Tag: poll

And now, for some horseplay

This is purely for some Sunday fun, but I’m curious: Who eats ready-made meals and how often?

Just in case you have been living under a rock here is the timeline of how the scandal unfolded of horsemeat that was found in pre-packaged meals and processed meat products.

I will be upfront and say that, as an unwritten rule, we don’t buy pre-made meals.  I completely blame Etienne for this as we often used to stand in front of the pre-made meal fridge/freezer in the shop, look at the price and then decide that we (he) could make it cheaper (and better) at home and then proceed to do so. I did buy some of those mac and cheese meal thingies from Woolworths a couple of times, but the kids refused to eat it, so we haven’t tried it since.  To us that’s like taking a R20 note, tearing it up and flushing it down the toilet, times 3.

When I became a food label Nazi because of Daniel’s food allergies it became a game to check out the crap they put in those meals and I sometimes had to restrain myself from saying something to people in shops that load their trolleys with meals for the week from the fridge and freezer.

I have now calmed down to the Zen place of “each to their own” and I don’t care what other people feed themselves or their families, so this post really is not meant to be from a bad place, I’m really just curious.  To prove this point I have made a lovely little (anonymous) poll for you to take part in of you so wish to.

What I want to know is this: Do you buy pre-made meals for your daily main meal or that of your kids, be that supper or lunch.  Simple.

And remember:  NO JUDGIES

Middleclass problems – The Final Chapter

I promise to stop boring you with the whole domestic saga after this post.

We bid our lady a not-so-fond farewell yesterday when she decided that she would rather just leave than go through the disciplinary meeting I had arranged for her with 48 hours notice.  I actually called the CCMA helpline yesterday just to make sure I had my facts straight. If you need to chat to them you can reach them on 0861 16 16 16.  They aren’t very friendly, but I guess they get a lot of irate Afrikaans ladies that call.  Whatever.

The final straw was when Etienne checked our wine supply, only to realise that all our special and sentimental wines such as export wine from our wedding and wine we bought for the kids as well as a bottle of whisky were gone.  He doesn’t get mad easily, but he was rather pissed off about that and so was I.

So, moving along.

This now gives us an opportunity to re-evaluate what our needs are as a family as having domestic help is important to us with both of us working full-time and having three kids who need to have clean clothes every so often.

We think it is better to have someone live in as we have to skedaddle out of the house by 7h30 in the morning and knowing the reliability of the public transport system we would like to limit everyone’s stress as far as possible.

BUT. We need our alone-time with our children on weekends and appreciate that someone might have their own family close-by that they would like to see.

So I’m curious, what, if any, are your cleaning arrangements?  Here’s a little poll, I hope I covered everything..

If I’ve left anything out or you have any suggestions, I appreciate it as always.  I have specifically not added in anything about Nannies that have dual duties, but I know that a lot of us have either been there or are there now.

Ps: I’m feeling a little dragged-backwards-through-bush-tired-and-fragile today.  3 nights of little sleep has caught up to me, rounded off by Mignon and a croup attack last night. Followed by a nebbing session and dunking her in bed with us.  Followed by her playing with my hair, sticking her fingers up my nose and so on and so forth.  You get the picture.

Sugar Free Challenge Poll

So, I’m curious, how did everyone do with the Sugar Free challenge?

I must admit, by Tuesday night I was very nervous about it.  I felt like you do before you have a party:  I was scared no-one would come.  And what a surprise I had, so once again thanks very much for all your support!

Overall I think we did ok except for the pancakes on Wednesday night and some syrup over the glazed carrots last night and we could definitely see a difference.

Our (Margot and mine) aim wasn’t to suddenly change you into sugar-Nazis, but to create an awareness.

Did it make you wonder about what is in the food we buy and the food we think is healthy that we give our kids?

Did it make you turn an item around when you were at the shops this week and look at the food label to see what the sugar content is?

If you did stay sugar free for 48 hours, how did you feel when you woke up this morning?

Did you take a look at how your kids’ behavior changes when they had sugar when you were aware that they had sugar?

Please feel free to comment and leave any posts you might have done about your experience, I would love to hear about it!

ps: I recently saw a post on Betty Bake Blog about Forks over Knives so last night Etienne and I watched it.  I’m not a big fan of meat to start off with, so it was quite an eye-opener to see my gut feel be supported by so much research and facts about how bad animal-based protein is for us.  I could tell it hit home for Etienne as well as this morning he was worried about making supper after seeing the documentary.  Love it!

Does it mean we will instantly stop eating meat?  No.  But it will make us think about making better meal choices, not fighting with kids over having to eat their meat and slowly incorporating more plant-based proteins in our diet.

Crossing over to the dark side and a very quick poll

I have crossed over to the dark side.

That person that picks her battles carefully went for a long walk this morning to a very happy place and left Super Bitch Mom to deal with the Monday morning blues.  (Even Etienne lost his cool today.  Normally he is so calm I have to check him for a pulse.)

The SB Mom that says Fuck This.  You WILL wear a long-sleeved vest AND stockings because I SAID so and then proceeds to yank on those offending items of clothing whilst punctuating her words with every yank.

No harmony at Casa Roux this morning, except for poor Daniel that thought it was hilarious and was copying all the crying/whining/shouting in fine form.  When I leaned into the car to kiss the girls I literally got the cold shoulder, and I was so pissed off at the time I didn’t actually care.  I literally dumped him at the school gate with a hasty kiss and a “Love you madly” and stomped off in a huff, desperate to get to work.

Etienne got to drop off The Sisters Grim.  He isn’t answering his office phone so I’m not sure how that went.  For all I know he is still at the school trying to detach them from his legs. Once again: don’t really care.  I’m sitting in peace and quiet in my own office, thank you very much.

Edit to add: Etienne did in fact have quite a battle to detach them from his legs in the end. Oh well.

But, moving right along, I have a life-or-death question to ask that I’ve been meaning to ask for a while.  We were at a party on Saturday night (Hello and happy birthday K!  Sorry we stayed so late!) and between the obligatory existential conversations about To Wax or Not To Wax I asked Tertia:

Do you wear a dressing gown?

I seem to have accumulated 2 dressing gowns, a winter and a summer number and lately I have actually been wearing them, especially the big white fluffy number my sister bought me ages ago at La Senza that was gathering dust in my cupboard.  I must be getting old, but I really like them these days, they are strangely comforting first thing in the morning.  Fancy that.

Do you wear dressing gown/s? Do you expect your kids to wear them?

Here’s a quick poll to help: