Sleepless nights

It's 4.30am, and its no secret that I am a lover of bed- no late nights or early mornings for me... Or there weren't until baby came along. Now I no longer have any concept of time and rarely know which day of the week it is. Babies don't care if its 4am or 4pm when they wet their nappies or cry for food. All they know is 'I need mum now!'
Feeding in the middle of the night can be quite a lonely experience but also can provide time to think clearly with none of the distractions of the day and gives me some quiet time with baby all to myself. I am exhausted beyond belief but when I'm so tired that I am ready to tear my hair out and go mental, all I have to do is look at this precious little one and remember that it won't be forever and to savour these moments whilst he is still tiny!
Hopefully he is done eating for the night now and I might finally get a little bit of sleep! Probably not, but here's hoping!!!

We had a baby!

I am very pleased to say that baby is finally here! :) My waters broke on Friday night and after a very long, tiring and quite stressful labour we welcomed a beautiful baby boy into the world on Monday morning. Weighing a teeny tiny 6lb2 our son has dark hair like his daddy and eyes that are getting bluer by the day. 

I may be biased because I am his Mummy but he is beautiful and we are both very happy.

Life with a newborn is brilliant, crazy and exhausting and despite reading all the books and websites I could get my hands on and attending countless antenatal classes nothing could have prepared me for motherhood. So far it is wonderfully rewarding, and an emotional rollercoaster of love and worry but I am loving it and wouldn't change him for the world.

<3 xxx

Moving on up..!

So, over a week later and still no sign of baby! My patience is wearing thinner by the day and my crankiness is increasing! I have, however, had something to take my mind off all the waiting....we have bought a house!

We put an offer in a few weeks ago and were waiting to hear back. We finally heard last week and so we have had a busy week of paperwork and sorting out solicitors to move forward to completion. It is all very exciting and I am so pleased. I have been getting excited about decorating and began crafting some new projects for our new home as well as spending hours creating pin boards of ideas for colour schemes. I am very grateful to have a new distraction aside from endlessly cleaning and rearranging the flat for baby's arrival. 

The new place is close to where we are now so its not a new start away from the friends we have made here which is good as I didn't want to uproot my whole life just as the baby arrives. It is also bigger-three bedrooms, which means we will finally have a place for family and friends to stay when they come to visit instead of the sofa. In addition we will have a garden which I am thrilled about, and I am sure the cat will be equally as chuffed to finally be allowed outside instead of staring longingly at the birds from the bedroom window!

xx

I am not a patient person!

It has been almost a year since my last post, in which ironically i swore to get back to blogging on a more regular basis. However, things did indeed get hectically busy and life just got in the way of any spare time to sit down and write. Now though, spare time seems to be something I have a lot of (far too much in fact!).

It has been a whirlwind of a year since my wedding in which I have moved house, changed jobs, got a kitten (called Beesley!) and had lots of things going on. The biggest news of all though is that I am pregnant! 9 months pregnant actually, and on maternity leave (not so patiently) waiting for baby to arrive (hence all that spare time!). 
We started trying almost as soon as we got back from Cuba but I didn't imagine that it would happen so fast so whilst this is very much a planned baby, it was definitely still a surprise. You hear so many stories all the time about people struggling to conceive and taking years to finally get the family they've always hoped of that it just did not cross my mind that we would get pregnant right away, but that is exactly what happened for us. I came off my pill in June and was pregnant by the end of August.

We had already decided that we would move from our North London flat further out of the city and south of the river. The burglary turned me into a very jumpy paranoid person and I just wasn't comfortable living there anymore, so we made the move to Kingston Upon Thames. Close enough to commute to central for work but far out enough that it feels a world away from the busy street of London. We have settled in really well since moving in July last year, and want to bring up our family here. In fact, we are hoping to buy a place of our own here very soon. 

Moving further out of the city meant I had to leave my bar job as it was too far to go for a minimum wage job everyday but I found another job here and made some great friends working there. I also was fortunate enough to get some more teaching work and have been busy building up my career. I absolutely love being a dance teacher and I am already so eager to get back to it that I have started planning my lessons for when I return to work in September. Many people have commented that it is very soon to be heading back to work after having a baby but dancing has always been my life and becoming a mother should not mean giving that part of myself up. This baby is going to usurp it as the thing my life revolves around but going back to work part time will give me some much needed time to focus on myself as a person meaning that when I am at home I can commit myself fully to being a mother.

