Today’s Writing Prompt: Disagree

The One-Minute Writer: Today's Writing Prompt: Disagree#links#links#links

This week's Twin Tuesday QOTW is:

Do you have pets and, have they caused any problems/issues since becoming a parent of twins?

I'm actually a mamma to TWO sets of twin girls - my beautiful daughters and our two pet bunnies, Chip 'n Dale.

You can see some photos of our bunnies here.

We didn't have any pets before the girls came along.  Hubby and I were pet sitters for family and friends, who were going away on holiday.

However, I wanted the girls to have a pet, so in November 2008 we adopted two bunnies from my friend, Debbie.  We don't have a lot of room for cats or dogs, and with me working fulltime we were looking for a pet which would be easy to look after.

The rabbits live in a huge hutch and run in our back garden, just beside our back door.

The girls enjoy feeding the rabbits and watching them play, but they don't get to handle them too much - just the occasional stroke - they certainly do not lift them up!

The girls are good around animals.  Their Nana and Papa have a cat, and some of their aunties and uncles have dogs.  I'd like to introduce some more pets into our family at some point but, at the moment, we have enough on our plate!  LOL

Head over to the Twin Happy blog to see how to enter their giveaway to win a copy of Marley and Me.

Our Garden

The view from my window

Our rabbit run

You can see more Spring Snow pictures, taken in Scotland in the last couple of days on the BBC News website here.

My five year old twins look forward to their annual Easter Egg Hunt. Hubby and I like to hide a mixture of decorated hard-boiled eggs, chocolate eggs and other Easter novelties around our back garden. However, living in Scotland, we have once had to resort to Plan B and hide the eggs around the house instead, because it was a wet and windy Easter Sunday.

The girls believe it is the Easter Bunny who leaves their treats for them. He also leaves treats for our own pet bunnies, Chip and Dale.

Are you looking to have an Easter egg hunt for your children? With a little creativity, you can make the experience enjoyable for children of all ages.

Happy hunting!

Share your Easter stories / experiences by joining the MckLinky blog hop or simply by leaving a comment below.



It’s Thankful Thursday!

Today I want to tell you how thankful I am to have great neighbours. I live in a lovely quiet cul-de-sac with great neighbours around me. One of my next-door neighbours happens also to be one of my BFFs, and her children are great friends with my children.

We moved into our house almost five years ago, when it was just built, and it immediately felt like home. With our neighbours all moving into their homes around the same time, we immediately gelled together as a little community. Some of the original neighbours have since moved on, including my next-door neighbours on the other side. However, I am happy to say that I have two lovely families on either side of me.

We are quite a social bunch, and invite the neighbours to parties, BBQs, etc. Whenever, I have a gathering at my house, my friends and family always remark on how lucky I am to have such lovely neighbours.

I appreciate my neighbours all the more because, I have experienced the alternative first-hand. Before we moved to our current home, we lived in a mid-terraced house, and one of our neighbours was an absolute nightmare. He would have his TV on loud or play his music full blast at all hours. He had noisy parties frequently (at least once or twice per week), with lots of loud music, shouting, stomping, banging doors into the early hours of the morning. If we complained we just got abuse and people would start banging on our walls. It was horrendous! He would turn up on our doorstep blind drunk and start ranting and raving at us, then put a grovelling apology letter through our door the next day. His antisocial behaviour always seemed to be worse when my husband was working away, and I often stat in bed crying with frustration because I couldn’t get to sleep and had to get up at 6am for work the next day. We had to put up with this behaviour for years!

Therefore, you can see why I am sooooo grateful for the lovely neighbours I have today. We look out for one another. We keep an eye on each other’s properties, kids, pets, cars, etc… We are respectful to each other. We care about each other.

What are you thankful for today? Please feel free to leave me a comment or (if you have a blog of your own) please join the MckLinky below.

Mamma’s Meaty Arrabiata Pasta
Serves 4

Add the olive oil to a large frying pan and shallow fry the onion and garlic.
Add the red pepper and chilli and simmer until the onions are golden.
Add the smoked sausage and stir continuously for 1 minute
Add the chopped tomatoes and bring to the boil
Meanwhile, cook your pasta according to the packet instructions
Add the olives to the pan to warm through
Drain the pasta (do not rinse it) and add it to the sauce in the pan
Toss the pasta in the sauce to coat it for 30 seconds
Transfer to individual pasta plates.
Top with fresh basil leaves, salt and black pepper to taste and optional grated parmesan cheese.




Today, Mamma Kerr is eating humble pie.

