Getting ready to walk

Gwilym is crawling really well now and pulling himself to standing when ever he can. He also totters along when you hold his hand. Griff is going to find such a difference in him when he gets back today. The kids will be delighted to see him. I hope they continue to be fairly well behaved when he gets here. We all have to get readjusted to each other when he has been away working.
Florence is still delighted with the ducks and has named them Florence, Eben, Jack and Lily. I reminds me of when we used to have poultry and bought our first pair of geese. We called them Hissing Sid and Toad and very quickly realised we were never going to kill them for Christmas. We bought another a month later and called him Roasty. Now he did make a good Christmas lunch. Sid and Toad stayed until Sid was caught by a fox, he must have put up a good fight and defended Toad but didn't make it himself and she just pinned away without him. So what will become of our ducks?

Raw and Running

Nearly 5 days into my raw food challenge and only one slip up. I actually felt quite sparky this morning which is quite amazing for me. I'm normally dragging myself from one end of the day to the other.
I ran with my friend Florence yesterday. Its great having a weekly rendez-vous as it gets us both out even when we don't feel like it. Despite the fact that neither of us had run for a week we both felt we were running better. We ran for 42 minutes round a block that last time I ran it alone in June took 46 mins. Admitidly 10 years ago I used to take un 35 and managed a record of 31 and a 1/2 once. We were both very pleased with it. After that though I felt hungry all day and didn't seem to have anything I fancied. I'd run out of carrots to juice and just caved in at dinner time and had carbonara pasta with the kids. Never mind. I'm back on track today and feeling good about it. I may have lost a couple of kilos but our scales are a bit dodgy and by tomorrow I may well have put them back on! I had a glass of wine with Robert at lunchtime and really didn't feel very good after it. I then kept thinking I should have tea to make myself feel better or that I should have more wine in the evening to do the same thing. How daft is that? Take the thing thats making you feel sh*t and have some more. Sounds daft doesn't it, but how many of us do this with alcohol, cigarettes, some foods and other drugs?

A Ducks life

The ducklings couldn't have been a better hit if I'd tried. Florence is delighted she says she never had such a good present. When Eben got up at 7am this morning he wanted to know where Florence was. I thought she was in bed, I certainly was and would have liked to have stayed longer but thought it best to get up and find my daughter. She was sat outside in her dressing gown looking at the ducklings. She has spent most of the day so far looking at them and stroking them. I could work well as she can't suck her thumb incase she gets bird flu. I'm sure there is no risk, but she doesn't know that! Will I be able to get her in to do her homework?

Burgundy Family

I have been blogging about my family on

www.burgundyfamily.blogspot.com

I will now be blogging about everything on this one blog.

Raw Food Previous posts

Before starting this blog I was blogging about my raw food interest on
www.rawroad.blogspot.com

I'm not adding any new posts there but you can read the old ones.

Caffeine Withdrawal

Has anyone in here got any advice for caffeine withdrawal. I have found in the past that when I manage to cut down my tea intake that its easier not to drink alcohol. I have been at the stage a number of times that I drink nothing but tea and wine and the tea gets me going in the morning and the wine keeps me going in the evening (or at lunchtime) it seems a vicious cycle. I've now managed 4 days in a row without the booze, making 13 alcohol days in 21/2 weeks. That's great, but I'm trying to stop the tea. On sat and sun I just had 2 cups a day and was fine, yesterday none and was fine too but today its gone down hill. I started to get a headache this afternoon which got worse and worse. After I got back with the kids I was feel sick and weak and achy. I felt vile absolutely vile. I read somewhere the fact that aspirin doesn't work and that aspirin with caffeine in is best. I didn't have that so made a cup of tea, I wanted to go to bed but needed to feed the kids etc. the older ones are fine but the baby is crawling and pulling himself up on things and my partner is away this week. In short I couldn't cope and had to get it to stop. I also took some paracetamol, some homeopathic Nux Vomica and some bicarb. Half an hour after that lot and I feel much better. The kids are in bed and I'm off too, at 8.20pm!!I can't believe how sh*t it made me feel. I intend to get through this but don't like the fact that it may happen again tomorrow, I read somewhere that caffeine wd symptoms can last 9 days, arggh! I may have to wait till G gets back so I can go to bed if I need too.Has this happened to any of you?