Having such a physical job made me decide to take my maternity leave earlier than most. It was also easier to get cover for a whole term that to stop part way through and with the stress of exams and the annual show finished for another year I thought that stopping when we broke for Easter would give me the perfect opportunity for some much needed me-time and relaxation before baby's arrival. Which is has and i certainly appreciated it for the first few weeks. Now, with my due date looming and baby stubbornly refusing to put in an appearance I am starting to wish I had tried to make it until the May half term as cabin fever is beginning to set in at home. I am prepared and organised for this baby to almost obsessive levels of readiness. My hospital bag has been packed for weeks, the nursery is ready to go and I have finished the antenatal courses and books. 

I can't wait to face the challenges of motherhood and hold my tiny baby in my arms...So if you are listening little bean, please come out now because mummy is very bored! 
xx 
:) 

Back to the Blogging

It has been a long while since my last post. I could make hundreds of excuses for not writing but the simple answer is I couldn't be bothered. Harsh but true! I have been so busy that when I have had free time i have wanted to do nothing mor than lie in bed with a good book or the Mad Men box set (my latest TV obsession!) So I plan to now rectify the laziess of the last few months by getting back up to date. 

So i guess the first step is to update the dtails of my life these past months. The most major detail would be tha I am now married! wahoo. finally! It feels like I was planning my big day forever before it finally arrived, nd now that it's been and gone I want to do it all over again. There is a big gap where planning my wedding used to be. Luckily I plan to fill the void in my life with a new college course so I will soon be busy busy again! There's the honeymoon to Cuba to talk about too. That was the best holiday of my life so I think deserves a post all to itself (i'll save that for later!). There's been job changes too with more to come i the near future, and a change of living arangements coming up as we have found a new flat that we will move into in the next few weeks. 

So life has not become dull and although I have had a bit of the post-wedding blues, I'm certainly not short on things to do!

xxxxx

Burgled

My news this week is that we got burgled :( Our flat got broken into on Saturday night. We had friends round for dinner and some drinks and left the flat sometime after 7pm. My fiance's band had a gig so we went out early for sound check, went for a few drinks, watched the gig and were back by just after 11pm. We got home and I went straight into the kitchen-our plan was to get the rest of the bottle of wine we had started before we left and curl up on the sofa with a film. Needless to say that didn't happen! My partner went into the bedroom and immediately started shouting about what a mess it was in there, asking why I had felt the need to throw all my clothes around and get out the suitcases before we left....I hadn't. It took a good few minutes for the penny to drop that we had been broken into as there was no sign of damage to the front door-which was locked when we got home. We now believe that the robbers got into the building through an external window and carded our yale lock to gain entry before leaving by the front door!


We looked around to see what was missing and our worst fears were confirmed to note that the TV/DVD was gone along with both of our laptops, the xbox, and the ipad. They also emptied the contents of my handbag across the front room floor (i had left my bag at home and taken my purse and phone) and taken the bag, and pulled out all of our suitcase and taken mine-presumably to carry away all our things without attracting attention-basically they made it look as if they were guests or people going on holiday so that nobody from the flats below who saw them would question them.


It made me very angry to be stolen from but the worst thing for me wasn't the loss of our electrical items, it was the fact that some one had been in my house, in my personal space, touching my things. The items can be replaced and the locks and window have now been replaced but the knowledge that an intruder was in my home will stay with me for a very long time.

Album reveiw: Lana Del Rey - Born to die

Read my review of Lana Del Rey's album-Born to die for Propaganda Magazine:

http://thepropagandamag.com/reviews/album-reveiw-lana-del-rey-born-die

deadbeat darling

Check out my interview with New York band Deadbeat Darling for Propaganda Mag:

http://thepropagandamag.com/interviews/deadbeat-darling-interview

Does the x Factor have a future-discuss…

This is the debate I have been interested in lately. With TV viewing figures for the 2011 X factor final at an all time low and the winners Little Mix being pipped to the post for Christmas number one by the Military Wives Choir is this the end for the x factor?

