Mum-e Blog

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from the wonderful Perfectly Happy Mum about a recycling pledge.
The idea is that I have to promise to do some recycling – and set myself up with a threat if I don’t stick to the pledge.
This actually came at a good time as I am in some trouble with Not So Alpha Male for continually ‘forgetting’ to recycle food and flowers. This is partly because it’s just too much of a pain and I am lazy really busy, and partly because last week I found maggots in the kitchen food caddy and they are my real room 101 fear. I HATE THEM. Ugh, all squirmy and weird just thinking about them.
But I know I really must do it properly or a) Not So Alpha Male gets cross b) our local council will fine us (the real reason NSAM gets cross, nothing to do with his green credentials) and c) I want to help save the planet.
So…I have pledged to recycle my kitchen and garden waste OR NSAM is allowed to ban me from drinking wine for a week. This would hurt. A lot. Particularly as the new puppy arrives Friday and I have a feeling I will be needing much wine next week.
Now, I have to nominate five other bloggers to join the recycling pledge, and here are my chosen ones. Apologies if you have done this already.
And here’s what you have to do:

1. Visit http://www.recyclenow.com/ and sign up to one of the pledges to waste less.
2. Share the details of your pledge on your own blog.
3. Chose five other bloggers, who will also be up for a bit of recycling fun.
4. Come back to this post at The Rubbish Diet and share your pledge with others, by placing a link to your pledge in the comments field.

Sorry it’s a bit late. It was meant to be for recycling week at the end of June. But hey, recycling’s for life, not just for…er…a week. Or is that the pup?

1. Flower Fairies and Fairy Cakes
2. Frog In the Field
3. Polka Dot Mummy
4. Dulwich Divorcee
5. Mummy Whisperer

I’m feeling a bit more positive this week due to several lovely things happening. Firstly, we have ordered our puppy and are collecting him next Friday from his breeder in Cardiff. Be prepared for lots of photos.
Secondly, I have a great new techtoy. It’s called netvibes. Does everyone use it and am I the last person in the world to get into it? It is FANTASTIC! It means I can totally keep track of the RSS feeds from all my favourite blogs and add comments really easily, as well as see Twitter alerts, Facebook, organise loads of other websites etc that I like. Wow wow wow. If you haven’t used it, you must. It’s free, and you can find it at www.netvibes.com
Finally, and most cheering of all, the totally adorable anxiousmum gave me my first award this week! Here it is…

Now, being fairly new to this blogging lark, I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, so I Googled it, and although I am not sure where it originated, it turns out I am being praised for writing honest stuff about myself on my blog and now have two tasks. One is to list 10 honest things about myself and the next is to present the award to seven other bloggers.
So here goes with 10 honest things about me:

1. I am obsessed with baking and have been known to make muffins at 4am before going in to work on London Lite (the freebie newspaper, which I helped launch) with a tin of warm ones for the staff. My favourite so far are raspberry and white chocolate. (I’ll share the recipe with you some time.)
2. I once wet myself when I was concentrating really hard in a violin lesson at school, aged seven, and now am worried that if I concentrate too hard on anything, it will happen again. This was such an issue at university that before my finals I had to have ‘exam training’ to learn how to concentrate properly without fear.
3. I hate using the phone. I live in fear that I am going to phone, say, a cousin, who will respond to my greeting by saying ‘Anne who?’ This means I am really bad at calling people to congratulate them or thank them. I’d always rather write to them.
4. I love rubbish TV. America’s Next Top Model is the best, closely followed by Come Dine With Me.
5. I also love modern fiction. Good stuff – most definitely not rubbish. Preferably by women writers. Favourites include Scarlett Thomas and Sarah Waters. I never go on holiday without something written by Paulo Coelho.
6. When I am feeling low I eat pilchards on toast, read Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers books and suck my thumb.
7. I hate lateness. I try to arrive everywhere half an hour before the alloted time or I start to panic.
8. I use Mitchum deodorant. I don’t exactly have ‘problem perspiration’ but let’s just say I am really jealous of people who can wear silk blouses during a heat wave…
9. I have twin brothers who I love to bits – as well as their wives and kids – and get quite upset when they do stuff together without me.
10. My husband says my chicken soup is better than his mother’s.

Now here are seven other bloggers to whom I award the Honest Scrap Award:

1. Violet Posy
2. Perfectlyhappymum
3. Part Mummy Part Me
4. dulwichdivorcee
5. and1moremeans4
6. amodernmother
7. pottydiaries

Back from blissful hols to chaos of work, mountain of washing and school-related stuff. Oh, and to the jeers of other mums who had heard about my passport hell. (See previous posts).

