I looked great in my dark blue dress, therefore when I asked my husband "How do I look, honey?" his reply "Fine, just fine" annoyed me. Now I see that he was kind and not insensitive. That's alright, I'll keep going, just one more reason to stay all the more motivated. I did not have a goal to lose weight before. I had a goal to become fitter, increase my stamina etc. But now I absolutely MUST lose weight. In addition to the need to earn more money, to finish the term paper for the university and not to die of exhaustion it's a tough call, and I still haven't decided if I'm going to study this year. I'm waiting for some sign I guess. Somehow those goals - earn more, keep studying and lose weight - start to seem self-exclusive... I just don't know. What I really really need is a vacation - I haven't had one since the summer holidays in tenth grade which was... let me think... in 1994. Perhaps I should take a break from the studies after all as it is impossible right now to take a break from work. OK, I'm just raving now, I won't bother you with this. Happy birthday, Diana, things can only get better.

94 Days To Go

2009-08-29T08:50:00.002+03:00

95 Days To Go

2009-08-27T19:08:00.002+03:00

It's taking me so long, but I've resolved not to beat myself up about it. It's been very tough because of the huge workload and millions of pages to translate, and so many expenses, and too little income, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

96 Days To Go

2009-08-09T08:47:00.004+03:00

Yesterday ran smoothly. I'm back on track after a totally sleepless and worrisome week.

97 Days To Go

2009-07-29T20:49:00.003+03:00

This day was OK in terms of the plan - I had a "new food day" (it was stuffed bell-pepper. It wouldn't count as a new food if I had prepared it as usual with minced meat but this time I made it vegetarian since none of us eats meat any more (apart from the kids, because I believe it needs to be a deliberate choice), so I stuffed the peppers with fried onions, tomatoes, herbs and cheese). I drank the water I was supposed to, and I did the housework that's to be done on Wednesdays (apart from decluttering, I did not find time for it). I didn't do standard exercise and opted to pile wood for half an hour because it had to be done anyway, and I counted that as a weight-lifting exercise. (You should have seen those logs, trust me, it counts.) But I've fallen behind in terms of translating and that means I'll have to toil in the end of the month (August, that is) to scrape the money I need. Nevertheless, it's all good. I had resolved not to weigh myself, but I peeked this morning and the scales told me I'm on the right track.

98 Days To Go

2009-07-28T19:42:00.003+03:00

This day was great! I did almost everything I had resolved to do (apart from translating, my job!) But otherwise - just perfect. The night is young, I've got four hours till midnight - who knows, I might even complete the translation (I've got Top Gear series 10 now on the list).
On a different note - just wanted to write it down for myself - my youngest son (Walter, 3 y.o.) learned to ride a bike with no extra wheels today. He's been afraid to try since my husband took the kiddy wheels off, but now he just needs to practice for a couple of days and we will be able to go for a ride all four of us on four bikes.

99 More Days To Go

2009-07-28T07:32:00.002+03:00

Yesterday was great, I did everything I had to, so it's 99 more days of the challenge. The hardest was not eating after 6 p.m., but I suppose in some three weeks it will be a habit.

100 Days

2009-07-26T19:29:00.003+03:00

The wonderfully inspirational Katy P from Thin Enough to Go to the Gym has started a new 100 Day Challenge. Every person taking part is to find his/her own habit to kick or to establish and to keep to it for a hundred days.
I'm not going to follow her challenge, I don't feel I really fit in, as her site is more maintenance than weight loss oriented, but I find the thought very appealing. Knowing that if it's "all or nothing" one is more likely to give up at some point altogether, she has given a permission to mess up ten times during these 100 days, for each mess-up losing one "bone". I'm going to stick to that part though (but not the bones, the bones kinda turn me off).
The rules are as follows.
I am accountable to myself and nobody else. If I mess up, I don't cringe up and die. I confess and go on. It's always extremely hard for me to confess to anyone I've messed up. That is the reason why I've failed to lose weight with Weight Watchers and similar programs, because as soon as I put on any weight, be it 100 grams, I quit the programme because I feel too ashamed to admit the fact I'm not perfect (as if I could ever be!)
So this time I'm changing the rules. I am going to count only the days that I've succeeded. Even if it takes 200 days to complete a 100 day challenge, it is still going to be much better that way. I hope to establish some good habits this way.
The changes certainly have to be in compliance with my goals, values and priorities.
1. my health, fitness, weight (at least 20 minutes of exercise a day, no eating after 6 p.m., 8 glasses of water, enough sleep)
2. my home (decluttering, hot-spots, shiny sink etc.)
3. my family (Wednesdays are "new food" nights, Fridays are "date nights" with my husband, Sundays are "best china breakfasts", and every other night I read to children before bedtime, the rest of the days are "Dad days" when he washes them, puts them to bed etc.)
4. my friends and community (I resolve to write one meaningful letter (e-mail) a day or to have someone over, or to meet someone new, but so that not a day goes by without some contact with the outside world)
5. studies (2 hours a week for the term paper). I don't know yet if I'm going to the academy this year (due to the finances) but I need to settle the debts in September or the whole last year will be wasted.
And then there are other weekly items to be ticked off.
1 proper bath a week (with shaving my legs, nourishing the hair, scrubbing my feet)
1 finished craft item a week (some sewing, knitting or other)
1 new thing to try every week. That can be anything - from a new fitness video, a new road for jogging, a research in a field I know little or nothing about, a new friendship, a new book etc.
For every day that I successfully keep to this schedule I will post a number here - with an explanation or perhaps just a plain number (of the days still left).
So today I start with 100 days meaning I still have 100 days of the challenge ahead of me. See you!

Do It Now!