Yesterday, I turned the house upside down looking for my daughter’s shoe. The girls were getting ready to go to a Birthday Party and they needed to put on their shoes. My heart sank when I realised that there were just three shiny black shoes lying in the corner of the livingroom.

On closer inspection, I found that we had 2 size 9′s and only one size 8, so it was Rachel’s shoe that was missing. (Yes, my twin girls have different sized feet!)

“Where did you leave your shoe?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where did you take it off?”

“Here!” she says, pointing to our two-seater couch.

I immediately look under the cushions on the couch and feel inbetween the seats and under the arms. No sign of the shoe. I then pull the mechanism for the recliner seats at both sides. I found a wide-toothed comb, an assortment of bobbles and clasps, and one of the twins’ artistic masterpieces, but no shoe.

I pulled the couch out away from the wall. No shoe behind the couch. I looked in my open handbag which was lying beside the couch. No shoe in there.

I then examined the other couch, even though I was pretty certain it could not be there.

Flashback to the previous night:

My Hubby has been working seven days a week for the past month or so. Therefore he has been pretty tired when he gets home. On Saturday night, he had fallen asleep on the couch soon after eating his dinner. He was still lying there fast asleep, stretched along the length of the three-seater, under a blanket, when the girls returned from Granny & Grandpa’s house.

The girls got dressed for bed in the livingroom, beside Granny and I, who were sitting on the smaller couch. Therefore, the shoe would not have been on that couch.

Still, I thought I’d better be thorough in my search so I checked under the cushions, between the seats, under the arms, underneath (by opening the recliner mechanisms) and pulled the couch away from the wall. There was still no sign of the shoe.

“Where is your shoe? We need to find it. Help Mummy look for it!”

The girls searched under the coffee table behind the curtains, under the TV stand, in their toybox and even in their dolls house. (Yes, we have a dolls house in our livingroom!) No sign of the shoe.

I was flummoxed! Where could the shoe have gone? It can’t just have disappeared into thin air!

I went into the kitchen and checked the laundry basket, where I’d put the girls’ clothes they’d had on the day before. No sign of the shoe. I even checked inside the washing machine and tumble dryer. No shoe to be found. Getting desperate, I even checked inside the kitchen bin and the recycle bin. Still, no shoe.

Where could it be?

I checked the girls’ coats they had been wearing the night before. Could the shoe have somehow slipped down one of their sleeves? Sadly, no.

Suddenly, I had a brainwave. Granny must have it! Granny had her bag open when she had been sitting on the couch. She had been showing me some photos, and I had given her some money towards our London trip. I remembered how she had been looking for her car keys before she left the house, and that we had upturned the cushions, only to find them on the table. (Yes, there seems to be a genetic trait here! LOL) Anyway, it was conceivable that the stray shoe may have inadvertently gotten into her bag, so I texted Granny and asked her, realising she would not be back from church yet.

The girls’ friend from nextdoor then arrived wearing a magnificent pair of sparkly party shoes. My girls stared in awe.

“Oooooooh!! Look at Megan’s sparkly high heels!” (Yes, her shoes had an enviable-sized heel on them.)

Here was their friend with her fancy party shoes on, and my daughters only had three shoes between them! (Not that they ONLY have one pair of shoes each, of course, but they only have one pair of black shoes that went with their outfit.)

In desperation, I brought down a favourite pair of sandals from the summer – the Minnie Mouse ones (because they have red spots and a bow) – and I prayed that they would still fit her. She squeezed her feet into them, determined that they would fit. It pains me to say it, but they did look a tad tight, but she announced:

“They’re fine!”

So, we all march round the corner (not very far at all, thankfully) to their friend’s house for the party.

Having left the girls at the party, I returned to the house for one last search for the missing shoe. I checked the dining room, under the table, under the sideboard, behind the curtains, but there was still no sign of the shoe.

Mum had now texted me back. Unfortunately, she did not have the shoe.

“AAAaaaaargh!!! Where is it?!?!?”

Fast forward now to late last night, when tired Hubby had again fallen asleep on the couch. I went to the hall cupboard to get a blanket to lay over him. I flick out the blanket to cover him but….

…. wait, what’s this? A black shiny shoe is attached to the blanket via the velcro strap. Mystery solved. I obviously hadn’t noticed it, when lifting the folded blanket to put it back in the cupboard on Sunday morning, and I hadn’t even thought about double-checking the blanket when I realised the shoe was missing. D’oh!

So you see, today I’m feeling a little Mamma Guilt because I had my girls searching high and low with me, for a missing shoe, and got all stressed out, spoiling the fun of their pre-party anticipation. I also feel guilty about sending my daughter to the party in a pair of shoes that I suspect to be a little ‘neat’ on her.