I wrote that last night on a forum. This is how its going this morning.

Guess what happens when you drink tea just before going to bed? You don't sleep well and have to keep getting up to wee. All that water I'd been getting on board just seemed to flood out of me. Hopefully taking some toxins with it.This morning I feel tired, grumpy, tearfull and am having trouble coping with the kids who don't have school on Wednesdays. The baby is pretty grumpy too. I hope hes not withdrawing from the caffeine too. I think he might be. I have a mild headache and feel pretty sicky. I'm drinking loads of raw juices and eating fruit to try and flush the rubbish out. I just want my body back but its not easy. Even though I think my hypnosis downloads are helping last night I didn't listen as I just wanted to be alone.

Christmas Dinner

Always best to plan in advance don't you think? Flo has wanted a duckling or a chick for ages. We had talked about hatching our own but haven't got round to it. About a year ago she pinched an egg from a neighbours house and bought it home. I found it once it had dried out crushed under her pillow. There are less sellers of poultry at the monthly market than there used to be and its years since I bought anything, but this morning I went and bought 4 ducklings, 2 barbary ducks and 2 mallards. They cheeped all around the town and in one shop they thought it was one of Gwilyms toys as they were in the basket under the pushchair. They are now in a rabbit hutch awaiting resettlement. I need to get it done before they get a personality disorder and start hopping. Flo was delighted when I told her, once shes been pecked and pooed on it might be a different story. If they are fed well they could be ready for Christmas, it also might help on the number of afterlifes I'm up for (see previous post) as I can feed the slugs and things to the ducks. I think they are to small to eat the ones in the bottle on my table yet but they'll get there!

Food Diary Sept 10th -

Monday Sept 10th
Plums, Half an avocado, Rejuvelac, Banana, Salad (lentil sprouts, avocado, onion and olive oil) Peach juice, Plum juice, Salad (lentil sprouts, courgette, tomato, garlic, soy sauce and olive oil) water, sunflower seeds.

Tuesday Sept 11th
Carrot juice, rejuvelac, plums, banana, salad (lentil sprouts, avocado, onion, tomato, courgette, sesame oil, olive oil, five spice, balasamic vinegar), water, carrot and beet juice.

Wednesday Sept 12th
Carrot juice, banana, Sprouted wheat bread, goats cheese, Salad (spinach, avocado, beetroot, carrot, sunflower seeds) Juice (pear, spinach, carrot and beet tops (may sound awfull and looked it but very nice))

Thursday Sept 13th
Banana, Sprouted wheat bread, Salad (left from yesterday), avocado, (Pasta (not raw), water, orange juice. One glass white wine.

Friday Sept 14th
Apples, Salad (broccoli, cucumber, courgette, garlic, olive oil, black pepper and a little cream), water,

Raw Food Challenge

I receive a daily email from The Garden Diet, its a raw food inspiration one. They gave a challenge for people to do a week raw, starting yesterday. Since I've been trying to go raw for ages I thought I'd give it a go. I had also read that in one study people on a raw food diet gave up alcohol without any problem. I think all the raw I've been eating this summer has been helping me to feel better but not enough to make me spontaneously give up the booze. I had hoped it would happen all by itself without me noticing but no so here I am, I've started a raw food diet and given up alcohol and caffeine all at once. I've got a headache which I've had all day I guess that the caffeine withdrawal has this is the second full day without a cup of tea. Yesterday I felt horrid. Something was missing but it wasn't really the things I'd given up but I very nearly had one of them just to see if it would help. I felt so shitty that I didn't blog at all yesterday, in the morning the kids had said some funny things but by the evening I just didn't have the right frame of mind. In the end I waited till the children were in bed then listened to my hypnosis downloads. I love the alcohol withdrawal one as its about relaxing and healing and seems to help loads. I'm going to contact them to see if they can do a raw food one.
Since giving up tea and alcohol my salt craving has gone, I used to put loads of celtic sea salt on everything!

