I got an iPhone for Christmas!

So what’d you get for Christmas? I got an iPhone 4. And though I’d been hinting heavily to Lisa about getting one, I honestly didn’t expect to receive one!

What was really funny was that Lisa gave me a decoy present first – a Bluray player. The box was clearly too big to be an iPhone. I flirted with the idea that it might be…gasp…an iPad, but the parcel was too heavy.

When I discovered it was a Bluray player, I was initially crestfallen. This is a present for everybody! Then I looked at it a bit closer – not only was it backward compatible with all our DVDs, but it can connect to our home network and it can play media from USB drives. This is fantastic, because I have a ton of videos in AVI format on a 500Gb hard disk that I can now just hook straight into the Bluray and play! Previously, I had to hook my laptop up to the TV, then play the media through the laptop, so this was amazing.

So engrossed was I in the features of this gadget, that I didn’t even notice Lisa throwing another smaller box at me…I barely took my eyes away from the Bluray player.

At this point, I genuinely had no idea that there was another big present. When I opened the package and saw what it was I was actually overwhelmed for a moment. These were twoamazing, expensive presents. And I’d dreamed of getting an iPhone for ages – I suspected it briefly when Lisa sold my old Sony Erickson phone a while back.

Now, my father-in-law has a wonderful turn of phrase for things he doesn’t like or understand:Shite. Looking at the iPhone over Christmas dinner, he issued his usual judgement. “It’s shite. What does it even do?” Well, what doesn’t it do?

It’s got great social media apps – I can update Twitter and Facebook from wherever I am. It’s got maps, calendar, music, stacks of features built in. I’ve downloaded Monopoly, Scrabble and Sudoku for my iPhone. What else? High quality camera for still pictures and video. Amazing for capturing little fun moments with the family. The built-in voice recorder is amazing quality. The multimedia capabilities of the iPhone are astounding – all in that tiny little box.

On New Year’s Eve, we used the Skype app to chat face to face with our friend in America – for free. I’ve used Facetime to chat to Lisa – it’s fantastic, but a bit frivolous. I’ve discovered the joys of FourSquare – a fun app that checks you in wherever you are and tells you what’s going on around you.

I’ve probably only touched the tip of the iceberg – like today I bought an app that allows you to have SSH access to web servers. Being a web administrator, it’s handy to be able to check server status and restart services remotely from wherever I am.

It’s so much more than a phone, and I’m so grateful to Lisa for being a real darling and buying me the best toy ever for Christmas!

So, over to you – did you get any cool stuff for Christmas?

The one where we buy new wardrobes for our bedroom

Tonight we go to bed with the smell of sawdust in our lungs.

After almost eight years in our house, we’ve had some new wardrobes fitted in our bedroom. They’re called Sliderobes. I mention that because I’m not sure if that’s a common name all over the world.

When we first moved in, it was a new build house and we had a lot of furnishing to do. So we spent a lot of money on a lot of cheap self-assembly furniture. It looked okay at the time, but over the years a lot of it has started to look rickety.

So Lisa and I decided to start working on the house room by room. One room roughly every six months. But doing what we didn’t do first time round – we’re concentrating on getting the standard of finish really high this time round. Getting the woodwork perfect, accessorizing the room and getting a tasteful colour scheme established.

The first task was to replace our wobbling wardrobes. After pricing the official “sliderobes” providers, we got in touch with a local company through a family friend who quoted a really competitive price.

And today, braving the treacherous Arctic conditions Northern Ireland is facing, they arrived to fit the new wardrobes. We swiftly pulled apart our old furniture and dumped it (saving a few bits for a cosy evening fire). The guys showed up around mid-day and went to work. They might have left the front door open one too many times, letting in icy air and the possibility of a few rodents (hope not), but they worked solidly and by about 7pm we had some shiny new wardrobes!

This new installation runs the whole length of one wall, with four subdivisions – lots of hanging space combined with drawers and shelving, and all of it behind sliding mirrored doors. It makes the room look infinitely tidier. Next on our decorative checklist is getting wallpaper for a feature wall on the opposite side of the room. And then maybe some matching curtains/bedding/soft furnishings.

A sample 7-day healthy eating diet.

We’re always saying that we should start eating more healthily, but the biggest problem from my point of view is actually choosing foods to replace the unhealthy stuff with. Luckily, I have a fitness freak sister-in-law who took it upon herself to free the thin person within me – and came up with this sample 7-day menu plan.

Aren’t I lucky?