2009-07-21T19:10:00.002+03:00

Whenever I start procrastinating on anything, I remember the FlyLady motto (one of many) "Right away is the easy way". It rhymes and therefore really works for me.

Good morning!

2009-07-14T10:51:00.009+03:00

So, I'm not pregnant after all.

But yesterday i got my first spinning wheel. All it takes now to start learning is some wool and some kind of a manual :D As the wheel is some hundred years old, don't suppose there even was a manual. I'm very excited.

Another thing to be excited about, and I'm sure all you poultry-keeping girls and boys have experienced it, is hearing your little baby chick turn into a full grown rooster and practise that loud and a bit hoarse cock-a-doodle-doo, which first sounds like croo, then like cruh-croo, and then - like this! Not a full four or five syllable song, but three syllables still sound great! Enjoy!

Cock-a-doodle-doo

For some reason or other the video does not appear here. Too bad, I'll have to try some other way, some other time. For now I'll just insert a link to youtube. Now I've got to get down to subtitling Top Gear, it's a satisfying job but time-consuming though.

On a Sunday evening

2009-07-12T20:26:00.004+03:00

Another week has passed. Lots of things have been done, many have fallen behind. I still don't know whether I'm pregnant or not. I feel no symptoms apart from tiredness, and it can be explained with the stress amount I'm having lately. And I can't pull in my stomach, it feels bloated and huge all the time. I can't get to a doctor as soon as I would like to, I'll try to sign up for an appointment tomorrow. The test was negative again.

I'm feeling down right now. My husband has quit smoking several times, but today I felt smoke in his breath. It breaks my heart. I try to tell myself that his problems and addictions must not make me feel responsible in any way, and that I may not reproach him. I have my own issues, the food issues, the control issues. Whenever I find he's not perfect and superhuman, I feel like he's a sort of a criminal that uses me maliciously. It's absurd. I feel that just because I'm the breadwinner of the family he must be at his absolute best at all times and must not in any way aggravate me. It's certainly always easier to blame someone else (like him for being weak and smoking) than to get down to solving my own problems. I have decided I will not allow his issues get in the way of my goals. I alone am responsible for creating my own happiness. I cannot make him accountable for my own dissatisfaction with myself. I love him very, very much, and it's not fair to ask him to be perfect when I myself am not (and even if I were! It's not fair to ask perfection of any human being! To err is human, to moo - bovine!)

Just this simple post has lifted my mood a bit. Tomorrow I might have an old, very beautiful spinning wheel delivered. I'm looking forward to it although I know I won't be able to begin learning to spin at least until winter. But that time shall come, this too shall pass, and God, I want a baby girl so much!

Have a great week! (Here where I'm from a week starts from Mondays. Starting with a "rest day" like Sunday seems weird. After all, first you work (or slave away), and then you rest. But I'll have to try that other way out some day. Start by having a good rest and then throw myself into the next week. That's gonna happen some day. Some day I won't be working on Sundays. Right now I'm fine either way.)

My Rich Friend

2009-07-10T08:09:00.005+03:00

It's so weird how a comparison can hit you and knock you down off of your feet. I LOVE my home, it's not nice and tidy, and smooth at all. It has never ever been redecorated. It was built in 1985, it was the Soviet time behind the iron curtain in Latvia at that time, and everything was scarce. it was called "the deficit". Yes, you could get wallpaper, but only in a very limited number of patterns or colours. You could get coffee, but not every day, not in every store, the price was skyscraper high and you had to stand in a queue for hours (I'm not exaggerating) to buy it. All the things were the same. In every house, in every flat you could see the same wallpaper, the same "very practical" chipboard and plywood furniture, the same lamps, the same curtains. The only way to be different was to make everything by themselves.

Three years ago we moved from a shabby flat in the worst part of the city to a shabby, never renovated house in a tiny little village of some 800 people (it's the official number, the real number is at least two times smaller, as all the young people have moved to the city where there is work).

Let's talk numbers. The average pay in this country is below 600 dollars a month. I earn 2400 dollars a month (in a good month, that is). The car payment is 600, the house payment - 800, overdraft - 200 dollars. Electricity - 60 dollars, social security tax - 110 dollars, pension funds - 40 dollars. Then there are all the little payments for telephone, cell phones, kindergarten (not in summer, it's closed). All these bills round up at about 2000 dollars a month. (And I know I'm very well-off, compared to the vast majority of population, not to mention the retired people that get about 200-300 dollars a month).

Gas for the car costs 1.5 dollars a litre. The food prices are about the same as everywhere in Europe. Every month there are some other expenses - like my studies (1800 dollars a year), wood for heating (600 dollars a year), annual car test and the repairs to pass it (some 500+ a year). People around me know I'm working days and nights to cover it all, and still I have NOTHING to show for it. I haven't bought clothes for myself or my husband (he's unemployed as the vast majority of males in the country, and the little that he could earn would not cover the gas for driving to work and eating out) for years. But it's not hard. It's not a miserable life. I am good at balancing checkbooks and earning a living, I'm not going to complain. I know - after a year and a half the car will be paid for, and I will have 600 extra dollars to use for other purposes - like redecorating this house. In three and a half years the house will be paid for. The smaller debts will be paid off by the end of this year. It will get easier.

But next week an old friend wants to visit me for the first time in ages. She has three children and is VERY thin, with huge breasts (she is breastfeeding the youngest daughter). She is married to a member of the parliament - the same parliament that has driven the vast majority of people to a brink of real-life hunger and desperation. The crime in this country is horrible, I would never ever want to live in the city and risk being robbed in my own home, on the street, in a bus, in a store or anywhere I might go (we don't even lock our cars and houses in the country). Everyone blames the government. Now the government has taken a loan from the International Monetary Fund. The sum is 14 billion (!) dollars that we, the common people, will have to pay off. On average a member of the parliament earns 8000 dollars a month. They have just cut ALL the wages in the public sector by 20 per cent. All the retirement pensions (appr. 250-300 dollars a month) have been cut by 10%, but, if the retired person is still working, the pension is cut by 70 %. The support money for the young mothers has been cut considerably. The country is desperate.

