Pilgrimage to self

My Banner!!

2009-07-17T11:48:00.000+01:00

I've lost my banner!!! Where's it gone???

Books

2009-07-15T11:22:00.000+01:00

I am in the process of reading Chimamanda Adichie’s new book called The Thing Around Your Neck which is a collection of twelve short stories.

Chimamanda is my all time favourite Nigerian author and I am a huge fan but I am coming away from each story with a faint feeling of ….annoyance. I hate loose ends – in they way I live my life and the way I do my things. I like things nicely finished and spelt out – I’m simple like that. But the first four stories of this book have an unfinished quality to them. I finished reading each one of them still thinking ‘Eh-eh and then what happened?’ I wanted more and that leaves me feeling a little annoyed… I am sure there is something I should be getting here – that style of story telling: leave your readers wanting more - but I’m afraid it’s flying straight over my head. For the first time ever, I am not rushing through this book with excitement like I did with her first two and that surprises me. All that said and done, they are still very good stories though.

On the other hand though I recently finished reading the fantastically funny and oh so enlightening book about 419ers titled I do not come to you by chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani. What a great book and I finished it in two days flat ... a feat for me considering. If you haven’t read this book I urge you to do so.

Any other new and interesting books by Nigerian authors out there?

Shame - less

2009-05-21T13:17:00.000+01:00

Is it just me or has anyone else been struck by what appears to be the growing trend of a lack of shame in society today. I never seize to be amazed by what people open their mouths to admit and not to the hearing of their friends only or their secret diaries, but on national TV no less!

I watched a programme the other day about teenage mums and I was dumbstruck as one of them looked straight into the camera and informed the UK that she had sneaked out of the house, without her parent’s permission, to have sex with a boy she barely knew. Yes, she confirmed, that was all she wanted. Sex. And she is smiling as she tells her viewers this. A few weeks later she discovered she was pregnant. When questioned as to the whereabouts of the ‘baby father’ (apparently that’s what they are known as ‘baby father’ or ‘baby mother’) she declared that she didn’t want anything to do with him. Full stop. She was 15years old. No shame.

I think the majority of people – and I am not only speaking about teenagers now – have lost all sense of shame and embarrassment. People freely admit that they have shoplifted, taken drugs, had 67 partners, defrauded people, ‘played the system’, claimed expenses for stuff bordering on the ridiculous (MP’s anyone?) and the list goes on… and it’s almost like this stuff is celebrated – you only have to read a few of the tabloids to see my point. In my day (and I don’t think I am THAT old) some of the things people come out with now would have had me diving under the covers. I mean even if we did those things you certainly didn’t announce it to all and sundry. Besides the mere spectre of my dad looming over me was enough to nip any misdemeanour I was thinking of committing in the bud.

Am I being old fashioned?

The Personal Trainer Dilemma

2009-04-22T12:45:00.001+01:00

Okay, so at almost 40 (OMG!!!!!) my body ain’t what it used to be and having had two kids to boot hasn’t helped either. So I’m thinking – what to do?

I have tried to shift the extra pounds myself with not much luck and to be honest when one jumps on the scales after a month of depriving oneself of the finer culinary things in life and finds no movement of the dial, it can be a bit demoralising. What I need now is a drastic measure in the form of a …Personal Trainer.

I was very gong ho about this idea until I saw their charges!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I tell you, I’m in the wrong line of work. To be honest in these credit crunching times I don’t have £40 an hour to pay anybody even if they promise to turn my body into a Halle Berry clone. I can think of better things to put my money towards – like the finer culinary things in life. Ha ha.

So that idea is canned – for now or until I win the Euro lottery.

Coming out of hibernation

2009-04-21T12:23:00.002+01:00

I cannot believe that it has been a year - a week to the day - since I last blogged. Not that I haven't wanted to but time has been and still is in such short supply. But I guess it's no bad thing to take a break once in a while.

I wonder if anyone out there still stops by here?

A Confession

2008-04-29T20:48:00.001+01:00

I’ve got a confession to make.

I have been having an affair with …facebook.

Yes, dear readers, alas I too have succumbed to the wily charms of this highly addictive social networking website. I never thought I would and I will tell you here and now that I was dragged into it kicking and screaming.

But boy, is that site addictive or what? I know the thrill of finding long lost friends, endlessly updating my photos and adding all sorts of quirky applications to my profile page will soon wear off but until it does I am enjoying the ride.

Sorry Blogger to cheat on you like this but not to worry you are (still) my first true love.

Letting a Little Light In

2008-03-30T20:10:00.003+01:00

Since the new year began I have been in a dark place.

My mood has swung between resentment, seething anger and self pity. Life has sometimes felt like it had it's noose around my neck and was slowly choking the breath out of me.

If I had blogged during this period it wouldn't have made very nice reading so I stayed away.

But, as most things go, moods lift and life moves on. So here I am letting a little light back in, trying to divest myself of the negative energy that has plagued me these past three months and learning to laugh again.

Hope you have had a better start to the year than I have?

A Word on Christmas Presents

2008-01-09T21:16:00.000Z

Words actually.

I got some really crap presents for Christmas this year. And surprisingly, the really crap presents came from people who have known me for years and so should have known better.

I know it’s said that it’s the thought that counts but c’mon guys, if you’re going to buy me a present at least make sure it’s useful and more importantly tailored to my taste.

My rule of thumb for buying Christmas presents – or any presents for that matter – is to ask myself this question: ‘Is this something I would like to receive myself?’ If the answer is No then I pass on it.

I am not into the cost of a present but I am very into the thought that goes into the purchasing of it and there are just some presents that you know absolutely no thought went into. And that happens mostly when:

The buying of the present was left to the last minute
They bought the cheapest item going
They just couldn’t be bothered
Or maybe they're palming off their unwanted presents on to you. Now there's a thought...

For friends (and sometimes erm, family) who buy you crap, you realise that after all the years of friendship they really don’t know you at all. In fact, all these years you’ve spent pouring your heart out to them, they haven’t even been listening!!!

And then to make things worse they put you on the spot by watching your reaction as you rip open the wrapping paper in anticipation. And when you discover the miserable contents of the parcel you have to feign excitement and pretend like it’s the best gift in the world and all the while inside you’re asking yourself ‘What the HELL IN THE WORLD IS THIS??????????????’

