I'm not sure if it's the carols on the tv or seeing Beautiful Girl all snuggled up in her Christmas pjs, but I'm feeling very warm and fuzzy, and counting my very extensive blessings. We are an extremely lucky family. We've had a wonderful 2010, getting married, the arrival of our wonderful daughter, and being able to afford our beautiful home. The Brig's job is secure, and although I don't want to, I have a good job to go back to from my maternity leave. We have a warm and cosy home, a beautiful Christmas tree surrounded by shiny parcels, and food for our table tomorrow. Perhaps most importantly, we have amazing family and friends – my Dad trekked through the snow today to make sure he saw us before Christmas and my Mum and brother will do likewise tomorrow. We will have some friends calling to say hello, and we will welcome some people to our home who are far from their own families. For all they drive me mad, The Brig's family would give anything for us to be sharing this lovely time with them. Instead we will get to have another warm, loving family gathering for New Year's Eve.

So, I hope Christmas brings you peace and the New Year, joy.

I've been a bad Wifely

In so many ways, but I'll start by acknowledging my lack of presence for the last 6 weeks. I'm going to claim sleep deprivation and the fact that we still don't have a reliable internet connection... The Brig is failing miserably in his primary duty of IT support on this one.

So, I hope everyone is having a lovely run up to Christmas. I'm starting to get a little panicked so now I have a giant turkey (for 6 people), half a gallon of diet coke, presents for people who may or may not drop by, and half of firebox.com for The Brig. He's impossible to buy for, so I'm stockpiling for his birthday too. I have been very good though and bought and written Christmas cards. They have stamps on them and they will be going in the post box tomorrow...definitely. I'm determined that I won't end up with yet another pile of written cards that never get sent.

Actually, all this card writing is bringing back memories of sending wedding invitations this time last year. I was frantically sticking card and ribbon to more card and ribbon while The Brig compiled spreadsheet after spreadsheet of guest lists, their addresses and table configurations based on varying response rates. Thank God all that is over...I keep threatening The Brig that if he isn't nice to me I'm going to make him renew our vows next year. That keeps him in line.. :-)

Right brain-y-ness

I love to think of myself as a creative person. My current facination is making a meditation stool. I have managed to break my sewing maching, twice, turning a pair of jeans into a skirt. I buy clothes purely so I can move buttons, add ribbons and change their shape and colour. I invest in lovely pieces of fabric and have a collection of buttons that any rag doll would covet. I take notions about colours and painting - rooms, furniture and things that stay still long enough. I have become very enthusiastic about baking, and the weekend was an elasticated waistband of butter, sugar and eggs. I have an idea that I'd like to make curtins for Beautiful Girl's bedroom, but I was on the losing side of an argument with buckram not long enough ago. I love photography and did manage to take one spectacular picture, but in all honesty, it was an accident (I was trying to figure out the settings and I got it wrong). Hell, I started this blog as a way of encouraging the untapped writer buried in my soul. Some days I think I should have left her there, company for the skinny girl who has accepted her fate.

Along with the bed linen addiction, I get Mary-make-and-do tendencies from my mother. She knits and sews, paints silk and made nearly all of the clothes I wore until I was about 5. I don't know much about things biological, but I presume it's a recessive gene that expresses itself indiscriminatingly because none of my siblings seem to be afflicted as I am. They are all actually creative. My brother can make almost anything you can imagine and fix the things others didn't realise were broken. My sister is brilliant with child's play and carves pumpkins, makes collages and decorates Easter eggs with panache. The youngest of the clan is an artist with a Byron-esque sensibility in his soul. He also makes films.

So I'm the sensible one, the one who knows how to organise things, where to get things, aranges someone to be there to let the plumber in and, most importantly, knows how to make the gravy for the dinner that she's remembered to put in on time so that we'll eat this evening. I guess that's why I'll be cooking Christmas dinner this year in a freshly painted kitchen and served alongside a home made table centre and Christmas crackers. But at least it'll be on time.

And while I'm doing that, I'll be thinking about how I can make a new angel for the top of the tree, and what I'll need to make a better Advent wreath, and wouldn't that wall actually look better lilac...