And next week an old friend of mine is coming over. She called me yesterday to tell me how happy she is in her huge penthouse apartment that's much bigger than my whole house. She was complaining about how hard it is to order just the right furniture for every room and how she has decided to cut down the expenses by hiring a nanny not for the whole week but just for some 3-4 days a week. She drives a new jeep. She tells me she can see the sea from her huge windows of the huge apartment. She tells me about the concierge in the lobby of her house. She can afford anything she wants. Travels, clothes, new glasses, new (no second hand for her!) clothes for the kids, she can eat seafood any day of the week, she doesn't have to bake pancakes almost every day because the only products at home are flour, eggs and milk.

We've alienated so much I can't begin to tell you. Not because she has everything and I have very different things. Not because I envy her and she despises me. Not at all. I just can't find anything to talk about with her. Nothing about a life in the country interests her. She doesn't care for knitting, sewing and crafts, and I couldn't care less for brand clothes. She has atmitted she hates her son (4 years old) and that she beats him and spanks him for demanding attention, and I find that totally engrossing. When I am alone I feel so much superior for having a husband that adores me and makes love to me every single day of the year while she says she feels like a single mother because (and I quote) "Politics has bigger tits". I actually am moving forwards. I am making my own money, and I am doing it in a way that doesn't make me hated by the people. Tabloids don't publish my pregnancy pictures (I'd die), and I don't have to live in the city and take an elevator to the 16th storey to get home. I can open the door, and the kids can get out and play in the sunshine any time of the day. I study - she watches DVDs.

And still I feel so very humiliated by her patronizing, overly kind attitude whenever she calls or comes over. She has this way of praising me like a weak-minded imbecile that has learned to crochet. "Oh you are so talented and so great at doing all these little things, I could never do that, oh you sweet thingy you." I'm sure it's all in my head, I'm sure it's just the hormones, and I'm sure I'm pregnant - this time it must be a girl because the previous pregnancies complimented me, and now I look just shapeless and bloated. The thought of her "picture perfect" life is haunting me and spoiling an otherwise lovely day. Why oh why must we compare? There's always someone richer and thinner than us.

Idle Hands

2009-07-08T13:56:00.003+03:00

I love all sorts of needlework, I am good at knitting, sewing, crocheting, embroidery, crossstitching etc. But when I go to ralvelry.com or any web site of this kind, I suddenly feel very inexperienced and feel like I have done nothing, achieved nothing. That's because all of my projects are very functional. I am not going to boast about sewing sheets for the bed or the curtains for the kitchen window, or for knitting winter trousers or sweaters or socks or gloves or mittens or finger-toys for my kids. There's no glamour in it. And then there's the material issue. I only buy yarn, threads or cloth for certain projects. Handicraft is such an expensive hobby I cannot possibly afford impulse purchases. And I try to buy cheaper stuff. Have I learned a lesson the hard way! I knitted the front and the back part of a very complicated aran sweater from a very thin white yarn just to discover that after the first wash it became the ugliest shade of grey you've ever seen. It was Turkish yarn, cheap and bad quality. It was great to knit, I really liked to knit it, but when I had finally completed the front, I had the sense to wash it, and it stretched more than 25 centimetres (10 inches) in width and in length, so I had to start it once again. I finished the back as well but I cannot persuade myself to do the sleeves. So - no more of the cheapest yarn for me.

And then there's the time issue. So many people have endless galleries to showcase their work. I'm not going to put woolen socks in there! And all of the other projects are usually so big and time-consuming that I can manage only three or four a year. Won't make much of a gallery, right? Right now I'm knitting a huge, very warm, very very beautiful grey clan sweater, inspired by this one, but I changed it a bit to suit the thick yarn better.

It will take me a couple of months to finish it because I'm almost out of yarn (10 skeins of 100 g turned out to be too little), and I cannot afford to buy at least five more. And once I'm finished I will only have one peace of knitting to show for it!

It's all a joke of course, I know that it's not the amount that counts. But from now on I shall undertake more of some smaller, easier, quicker to complete projects, and then you shall see, you, knitters, ravellers and other prolific people alike!

Dreams, goals, responsibilities

2009-07-06T15:42:00.004+03:00

You know, I've always wanted to be a lady. Not a brat, not a lazy, untidy kid who never got her room straightened. A dainty, pretty, charming, gentle lady with impeccable manners. I always wanted to be perfect, to make all the things around me look nice, tidy and neat. But it's always been "topsy-turvy" with me (I'm not sure anyone uses this word any more, it's so "Little Women"). My Mom used to say - nobody's gonna marry such an untidy girl. No one's gonna marry a girl that can't cook. No one's gonna marry a girl that tosses flowers in the nearest vase not taking the time and the effort to place every flower neatly one by one. I tried and I tried to be a lady. God knows I'm not lazy, I've never met anyone who's more hardworking than I am, but it doesn't show around me. At the end of the day all I have for my hard work is the money that I support my whole family with and the half-finished chores all around the house.
At times I think - if I were one of those famous people that are just forced to be some or other way. Like Holly Rigsby from http://www.fityummymummy.com/ - her living depends on being in perfect shape, otherwise women wouldn't pay her for helping them slim down. Or like sister Theresa, who must have been very, very kind and patient (I am so short-tempered I often can't contain myself and am very much ashamed afterwards). Or Mahatma Gandhi, who found pleasure and solace in serving. He had to care for his father and he learned to do that happily. There are times when I don't feel too happy, when I am just too tired and angry to be patient, kind and sweet. Or like FlyLady that absolutely must stick to her routines if she wants to sell the 15-minute and babystep and hotspot idea to other women.
If I were like some of THOSE people... Then I would surely succeed in reaching every one of my goals, that's what I used to think. Lately, very recently an epiphany occurred to me - it's not that those people were somehow elected to be good at what they do or did. It's the other way round. First they were good and then they were given their responsibilities. Start small, start with yourself, and the rest will follow. Start by being the best YOU can be, don't give up, keep at it until it becomes a habit, and then and only then will you become someone that your children or other people might want to emulate. And being the best is a selfish goal in itself. Better yourself, don't compare yourself to others, strive to overcome your own demons and not to succumb to the illusion of fulfilling everyone else's dreams. That's what I'm telling myself today.

