Helloooo silver lining!

The last time I blogged (bar yesterday), seems like sooooo far away! Here are few things that I'm walking into 2012 (Happy New Year btw - can I still say that?) with:

- a new home - yipee!

- In relation to moving, I have now completed my first month of pure,  fun SAHM-ness and I've absolutely LOVED it. The novelty is yet to wear off and I am LOVING baking, painting, home-making, chilling, painting my nails and reading magazines with my gorgeous little girl. It's as though I am falling in love with her all over again (not that I ever fell out of love with her!), but having time for and with her has just been amazing.

- As much as I love this SAHM phase, I know at some point, I will want to go back to work, at least part-time, but this time career/PhD-ing will not take over my life. It's all about balance, right?

- Similarly, I have also now done a whole month of house-wifey-ness. I'm actually quite good at it. Big respect to my girlfriends who are making the choice to SAH. If and when I do return to full-time work, I plan to do it differently...and if I can't do it the 'O' way, then I'm just not going to do it at all - simples.

- I've realised that when things work out in a way that you might not have hoped or prayed for, sometimes its part of a bigger plan and sooner or later, the silver lining reveals itself. Hello silver lining - nice to meet you!

- I love sharing my life with my extended family... it all seems to revolve around rites of passage - birthdays, births, marriages etc ... it's all quite traditional and I love it! I managed to get all my brothers and sisters in one room at the same time for no reason - the first time since our wedding - and I loved just being in their company... In particular, my little sis and I have had some really fun times lately and I'm looking forward to having more of that time with her.

- I've finally found a range of hair products that my curly locs are thriving on. Let's hear it for 'Davines - Natural Tech, whose shampoo, nourishing pak and conditioner are fab and the perfect compliment to my homemade shea and coconut concoctions that I use for styling my hair.

- I've accepted on a whole new level the fact that I always have a choice - even when I think I don't. When I do nothing, I'm making a choice to do 'nothing'. Sure, it's not the most profound realisation, but it led to me choosing to leave a situation that was just not good for my soul. Period. I allowed the situation to sap some of my energy, some of my zen and that is one area that I have actively chosen to change, and let me tell you, it feels A.M.A.Z.I.N.G! My energy is going in one direction now and I like it.

- A few years ago, I discovered Bobbi Brown's long wear eye-shadow and raved about it, here. Now I've tried MACs version. I am now a MAC-Bobbi and back to MAC convert! The MAC stuff remained perfect, uncreased and flawless from 10.30am till 4am the next morning! And let me tell you, I put the stuff through its paces! That is a £££-saving find, so had to share it! That said, Bobbi will still be my first stop for nude lipsticks - bare pink and twilight all the way!

So, all in all, I'm flying into 2012 feeling: full of love, light and ummm curves (I definitely over-indulged last year!).... so will be starting up my fitness regime again soon...

That's all for now!
x

E.C.L.E.C.T.I.C. not electric!

I haven't blogged for ages.... so much has changed since I last blogged and recently, I have had a number of times when I thought 'oooh, I could write about what just happened' or 'ooooh, I bet other like-minded people would like to know about x, y or z...'... That is just not really good enough for me at the moment, I feel like I want to share, and at the moment, I have time to do so. So for today at least, I've decided to start publishing some of my blog posts again...heck I may even start you-tubing lol

If you're still with me - thank you for sticking around!

If you're new to my blog - hello and welcome!

Be warned, there has never really been a clear direction to my blog. Some people classify themselves as a 'mommy blogger', 'homemaker blogger', 'christian blogger', 'natural hair blogger', 'music blogger', 'style blogger' etc etc, but I am none and all of those. To be honest, I kind of like the variety in my blog - it reflects who I am - it's eclectic (am I the only one thinking of Sister Act?!). I like that I don't heavily edit or plan my posts - I like that this is my little space to write whatever I want, whenever I want. Freedom of speech is amazing isn't it and I'm lucky enough to live in a part of the world where I get to use it! Sure, this means I may never have 1000s of followers, but hopefully if you've stumbled across this blog today, you see something that makes you laugh, perhaps even cry (!), something that inspires you, or perhaps that makes you realise that you're lucky to be in the shoes that you're in, maybe you'll realise that there are other people out there doing the same thing as you - day in day out... these are things that I have got out of other people's blogs, so why not try to do the same.

From a personal point of view, by posting on here again, I get to practice my writing skills... yey! What better way to discover what I most like to write about than to actually do it. I suppose I will also get an idea about what I am best at writing..so comment and rate away : )

So, for now, variety is both the spice of my life and my blog and I'm embracing that online, as well as offline. Hooray! I'll probably be blogging about all the same things as before...maybe more direction, maybe even more diverse than before- I'll just see where the cyber-wind blows me... and I'm looking forward to it.

If you show me how, then I can do it too!

When did Little Miss O get so smart?!

Seriously, we were playing with her toys and then she caught a glimpse of our Scrabble board game (this was my fave game growing up and it was mine and my Dad's 'thing').

Me: That one's for grown ups darling.
Little Miss O: But if you show me how, then I can do it too!
Me: [puzzled! How could she play scrabble if she can't read?!...or am I restricting her growth here...shouldn't I be nurturing her interests, why was I setting a barrier?!]
Me: Ok then, first of all you put all the letters in the bag, shake them and then take 7 tiles and put them on your rack.

In saying this to her I realised, I have already taught her the words 'tile' and 'rack'. I've never heard her say these before. She then mistakenly counted out 8 tiles.

Me: Ok sweetie, count them again, that's 8 tiles you have there. If you put one tile back in the bag then you'll have 7 which is the right number"
[Ummm is this her first lesson in subtraction; I hated maths at school, but she was loving 'playing scrabble' this way!]

We then turned all the tiles up the right way - you know with the point number in the bottom corner.
[Ummm, is this not an easy way to get her to recognise letters the correct way up?!]

Then we started looking for the letters of her name (which she knows) and spelling all of her names out on the scrabble board.

Little Miss O was actually loving it! She felt like she was 'playing' the game as she was putting pieces on the board. I asked her what some of the letters were...and not only did she know them but she told me some names that begin with that letter!

"that's 'T' that sounds like 'Tuh' for Thomas...that's 'curly 'C' that sound like 'Cuh' for Catherine..!"

Ummmm... seriously! When did my child get so smart?! She's 3 and a half and every day I ask what she did at nursery and she tells me 'I played'. She gives me this look as if to say 'what do you think I was doing Mummy, working?!'.. I know she like a sponge at the moment and she's taking it all in. It's just that, at the moment, it seems so very blatant lately that she is learning something in everything she does

...how dare I refuse to nurture her interest in words and reading (well 'playing' to her) by saying 'scrabble is for grown ups'! eish! I'm the first to encourage her to do things that I think she is physically capable of - it was my idea to take her ice-skating (at age tiny!), help her collect 'nature' from a lake, but when it comes to mental capabilities, I think I underestimate just how far she can go. My bad?!

Once again, Little Miss O has taught me something! There is an opportunity for her to learn in everything she does and without her even realising. Score! I suppose this is my job. I actually can't wait for the rest of the things she'll end up teaching me in the future!

If you have little one's how far do you let them do 'grown up' things?

Mrs O
x