Oh and just one more thing, don’t use the ‘I’ll buy gifts for the kids and that should cover it’ cop out.

Noooooooooooooo. Noooooooooooooooo. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

DO NOT buy presents for my kids and think that we, the parents, have been taken care of by default. I HATE that. What am I going to do with a Barbie doll? Or a Jigsaw puzzle? Or a Disney DVD? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. I am not my kids and my kids are not me. Got that??

All I can say is: Giveaway Christmas presents coming to a charity shop near you.

Okay now that I have got that off my chest (and sounding like a total winge – sorry people but it really pissed me off) I got an absolutely FANTASTIC present from hubby.

In case you’re wondering what the picture is – it’s the key to my new car!! Yep, a first for me (getting a car as a gift) and it bowled me over.

And that more than made up for the crap presents I got.

There is justice in the world!

2008 and Being Authentic

2008-01-01T18:03:00.000Z

Happy New Year everyone.

So another brand new 365 days of the unknown lie ahead and depending on how you look at it, it’s a rather exciting prospect.

This year there will be no resolutions for me – I hate them because I find that I am never able to keep them besides who needs the pressure of resolutions. Instead, I am going have a theme for 2008 which will set the standard for everything I do. My theme for the year is

AU.THEN.TIC.I.TY
n. The quality or condition of being authentic, trustworthy and genuine

What’s your theme for the year?

Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T23:09:00.000Z

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Who am I?

2007-12-04T10:55:00.000Z

The Philosophy of Charles Schultz

2007-11-21T21:40:00.000Z

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schultz, the creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name t he last five winners of the Miss America pageant.

4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.

These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields.

But the applause dies.

Awards tarnish.

Achievements are forgotten.

Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson:

The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials...the most money...or the most awards.

They are simply the ones that care the most.

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia .."(Charles Schultz)

International Buy Nothing Day

2007-11-21T21:30:00.000Z

November 23rd (US) and November 24th (International) is Buy Nothing Day. So all you shopaholics - leave all cards and wallets at home that day! Good Luck.

Just Do It

2007-11-13T09:33:00.000Z

Slapping on my Lime and Lemon body cream from The Body Shop this morning, my thoughts turned to the late Anita Roddick founder of The Body Shop. I started to think that not only was she a successful business woman, she must have been a pretty busy one as well. At the time of her death she must have had a full diary of appointments, people to meet, places she wanted to travel to, future plans, dreams and hopes. She must have thought, subconsciously, that she had at least another 20 or so years left to live and achieve. But as we now know, she didn’t.

And that is how it is with me and I am sure many of you as well. We have all these plans and visions and hopes for the future. We have business ideas swirling around in our heads that we plan to implement ‘one day’. We procrastinate, put off, and defer our dreams snug in the false belief that we have so many more years ahead of us. The truth of the matter is: we don’t. Not one of us knows how much longer we’ll be on this earth. Sure we all hope to live to a ripe old age but this may not happen. Our number may be up at any time. And if we know this why do we put off living the lives we really deep down inside, want to live? Why do we put off taking that step that will take us to the next level – whatever it may be?

This has been an A-ha moment for me and like Nike says I’m going to Just Do It.

You should too.

For the Love of Books

2007-10-25T15:09:00.000+01:00

I really must stop buying books.

My shelves are groaning under the weight of the books they’re carrying and my conscience is groaning under the weight of the guilt it’s carrying because all these books are not being read. It’s not that I don’t want to read them, it’s just that when I take in the sheer volume of books and the range of topics that they cover I am simply overwhelmed and at loss for where to begin.

I have had a bit of a clear out – there were books sitting on my shelves that I knew come hell or high water I just would never read. But even then it doesn’t seem to have made much of a dent to what still sits there.

I rarely buy novels (non-fiction?) these days. My heart doesn’t leap wildly as it scans down the list of books recommended by leading magazines/booker prize/Oprah’s book club etc. It may do a little dance at the sight of a novel by a (but not all) Nigerian writer but that’s about it.

No, the sort of books that make my heart soar and that I splurge on – and I blush as I admit this – are self improvement/ self development books. God, I’m a sucker for them and the prettier the cover/the print/the paper the more of a sucker I am. I don’t know what it is about books of this genre that excite me so – perhaps I am secretly trying to ‘find myself’ and just don’t know it? Or want to admit it? Or perhaps I think ‘someday I’m going to need that’, the latter has often turned out to be right.

Note to self: A strategy

I think what I need to do is make a list of all the books – unread – that I own and then tackle them one after the other as opposed to my current strategy of tackling three or four of them at the same time and ending up reading about five pages before putting them down.

Getting my Groove Back

2007-10-22T14:25:00.000+01:00

The following equation just about sums up what life’s been like for the last five months:

Living in England + two small children + no support (i.e. nanny, house help, au pair, relative) + being a wife and mummy = no time left over for self

In a nutshell that’s life as it is for me at the moment and the reason I haven’t blogged in such a long time.

But never one to remain in a downward spiral for long, I have set about improving my lot.

So after almost five months of slobbing about I am finally coming round to the realization that my excuse of ‘ but I just had a baby’ isn’t going to hold water for much longer and have embarked on a programme of turning PTS from a Slummy Mummy to a Yummy Mummy.

My first stop was to get me back in shape so I signed up for not one but two! , exercise classes. On a Monday I go for Pilates and on a Wednesday I go for Yoga. Best decision I ever made. Not only does it give me three hours clear a week to myself, I feel so much better. I LOVE yoga. I could kick myself for not doing it years earlier. To be honest, I had the ~~ignorant~~ misguided idea in my head that to do Yoga you had to become a mantra chanting, incense burning, vegetable eating, tree hugging hippie type person. Don’t blame me!! Blame the stereotyping I am bombarded with on TV and in the magazines.

Yoga is relaxing, challenging and it teaches you to really focus and BREATHE. Oh, and being flexible is a plus. After just four weeks ( of both classes) I can feel the benefits already. My body feels much stronger – not in terms of muscle but in terms of strength – I feel toned and strangely enough I feel more confident as well.

