pancakes :: snow :: a quilt

In an attempt to record and share more of our days (because they are so immensely fascinating, you understand!) I am going to try to post often in the same way as Heather, whose daily posts have been a wonderful source of beauty and out-breaths recently.
We have taken to having pancakes for breakfast every Sunday and that little routine sees me jumping out of bed before the boys to pad downstairs and mix the batter, so it can sit for a while before we start cooking.
We each have our favourite topping.
Frank goes for agave syrup (although having read about it recently I will be removing it from the pantry soon) and Andrew and I go for lemon juice and maple syrup.
We get two pancakes each (big, thin ones like crepes) from a mix of 4floz oat milk, 1 egg, 4oz spelt flour, pinch salt and 1 tbsp oil.
It leaves us rather wanting a little more but that's no bad thing.

And the table always groans under the weight of Lego. Every meal!

We had snow last night.
About five inches and it drifted so in parts of the garden it was quite high.
Straight after pancakes we headed out, all layered up, to throw snowballs at each other and get thoroughly cold.
Today was the day when I realised I have a hole in my wellies and my feet were very cold very quickly.
My lovely blokes longjohns worked a treat though!

And in the late morning I managed to complete my first ever quilt. Here you can see it on the big bed, although it is for Frank and his little bed next to ours.
The fabric was from the V&A stall at a Knit & Stitch Show two years ago and is all based on fabrics from the V&A archives.
They are beautiful and I am so glad to have been able to keep them together.
You can see in this picture how we sleep.
Frank sleeps directly next to me in a little bed (Andrew cannily took a saw to a regular single bed and made a kind of Frankenstein's monster of a bed!).
Frank didn't used to sleep here, except when he was tiny, but I never rested well with him away from me.
This way we all sleep better and I can check on him frequently because, let's face it, the deep sleep we all used to enjoy pre-kids and especially pre-diabetic kids is AWOL for a while.
It works for us, for now.
He learnt to make snowballs today.
And throw them.
His little snow suit is one brought back from a Finnish flea market by a friend.
We rarely get this much snow but this suit is fabulous when we do.

Tomorrow the Wholefood Kitchen starts for Andrew and I.
Will post more on that in the morning.

Making & Hiding Out (d'you see what I did there?)

tea cosy for my sister for Christmas

Frank making golden bicycle wheels at our little class "Art Makers" at the new gallery in town : firstsite.

my tiny stash of very special material made into a little clutch bag, which I am using for small knitting projects. Note the reality of my crafting and do not for a moment imagine I have a "studio" or anything! Nope I craft right alongside the Lego and the puzzles.

updating the nature table with gnomes and gingham hearts from the Christmas decoration stash

Budd making a fabulous shed in the garden, he has worked really hard all week on this, whilst I have worked hard to keep Frank out of his way

Me, making a golden bicycle wheel, taken by Frank

********************************
It has been busy around here with us making, building, creating ...
I finished the tea cosy for my sister for Christmas and am now making very few things for gifts. I made loads last year and it stressed me too much. Crafting and creating is something I do a fair amount of but I want it to kind of unfold naturally. I don't want to be handing over a gift that is only going to receive a lukewarm reception (it happens A LOT!) after I have sat up late trying to complete it. So this winter it's just a tie for Budd, a cowl for Frank and a couple of other gifts before I just knit for pleasure alone.
And next year I have already declared the year of knitting for ME!
That is going to be fun.
This week Frank and I enjoyed our second art class at the fantastic new gallery in Colchester: firstsite.
And Andrew has been spending the week building a shed in the garden; leaping out of bed once it is light and beavering away until it's dark.
He has done an amazing job.
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And onto the hiding out.
I have kind of been ignoring Diabetes Awareness month and not blogging about diabetes.
I think I have reached one of those phases of burnout and am just going with the flow.
In planing what to say here today I wondered if I should admit this.
A great deal of awe is felt here by me when I read other blogs, especially this month.
My stamina seems to have gone AWOL for November!
And, guess what, I wish it hadn't but I feel absolutely no guilt about it.
If I have learnt anything from this carousel of parenting a child with Type 1 Diabetes it is to trust my feelings and emotions and gut reactions to life and my moods.
I appear to have needed a quiet blogging month.
It certainly isn't all tea cosies and soup over here.
We have too many hypos and some ratios that have needed tweaking.
But the nights have been comfortingly predictable (for the first time in about nine months, I realised the other day! Jinkies! No wonder I look 93!).
********************
And this much I know:
Even when I lapse in regularity in my blogging.
Even when I am a bit lightweight with my post contents.
Even when I can barely function of an evening.
I feel the energy of all the other D-parents and D-friends out there.
Not in a weird way, just in a supportive way.
And I know that should I need to reach out, even after an absence, everyone is still there.
Just as I am.
Still here. Still there. Still reading.
Still Frank's Mama.