The argument in favour of the x factor says no this is not the end and merely a one of blip for the show. Prime time television slots need filling, and the target demographic for these slots is the majority of the Birtish public. The broadcasters need to put on a show which appeals to the masses; that has something for everyone and above all is accessible to everyone. The answer it seems is reality TV. Most people can relate to the ‘stars’ of reality tv because they are ‘real’ people and not celebrities. In the case of the x-factor, many people dream of one day becoming rich and famous, this show makes that dream a reality for the every day person and so people want to watch.

On the other hand the x-factor (and other shows like it) can be seen as a fad-part of pop culture that will fade with the fashions of our generation. The shows current superstar status has been created by the followings of today’s tv watching youth. These people will inevitably grow up and find new interests and the youth of tomorrow will have a new show or genre that captures their imagination and the x-factor will become a thing of the past.

So, my verdict? There was popstars, there was pop idol and now there is the x-factor. Same show, same concept, different name, the formula is still the same and as the careers of many of the winners have faded the popularity of the shows grew and grew until recently. Hopefully this ratings decline will see a return of real music-with real artists who write their own music and live through their songs, rather than wannabes looking for a fast-track to success. 

I’m not saying that nobody who enters these talent competitions has talent, but hoping that the general public has finally begun to see through the sob stories and the fancy costumes and remember that it was all meant to be about the music. Maybe 2012 will mark a turning point in British music and the x-factor chart monopoly will be over allowing the best of British talent to step into the limelight. 

This is my article for Propaganda magazine. With thanks to andy and dani for their input on either side of the debate.

The hunt is on!

Job hunting is ever so slightly soul destroying. The constant rejection, no vacancies, 'you have to apply online'....it all gets a bit much. Thankfully though this wasn't the whole story and I did get a few more positive responses and have a couple of interviews tomorrow. I am keeping my fingers firmly crossed that one of them is right for me!


After the last post where I said I had a bad day I decided I didn't want to go back to my old job. It was making my constantly miserable and I was fed up of being treated like I was unimportant and as if I had no feelings. Nobody deserves to made to feel like that, and recent events have really hammered home the message that 'life is too short'. I had been fed up there for a long time but 'sticking with it until something better comes along'. Which of course it never did as I wasn't really looking hard enough. 


With the decision to leave made I found it much easier to actually start the job hunting process. I refreshed my CV, printed lots of copies and began handing them out everywhere. It was draining and often disappointing but the need to earn money to live, and the desire not to return to my old job kept me going. I just hope it has all paid off, and hopefully after tomorrow I will know! I haven't stopped looking for other vacancies even though I now have some interviews-they might come to nothing so it is always best to keep an eye out. 


In the meantime I have been living the life of the unemployed...the flat has never looked so clean, the washing is up to date, I have caught up on all the TV and films that I have wanted to watch since Christmas and got 'To Do' lists ticked off so its not all been bad!


:) x

A positive outlook will get you far

I had a shit day yesterday.

Thought I would get the negative stuff out of the way first! It was a bad day, I won't go into it, just trust me that it was bad. It was however, followed by a very pleasant evening of food, films and friends :)

I had two options with regards to my bad day, sulk, dwell on it and let it ruin my week or get over. I did the first one for a few hours before realising that by doing so I was 'letting the bad guys win', so picked myself up and got on with it. 

Today I decided recycle yesterdays bad energy and put it to good use. So I completed my PGCE application form and have sent it off! Just have to keep my fingers crossed for an interview now! After I post this I am going to get on with the mind map I have decided to create. I am going to start a scrap book to help me visualise all the things that I want to achieve this year. That way, when things don't go to plan I can take a look at it, remember the end goal and get back on track. 

There are so many things that I want to do this year on top of the things I am already doing. There's my trip to Magaluf with the girls to look forward to first. Then there's my wedding-the result of 18 months of planning, and honeymoon which I am sure will be the highlight of the year. 

I am hoping to get a place on the PGCE course I have applied for, and get some teaching work in the meantime and hopefully clear my debt and start some savings. 

There are lots of things to look forward to and a positive attitude is the best weapon I have i the fight to getting it. Sometimes it is so hard to remember to be positive but that is my biggest task of all for this year. x

x

12 things I have learnt this week...