Second stop in my Yummy Mummy quest is to tackle my diet. I don’t eat bad, bad but I don’t eat so great either. I love my butter and my fat and my fry, fry, fry. I love bread (brown) and cream and milky drinks. I buy fruit but don’t eat much of what I buy. Thankfully my daughter is a fruit freak so nothing goes to waste. I do like vegetables though but half the time I can’t be arsed to make a bowl of salad. It’s such a chore chopping all those vegetables up I find. And I eat way tooooooooooo much meat (ah, the Naija in me!). Hubby has embarked on an Alkaline Diet (see the PH Miracle for further info) and the weight is absolutely dropping off. It’s a bit too drastic for me (I can’t do without meat for too long) but it works so perhaps I will dip in and out of it and tailor it a bit to suit my lifestyle. I am more inclined towards the French Women Don’t Get Fat type diet so we’ll just have to see. Check in for progress reports…

Third stop is my wardrobe – I mean there must be more to life than denim and Gaps’ Favourite T. But where to start?? In being a mum and wife I seem to have lost my sense of style and adventure when it comes to clothes. I always stick with safe choices – blacks, browns, creams and beige. BORING!! So budding fashionistas, any suggestions? But remember, I am a woman on a budget so forget the Prada’s and Jimmy Choo’s for now.

Finally, there is the more, erm, personal side of my personal improvement plan. Let’s just say that after running after two kids, looking after the home and doing the laundry the whole day your hormones aren’t exactly raring to go come bedtime. But that’s a topic for another day. Ha, ha.

And how have the last five months been for you? Oh, silly me, I have to read your blogs to find out!

All Grown Up

2007-09-09T23:05:00.000+01:00

My daughter started ‘big school’ on Wednesday. I find it hard to believe just how the time has whizzed by. I still remember her first day at nursery so clearly (she was only four months old!!) and now look at her looking all grown up in her uniform. I don’t know who was/is more excited her or me.

I have to admit that I had tears in my eyes when we said good-bye to all her ‘aunties’ at the nursery. When I look back now they were such an important part of her life – imagine for four years she was in their care. Fine it was only three days a week but it still amounts to a lot of time.

I also had tears in my eyes as I watched her on wednesday walk off with her fellow classmates to her reception class. What's this with all the tears, I must be turning into a softy.

So here we are beginning a new chapter in her life. I wonder what the future holds …

Being Bored

2007-08-12T19:01:00.000+01:00

I am beginning to think that it’s a crime for children to be bored in this country. I feel I am always under constant pressure to keep my child busy/occupied/doing something.

I was listening to a programme on BBC Radio Four the other day where a lady was talking about a book she had just written on ingenious ways to keep your child from being bored (I guess with the summer holidays in full swing it was a good time to plug it). I mean, listening to her speak she wanted you – the parent – to forever be doing something with your child. You even have to keep them busy in the car on long journeys. I have lost count of the number of cars I have looked into on the motorway only to see the kids sitting at the back staring at a portable DVD screen attached to the headrests of the driver and passenger seat. Why??? Don’t the kids watch enough TV at home??

I remember as a child when we had to take that mandatory monthly trip down to the village – we, the kids, just sat in the back and kept ourselves busy looking out of the window (waving randomly at passing cars), making up our own games or reading a book. Our parents where not obliged to play ‘I Spy’ or Karaoke games with us. Neither did they have to sit though a CD of nursery rhymes as we journeyed along. We had no choice in the matter when it came to what we listened to in the car – we simply listened to whatever my ~~parents~~ dad listened to and I am proud to say that at the age of seven when we all took a road trip to Togo – then a nine hour journey, I knew all the words to Boney M and Bob Marley as this was what was on offer in my dads car on his 8 track player (remember those?).

In my case, there are eight and five years respectively between my older sisters and I so from very early on in my life I had to keep myself occupied and most of the time I just got on with it. I drew, I painted, I sewed, I wrote short stories and poems, I made jewellery from beads and wire, and I read. Boy, did I read. But you know what? I loved it and I was never bored for a minute. And this has kept me in good stead to this day. Believe me when I say I am never bored and it would be easier for me to put hot coals in my mouth than to admit that I was.

In my opinion boredom can be a good thing and it is a good thing for a child to be bored once in a while. It brings out the creative side in them. I don’t think children, or adults, devote much or any time at all to just … thinking. It is so important to be still in this our ever increasing busy world. It is so important to sit and just be lost in your thoughts, to meditate on life or even nothing at all. I do it whenever I can and it’s refreshing.

Shopping and the Breastfeeding Mum

2007-08-05T12:11:00.000+01:00

As any breastfeeding mum will tell you, one thing that changes radically is your shopping habit. At least for me it has.

The first thing I do now when I arrive at a shopping mall is to scope the joint for the nearest mother and baby ( M & B) changing room – these days many forward looking malls also have a little area included in which a mother can sit and breastfeed her baby away from the prying eyes of strangers. In this country, if you breast feed in public you either

a) get told off by a member of the passing public claiming that the sight is offensive to them (this happened to a mum recently)

b) get gawked at by acne ridden teenagers eager to cop a look at a bared breast

c) get gawked at by lecherous old men also eager to cop a look at a bared breast.

So to avoid any of the above the best option is to make a bee line for an M & B room.

I am toying with the idea of drawing up a list of the best and worst M & B rooms across the country – I have been doing quite a lot of travelling lately and so I am familiar with more than a few of them. The best feeding room by far that I have found myself in is the John Lewis one in the Touchwood Shopping Centre, Solihull. Fantastic! The worst are the ones in the Bullring, Birmingham. Tight and pokey with a very hard flip down seat. Horrible.

But I digress.

The reason why I look for the M & B room first is because I know that I will be spending at least an hour or more in one during the course of my shopping trip so it’s a good thing to be prepared, as the scouts would say.

Another thing that has changed for me as a breastfeeding mum is the type of clothes I shop for – the bottom half doesn’t matter but the top half is all important. Gone are the days of wearing tops with zips down the sides or back. Now anything I buy has to either button down the front, be stretchy enough to be slipped over my shoulder or should criss-cross in front (Principles do a nice range of stretchy/criss-cross dresses) which is a lot more difficult to achieve that one might think. Most of the fashion these days are geared towards slinky, small chested women and shops catering to mums with little babies are either ridiculously overpriced or have a collection of clothes so dull and dismal all you want to do is just sit down and weep.