Lovely

I met up with a fellow blogger this week: the lovely Anna of Parallel Lives.

We began reading each others' blogs and e.mailing after she read a comment of mine on another blog and worked out that we live just 20 miles from each other. For a while we were e.mailing and commenting away and then it seemed strange not to meet.

I mean twenty miles! It's so close as to make it almost an insult not to meet.

So, a few days before that start of the 30 Day Vegan I contacted her to say I was going to be in Manningtree to stock up on wholefoods and suggested we meet for lunch.

So, we did. And two days before going Vegan for 30 days I had a yummy lunch of three cheese rigatoni and chocolate hazelnut torte with ice cream!

Oh, my it was good.

But not as good as seeing a familiar face from a familiar blog walk in the door.

After the initial weirdness that surely all bloggers meeting up feel of "I know all about you in so many ways and yet I have no idea who you are" we settled in with our heaps of melted cheese on pasta and began to talk.

And talk.

And talk.

On the drive home I kept thinking of things I had forgotten to ask and hoping I hadn't waffled on too much about Diabetes.

And then just one week later we met again in Frinton for a day on the beach and I met Anna's gorgeous children and fab husband. Frank was immediately taken under the wing of Anna's son, Johnny, and played on the beach with Livvy whilst watching Anna's eldest, Abi, playing in the sea. They were all such easy and engaging company.

What a lovely, lovely family.

And my mind is still spinning with things I want to ask and talk to Anna about.

I have read before about D-parents meeting up and of how lovely it is and this was just the same. We were friends before we met.

And just like I look forward to a friend's next post, I also look forward to seeing Anna and her family again.

Blogging rocks!

Taking a Break

We are having such a lovely summer (yes, not enough sleep, blood sugar mostly behaving but with the usual curve balls lobbed at me every day or so) and I am finding it hard to get to the computer.
Add to this, Frank managing to break my beloved camera by dropping it on the garden path! It now makes a sad kind of squeak when it gets used and takes very fuzzy photos indeed. He has decided that is fine for him and so, in his quest to be a wildlife cameraman, he spends a while each day taking lots of pictures of his orcas and shark toys and then showing them to me at high speed.
I need to get organised and get a new camera. It has surprised me how much I miss taking pictures of our days. And the weather over here is just so lovely, the sky so blue some days that the photos would be fabulous!
It's actually a bit too hot for us and we spend part of each days shade hopping and drinking iced water.
Life is good and I am going to sign out for August to enjoy every moment of it.
I am still reading all my beloved bloggy friend's words and will comment as much as I find time for.
Have a fantabulous August and I will be back at this space on 1st September with a summary of our month.
Love to all!
xxxx


P.S. I am sorry for freaking you all out over my previous post! Perhaps I won't tell you all the story of my Dad playing Hide and Seek with Frank and then just getting distracted by the washing or some such domestic thing and just leaving Frank hiding and not mentioning it to me for far too flipping long ...

Breathe :: A Giveaway

Well, hello there, lovely peeps!

This is my 200th post (and this must be the worst photo ever published on this 'ere blog!).

I have a poster of this print called "BREATHE" (click here for a better view) by the very talented Nikki McClure (click here only once you have hidden your credit card!) to offer to you as a giveaway today.

The one in the photo is framed and hangs on my dining room wall.

The giveaway poster will be sent in a cardboard tube for you to frame, or not, as you wish.

All you have to do is comment.

****************************************

I love her work and have a few of her posters framed and placed strategically around the house and in the summer house.

There is something spiritual in the single word, almost a mantra, and one can lose oneself in the details.

Taking a moment to breathe deeply, to connect with the moment, to be here right now, is something often lost to us, be we parents of diabetics or diabetics ourselves (or indeed just humans).

Maybe having this poster will help you do just that.

You have until Sunday evening when the random number generator, aka Frank, will leap into action.

And a final little note:

I am so very grateful for the online support you all offer me.

It keeps me the right side of sane (most days, ahem) and I am always so excited to read your blogs and hear about your gorgeous children.

Long may our support for each other continue.

Off to sniff into my hankie now, after that outpouring of emotion.

So very un-British of me ...

Do You Blog? Let Your Insurance Agent Know.

