My Wishlists - in progess

My Places To Go List:  
Italy - everywhere!
Morocco - Casablanca and Marrakesh
Thailand and Malaysia
Ancient civilisation cruise including:
Turkey and Greece
Luxor in Egypt
Petra in Jordan
Cordoba in Spain

My Gravy List:
Diptyique candles
Miller Harris cologne
Kindle 3G
The highest possible thread count bed linen
Kitchenaid food processor
Chanel handbag
Louboutin shoes
Creme de la Mer
A name necklace
Turkish hammam

My Achieve List:
Write a book on parenting
Grow my own fruit and veg
Re-write my cookbook
Become a food critic

A Few of My Favourite Things:
Weddings - any kind of wedding, I love the ceremony of hope and glamour
Fresh flowers
Facials
Crisp white bed linen


Guilty Pleasures:
Listening to my Backstreet Boys, Blue or Bon Jovi CDs when no-one else is around
A sneaky cigarette
Cerelac, unmixed, straight from the tin!

Belated Blogging and the 7 Year Itch

I am currently on an extended holiday of 8 weeks. However, this has meant that I have neglected my blog. I have thought them out in my head but have not managed to get them onto the laptop. And today is the first chance I've had to sit down to transmit some of my ''brain logs'' into ''web logs''. And at the same time, I have just found some drafts blogs which I never published! So I have now published them but they are not chronological! So that's blog learning point number 1; check that the blog is published after it's written. Number 2, I need to learn to learn to remote or mobile blog from my iPhone.
My holiday blog is one that needs a blog of its own in the past tense but at the rate I'm going, that might happen in another life! But I'm determined to keep this one going, so I've made myself a blog goal of 500 words per day and include my holiday in it because there was a fair bit of kids in the kitchen so let's see what happens.
Now that I'm back to the present tense, I will make a point of announcing that today is my 7 year marriage anniversary, and my husband is all alone in England while I am in Abu Dhabi. He has already called me twice today. I laugh that I used to worry about the 7 year milestone, because of the 7 Year Itch. Apparantly the Seven Year Itch is the male urge for infidelity that began after 7 years of marriage. But then I realised that it is completely fictional and was created for the Marilyn Monroe movie of the same name so I have nothing to worry about. Besides, he is coming to join me and the children for our last 10 days of holiday, after 6 weeks apart, combined with celebrating Eid and our anniversary, our daughter's 4th birthday and our son's 2nd birthday, so the anticipation is really exciting!

Ode to Narge

I recently read a very interesting article about the different personas we adopt at work which may be totally different to how we are with our friends or family. It was a very interesting article and I could immediately see how it applied to me.
For example, as a manager of 23 staff, the first word that each one of them would describe me as is calm. Next comes patient, compassionate, diplomatic, helpful, professional and knowledgable.
Would any member of my immediate or extended family use any of these words to describe me? I don't think so!! I imagine I would get these responses; argumentative, forceful, aggressive, indecisive and stubborn. Quite different but very strongly different words are used to describe the same person. Isn't life strange, or is it me?
I started to think into this more deeply...does working make me a better mum, or indeed a better person? I know that work colleagues will only describe their manager using positive words, but I must also point out that family members use negative words. However, two opposing words can be used to describe the same characteristic....stubborn can be seen as determined or persistent, and diplomatic can be seen as being indecisive. So is this a good thing or not?
As for being a working mum I still feel pangs of guilt, yes even after 4 years, but would I have it any other way? I'm counting on the fact that working shows my children the value of money. Hopefully, they will understand that you can't get what you want just like that and they learn to appreciate their possessions more. Time will tell

Scrummy Mummy to Yummy Mummy, and back again

My parents arrived yesterday and the first thing I did was go to get my hair done. I enjoyed reading all of next month's editions of the major magazines and drinking coffee while I had my hair coloured, washed, cut and blow dried. While having my hair washed, I had a massage! And I love the result. I coloured it black all over, cut it to shoulder length and also, I did something I've never done before, I cut a short side fringe. Loving it. Next on my list, manicure, pedicure and waxing.

The relationship between grandparent and grandchild is so amazing to see. It's unique and not like any other relationship. The missing generation (parent of the grandchild and child of the grandparent) doesn't have much use. I am just a regulatory control, I do the regulatory things. Drop off and collect from school, take to toilet, change nappy, wash hands, feed breakfast, change clothes, put to bed, dress, undress, brush teeth, comb hair, I'm the boring worker. Have so much work to do. Sorting the laundry. Making beds. A hundred errands. Post office, buy wrapping paper, sign up for pre-school.

So I prioritised my things to do to myself and got the hair done. Tick off the list. Next, the mani pedi, but never got round to it. I had to go with the husband to choose a shirt and cravat for my brother's engagement party. Hopefully I'll manage to fit them in somewhere. But it seems like so much of another errand this way, another thing to tick off the list of things to do...and yet this is supposed to be ''my time'', something which is just for me to give me pleasure. Instead it's like another ''To do'' item!
It's not fair!