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My First Ever Black Eye

admin / March 28, 2012 / Humour, Personal, Photos / Permalink

Any of my eagle-eyed Twitter chums may have noticed this on Sunday:

I was secretly hoping it’d turn into a proper shiner, making me look like a female boxer or something, but alas it’s not that dramatic. It also occurred to me that a woman with a black eye raises certain questions, so every time I go anywhere and catch someone looking, I’ve been loudly proclaiming “LOOK WHAT MY KID DID TO ME!” just in case people think I’m a victim of domestic violence.

Anyway, just in case you’re interested in The Life and Times of my Shiner (I’m obsessed with it, I look in the mirror about 50 times a day at the moment), here’s a gallery of its cycle. Weirdly, the one with just a tiny cut is just after it happened and the one with all of the autumnal-shaded bruising is the latest photo, taken today.

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The Best Sausageism EVER.

admin / March 7, 2012 / Humour, Sausageisms / Permalink

Husband has been working for a new magazine in the USA, which means that his working day starts about half an hour before I get home, so we sometimes (shock, horror!) bridge the gap by sticking the telly on for Sausage until I get in. We’ve got a media server set up so that anything that’s on our PC and external hard drive can be watched wirelessly through our PS3 on the big TV in the lounge. Sausage has got pretty good at navigating her way through the menus and will choose from her huge folder full of Dexter’s Lab box sets and the like.

The other day, I walked up to the door and Husband was waiting for me. He said “Shh, come with me and see what Sausage is watching…”, so I followed him stealthily into the sitting room, where Sausage was watching, and laughing hysterically in all the right places to The Golden Girls; but wait, it gets better…

Sausage suddenly noticed I was behind her and got all excited and said “Mummy, look, I’m watching this programme, it’s soooo funny” then turned round, pointed at Bea Arthur and said “AND LOOK, IT’S GOT A MAN IN IT, DRESSED AS A LADY!!”.

Best. Kid. Ever.

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What Will I Be When I Grow Up?

admin / March 7, 2012 / Humour, Life, Personal / Permalink

When I was a kid, I could never make my mind up about what I wanted to be when I grew up. The thought of going to University scared the crap out of me because it meant that I’d have to make a decision and stick to it. In fact, I went to a grammar school which is currently rated at 8th in the entire UK for results and the pressure was on from an early age.

At 13, we had to do really well in our end-of-year exams so that we’d be allowed to take the subjects we wanted at G.C.S.E when we took our options and of course you must choose the right G.C.S.E’s so that you have the right subjects to allow you to study at A-Level, which in turn would need to correspond with what you want to study at University….”AAaaarrgghhh, ENOUGH”, my tiny, thirteen year old brain screamed. In fact, seeing as I was one of the youngest in the year, I was probably 12. “No…” I wanted say “no, I do NOT know what I want to work as until I can draw my pension in approximately 60 years time”.

The problem I have now is that I never seemed to quite snap out of that mentality. It’s not so much that I don’t know what I want to be, it’s that I want to be everything! At the moment, I have three jobs. I work in an Accountants office as an assistant and general jack-of-all trades doing payroll, basic accounts and crap like that. I also manage some Social Media pages for a couple of brands and I also pick up the odd bit of freelance writing here and there. Three pretty different jobs and strangely, I actually feel quite satiated, in terms of my career.

The thing is, I still have it in the back of my mind that I’ll still get to be an astronaut one day or that someone will walk past my bathroom window, hear me singing my heart out and offer me a record deal and world tour. That’s not to mention the book I want to write, the career as a stand-up, the prime time TV comedy that I’m going to both write and star in. And I’m not even exaggerating here, these are all genuine aspirations of mine.

When I was in my last year of school, I was determined that I was going to join the RAF. I wanted to sign up, get sponsored by them to attend Uni and then learn to fly planes. Then, I was told in an interview with their careers officer that I couldn’t fly planes as I’m as myopic as a bat and as coordinated as Bez after taking a heroic amount of Ecstasy. So, that scuppered that little fantasy and I don’t think I’ve ever got over the disappointment.

The thing is, I’m going to be 30 in a couple of years and I really need to start knuckling down. Just after Sausage was born I started an OU degree in Psychology but two yeas and 120 UCAS points later and I’ve realised that I think Freud was a twat. So, where do I go now. Well, I’ve signed up to do my Accounts Technician Training. I don’t want to be in my thirties and have the same earning potential as I did when I was 18, so fuck it, let’s have a go.

But in the meantime, if anyone needs me to stand in for them in a Broadway show or ghost write their life story, I’m happy to give that a punt too!

3 Comments

Mum Crush

admin / February 29, 2012 / Humour, Parenting, Personal / Permalink

I have a Mum Crush. Not like in a MILF kinda way, in a “I really want to be friends with you” kinda way.