The things I have learnt this week include the following:


1. Just because more things go wrong than right doesn't necessarily mean it is a bad day


2. This also works in the reverse, as good things still happen on shitty days


3. When you have good friends and good family not a lot else really matters


4. It is possible to eat TOO MUCH fruit-ulcers and stomach ache ouch!


5. You can't please everyone. You can try, but be prepared to fail.


6. If you go 'on a diet' you end up 'treating' yourself for being 'so good' and actually eat more junk than you would have if not on said 'diet'


7. No matter how much you know you should go to the gym, and how determined you were the night before, its unlikely you will go at the crack of dawn on a Saturday!


8. Newspapers will do almost anything for a story


9. Be prepared to go above and beyond for a friend in need because you never know when you might really need them


10. Sometimes you have to give up the things you have wanted for a long time to prioritise the things you now know to be more important


11. No matter how busy you think you are someone will be busier than you! (Usually Alice!)


12. Sometimes even the happiest news can still make you feel sad but a smile from the right person will brighten up your day.




You really do learn something new everyday! Oh, and I also learnt how NOT to make cream cheese frosting....but the cake tasted absolutely delicious anyway!!

Beat the eggs, not your husband!!

My friend and I have tonight been attempting to bake a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. It was the first time that either of us had made cream cheese icing and the first time I had made carrot cake. 


I love baking, its fun. It also really de-stresses me. It is what I do to relax if I have had a particularly hard week. Beating the eggs, creaming the butter and sugar together, getting those arm muscles going as you mix in the flour-it really calms me down, and by the time the cake is in the oven I feel like I can sit back and chill out. The boyfriend doesn't exactly mind my baking either...It means I take my anger out on the ingredients not him, and bonus! He gets to eat the results too. 


This being the first attempt at tricky cream cheese frosting it didn't go exactly to plan first time-especially as I don't own electric whisks so usually do everything by hand. There was just no way it was all going to combine in that tiny bowl so, drastic times calling for drastic measures, out came the liquidiser and in went the now mashed up ingredients. A few whizzes in the liquidiser and we had some very runny cream cheese on our hands.


This needed to be corrected, preferably without having to start over. I consulted the many baking forums on the internet and now feel like I know everything there is to know about cream cheese. For instance, did you know that English cream cheese has more water than the US or Aussie varieties, so you need to firm it up in the fridge. Also, American icing sugar has cornflour in it so their frosting ends up thicker too.


So now you also know almost everything there is to know about cream cheese frosting too. I'll let you know how the cake tastes once I've scoffed it all in a sec!
xx

lalalalalaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

It is moments like this that I realise I shouldn't take everything so seriously, and that sometimes its better to sit back and enjoy the ride....


Yesterday was a bad day. From the moment I woke up after a turbulent nights sleep the day was bad bad bad. One thing after another went wrong and problems popped up left, right and centre with no solution in sight. I felt stressed, I felt upset, I felt panicked. The world was not a good place to be....


A cheeky glass of wine before bed and I slept like a baby, and today the world seems full of joy and light. I have had a complete transformation of outlook. Solutions to yesterday's problems pop in to my brain from nowhere, the bad things that happened yesterday appear trivial and I can see the good times in sight just around the corner.


The point I am (very badly) trying to make is that life is what you make it. If you take everything to heart and make mountains out of mole hills then you will be miserable. Sometimes it is possible to be trying TOO HARD! Just relax, don't let the moment pass you by and when you wake up in the morning, things might not look quite as bad as they seemed. :)


xx

Band of the day

Check out my Band of the day blog on the Propaganda website....


http://thepropagandamag.com/articles/band-day-clement-marfo-frontline


Enjoy!

back to school...?

It's like being 18 again. The personal statement, listing your GCSE grades, deciding which course is right for you and where you're going to apply....back then it was on UCAS, this time round I'm.doing it all on GTTR.




I am currently in the process of applying for a post-graduate course and the application process is just as scary as the first time around! In fact, I think this maybe even more so as I have no one to help me this time!




At 18 all of my peer group were applying for uni so there were people I could discuss the application process with. On top of that there was the help and support of our tutors and specialist carters staff to guide us through! Now its just me, hoping for the best! Eeeek!!!

