Be Loud, Be Proud, Be Heard!

Source: istockphoto.com

As always I'm behind on my tags and awards but being the stubborn wotsit I am, I'm determined to get through each and every one of them. Next up on the to do list (love lists, me) is the Yay Me meme from Who's The Mummy. Try saying that after a large Merlot!
This lovely lady has asked me to list five achievements that I'm proud of. Despite my initial squirmyness about blowing my own trumpet, I have come up with these.....


I'm proud of the person I've turned out to be. Despite both my mother and fathers best efforts to screw up my life here and there, I decided a long time ago to dump the emotional baggage and save up for a nice Dior and Michael Kors instead! I think I've turned out pretty normal and fairly well rounded...obsessive shoe fetish aside.

My own parenting skills. Whilst there are days that I feel like the number one contender for Crap Mummy Of The Year award (and who doesn't?), I think overall, we're bringing up SC how I always thought I would raise a child. Looking back, whilst I was never one of the smug childless brigade who looked down their nose and proceeded to spout the "Well.... if it was my child..." speech; I always hoped I would stick with certain values. She's turning out to be a great kid who fills me to bursting point with pride sometimes. She may misbehave and throw the odd wobbler for us but with everyone else she's an angel. She's polite, thoughtful, bright and full of enthusiasm for everything in life.

I once told a very good friend of mine (and she knows who she is as she reads here), that her boyfriend at the time was attempting to cheat on her with a mutual friend. After said mutual friend had come to me with this info, I went into a moral tail spin about what to do. It was so hard to find the courage to tell her as I knew I ran the risk of losing her if it all went wrong. The only way I could decide was to draw on my own experience. Having continuously suspected an ex of cheating on me and then one day, when it was all over, having it confirmed, I knew I had to say something. Luckily it all went well, despite her boyfriend coming to face me down in the office and telling me "I had got it all wrong". Soon after she finished with him and later on, when we were out on the town one night, she met an amazing man whom she's now happily married to with a beautiful daughter.

Having finally kicked the above mentioned cheating rat into touch for the third and final time, (actually... not so proud it took me three times but there you go!), I bit the bullet and decided I had to turn a bad situation into something good. I stopped renting and went out and bought my flat. It was scary, I could barely afford it and I had to put the deposit on my credit card... not something I would advocate doing now. But I did it and made it work. As I closed the door on my brother and SIL after they'd bought me wine and McDonalds on my first night there, I looked at the huge pile of stuff in the living room waiting to be unpacked. I was sad, scared, excited but underneath all of that I was so proud that I'd done it.

And finally...I am proud of this blog. It's not world changing, ground breaking or nobel prize material... but it's mine and I love it. It allows me to combine all of my passions into one place... and write about them to boot! It gives me a sense of purpose and self when I'm not being a mum, wife, sister, friend and (reluctant) daughter. And through it, I'm getting to know some lovely people who, I hope in turn, are proud of their blogs.

Anyhoo.... enough of awarding myself multiple gold stars! I would love to find out what achievements the following people are proud of, so over to:

Tara at Sticky Fingers
Emily at Maternal Tales
Yummy Mummy
Mrs Fab at Looking Fab In Your Forties
And last but no means least... the lovely Englishmum.

I apologise if any of you have already done this. If you have then I guess I'm not so proud of my research skills!

Holidays Are Comin'....

You know that Coca Cola advert? The one with the traditional Santa and the lorry that delivers Coca Cola, general glad tidings and good cheer?

I get SO excited when I see that start to appear on television!

In lieu of my favourite ad, here is my version inspired by this weeks Grazia Daily email...

Source: Grazia Daily

Source: Grazia Daily

According to Grazia (and who am I to argue with them?), red cups and red nails are the way to go this holiday season. Get your rouge on.... I'm off shopping for Chanel...

Source: Bellasugar.com

... nail polish that is.

Doberman At The Gate

Source: Getty Images.com

What is it about receptionists... particularly ones that work in schools, doctors surgeries or hospitals? Is there some kind of bravery/initiation thing that I don't know about that requires you grow balls of steel in order to make an appointment or obtain a piece of information?

Of course I'm not tarring all receptionists with the same brush because thankfully, I have met more than my fair share of lovely ones. I'm talking about the special few who seem to pride themselves on doing the exact opposite of what I'm pretty sure it must say in their job description. Be the welcoming face of the insitution they represent. The key word here people is welcoming....get it?

The reason I feel the need to rant about this particular subject is that a newly acquired school mummy friend of mine has recently had a throw down with the charming woman who works in Small Child's school office. I use the word charming in the loosest possible terms.

My own first encounter with The Gatekeeper as she is now known, was when I called her this time last year to ask for an admission form. Having been given a name and told to ask for her, I was met with "Well... yes... I suppose that would be me wouldn't it?". It was said in manner of sulky teenager with an "If I really must" tone. Er excuse me but is that not your job?

Having turned up with some other mums for a reading/writing learning workshop last month, one of them, apparently somewhat foolishly, chose to ask The Gatekeeper if it was okay to go on round to the classroom. Looking like a bulldog that had just licked wee wee off a nettle, she just pointed and said "Well yes... you just go around there" in  a tone that implied we had just asked her to carry us all round one by one.

Over a simple matter that I won't go into detail about here, this woman made my friend feel absolutely awful and has obviously been painting her name in a bad light to the head teacher. I'm sure if key members of the school staff, including the head, knew how this woman speaks to people they would be most displeased, especially seeing as she is the face of the school.

