February 2012

Archive | February, 2012

Turns Out, It’s Pathological…

By Mum's the Word on February 27, 2012 in Humour, Personal

I’m having a weird experience.

This weekend, I’ve worked my arse off and got every room in the house clean and tidy. We’ve had a massive sort out and got rid of all of the clothes and shoes that we don’t want anymore, sorted out Sausage’s burgeoning mound of toys, sorted out Husbands office which was in danger of attracting hobos with the amount of cardboard boxes that were piled up in there. Hell, Husband even cleaned the oven! What I’m saying is, that as I sit here there’s one final load of washing going round in the machine and then THAT’S IT. There’s no more housework to do today.

And do you know what? I don’t like it.

I’m ever so good at ignoring housework, like “Oh, yeah, I know there’s mould on the bathroom tiles, but I just need to watch this episode of Desperate Housewives…” but now there’s nothing to do and I can just legitimately sit and watch TV or read my Kindle, I feel like I can’t concentrate. Like, it’s not worth doing if I’m not using it as an avoidance of something.

So, you see, I think I have some sort of mental illness. Any ideas what it might be? All I know is, I’m scouting the house for chores, and on account of the fact that this is me we’re talking about, I know there’s definitely something amiss!

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Silent Sunday

By Mum's the Word on February 26, 2012 in Silent Sunday

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The Best Thing To Ever Happen in Waitrose.

By Mum's the Word on February 26, 2012 in Humour, Opinion

I don’t know about you, but I have a very set idea of the four types of people who shop in Waitrose:

1. Old people. Old, grumpy, usually snobby people who tend to be myopic enough to accidentally (on purpose) try to run you over in their Rovers.

2. Married couples in their late thirties through to late middle age who are probably quite affluent and tend to buy things like expensive wine, bags of salad and expensive pate.

3. Women in their early thirties who have married rich men, who are dolled-up to the nines to do their weekly shop and usually have a couple of kids in tow, who are without exception, really badly behaved.

4. ‘Normal’ people like us, probably not rich enough to do a weeks shop in there and tend to walk around looking slightly bewildered about why their beans cost twice as much in here as they do in Tesco.

Unfortunately, Waitrose is our closest supermarket and when we’re between big shops, we have to go there to stock up on bits, but the other day I had such an awesome moment in there.

I was in the washing aisle and was perusing the washing up liquids. Some of the Waitrose own brand ones have very exotic sounding scents and I said to Husband “Oh these sound nice…then again, I don’t know why I allow myself to get drawn into these, I only end up going right back to Fairy”.

At this moment, a very well dressed man in a baker-boy hat and expensive looking jeans sidled up to us and said “You know, I’m rather partial to a fairy myself” only to smirk and glide away with his trolley!

Such a minute thing, but’s it’s tickled me ever since, every time I think about it. I won’t go too deep into the whole thing, but more than anything I was absolutely made up that in a world, nay, a shop of extreme prejudice, someone can be that secure in himself to just make a joke with a random stranger. That’s the kind of world I want to live in.

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Zhufari Playset Review

By Mum's the Word on February 24, 2012 in Review

Last year, Sausage was sent a Zhu Zhu Pet to try out and instantly fell in love, then on her first ever day at nursery, while Husband and I were hovering around in the Waitrose opposite her school, refusing to go home and be more than 1000 yards away from her, we bought her another one as a present. Another came along at Christmas and soon we had a mini Zhu Zhu army zooming around the house!

Just recently, we were asked if we’d like to try out a Zhufari Playset and a special Zhu Zhu pet to go with it and with Sausage’s love for them, how could I say no?! We were sent the Zhufari Lion Park play set and the little critter pictured below:

Obviously, Sausage is in love with her new Zhu Zhu pet, she loved the things anyway and then someone went and made a PINK one, which is just a win-win situation for her, being the pink-obsessed little lady that she is! The playset is a nice little addition to the range, it gives it a sense of cohesion, like the pets have more of a point now they have a dedicated place to zoom around.

If I could think of anything negative about them it would be that the tube that runs along the top of the set, like a tube on a hamster cage, seems a bit too small for the pets to fit comfortably through, but they do go through with a shove, so it’s not too bad!

The range of Zhu Zhu pets is huge and there’s one to suit just about every kids taste. We’ve also just learned that with Zhu-Fari you can even win a break for all the family at the Safari Hotel at Chessington World of Adventures. It’s a great competition, you can enter here.

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Five Easy Steps to Brighten Up Your Kitchen

By Mum's the Word on February 23, 2012 in Humour, Parenting

Anyone who has lived in rented accommodation knows that the flats and houses tend to be magnolia palaces, painted in the most drab and inoffensive shades of ‘BLAH’ and you’re often under other contraints, such as a contract that states you can’t paint the walls or put nails in the walls to hang pictures.

Although my kitchen is the one room in the house with a modicum of colour on the walls (a nice shade of urine yellow…), Sausage’s latest passion has really helped to brighten the place up, so without further ado, I give you ‘Five Easy Steps to Brighten Up Your Kitchen’:

1. Copulate.

2. Get pregnant.

3. Give birth.

4. Wait around three and a half years for your child to grow up and develop an interest in painting.

5. Stick said paintings liberally around your magnolia palace.

A VOILA!

Just in case you’re curious, the octopus in the drawing is called Shirley!

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“My Name’s Mummy and I’m a Stresshead”

By Mum's the Word on February 20, 2012 in Life, Opinion, Personal

(Bear with me while I get through the necessary pre-amble, there is a cogent point somewhere at the bottom of this post!)

Last September, we made the decision to send Sausage to Nursery three mornings a week and I couldn’t, in good conscience, sit at home scratching my arse while she was out, when I could get a job and contribute to the family coffers. Husband had been amazing about me staying at home instead of going back to work after my maternity leave ended and I thought I’d take some of the pressure off of him for a change.

I’d been lucky in that I fell into working from home, managing social media for a few brands as well as a bit of writing and other bits. I brought in a small wage and still continue to do most of it, alongside my ‘real’ job which is in an Accountants office. Bit of a Jack of All Trades, you could say.

But, I digress. The problem I seem to have is that I find it hard to switch off.

Take today (and I wish someone would…); I had a manic day in the office, I’ve just increased my days to four a week and it was payroll day, so I processed around 30 payrolls in about 4 hours. It’s usually fairly straightforward and most clients only have one or two people on their payroll, but today was just problem after problem. One client wanted his P45 issued..oh, did I mention, he’s moving to Australia TOMORROW so it all had to be processed, scanned, emailed to him, submitted to HMRC etc, and I was informed of this about half an hour before I was due to come home.

The actual work isn’t an issue, I can do it with my eyes shut, it’s the fact that I go into hyper-work-mode to get everything done on time and then after I leave, I can’t seem to manage to shake hyper-work-mode off and get into home-mode. Even when I go home, get out of my work clothes and sit down with Sausage, I’m still thinking about tax returns, payroll and my current side-project of getting a website up and running for my boss.

I’ve not spoken much about it, but I suffer on and off with anxiety. It’s not been getting the better of me as much lately, but it started when I was eleven, carried on through my teens and early twenties and was compounded by Post Natal PTSD after I gave birth. The crux of all of this rambling is that my unspent work-mode energy seems to be manifesting itself as anxiety. I get all hyper at work, come home, feel unable to unwind and by dinner time, I’m having a full-blown panic attack.

So, what do I do, people? Does anyone else get anything even remotely like this, or am I just a big weirdo? What can I do to stop it, if anything? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Help Us to Help You – iPhone Users Wanted!

By Mum's the Word on February 17, 2012 in How To

Some of you may or may not know that Husband is a tech journo, writing mostly about mobile technology and one of his current series of features is to write user guides for iOS5 or anything Apple related, like THIS one here about how to add a custom ringtone to your device.

This is your chance to get your questions answered – if there’s anything you want to know about using your Apple device or if there’s a burning question you want to ask, leave me a comment below and we’ll try to get your answer published, then tweet you the link to the article.

Thanks in advance for your input!

EDIT: I’ve just been informed that it’s NOT just Apple, but questions about any devices, so if you’re an Android user, WP7 user or anything else besides and have a question, let me know!

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We Are the Day Trippers – Suggestions Please!

By Mum's the Word on February 17, 2012 in Sponsored Posts

So, remember I told you HERE that we were saving up for a car? Well, we’ve had some amazing luck recently, my Uncle is being made redundant, hooray! No, wait that came out wrong! What I mean is, my Uncle is being made redundant and he’s using his redundancy money to buy a brand spanking new car, leaving his perfectly good but old car going spare, and he’s giving it to us, yippee! (It came out better that time, right?!) Off to Tesco I go to search for car insurance, it’s always my first stop when I’m searching for a good quote.

I’m seriously looking forward to all of the places we can take Sausage once we have our car. Obviously we have the main London museums on our list, along with the National Aquarium on the south coast, as well as Peppa Pig Land and the New Forest. Husband and I also love a bit of history so we’d like to take in some of the historical landmarks that the UK has to offer as well as a stately home or twelve! Plus there’s all of the lovely coastal walks that we can enjoy with Chuck and maybe even a bit of camping in the summer.

At the moment, Sausage’s nursery take a ‘learning through play’ approach, which I like to an extent, but she’s a really bright kid, so Husband and I want to kick her learning up a notch and hope that day trips to fun and educational places will really get things going. If any of you have any suggestions of where we can take her (preferably within a 100 mile radius of Essex) I’d love to hear them.

The UK really is a great place in terms of countryside and what we have to offer. I know it’s easy to get bogged down in the negatives or overlook your home country in favour searching the world, but I can’t wait to see more of our fair land and discover some new places…but not before I get my car insurance sorted!

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Ellos – Shoppers Paradise!

By Mum's the Word on February 16, 2012 in Sponsored Posts

A little while ago, I did a Silent Sunday post featuring a pair of sparkly shoes. What I failed to mention (what with it being Silent Sunday, and all…) was that I got these shoes from Ellos.

In case you haven’t heard of them, Ellos are an online catalogue that sells clothes for women, men and kids and the have some absolutely gorgeous items (sparkly shoes = case in point!). They were kind enough to let me have £50 to spend, which covered the cost of the shoes and they even threw in a gorgeous pair of mittens and matching leg warmers . They came in very handy over the past few weeks, I can tell you, though not worn with the shoes…that would just be silly!

I highly recommend having a look at what Ellos have to offer, the clothing for women is lovely, but there’s loads of stuff on the kids section that I want for Sausage too. The delivery was speedy and their customer service was totally brilliant.

A big Mum’s the Word thumbs-up for Ellos!

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Listography – Mugs

By Mum's the Word on February 14, 2012 in Listography

I have to say, when I saw this week’s Listography topic, I wasn’t too sure about it. Then I ~~bothered to do the washing up~~ looked in the cupboard and realised that we’re a family of hot drink drinkers (Husband likes anything herbal, Sausage has a penchant for Tick Tock Rooibos tea and I love a decaf instant or a macchiato from my beloved Tassimo machine). So, without futher ago, here’s the Mum’s the Word World of Mugs:

This mug may have been a freebie, but it reminds me of the fab time that I had at Cybermummy, meeting women who'd become my friends, learning from some fabulous speakers and getting bundles of lovely loot to take home with me!

This mug was bought for me by Husband, I like to think that he thinks of me as Wonder Woman (yeah...right...!) and it's a perfect size and thickness for drinking a nice cup of monkey tea from!

I bought this mug for Husband after I broke the previous version. It's artwork comes from the graphic novel 'Death Note', and luckily for me he liked this even more that the last one!

Sausage does love a cuppa and she bought this out of her birthday money when we took her to Colchester Zoo for her third birthday. It's a gorgeous mug but a total bugger to wash as it's all bumpy on the inside and the nooks and crannies get stained very easily.

I bought these mugs when I realised that we didn't have any decent ones to offer a hot drink to a guest. I got them from Wilkinsons and I think they're super cute. They only cost a pound each too, which is a bargain!

Hop over to Kate’s blog to see the rest of the entries.