The Cincinnati Insurance Board in its January 2011 newsletter posted a great article about the risk that bloggers face. If you blog and or spend time writing in chat rooms on the internet you should contact your friendly Fey Insurance Services agent to discuss. Read why:

Blogging and the Possiblity of Lawsuits- CIB Jan 2011 Newsletter

A growing number of lawsuits are targeting individuals who blog or post allegedly libelous material on the Internet according to the International Risk Management Institute (IRMI). One report indicates a 216 percent increase in libel lawsuits against bloggers and online posters in the last few years.

These postings and blogs can result in nasty lawsuits. For example, earlier this year, a Florida man was sued for $15,000 over a negative remark he posted on eBay against the seller of a reportedly defective clock. A blogger in Georgia was sued for $2 million over his claims about the alleged misdeeds of a local government employee. Are these types of claims covered under a standard, unendorsed homeowners policy? What type of protection, if any, does the homeowners policy offer for these types of lawsuits?

The liability insuring agreement under nearly all homeowners policies pays for damages arising only from bodily injury or property damage, not from any type of personal injury, such as libel. In most cases, the only way that these claims might be covered is if the insured's homeowners policy includes a personal injury endorsement.

So it is a good idea to remind your clients who are active bloggers and online posters of the wisdom of procuring personal injury coverage and a personal umbrella policy (which typically provides even broader personal injury coverage). Clients should also be advised that if the blogging is related, say, to a home-based business, there will likely be no coverage under either of these options due to various business exclusions and restrictions. A home-based business endorsement is essential in these situations.

In addition, you should know that the Internet is not a law-free zone where anything and everything goes. There are ramifications to consider for those avid and active posters and bloggers, ramifications that can turn out to be painful and very expensive

2011 ...

... is a year of plans.

There will be more

• knitting and a mastering (or should that be mistressing) of cables
• sewing (of our own clothes)
• learning new things (crochet for starters)
• planting veggies in the garden and eating them (that means you too, Frankie Boy)
• trips (to the Isle of Mull, the Cotswolds, Finland, the beach (lots) and Dorset are being planned)
• exercise & fresh air
• embracing of the moment
• music in our lives, both live and just around us at home
• art
• locally sourced food on our plates
• blogging and photos
• comments on blogs and yet no guilt if I don't find the time
• sleep ( a girl can dream ...)

There will be less

• screen time
• guilt
• worry about what others think
• fear of the future
• "responsibly sourced Madagascan prawns" on our plates (oh, yes, I fell for this one a month ago and hubby is still laughing at me!)
• time spent with people that don't sustain me or "get it" with regard to the D

Are you planning more or less of anything this year?

Happy 2011 and I look forward to sharing this year with you.

My husband posted this the other day (it's a friend of his) and I wanted to share it with you today, at the beginning of a new year.

It's raw beauty brings me to tears and it feels such a privilege to hear it each and every time.

Wow.

Wow.

This is all I can say.

Just finished breakfast and checking comments on my post from yesterday.

Found this.

"Ilya
Sorry to disappoint you but the way you feed the kid and your perfidious I heart insulin slogan is a premature death sentence. Do some reading if you really care about the kid. I'm pretty darn serious and know your reaction in advance. You are wrong. Insulin kills and this is a fact.
15 December 2010 01:58 "

How helpful.

The Versatile Blogger - c'est moi!

Jen kindly gave me this award, THANKS JEN! I have spent most of my blogging time this evening trying to work out how to add the button to my post. I have only managed to copy the picture. Anyone got time to tell me how on earth to add a button to a blog?

Anyhooo ... onto the conditions of the award.

1. Thank the person who gave you the award.

Jen, my lovely, supportive friend, thank you so much. I wish you lived just around the corner.

2. Share seven things about yourself.

• I was a vegetarian for 22 years until I was about five months pregnant and then remember saying to Andrew, whilst walking around the supermarket, that I needed "roast chicken and NOW". I still eat good quality meat and feel better for it.
• I am majorly clumsy and am always bumping into things and dropping things. I find this funny. Hubby not so much ...
• I speak fluent German.
• Kindness and empathy are hugely important to me both in myself and others.
• I adore Brussels sprouts and once as a student ate a whole pound of them, steamed, with butter and black pepper. Just writing that makes me want to do it again.
• I love to wear big, clumpy shoes. I just can't do heels but at 5'10", I figure I don't have to.
• Music is a source of solace and inspiration to me and it can bring me down if it's the wrong music at the wrong time. If it's the right music I can conquer anything.

