… that I only discover that the slow cooker is no longer working eight hours AFTER switching everything on?! Was really looking forward to that sausage casserole too *sniffle*. Now have to go through the hassle of comparing different slow cookers again – and none of them seem to be able to go on the hob anymore.

The more I think about this case, the more I get angry that she is not considered deserving of considerable compensation. Yes, she “only” spent 18 months in jail, but her life was utterly destroyed five years ago when, not only was she suffering from the loss of her two precious boys from cot death, but was then accused and wrongly convicted of their murder. This cannot be the same (as purpleelephant has mentioned in my comments earlier) as being falsely accused of burglary – this has far reaching implications, not least that she’ll always be under suspicion by the authorities – particularly if she chooses to have any more children.

In all the MSbP “cases” there is an alarming reluctance to admit anyone was wrong. Angela Cannings was one of the more high profile cases, but what of those women who were cleared in criminal court but still had their children removed and taken into care by the family courts and are even now being refused any sort of investigation into their situations? There have been hundreds of lives destroyed by Professor Meadow and men like him – compensation doesn’t even begin to repair the damage that has been done.

But it would have been a start.

Well, I was going to blog my two special requests this evening, but you’re just going to have to wait. As this can’t. Wait for it…

… ta da DAAAAAA!…

We have a builder… AND an agreed increase to our mortgage – so the extension is actually almost imminent! Helloooooo chaos!

So we’ve been out today shopping for a kitchen. Still getting quotes and having to keep to a strict budget, but we’re contemplating this one – get the completed design and quote on Monday.

Not quite sure what to do with the garden though – quote from builder to put in a patio while he’s there (just a stop gap until we decide what we want done with the garden) seems quite steep – but without some sort of patio, it makes the garden unusable for the kids on the damper days. Think I’ll have to get some separate quotes for sorting out the garden by a design company – even if I can’t afford them, maybe I can at least get the builder to plan the patio around their ideas so I don’t end up ripping it all up again a couple of years down the line…

I’ve been following Motoki’s Log for a while now. This amazing little chap was born FIFTEEN WEEKS early and weighed less than a pound. He wasn’t expected to live and yet now, seven months later, he’s doing incredibly well and from the photographs is a real handsome little treasure.

I don’t normally advertise individual’s causes on this blog, but I felt I had to in this case. His mum and dad are doing a fantastic job keeping it together through some horrendously stressful times. Their medical insurance has gone so far but won’t pay out for a particularly important operation – that to reconstruct and repair his genitalia. His parents are getting deeply in debt and are understandably very worried for their gorgeous little boy.

I know there are probably far more deserving cases out there and maybe it’s related to the hormones flying around in me due to Li’l Bhaji being born roughly around the same time, but would you please all consider donating something no matter how little to them? Just your “would have blown it on a cup of coffee and a newspaper or a new CD” money. Donation button on their site.

I’m having one of my blank moments. You know, one of those when you look at an empty blog entry form, knowing that you probably have lots of things you *could* write about but not actually being able to start.

I could be writing about Li’l Bhaji’s 8 month check, which unsurprisingly showed he was advanced in some areas and behind in others. Or how I’ve dropped his afternoon breastfeed for a bottle of formula as of today and feeling a bit sniffly but quite relieved at the same time. Or I could write about how I was really feeling quite organised at the moment and getting a lot of general “stuff” done that has been procrastinated against ad infinitum. Or I could express my rage at the lack of compensation for Angela Cannings or disgust at the vile couple who deliberately poisoned the little boy who they were trying to adopt (about the same age as Akra Jr) by force feeding him huge quantities of salt.

But fundamentally, I just can’t build up the momentum to do it. Maybe tomorrow.

Special requests?

A short entry today. Mainly because I’m busy swimming from my computer to the kitchen.

Yes, it’s that time of the decade again – the time to defrost the freezer compartment of the fridge. Progress photos on my fotothing. Yes, I am really that sad.

You know you’re getting old when you start finding it hard to use the technology around you. Watching my 3 year old’s proficiency with a mouse doesn’t make me feel much younger, either.

Now, I thought I was fairly good about this blogging lark. I have all the blogs I read set up at Bloglines so I don’t have to click into each one to see if the author has posted. To find new reading material, I’m a Blog Explosion fan, so that’s covered. What’s missing is some sort of central comment tracking system.

Yes, because I’m now at the age where my memory has eroded beyond all recognition. Or maybe it’s having two children and sleep deprivation that killed off all the braincells, because I cannot for the life of me remember where I commented.

Pre-RSS readers it was easy. I’d revisit the blog and seeing the previous day’s entry would remind me and I could just pop into that comment section and see if there was a response – even have a mini conversation on someone’s blog. It was nice. It was neighbourly. It felt more like a community. Now I’m flitting all over the place and only see the current post in isolation, it just doesn’t work the same way.

So, question is do I need to work out a way to improve my memory or just hope that technology catches up with my incompetence real soon?

Words every parent loves to hear after spending three hours in the kitchen preparing a lovely roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings:

“I hope we’re having ham sandwiches…”

So I’m playing a small shockwave game and it’s time to quit for the evening. I click Menu>Quit and up comes a message box:

Your game will be automatically saved
Yes     No

Um. But if I have a choice, that’s not very automatic, is it?!

Warning: sad post about cleaning coming up. Avert eyes if you’d rather not know.

The cleaners arrived today. In my sorting out of The Budget, I sorted out some money for someone else to do the soul destroying cleaning tasks. I’ve had cleaners before (and the same agency before – Molly Maid) and my general philosophy is that cleaners are great, but they never clean as thoroughly as you would (well… if you had the time and the inclination, that is).

Not so these two stars. My house is gleaming. I am in COMPLETE AWE. My sink is one of those horrible white ones which has never BEEN white (more of a tea-stained murky brown colour) since… well… never. It is GLEAMING. They’ve cleaned the pipework behind the loo and basin in the main bathroom (somewhere I’d never thought of to even look let alone clean). They got the rust stains off the kitchen countertops (I couldn’t get them off no matter what I used on them). They MOVED things to clean.

AND (get this) they said that considering I had two children that my house was immaculate – just a bit dusty, and they didn’t have to do a big clean at all. *beam*. So the two hours of tidying up before they arrived was worth it after all.

I think I’m in love…