Handsome caretaker commented on my Provencal tan when I saw him at school yesterday. I meant to respond by saying something charming and sophisticated about our holiday. Instead I kind of laughed and hiccuped at the same time which was neither charming nor sophisticated. He also seems to be getting more tanned by the minute – that’ll be because of  all that manly outdoor physical work he does. Swoon.

Have had a most bizarre day, posing for a newspaper photograph shoot in front of various supermarkets to go with a feature I am writing. Passers by did a lot of ogling while pretending not to (to be fair, it was something of an event for our village, where the most interesting thing to happen usually is the temporary lights at the roadworks failing…). I wondered whether they thought I was doing some kind of plus-sized fashion modelling. The holiday has most definitely not helped the diet. How French women stay thin is beyond me. They all seemed to be eating all the time, and were all teeny weeny.

All of which reminds me…I forgot to Sky Plus Britain’s Next Top Model! Aaarrrgggh! Now I’ll have to find another guilty pleasure for later in the week when the Not So Alpha Male is away on business.

Went to see Coraline at the weekend. Terrifying. It gave me bad dreams about having buttons sewn into my eyes all of last night. Not So Alpha Male said he thought it should be renamed ‘My First Horror Film.’ Obviously the Little Princesses were fine. Take a look here. Do you think it should have been given a PG rating?

 
Anyway, today I wish I was a student and could spend all day in bed with toast and tea and telly. It’s so miserable and grey here it feels like November.
Hopefully we’ll see some better weather next week. We’re going away for half term to an amazing place in France (booked when the pound was worth something in Europe and pre-credit crunch, obviously). I hope the weather is good so the girls can swim and run around in shorts but I BET it pours down. Ho hum. Anyway, we should get a rest whatever the weather, the place is so fab – I can’t recommend it highly enough to people with kids. It’s called Country Kids, have a look here: http://www.country-kids.fr/site2008/accueil/indexframes.htm .

Yes, it’s expensive but it’s gorgeous, run by amazing people who used to live in London, there’s a little farm, a beautiful pool, proper childcare included, loads of off-site activities like sailing and horse riding which are included too, babysitting thrown in AND they clean the gites every day so you can do NOTHING while you are there. I read two novels in a week when we went last year, the first books I’d ever read on holiday since having kids.

Handsome caretaker was looking most bedraggled today, unshaven and swarthy in black jeans and a black shirt, like he hadn’t gone home at all last night. Actually found myself slightly irritated as to what he might have been up to. What is wrong with me?

Anyway, not sure if it was remotely connected, but I went for a run today for the first time in ages.It was only for half an hour, but it was enough to leave me feeling hugely smug and slender(ish) and determined to do it every day. It’s either that or start saving for lipo…

Talking of which, it’s a shame I didn’t start getting fit a few months ago, as tonight I’m going to the Daily Mail’s Inspirational Women of the Year Awards Gala Dinner. I write for them sometimes, and have been invited, which is very exciting – though slightly terrifying. Not sure I have anything appropriate to wear and all the Daily Mail staff are super gorgeous and trendy (the women, anyway). Apparently Helen Mirren is going to be there! There is something so upsetting about knowing there will be someone sitting nearby who is more than 20 years older than me, yet about 100 times more attractive.  Sigh… Anyway, should be fun. If I can stay awake. that is. The LPs were up at 6am AGAIN this morning…bring back winter, all is forgiven.

Must crack on, work to do, dinner to make, laundry to swear at….

Bleugh. Have hangover from hell. Too many mojitos at brilliant party last night for Not So Alpha Male’s boss’s birthday. A really fab do in top swanky venue. Thought I did a marvelous impression of being elegant and sophisticated until around midnight when Robbie’s Let Me Entertain You started blaring and I found myself jumping up and down like a total drunken idiot. Oh well…Not So Alpha Male not exactly full of affection towards me today but not sure if that because I’m in the dog house or because he’s hungover too. Feet so sore. Next time will swop high heels and cleavage-enhancing, all-in-one underwear for trainers and a sports bra….

At least I knew my hair looked ok. I went to the hairdresser in the morning, then turned up with LP no 1 at a birthday party for one of her school chums. One of the mothers  - let’s call her The Subtle One – said to me ‘Ooh, I like your hair. It’s very flattering, it makes your face look a bit thinner than usual.’ Hmmm.

Seen this viral yet? It was sent to me headed Swine Flu Update: Please avoid the following activity.