Isn't it nice that we all have our place in the circle of family...

Hidey...Boo!

Beautiful Girl is having a week of firsts. This week, she has taken her bottle and decided she likes her bath. She has also sat up by herself and tonight has started playing hidey...boo! Right now she's sitting on the couch with The Brig, and she keeps burying her head in a cushion and popping up to us again. She's loving it, giggling like a loon and her face almost split with the smile. She is such a happy little girl, and so much fun...even though I hate that she's growing up so quickly, it's a wonderful to be part of it.

But then it makes it up to me

by showing me sites like this... http://www.fictionpress.com/s/1867565/1/Not_Your_Average_Dictionary_Homelife_Edition

Brilliant!

The internet hates me...

I love online shopping. The ability to filter the options so I only see black sleeveless tops, or purple wedge sandals, or children's toys suitable for 12-18months, or table sauces and condiments, is wonderful. The ease of picking an item, adding it to a basket and having a nice man bring it to my door, fills me with the joy of all that is wonderful about the internet. I do all my grocery shopping online these days, and I plan to get most of my Christmas shopping done this way too.

Well, I will if the internet stops hating me. I don't know what I did to make it take agin' me, but it has and it's been going on a while. The first major incident was with a very well known electronics supplier who told me they couldn't deliver my order because the delivery address didn't exist. In my surprise I nearly fell off my chair and through the non-existant second floor of the non-existant building. Thankfully I caught hold of my desk in time to save myself from falling into nothingness. The second time, I had disagreement with another well known company over their failed delivery of a very expensive camera. By the end of that week I had two, one for each eye. You would not believe how hard it was for me to give one of them back. Even people buying me presents online have had difficulty (so I know it's personal). The Brig once tried to buy me a lovely Kenwood Chef and instead was sent a body fat analyser...they obviously knew I'd be using the Kenwood for baking some day!

So my most recent difficulty is with a very large payment processor. They have frozen my credit card and won't allow me to use it until I send them details of what I had for breakfast two weeks ago last Thursday, and my grandmother's, grandmother's, aunt's maiden name.

If I didn't know better, I'd think The Brig had had a word to stop me spending the last of my maternity leave pay...

No hope of my clothes ever fitting again

I am in awe of those who can bake. My sister and mother in law are very good and my sister in law is a baking demi-goddess (the kind of good that goes on courses about how to make cake decorations) so I have been feeling the pressure to perform. My problem is that I am not sufficiently precise to bake. I understand why it is necessary to make sure the ingredients are exact, but I can't really be bothered to measure everything perfectly. I prefer things like casseroles and stews where I bung in whatever I find in the cupboard and it doesn't really matter.

But given the new husband, baby and house, and enough counter space to put my lovely stainless steel bowl'd Kenwood Chef, I am being a good little Wifely and learning how to use the crazy oven. The thermostat is all over the shop, so I have to guess by how much to reduce the temperature. Initial efforts suffered a minor flaw, being as they were, inedible. I made a lemon drizzle cake for Beautiful Girl's christening which had a chargrilled exterior with a moist, lemony interior. However, a few pounds of butter and flour later, I managed to produce a cake which was quite tasty even if it needed a butter icing face lift. Thank God for strawberries; they cover a multitude!

Anyway, today is the jewel in the crown of my baking career. With thanks to Rachel Allen I made a very creditable orange madeira cake (http://www.rachelallen.co.uk/recipes_april09.html#r4), and even more tasty, vanilla melting moments - nom, nom, nom! (I can't find the recipe on any of her sites, so it's below if you want it.) Anyway, if you fancy a change from the vanilla scented glory of the butter icing, they are also yum with the lemon butter icing left over from the christening cake or nutella, and I'm thinking about trying a bit of raspberry jam with the vanilla butter icing. I can see a cholesterol test in my near future...