Now, I tried it for a week, and it was tough going at first, but I got used to it. And having a list of ‘approved’ foods means you’re less likely to slip into your old bad habits. I’m sharing it here – mostly as a reminder to myself, but possibly because it might help other people. Naturally, there’s the usual caveat about consulting with your doctor before beginning a new diet. You – like me – choose to use this information at your own risk!

Monday

• Breakfast: porridge
• Mid morning: fruit / 2 rounds brown toast
• Lunch: soup and a roll yogurt
• Mid afternoon: yogurt
• Dinner: chicken fajitas (no cheese)
• Exercise: Take a reasonably long fast walk (choose a route and stick to it) and time it. 30 pressups with wide arms standing up holding kitchen counter and 30 with arms closer together and elbows close to body

Tuesday

• Breakfast: cereal
• Mid morning: cereal bar
• Lunch: 1 wholemeal pitta with low fat Turkey, lettuce, 2 cherry tomatoes and a yogurt
• Dinner: grilled chicken breast with Rosemary and thyme, broccoli and carrots
• Exercise: Same route but jog slowly and time yourself. 30 sit ups and 30 squats.

Wednesday

• Breakfast: 2 slices wholegrain toast and 2 eggs
• Mid morning: 1 banana
• Lunch: cold veggie pasta salad
• Mid afternoon: 4 crackerbread
• Dinner: grilled fillet steak with spinach and grilled tomatoes. Fruit salad
• Exercise: 25 min bike ride

Thursday

• Breakfast: Cereal
• Mid morning: 1 apple 2 crackerbread
• Lunch: wholemeal bagel with low fat cream cheese and cherry tomatoes
• Mid afternoon: 1 yogurt
• Dinner: oriental chicken noodle salad (1 chicken breast, soy sauce, garlic, seasame oil, noodles, mange tout, bean sprouts, carrots)
• Exercise: jog route and time it. 30 press-ups, 30 sit-ups, 30 squats, 30 lunges each leg

Friday

• Breakfast: 1 toasted bagel with low fat spread
• Mid morning: 1 cereal bar and 1 fruit
• Lunch: Chicken salad sandwich, apple
• Mid afternoon: Yogurt and 1 fruit
• Dinner: 2 chicken breasts grilled with tomato salsa, lettuce, cucumber, broccoli, roasted cherry tomatoes
• Exercise: 1 hour bike ride

Saturday

• Breakfast: 2 weetabix, 1 yogurt, 1 slice wholegrain toast
• Mid morning: 2 crackerbread 1 apple
• Lunch: 1 sweet onion chicken terryaki Subway with no cheese on wholemeal roll – NO CRISPS or COOKIES
• Exercise: Swimming

Sunday

• Breakfast: 1 scrambled eggs, 1 slice wholegrain toast, 2 tbsp grilled mushrooms, 2 grilled tomatoes
• Mid morning: cereal bar
• Lunch: omelette (2 eggs, non stick pan, spray oil, 2 slices lean ham, chopped tomatoes and side salad)
• Mid afternoon: 1/2 bagel and yogurt
• Dinner: spaghetti bolognese (wholewheat spaghetti, lean mince, onion, carrot, chopped tomatoes, mushrooms, basil FRESH, dried oregano)
• Exercise: rest day

So that’s it. Some of the exercise seems a bit punishing for sedentary types like myself, but I think the idea is to start off light and work up a bit.

Also, from looking over this, it seems a key component is the “eat little, eat often” method where you’re eating smaller snacks between meals to stop yourself from being so hungry you’ll go for the fastest and unhealthiest options!

The Fightfort

We went out for Lisa’s birthday on Saturday night and had a nice, boisterous, drunken time. Lisa’s mum stayed in our house with the kids while we stayed overnight in her house. A brilliant arrangement and we didn’t have to be home too early.

The end of the night is actually the most memorable. We initially wanted to get kebabs from a South Belfast kebaberie, but our taxi arrived and offered to take us to a chippie in Andersonstown. We all hopped into the cab and Wooftie and I went in to order.

Big mistake. We unwittingly had walked into a chip shop where a fight was in the process of breaking out. In the blue corner, we had a rather thick and heavily pished individual. Somehow he’d managed to insult somebody, and the ginger guy in the red corner wanted to throw a few punches at him. Now, despite the fact that he could barely talk, the guy in the blue corner had remarkable bravado. If mouth doesn’t work, don’t even attempt to engage fists, you moron!

The ginger kid is clearly far less drunk. He’s wiry, focussed and unwilling to be talked out of fighting. The other contender has a friend trying to mediate on his behalf. However, at the same time, he is phoning some friends for backup. Wooftie and I look at each other incredulously – “phone the police, you pillock!”

