Why Mums With Multiple Small Children Hate Self Serve Checkouts

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When I first saw the Self Serve checkouts arrive I was a little bit excited. Finally an answer to my checkout woes. Checkouts irritate me.

Swarms of customers always greatly outnumber the service provided. Frazzled shoppers roll their eyes. 10 customers. One checkout. I cannot count the number of times I've needed a few things, seen the queue at the checkout and done the Dump and Run.

Trying to pick the best checkout never works. I choose the line I think is moving the fastest, only to realise moments later that I have of course, chosen the worst one. Then I get pissed off with myself and by that time, one or all of the children has declared they are hungry and/ or has an itchy bum.

I went to the shops yesterday. There was one Human checkout and 6 Self Serve or Robot Checkouts (as I like to call them).

The Human Checkout had 10 customers lined up. All pensioners. All too scared to use the Robot checkouts. So. I am a logical person and hate to wait. I use the Robot Checkout. Because it's faster. Or is it?

I have one MEGA pack of baby wipes. 23 identical toys. One DVD and some bubble mixture.. as you do. I put all my stuff on the bench. Proceed to scan. The mega pack of baby wipes is actually bigger than the weigh bench on the other side. So I put it in the pram. The robot BEEPS, meaning "You've stolen it haven't you? THIEF!!". The staff member comes over and puts a key in the Robot. This is Human to Robot speak for "She hasn't stolen anything". She tells me I've done it wrong. Do it THIS way.

HANG ON. WAIT. SORRY. WHAT!?

I go to scan my identical toys. I cannot select that I have 23 and scan one. I have to scan them INDIVIDUALLY. I'm feeling a little stabby. After scanning each and every item I'm ready to scan the DVD. The boy wants to hold it. I give it to him. BEEP! Oops you've stolen something again and the lady comes back to unlock the Robot. By the time I get to the bubble mixture I've wised up and do things the way the Robot wants me to do it. By such time my son is rolling on the floor screaming to hold his bubble mixture and my baby is in a fit because she likes the pram to be moving and we've been stuck at the Robot for what feels like eternity.

So there are kids and bags and crap everywhere. A Robot that keeps beeping at me and a staff member that's losing her shit. So much to account for. I can't manage the kids and do this at the same time. I start to shake.

We leave the store. The Human Checkout served all it's human customers. It would have been just as fast. Typical.

And whats worse, in the mayhem I think I overcharged myself and scanned more than I actually have. But wait. Is that my fault? I guess so. Who shall I complain to? Myself?

And Australian retailers wonder why we shop online. Stop whinging about that and give us some real service. It's all we've wanted all these years. You never listened. So now we'll buy what we want how we like.

OK?

It's My 2nd Blogiversary!!!

I can not believe I have been blogging for 2 whole years.

I started back in the day when there were only a handful of "mummy bloggers" (uggh I hate that term). Now there are approximately 5689 million thousand. Ok that might not be a real number or even be totally accurate, but you get my drift.

My blog started when I became addicted to Facebook. My status updates became chapters. After my Facebook friends began unfriending me in droves, I realised I needed another outlet. Lengthy emails to friends made me realise my love of writing and I tried writing a little blog.

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I love it. It's been interesting and I have learnt a lot about pretty much everything. Let's not forget to mention I've made some pretty fabulous friendships also.

A new comment still gives me a tingle. When it stops giving me that tingle, it might be time to stop.

I'm going to celebrate tonight by staying up until 9pm instead of the usual 8.30pm and having two cups of tea (without sugar) instead of one before bed. Ring a ding ding.

Unfortunately I am still waiting for my book deal.

Easy Gluten Free, Sugar Free Pumpkin Muffins

Thankfully eating sugar free doesn't mean I have to give up baking. This morning the kids and I whipped up some yummy Pumpkin Muffins.

I used the same recipe as the Gluten Free, Sugar Free Banana Muffins - and used pumpkin instead of banana.

Our pumpkin happened to be one of those deliciously sweet ones, hence making the muffins super tasty. My husband (who is not Coeliac or Sugar Free... YET) loved them and the kids devoured them in seconds. They are delicious served straight from the oven. Super yummy cut in half with a little butter.

Easy Gluten Free, Sugar Free Pumpkin Muffins

Easy Gluten Free, Sugar Free Pumpkin Muffins Recipe

1 lightly whisked egg
1/2 cup Full Fat Natural Yoghurt
1 1/4 cups Gluten Free Self Raising Flour
1 cup cooked mashed pumpkin
2 tbspns melted butter

Grease muffin tray with butter Chuck all the ingredients in a bowl and mix. Put in a moderate oven for approx 15 minutes until brown on top. Makes about 10 muffins.