Rachel Allen's Vanilla Melting Moments

Biscuits:
175g self raising flour
125g cornflour
50g icing sugar
225g butter, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Vanilla Butter Cream:
50g butter, softened
125g icing sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 160 C/ (325 F) Gas mark 3. Place the flour, cornflour and icing sugar in a food processor and whizz briefly to mix. Add the butter and vanilla and whizz until it comes together (a minute or two, I do it slowly). Roll into 40 small balls the size of a large marble. Place trays on (no need to grease or line) and flatten down a bit with a fork. Bake for 10-15 minutes until still very pale in colour but, slightly firm. Remove carefully and cool on a wire rack.

Keep the same bowl in the processor and whizz the ingredients for the butter cream until they come together. Sandwich the biscuits with the butter cream. Makes 20.

Where's the explorer gone?

My internet explorer icon has gone missing. I'm not sure how I go about reporting it. Do I have to wait til I'm sure it's gone at least 24hours? I can't say when it vanished, as I tend to use firefox. I save explorer for when I want to look up something embarrassing (like wedding stuff I'm still interested in, coming on to a year later...I know, I know, a very shameful habit) or shopping for things I don't want The Brig to know I'm looking at (like more shoes, or more shoes, or sometimes even presents for him). Then, y'see, I can delete the browsing history and he's none the wiser, where if I delete the history in firefox, all the saved usernames are gone and I have to try to remember what I called myself for the online grocery shopping, or the newspaper, or my email... My tech support (ahem, The Brig) has had stern words with me in the past about not changing up my usernames and passwords between sites or at regular intervals, so thank God for auto-filling boxes.

But now I'm in a quandry...if I ask him to find the explorer he's going to want to know why, and I really, really, really want to google Uggs!

Erm...

Every time I makr reference to The General, a little bell tinkles in a far off part of my bain. I thought it was some sort of neural short circuiting, but I've just realised that I've given my lovely husband the same nickname as a notorious criminal... oops! Might have to change that one... Let's go for Brigadier-General, The Brig for short.

Mammy Rites of Passage

Well, as of today, I think I have completed all of the Mammy Rites of Passage. In Beautiful Girl's four months she has
1. pee-d on me
2. poo-ed on me
3. farted on me
4. got sick on me
5. kicked me in the boob
6. punched me in the boob
7. suddenly pulled off a breastfeed in public
8. and in front of my Dad
9. and in front of The General's Dad
10. burped in my face

and today, she got sick into my mouth.

These are the bits of being a Mammy no-one tells you about, and for good reason.

His name is The General, and...

He's a World War Two addict.

Yes, the tv is back, and with it The History Channel. The nice man from telly land came yesterday and drilled a hole in my wall, put in some wires, gave me a remote control and asked me to hoover up the dust. I can sleep easy now the plasma tv is fulfilling its purpose with a HD connection (I might need new glasses, it doesn't look all that different to me) and we can really believe we are reliving Pearl Harbour. Phew.

Four channel land

There I thought four channel land was a mythical place, far away in time and space, maybe somewhere east of Narnia. But nope, it's here in County Dublin. We finally had the nice telly box man around after waiting “7-10 working days”. Apparently our cables are too old for HD tv, and since that's the only acceptable option, we have to wait for another nice man to come and string wires all over the place...here's hoping it's soon, we're running out of dvds...

The wonder of wiring

We love our new house. We're slowly managing to unpack boxes and find new homes for more stuff than I ever thought two people could possibly own. Mind you, the small one we've brought along for the ride probably has as much to herself as The General and I have collectively.

So, our house was previously owned by a man keen on DIY. There are some lovely shelves and a light or two in places I wouldn't have thought of, but all in all we thought, happy days. That was until we wondered where the telly in the kitchen was plugged in. And where the pull cord for turning on the electric shower in the ensuite was... hmmm...

So far we have found the following, lets call them unlikely, connection points:
kitchen tv is plugged in in a cupboard over the fridge;
pull cord for the ensuite shower is in the main bathroom, we have still to find the switch for the electric shower in the main bathroom;
the gas meter is hidden in a wardrobe (?) in the converted garage;
the lights under the kitchen cabinets are turned on by the “oven on” switch, which I suppose means I'll never have to cook in the dark;
there's a second switch that has to be turned on to make the oven work;
there are six light switches in the hall beside the front door, and I have no idea what 3 of them are for;
I managed to turn on a light in the hall on the day we moved in, but haven't been able to find the switch again since.