But this is West Belfast, and phoning the police is totally off the agenda, even if you’re in mortal peril. And the guy was in mortal peril. We heard a glass bottle being smashed outside by one of gingerboy’s friends. No doubt about it, if he stepped outside the shop, he was going to get a serious beating.

Behind the counter, the staff are panicking. This altercation is scaring trade away, and we – as customers – are getting jostled by the two prizefighters’ attempts to get at each other. Likewise, the establishment are reluctant to phone the police. Disturbingly, we are so hungry at this point that we refuse to leave without food, despite the danger of getting injured ourselves!

Somewhere along the line – it felt like forever at the time – both contenders stripped their tops off, opting to go barechested. You’d think there’d be something macho or animal about this display, but no. It was actually rather pathetic and annoying. One girl in the shop looked terrified as the staff allowed her and her boyfriend to sneak out the back door. We held on, stoically waiting for our kebabs.

However, before the food arrived, the stupid guy got dragged outside and was being kicked and punched by four other guys as the shop staff lowered the shutters to prevent any more damage to the place. When they eventually raised it again, we expected to see a bleeding mess on the ground. But the fighters had disappeared, and the blue corner guy and his friend were limping off down the road.

Horrible scenes, full of bad dialogue – as Wooftie pointed out: “It’ll be a fair fight, only fair digs” and the classic from the red corner “I’ll rip the hairs out of your chest.” All eyes went to the ginger guy saying this, who didn’t appear to have any hairs on his chest.

Anyway, the punchline of this whole episode was the following day, telling my father-in-law about the fighting. He mentioned the pub across the street – commonly known as the Whitefort – is unofficially known as The Fightfort for the number of drunken scraps that happen there at the weekends. Cool, thanks for the warning Felix!

How my Primary School teacher stopped me from smoking

Seamus was a substitute teacher who taught our class in the last year of primary school. We kind of called him Seamus behind his back because he lived just down the road from us, and that’s what the parents called him.

I remember we’d been doing some lessons about the dangers of smoking. It was the usual stuff – rancid, rotting lungs that had been damaged by years of smoke filling them. Do you remember those specimens? The little microscopic bits of lung that were blackened and corroded? Yuck.

But one morning Seamus took the anti-smoking campaign to an entirely new level – he strutted into the classroom and produced a packet of cigarettes. Making quite a display of the next part, he took a cigarette out of the pack and lit it up. The constant background noise of the classroom died away as everybody realised the teacher was smoking in the class!

His puffing didn’t last long, though. He took a massive inhale of a cigarette, put it down on the desk and from nowhere produced a white handkerchief. He covered his mouth with the handkerchief and exhaled through it. When he held it up for the class to see, the pristine white cloth was now stained a yellowish colour.

The point was, if just one puff of a cigarette could produce such a visible stain, what would be the cumulative effect over 10 or 20 years? And suddenly the question hit me – how long had my parents been smoking for? Since their teens, for sure. Hell, how much damage had they already done?

I distinctly remember that day being the point where I became aware of cigarette smoke. I know that sounds funny to say, but it suddenly started to bug me when they smoked in enclosed spaces like the car or the living room. The sight of an ashtray was enough to thoroughly disgust me. And aside from the odd drag of a herbal cigarette during my university years, I’ve avoided smoking more or less entirely.

The most important part for me was avoiding smoking during the ‘peer pressure’ years. I kind of promised to myself that if I could make it through school without getting hooked (as many of my other friends did), then I’d be happy. And as it turned out, I never did. And I put it all down to that one unorthodox anti-smoking session. Thanks, Seamus.

Photo by eusezio

Me? A parenting hero? Little moi?

I got a nice email this afternoon from Amy over at Earnest Parenting to tell me I made her radar of parenting heroes with my last blog post about being the eldest child.

As I said to Amy when I responded to her, it’s an ill-deserved award, considering how sporadically I post here, but I’m thankful anyway. It’s a great idea what she’s doing, so go and check out her blog and the other bloggers on her Heroes list.

My goals for working from home

One of our goals in becoming self-employed is to increase our focus on our family. Lisa and I are both concerned about dividing our time properly between the business and our home life. And of course, working from home has the added opportunity for us to devote more time to the family. If we plan it right.

As I see it, with two of us at home, we should be able to more successfully manage the household workload and plan better meals, time with the kids and stuff like that.

