I've sprained my ankle and can't drive. Bit of a bugger when you live in the country with no real bus service to speak of.
I had a spectacular fall outside tesco superstore in Reading en route to visiting a friend. I was holding Alicia in my arms, walking towards the trolleys.
Thank god my mothering instincts kicked in and I somehow managed to keep Lissy in the same position in the air while I crumpled in a heap around her. It must have looked pretty amazing. I couldn't get up for ages, thankfully a nice elderly couple held Lissy for me while I recovered.
I had a weird blackout thing for a few seconds too, I'm not sure if it was before the fall ie the cause of it, or after the fall from the shock of nearly chucking my child onto the concrete!
My friend came to collect me and we spent a nice day at her house, me hobbling about rather pathetically when not elevating and icing my poor ankle. A mum from school picked Ella up for me and took her back to her house where she has stayed - electing to have a sleepover seeing as hubby couldn't collect her until much later and I can't drive her to school tomorrow morning anyway. What a star that mummy is.
Hubby came to get Lissy and me after work - his friend collected him from our house so J could fetch our car from Tesco carpark.
Dramarama.
Am now deep into doing my online tax return. Oh joy. Nearly finished it.
Looking forward to doing Notes' 'I Love Me' theme tomorrow. I could do with a good rant. I have one forming about boobs actually. Not mistakes. Bangers. Norks. Tits. Watch this space ;-)
Monday, 24 January 2011
Friday, 21 January 2011
What I Want & What I'm Doing
Haven't posted for a while. Alicia's 3 week long nighttime coughing fits peaked a few days ago and left me a frail husk of my former self. I was ill without actually being ill. Ill from lack of sleep. Barely able to boot up my lappy.
Alicia was completely fine during the day, she'd wake up with a choking cough around 2am and not really settle afterwards. Luckily, three nights of garlic socks and a few drops of echinacea in orange juice (vit c helps it work more effectively)three times a day has ended the ordeal for us all.
I have a lot going on at the moment, or I'm about to anyway. I'm talking to my boss tomorrow about starting work. My plan is to squeeze in a few hours a day when Alicia naps - with the possibility of doing more on the weekend if needed. This is all because I can't bear to leave her with a childminder just yet.
I'm sure I can find someone to take good care of her. It's just that I want her to be loved, kissed, cuddled and tickled all day long too. Something a paid professional may not do. After all, they get paid to care not to love. A subtle difference but to me a huge one when Lissy's only 7 months.
I'm also about to start my home study course to become a hypnobirthing practitioner. I have always wanted to have a job or hobby that enables me to make a difference - to improve the world in a small way. I think, I hope, that this new venture will tick that box for me.
I'm passionate about helping other women give birth without fear, which is exactly what hypnobirthing did for me. It's something I should be able to easily fit around my day job and my family. I plan to do a one day course each month to start off and see how it goes from there. My sis is doing the training too so we will be study buddies and help to motivate each other when we start designing and running the courses. Watch this space ;-)
My other short term aims are to really focus on moving my body every day (yoga, walking) and to listen to my body more around food. I am in the grip of chocoholism at the moment and have a disturbing propensity to eat and eat and eat - totally ignoring the fact that I'm full. Food for a treat, for entertainment, out of habit, in lieu of alcohol, fags and other naughties...I want to learn to eat from hunger instead. The good old fashioned way.
Which sparks me to answer Notes to Self Plus Two's McLinky thing (which I missed due to extreme sleep deprivation and general malaise): 'What do you want for you in 2011?':
1. To have a firm, fit, healthy body I'm proud of. Translates into - get back to 9 stone by May and look good in shorts this summer.
2. To make more money. Shallow, yes. I want to buy a house in a year or two. A 3 bed one, ideally with a study or dining room where I can work from. We love living in this idyllic village but our rented 2 bed bungalow is a bit of a tight fit now there's four of us. I dream of buying one of the big houses down the road. But the 3 beds here are around £430K way, way out of our league. At the moment anyway. Just until I come up with my Plan For Affluence.
3. To be a brighter light. I have a sun tattoo on my arm, partly because as a Leo that's my birth planet but mainly to remind me to be the source of warmth, happiness, inspiration and light in my own and others' lives. I want to start fulfilling this - be a better wife, mother, friend. Spread more happiness and love in my corner of the world. Make a difference. Light up peoples' lives - especially my loved ones'.
Alicia was completely fine during the day, she'd wake up with a choking cough around 2am and not really settle afterwards. Luckily, three nights of garlic socks and a few drops of echinacea in orange juice (vit c helps it work more effectively)three times a day has ended the ordeal for us all.
I have a lot going on at the moment, or I'm about to anyway. I'm talking to my boss tomorrow about starting work. My plan is to squeeze in a few hours a day when Alicia naps - with the possibility of doing more on the weekend if needed. This is all because I can't bear to leave her with a childminder just yet.