I also felt guilty, typing up this post, realising that I’d left my poor tired Hubby asleep on the couch two nights running! (Well, at least I’d covered him with a blanket! LOL)

What about you? What mama guilt would you like to share on Mama Guilt Monday? Whether it’s funny or serious, blog about it today and then come back here to enter your post link into the MckLinky.

If you don’t have a blog, or would rather not take part in the MckLinky, please feel free to share your mama guilt in the Comments below.

If you’re visiting here, as part of the MckLiny blog hop, please leave a comment to let me know you were here.

Please click here to enter the Mama Guilt Monday MckLinky on Cop Mama’s website.

Thanks for stopping by!

I live in Scotland, UK, and we have experienced our coldest winter in more than a generation.  The British media has dubbed this winter as “The Big Freeze“.

I recently posted the following two snow-themed entries on my blog:

• My Wintery Walk to Work  - See some photos of the “Winter Wonderland” I had to walk through on my way to the office, during the “Big Freeze”.
• My Twins’ Favourite Ways to Play in the Snow - See some photos of my gorgeous twin girls having some festive fun over the Christmas holidays.

 You should also visit the BBC News website links below to view some stunning photographs of my beautiful  country taken during the Big Freeze:

• Photos of Scotland 18th – 25th December 2009
• Photos of Scotland 1st – 8th January 2010

There’s no snow here at the moment, but various places in the UK (mostly high or coastal areas) have experienced snow in the last week or so, and the MET Office have warned that there’s still more to come.  Here it’s actually a lovely sunny day, but it’s perishingly cold. 

What like is the weather where you are?  Please leave a comment and/or (if you have your own blog) join the MckLinky below to share your snow pics and stories.

If you have hopped by on the MckLinky blog hop, please say “Hi!” in the comments below, and (before you go) check out my other MckLinky’s here.

Still, it would have been quite inconceivable ten or so years ago, for me to consider writing an article about saving bees.  However, that is what I am finding myself doing today, as part of a campaign on Bloggers Unite.

The Help The Vanishing Bees campaign asks bloggers:

“To draw attention to the bees. They are vanishing in alarming numbers. With out bees we will have half of the food we need.”

 Over the last couple of decades our bee population has been in rapid decline.  There have been many theories put forward as the cause of this decline:

• environmental damage
• weather conditions
• the parasitic varroa mite
• viral disease
• mobile phone masts
• pesticides
• diminishing forage
• GM crops
• bee-keeping practices

However, as yet, the exact reasons are not conclusively known.  Indeed it is likely to be a combination of these factors that is behind bee colony losses.

Many people may be indifferent to the plight of bees.  They might ask what business it is of theirs that this is happening.  Some, especially those with insect phobias, might in fact be happy to see the back of the bees.  Sadly, though, the declining bee population poses serious threats to our survival.  Some scientists have predicted devastating consequences for humans if bees die out.  At best, our quality of life will suffer.

So what are the implications of the demise of bees?  Their demise has serious implications for food supply and the price of goods.  Bees are important pollinators of flowers and crops.  They pollinate many of the fruit and vegetables eaten by humans and that feed livestock.  The economy will suffer greatly if bees die out.   In the UK, the estimated economic value of crops grown commercially that benefit from bee pollination is approximately £165 million per year.

So what can we do about this?  There are several ways that ordinary people, like you and me, can do our bit in helping to save our bee population:

• Plant bee-friendly plants in your garden, such as cornflower, foxglove and thistle.
• Provide shelter in your garden for bees, such as an area of long grass or densely planted flowers.
• Provide a source of water for bees to drink in your garden.
• Reduce the use of pesticides in your garden.
• Encourage solitary bees to nest in your garden by purchasing a special nestbox.  (For more details visit The International Bee Research Association here or Plan Bee here.) NB: Solitary bees do not swarm and will not sting.
• If you don’t have a garden, perhaps you can plant a bee-friendly windowbox or why not adopt a hive? (For more details visit Adopt A Hive.
• Refrain from purposely killing bees and report swarms to your local authority for safe collection and removal by a qualified bee-keeper.

I am personally going to look into buying a selection of bee friendly plants for my garden, and perhaps installing a nest box for solitary bees.  After all, I may not be the humble bee’s biggest fan, but I do love the delicious honey that honey bees produce, and I do enjoy the wide variety of foods available to me through pollination.  It’s only fair that, in return, I do my best for our fuzzy black and yellow friends!