Husband and I have a few friends between us who have kids but they’re either much younger than Sausage or we don’t see them all that often due to distance. However, since Sausage has started nursery she’s made a few friends, been to a few parties, she’s doing her own networking and I’ve met a few of the Mums who I now have a chat with and say hello to each morning.

There’s one mum in particular though, who I have a total Mum Crush on. She seems to have similar interests to me (I saw that she has the same sewing book that I have on her bookshelf…that counts, right?) and we both have Cath Kidston handbags. Okay, I know, a handbag does not a friendship maketh.

She’s perfectly polite to me each day but we mainly just exchange pleasantries and talk about our girls. Every time, there’s a “fancy a playdate?” on the tip of my tongue that I don’t seem to be able to get out. I think realistically she’s not all that interested in being friends, she has a sister with kids of a similar age to ours and probably tonnes of other sewing, Cath Kidston handbag toting mothers in her friendship circle.

The trouble is, this “playing hard to get” is just making me want to be her friend even more. I will confess to having Facebook stalked her once or twice, my finger hovering the mouse over the ‘add friend’ button but never quite having the courage. I guess I probably can’t ever add her now, just in case she ever discovers my blog and reads this.

What would you do? Am I being a massively socially inept weirdo? Give it to me straight, readers!

6 Comments

Turns Out, It’s Pathological…

admin / February 27, 2012 / Humour, Personal / Permalink

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!

8 Comments

The Best Thing To Ever Happen in Waitrose.

admin / February 26, 2012 / Humour, Opinion / Permalink

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.

2 Comments

Five Easy Steps to Brighten Up Your Kitchen

admin / February 23, 2012 / Humour, Parenting / Permalink

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!

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

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5 Things I’ve Learned Since Becoming an Adult.

admin / January 22, 2012 / How To, Humour, Parenting, Personal, Rant / Permalink

There are certain facts that you just don’t know until you reach adulthood/move out of your parents house/have kids. I was pretty much wrapped in cotton wool until I was 21 (that’s not a complaint Mum, just an observation) and these facts just did not enter my consciousness until I made the decision to propel myself into the big wide world.

Just in case anyone is reading this who is new to the ‘grown-up’ thing, or just wants to brush up on some harsh realities, here are five of the most important things I’ve learned.

1. Any rubbish bags you buy with the words ‘large’ or ‘heavy duty’ printed on them will inevitably actually be the same size as a leprechaun’s scrotum and in fact have the same strength qualities of wet rice paper. I thought this was confined to the ones I bought from the Pound shop or the ever so slightly cheaper 99p shop, but it happens everywhere.

2. Some men seem to think that MILFs (if you don’t know; look it up but keep your Google Safe Search on!) are this exotic breed of experienced older women, and while I won’t debate that many women regain their pre-baby body, the vast majority end up with nipples that point towards the floor, a stomach like a road map and either a whacking great scar across their pubic line or a chuff like a Wizard’s sleeve from squeezing human beings out. Then there’s the sick in the hair, sleep deprivation and cracked nipples (or so I’m told). Sorry lads, that’s just the cold, hard truth.

The Fantasy

The Reality

3. It doesn’t matter if you’re a brilliant cook who can make things from scratch. You may be the master of the meringue, the queen of the macaroon, your talents know no bounds. But I guarantee the first time you boil an egg for yourself, you’ll have to look up on Google how to do it and I bet, even then, it won’t come out perfect. The best advice I can give you? Buy one of these:

The Tefal Toast n Egg. Genius.

4. People will ALWAYS surprise you. Unless you’ve spent every waking moment of your life with someone, there will always be information about a person which will knock your socks off. The other day, my boss was telling us a story about how, a couple of years ago, she and a female friend booked a cheap package deal to a Greek island that turned out to be horrible due to a rotten hotel and largely rubbish beaches. One day, they stumbled upon a nudist beach which was the nicest sun spot on the island and spent the next ten days returning to play beach tennis, stark-bollock naked, with a group of young ladies. Just so you know, my boss is 67 and an accountant.

(I won’t be illustrating this point with a picture, as above. I wouldn’t want to scar you for life)

5. If you’re the type to have kids, you’ll no doubt have a set of ideals that you’ll formulate once expecting, or maybe even before. Once your little bundle of joy is born, largely, these ideas will be torn up and thrown out of the window. I’ve lost count of the amount of parents-to-be who insist they’re anti-dummy, anti-bottle, anti-TV, anti-everything-that’s-not-organic, Gina Ford worshippers who, within weeks of bringing the baby home have given up on their hard-and-fast rules and are helicoptering their arses off with a dummy in one hand, a bottle in the other and a Baby Einsteins DVD on repeat for 8 hours a day. Don’t beat yourself up. It’s called COPING.

So, there are my pearls of wisdom for a Sunday morning. They may not be profound, but they may save you a lot of time and effort and what could be better than that? YOU’RE WELCOME.

4 Comments