3. Pass the award onto twelve bloggers you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic.

OK, here we go, hold onto your knickers:

Amanda at FeltFinland

Hannah at HomeBaked

Mary Beth at Salt and Chocolate

Sarah at Green Clogs

Sarah at Blue Garter

Lise at In the Purple House

Penny at A Sweet Grace

Nicole at Frontier Dreams

Calamity Jane at Apron Strings

Christine at Slow Living Essentials

Reyna at BETA BUDDIES

Andrew at Big Swifty

I admit some of these blogs are not "new" to me but I do rely on these voices to inform and uplift me all the time.

I hope they add some new voices to your days too.

Accelerate Your Business Success With Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com

The growth of LinkedIn, which has signed up over 41 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world, confirms there is a distinct business social networking market. The site has over 1.5 million in the UK - a tenth of the professional workforce.

Its average user is 41, with a salary estimated at £70,000.

LinkedIn remains a great way for professionals to strengthen their online brand reputation and leverage their professional network.

Relationships Matter

Your professional network of trusted contacts gives you an advantage in your career, and is one of your most valuable assets. LinkedIn exists to help you make better use of your professional network and help the people you trust in return.

In a global connected economy, your success as a professional and your competitiveness as a company depends upon faster access to insight and resources you can trust.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals.

When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional expertise and accomplishments. You can then form enduring connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to a vast number of qualified professionals and experts.

Through your network you can:

• Manage the information that’s publicly available about you as professional
• Find and be introduced to potential clients, service providers, and subject experts who come recommended
• Create and collaborate on projects, gather data, share files and solve problems
• Be found for business opportunities and find potential partners
• Gain new insights from discussions with likeminded professionals in private group settings
• Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals
• Post and distribute job listings to find the best talent for your company

LinkedIn is free to join. They offer a premium version of your accounts that give you more tools for finding and reaching the right people, whether or not they are in your network. LinkedIn participates in the EU Safe Harbor Privacy Framework and is certified to meet the strict privacy guidelines of the European Union. All relationships on LinkedIn are mutually confirmed, and no one appears in the LinkedIn Network without knowledge and explicit consent.

10 WAYS TO OPTIMISE YOUR SUCCESS WITH LINKEDIN

1. Increase your visibility.

By adding connections, you increase the likelihood that people will see your profile first when they’re searching for someone to hire or do business with. In addition to appearing at the top of search results people would much rather work with people who their friends know and trust.

2. Improve your connectability.

Most new users put only their current company in their profile. By doing so, they severely limit their ability to connect with people. You should fill out your profile like it’s an executive bio, so include past companies, education, affiliations, and activities.
You can also include a link to your profile as part of an email signature. The added benefit is that the link enables people to see all your credentials, which would be awkward if not downright strange, as an attachment.

3. Improve your Google PageRank.

LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available for search engines to index. Since LinkedIn profiles receive a fairly high PageRank in Google, this is a good way to influence what people see when they search for you.

To do this, create a public profile and select “Full View.” Also, instead of using the default URL, customize your public profile’s URL to be your actual name. To strengthen the visibility of this page in search engines, use this link in various places on the web> For example, when you comment in a blog, include a link to your profile in your signature.

4. Enhance your search engine results.

In addition to your name, you can also promote your blog or website to search engines like Google and Yahoo! Your LinkedIn profile allows you to publicise websites. There are a few pre-selected categories like “My Website,” “My Company,” etc.

If you select “Other” you can modify the name of the link. If you’re linking to your personal blog, include your name or descriptive terms in the link, and voila! instant search-engine optimization for your site. To make this work, be sure your public profile setting is set to “Full View.”

5. Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks.

LinkedIn’s reference check tool to input a company name and the years the person worked at the company to search for references. Your search will find the people who worked at the company during the same time period. Since references provided by a candidate will generally be glowing, this is a good way to get more balanced data.

Companies will typically check your references before hiring you, but have you ever thought of checking your prospective manager’s references? Most interviewees don’t have the audacity to ask a potential boss for references, but with LinkedIn you have a way to scope them out.

You can also check up on the company itself by finding the person who used to have the job that you’re interviewing for. Do this by searching for job title and company, but be sure to uncheck “Current titles only.” By contacting people who used to hold the position, you can get the inside scoop on the job, manager and growth potential.

By the way, if using LinkedIn in these ways becomes a common practice, we’re apt to see more truthful resumes. There’s nothing more amusing than to find out that the candidate who claims to have caused some huge success was a total bozo who was just along for the ride.

6. Increase the relevancy of your job search.

Use LinkedIn’s advanced search to find people with educational and work experience like yours to see where they work. For example, a programmer would use search keywords such as “Ruby on Rails,” “C++,” “Python,” “Java,” and “evangelist” to find out where other programmers with these skills work.