I have no doubt our lovely house will continue to unfold her delights in the next few weeks!

House, glorious house

Well, we're in! We finally got our keys on Friday morning, just before the movers arrived at the front door with boxes galore. We were away for the weekend, but we got back in time to order a few sticks of furniture that I've had my eye on for ages. We've also had time to make a dent in some of the unpacking and thankfully found some of my wine glasses...phew. I took a walk up the road earlier to the lovely little wine shop, and I think I made a new friend behind the counter as we discussed the relative merits of dry reisling from the south or sauvignon blanc from the north of New Zealand. My new frugal self may be challenged by a wine shop loyalty card! Anyway, the Mammies are coming tomorrow to help me scrub, and the Dads to put up shelves. Mid-box, I discovered a lovely Jamie Oliver pot which we got as a wedding present, so dinner, which I promised them in payment, will be something from that.

Our internet connection is still a while away, but the usb thing is holding up, so I'm not completely out of touch with the world. I never forsaw the day though, when The General was sticking a wire coathanger in the back of a 12inch portable telly - not quite the 50inch, HD, flat-screen he was promised!

More tales of packing box finds to come...

Moving day?

So, we had the movers all set to go this morning, but after a phone call early yesterday morning, we had to postpone. Apparently there's something about the mortgage funds clearing between banks. Anyway, hopefully that will be sorted today, we'll get the keys this evening and we can start hauling boxes tomorrow instead.

And I'll be one step closer to being back in the land of the internet connection!

Ear worms

I almost constantly have snippets of songs in my head, this morning's being Paula Abdul and a cartoon cat singing "One step forward (two steps back)". I found out yesteday that these eternal and infernal repetitions are called ear worms. Great name.

The apartment has vomited

And it is everywhere. The place looks like it has been visited by a three year old, hopped up on every E number he can find. There's a definite air of getting worse before it gets better, although now The General has begun to help with the packing. His MO for this operation is to take whatever he can see and put it in a box. I'm hanging on for dear life to 2 cups, 2 plates and 2 bowls, and enough cutlery to allow us to eat dinner. I discovered earlier this evening when I turned off the baby monitor that he has put the charging station somewhere in a now sealed box. I hope for the next few weeks Beautiful Girl doesn't need anything when we think she's sleeping.

We have some form of glassware in most of the boxes. I have a peculiar penchant for beautiful wine glasses (and the ambrosia to fill them) and I like to have a matching set...or, I think we counted, 7. And then we have the vases, bought in the vain hope that if I had them he would fill them. (Hmmm, that's a whole nother post.) And the crystal we got as engagement and wedding presents. All of this glass is very carefully wrapped and protected in the dozens of towels we own (a genetic predisposition from my mother's side) and our somewhat less bountiful but equally excessive Egyptian cotton bed linen (that'll be the genes again).

We have a tower of boxes in the sitting room and another in the bathroom. I fear a particularly full bladder in case there's an undiscovered fault line and I am buried under an avalanche of shoes. And we haven't even started on the wardrobes. I'm trying not to think about all the boxes I have in storage from when I sold my house and moved in with The General 3 years ago. If I haven't thought about it and can't remember what is in a box I packed that long ago, do I either need or want it? I'm terrible at these decisions...thank God the new house has an attic.

I have promised myself that the next time I move will be to the nursing home, and Beautiful Girl can deal with the tape gun.

Service interruptus continues...

We are still in the apartment without the joy of tv or internet; thank God I have a mobile so don't miss the phone too much. We have been promised the keys of our new house before the end of the week, although The General has just dropped the bombshell that it may take a while for the connection to our media supplier to be up and running. I will try not to be too sad, and will post again when I can!