Remember to remember

On this Remembrance Sunday evening I would like to remind people to remember to remember.....


I have often heard young and old people alike dismiss remembrance day as being irrelevant within modern society. I have heard people openly question why they should spend their day worrying about being who are already dead.


 In the past I have always put this down to people with poor morals and a lack of respect. However, having given this considerable thought today, I now think it is more about a lack of education and therefore understanding of what Armistice day is actually all about. 


For example,if certain individuals, like myself, are too young to remember the tragic events of WWI and WWII, and do not have a proper understanding of what the Royal British Legion is; the symbolic nature of the poppy and why Armistice day exists, then it is somewhat understandable if they don't quite see how it is relevant to us today. 


I am not here to give a history lesson on World War One, nor to lecture about respect for the dead, I am merely exploring how we can reiterate the importance of remembering the great heroes that fought to make us where we are today, and think that rather than writing people off as having no respect for the dead we should be questioning their apparent apathy.


After all, if these great men and women hadn't risked their lives then we would not be the country we are today and this blog would not exist (and if it did it would probably be in German!). Today, we have freedom beyond our ancestors wildest dreams-something which we very often take for granted. So, remembering the sacrifices that were made for us to be able to enjoy this freedom is not just respectful but also humbling. It helps us to keep our feet on the ground and our heads out of the clouds, and if just once a year in November people stop and look at their lives and reconsider what is really important, then I think Remembrance Day is definitely still relevant!




For more information about the Royal British Legion and how the money from the sale of your poppy helps visit: http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance

xxx

Cocktails and Pompoms!

Monday night was the Company magazine High Street Fashion Awards at Shoreditch House and as part of the Shoreditch Sisters I was lucky enough to be invited! The sisters were there to run a table making home made pompom head dresses and accessories for the upcoming party season, showcasing one of the crafts from the book 'Queen of Crafts' by Shoreditch Sister Founder and Company Columnist Jazz Domino Holly. 


We arrived early and set up our corner with Sisterhood badges at the ready. The wine was flowing and. judging by the nausea I felt at work the next day, I may have had one too many of the delicious free Pink Pigeon Pink Mojitos! 


As well as the Sisters entertainment came in the form of a bowling alley, DJ, Pete the amazing magician and of course the awards themselves. To find out the winners read this months Company magazine (December issue), I won't spoil it for you!


It was a great night and everyone had a lot of fun, and the lovely Company staff were brilliant hostesses! Looking forward to my next Sisterhood event which will be Clit Rock on the 20th- a feminist music event for charity-stay tuned.


Sisterly love as always xxx

Insomnia? I'll sleep on it!

I have had real trouble sleeping lately. It goes like this.....I can't get to sleep..... I worry about how late it is and how early I have to get up....The worrying makes it even harder to sleep....I lie awake wishing I could get to sleep....the more I lie there the more grouchy and irritable I get which in turn worsens the problem....I fall into a light sleep for a couple of hours max before my alarm goes off and spend the next day tired, grumpy and hoping I get a better nights sleep that night....which makes me so anxious to get to sleep that the pattern repeats itself!!


This is not a new experience for me. Throughout my life whenever I have had something on my mind I have struggled to sleep and been plagued by the seemingly endless cycle of sleepless nights. This time I am determined to break the cycle so I am trying out the thirty minute rule: If you lie awake for more than thirty minutes you get up and do something for thirty minutes before going back and trying to sleep. 


So this is part of my thirty minutes. I just cleaned the bathroom and tidied the front room to save me a job in the morning and now I am writing this and having a drink. Fingers crossed I will get a good nights sleep after this. But if not I'll be back and will probably take my nail varnish off and re-do it ready for the weekend! And if that fails I can always do a bit of knitting or read a book. 


Bon Nuit (I hope!)
xxx

Spooky Fun

I've got a wee bit over excited about Halloween this year and my flat as become the Halloween equivalent of Santa's grotto! There's skull tinsel, an inflatable pumpkin, blow up spider, skull, witches hats, cobwebs, blood hand prints, a cauldron, and body part sweets! It's pretty over the top but I love it. It has definitely cheered me up! 


Next on the to-do list is to make a halloween play list on the laptop and get some booze! Wooooooo!!!