Currently

As my lack of recent posts might suggest I seem to have misplaced my blogging mojo. It might have been put out with a dirty nappy, sterilised with a bottle or just have run away from the chaos. So when I read Bex's Currently post a wee lightbulb appeared over my head and I'm unashamed to be rocking the copycat vibes.

Reading

I'm reading loads at the moment - 6 books so far this month, boom. But I'm not going to talk about any of them, brilliant as most of them were.

I'm loving is It's Time to Sleep, My Love. It has a panda on the front cover so of course smudge wanted to buy it for puff and I'm so glad she caught me on a weak willpower day. It is such a lovely wee story to read to a sleepy baby and the illustrations are beautiful.

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Hysterically, smudge heard me reading it to her baby sister and was a bit put out. Her new bedtime routine is a chapter of something age appropriate and this - she's 9 years old!

Watching

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SOA baby. 

I love the escapism of a Californian Motorcycle club and have to admit that despite the fact he definitely looks like he is need of a long bath and a good scrub Jax Teller might play a small part in the attraction of this show! 

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Listening

My November Prudence and the Crow box came with a mix CD. It's in the Kitchen CD player so I can dance around singing into a wooden spoon as I puree all the veg a growing baby consumes.

Recommending

Not really recommending more of a forcing everyone to agree with me on how brilliant they are by buying all the small children I know Blade and Rose leggings. Puff now has a few pairs of these and I am awestruck by just how good they are. They look amazing, are lovely and warm and just fit so much better for small wigglers than ordinary lycra leggings. I would love to post a picture of puff rocking them but all I can manage is a blurry fuzz - she just refuses to sit still!

Loving

Still loving winter and the boot wearing opportunities it provides. I did have a momentary wobble about what I am every going to wear on my feet when summer arrives. It didn't last long, I remembered I live in the west coast of Scotland, summer is months away and surely I can put up with non-boot footwear for 3 days. My purple DM triumphs are still going strong and I fall more in love with them every time I wear them. Which seeing as they seem to be surgically attached to my feet at the moment is saying something.

Making

I made the most delicious Herby Cobbler for tea on Thursday. Seeing as I'm the only one who enjoys lamb I decided to be wonderfully unselfish and substitute the lamb for stewing steak. Served with mash it was a perfect tea for a cold night and worth the faff of the preparation. 

That said, next time I'm substituting the baby onions for a couple of normal ones sliced!

Anticipating

I've got a really busy week coming up - something fun in every box of the next weeks filofax page. Brand new babies to visit, catching up with people and generally opportunities to drink coffee and eat cake. The best kind of week then. 

Singing in the rain

I live in the West of Scotland. There are loads of benefits including friendly people, Glasgow shopping eating and outing, house prices that negate the selling soul to the devil deal. But one of my love to hate things about living here has to be the rain.

This morning at school run time it was biblical. If frogs had started bouncing off my umbrella I wouldn't have even raised an eyebrow. But I was cheery enough. Despite the logistical issues of carrying an umbrella, holding a dogs lead attached to the pulliest most disobedient dog ever and dragging a very dozy 8 year old to school without her walking through every puddle en route.

Cheery enough to merit the catty comment of one of the other school run Mums - there is no creature more evil to her contemporaries than a yummy mummy. Her ire appeared to have been provoked by my not entering a depressive state when seeing it was raining. As I squelched up the field with the dog it got me to thinking that I like rainy days. 

Despite smudge's firm belief, I am not the Wicked Witch of the West. I won't melt on contact with water. But just incase my daughter knows something I don't I do take some precautions.

Good wellies are absolute must. Especially if you intend to take full advantage of those puddles, I know I can't resist a splash. As I have the calves of an East German shot-put champion I am a big fan of the Hunter shorts. I got mine mega cheap in TK Maxx but would happily pay full price for them. They are comfy, strong and unless you decide to wade across a stream which is deeper than it looks very watertight.

I get bored carrying umbrellas but have yet to find a properly waterproof coat that I don't detest on sight. So in order to alleviate the boredom of carrying it there has to be an added benefit to my umbrella. This morning it was bright orange to counter the grey skies. I'd really like a rainbow one but until I can grow out of leaving them on buses, trains and in cafes I'm going to stick with my free ikea one!

But THE most important thing to remember to keep happy in the rain is to leave your eyeliner flicks and mascara for a drier day. Lets face it when your umbrella blows inside out and the stupid dog is feigning deafness again do you really want to look like this?

Power Dressing

I knew today was going to be tough. I knew I was going to need to be brave and kick ass powerful in a way that most people won't ever be able to understand.

Most of all I knew that today I needed to paint on a smile and just get on with it.

I did what any self respecting child of the 80's would do and power dressed. I'm proud to say that I left the shoulder pads in the fancy dress section of my wardrobe and stuck to my sane clothes.

I dressed to hide the pain and hurt. To pretend that some of the people who I love the best aren't the same that hurt me the most. To distract from the insensitivity. It didn't work. I still hurt. I cried a bit when I got home. I knew I would.

But I did it all better in gold stilettos, with eyeliner flicks and in a GAP dress that I picked up in the sale for £25. Baby shower chic!

In praise of 'stupid' shoes

These are my favourite shoes.

I'm not going to go into all the reasons why they are my favourites but suffice to say I adore them and the way I feel when they are on my feet.

So I wore them yesterday.  I'm not sure many people turn up to an adoption panel in 15cm heels.  Well I do.

I'm a Mum who works part time in a coffee shop my opportunities for dressing up and wearing amazing shoes are severely limited.  The council doesn't maintain the pavements well enough for me to totter round to do the school run in these and I'm sure that the health and safety bods would comment if I tried to wait tables in these.  So when an opportunity to dress up presents itself I grab it, completely accepting that my toes might nip by the end of the day.

Yesterday I needed confidence.  An adoption panel is pretty intimidating.  There were 9 people sat hanging on our every word as the Chair quizzed us on why we felt we were ready to adopt a second, what we had learnt in the 6 years we've been parents and other questions that less than 24 hours later I've completely wiped from my mind.  But when I'm wearing shoes with shooting stars trailing rainbows nothing can phase me.  How could life be anything less than amazing with shoes like this?

The adoption panel obviously agreed.  We've been approved as prospective adoptive parents and now just need to be patient while they find us our second child.  I'm not sure I have shoes to make patiently waiting possible but at least if I'm wearing my favourites my feet will look fabulous as I impatiently tap my toes.