Get me to the church on time

Well, the church or anywhere else for that matter. Since I had Beautiful Girl, it is impossible for me to be anywhere on time. I used to be chronically early and being on time was almost as bad as being late. Not for anyone else, mind you, I was always the one waiting for them. It was a character flaw instilled by my father who is never late. I was even on time for my wedding. Yes, about a third of our guests (the ones who don't know me so well) arrived after I did. The car pulled up in front of the church at bang on 2pm, and I was walking up the aisle at 2.02pm. The General wasn't surprised.

So, now that I have Beautiful Girl to manage too, I find it impossible to be on time any more. She always needs a feed, a nappy change or a costume change just as we're walking out the door. Last night she decided to mix things up a bit, and I got the costume change, right after she projectile vomitted all over the only nice outfit I can fit into. So the General and I went out for dinner (our first proper date since she was born) and I was in a, thankfully new, cardi and jeans.

I find Sunday mornings the hardest. I go to church most Sundays. The congregation I attend is pretty small so the number of services per week is limited to one – 11am Sunday morning. It's a pretty reasonable time and day for religious worship, but because it's the only option, it's important for me to try to leave the house on time. Since three months ago, it doesn't happen. Beautiful Girl always manages to wake up just as I'm about to leave and wants to be fed, watered and changed. It doesn't matter what time she goes to be the night before, or how many times she wakes during the night, on Sunday mornings, she wakes at 10.30, just as I need to walk out the door. We then have a lovely 20 minutes of smiles and giggles while we're changing her nappy and getting her into her Sunday best. She always seems to want a chat while she's feeding too, which makes a usually quick and easy process entertaining but drawn out.

I may have to get over my fear of waking a sleeping baby one of these days. Either that or go back to being a Catholic and a choice of services over two whole days...

Exercise hurts

I just needed to remind myself.

Why brain, why?

I have my best ideas in bed, when I'm just about to fall asleep, and I can never remember them in the morning. It is most irritating.

Going grey-cefully?

I've been hearing and reading people discussing this recently, and I have to say, I'm tempted. I've dark brown hair, and in the last 4 years it has gone very grey. I've been highlighting or colouring it for about the better part of 10 years now, since my early 20s, so if I keep this up, I'll be dying my hair for the better part of about 50 years (please God). Since I'm not very good at doing what the hairdresser (or packet) tells me, I dye it about 4 times a year, which is 200 hair dyes, and even if it's only a home job, I think the last one I used was about €15, and a whole lot more in a salon so it adds up pretty quickly. Then there are so many stories I hear about chemicals in other parts of my life that are less of a choice, food, water, etc, that I wonder do I need to expose myself to this too?

And then I think of how my roots already glow in the dark in certain lights (the lift in our apartment for one!) that I wonder am I actually brave enough, and will I look like a 70 year old with a 3month old baby?!?

Multi function baby

I might be a bad Mammy...Beautiful Girl loves playing airplane, and I love doing it for her, because it's great for my bingo wings!

Things I didn't know about having a baby until I had a baby

I saw a post on a Mum and Kids forum about this recently, and it got me thinking about the things I never thought about before Beautiful Girl came along.  I know these aren't all of them, so I'll probably update this when the brain farts allow.

• you can get stretch marks because of giving birth, even if you had none beforehand
• you can still love your child absolutely, even if that fierce rush everyone talks about only kicks in a while later
• some midwives should not be as downright mean as they are
• it takes months for your, um, digestive system to get back to normal
• there should be an advanced course in how to pick the right kind of nappies
• a baby can still be cranky after a 4 hour snooze, a big feed and a clean nappy
• if you don't have a pre-pregnancy “figure” no-one will know how long it takes you to get it back
• having your waters broken by a friend of a friend is a bit too close for comfort
• if you hate housework, and in particular washing up, breastfeeding is great
• it can be acceptable to talk about poo to another adult
• doctors, midwives, public health nurses and your own mother do not always have the right answers
• sitting under a small child for hours on end is a great excuse to get through box sets of tv shows
• perfect strangers are really nice to you when you have a baby out in public
• it sucks more than I could ever have know when I realised I really will have to send Beautiful Girl to someone else every day so I can go back to work and we can afford to eat as well as pay the mortgage...

