Behold, it’s a miracle – I’ve found time to write up a timely review of something! I did some work with Gibson’s Games earlier this year, so when they asked if I’d like to review a couple of them over Christmas I was happy to help. You know, one for the team and all that ;)
Anyway, fast forward to yesterday night. This is a picture of Lovely Bloke, our two boys and my mum and dad playing Bingo. E is 5 (nearly 6) and W is 4 so I was a bit apprehensive about their playing it.
Yes, that’s me. I’ve been writing for the Sunday Telegraph. So just in case you missed my article for the Sunday Telegraph supplement a couple of weeks ago, there’s now a link to it online. If I do say so myself, it’s rather funny, so feel free to go and have a look :))
<subtle, I know> ….
http://www.mini-kin.com/articles/development/fitting-in-quality-work-time/1002/100198
Today, I have been on BBC1 – not for long – but long enough to show off my gorgeous office that Lovely Bloke and my Dad and Brother made for me (with a bit of help from some other friends…) and me looking studious at my ‘puter. There was more background interviewing than me talking. I don’t mind. I was very nervous and didn’t want to come over as a bit of an idiot on tape. So I swore a fair bit – there was very little they could probably use!
Blog. Bloggers. Blogging. What’s the issue with these words? Blogs rule. Fact. In case you missed it, yesterday was a bit special for this blog. It received thousands upon thousands of views in 24 hours – and all from a mention in the paper whose logo I’ve put up here… Thank you for coming to read my blog. It made Sunday very exciting! But now, I’m embarrassed. Because my personal blog is not all singing and dancing. It’s a free wordpress theme. It’s just me. Pootling along. So I have’t spent my time making this a fancy blog… In fact, it’s the polar opposite of my work life, where I do the all singing and dancing things for clients. But more important than my worries about my blog needing a makeover, there’s something more pressing for me to deal with – what do I write about next?
I promise that this is the last time I’m going to give her air time, but that Liz Jones piece was not just derogatory about me. And I don’t want anyone to think that I’m so self absorbed that I didn’t notice the other things she wrote. It was also negative about women and women who choose to stay at home or feel that part of their vocation, having had children, is to stay at home and be with them – she wasn’t just annoyed with mothers who blog, but women in general, for having babies and taking time to raise them. But that’s not the point of this particular post. I want to focus on something else…
For me it’s about her derision – and I do feel it was derision when she wrote that women who blog are:
“In their own world: More and more mothers are spending most of the day telling the world all about their home life…” and that we “ignore the child about to toddle into the glass wall that makes kitchen and garden seamlessly as one…”
I’m going to look like this in my costume soon ;)
I have been swimming twice today. Yes twice. I am so proud of myself. I’m managing approximately 35 – 40 lengths in 30 minutes. I’m really pleased with it and am getting my stroke back. Well actually, I’m not getting my stroke back – I’m getting my stamina back. I’m getting better at getting more lengths in the 30 minutes that I’m allocating myself in the pool. My stroke is shocking!
Things I’ve discovered this week:
It’s a good idea to carry a spare pair of pants in my changing bag.
I can use the freebie towels that you get when you have a new baby, from Persil et al, as great ways to dry your hair post swim.
That it’s a good idea to use a swim cap but I shouldn’t put my hair in a hair tie as it will break it…
When my hair is wet, I must not put it in a hair tie as it will stretch it and then when it’s dry, it will break when I brush it.
It’s good to have change in a special purse and buy swimming sessions in bulk so that I can just take the card, and don’t need to move bank cards around.
Next week, I’m going to look into getting a couple of private lessons at the pool, to make my stroke better. Though I don’t know how, unless there’s a harness involved, I’m going to manage to put my bum up more, as I know that’s the route to better stroke… I’ll keep you posted on that one!
PS. This is not a sponsored post but I was gifted a speedo swimming costume by Simply Swim 6 weeks ago and it’s really helped me get my but back into the pool – I’m no longer having wardrobe malfunctions and having to put my boobs back in my costume each time I’ve completed a length!
Check me out – mother of the year alert. I have baked muffins with my boys this afternoon.
Here’s the kit before I started:
How much money do you think I spent in John Lewis for today's project? ;)
And here’s the final result – yes, they are star shaped pineapple, raisin, carrot and chocolate chip muffins :)
[ahem.bum.etc. can't get the image to load. will come back to this....]
But here’s what baking muffins actually means – going to John Lewis, purchasing silicone cake cakes in the shape of a star and some brightly coloured circle silicone cases. Doing all the prep for the baking muffins project myself. Weighing it all out myself. Putting it all together and then spooning it out under instruction from E and W. Then they contribute on a practical level – they put a chocolate chip on the top of each muffin. I then clean it all up whilst they go and play. And to add final insult to injury, W refuses to try one and E has one bite, rejects it and says “but I did have a go mummy and like you say, it’s good to try things, isn’t it?”
I figured that this would be a good thing to share on my blog, because I’m sure that there’s plenty of other mums out there who start with good intentions of doing lovely projects with their children that then turn into something that’s not quite the picturesque thing you’d thought of…
It’s not just me this happens to, is it?
So, at the start of this activity, I weighed 14 st 3lb. That’s the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life and it made me cry. I got down to 14st which was good then onto the Slimming World band wagon and by last Sunday, the 27 November, was 13st 8lb. Excellent me thinks, especially as it had just been the time of the month and I’d had a grotty week. I decided to absent mindedly weigh myself last night and I was 13st 12lb. That’s not possible surely, in less than 48 hours, to gain 4lb in weight?? !!! ?? Surely not. I was in the rudey nudey. It was the same place, but the end of the day instead of the start, but surely that can’t make 4lb of difference?
