Holiday: Vias Plage 2013

Vias Plage 2013, a set on Flickr.

Its been a while since we ventured beyond our shores.

Costs, moving, an endless stream of babies, bad memories of food poisoning in Lanzarote, all put a stop to travel.

This year however we finally manged to catch some much needed rays and indulge in some foreign culture.

Ok, it was only France, its not that foreign, especially to a bilingual ex-pat such as myself, but it was sunny, hot ad there was no internet access to distract or stress.

Sandcastles were build, children were buried, sea was frolicked in, pools were splashed in, faces were painted, shoulders were burnt, mega mosquitoes ate us (still itchy 3 weeks later: one bit me through my cardigan!!!)

All grown up

Sob, sob!
Woe is me, my baby is moving into a bed tonight.
Packed away is the cot, the changing table and all the other trappings of babydom.
In its place is a bed, complete with grown up pillow and duvet.

It's saddening to think that, technically, those things will remain in the loft now, hidden away, never to be reassembled for one of my babies!

I probably won't find it sad later, when Logan point blankly refuses to stay in bed tonight, or is up at stupid o'clock tomorrow morning. Then I will be cursing her, and all children... Ever! :(

Testing, testing... 1.2.3...

Anyone there?
It's all been quiet on the western front for a long time now. (Or should that be eastern front seeing as I'm in East Anglia?)

Life crept up on me, deluded me into believing I could handle 4 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats, a laundry monster, a million dust bunnies, a significant other (we all know how much work men need
!!), a business, a social life, and all those billion and one other things that they don't warn you about when you become an adult/parent.

Hence why I haven't posted in sooooooo long.

However, the same spirit that prompted me to start this blog has drawn me back to it.
I'm hoping that in will help me put things back into perspective, help me re-organise my life and let me carve out a little creative time in my life.

I'm not promising I'm going to blog with regularity, jeez I'm not even going to promise there will be a follow up post to this one!

But i do miss the thrill of comments and the joy of meeting new people with similar passions but in far flung places.

Sadly, reading blogs began to have a bad effect on me, made me feel inadequate and a bit of a failure compared to some of these amazing bloggers who bounce out of bed at dawn, with clear complexions and perfect hair, have a squillion children, adore them all, sew all their own clothes,with perfect straight stitches, in an "just" an hour, in their picket fenced house with shiny floors and fingerprint free windows, feed them homegrown, organic, made from scratch, beautifully photographed delights, whilst homeschooling and still finding the time to blog, write a book, run a successful international company, have exciting "date nights", and exotic holidays.

These people don't loathe their alarm clocks, spend the day in pyjamas, existing solely on coffee and slob out in front of the tv!

I understand that it is all meant to be aspirational, but I wasn't necessarily in the right frame of mind to not let my dirty floors, unfinished projects and parent/child screaming matches cloud my judgment, and I allowed them to push me under.

I have a frillion (Tabatha invented this) and one things pinned on Pinterest boards... Blogging should inspire me to do some, and show the final project off.
I have other quirky little plans floating around in my brain, that might come to fruition, they might not, but only time will tell...

Cloth Nappy Giveaway

As you all know I started a cloth nappy business a few months back and right now I am running a giveaway.

The prize is a Fuzzibunz Cloth Nappy Trial Kit worth £69.99

The Kit comes in a choice of colours; Pink, Blue or White.

To enter all you have to do is tell us which colour you would like to win.

Simple.

You can earn extra entries as well.

Just follow the instructions in the wonderful Rafflecopter box below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

About the prize:

The trial kit consists of

5 Fuzzibunz Elite one size nappies

1 Roll of flushable liners
6 Washable wipes
1 Nappy Wet Bag

Worth £69.99 click here for more details.

If you feel like sharing the love and promoting the giveaway, here's the link to get the code to embed on your own blog

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/MzM5MDljYmIzMDgyOTFkNDFkZDQwZjk2M2Y3MTM5OjA=/

Please note this giveaway is only available for delivery within the UK.

The Diamond Jubilee

The Diamond Jubilee was marked with a party on the village green.

Silly photos

Free jelly which was going to be eaten despite a lack of spoons!

All to much for some

but she joined in with some flag waving later!

At One.

Has it really been a year?

 

 

Happy Birthday gorgeous little Logan.

Big news

No I'm not pregnant again before anyone asks.

But I have given birth to a baby of sorts.

My brain has been extremely preoccupied of late.

In January I decided it was time to begin contributing to my family income again and I have no intention of juggling 4 children and a job, those mothers who do that, even with just 1 child, are amazing!

Instead I went back to an idea I had 3 years ago... an idea that a continuous stream of babies and house builds put on ice.

Yesterday the ice melted and I launched my own cloth nappy business.

www.greenpees.co.uk

Just in time too as on Wednesday, an advertisment for my new business venture will be appearing in the national magazine "Pregnancy & Birth"

It has been a hard slog.

Designing a website, finding wholesalers and the funds to purchase stock from said wholesalers.

Tying myself up in knots about how it should look, feel and not to mention having minor meltdowns about how my poor math skills are going to get in the way when the Tax man wants paying!

I still don't have any boxes or business cards but I'm working on that as I type.

 

Greenpees in also on Facebook and Twitter... please like & follow us.

(although begin a total twitter novice, I'm not promising that there will be many meaningful tweets!)

And Greenpees has its own blog where there will be some behind the scene posts coming up.

Hopefully now thats the hard part done...!!!??!!!