I am not sure what the female equivalent to Bro’s before Ho’s is, Chicks before Dicks perhaps? In any case, there is an unwritten rule that girl friends are supposed to stick together and support the sisterhood in times of disagreement with their significant other. I am not very good at it. Sometimes I deliberately jump ship to side with a friend’s husband in a discussion and other times it is completely unintentional.
Like last weekend.
Given that today is Valentine’s Day I thought I would put together a how-to list to give the husbands out there a better chance of getting lucky tonight. Trust me, this is going to be far more effective than the petrol station roses you were planning on picking up on the way home today.
Because this is my first year doing a full Photo A Day Project Life folder and because I, like so many of you, fell behind with my previous attempts I thought it would be a good idea to do a monthly check in to see how everyone is going and also so we can have a bit of a sticky at everyone’s albums.
I was off to a bad start, I had managed to get a photo every day and had even ordered some of the prints, but until late this week I had not written any of my journaling cards – not one single card. To make matters worse, Clever Baker Friend, who has told me she often falls behind on journaling was completely up-to-date! It was just the kick in the pants I needed and a couple of days later I sat down and wrote a full month of journaling cards in one sitting while Skye was at Day Care.
Doing them all at once like that is not something I would recommend, I was over it after about a week and a half but I knew I had to get it finished and persisted. I think I was reluctant to make a start because I didn’t want to mess it up but I have plenty of spare cards in the kit so even if I totally muff a few of the cards I can always replace them. I was also being overly pedantic about what pen I was going to use. Procrastinate much?
As I said when I first started this project, I didn't want to bother with a whole lot of embellishment because I wanted to focus on the story of the photo’s themselves and here is how it is looking so far.
I am sure you have noticed by now that I love a bit of shopping, but it may come as a surprise that I hate going to the shops. It’s not just the obviously annoying things like the crowds, the lack of parking, and of course the mission that is getting Skye in and out of the car and convincing her to sit in a stroller while I do my thing. Everyone hates that, so there wouldn’t be much point in my ranting about that would there? Of course not. So instead I have put together the top 5 not so obvious reasons why retail shopping drives me crazy.
Poor Customer Service
OK, so this is probably a pretty common one, but indulge me. Last week I purchased an iron from a rather reputable appliances retailer. I took the advice of the very helpful sales assistant and purchased a mid-range model expecting that it would be more than suitable for my sporadic requirements. Once I got it home and gave it a test run I discovered it did not actually get hot, at all. Iron101 fail. The next day I returned the product wanting to exchange it for a different model and was treated like I was being difficult for doing so. I would have thought that for $90 it was reasonable to expect that the product performed its most basic function. Apparently their customer service department disagrees.
Today I am turning THIRTY, yep, the big 3-0. Until last night it didn’t really bother me, I mean it is only a number and I know that today isn’t going to be drastically different from yesterday, but still, there is something significant about moving out of your twenties and into the official adulthood of your thirties. Who am I kidding? I have been living the life of a responsible adult for many years already. In fact, all things considered, I probably didn’t do anything particularly outrageous in the whole last decade! Even so, getting a 3 at the front of my number has made me reflect on what I have done with my life so far and looking forward, what I still hope to achieve. All-in-all I am pretty happy with where I am right now and feel that I have quite a lot to show for my time so far, so here’s cheers to the last 30 years!
In my short time being a mum I have found that no matter what age your child is, people are always commenting on what lay ahead. Any remark you may make regarding your child’s behaviour or developmental milestone’s is met with some variation of “that’s nothing, wait until they are xxx, then you will be in trouble”. I find it frustrating that they seem unable to simply celebrate or in some cases sympathise with the situation we are living right at that moment. When I was enjoying the thrill of seeing Skye crawling for the first time, I didn’t want to be deflated by someone saying “it won’t be long now and she will be running around” as if the crawling itself was not enough. When I was up through the night with Skye cutting her first teeth, the last thing I wanted to hear was how horrific the molars will be. It wasn’t that I was in denial of the future, but the stages come so quickly already, the thought of what would be happening 6 – 12 months from now was more than I could cope with. Having said that, I am guilty of it too, but I still don’t understand why we do it. Is it because people want to shift the focus onto themselves and their own expert opinions? Is it just human nature to drive a child’s development? Or is it a reflection of the instant gratification culture we now live in? No matter what the case may be, it seems that right now is never good enough.
At the risk of receiving floods of hate mail, I am going to share a little fact about Skye – she still has a 2-3 hour nap every afternoon. It’s wonderful, and I’m sorry. Aside from some issues in the early months, Skye has always been a pretty good sleeper which I had always put down to my exceptional parenting skills. Actually that’s rubbish, yes my unwavering loyalty to our routine may have helped, as did the use of comfort aids such as a dummy and blankie, but the fact is that Skye wants to sleep, I know this because on the occasions when she does not want to go to sleep, I’ve got nothin’. Short of doping her out on Phenergan, I simply cannot convince her to nap if she does not feel so inclined.
