How Carbon Monoxide Kills You

 

by Mark

This is a sobering read that I found at the chemistry.about.com website.

How Carbon Monoxide Kills You:

When you breathe in carbon monoxide, it enters your lungs and binds to the hemoglobin in your red blood cells. The problem is that hemoglobin binds to carbon monoxide over oxygen, so as the level of carbon monoxide increases, the amount of oxygen your blood carries to your cells decreases. This leads to oxygen starvation or hypoxia.

At low concentrations, the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning resemble the flu: headache, nausea, fatigue. Continued exposure or higher concentrations can lead to confusion, dizziness, weakness, drowsiness, severe headache, and fainting. If the brain doesn’t get enough oxygen, carbon monoxide exposure can lead to unconsciousness, coma, permanent brain damage, and death. The effects can become deadly within minutes, but long-term low-level exposure is not uncommon and leads to organ damage, disease, and a slower death.

Infants, children, and pets are more susceptible to the effects of carbon monoxide than adults, so they are at greater risk for poisoning and death. Long term exposure can lead to neurological and circulatory system damage, even when the levels aren’t high enough to produce a significant effect in adults.

For the full document click here if you can bear to read more.

Now you may wonder why on earth I found myself on a chemistry website reading how this perfect killer can actually kill you. The reason was a troubling story from my parents that although having a silver lining was still a scary wake up type of call. They are blessed with the joy of living in a place where an open working fireplace is allowed. They enjoy and while their long dark cold winter nights away by snuggling up to a real fire and staring at the dance of the flames, mesmerising as they can be. However unbeknown to them some local birdlife had decided that the chimney pot on my parents’ roof looked like the ideal spot to build their dream nest. This set up the scenario for the potential murder of my parents. It was only by the sheer luck of my sister happening to choose that particular moment to visit my parents. She knocked politely as you do, no response, so ventured inside to find my parents asleep and unresponsive, hit the panic button! Doctors, hospitals and sometime later they are ok, thankfully, but that story was way, way to close for comfort.

Carbon Monoxide is scary stuff, so it is important for every home to have their own CO detector.

There are several warning signs in your home that could mean you have a carbon monoxide issue. Here are a few things to look out for:

• The flame on your cooker should be crisp and blue. Yellow or orange flames mean you need to get your cooker checked
• Dark staining around or on appliances
• Sooty marks on the walls around boilers, stoves or the cover of gas fires
• Pilot lights that frequently go out
• Increased condensation inside windows

If you want to know more about Carbon Monoxide and how to effectively protect your home please visit Corgi HomePlan.

Carbon Monoxide gas is a colourless and odourless silent killer.

Don’t wait.

Protect yourself and your family now.

Time for a change, time for entertainment

With New Year comes the obligatory New Year’s resolution.

I’ve made a few “promises” to myself and one of them is to entertain more (aka stop being a cave-dweller). I would like to have our friends over much more often, maybe throw a few more dinner parties and in general be more sociable. To achieve it, I need space. So the question becomes: What do I do?

Currently, we have a kitchen / dinner with a table set for four and a front room designed around our family entertainment – large sofa, space to play jumpy console games and to chillax in general. I think the front room will have to stay as it is simply because it is our family space and besides I don’t know how to tell Mark his front room is about to change. Now the dining room part of the downstairs area might just be the subject of a make-over.

In order to entertain I will need space. If we have more than two people visit us be are quickly reminded of a major drawback to us entertaining. Sitting for hours on little wooden stools is not very comfortable, no matter how good the food, the company or even how many drinks you have had 😉 and there is no room to add full size chairs as the table just isn’t long enough, oh and it has very fat legs that don’t help.

So, what to do now?

The easiest solution would be to just buy a new set of slim chairs, but as our furniture’s quite old I am not able to find anything to match it nicely.

I like dark wood; solid wood, heavy furniture is very me but they make the space seems smaller and darker than it actually is. The more I think about it the more I feel I might be ready for a change.

I had a look around for some inspirations and I have a few ideas for my new dining room. I think I would still like to stick with the wood and keep the same rectangular shape of the table, but maybe this time we should get something lighter, with a more modern look…

What do you think about my choices?

Would you attempt a make-over just to satisfy your need for fulfilling a New Year’s resolution?

Do you think I should just stick with my old furniture and maybe invest in some soft cushions to make long evenings by the table more comfortable?

I know this is a long list of questions but I am quite in the pickle and unsure what to do next.

* Post written in collaboration with Rodgers Of York

Board Games are getting a “Second Life” + Games Quest Giveaway

As we all know by now the gaming industry is growing bigger every day… more gaming consoles, more gaming tablets, phones handheld devices, more options to simply isolate ourselves from the outside world and just play…

One could easily start to think that this whole boom in computer gaming would “kill off” board games, but one would be wrong. Actually board games are having their own boom and were never as popular as they are right now.

According to Doctor Tomasz Sobierajski sociology Professor from Warsaw University “we miss the need to be with other people”. Computer gaming can be fun but most of the time we are isolated; it is just us stuck in the room staring at a screen whereas board games give us the opportunity to be interact with others and at the same time learn something new, have fun and relax.

Board games are extremely important part of growing up. They help with intellectual development, social rules as well as interpersonal relationships; they teach us how to win and more importantly… how to lose.

How to choose the perfect board game?

Well, I am not sure I have a perfect recipe for success when it comes to game choices but I have a few pointers which might help with this task.

Read information on the box

This would give you the general idea about the game and the ever so important age bracket the game is designed for.

Read the rules

Every game has its own rules. When picking something new we need to make sure that the rules are not too complicated and that the participants will be able to follow them.

Time frame

Some games can take a long time to finish. It is important to pick the right game that suits the time frame available to you to finish the game – too long and kids can get bored.

Number of players

Different games require different number of players. If there are only two of you most of the time then don’t get a party game…

Type of the game

Fantasy, simulation, adventures, logical… you know best what you like, you know best what your friends or kids are good at… take it into consideration when making your choice… If your players aren’t good readers don’t pick the game which requires a lot of reading in order to progress… games should be fun… this is their main role and everything else we learn during this time it is just a bonus!

We have a lot of board games in the house. We might not play them as often as we would like but there is nothing better than a friendly scrabble session 🙂

Games Quest was started by people who love games and love having fun. They stock over 30,000 of the world’s favourite board games, toys and books. If you are looking for it, I am sure they have it.

Games Quest have kindly offered £40 of site credit to one of my readers, so you can pick something you and your kids or friends can bond over and enjoy during these long winter evenings.

If you have a board game on your wish list and fancy winning £40 to spend at Games Quest please just follow the link to my rafflecopter giveaway.

Enter to win a £40 voucher to spend at Games Quest

 

Good luck!

Do you like board games?

Do you think their future is bright?

Do you play with your kids, partner or friends?

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions
Loquax – Home of The Lucky Duck
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Happy 100th Birthday!

Death is not the end. Death can never be the end.
Death is the road. Life is the traveller. The soul is the guide.
– Sri Chinmoy

Today you would have been 100 years old, but you left us just weeks before this milestone.

I know how much you were waiting for this day, how much you were looking forward to your birthday party and chats with family and friends, not to mention a letter from the Queen…

Today you would have been 100 years old!

I hope now all your dreams have come true and you are having the best time of your journey!

Happy 100th Birthday Gran!

In loving memory of Flo
25/10/1914 – 23/09/2014

42 Days of Summer #Sweeet Challenge

McVitie’s BN Biscuits in connection with BritMums have challenged bloggers to write about their 42 Days of Summer. The brief was very open – tips, ideas and inspirations, whatever you do to make it fun was allowed. I wanted to be the part of it, so here I am.

At first I was thinking about making a day out post, or maybe some fun summer cooking recipe or something crafty, but finally I settled for a kind of tip / advise post.

So how do we assure that the 42 Days of Summer are actually fun?

Well, let’s start with making a list and listening to the kids. Put on the list all those small things that they have always wanted to do. Ok, I must admit that most kids will have a Disneyland or a Legoland trip at the top of their list, but when you really ask them want they want, you might be surprised by some of their choices.

Kids think differently and their pleasures are totally different from ours. They might really want that PJs party you never got around to throwing during the school year, or a movie night with friends, when they can just lounge around in their onesies and stuff their face with popcorn or maybe they still didn’t fulfil their desire of building a den under their bed (I would not advise this if you have a standard bed, we have a mid sleeper so it is doable). A nice family picnic is a great day out and it will not cost a fortune. How about a trip to the woods, this can be very knowledgeable, walking around the trees, picking all the gifts from nature, which later on can be used in crafts or some lovely handmade decorative arrangement.

Evening at the Greyhound Racing Tracks

Day in perfecting homemade sweets

Day with nature, picnic included 🙂

Every family member is supposed to make a list – short or long – this is up to you, then try to pick at least 5 things from each list to do over the summer.

This way everyone gets something they wanted and we can learn from one another and hopefully discover something new and exited we never thought we would enjoy.

Maybe your other half wants to go fishing, so we all go. Who said that fishing can’t be fun? Learning about different rods, different type of fishing and not to mention the excitement when you finally hook a fish.

Summer is always a great time to plan for the future; check out new clubs, try new sports… who knows maybe that one trip to the swimming pool you just took will result with your child regularly going to a swimming club after school or becoming a great swimmer?

So, whatever you do over summer, remember that it is all supposed to be about fun.

* This post is an entry for 42 Days of Summer Linky Challenge sponsored by McVitie’s BN. Learn more at http://bit.ly/1mRpMCL

Today is the day!

Today is the day we finally were able to order a new oven!

Oh happy times!

For a few years now, every few months we have debated whether to buy a new oven or not… as we really do need one. Every time we undertook this discussion we ended up thinking “oh, maybe sometime in the near future we will have enough money to do the entire kitchen all together…” and that was the end of it… end of the discussion and thus the old oven stayed in place and struggled on, every time Mark is cooking or baking I have to listen to him moaning about it, he does it under his breath but I hear him.

But something happened… a few days ago my lovely parents called and told me that they are going to buy us a new oven as it looks like we are not able to make this decision. At first we went straight back to our usual chain of thoughts… “nah, this will do until we can get something we really want”, but my dad wasn’t happy with this train of thinking and he wouldn’t accept it, so… here we go – we are getting a new oven.

Some research on the net and we finally settled for a lovely red one from New World. Luckily for us I was able to find one on a great offer, delivery, installation and recycling of the old one included 🙂

Our new oven!
Picture source

All monies have now been paid and so we are in the awful waiting stage. It should be arriving on our door step within the next 21 days!

The kitchen is not my favourite place in the house but I am so happy! No more leaking oven and undercooked bakes because it didn’t keep the temperature as it should. I can almost visual all the lovely food we will create in it once it is here… there will be totally no excuse for not baking no more!

It is good to wait for things sometimes and hope and dream… but like my dad said “sometimes you just have to take what life gives you”… at this point, in our case we are getting a new oven!

Thank you Dad!

Thank you Mum!

We will bake you proud 🙂

Weekly Photo Challenge: Family

“Home is people. Not a place.

If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there any more.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool’s Fate

Picture taken a good few years back.

Miss you both!

______________________________________________

Challenge set by The Daily Post

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Return of the sister

My sister and her partner – left England in March 2011 to travel the world. They planned that they would return within 2 years… but as all good plans of mice and men go… it changed, and so they travel on.

First glimpse of my sister after years of travel

However they decided to make a surprise pit stop and pop back home for a few months (mainly due to their best friend’s wedding). So on the 23rd of July they landed at Heathrow airport and I could yet again see my sister after years of dodgy Skype connections to some far off remote jungle location. They stayed with us until this morning but have now boarded a plane to Poland.  I couldn’t share this with you all any earlier because my parents were still blissfully ignorant about the surprise pit stop.  I am also aware that they do check out my blog sometimes so it would have ruined the whole big surprise. I have just spoken to my dad and they are finally home, in their mums and dads arms… so there is no longer any need for all the secrecy.

Welcome home sis! It is good to have you back!