Metal Mummy

This year, I decided to do something different. Last year, Freyja had a chocolate advent calendar – she loved it as she’s a sucker for chocolate (as am I), but this year I thought I’d try something new as an advent calendar idea. Seeing as Freyja’s now over 2 and a half, heading too quickly for her third birthday in April, I think she’s old enough to understand the magic of Christmas. She is beginning to get the concept of Santa and knows that any presents we have for her in the house are “Kist-mas” presents and “Father Kist-mas is coming”.

I am so excited for her. We went to a garden centre yesterday where she met some donkeys and saw the walls covered in christmas decorations. All the trees, all the pretend Santas, all the lights – she was mesmerised and so excited by it all (apart from the fake Santa’s lap you could sit on – terrified her).

So, the advent calendar. Inspired by this post I found online whilst browsing, I have bought her 25 books. One for each day of advent. I’ve gone down the “all-year-round” book instead of the festive ones, because, well, I don’t really like the Christmas books, compared with some of the fabulous ones you can get. I have wrapped them all individually, so that every day, she finds the correctly numbered book and unwraps it. I haven’t gone overboard with spends, using The Book People and Red House to purchase the collection and it has saved me a vast amount on stocking fillers. You can’t do with enough books for your child, personally. So this, I thought, was a great idea. You could make it even cheaper by going to your local second hand shop or car boot, or using the joys of eBay. I just didn’t have the time and as I was replacing stocking fillers with this idea, I didn’t mind spending a bit. Definitely a tradition I plan on keeping.

OK, so not the Oxford English, but as near as damn it.

Since the tapoo event from earlier this year (oh my god, it was in January – that’s almost a year ago!), the thought of the poo has been at the forefront of everyones tales of woe. So, I thought, may as well get it published in none other than the Urban Dictionary.

I’m quite chuffed at my description. What dya think? It’s Number 2 on the list. Convenient number, I must say.

I was going to respond to some of the drama over a direct tweet, but my reply got rather long and so I thought, seeing as the person in question has blogged and tweeted their heart out, then so can I.

This is a response to an individual I need to vent to. I need to get it out of my system so that I can forget all about it and move on. The person in question knows this post is here.

OK, so this blogging lark isn’t going to be as serious as it was. I did say I wasn’t going to talk to PRs anymore, but I can’t help it sometimes. Especially when there’s freebies involved. I’m not one to say no to a freebie.

The thing with this freebie is I didn’t know if I would like them. I’m not a big fan of Crocs, never have been, but when I got told I could have a pair for free and I could choose which ones, I thought “OK, I’ll take a look”.

Do these even look like Crocs? I don’t think so. I’m impressed with their increasing number of designs that deviate from the normal design you’d expect to see with that brand name. My free ones arrived today, and after the PR said she’d send some that are “similar to the black ones you chose”, I thought ooo eck, please don’t send pink.

Luckily, she jumped into my head and found out the other colour of shoes that I would like and haven’t got. Freyja likes them too.

Edit: I never realised my carpet was that minging. Must hoover.

I’m following my Peppa Pig rant up with a bit of a summary of what I’ve been up to over the past couple of months. You know, just in case anyone is feeling particularly nosey about why I’ve not had chance to breathe…

- I now work Full Time. I’m the assistant manager at the pub I work at. I have achieved my personal license certificate. I have attained a CRB check (twice, because the last one expired). I have had pictures taken that make me look like I have one eye bigger than the other (they also show my wonderful bags that I struggle to hide after a long week at work). I have sent off the application (which is currently being returned back to me because they want original documents and the occupation of the person who endorsed the photo. You don’t need that for a bloody passport!…)

- Working full time gives me 3 evenings, 2 days and a 14 hour shift, equating to 40 hours work. Daughter dear goes off to the fantabulous childminder (who I swear Freyja loves more than me) every Tuesday. I’m happy to report that this is still fandabidozy, no problems have occurred and Freyja has a whale of a time.

- I’m also PLANNING MY WEDDING. After a very spontaneous booking of a venue when James was sat pissed up in the middle of a mucky field at a festival, it’s finally happening. OK, so James didn’t know about it when I booked it, and he still hasn’t seen the venue, but it’s finally happening. May 31st next year. And what a bargain we got! I will go into more detail when I’m not trying to summarise things.

- As part of the wedding plans, I have decided to make all of our stationery, which you can imagine is rather time consuming. These are now done, after taking a month to complete, but they look fabulous and I’m really chuffed with the outcome. Again, this was something that took away all my time.

- My daughter has a new obsession with Tangled. I kinda like it too, and has engrossed many an afternoon. In turn, this has distracted me from the likes of my blog and Twitter. I want Maximus the horse.

- I am still helping with BDT, writing when I can and helping to upload stuff each month.

In Freyja news….

- She’s potty trained. She still sleeps with a nappy, but during the day, she has no nappies at all. The process took 5 days from start to finish, and I had nothing to do with it. She went over to France in July in nappies and came back in pants. A hell of a lot easier than I expected.

- Her new favourite words are “Why?” and “Need”. “Why mummy? Why?” she says. “Because I said so”, I say. “Mummy, I neeeeeeeeeeed a biscuit…. I neeeeeeeeed Tangled.” Yeah kid, sure you do.

- She can count to 10. Sometimes she skips straight to eleven instead of seven but she’s almost there.

- She can sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and bloody hell, it’s like well cute.

- She knows who are boys and who are girls. Don’t ask me how.

- She knows that she has blue eyes, I have brown eyes and daddy has brown eyes. She also knows that nanna has blue eyes even though she hadn’t seen her for a while.

- She likes to get naked and has many a time been spotted playing in the sand pit in the nuddie. She possibly gets sand in her unmentionables, but hasn’t complained so far.

In Kali news…

- She’s huge. Grown a heap since I last posted anything about her.

- She’s getting there with her training. She will sit and stay and occasionally retrieve.

- She can swim.

- She poos a lot.

- She chews a lot.

- She has an unhealthy interest in armpits, feet and cleavage.

- She thinks she’s a boy and humps your leg.

Wedding News (8 months to go) …

- Stationery is made. Invites are awesome. With wax seals and everything.

- Dress is bought. A designer number, originally £1300 but got it off eBay for £500. Bargain, or what!

- Shoes are bought. Another bargain.

- Photo Album and Guest Book are bought. Also, bargains.

- Cake stand bought. You guessed it, a bargain.

What we’ve been up to – not as exhaustive a list as I expected, my memory is shit…

- Trips to the woods for Freyja to continue her love of nature. Has many a time been found hugging a tree, playing in the leaves and kissing twigs. Has also been found having a poo in the bushes with me keeping the nettles away from her arse.

- One of my close friend’s weddings. She looked amazing, as did her hub. I wore a dress. A sight for sore eyes, it was.

- A nearby farm to feed the pigs and the llamas. Also spent the afternoon keeping the chickens away from my daughter’s cornetto before she felt the inclination to clobber them with it.

I plan to update my blog more often now; I can’t promise anything because I know what I’m like, but I have been away from the action for far too long and I kinda miss it.