Mind the gap

We have been in the process of moving house for nearly a month now, and had things gone to plan, we would be happily ensconced in our new home by now.  But because these things are never as easy as they shoud be, we are still in our old place, but without the joy of tv, phone or internet connections.  So now I can only blog when I can kidnap The General's internet usb thingy.  I have been saving up my posts for the last few days, so here they are...

Saturday shopping vs online shopping...

When Beautiful Girl came along, I made The General do the grocery shopping, so his solution was to make best use of the world wide wonder and do our grocery shopping online.  It is amazing.  For €4, I can have someone else push a trolly, fill crates and have a nice man bring it to my door.  I don't have to deal with wonky trollies, other people stopping suddenly in the middle of an aisle or label feed errors on weighing machines. 

So, what was different about this afternoon?  Well, since the General is off doing General-ly inspiring things today, and Beautiful Girl is sick of the sight of me, needs must, and off we went to Dunnes for a wander and some spuds. Won't I ever learn?  I really hate shopping centres on Saturday afternoons, particularly when they are miserable, grey, liable to bucket down on you without a moment's notice, Saturday afternoons.  *Sigh*.  

The centre we went to is the nearest one with an underground car park (essential given the aforementioned weather) but it's pretty old, so there are no baby accoutrement friendly spaces that I could find.  I ended up getting lucky and finding a space beside a pillar so we had an extra bit of space on that side, and no one had yet parked on the other.  Small mercies.  After unloading the wheels and manhandling the car seat out of the back and onto the wheels (a major victory in itself), off we went. 

Those flat escalators are not the wonder I alway thought they were.  Beautiful Girl tried to run me over more than once when I didn't have my full weight pushing her against the forces of gravity and wheels on a slope.  In addition to dealing with a runaway buggy, some aul fella decided to tell me I was completely wrong to have a mini mobile in front of her to play with - apparently it was getting in her way!  I wouldn't mind, but I had only put the bloody thing on the seat this afternoon to try to distract her in the car.  So, helpful advice ignored, off I went in search of a basket, which were all for some reason at the far end of the store.  I eventually found one with two functioning handles and traipsed off to find the potatoes.  Thankfully I didn't have much to get because the arm was about to fall off me by the time I headed towards the checkout.  A word of warning - if you ever see me in a shop, check which till I headed for, then go the one beside it.  You can be sure that if I've only one person ahead of me buying only bread and milk, and there's a queue of 14 people with two trollies each, they will be finished before I will.  The people in front of me always seem to pick up the only item in the store's history that doesn't have a working bar code and the price has to be made up by a committee of EU Commissioners.  Seriously.  But, at least I could put the arm-breaking basket on the conveyor belt, and Beautiful Girl seemed to forgive me for my horrible behaviour in putting her new toy on her seat, so we made faces at each other to pass the time. 

When the world of the bar code and the till-operating-key-keeper was finally reset spinning on its axis, my 4 items sailed through the zapper and we were away again.  I briefly attempted to have a look in a clothes shop, but the rails were so close together that even people without a buggy were finding it hard going so I abandoned my quest for clothes that don't have vomit on them.  Again with the travelator but this time I was stopping the princess chariot running over perfect strangers as we gave gravity a hand by travelling in the same direction as she was going.  People were very clever and gave my car a nice wide berth in the car park, so I was able to get her ladyship and all her trappings back in with relative ease, and I escaped the subterranian assault course without nobbling any pedestrians.

And as my parking ticket was spat out at me for the third time and I pressed the help button and listened to the disembodied monotone, I was very happy to remind myself that I will be doing my full shop tomorrow from the safety of my couch and a nice man will come to my door on Monday afternoon with a smile and enough food for the week. 

Now the kettle's on and thank God one of my four items was a sticky bun...

So I've been thinking...