I'm sure I can find someone to take good care of her. It's just that I want her to be loved, kissed, cuddled and tickled all day long too. Something a paid professional may not do. After all, they get paid to care not to love. A subtle difference but to me a huge one when Lissy's only 7 months.
I'm also about to start my home study course to become a hypnobirthing practitioner. I have always wanted to have a job or hobby that enables me to make a difference - to improve the world in a small way. I think, I hope, that this new venture will tick that box for me.
I'm passionate about helping other women give birth without fear, which is exactly what hypnobirthing did for me. It's something I should be able to easily fit around my day job and my family. I plan to do a one day course each month to start off and see how it goes from there. My sis is doing the training too so we will be study buddies and help to motivate each other when we start designing and running the courses. Watch this space ;-)
My other short term aims are to really focus on moving my body every day (yoga, walking) and to listen to my body more around food. I am in the grip of chocoholism at the moment and have a disturbing propensity to eat and eat and eat - totally ignoring the fact that I'm full. Food for a treat, for entertainment, out of habit, in lieu of alcohol, fags and other naughties...I want to learn to eat from hunger instead. The good old fashioned way.
Which sparks me to answer Notes to Self Plus Two's McLinky thing (which I missed due to extreme sleep deprivation and general malaise): 'What do you want for you in 2011?':
1. To have a firm, fit, healthy body I'm proud of. Translates into - get back to 9 stone by May and look good in shorts this summer.
2. To make more money. Shallow, yes. I want to buy a house in a year or two. A 3 bed one, ideally with a study or dining room where I can work from. We love living in this idyllic village but our rented 2 bed bungalow is a bit of a tight fit now there's four of us. I dream of buying one of the big houses down the road. But the 3 beds here are around £430K way, way out of our league. At the moment anyway. Just until I come up with my Plan For Affluence.
3. To be a brighter light. I have a sun tattoo on my arm, partly because as a Leo that's my birth planet but mainly to remind me to be the source of warmth, happiness, inspiration and light in my own and others' lives. I want to start fulfilling this - be a better wife, mother, friend. Spread more happiness and love in my corner of the world. Make a difference. Light up peoples' lives - especially my loved ones'.
Monday, 10 January 2011
What Blogging has Made Me Realise (I Love Me Monday)
The lovely Notes to Self Plus Two has started an initiative to help us mummy bloggers reconnect with the 'me' in 'mummee'(geddit?): the 'I Love Me Mondays' blog linkup.
As she so rightly observes, us mums usually start blogging because we want to hold onto our sense of self in the often wonderful, sometimes terrible, nearly always all-encompassing role of Parent.
The 'I Love Me Mondays' writing theme for today is 'What have I realised about me through blogging?'. I have realised:
1. That being a (good) mum is the most important thing in the world to me. Seems obvious but when I started my blog I was more focused on the 'Part Me' bit than the 'Part Mummy'. Through writing about family life (amongst other things) I have realised that it is the source of my most magical, magnificent moments and is the strongest influence on my self-development. Being a Mummy has, is, making me a better Me.
2. I have had a really interesting and varied life so far. Writing this post made me realise that. I intend to keep living life in glorious technicolour (with a few ad breaks so I can put my feet up and have a cuppa and a biscuit, natch).
3. I seek validation and praise. Yup, I'm all too human. Before blogging I genuinely thought I didn't care about what people I'd never met thought about me and that I didn't need friends+/family to tell me how fabulous I am because we just know we're in each others' fan clubs.
Blogging introduced me to the joys of reading uplifting comments - from friends and strangers - and the abject despair of spilling your guts or writing something witty and true only to find no one has read it. Or rather, no proof that anyone has 'heard' you in that crowded space they call the blogosphere. No comments on a post = extremely disheartening (hint, hint).
Blogging
Thursday, 6 January 2011
Themes are My New Resolutions
Happy New Year!!
This year I'm doing away with resolutions (who really keeps those past January anyway?!) and opting for themes instead. Yes, themes like movies and books have. Life imitating art. But not in a pretentious way. It's a less committed approach than resolutions but achieves a similar thing i.e. focusing your efforts on what is important to you at the moment.
My themes for 2011 are:
+Fun
+Fitness & health
+Yoga
+Drumming
These are my main dishes in the scrumptious feast that I hope this year will be.
I've recently discovered that the main thing is to focus on the main thing. It's the only way to get anything done. I've used that approach to do yoga EVERY DAY in December. Good huh? Especially for alaidback busy mother of two.
As a creature of impulse afflicted with a horribly low boredom threshold, I find my life is often so jam-packed full of dreams, schemes, projects and amusements that I don't achieve the goals I want to. I try a little of everything which is lots of fun but I end each year in much the same place - both physically and metaphorically speaking.