I'm back!

2009-07-04T20:25:00.005+03:00

Gosh, have I missed you all! I'm gonna spend hours and hours reading all you've been writing about!
I know I disappeared kinda suddenly, I've gone through so much in this last half a year, we've all been sick, we didn't go on a journey to Estonia (due to all the money we squandered on being sick and on some car repairs and... you know the drill). I've almost finished the second year of university studies - but not quite, I did not manage my term paper on time (statistics killed me, I chose the wrong correlation formula and wasted a WEEK!). I did not lose as much weight as I intended to although it went great from the start.

Now I'm back. I suspect I am pregnant once again, I hope this time it's going to be a girl, but I'm only some 31 days in, and the pregnancy tests still don't confirm it (but I know that with my first boy the tests were negative for the first 36 days and the second line appeared only on the 37th day). So there's still a week or so not to start worrying. I never thought I would come to this but due to the HUGE crisis in my country (Latvia) even the price of the pregnancy test (around 2 dollars) seems like an unpleasant expense. But enough about the bad things, I really hope I'm pregnant (although I must confess, it was not something we planned or even wanted - one must be insane to make kids at a time like this. I will even have to halt my studies for a year or so - to pay off at least the car loan and to support the family.)

The very good news is that we now have 10 hens and a half-grown rooster, more of a chicken now. The hens are Lohman-Brown layers, 11 months old and really good layers. We bought them two weeks ago, and for the first week they laid on average 8 eggs a day. I was warned that after a week they would take a break for a month, and that's exactly what's going on - on good days we now have 2 eggs, but mostly just one. The hens have lost a lot of feathers - I don't know whether that's because they've been living in cages previously and the feathers have just broken off or have been rubbed off on the bars of the cage, or whether it's common for them to lose feathers at this time of their life. The feathers have started to grow back nicely and right now it's the only way I can tell the hens apart. When all will be pretty and plumed, I won't be able to tell which is which.

Bye for now, I can't wait to read all of your posts for the last six months! I am going to be soooooooo inspired! You totally rock!
The dark one is The Rooster:

This very small shack is actually very beautifully made and quite comfortably accomodates all ten hens and one little cock.

Day 2 of the 96 Day Challenge

2009-01-20T08:58:00.003+02:00

No time for a more detailed account, yesterdau went fairly OK, had 1700 calories, felt hungry and tired all the time, the weight that shocked me in the morning was 93,7. Today it's 93,4, still shocking, but at least better. It really must be due to the changes in the fluid intake and the changes in diet on general. But it feels like the body after all the million dieting times has figured out it is "one of those times" and is determined to give away nothing. This time I will be smarter and just give it time.

More than anything I'm longing for sleep, sadly, I don't see a chance to sleep for 8-9 hours any time soon. That's OK, at least I'll have money. :D

Weakness

2009-01-19T09:41:00.002+02:00

I know it's not my body that wants to go back to the way it was all these last years. It's the fat, it's the slag, that wants me to keep going the wrong way. But today I feel so weak I could cry. Not just physically weak. Perhaps the right way really is to weigh just once a week. I woke up feeling good about myself until I stepped on the scales and discovered I weighed 400 grams (that's almost a pound!!) heavier than yesterday, and yesterday was the highest number I had ever seen on scales.

I feel bloated and constipated, and very very sleepy. I'm just venting my feelings here so I don't go and do something stupid to myself (like... I don't know... eating sugar, rolled in fat!)

It's going to be OK though. I know.

Day 1 of 96

2009-01-18T20:17:00.002+02:00

So, the first day is over.

Weight: 93,3
Calories consumed: 1503
Exercise - 5000 step jog (3,8 km)
Feeling: weak, languid. The first day is never hard since the motivation is very high, but physically I'm feeling quite bad. I haven't had an 8 hour sleep since last Tuesday and am on my last legs, but I am so swamped with work that the next time I can sleep more than 5-6 hours is going to be on Wednesday. I've been working the whole day and just taken an hour to jog, and the exhaustion is setting in. Psychologically I'm very, very moody - felt invincible during the run but very clingy and insecure during sex (sorry, I know it's too much information, I'm just logging it in for future reference). Am highly irritable, almost yelled at the kids. But it's all good. I know the toughest is the 3rd, 4th day. Tomorrow I expect to feel lighter and encouraged, while Tuesday is going to be very tough because I will suffer from serious sleep deprivation.
Besides I don't have any fruit at home, I have to remember to buy in the morning when I take the kids to the kindergarten. Otherwise I'm bound to binge if I don't have anything sweet at all.

96 Day Challenge

2009-01-18T09:39:00.005+02:00

I've been very inspired by several bloggers. One is Katie P from "Thin enough to Go to the Gym", the other is emharvie from "I Will Be Skinny".