I'm pretty sure she must be related to the woman at Small Childs eye clinic and also the receptionist at the Dr's where I used to live. The Sisters Grim we'll call them!

Well, I for one have made a resolution. I shall go out of my way to be annoyingly pleasant to The Gatekeeper and the next time she's rude to me, because you just know there will be a next time, I'm going to say something. Politely but firmly.

Look at me growing a pair! Are you proud?

If The Crown Fits....

Actually this crown probably won't fit because apparently I have an overly large head. So said the woman who measured me for a hideous Victoria Plum-esque bridesmaid hat once. Mine had to be made 2.5 inches bigger in circumference than the other girls hats!

Don't get me wrong.... if you met me you wouldn't think "Ooh look here come ThatGirl39... Oh my god... she has got one huge head... quick... run in the other direction!" However, if you came wedding hat shopping with me you'd very quickly get bored of gazing in wonderment at how funny they look perched atop my noggin. Its fair to say that the crown in the award picture is fairly representative of how far down my head I can get a hat to sit.

But look... I've gone and digressed.. shocker I know. The gorgeous Emily at Maternal Tales has given me this dazzling award which fills me with pleasededness as it goes very nicely with the new decor dahlink! And before I pass this onto to five lovelies whom I'm sure all have heads of normal size, it also allows me to show you my Forty Love page where I am proudly displaying all my blog bling these days.

And so to my Queens Of ALLL Things Awe-summm!!! Step forward to the pink carpet the following majestic blogesses....

Laura at Are We Nearly There Yet Mummy?
Lady Mama
Lets Have A Cocktail
Life, The Universe And All That's In It
One Of 365

Enjoy wearing your crown.... and I'm not all jealous that it looks better on you than me!

Happy Halloween!

My batty girl!

With Small Child being a bit older and me having more time, we've gone all out for Halloween this year. Not as all out I'm sure as some of my blog counterparts on the other side of the pond have gone. After all Halloween is one of the things they do big stylee in America. Us Brits? Not so much yet but I think some of us are getting there.

I think my feelings about it started to change once I became a mum. Obviously not straight away. I mean I wasn't  lying there in the delivery room, legs akimbo thinking "Excellent... I can't wait to get carving that pumpkin and where did I see those three for two bags of funsize Snickers on offer?" But you get the idea.

I remember being alone in my flat when trick or treating started to take off over here. They would keep buzzing the downstairs door and when I picked up the intercom phone, various obscenities would be growled at me. Didn't exactly inspire Halloweeney festive thoughts..... or maternal instincts for that matter.

But it's all different now. From the minute she could walk, I was hoping that the local kids would come trick or treating, so that Small Child could answer the door. Luckily, the kids that live around here are a breed apart from the ones that frequented the city estate where my flat was situated.

This year we've gone from one pumpkin to three....

... which meant a lot of Spicy Pumpkin Soup....

.... and the infamous Pumpkin Pie that made it's debut appearance on Twitter this week...

And yes... I did confess that I used a pre made pastry case case. This is me we're talking about here!

There's been some (amateur) face painting, hanging of pumpkin paper lanterns, blowing up of ghosty balloons and the lighting of a pumpkin shaped candle. We haven't even gotten to the bumper event that's taking place on Saturday in the neighbouring village - the village that proudly proclaims it has an actual practising coven of witches. It's not lying either... you can spot them a mile off ambling along amongst the tourists... and not because of their broomsticks or pointy hats!

As for dressing up, Small Child will be donning her big foam pumpkin suit and me? Nope.. not a chance. Going back to those days of abusive trick or treaters, I have too many images ingrained on my brain of girls going around town dressed as slutty stripper nurses or wanton vampy brides of Frankenstein.

Besides I don't need to dress up; I'll just wave The Claw at revellers. That's what happens to your hand when you've carved three pumpkins.

Happy Halloween!

Wordless Wednesday

Small Child's version of Autumn Watch! And.... I may be biased being married to him but, all credit to Other Half and his photographic skills. Once again he's captured our girl beautifully!

Succombing To A Facelift

Well it had to happen sometime. Having turned forty, you wake up one fine day, look in the mirror and wonder where it's all gone... apart from south that is.

This has never happened to me ....(ahem)... I was of course referring to the blog. I decided to ship her off to California for a makeover and now she's back, looking ten years younger. And without the need for gruesome face peels or invasive dental surgery thank goodness - it was all pretty painless.

Those of you that know me know that, when I'm able, it's now all about the investment... invest in that coat, spend a little quality time on yourself, invest in those killer heels. Well, seeing as me and the blog spend so much time together, I thought it was high time she got her act together and showed her true colours, namely pink, black and white. I mean I can't just have her show up everyday looking like she just dragged her sorry arse out of bed and threw on any old thing. Have a little respect for yourself lady.

Thanks to the lovely Michelle at Shabby Creations, Forty Not Out is now fabulous and oozing glamour from every pixel and byte. If she were a woman she'd be the one that I'm always going on about; the effortless one, sat sipping Veuve in the cocktail lounge of a boutique hotel, swathed in cashmere, Tod's bag down at her Louboutin shod feet. The one that I stalk in the coffee shop, asking where she got her handbag, whilst trying really hard not lean over and stroke it!

As for me? Well I'm still just me but I'm loving my swanky new abode! So feel free to drop by and tell me what you think of the place. You'll have to forgive me if I keep changing things around a bit to start with - it always takes me a while to settle in.

Just don't trip over the Uggs Manolo's on your way out!