So, this year I will narrow my focuses (foci??) and aim to progress in my two main hobbies: yoga and djembe drumming. I will also make my choices this year based on enjoyment and stop doing things because I feel I 'ought' to. That's the 'Fun' theme.
I don't really need a reminder to make this year fun, but I often get myself in a tizz trying to do the right thing by everyone else and forget to prioritise things that make me smile, things that are fun for me (and we all know that a happy mummy makes a happy family!).
Don't worry, I won't use this as an excuse to slip into my old hedonistic, excessive ways. I won't shirk my true responsibilities. But I will be saying 'no' a lot more than usual...and 'yes' to things I might have been to afraid say yes to last year. Confused? All will be revealed in the fullness of time..
And so to the fitness and health theme. Hmm. Me and the rest of the world right? Lose weight, drop a dress size, run a marathon, get leaner, faster, eat less sugar, more veg. B-O-R-I-N-G.
I'm going to use my previous theme (fun) together with this theme and do positive, easy things I enjoy that also help me take baby steps towards being a fitter, stronger, more supple, healthier, happier mama.
My first mission is to improve my body image - without necessarily improving my body. I believe we can all feel better about ourselves right now - not put off self acceptance to that magical time when we are lighter and/or smaller.
To this end, I'll be trying out different (enjoyable) techniques to help me love myself more just the way I am. Squidgy mummy tummy and all. If you want to follow my adventures in self love (god that sounds sooo dodgy!) then you need to read my secret(ish) new blog. Email me at annacolette(at)gmail(dot)com with 'Body Image' in the subject line and I'll send you the URL.
My second mission is to add some green smoothies into my life. I'm aiming to have one a week in February and will gradually crank that up. The Green Smoothie is an easy and - hopefully - delicious way to get more fruit and veg, curb your sugar cravings and lose weight. Sound good? Here are some green smoothie recipes to get you started.
What do you want your themes to be for 2011?
This year I'm doing away with resolutions (who really keeps those past January anyway?!) and opting for themes instead. Yes, themes like movies and books have. Life imitating art. But not in a pretentious way. It's a less committed approach than resolutions but achieves a similar thing i.e. focusing your efforts on what is important to you at the moment.
My themes for 2011 are:
+Fun
+Fitness & health
+Yoga
+Drumming
These are my main dishes in the scrumptious feast that I hope this year will be.
I've recently discovered that the main thing is to focus on the main thing. It's the only way to get anything done. I've used that approach to do yoga EVERY DAY in December. Good huh? Especially for a
As a creature of impulse afflicted with a horribly low boredom threshold, I find my life is often so jam-packed full of dreams, schemes, projects and amusements that I don't achieve the goals I want to. I try a little of everything which is lots of fun but I end each year in much the same place - both physically and metaphorically speaking.
So, this year I will narrow my focuses (foci??) and aim to progress in my two main hobbies: yoga and djembe drumming. I will also make my choices this year based on enjoyment and stop doing things because I feel I 'ought' to. That's the 'Fun' theme.
I don't really need a reminder to make this year fun, but I often get myself in a tizz trying to do the right thing by everyone else and forget to prioritise things that make me smile, things that are fun for me (and we all know that a happy mummy makes a happy family!).
Don't worry, I won't use this as an excuse to slip into my old hedonistic, excessive ways. I won't shirk my true responsibilities. But I will be saying 'no' a lot more than usual...and 'yes' to things I might have been to afraid say yes to last year. Confused? All will be revealed in the fullness of time..
And so to the fitness and health theme. Hmm. Me and the rest of the world right? Lose weight, drop a dress size, run a marathon, get leaner, faster, eat less sugar, more veg. B-O-R-I-N-G.
I'm going to use my previous theme (fun) together with this theme and do positive, easy things I enjoy that also help me take baby steps towards being a fitter, stronger, more supple, healthier, happier mama.
My first mission is to improve my body image - without necessarily improving my body. I believe we can all feel better about ourselves right now - not put off self acceptance to that magical time when we are lighter and/or smaller.
To this end, I'll be trying out different (enjoyable) techniques to help me love myself more just the way I am. Squidgy mummy tummy and all. If you want to follow my adventures in self love (god that sounds sooo dodgy!) then you need to read my secret(ish) new blog. Email me at annacolette(at)gmail(dot)com with 'Body Image' in the subject line and I'll send you the URL.
My second mission is to add some green smoothies into my life. I'm aiming to have one a week in February and will gradually crank that up. The Green Smoothie is an easy and - hopefully - delicious way to get more fruit and veg, curb your sugar cravings and lose weight. Sound good? Here are some green smoothie recipes to get you started.
What do you want your themes to be for 2011?
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