Several things from Katie P have rung a loud bell in my brain. First of all, it was her post about how healthy she is since she is absolutely devoted to her fitness and bodybuilding regime. She's older than me in terms of chronological age but in health terms she must be waaaay younger and more supple. After a visit to the dentist has been healing incredibly rapidly - due to the fact that her body is in optimal condition.
The girl from "I Will Be Skinny" inspires with her 70 day challenge.

I've reached an all time high after all the holidays and the incredible amount of work. Having said that, I feel that I am ready for a huge makeover no matter what the weight is at the moment. It just feels right to switch to less calories, more exercise and a very different meal plan.
As Katie P said - if you just want to lose weight, it does not matter which diet you chose - they all work as long as you take in less calories than spend. Right now I am not aiming for muscles (would be nice though...), I urgently need to lose weight. To be in the BMI norm I have to get to 80, and that would be the very upper limit.
Still, I know that the number one reason for dieting failures is unrealistic goals. So, for the moment my goal is 90 kilos. I intend to go about reaching this goal by consuming appr. 1500 calories a day, up to 1700 on days when I exercise, jog, cycle etc. All the winter months are extremely exhausting for me as I am working for 12-14 hours a day and cannot get myself to spend 2.5 more hours on exercise (the nearest gym is a 35 minute drive). It has kept me from doing anything at all, but surely I can eat less even if I cannot move more.
So I am starting a 96 day challenge. In 96 days I have my first wedding anniversary which is also a 6 year anniversary since I first met my husband. We are going to go "abroad" to Estonia. It's some 350 kilometres from Latvia where I live but it's a different country, different language, different foods etc. There is no particular reason for me to choose this date. I just hope my otherwise very strong willpower (when it does not come to eating) can handle less than 100 days and stay on track. It is almost 14 weeks and I kind of hope to get to that BMI upper lever - 80 kilos. I will not push it though, the main thing is to eat healthily for 96 days. I am ready for weakness, loss of energy, spells of dizziness from the start etc., but as I have HUGE experience in dieting, I know what to expect and I am sure I will be able to handle it.
Just like most people doing this kind of challenge, every evening I will post a short summary of the day - I am sure it will motivate me. I will write the morning weight, the number of calories consumed during the day, the type and duration of any possible exercise and some general notes on the way I feel.
So, see you in the evening with my first report.

New SpringWidget

2009-01-18T09:38:00.001+02:00

Get this widget!

The Last Day of the Year

2008-12-31T10:38:00.005+02:00

According to Flylady, today is anti-procrastination day. There are several things I've been procrastinating on.
1) I MUST call about an exam in the university that has for some weird reason not been marked as "passed". I know I won't do it today because it seems kinda cruel to call a professor on New Year's Eve.
2) I must send the pictures to a neighbour from kindergarten's Christmas party but the pictures have turned out so bad that I've been procrastinating from December 18. I'll do it today.
3) There are many things that should have been done long ago. But that's alright, I've decided when to do them etc. But there is one thing I've been putting off due to the business and also because I feel kind of weird tagging other people with memes (many of them may have filled it out already). I've been tagged by a great girl, a very beautiful and skilled person Dace whom I greatly admire. So I will just write those six random things about myself and not follow up by tagging someone else. But there it goes:
1. I am very good with money, I am frugal and practical, I know my family will never go wanting as long as I've got a grip on things.
2. I used to dislike children and pets of other people. It's no longer true. I've deliberately worked on that and may sometimes feel annoyance with unruly dogs or kids (or rather their owners/parents) but otherwise I've developed quite a friendly attitude.
3. I wish to go vegetarian again. I've stayed off of meat for six and a half years (I stopped during breastfeeding of my first child) and intend to stop eating meat - starting right now.
4. I struggle with tidiness and cleanliness all the time. It's getting better as kids are growing but cleaning on a regular bases still annoys the hell out of me.
5. I tend to be more forgiving and value higher people who are slim - that's just a manifestation of my own low self-esteem in weight issues.
6. I am a believer in love at first sight - me and my husband fell in love immediately, "consummated" the relationship the same day, I got pregnant exactly a month later and got married exactly five years to the day later. And we're still madly in love despite my 90-odd kilos that bother me so much.

New Year's Day by U2, the greatest band ever.

City People vs Sheep

2008-12-14T18:17:00.004+02:00

I come from a circle of people that are typical yuppies, lawyers, managers, business people. I've been among them for a long, long time when the most important thing was how much you earned and what brands you owned - your car, your phone, your clothes, your education, your entertainment.
I went to the city today to visit some old friends of mine and for the first time admitted to someone other than my husband that I am going to buy a farm and keep sheep and goats. The reactions were those of a shock. They just didn't understand it. The most that they could utter was "But sheep are so stupid!" I did not try to defend my goals and my way of thinking, just smiled and had that "I've progressed to that level when I don't care about what other people say" feeling. A nice feeling.

Killing Farm Animals

2008-12-13T18:44:00.003+02:00

One thing that really bothers me is killing the animals. I cannot possibly keep sheep, goats, chickens etc. without killing some once in a while. That would make no sense. But having lived in the city for all my life and having been a vegetarian for 6 years I cannot imagine what it must be like - to kill animals that you've grown accustomed to. Surely it's pure hypocracy as I do eat meat, seldom as it is, and I cook meat every day for my family. Still I cannot imagine (yet) how I am going to overcome that feeling of guilt and probably sorrow.
I would sooooooooo appreciate any sort of comment from people who do this on a regular bases. How hard it is - physically and psychologically? And what are the options? Getting the animals to some slaughterhouse? Perhaps that's the only way things are done at all?
(You have no idea, I'm losing sleep over it).

Thoughts Become Things

2008-12-12T07:10:00.003+02:00

A couple of days ago I cut up my credit card. Now all that is left to do is to pay up the debt. The country is in a huge crises, but I am not going to talk about that not to draw it to myself. All it means for me is that I have to work harder, spend less and settle all my debts, mortgages and loans ASAP. For such a control freak as I am it surely is motivating and inspiring.
The amount of work I have for today and Monday is just absolutely huge but I know I need all that work, all those deadlines - I couldn't possibly work towards my dream of owning a sheep and goat (and chicken, and duck, and dog) farm if I didn't make money to pay off the current debts and to save for a couse in a "real" countryside. I've been asking people who know me what I could do in the highly unlikely case if I didn't work as a translator any more, and the suggestions from them was that I could earn my (and my family's, since I'm the only breadwinner for this family - at least until my husband gets to build a kiln and starts selling his pottery):
1) keep a guest house,
2) work as a therapist (I am studying for a psycology degree after all),
3) knit/crochet/embroider/sew for money (but you can't make too much money doing that here and especially with the recession)
4) open a private day care centre (people think I am great with the kids just because I have two of my own :) )
5) sustain my family with home-grown produce and other farm goods - like wool etc.

What I hope to do in the future is a combination of all of these options. In five years time I want to:
1) have a farm
2) a couple of days a week work in therapy
3) have more (at least one more) kids
4) do handicraft for my family
5) have a guest house specializing in the old farming technologies - kind of like on "Victorian Farm" - a BBC show I love to bits.

I want to know ALL there is to know about keeping farm animals and I am thrilled to have found so many tremendous blogs here on this subject. They are hugely inspiring. Just as the blogs about handicraft, blogs about finances and working from home.

Thoughts really do become things. If I needed any proof to that, I have a funny story from yesterday. My youngest child is three years old, and yesterday we all went to the city. We needed many things, among which was a cloth for kids pyjammas. Before going to the store I asked Valters - what kind of cloth do you want them made of? And he replied - I want it to have elefants, donkeys and billy-goats on it. I told it to my husband who was in the pottery supply store at that moment and we both laughed about how impossible such a wish could be - we had never seen a combination like that.
Imagine how surprised we were when we went into the store and the child immediately pointed out to this one:

Sure, the mammoths are not exactly elephants, and bulls are not billy-goats, and horses are not donkeys, but the idea is so close to what he had thought of in his head we were astonished. He had never been in a cloth store before so it is not possible that he could have seen anything like that before, neither had I. Not my choice of material for child's pyjammas but it's up to him.

New Year Resolutions

2008-12-07T18:29:00.004+02:00

Every year I write a list of things I resolve to do or want to get during the next year. I've done it since I was 15, and every single year without an exception I've had "56 kilos" as the very first line in the list. Not this year though. It won't even be on the list. First of all, let me say that I have NEVER in my adult life weighed 56 kilos. I've been 59 and felt fat. So now I know it's not how much you weigh. My first bullet in the list is going to be - "a healthy, active lifestyle". Which is a long way from where I am now.
Today I went for a walk with the kids. I took my step counter and so I know that we walked for 4,3 kilometres, which is very, very little compared to how much I walked when I was single and looking for someone to love - at that time I could easily walk 40 kilometres a day. (Yes, that means going out in the morning, walking all day and coming back in the evening to follow the route in the map and count the kilometres). Still, it was much more than we usually walk with the kids.
It's half past seven in Latvia now (p.m.), it's pitch black outside, but I think I need to go for a run with a flashlight, because the step counter says so. It says 6600 steps, and that's 3400 less than any average living human being should walk EVERY DAY.
Here are some pictures from today. Oh, I just love the winter when it looks as picturesque as this!

An update - yes, I did it, I went out and ran. Six deer, does or any other such animals crossed the road, I couldn't make out just what they were as I was running in the moonlight and my eyesight is bad. But it was exciting anyway. I did not run my whole "regular" distance that I used to run every morning for some 3-4 months in the beginning of this year, but still I've managed to have 10 500 steps on my step counter. It's great, I'm feeling I'm starting anew.

My Sentiments Exactly

2008-12-05T19:37:00.004+02:00

To-do list

2008-11-30T17:02:00.003+02:00

I've got so much work I'll probably be pulling an all nighter, much as I hate it.
I've got to translate:
1) "Beyond the Sea" - a movie about a one-hit-wonder Bobby Darin,
2) "RocknRolla" - the new Guy Ritchie's movie,
3) one more episode of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"
4) UEFA weekly magazine
5) two episodes of a soft-porn series "Co-ed Confidential", and the videos are not even on the server yet! I have no idea what the TV people must be thinking, leaving it for the very last second like that. The deadline for all those jobs is tomorrow, and it definitely won't be easy. But at least I'll be able to follow Betty's example and cut my creditcard in January.

Snowman

2008-11-27T09:38:00.004+02:00

Last night Arthur made a snowman for the kids to enjoy when they went to the kindergarten this morning.

This is what the children saw this morning:

They were amused nonetheless.

Ta-da!

2008-11-25T19:53:00.004+02:00

So here is the scarf and the gloves - the first gloves I've done. Hope they look better on my mother-in-law, and I really hope she's gonna appreciate the endless hours of tremendous fun that I had knitting them! The scarf is 1,56 m long and took almost two weeks to knit (I can only knit in the evenings while reading the goodnight stories to the kids or at night), while the gloves took 2 days each (the first was a struggle, I could not that easily understand the instructions, so the left glove that I did first has stretched just a tiny bit longer due to the countless trying on to see if it fits).