Sugar Free? You may think I'm nuts, but the results speak for themselves.

As you know, I removed sugar from my diet after I read the Sweet Poison books, and I was convinced that sugar is a poisonous, addictive substance that is making us fat and giving us all sorts of health problems. I am three weeks (or so) Sugar Free and here is what I have noticed.

• The first few days were hard. I suffered. I felt extremely hungry. I ate a lot. I was cranky and a whole lot stabby.
• I no longer think about food. It doesn't really control my thoughts like it used to. Now I find myself thinking that I am actually not thinking of food at all! Because I am not hungry!
• I eat half of what I used to and still feel full and completely satisfied.
• The types of food I eat have changed. I have the aim to create my own Gluten Free cereal, but until that happens I have been enjoying omelette's for breakfast with spinach, feta and ham, and it doesn't really take as much time to prepare as you would think.
• The way I see food has completely changed. I no longer feel guilty when I eat food with a high fat content. I enjoy it.
• I don't feel like I am missing out.
• The cravings have not gone away. Small sips of Coke Zero have helped with the cravings but once I run out of it, I'm not buying anymore.
• I look at sweet food and no longer want to stuff it in my gob.
• I no longer buy bags of Freddo Frogs and want to stick my head in the packet and absorb the chocolately smell.
• Looking at cakes makes me ill.
• My sensitivity to sweet things has increased. Food I used to love are unbearably sweet to me now.

I will be upfront and say that I have enjoyed a sweet treat or two. At two different party occassions, the host had catered for me with a gluten free treat. If this happens, as a general rule, I will not say no. But I will have just one. Surprisingly I could just stop at one and leave it at that.

I feel overwhelmingly cranky at all the doctors, health guru's, nutritionists and dietitians that have told us to eat everything in moderation (WTF does that mean anyway) and to specifically avoid FAT if we don't want to get FAT.

And so I am 152cm tall. At the start of the year I weighed 59kg (after the birth of my third child). I have succeeded in losing weight this year. I got down to 57kg. I went sugar free. I am now 54.6kg. My goal weight is 54kg

I did this with NO EXERCISE (regrettably), other than chasing the kids around and NO DIETING. Just removing the sugar. That is a remarkable loss for such a short amount of time. My weight has been up and down after the births of the kids and NEVER have I gotten it down so low. I just was never able to, after huffing and puffing on the treadmill and staying away from carbs and fat. None of it worked, and I was always hungry, which made me think about food more. Which was why I could never stick with it.

Losing that weight was actually, when I think about it....... Bloody easy.

So think twice before you balk at me for doing this.

You can follow David Gillespie's Sweet Poison Fan Page on Facebook here.

Easy Gluten Free and Sugar Free Banana Muffins

These are not Fructose Free because it contains banana. But as per the Sweet Poison books, you are allowed 1-2 small servings of whole fruit daily. Have your dose of fruit from one of these muffins. You can't eat the lot because you will go over your fruit quota!

They are delicious. Even better straight from the oven! My kids love them.

1 egg
1 cup mashed banana
2 tblspn vegetable oil
1/2 cup full fat natural yoghurt
11/4 Gluten Free Self Raising Flour
1 tspn cinnamon

Chuck it all into a bowl and mix.

Bake in a moderate oven until brown. About 10 minutes. Makes Approx 10 muffins.

Can a Coeliac be Sugar Free? Becoming Sugar Aware.

A few months ago, I started following the Sweet Poison Facebook page and became instantly engaged. I wanted to know more. I bought both of David Gillespie's Sweet Poison Books last week. What happened next had me very surprised.

Sugar is bad. mmmmmmKAY. Image Credit

Some background
If you are new to the theories introduced by the Sweet Poison books, the following excerpt from The Sweet Poison Quit Plan explains it in simple terms:

" Sugar makes you fat. It is converted directly to fat by your liver and it destroys your appetite control so that you want to eat more of everything. The more sugar you eat, the fatter you will be".

Fructose is the bad part of sugar that we need to avoid.

Breaking the Habit
My brain was buzzing after I had read the books. There was so much that I had been eating, thinking they were healthier for me. There were choices I was making for my children, thinking it was better for them. Turns out I had most of it wrong. I was fuming, strangely enough. I had been fed all the wrong stuff and I was sufficiently pissed off.