Anyway, I’m annoyed. And wanting to eat all sorts of stuff because I’m annoyed. But I’m not. So instead, I’m munching my way through grapes, diet coke and cherries. When all I want is chips and gravy. It’s a bit pants to be honest, so I’d stay out of my way, because when I’m deprived of my chips and gravy with a buttered barm, I’m a bird with a short fuse.
Here’s hoping for the weigh in on Sunday eh? Perhaps I’ll go running to see if it has an impact on it? Or maybe swimming?
Hmmmmm
Does your weight go up and down like this? How does it make you feel? What do you do?
Ha ha, I love the idea of “reviewing” my wedding anniversary. That’s comedy in itself. But anyway, I’ve had some tweets about it, so I figured it would be good to write about it and, I’ve actually got lots to photos to document it, which is nice…
Day started at 7am, which is a result in itself. I scurried into the other room with the boys and we wrote special cards for daddy to tell him how much we love him. They were given to him, along with my present – the piece de resistance – a packet of Super Hero Top Trumps. This is a top present in my mind and Lovely Bloke does his best to look pleased with it, as he always does, god love him.
Then he tells me to look inside the wardrobe for my small present. I’m there quickly and searching, searching, searching – I can’t find anything. He’s telling me to keep looking and lo and behold I find a small Mappin and Webb box. Wooooo hooooo!!!! In some ways, it could have been an empty bag. But I suppose it’s what it signifies, what’s within it. So I open it, with the “help” of E.
And inside, are a gorgeous pair of diamond earrings. E is trying to help me wrestle them out of the box, when Lovely Bloke starts to flap a bit.
“Errrr, E shall we let Mummy do that?” So that’s when I realised they were a) real and b) would need to be insured on their own!!
Within an hour the boys had gone to Nanny and Grandad for bacon and eggs for breakfast, to be followed with a day at the sea side and Prezzo’s for lunch, as that’s Nanna’s favourite place to go for a meal out…
We are then on the road, planning to go IKEA, to sort out the kitchen and what we are going to do with it. En route, I do some more calculations and we realise that for an extra bit of money we could have the Howdens kitchen that’s on special offer, including the fitted kit, so we detour off to the outlet shopping place near Braintree. I think it’s called Littleport, but am not sure…
Here’s a photo of me having put make up on in the car, trying to look all “sultry”…
Me, trying to do a friendly, but not gurning face
And this is what I really look like:
This is what I really look like...
So then we get to Littleport or Freeport or Whatever It Is Called and we wander around the shops. Have to say, I’m not overly thrilled with it. But I did find a Wonder Bra outlet shop where in hindsight, I should have had the bra that was 15.00 instead of 25.00 but hey ho, I’ve lived and learnt from that one. And I found some of my jeans, not quite in the right colour in the Levi’s shop. They were 55 instead of 85, which is quite good but if they aren’t “my colour” isn’t that a bit of a false economy?
What I did find however, was something which my dear friend, Dr AKT told me I would find. Skinny jeggings. In stonewash denim. And behold. I did. She mentioned it several times, so I can only assume that she was secretly requesting a pair for her birthday. Who am I to not oblige the desires of one of my two best friends? [For the file, my other best friend, KR, would shoot me if I got her a pair of these, so it's good to note how we all have different kinds of friends who make our worlds go around...]
This is AKT's birthday present. Don't tell her though. It's a secret
And then it was on to Howdens, where we spent so much money that I had to phone the bank to tell them that a transaction of magnitude was going through! After a quick whip home for our swimmers, we visited a worktop place that does recycled glass. It’s gorgeous. And costs £3,000 for the worktop alone, not the MDF that goes under it!!! Here’s a photo for you. Does it look like a £3,000 worktop to you?
Can I justify this worktop? Please????
We didn’t get the price that day, so we skipped off to the Hotel Pool for a swim and sauna, thinking we should be able to afford it as it couldn’t be “that much” really, could it? After that it was Browns for dinner and here’s Lovely Bloke and I eating our puddings….
This is the face of someone eating chocolate cookie cheesecake even though they are too full to really squeeze it in...
Lovely Bloke with hamster cheeks from shovelling his pudding in
After that, we went to the cinema to see the inbetweeners movie. It was very busy and full of teenagers. We felt a bit old. But enjoyed it nonetheless. Then it was home, to bed and then a lie in together the next morning, before a couple of clients phoned me – and I told them I was “off” and managed to not work until my first client meeting at 1pm!
So all in all a good result all round really. Sorry this has been soooooo long, but I wanted do my couple time justice. It’s important to me that we got back to being a couple, even if only for 24 hours, only needing to check on what one other person wanted to do, not three and not having to reason in quite the same way with Lovely Bloke that I do with our tiddlers ;)
Will I do it again? Yes, without LittlePort, FreePort, whatever it is. And without the diamond earrings and the £3,000 worktop (did I mention the worktop???) Lovely Bloke, mooching about, swimming, dinner and movie is my idea of a good time. And I’m pleased to have worked that out. It’s a good feeling.
Now I’ve got to put my cape on and transform into Liz Weston, Baby PR, Marketing to Families and Social Media solutions provider for my day job. So I’ll see you later x
“Mummmmeeeeee, we need to give you kisses… Come up the stairs right now mummy or you will be in the naughty corner…”
“William and I need to give you kiss right now. Please come here right now Mummy”
I love being a mummy so much…
Liz Weston is Cambridge Mummy, a self employed, full time working, mummy blogger and mummy to two lovely boys and wife to Lovely Bloke. They live in Cambridge (I know, but it’s good to be clear) and have a lovely life together. Most of the time.