The fabric of the clothes should also preferably be patterned, fairly dark or thick enough to disguise the tell tale outline of your breast pads. Oh, breast pads are soooooooo important to have on/in when you go shopping. Without going into too much detail the last thing you want to have are two round wet patches on either side of your chest as your boobees begin to lactate at the sound of your baby’s cry. Not a good look, trust me.

Last but not the least – I never, ever leave home without the all important feeding cloth, as I call it. This is simply a square muslin cloth which is almost always to be seen draped over my shoulder. No it is not a new fashion accessory but an all important clothes protector. After all the last thing you want is regurgitated milk resembling cheese in the first stages of processing, oozing down your shoulder when you hold baby up to burp.

And my favourite joke of the minute is..

What sort of bees make milk?

Boobees!!

Hehehehe.

Picture courtesy of daily candy

Blogging Again

2007-07-28T23:05:00.000+01:00

As you may already have guessed life has been incredibly busy hence the long silence from me on my blog. There just are not enough hours in the day any more.

Where to begin?

Well, baby (I’ll refer to her as G from henceforth) is now nine weeks old – yeah I know I can barely believe it myself! – and she is just the cutest thing on this planet. However, she has recently developed a Jekyll and Hyde personality - switching between being a coo-ing angelic cherub one minute and a screaming banshee the next. To deal with this screaming persona I enlisted the help of a simple devise known as a dummy. My goodness, does it work like magic or what! I swore over my dead body that I would not give a dummy to my first daughter and I never did (fool that I was I now realise) and after initially taking the same stance with G I had to admit defeat after a particularly nasty screaming bout (there is nothing like a screaming baby to get your temperature rising and your teeth gnashing!) and rushed out to Boots to buy one and am I glad I did. Used sensibly and with discretion a dummy can be a life saver. It calms G instantly and the sucking seems to soothe her. I wish I had known this the first time around I would have saved myself a lot of stress and tears.

But there is no doubt about it; I am enjoying being a mother more this time around than I did with my first. With my first child, it was a journey into the unknown and it felt, at the time, like I was travelling down a long dark tunnel with no light at the end of it. I felt trapped - like my life had come to an end. But as I look back nowI realise I suffered from baby blues.

This time around, experience has kicked in. I know what to expect and I am more relaxed about the little things I used to get so worked up over the first time around. I am much more in control and feel a lot more confident about my mothering skills. I have accepted the fact that a task that would normally take me half an hour to complete (like blogging) now takes me the whole day because I have to keep stopping midway to attend to G. Most importantly, I know whatever phase G is going through will pass so I try as much as possible to enjoy the moment. Of course from time to time I blow a gasket (I am only human afterall) but it's short lived and I take a deep breath and life goes on.

Hopefully, I am now sufficiently back on track to begin blogging more regularly again – I’ve missed it and boy do I have loads to blog about.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you

2007-05-30T14:33:00.000+01:00

...Nappies Baby poop Sleepless nights and sore nipples welcome to motherhood.........

Oh my goodness!! Thank you so much for your prayers, words of congratulations and warm wishes!! I cannot believe the response and out pouring of warmth. I am totally overwhelmed!

As you can well imagine, life right now has been taken over by nappies, breastfeeding, sore nipples, sleepness nights, baby paraphernalia and the never ending washing. It's amazing how much stuff a little baby can go through. Thank goodness for washing machines.

Finding the time to blog is also a little tricky so updates may be few and far between for a couple of weeks. But I shall persevere.

Baby is doing well and is looking more like a human now as opposed to a squishy pink ball. I had forgotten how horrendous the nights could be!! Chei, small pikins sabi cry sha!! And boy does she have a set of lungs!!

Keep well.

She’s Arrived!!!

2007-05-27T18:46:00.000+01:00

Please celebrate with me at the arrival of my little bundle of joy. My daughter was born on Friday May 25, 2007 at 6:18 am after only two hours of labour!! She was born two weeks early. I’m well and baby is fine too. Because an early arrival was not anticipated, we still don’t have any names for her yet!! I know, I know very lax of me.

When I have a little more time on my hands I shall update you with a blow by blow description of the birth. Am sure you can’t wait! hehehe.

PS: She is gorgeous! But I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Touching Base

2007-05-14T14:41:00.000+01:00

My pipo ( as we edolites say) I just dey oh! And no pikin nefer come. Sorry for setting off the alarm bells with my lenghty silence and thank you for the concern. I really am touched.

A post to follow soon. I promise. Oh, the pressure, the pressure. :-)

Pay Package Description

2007-04-25T16:06:00.000+01:00

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Gratitude Journal: I Am a Good Person

2007-04-19T14:18:00.000+01:00

I am a good person.

But I am a good person with a lot of flaws.

One of my biggest flaws is that I nearly always look for the negative in people. If you ask me a simple question about someone e.g ‘What is so and so like?’ more often than not, I will answer the question by starting with a lengthy list of the not-so-nice things about this person. I don’t know why I do this. Perhaps I feel that by undermining another person it makes me look better to others. Or maybe by painting a not so positive picture about another makes me feel better about myself.

However, I shall not dwell on the why’s and why nots. All I know is that I carry this trait and I do not like it and I want to do something about it.

It has been really difficult for me to admit this flaw of mine – everyone wants to appear perfect, not so? - but at the same time it is refreshing, a release almost, to do so. By acknowledging this flaw, I can confront it, deal with it and move on. Something I have every intention of doing.

So today, I am grateful that I can be brutally honest about this.
I am grateful that I have the strength to acknowledge and admit this.
I am grateful that I am willing to make a change and by so doing become a better person. Because…

I am a good person.

************************************************
Today I am starting a gratitude journal. Something I have been wanting to do for years but have never got round to doing. I have started one a few times in the past but I always found myself running out of things to be grateful for. One of the reasons being that I focused on the ‘big’ stuff and overlooked the little things I should also have been grateful for e.g finding a parking spot, receiving an unexpected phone call/letter/email that brightened my day or even just finding a penny on the street. Little things but little things that mean a lot – if only we took the time to notice them.