My own personal goals for working from home are:

1. Better health – that means more exercise for me, whether it’s walking, playing racquetball or fixing that damned cross-trainer up the stairs.
2. Better eating – yeah, since the vending machine in work won’t be a temptation anymore, healthier eating is on the agenda. And with a bit more time on my hands, I’m hoping to do some better meal planning and discover new recipes where I can.
3. More focus on the children – I want to look at how we relate to the children, and for once sit down and think how we can improve our relationships. One on one time with the kids, outings, picnics and thinking about their education are going to become important as we do this.
4. More focus on the marriage? With three young kids, you spend a lot of time just getting through the day and the general business of running a family. Working together will be a great chance to reconnect, although it’ll also be important for us to have a little bit of breathing space. Finding a balance will be interesting.
5. Working on my self-discipline – or becoming better organised. All of the above isn’t just going to happen. I think we need to establish a good routine so that the balance between work and family is right. Self-discipline is one of my weakest points, so I’ll have to work hard to get a household routine that works for everyone.
6. Enjoying It – One of the main reasons for doing all of this is to have a better quality of life and to be my own boss. Probably the most important thing is to just enjoy what we’ve achieved so far and what we’ll achieve in the future.

So there you go. I’ll probably follow up on this post and refer back to it often (mostly to remind myself). Do any other work at home parents have any advice or thoughts they’d like to share?

Why Count In English When Spanish Is Easier!

Rachel started primary School this week. The sight of her in her ‘big girls’ uniform, walking into the classroom for the first time almost reduced me to tears. Worse was Jakes reaction to the situation, he wouldn’t talk to me the whole way home and spent the? rest of the morning asking “Can we go get Rachel now?”

Typical of Rachel, she settled brilliantly and her only problem with the whole primary school thing is that her teacher asked her not to count in spanish.

i should explain that Gerard took a few spanish conversation classes last year, and ever since has been introducing the odd word and phrase to the children. With the help of her dad and of course Dora The Explorer, Rachel can count to ten, as well as add and subtract in Spanish.

On her first day her teacher must have been trying to gauge her capabilties and was asking her to count some objects. Rachel proceeded to do so in spanish and was most offended when her teacher asked her to do it again in English.

Other than that we have had no issues. Rachel seems to enjoy school, so much so that she declared today “I wish i could stay there forever and never go home.” It doesn’t say much for my parentig skills does it?

Hitting, Smacking and Physical Violence…How Do I Discourage It In My Children?

Over the last few weeks I have felt as though I am banging my head off a brick wall. Jake has always been more free with his hands than Rachel, but over the last six months or so, I have noticed that he rarely hits, kicks or pushes anymore.

Since summer holidays started though I have noticed a deterioration in both of the children’s behaviour. They are hitting each other A LOT! To make things worse, a boy that often plays with Jake and Rachel came crying to us tonight that Jake had hit him on the head, and it turns out that Rachel, who thought the boy was being cheeky, had told Jake to do it.

I am trying to talk it out with them, explaining what they are doing is wrong and that it hurts other children. They have had stickers removed from their reward charts, they have been brought inside and not allowed out to play. None of it seems to be working. To be fair the majority of the problem lies with Rachel, Jake often just follows his big sister’s lead.

I think that Rachel is bored, she misses school and it is very hard to stimulate her effectively while also trying to amuse the two younger boys. I am at my wits end, and don’t like to see my usually very kind and considerate daughter turn into such a bad tempered little girl.? I am trying to practice positive discipline and not constantly tell her she is being bad, but sometimes my patience does wear thin. She is so quick to say sorry to avoid punishment, but I know she rarely means it.

Gerard is going to take some time off work within the next few weeks and we are going to try to occupy the childrens time a bit better. Hopefully a few day trips and some one to one time with Rachel will help cheer her up.

When Gender Becomes An Issue

Up until recently there was very little differentiation in our home between the toys Rachel played with, and the toys that Jake chose.

If Rachel wanted to play with Barbies or My Little Ponies, then Jake was happy to join in. But in the last few weeks our wee boy has started to emerge. It all started with a Batman figure that my sister bought for him last month, and from then we have seen his interest in boys toys grow and grow.

I thought it was time to bring down all Gerard’s old He-Man and Ghostbuster toys from the attic yesterday, and honestly you would have though that it was christmas in our house. Jake has played with the toys ever since, and its funny to imagine that 25 years ago his dad was playing with the same toys.

I can see Jakes gender really beginning to make a difference in other areas too. He is no longer content to watch Barbie Mermadia repeatedly, but is now asking for Power Rangers and Thunderbirds. When playing with other children he naturally gravitates towards the boys, and instead of playing on the swings, or see saws, Jake now wants to play sword fights.

Rachel is such a girly girl, who loves to pretend to be me in every way. Its nice to see Jake no longer following her every move, but beginning to make choices of his own.