• I thought FAT was the bad guy. Not sugar. 
• I eat dried apricots by the truck load. Turns out eating chocolate bars might have been just as healthy.
• I had heard of fructose and thought it was good! 

I needed to break my sugar addiction. To do this I needed to withdraw.

The Issues
At first I wasn't sure how I would go eliminating sugar from my diet. Having Coeliac Disease means that I already follow a very strict diet. I was about to make life very difficult.

Breakfast is the hardest meal. I normally tuck into a bowl of Carman's Gluten Free Cereal and remove all the fruit anyway (because I hate it and there is too much of it in there). Even if I continue to remove the fruit, the product still has added FRUCTOSE (AHHH!) and honey (bad). I have had Coeliac disease for some 8 years and it is the only Gluten Free cereal that I can stomach and don't have to chew on for 5 hours to be able to swallow it. Saying goodbye is going to be hard.

Another food I have a big problem with is bread. It's taken some 8 years to find a nice Gluten Free bread. Zehnders Gluten Free Pumpkin bread has added sugar. Not enough to make it sweet to taste, but sugar is sugar. I inspect other gluten free breads and they are all very similar. Added sugar. I cannot make my own bread. It's too hard and I have tried before. There is no point switching brands because they taste gross to me and they also have sugar. I could cry. I am not sure if I can continue not to eat this going forward without withering away into nothing. I might need to change the name of this blog to "This is Nobody".

The Withdrawal
I am now at Day 5 of the withdrawal. The last few days have felt as though I have climbed the walls looking for something to satisfy me. The desire for sweet tastes are overwhelming. David advises to do the artificial sweetener thing if you are going nuts. I have had to pop the tops off a few Coke Zero's. It's not something I regularly drink, but at the moment I really need it to get me through.

No sugar means no yummy sweet squishy dried apricots which I used to stuff into my gob with gusto (because I thought they were good for me). I miss them.

It means no baking yummy pikelets and scoffing them hot off the pan. This is hard for me because I love to bake.

I feel like I can't get any satifaction from my food. I don't feel like Taryn. I feel a bit odd. My brain feels slightly muddled. I am irritable and cranky and I find myself very hungry. Since I can't have the sugar, I have been eating a lot more fat than usual. I have been frying off Haloumi cheese and Italian sausage (OMG delicious). Potato chips. Roast potatoes. Nuts. Rice cooked with a bit of butter.

I think having Coeliac disease has helped me in a way. I am used to saying NO to food. I am used to reading ingredient labels. It's just another thing to look out for.

So we are doing ok so far... just approach me with caution!

How I Got The Kids To Sleep In

My 3 year old son has always been an early riser. Sometimes as early as 4.45am, he was always this way, ever since he was a baby. My daughter (nearly 5) is not as bad but once the boy is awake, she usually wakes shortly thereafter. 
My neighbour has probably heard me screaming, on more than 5681 occassions.....    WHATTHEHECGOBACKTOBEDITSTOOEARLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's a hard task waking that early every single day, when your body just wants to drag itself back to bed. I gotta say, after a while you just get used to it and harden the f*ck up. I have done pretty much everything to fix this problem. Nothing ever worked.

By the time 9am comes around, you are ready for a snooze. You've done all your jobs and you collapse in a heap and fall asleep, drooling on the sofa.

But we have these troubles no more.

It is my ONE success story as a mother. One which I happened to stumble across by accident.

Recently my husband took a break from lifting heavy things and bought a fish tank with cute little fishies and some plants. He bought a light, which I assume is to keep the plants alive. He bought a timer and set it to be on 12 hours a day. It turns itself on and off.

It was shortly after this, I discovered we were onto a winner.

The light came on at 6am. Then that A-HA moment came.

I said to the kids "If the fish tank light IS NOT ON when you wake, go back to bed. It's too early"

To my surprise they listened. The next day I heard footsteps at all hours 3am, 4am, 5.30am. They came to check if the light was on. It was not. They went back to bed. They wandered into our room at 6am.

HOORAY. THEY ARE SLEEPING IN. IT'S WORKING!! OMG!! CHUCK A PARTY!!!!!. So I wised up. Whispered to hubby to change the timer so the light came on at 6.45am to give us even more of a sleep in. They didn't notice our little switcheroo.

Success. The little man sleeps to 7.30am one morning. This never happens.

So there you go, just buy a timer and set random lights on. It worked for us. Maybe it can work for you too.

On the weekends we set the timer to turn the light on at 8.00am. *Insert evil laugh here*.