Keris Stainton's Blog, page 86
January 23, 2011
My Big Zero list
The reason I want to post the list here as well as over on The Big Zeroes is that I think over the next twelve months I'll be asking you for your help with some of the items. So. Here it is:
Buy jewellery to commemorate the boys and the books
Subscribe to Coast magazine
Cook at least one meal each week
Parkgate
Take the boys to Parkgate for shrimps and ice cream (not together!)
Watch a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film (Top Hat?)
Milk a cow
Spend my birthday in New York*
Visit Disneyland at Christmas
Get my Best Ever Body
Could it be this one?
Find a "signature" perfume
Take the boys camping
Read everything in my TBR pile
Catch up on all my online saved items
Meet at least one friend for lunch/dinner each month
Make a really good cheesecake
Eat pistachio ice cream with mini marshmallows
Try bacon or cheese chocolate and oysters
Spend the weekend in a VW camper van
Jodrell Bank
Go to Jodrell Bank
Organise my photos once and for all (on Flickr, scan in photos and slides)
Create a family gallery up the stairs
Learn to crochet
Write letters to people I admire and who inspire me
Make a family tree (with names at least)
Have a singing lesson
Buy and watch the complete Buffy (finally!)
Go to Hilbre Island
Chris and Pui
Take the boys to see Chris & Pui
See Avenue Q again
Celebrate our birthdays and anniversaries. Properly.
Buy fresh flowers at least once a month
Read Mary Oliver's poetry
Not this Brazilian...
Perform a Random Act of Kindness once a week
Write a picture book for Harry and Joe
Learn about classical music
Have a Brazilian wax
Have a go on a potters wheel
Have a family portrait taken
Order a KFC bucket (just the once!)
Read The Collected Peanuts (and watch the cartoons too)
* and if I do, try the frozen custard at Shake Shack, and Nora Ephron's cabbage strudel; see Promises, Promises and Love, Loss and What I Wore on Broadway; and obviously visit the settings from my book (squeak!)
January 22, 2011
January 21, 2011
Happy Birthday, baby*
* 2 today. No longer a baby. Sniff.
January 20, 2011
One Month Before Heartbreak
This morning, Catherine Hughes, who I know online, tweeted the link to this Guardian article about the consultation on changes to the disability living allowance (DLA). I read it and it made me feel angry. And sad. And scared. So I tweeted it too.
I then got a message from Emma, who I know as @funkyfairy22 on Twitter, telling me that she is the founder of the One Month Before Heartbreak blog. I asked Emma what I could do (having emailed David Cameron and Jack Straw yesterday – about Respite for Riven – I'm obviously all riled up) and she said they want to get the word out on as many blogs, etc., as possible. So here we are.
I don't have personal experience of disability* and so I feel like I can't add anything to the incredibly eloquent and painful stories I've read in the above links, but I do think this is an incredibly important issue. Please click on the above links – maybe watch this video – and sign the petition. Thank you.
* My mum had MS and I know she struggled to get benefits, but that's a long time ago now and I've no idea what she was claiming for so it's not really relevant. (But I thought I'd mention it before anyone left a comment saying 'Didn't your mum have MS..?')
Um… pardon?
Have just been trying to work out why my National Insurance payment hasn't been taken this month. Then I remembered that they sent me a letter (which I took no notice of, obviously). I hunted it out. Now I know it seems boring – hell, it is boring – but try and read it, eh?
From 2011-2012, we will change the dates we collect your Class 2 NICs Direct Debts so payments are made by 31 January and 31 July. We will collect Class 2 NICs in 12 monthly instalments starting in August and ending the following July. There is more detailed information to explain what the changes are on page 2 of this letter.
The last collection for the 2010-11 tax year will be in April 2011: this will be for March 2011
We will not make any collections in May, June and July 2011.
The first collection for the 2011-12 tax year will be in August 2011: this will be for April 2011.
Page 2:
From the 2011-12 tax year Class 2 NICs will be due for payment by 31 January and 31 July each year.
The monthly payments collected by 31 January will cover NICs due for the first 6 months of the tax year and the payments collected by 31 July will cover NICs due for the last 6 months of the tax year.
There will be a break in your current Class 2 NICs Direct Debit payments following the collection in April 2011 (covering payment for the period March 2011 to April 2011). They will restart in August 2011.
To ensure that your final payment is collected by 31 July each year, your NICs will be collected in 12 monthly instalments, starting in August and ending in July each year.
Payments will be collected monthly, four monthly in arrears.
Is it just me or is that completely flaming incomprehensible?!
January 19, 2011
Introducing The Big Zeroes
I may have mentioned (once or twice…) that I'm 40 this year. Turns out a few of my friends are also celebrating big birthdays in 2011. And so we decided to get together for a group blog.
It's called The Big Zeroes and we – me, Erin, Jacqui, Clodagh and Bridget – have put up lists of what we plan to achieve/experience this year. For each of us, there are the same number of items on our list as years in the birthdays we're celebrating. In other words, Erin has 30, Bridget has 60 and the rest of us are in between.
As we go through the year and (hopefully!) tick items off, we'll be writing about it over there. We'd love to hear what you think.
(I'm going to be posting my stuff here too.)
January 18, 2011
Meet SuperHarry!
A couple of weeks ago walking to school, Harry told me had he a dream in which we – Harry, Joe, David and I – were superheroes. David had laser eyes, I could run really really fast, I can't remember what Joe's was and Harry's was "coughing up green furballs."
I told him that didn't sound like much of a superpower and he said that when he coughed them onto the baddies, the baddies turned into superheroes. Now I don't know much about superheroes, but I've never heard of one whose superpower is turning the baddies into superheroes, have you?
This morning, Harry told me about his "Superhero Team" at school. Harry is Superman, there are two Dinosaur-heroes, a Princess and a Starlina (or Star-leaner, it wasn't clear). Together, they fight evil. Non-specific evil. Every day.
Do you feel safer now? Do you?
January 17, 2011
January 14, 2011
January 12, 2011
Pug love
I loved Alison Pace's book Pug Hill, so I'm excited about this one.
These are handbags! Handbags! The antler one seems to be out of stock (is back in stock!), but buy the rabbit from Amazon.
