New Discoveries

It's Been a Bad Earnings Month but a Seriously Life Enhancing Month So Far

After leaving my Twitter account dormant for eighteen months I finally decided to take the plunge and get tweeting.  Boy, was it worth it.  It has been surprisingly easy and actually rather nice to talk to complete strangers about all sorts of nonsense.  I have a good feeling that some of those strangers are fast becoming friends.  I heard a quote the other day that Facebook is for the friends you wish you didn't know and Twitter is for the friends you wish you had.  There is some degree of truth in that. Don't worry friends - I love you all.

I've got my fashion goggles on

 I have met some wonderful inspirational Mummy Fashion bloggers.  One lady you may already know is: www.fortynotout.com If you can't get enough of her fashion fabulousity then you will be seriously excited to hear that she has just released a new venture in the form of  her own personal services as your very own stylist.   For knock down reasonable rates she will take the headache out of what to wear and will ensure you find the perfect outfit for your occasion.  Don't just take my word for it, take a look; http://www.fortynotout.com/onlinestylist/ You can even buy vouchers for a friend to try the service - what a fantastic present that would be!

I've also met  a great team of writers who are on a mission to get writing up to 2500 words a day.  http://completeflake.com/2500-words/  It's a challenge issued by the complete flake to get passed that writers block and get writing.  Come and join us! #2500wds  The curious use of hashtags  "#" is almost making sense. I am a great lover of grammar and I like a sentence to be sentence so the challenge of squeezing all that I want to say into 140 characters is against the grain but more fun than a game of Suduko to say the least.  It's fun, give it a try and come follow me if you do on www.twitter.com/abbymansell 

Other New Discoveries This Week


Anyone who has been to our house of chaos will know that I am no domestic goddess any more.  Self employment and working from home means that my constantly being here means that I am constantly making a mess. I have clothing stock piled everywhere and the contributing dust scattered by the fluffy ginger tom cat, the hairy Rhodesian ridge back dog, one large dusty tree surgeon human bean, two long haired medium sized human beans, one smaller human bean who can barely remember to brush his own teeth never mind actually clean up after himself and a small but messy baby bean come toddler means that the cleaning is very hard to keep on top of.  Because of this, I had given up trying to remove the years of limescale that had collected on the bathroom sinks.  I'd scrubbed and bleached and bought limescale remover and tried and scraped till my fingers were raw.  There was no natural remedies prepared to do the job.  So, like every lazy arty type would, I ignored it and let nature take it's course.  Until I discovered Cillit Bang.  My goodness I sound like even more of a corporate whore than usual, but seriously that stuff works.  And pretty rapidly as well.  I no longer have a thick greening layer of hard limescale growing on the sink enamel.  I smile when I go to the loo now instead of mutter and curse.  I have never bought it before, because years back, someone told me it was crap and I don't like listening to adverts because they tend to say anything to make you buy it.  They do though don't they?  I'd much rather take the words of other people and fellow bloggers, they tend to be a bit more honest than the actual advertisers.  Whoever told me it was rubbish - obviously had a clean house already.

Advert:

 Hit The Urban Outfitters Summer Sale (because a Headhuntress has to earn her crust)

Not Such A Good Discovery


The summer months are hectic for us, not just because of the school holidays but because it's major birthday time.  The baby turned one last week and the teen is going to be 14 next month!  Oof.  The baby party was fairly simple, but the teen initially asked for a beach party.  "Sure," I said being all laid back about things as usual.  We've had beach parties before.  They're a doddle.  Just take some food, drink, windbreaks and music, people can chat and go for a swim... Actually, no, on second thoughts.  "Wouldn't you rather just have the party on Southsea Common darling?"

There is no way that I want to be responsible for a bunch of rampant teenagers floating about in The Solent.  How would I explain to their parents that they were fine until they drowned in my care.  No thank you.  Not something I want to be doing.  So - phew - the teen has agreed to an Al Fresco party on Southsea Common. Which will of course be round at our house if the whether is inclement.  Back, to parties round at our house.  I served up a load of bland but healthy tasting snacks for our baby's birthday party, but the teen and I got busy baking and she produced a fine Victoria sandwich for the birthday cake, which was nicknamed "The Giant Cream Tea" as it resembled a massive scone after I had scraped the burnt bits off and smothered it in jam and clotted cream and also some lovely cupcakes which we decorated in icing and those yummy little silver cake balls just for the adults and anyone who was old enough not to go hyper on a glucose induced sugar high.

 Me being the try hard health Mafia mum that I am means that we don't often have sugary snacks and sweets in our house, so the little silvery cake balls were irresistible to us hormonal girls hankering for some sugar.  We must've eaten hundreds of them.  Yummy scrummy.  So you can imagine our dismay a few days after noshing on them at every opportunity that the teen announced that they had pork gelatine in them!  Yuk!  Hurl.  Bleurgh.   After years of being a vegetarian I had just filled myself up with a pile of collegen made from pig bones, connective tissues and intestines.  Nice.  That is the equivalent of a meat eater finding a severed finger in their dinner.   Never before have I wanted a colonic more.  Why do they need to have gelatine in them someone tell me?  It's just sugar!

Pigs bones anyone?