My creativity has just about run out; I can’t come up with another idea for home-made frozen treats, or 7 clever things to do with sidewalk chalk, or tips for getting your kids to clean the house with you and think it’s fun … I just want to plonk them in front of the TV, pour myself a cold beer, and sit on the couch with a good book.

But of course I don’t … or at least, I save the beer for the evening hours. The plonking, sitting, reading … yeah, I’ve done that once or twice in the last week. I’m in the middle of a terrific book at the moment, “Never Surrender” by Michael Dobbs. It’s the second of his historical novels about Winston Churchill, and deals with the beginning of his stint as British Prime Minister at the outset of World War II.

I don’t know much about that period of British history, so I can’t say whether or not Dobb’s books are historically accurate, but they certainly ring true. What a moody and difficult old guy he was! Hated by most of his Cabinet, mistrusted by the top military brass, but loved by most of the everyday British folk. It’s a great book, full of political intrigue and the cross-weaving of several stories.

Well OK, I’ve procrastinated enough. The one destination all of us can agree on; me, Ketchup, and Mustard, is the swimming pool. So I’m going to tear myself away from the couch, and them away from the TV, and we’re going for a swim. Hopefully Bun can join us a little later if things are going smoothly at the restaurant.

Bun is the owner of a local restaurant (well, I suppose we really own it together, but I’ve never worked there very often — only when it is very busy, or if we are certain that the guests don’t care what they eat that day. That’s a joke, honest!) It’s a pizza restaurant, and it’s a very good one as well. It’s more of a sitdown place, than delivery or take-away, although for some of our regulars we will occasionally deliver.

I love the pizza from Bun’s restaurant, particularly because he is one of the few pizza cooks who understands how important it is to have anchovies as a choice on the menu. To my great dismay, many restaurants no longer offer anchovies — somehow they seem to have gone out of fashion — which is a terrible loss in my opinion. A pizza simply isn’t a pizza without both anchovies and onions on it.

Bun used to have a wine list, but he realised that the kind of people who wanted to drink wine with a pizza were often the kind of customers that he least enjoyed serving. Instead, the only alcohol he now serves is beer and he takes pride in having some very good micro brews along with the more day-to-day choices.

I’ll write more later — Bun just called to let me know he’s gonna be running late tonight. So the boys and I are going to go and eat dinner at the restaurant. What are we having? Well, I can’t speak for the boys, since the only thing they seem to eat consistently is plain noodles, but I’m gonna be having a large pizza with anchovies and onions. And if you have a problem with that, I’ll come over and breathe on you.

I have two boys, Ketchup and Mustard. No, I’m not one of those weird celebrity parents who gives their children strange names — I just decided that I’d prefer to be a little bit private about my family and so I’ll refer to my two year old as Ketchup and my five-year-old as Mustard. Why those particular pseudonyms? Because I’m eating a hot dog at the moment, and and those names just came to mind!

I never planned to be a stay at home mum, I always assumed that I would return to work and that the kids would be in daycare. But I never was so incredibly excited about my job (I was a fund raiser for a local charity) and Mustard was sick for a while during his first couple of years of life. Nothing awful, nothing terrible, but it would have been hard for both my husband and I to return to work full-time. And the simple truth is, after a while, I just got used to being at home with him. As time moved on and we realised that Ketchup was on his way, we made a decision that, at least until they’re both in school, that I would stay at home.

It’s a bit of a squeeze financially, but my salary was never so extraordinarily large, and of course I don’t have any work-related expenses — like real clothes, bus fares, gas money, or even the cost of eating lunch out. Thus the hotdog.

I plan to write about my family, my hobbies, the place I live, and just some of my thoughts in general. I hope that you will find it interesting, but that doesn’t really matter, because I’m gonna write it whether or not anyone actually reads it!

Well, I seem to be coming up a little bit empty now, so I’m going to bring this first post to a close and go do some more reading. Perhaps I’ll get a few ideas for the sort of thing that people are writing about (no, of course I’m not gonna go copying anybody else’s blog — but right now my brain has become a blank slate, and I’d like to get it moving again).