I recently heard somewhere that the more we are grateful for the stuff we have in our lives the more we open up ourselves to more good stuff entering our lives. I like this thought.

And so this is the beginning for me. I decided to post my first journal entry here ( the only one I shall post because I get a feeling that many of the entries will be too personal to share on my blog) to perhaps encourage you to start a gratitude journal as well because, as I have heard countless other people say, it will change your life. I don’t know if it will change mine, but I sure as hell want to find out. Don't you?

Age Ain't Nothing But A ....

2007-04-15T04:58:00.000+01:00

OMG! It’s finally hit me. I am expecting a baby and in the next 8 weeks I will be giving birth to my 2nd child!! Then from henceforth, I will forever be known as ‘PTS, 37, mother of two’. Arrrggghhh!!!

I’ve blogged in the past about how I feel slightly disconnected from this pregnancy – work + home+ mummy duties making it difficult to give my full attention to it – and so I have thought about it in a slightly detached way, almost like the whole experience were happening to someone else. But sitting on my bed today looking through the bag full of stuff I just purchased to tide me over the initial pre and post-birth period (yes, you will be proud of me. After my dream the other night, I ran out and bought everything from nipple shields to a baby rattle) the penny dropped. This. Is. Real. I. AM. Having. A. Baby. In eight weeks time I am going to be smelling of baby sick, going slightly deranged from lack of sleep and nursing sore nipples! Oooh, I feel faint. I’m going to have to lie down for a minute to recover…

What happened to that footloose fancy free 18 year old I used to be? I look at myself in the mirror and I don’t feel a day past 18. Okay make that 21. The point is I FEEL YOUNG. Incredibly so. And sometimes as I live my life I feel like I am playing pretend – dressing up, going to work, earning a living, paying a mortgage, y’know, grown up stuff – but there are always little things lurking out there to remind me that I am not playing pretend and indeed, I am getting on in years. Take the other day for example when my husband mentioned something about his 17 -year- old employee. I was genuinely startled to realise that she is 20 years younger than me. And I thought to myself ‘little old me, 20 years older than somebody’. It was a sobering thought, I can tell you that.

But then your friends stab you in the back and start growing older as well which serves as a harsh reminder that you are too. For instance, I was in London two weeks ago to attend a friends 40th birthday party. Can you imagine, I actually have a close friend who is FORTY YEARS OLD. It’s enough to make me weep.

So you think you are not getting old? Well, here’s my little list to ~~gently~~ remind you that you are.

You know you are getting old when ….

1. You begin to eye up anti-wrinkle cream with great interest.
2. You start turning into your mother.
3. You find yourself starting your sentences with ‘In my day…’
4. You can exclaim ‘Gosh you’ve grown. The last time I saw you you were this high…’ (didn’t you just hate being told that when you were little?)
5. You start taking life altering decisions.
6. You scan your TV channels looking for the news.
7. You actually ENJOY watching the news.
8. You skip all the hot trendy ‘in-season’ fashions for more ‘timeless and classic’ stuff.
9. You remember the first time you watched Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
10. You remember Michael Jackson.

And finally you know you are definitely getting old when you wake up at 4 O’clock in the morning to blog about it!

Rude Awakening

2007-04-10T07:50:00.000+01:00

I woke up from my dream this morning in a cold sweat. I had been dreaming that I had gone into labour – and I still have nine weeks to go!! Yes, dear folks, the time of my baby’s arrival draws quickly nigh.

This dream has been a rude awakening for me as it has now hit home that I have purchased absolutely nothing for the baby or myself. Okay, I have bought a few baby grows but that’s about it. I walk into the baby section of shops and just stand there looking – not having a clue what to buy. My husband warned me cautiously the other day not to be too blasé about it all because it could turn round and bite me in the bum. And he is right.

So today I shall sit down and make a list of stuff I need to buy for my pending new mum status and although I still have some to go before my due date, I shall be packing my hospital bag this week – just in case.

PS: Hope you all had a great Easter break!

Friday Meme: One Word Responses

2007-03-23T09:12:00.000Z

1. Yourself: reserved
2. Your partner: gorgeous
3. Your hair: sexy
4. Your mother: trying
5. Your father: enigmatic
6. Your favourite item: ring
7. Your dream last night: disturbing
8. Your favourite drink: Horlicks
9. Your dream car: Beetle
10. The room you are in: uninspiring
11. Your ex: forgotten
12. Your fear: mediocrity
13. What you want to be in 10 years: content
14. Who you hung out with last night: Husband
15. What you're not: trusting
16. Muffins: fattening
17: One of your wish list items: Laptop
18: Time: fleeting
19. The last thing you did: typed
20. What you are wearing: jeans
21. Your favourite weather: sunny
22. Your favourite book: Journal
23. The last thing you ate: toast
24. Your life: evolving
25. Your mood: thoughtful
26. Your best friend: AWOL
27. What you're thinking about right now: change
28. Your car: functional
29. What you are doing at the moment: thinking
30. Your summer: busy
31. Your relationship status: Occupied
32. What is on your TV: DVD
33. What is the weather like: cold
34. When was the last time you laughed: Yesterday

Man of the Year

2007-03-20T08:35:00.000Z

And once again the question had to be answered who will be the Man of The Year 2006.
It has not been easy to select the top 3 candidates from thousands of nominations from all over the world. But a relentless jury has finally awarded the top 3 nominations.

3rd Place

2nd Place

And the winner....

Pre-baby Blues

2007-03-11T10:34:00.000Z

I have been feeling down lately and it’s one of those feelings that I can’t really put my finger on. I went through a phase like this when I was pregnant with my first child and I thought that the second time around I would escape it but no such luck.

I felt quite sorry for my hubby yesterday when he asked what the matter was and I just burst into tears. He was totally at a loss for what to do so he just let me cry.

I don’t know what the matter is. I am plagued with guilt at the moment. Thoughts of … I’m not a good mother, I yell too much, I am not patient enough with my daughter, I let her watch too much TV, I don’t do enough with her and so on. Much of this is not strictly true but I still feel guilty about it. Then I am plagued with the way I look and feel – I am huge, I waddle, I am uncomfortable, I suffer from heartburn, I have to wee every 10 minutes, I feel clumsy, I miss wearing nice clothes, I am growing to hate my maternity jeans because I wear them all the time and on and on and on. Stuff that a week from today won’t matter in the least but which right now, my mind is occupied with.

