Coping with cost of living badly

With all the tra-la-la about a global economic downturn and the media wheeling out stories about how to save money on everything from food, to power, to fuel to frugal/recession fashion shopping, I feel I need to do my bit.

It only seems a few short years ago when my friends and I talked about how hard it was keeping the family supermarket shopping below $200 – today it’s more like $400 would be a nice goal.

I do now have teenage boys so that’s a big extra cost isn’t it? And, I admit that the supermarket shop does include a few bottles of wine – not strictly essentials! Actually, that’s one thing that does not seem to be afflicted by price rises – wine. There’s so many great deals – the lesson is, we can drink more wine but eat less cheese, the  price of which has continued to sky-rocket.

How else could I save money? I admit I get sucked in buying those jars of bolognaise sauce – and even butter  chicken. It’s not that I’m not perfectly capable of making my own – I could blame lack of time. However, annoying in today’s Sunday Star Times mag – in “The art of eating” Joanna Knox says members of Slow Food are some of the busiest people she knows. Dammit!

Interestingly, the saving money thing is infiltrating work. One of the people in my team has brought in a plunger and proposes we stop the buy the takeaway coffee habit and make our own. So far, that just means I drink more coffee – I can’t stop myself buying it first thing, then have another with the others when they arrive.

And what about fuel. The husband and I do our bit – we both walk to work and bus home. But … shame about the teenager who seems to be out in our car constantly. The naive husband said – oh at least he puts petrol in it. Haha. Yes – he puts petrol in it and I pay him back.

Oh well – will resolve to do better – chicken bones will get boiled up post roast tonight!

Brain health and why you need to check your blood pressure now

It’s not good news for stroke patients in New Zealand according to Sarah Barnett in this week’s “Listener” as apparently we languish near the bottom of OECD figures for stroke mortality rates.

Bad news then for my mother and brother (who have always been fit and slim and hence defy the stereotypes of smokers and/or diabetes sufferers) who are on medication for high blood pressure. And, also my teenage son, the renal transplant patient.

I must admit as a non-medical type it would have been kinda useful to have it actually explained “why you need to check your blood pressure now”. Or was the answer – it’s because you’re doomed if you end up with a stroke in NZ’s hospital system?

To be fair, our experience with the NZ health system has been generally good, but it has been a bit of a challenge to get the teen to understand the blood pressure issue. The specialist gave a complicated scientific explanation, all v fascinating, but didn’t inspire him to change his lifestyle to avoid drugs. Hey this is a kid who has been on drugs all his life so it’s like so what?

However, recently he has made some kind of mental leap and is on to early morning runs and being kinder to the body. I do understand that it’s pretty hard to be 18 and be given the hard word on your “lifestyle”.

And indeed the recent TV3 doc about a kidney exchange programme in the US was not happy viewing for families of transplant patients who thought they were going to watch an exciting new way of getting around the lack of dead donors. Only one out of the three recipients survived – it was depressing.

The joy of food

It’s a weirdly exciting moment in a mother’s life when her teenage sons show an interest in cooking and actually volunteer to do it. The eldest one’s passion for Japan resulted first in tempura vegetables – really fantastic!

What was interesting for me is that I have just about never deepfried anything in my life, but he did it – certainly without any coaching from me. And, then after his 7th form year in Japan, he returned to “have a go” at making things he’d enjoyed there – I admit the thing involving raw egg I wasn’t so convinced by …

A few years on – and am astonished when middle one volunteers for a cooking night per week. Yay! but hey has he ever attempted anything but micowaved brownies?

Even more than he older one, he eschews recipes … “oh I just want to be creative … I know what I like … recipes are for dummies”. So – the first meal involved some of his fav foods, ie bacon, mushrooms, pasta and cheese. He did consult a recipe book for the cheese sauce – briefly. It was pretty good for a first effort – I did feel READLLY full.

And indeed a little while later, I noticed that half a block of tasty cheese had disappeared – no wonder we all felt like blobs!

The next week – was artistic mounds of rice with chicken and mushrooms – lots of butter involved I understand – but a concept copied from a cafe where he’d worked briefly. It was great.

But the latest one – he debated a bit about what to cook – it had to be different. Imagine my surprise (horror) when he announced he would be cooking liver and onions. As an offal hater, have never cooked the stuff myself so he certainly is expressing his individuality!

Anyway – made valiant attempt to eat it – happily he’d already identified a need for red wine to make it more palatable. Didn’t tell the younger bro what was in store as far as I knew he’d never experienced liver – so maybe he’d like it? No!

It’s all good fun. But just while on the offal subject – that same week Martin Bosley did sweatbreads in the “Listener” – and the following week, celeriac. Yuck is all I can say. Or bring back Lois Daish!

John Keyes vs Marian Keyes?

The question is – am I more interested in reading about NZ politics or indulging in chick lit read? The answer is Marian of course.

Am total flake. Accept it’s time for a change despite Labour lean – no interest in the endless dissection of it all. Am bored already.

Not that am actually a superficial celebrity watcher either. However, the back-breaking-Veitch affair has been an interesting talking point at work. Generally agreed that $100,000 is not worth a broken back and a nervous breakdown, especially if you have a high-paid job. So why didn’t she go to the police?

Strange link here – Marian Keyes latest “This Charming Man” is about a politician who abuses women. Yes he gets his come upperance from the women, but I did feel that the weakest part was that they didn’t go to the police.