Today I also tried making my own fudge. It was comparatively easy, but the result is so sickeningly sweet that only the kids can eat lots of it. First I browned a tablespoon of sugar in a little pot, then added a glass of milk with some cream, a glass of sugar, a teaspoonful of vanilla sugar and stirred and boiled it for some 20 minutes until it got thick and smelled absolutely delicious. Then I poured it all (there was not a lot of it) out on a plate greased with butter and put to cool. After a while I tried cutting it in squares but I found that licking it out of a spoon is probably the best way to eat it.

Mondays Are Great

2008-11-24T12:19:00.005+02:00

The snow in places has been blown in heaps as high as my hips. I went to open the gates in the morning and not only couldn't I find the key that was supposed to be somewhere on a log of wood - I didn't have the faintest idea where the log was. I took a large flowerpot filled with soil (to add weight because the wind is just mind-blowing) and poured at least a kilo of grains and seeds for the birds. The bird feeder is completely lost in the snow and the birds desperately fly around it to no avail. I put the pot under the shed - this is the view I managed to catch from my kitchen window behind the curtain. Seven magpies were enjoying the feed when for the first time ever seven crows came around to see if there was anything for them. Crows are very cautious in the country and have never come to the house before. As soon as I tried to open the curtain to catch a better shot, they were gone.

Arthur went out and bought a new snow shovel as the old one broke in two yesterday. I certainly could not get the children to the kindergarten today so they stayed at home. When I was done translating the UEFA weekly magazine (not my favourite line of work) I went out with them. I had no hat on and returned soon and uploaded the photos. What a caring and observant mother am I! I noticed that my youngest had pulled his coat open only when I was going through the pictures. I went out yelling, and the kids had to come back in, completely wet and hungry.

Sunday Snowy Sunday

2008-11-23T09:44:00.007+02:00

Yesterday me and the kids went to Riga (it's 100 km or 60 miles from here) to the railway museum, which was certainly a huge hit. The love of my life had the tyres changed - it's heavy snow and ice on the roads in Latvia right now. I spent time with my girlfriends and their kids but something was not quite right though. I can't put my finger on it. We've known each other for 24 years, and the children should make us all the more closer as we have so much in common having children of the same age. But I feel I've gone too far from city life to appreciate expensive furniture, drinking wine every day or buying too many toys for children. Life in the country is hugely different. I go to the city once a week to study and to do the weekly shopping and each and every time I try to leave the city as soon as possible. The air is foul and the people are frantic. It's so much stress driving around the city especially since many drivers ignore all rules.
My wish is to settle all the debts and loans, and the mortgage on the house. It is going to take me 4 more years. Then I will be almost 35 y.o., and it will be the last chance for me to have a third child (a girl this time would be nice). I bet I still won't be able to relax during the pregnancy as that is also the year in which I've planned to save money for another house. Right now we are living in a tiny little village and have quite little land, 1400 sq.metres. That's not much. It's more than enough for children's playground and some flowerbeds, but my dream would be breeding sheep, keeping a horse, some goats for milk, lots and lots and lots of hens, ducks, turkeys and other poultry.
It seems a paradox - I need to work like hell to earn a chance to work more, just to do some other kind of work, not translating all day (and sometimes night) long. In 5 years time I will have a therapist's certificate and major's degree in psychology. Seems a weird choice for a person whose greatest aspiration is breeding sheep. :)
It's snowing heavily. A storm is coming, all the media are warning people of blackouts and advising to stay at home by all means. So I shall. Went out to feed the birds - the tits, the sparrows, the magpies and some occasional woodpeckers. However no birds greeted me with anxious fluttering about. They all seem to have hidden somewhere from the strong wind and the snow.
Yesterday I finished knitting the first glove I have ever knitted. I came out absolutely gorgeous. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I hope to complete the other one - I've knitted a huge scarf for my mother in law, and the gloves will go with it. So I'll post a picture when I'm done.
Have a great day anyone who might be reading this! And all the rest of you as well!

First Snow!

2008-11-19T11:43:00.012+02:00

This is such a great day! The first snow has fallen. Sure, it's all going to melt in a matter of hours, it's already very wet, but oh God it's so beautiful! It's so great to be living in the country! I've spent 28 years in the city and now to be away from it is just fantastic!
Some pictures - this is how it looks outside right now.

This is the garden shed we built this summer.

This is the house as seen from the garden (my husband built the green playground this year):

Here's our cat Keksis hunting tits and magpies:

And here's one little brave tit at the feeder (normally they don't come if I stand by with a camera):

Now I just need the local store to have some 2 mm knitting needles for the gloves I want to knit for my mother-in-law for Christmas, and the day is going to be perfect!

Weight loss and body image - correlation or no correlation?