All I want to do is just put my feet up and stay in bed but having a four year old and a husband working weekends, doing that is wishful thinking. It’s unbelievable just how demanding a four year old can be. They constantly want something or want to be doing something and guess who the first person they pester for all their wants is? Yep, MAMA!! And here is where I miss home – the network of family and nanny’s who can take your child off your hands for a few hours so you can relax.

I am not one to moan but I really feel down in the dumps at the moment.

My Time Log

2007-03-06T20:33:00.000Z

So, for the last one week I have been keeping a time log which basically was meant to give me an indication of how I fritter away the 24hrs I am given each day. I cannot lie- it was tedious to do mainly because I had to consciously be aware of time all the time (excuse the pun). But I am glad I did it and did not take the easy way out and quit.

I actually kept the log for 6 days, Mon – Sat, as I felt I should have a day off on Sunday to spend as I pleased without keeping tabs on my time.

Doing this exercise flagged up a few things for me – TV watching for example. I spend quite a lot of time in front of the TV especially in the evenings but then again, I do so much during the day that when I settle down in front of the box at 8pm, I feel I deserve it. Another thing that struck me was the extraordinary amount of time I spend in the kitchen. As I am not at all a ready meal person I tend to make every meal from scratch – I guess it’s a Naija thing but the good thing about this is that know exactly what goes into my food and meals are always fresh and nutritious. However doing this takes up enormous amounts of my time. For instance mixing a cake can take up to an hour (excluding baking time) and that’s a lot. But then again I don’t do it everyday.

I have to add though that this may not be the most balanced of logs as I have had the week, save Wednesday, off from work. So as I go back to work this week, should I care to do another time log, it would look quite different e.g. there would be a lot less hours spent on household chore, cooking and watching TV.

Anyway, not wanting to bore you with my time log for the whole week, here are three of my entries. And for those of you who joined in, how did you do?

MONDAY

AM

8.00 – 10.50 Wake up, have breakfast, shower, make a lengthy phone call to my parents, do some ironing

10.50 – 11.35 Watch The Oprah Show

11.35 – noon make a mid-day snack for my daughter, briefly check blog, call the GP’s surgery, sort out the post, write up time log

PM

noon – 1.00 Finish off the rest of the ironing

1 – 2.30 make lunch, clear up kitchen

2.30 – 4.20 SIESTA

4.45 – 7.00 Go to the park with hubby and daughter, do some grocery shopping, pick up prescription from GP’s surgery, miscellaneous tasks.

7.00 – 8.00 Shower together with my daughter, dress her up and make her dinner.

8.00 – 8.20 Read my daughter her bedtime story and put her to bed, write time log

8.20 – midnight have my dinner, watch the Oscars on TV

0.00 – 0.45 read a magazine, lights out

WEDNESDAY (AT WORK)

AM

7.00 9.15 wake up, shower, dress up, shower my daughter and dress her up, have breakfast, pack my daughters snack bag, drop her off at nursery, stop to buy petrol on the way to work, arrive at office

9.15 – 11am (Chaotic day as all the PC’s in the office are being changed) sort out my new PC, skim though my work folder, take a few phone calls etc

11.00 – noon Monthly Team Meeting

PM

Noon – 1.30 test new PC, deal with staff expenses (writing cheques, vouchers, other boring financial stuff), check my work email and respond to a few of them, make telephone calls etc

1.30 – 2.00 Lunch break

2.00 – 4.00 Deal with other mundane office tasks

4.00 Close from Work

4.15 – 6.00 Pick daughter up from nursery, drive home, make dinner, clear up kitchen.

6.00 – 7.00 have shower (hubby bathed daughter), dinner

7.00 – 8.30 Read bedtime story to my daughter and put her to bed, write up time log, browse the internet

8.30 – 11.00 Veg out in front of the TV, go to bed and read a magazine, lights out.

THURSDAY

AM

7.15 – 8.15 out of bed, bath and dress my daughter up for nursery, give her breakfast, pack her snack bag.

8.15 – 10.25 have breakfast, watch the news (20 mins), household chores;
empty and reload dishwasher, load the washing machine, dust living room, clean out the fridge, make preliminary preparations for lunch.

10.25 – 11.10 Watch The Oprah Show. During the commercial breaks I clear out the drawers of a side table, and pack a parcel to be posted.

11.10 – noon Make the salad for lunch and clean and spice up the fish – tidying up the kitchen as I go along.

PM

Noon – 2.00 Have my shower, re-list books for sale on Amazon, check blogs, grill fish for lunch.

2.00 – 3.00 Have lunch while watching Midsomer Murders on TV

3.00 – 3.30 Rearrange contents of side drawers.

3.30 – 5.05 SIESTA

5.05 – 6.30 Cooked a pot of spaghetti sauce, blogged

6.30 – 7.00 Bathed my daughter, dusted the book shelves upstairs while she was in her bath.

7.00 – 9.00 Gave my daughter her dinner, had my dinner while watching TV, chatted with a friend on the phone

9.00 – 9.40 Read my daughter her bedtime story and put her to bed, have my shower, write my time log

9.40 – midnight Watch TV, go to bed

Nigeria Changing It's Currency?

2007-03-01T17:58:00.000Z

We received two phonecalls from Nigeria this morning giving us conflicting information. The first one was a slightly fantic one asking us if we had any Naira with us over here and if we did, to find a way to get it back to the Country before the 1st of April as this was the deadline for the change of the Nigerian currency. The second call was to say that No, Nigeria wasn't changing its currency, it was only planning an addition to the existing denominations.

Now we are a bit confused. Is Nigeria changing its currency or simply launching new denominations? I'd be grateful if anyone can clear this confusion up for us.

So, Just What DO You Do All Day?

2007-02-23T20:39:00.000Z

Have you ever found yourself moaning about how there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get all the things you want to do done? Do you start your day with good intentions and a long list of all the stuff you are going to accomplish only to find at the end of the day you have managed to put a check mark against just one thing on the list? Do you spend hours in front of the TV and then kick yourself afterwards? Do you ever wonder what EXACTLY you do with your time?