Guess I don’t know what it’s like to be an abused woman – thankfully! But it’s an appalling message that a high-profile presenter who was going through a rough patch should violently abuse a woman and continue his TV career. Not good enough!

Grumpy teen returns

The teenager returned early from the great tramping adventure. And what an adventure!

After the 3-day tramp was postponed 3 days, they set off late – apparently several hours late because of car problems. Hence they starting tramping at 4. A bit late for mid-winter NZ near Ruapehu? Well the hut was supposed to be only 2 hours away.

However, they didn’t find the hut – 2 hours later – still no hut – so they tramped back to car – 4 hours in the snow arriving at midnight.

So I said – were you scared? “No.” Were your two friends nervous or distressed? “No.” Do you know if your teachers had any form of emergency communications – hey you could have been still out there? “Grunt – no.”

What happened next? Well they went to another teacher’s bach that was conveniently not too far away as they were travelling in an unheated car and wet and cold after 8 hours in the snow.

So was there any talk of more tramping the next day? “No.”

Observation on teenage behaviour – the grunting monosyllabic grumpy male behaviour appears to be massively increased by tiredness and stress. That 15-year-old had been v pleasant recently – like a real person! Now see pattern – rowing season finished end March – result: behavourial transformation.

Guess a mother just has to grin and bear it!

Sharing with strangers

I have just set up a Flickr site extending my social networking toys. It seems a great way of sharing photos with selected friends, eg recent v silly pix at assorted 50ths. So much easier than emailing.

However, I am not going to share my Flickr site with strangers. I just can’t see the point.  Just like I can’t see the point of having “imaginery” friends on Facebook, ie people I don’t know.

So what about the blog you ask? That’s sharing with strangers. True – haven’t quite figured that out yet … it’s all part of the social networking experiment.

The great outdoors vs couch potato safety

It’s all very well encouraging your kids to get off the couch – turn their backs on the playstation or laptop and embrace the great outdoors, the problem is that the couch is soooo much safer!

No. 3 son (the 15 year old 6ft 4in baby of the family) is off on a tramp today. Three days east slopes of Ruapehu – it’s freezing of course. Indeed the tramp has been postponed three times because the Desert Road has been closed and generally horrible conditions.

I know it’s a great opportunity but one can’t help worry about the risks. However, I obsess over what to take gear wise and hope for the best!

It is of course a school trip with experienced trampers so one assumes they know what they are doing.  In comparison, what the boy and his mates have been exploring in a gorge in Wellington is much more worrisome. Yeah yeah yeah - great that they are outside doing “boystuff” but … the talk of a cave or is it a tunnel or even a storm water drain is not so reassuring! I have pointed out that I need to know where they are in case something happens, but this falls on deaf ears.

Ran into a mother of one of them in supermarket on Saturday and she said her son had been looking for bolt cutters to aide exploration. We both agreed this was a v bad idea and she said she was going to ring the council and try and find out what they had discovered.

I  imagine headlines around negligent parents, teenagers trapped in cave, teenagers swept away by storm waters, teens disappear altogether and no one knows where …

Yep – keep them safe – couchsafe …

am confused

maybe I do have another blog with the same posts on it – how weird – lucky no one looks at it!

The BA problem

I had one key piece of advice for my children contemplating what to do with their education. Don’t just do a BA with interest subjects unless it’s going somewhere. Oh no scream (some of) my friends. It’s perfectly okay to pursue your passion – something will always work out. Yeah right!

Even several decades ago when I completed the old buggerall in English and Sociology, guess what I found out. I was qualified for zilch! Indeed the secretarial course I’d undertaken as my alternative 7th form year was more likely to lead me to a job – it did – the Department of Labour in Dunedin where I’d eventually registered as unemployed got me a job, Secretary in the Math Dept at Otago University – the horror of it all!

So needless to say my feelings a bit mixed as my eldest son appears to be finishing a BA this year in – wait for it – Japanese and Development Studies. What is the latter you ask? Indeed … something just about as useful as sociology in the 70s.

And he’s a lovely young man – caring, kind and indeed it’s great he’s completing a qualification, which is a great START. Yes – so now it’s like “what’s next” tho (just like me) he of course is sick of study and wants to earn money and go overseas. So what’s he thinking of ? Journalism – maybe after a year off.

Funny that – what I should have done – but did the postgrad dip in teaching despite warnings from grandmother and mother (who both did it) saying “don’t do it”. Spookily – I think the young person would make a great teacher unlike the 3 preceding generations’ experience. But it’s not my life!

i hate technology

yet again had resolution to write blog every day well … maybe alternate days – come what may – doesn’t matter if no thread or angle. That seemed part of the problem -what was the point of my blog – was to rant and rail about the pain of raising teenagers -or should I be reflecting on something bigger, more significant?

But just as I resolve to get in there and experiment – the internet goes down, then the husband is hogging the computer, then it appears I’ve forgotton my password, then I get 3 emails about changing my password none with the new password. AARGH! And the internet rebells again. This has gone on over the last 48 hours.

Oh yes – and then somehow I thought it might be smart to have another blog claled Shonajb’s Weblog. I quite like that – but think will save that until I have something really great to say. This could take awhile.

ok so am back in blog land. Will try new post that was thinking about …