These are the words that scare The General.  The topic of the thinking is usually less worrisome, but the fact that I've been doing it always throws him for a loop!  So some of the most recent thinking has been

• I don't want to go back to work
• I think Beautiful Girl should go to a childminder rather than a creche
• I need (is that the same as want?) a new car
• we should do more "family time" activities
• I need to find some sort of pen that's also a torch so I can write down my blog ideas in the middle of the night without having to turn on my phone light or scribble in the pitch black on God knows what, possibly a bib or something...
• I might try a mad colour to dye my hair

Maybe it's no wonder he worries...

How to smell like a chipper

I have discovered the wonder that is vinegar.  It's like magic...from what I can make out, it does everything your common or garden bleach does, but it's eco-friendly.  I'm using it for removing the stains from Beautiful Girl's vests after exploding nappies, and for wiping down her changing table.   Sure the place smells like you're having your favourite 1 and 1 for dinner, but if it saves harsh chemicals on everything BG touches, I'm willing to put up with 10 minutes of pong.  I'm going to start branching out and using it mixed with things like bread soda for cleaning.  There are some great ideas on http://www.vinegartips.com/Scripts/

Breastfeeding in Ireland

I'm a breastfeeding Mum and loving it.  Thankfully it's going well, so I feel confident when I'm out and about with BG to feed her in public.  For those who may not be so comfortable and fear the reactions of idiots, thecontentedlittlemummy has a great post (which I forgot to put up here the other day).
http://thecontentedlittlemummy.com/?p=56

I love lists

Right now I am sitting at my kitchen table and if my post ends abruptly, send help because I'm buried under an avalanche of paper.  I love lists.  They mean I get things done.  They mean I can sleep at night. They give me a sense that I can keep on top of things.  The General doesn't understand lists.  He just does things.  He throws out my lists (along with my receipts, but that's another post). 

Right now I can see lists in front of me for:

• online shopping 
• corner shop shopping
• house moving
• house packing
• baby shopping (that's things Beautiful Girl needs, we're not looking for a second child just yet)
• pros and cons for going back to work
• pros and cons of setting up my own business
• things I need to set up my own business
• thoughts which might make interesting posts

And these are just the ones on paper.  On my laptop desk top I have more lists

• "inspiration" for my business idea
• books I want to down load for my Kindle
• tv shows I want on box sets
• questions to ask on the mum and kids forum I read
• questions to ask my mum about BG
• dates I have to remember

And then there's the ultimate list, the one that will come into its own I'm Benevolent Despot of the World.  Unless you're on that one, you'll never need to worry about it.  It's reserved for people who don't know how to drive or park and who show willful disregard for the English language, the use of prepositions and apostrophies. 

Bedtime

When I lived alone, I could very happily sleep all night on exactly one half of my double bed, and not so much as ruffle the sheets on the other side.  The General can somehow unmake an entire bed, all by himself, in the half hour between him going to bed and me trying to get in beside him.  Frustrating. 

Never wake a sleeping baby

Unless she's mysteriously snoozey at 10pm and her usual bedtime of midnight means neither you nor she will wake for about 10  hours.  She may well be proof that early to bed means early to rise, although that sort of behaviour will be explained only by a rogue gene mutation.

Well, at least being up at 4am gave me the impetus to finally start a blog - the General has long suggested he feels selfish being the primary recipient of my ravings, and I think he fears Beautiful Girl will be similarly afflicted.  It is lkely to be far worse for her as she is a while away from crawling, let alone politely backing away with a nervous smile.  I'm not sure how good I'm going to be at this blogging thing, but for the next few months (I'm probably being optimistic, make that years) it's likely to be one handed, so please bear that in mind when you're judging me.

Messers Fisher and Price

Well, I presume they are gents, since I know FP has been around a long time and we ladyfolk generally aren't given too much credit in the naming departments.  Anyway, I'm having some mixed emotions about these fellows this morning.  My initial delight at their lovely baby chair/rocker thing which Beautiful Girl just adores and had lulled her into a good drowsy state has been tempered by the scary monster noises that are emitted from their homepage.  Said noises caused an impressive screeching session from a very placid and sleepy baby.  Luckily she takes after her Dad and nodded off again rather rapidly.  Phew, another trauma averted by the magic shoulder.