2008-11-18T17:39:00.003+02:00

I've done lots and lots and lots of thinking about weight issues though not half as much as I ought to, seeing that I am writing my term paper just on that subject. There are heaps of contradictions in my mind right now, and I'm getting tired of it all.
After analyzing 14 scientific researches and studies, here are the conclusions:
1) diets DON'T work. They just don't. They all lead to bingeing and yo-yo effect, and gaining more afterwards. Dieting as a matter of fact can be the actual cause of binging, and some scientists consider dieting, not obesity, to be the disease of the century that should be treated.
2) it doesn't matter if you're slimming with a weight loss buddy or not, most likely you're bound to slip. It has been proven though that the buddy WILL lose weight, if the "supportee" is losing weight.
3) losing weight most often does not improve the body image/the self esteem of the person as the weight loss is often temporary and because losing weight in itself is not a way to like yourself better. No or almost no correlation has been found between these two factors.
4) Planning your weight loss helps, but any competence in this field is of no importance.
5) Statistics DO NOT support the idea that the more you visualize and imagine the greatest outcome (ideal weight) the easier or more effective is the weight loss. No correlation has been found.
6) weight loss is much more effective if the motivation is autonomous, as opposed to external. You have to want to lose weight yourself, for your own reasons, and not to be more attractive to others or to please someone or to get someone's attention etc. External motivation is much more short-term, so it cannot effectively help for such a long-term challenge as is losing weight.
7) In a study of persons that have successfully lost weight and maintained a healthy weight for 4,5 years on average, 95% of the said that change in activity level and exercising has been the reason for the success. In the same study the efficiency of dieting pills was an absolute 0%.
8) in the meta-analyses "Good Looking People Are Not What We Think" a detailed research has shown that there is no direct correlation between physical beauty and all the things we attribute to it (popularity, sociability, mental health, intelligence, sexual attractiveness and warmth, and experience). In fact the only thing that does corelate with all the good qualities good-looking people are thought to possess, is one's own opinion of his/her beauty. That is, if we think we are pretty, all the good things that beauty brings with it, are ours. If we on the other hand consider ourselves ugly, we may even be pretty as a picture, but we will not enjoy the benefits.
9) An absolute majority of people try to lose weight because of their own dissatisfaction with their appearance. Pressure from others comes second, concerns about health and a desire to physically feel more comfortable follow at a great distance.

There will be lots and lots of thinking to do for me. I will keep posting on this subject as it helps in the process of writing my term paper. But these conclusions that I've made so far have made me leave the Weight Watchers (I have gained 7 kilos since I started the programme because of my cheating with points and scales), and I am determined not to start another diet (did you know there are 30,000 different kinds of diets out there?) and am going to learn to love myself and feed myself the best and most valuable foods instead of counting mouthfuls, and am absolutely going to change my activity level and exercise pattern.
For now - bye. Hope it reaches someone who might make good use of it all.

Making Gifts

2008-11-08T16:22:00.005+02:00

Today is going to be the day that I sit down and do the planning, the longterm planning - for 10-20 years, and the short-term, for the next year.
I feel great changes are gonna come, I feel a sort of a shift of energy, some kind of changes happening in my mind, some new thoughts and views forming. So this is a sort of a transition for me.
A side effect - or perhaps even the cause of all this shapeshifting - are crafts - knitting, cross-stintching etc. Today I finished the first of the Christmas presents. This one is for my father-in-law, a very dear man to me. He has helped me much much more over the last five years (ever since I've known him) than my own dad. So the first present goes for him. I've knitted socks from black camel wool, it's supposed to be almost as warm and healthy as dog wool, but I could not get my hands on any skein of dog wool so I opted for camel. The socks are really warm. The ornaments are very old Latvian traditional symbols. One of them is the symbol of God, it's supposed to heal and to strengthen, the other is the symbol of grass snake, the symbol of wisdom and sage. The simple line below the border is the symbol of Mother Earth or Māra.
So without any further ado I give you the socks and the embroidered gift-bag (which took me almost as much time to do as the socks)!

Monday Ramblings

2008-11-03T07:21:00.003+02:00

So - a new week, new experiences. This week the kindergarten is closed for the second week running due to some repairs. I have no problem with that really. Apart from the fact that both the boys have got so sick and tired of each other that there is constant bickering and fighting in the house (and yelling - on my part). A solution has come up from quite an unlikely source - the local postwoman whose kid attends the same day care has no one to stay with while his mom takes around the mail. He can't sit in the car all the way because he gets sick easily, poor thing, and a vomiting child in the back of a post car clearly is the last thing a mother would want while working.

Here I should take a brief moment to explain. I live in this small town (a village rather) for two and a half years. We've come to the country from the capital because a big city is no place to raise children. Still, we live here rather like in the city apart from having our own house and a garden. It's not a farm, it's still just like an apartment in a city block, but in a much better environment. We still live very privately, and people round here seem to think that we are weird, unfriendly, snobbish even. But it's the way you live in a city. You don't bother about other people's business, you keep to yourself. I guess the locals are a bit afraid of us, much as I've tried to find some friends here. But I am short of time all the time, too busy to strike up a new friendship...

So, what I wanted to say here, is that the postwoman is taking her boy to us, and for the first time I will be responsible for someone else's kid. I want my boys to have many friends - as I have had in my childhood, but it would be almost impossible if people won't come around and visit us. So I guess it's a new week for me, perhaps a new start in some ways.

In terms of weight loss - I was completely shocked to see this morning that I've gained weight again and weigh more that ever in my entire life. It's 91,1 kilos, and I used to swear I would never, EVER get over the 90 kilo limit. :(

I'm very tempted to go on a vegan diet as it has very rapid results but such diets always end in crashing and burning... To make the matters worsr I had cake for breakfast and absolutely hate myself for that.
Something MUST be done!

OK, I'm off, I have to translate a weekly magazine on UEFA football. Not much fun but in three hours I will be done (hopefully) and will go on to translate Desperate Housewives, a show I absolutely love because the women there remind me of myself in so many different ways.

Have a good week!

A Great Motto

2008-10-29T10:47:00.006+02:00

"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."
Saint Francis of Assisi

So today it's:
work (a Desperate Housewives episode, a movie "National Treasure", two reports to do),
laundry (3 loads at least, I bet),
kitchen (the floor MUST be washed),
a sock to knit - at least up to the heel part - for my father-in-law, for X-mas,
at least one article to read for my term paper in psychology

That is just the necessary. I wonder what else will be possible. I think I know what the impossible will be for this week - the project for my term paper.
Thank God the kids are being extra nice today.