7. Make your interview go smoother.

You can use LinkedIn to find the people that you’re meeting. Knowing that you went to the same school, plays football, or shares acquaintances is a lot better than an awkward silence after, “I’m doing fine, thank you.”

8. Gauge the health of a company.

Perform an advanced search for company name and uncheck the “Current Companies Only” box. This will enable you to scrutinize the rate of turnover and whether key people are abandoning ship. Former employees usually give more candid opinions about a company’s prospects than someone who’s still on board.

9. Gauge the health of an industry.

If you’re thinking of investing or working in a sector, use LinkedIn to find people who worked for competitors—or even better, companies who failed.

10. Track startups.

You can see people in your network who are initiating new startups by doing an advanced search for a range of keywords such as “stealth” or “new startup.” Apply the “Sort By” filter to “Degrees away from you” in order to see the people closest to you first.

[Republished from: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn via "How to Change the World" -- Guy Kawasaki's blog]

Nice 1 Limited Comment : "We are new to LinkedIn but can see clear advantages of joining already. As our core product Theft Protect traverses the insurance and motor sectors, the benefits of networking and connecting with our business contacts are invaluable. Easy to set up and start connecting"

Carl Brandrick

Managing Director
Nice 1 Limited

To visit the Theft Protect page on LinkedIn click the LinkedIn button on the right of this page.

To Twitter Nice 1 click here

http://www.linkedin.com/

Business Blogging For Brokers

Quickie Definition of a Blog

Here’s the plain-language, quickie answer to the “Er, what is a blawg?” question:

A Weblog or blog is an instant publishing tool anyone can use to add fresh content to a Web page.

No technical expertise is required.

Blog is both a noun and a verb. When you blog (verb), you write.

When you blog for business you should write coherently, purposefully and with the goal of establishing your company’s credibility and expertise. No drivel allowed. But an authentic, informal voice is encouraged.

A blog is a new way to market your services or products by positioning you and/or yourcompany as thought leaders in highly competitive markets.

A blog is the new cost-effective way to communicate quickly with — and get feedback from — your audience of readers, whether they are colleagues, competitors, the media, prospects or customers.

A blog is just a tool, albeit a cool one. As with any tool, there is a right way and a wrongway to use it. There is proper blogging etiquette.

Who is blogging for business?

Lots of companies, often technology-oriented. And lots of savvymarketing types.

Individuals (behind companies) blog. Corporations communicate in marketing-speak, whether it’s glossy collateral or their corporate home page. Which do you think is more persuasive to the reader? Who wants to be marketed at or sold to? Wouldn’t you rather have an intelligent conversation and decide later whether to buy?

In this, the Nice 1 introduction to business blogging, we'll keep it short and deal only with the basics at this stage. Plenty of time for us to show you the detail over the coming weeks, if it's of interest to you and your business.

At Nice 1, we have found the Blog to be a great additional form of marketing, both to the consumer and to our intermediary partners. As stated earlier, although just another marketing tool, the fact that Technorati, the major tracking site currently states it is tracking over 112.8 million blogs, (not including 72.82 million Chinese blogs) tells us that it is a rapidly growing business communication tool.

Blogging software is available free, which adds tremendously to its business appeal. The most popular blogging sofware is Blogger (owned by Google), of which this is blog is one example, and wordpress, again free to download and use.

As promised, we'll keep it simple on this introductory post. Each blog comprises of page(s) which are static and posts which are the frequently changing pieces of news and information, such as new product developments, newsworthy items, etc.

In later posts for supporting broker members, we will issue posts on blogging practice to get you started if you haven't yet dipped your toe in the water and would like to have a go!

For now though, here's a couple of FREE downloads for you that you might like to read at your leisure. . . . . Just click the link to open the file, then click save as to save it to your computer.

Beginners Business Blogging

A Useful Little pdf on Blogs

Our Top 10 Tips For Search Engine Optimization

We're still newbies at blogging ourselves, but we have to say we're delighted with the positive reaction they are creating.

In future posts we will talk about creating your blog, then using google FREE tools amongst others to get your blog out there "syndicated" as it's called, so that your readers will know you're there and want to communicate more with you.

For now though, best of luck with your blog. If we can be of any assistance, don't hesitate to shout up. You'll find as we did, that blog creation is a lot faster, easier and more dynamic than tradional websites.

You can contact us via e mail at enquiries@nice-1.co.uk or ring the number at the foot of this blog. If you wish, you can post a reply to this post. Just send us your e mail address and we will register you as a member of the site so that you are free to reply and comment at will.

Best Regards

The Nice 1 Team