If you do, then welcome to the club!

So, to find out exactly what it is I do all day I have decided to embark on a week long project and I am hoping that perhaps one or two or more of you will join me. Here’s the plan:

Starting from Monday 26th February, 2007 I am going to keep a Time Log of all the activities/tasks I do in a day for one week. So it may look something like this:

7.00am Woke up
7.10- 8.30 am Had shower, dressed up, got daughter ready, breakfast etc
9.00 – noon Got to work, phone calls, meetings etc.

Of course, daily logs will differ depending on whether you do or don’t work, have kids, work from home or run your own business. The important thing is to just log what you do.
It looks tedious and it probably will be but I’m sure I/you will get into the grove of things after the first couple of days.

What I am hoping it will do is give me a visual account of what exactly I do with my time each day. Ideally, it should flag up ‘dead’ time in my day e.g watching TV, aimless phone calls or web crawling - and armed with this information I can eliminate my dead time and in the future use that time more effectively and productively instead.

And that’s it!

If you do decide to join me – one week is not very long, is it? – you can, if you want, post your daily time log on your blog (if not the whole week then maybe two days out of the week will be fine). I will be doing the same.

Here’s to being more productive! Good Luck!

Invasion of the Blog Snatchers

2007-02-21T10:52:00.000Z

I have noticed something odd lately. When I click on some blogs on my links list I find that have dissappeared and been replaced by a page full of links to porn sites. I wonder why this is happening. Belle, if you are reading this (www.ariike.blogspot.com) your blog is one of those that has been taken over. Has anyone else noticed this?

I have quickly backed up my blogs as a word document just in case mine get taken over too.

Big Bellied Mama, a Parking Ticket and Books

2007-02-19T13:27:00.000Z

Okay. It’s official. At 24 weeks, my feet have disappeared. That’s right folks, you read it right. Now when I look down all I see is a mound of belly and nothing else. Not a very fetching sight but hey, I’m pregnant so it’s allowed! I guess from now on it’s hairy legs, slip on shoes and unvarnished toenails until sometime during the middle of June or thereabouts.

There are three things that become very awkward to do when your belly gets to this stage:

1. Scrubbing your feet in the shower. I got myself a huge natural sponge to get around this little problem. I soap it up, throw it down in the bath tub and vigorously wipe my feet on it to get them clean. Ingenious, huh?

2. Bending over to pick things off the floor becomes a near impossibility. I have now become quite adept at picking things up with my toes.

3. You can’t do your shoe laces up anymore so footwear now consists of slippers, loafers or comfy Birkenstocks. All trainers and edgy plimsolls have been relegated to that back of the wardrobe until after the birth.

Then of course, you develop that odd waddling walk that all pregnant women seem to have. You know the one – it closely resembles the walk of a duck.

A few advantages of being big bellied though is that you get a lot of smiles off strangers. True most smiles can be interpreted to mean ‘Aww, you poor thing. Blither knock you up again?’ but they are smiles nevertheless. You also get more offers of help/assistance. This, however, depends on what city you live in though so don’t expect anyone to give up their place for you on the London Underground.

Knowing that these advantages are not going to last forever I am revelling in them for now because after baby comes, I know things will change with the positive attention turning to negative attention when all you start getting from strangers are dirty looks when your baby decides to start screaming its head off in the train/bus/library/restaurant/shopping mall etc. Also be prepared to get dirty looks when you whip out your boob to breastfeed in public. Now why is it that people here are so uncomfortable and/or offended when a woman breast feeds in public? Hey, I’ve got news for you people who get offended – THAT’S WHAT BOOBS ARE FOR!! – to provide nourishment for your offspring. Any other sort of nourishment or comfort they may offer is purely secondary. I tell you women, once you’ve breast fed a baby, you’ll never look at your boobs in the same way again. Trust me. Anyway, I have decided to be good this time and I have bought myself a lovely, large scarf for the 'cover up' should I ever have to breast feed outside the confinements of my four walls.

Moving on swiftly…

Got behind the wheel of my car on Thursday after work only to see the dreaded yellow and black striped plastic wallet of a parking ticket peeking out from underneath my windscreen wiper. Letting out an expletive ( okay, okay, several expletives) I struggled out of my seat to retrieve it. I was being fined for overstaying the parking limit of 3 hours. How much? £60!!! But if I paid within 14 days I’d only have to pay £30. Several more expletives were let out. I was parked right in front of my office building for chrissakes!! Okay, granted there was a sign up stating clearly that this was a 3 hour parking zone only BUT the council had never been back to check and enforce this rule since the sign was put up almost 8 months ago!!!!!!!!!! Realising I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on should I try and contest the ticket, I meekly picked up the phone the next day and paid my £30 fine. Everyday for the thief one day for the owner of the house, abi. However, I must confess that I felt a stab of joy when I discovered that I wasn’t the only one who got ticket on the day. Hehehe – wicked woman eh?

My copy of Helon Habila’s new book Measuring time landed on my doormat over the weekend and I am looking forward to starting it. As mentioned before, I am reading Ben Okri’s Dangerous Love but I am finding it a bit of a struggle. I am hoping it will pick up soon. Then I still have Iwela’s Beasts of No Nation waiting in the wings as well – so lots to read but where's the time?

Basement Bargain and Weather Woes

2007-02-10T20:44:00.000Z

I do love a good bargain. I was in the city centre yesterday to having a mooch around the shops to see what goodies I could find when I walked past one of those bookshops that just draw you in – you know the ones. They have a big sign up saying DISCOUNT BOOKSHOP. I wandered in more to kill time than with any expectations of finding a book worth buying. I was in for a pleasant surprise.

Scoring the shelves with a faint air of disinterest I stumbled upon a gem (I think) of a book – Uzodinma Iwela’s Beasts of no Nation. It was such an unexpected find that I leapt on it without even thinking. There was no price on it so I strolled up to the till with baited breath. You’ll never believe what it cost - £1.00!! Yep, you read right ONE POUND. Now if that isn’t a bargain then I don’t know what is. But Iwela will have to wait as I have just begun reading Ben Okri’s Dangerous Love.