Very hungry caterpillars and reincarnation.

Not one very caterpillar but hundreds and on MY cabbages. I've been squishing them and drowned a few. I considered saving a few for the kids to watch especially as Eben did a project about the Eric Carle book at school last year. I try not to use chemicals on my garden and squish the bugs myself when I can. IF I have to live another life for each of the bugs I've squished with my own hands or feet then I've a lot of life times as caterpillers, colorado beetles, greenfly, fleas and slugs to mention just a few to come!!
I'm just off to listen to my hypnosis downloads as I could so very easily pop down to the cellar for a cool bottle of white wine. But I don't really want to and still feel thirsty and don't feel that wine would stop it. I read something about feeling thirst because the body is used to drinks with sugar in so doesn't think its had its fill and keeps you drinking. I'm not sure.

Going Sober Mum, a blog

Going Sober Mum is the name I have used on forums about alcohol addiction. Goingsober.blogspot.com is the blog where I started blogging about my drinking. It was to keep it all anonymous, but my discoveries over the last week have made me feel that people with alcohol addiction shouldn't need to hiding away from the rest of the world. If the stigma wasn't there then maybe more people would get help and that can only be a good thing.
There are many many women out there with a problem, Many pregnant women who find stopping hard, if not almost impossible yet there doesn't seem to be much help apart from AA which does a good job but in my opinion isn't enough. If someone offers a person who stopped smoking 20 years ago a cigarette, they will say no thanks I don't smoke, if you offer a drink to someone who gave up drinking 20 years ago and who still goes to AA, they'll probably say no thanks I'm an alcoholic. Why when someone has managed to free themselves from the clutches of the addiction do we keep telling they have a problem.
I wonder how many people don't try to quit drinking alcohol because they don't want to carry the label 'alcoholic' round their necks all their lives.

Adopting Slugs

My children have adopted 2 slugs. They are in a bottle somewhere in the living room. They are not little ones but big brown ones about 2 inches long. We also get bright orange ones and black stripy ones. Hopefully they won't escape the place is enough of a mess without slug trails about the place. They (the kids, not the slugs) want me to buy them a duck and a rabbit at the monthly market on Tuesday. Maybe it would be a good idea so we can feed them the slugs!
I had 2 weak cups of tea at Vero's earlier. I seem to be peeing like mad since then. I spoke to Mum and she mentioned that she'd read an article that said it as good for you to drink tea as water, sponsored by a tea company I expect! My Mum is like that she manages to remain in ill health as she always finds the articles that allow her do the things everyone else says are bad for her. I guess we all do to an extent.
In one of the hypnosis programs it suggests you imagine a relaxing place and I am starting to imagine here and how nice it would be if I could get the house and garden straight and not be such a slob. I think lack of energy is partly to blame and also distraction. Today I feel like I am going to get some energy and be able to do things at last. Last week after 7 days of the booze I was knackered and thinking about the things I wanted to do just made things worse as not only was I not drinking but I was to tired to do other things and couldn't hide from them in the bottom of a bottle. Hence the drinking again.

Hypnosis and Furbies

I also used the 3 hypnosis recordings before going to bed. I didn't have an alcoholic drink yesterday and only 2 cups of tea. Its 8.15 am and I am tempted by tea. I'll try and have some breakfast first and see how I feel.
In the recordings it mentioned seeing the addictions as parasites. I am seeing them as furby like toys that I am hitting with a plastic hammer, or like a kids game where rabbits or moles or suchlike keep popping up and you have to hammer them down!! Hopefully that will work.
I've had glycerine again this morning to try and keep my blood sugar balanced. Yesterday I was incrediably thirsty all day. I wonder if I will be so thirsty today.