Birmingham ground to a halt yesterday as its inhabitants woke up to 10 centimeters of snow that paralysed the City. It snowed overnight and then started again by 11:30 am and lasted through till about 9:00pm. People were being chucked off buses and being told to walk the rest of the way to their destinations as the buses couldn’t make it up the hilly roads. The tailbacks went on for miles and miles. Some people aborted all attempts of driving home and checked into hotels instead.

Needless to say, I took advantage of the situation and didn’t go in to work. Teeheehee. It was thoroughly enjoyed by my daughter though who took every opportunity to pelt her dad with snow balls. Even now in my old age, the sight of snow turns me into a little kid again – bursting with excitement at the thought of running outside and building snowmen and making snow angels. Ahhh. And to think that my parents are being cooked slowly by the harmattan heat back in Nigeria.

Blogging - The Things We Do

2007-02-08T12:47:00.000Z

Are there any rules for blogging? Like the Do’s and Don’ts of the blog world? Here are some questions I find myself aimlessly wondering about sometimes

1. When comments are left on your blog, do you have to respond to each and every one of them?

2. If a blogger puts you on their blog roll links list do you have to link them back?

3. If a blogger leaves a comment on your blog do you have to leave a comment back on theirs?

4. If I stop blogging for one month, would anyone still read my blog?

5. Would anyone really care?

Then there are the things we are all guilty of doing when we first start blogging…

1. Leaving comments on EVERY blog to get your blog noticed even if it’s a comment that says only :-), or Please visit my blog (cringe), or a comment totally unrelated to the post.

2. Submitting your URL to every blog directory going. Be honest I am sure your blog has been listed on at least one of these
*Technorati
*Blog Explosion
*Pingomatic
*Nigerian Blogs Aggregator
*Blog Africa

3. Posting like a person possesed everyday, sometimes three posts or more a day. Ohh, the excitement of seeing your posts online!!

4. Checking your blog every five seconds to see if any comments have been left (okay, okay many of us still do this)

5. Google-ing things like 'How to get your blog noticed.'

And finally, doesn’t it just piss you off when you post a mini thesis on your blog and no one leaves a comment but someone else posts one sentence like …

Guess what I did today??

and there will be 67 comments left in the comments box? Go on admit it, you know it does.

Growing Up Black

2007-02-08T09:46:00.000Z

Kiri Davis is a young filmmaker whose high school documentary has left audiences at film festivals across the country stunned -- and has re-ignited a powerful debate over race.

Watch this and weep!

http://www.komotv.com/home/video/5001856.html?video=YHI&t=a

Doing Something for Myself

2007-02-01T12:38:00.000Z

I was genuinely surprised this morning when hubby rolled over in bed and announced that it was the 1st of February today.

Yikes!! Did January just happen? Where is the year running to? I cannot believe that we are already the first month of the New Year down.

Ever noticed that the older you get the quicker time seems to whiz by? As a child/teenager the time couldn’t go quick enough. I don’t know how many times my parents had to listen to my cries of ‘I’m soooooo bored’. Nowadays – in this our fast paced world of iPods, computers, microwaves, dishwashers, memory sticks, PDA’s, blackberries and blogs- I find that I just don’t seem to have the time to be bored. In fact, I just don’t seem to have the time to be anything! But on closer inspection – what exactly am I doing with my time? Shall I be brutally honest? Not much.

Sure I do what every body else does, I try to juggle the work-life balance – I sleep, wake up, go to work, come back home, cook (if I’m in the mood), veg out in front of the TV or PC for a couple of hours or curl up with a good book/glossy mag, be a mom, be a wife, have a shower, go to bed… and the cycle continues. Sometimes there might be a blip to the routine in the form of a visitor or an unexpected phone call from a long lost friend and that’s about it. Exciting stuff, huh?

I remember when I was packing my bags to move over to England seven years ago (that long??? Feels like yesterday) I was full of drive, motivation, oomph! Oh, the things I was going to do, the heights I was going to reach, the accomplishments I was going to achieve. Yeah. Right.

People say Count Your Blessings, Other People are Worse off than You, One Day, yada yada yada. I do count my blessings but, BUT- I find myself thinking - I want MORE, is this such a bad thing? I don’t mean more in financial terms, although that would be nice, I mean more in terms of achieving SOMETHING, filling up this void of unfulfilment, making my life count for something. I think the bottom line is – DOING SOMETHING FOR MYSELF. There. I’ve said it. I want to do something for myself. Not for hubby, or children, or family, or country but SOMETHING FOR MYSELF. Feels good saying that.

But here’s the tricky part: What do I REALLY want for myself?

I shall sit back and reflect upon this. I feel a lengthy list coming on.

The Uniqueness of being Nigerian

2007-01-31T14:31:00.000Z

Visiting some Nigerian friends the other day, it struck me that there are some traits that are so unique to Nigerians that you cannot help but know that we are in their presence. So I made up a little list of our ‘uniqueness’

You know you are visiting a Nigerian home when…

1. Within half an hour (sometimes less) of arriving you are being offered ‘minerals’ (soft drinks) and something to eat.

2. To keep you occupied you are given at least four HUGE photo albums to wade through, including the wedding album regardless of the fact that you may have seen them 10 times before already.

3. The BEN TV channel (if you live in the UK and have Sky) is on and/or there is a pile of Nigerian movies stacked up by the television.

4. There are plastic flowers on the dining table.

5. There is a bead ‘curtain’ separating the living room from the dining room/Kitchen.

6. The conversation turns to the state of Nigeria/Politics.

7. The other visitor present tries to sell you Lace, Gele or Asoebi (help me with the spelling here please!)

8. No one really divulges what they do when asked the question ‘so what do you do?’ (and if I hear the answer ‘I’m into IT’ one more time I’ll scream!!!!)

9. There are Eleganza food coolers in the kitchen store along with a large bag of rice and packets of Maggi Cubes.

10. Everyone expresses a desire to return Nigeria because England Hum, hiss, snapping of fingers and slapping of thighs and an ‘all dis oyinbo people sef’ but no real reason given. However, when pressed for exactly when they will be returning it is always in a vague 5 – 10 years time.

Can you think of any more uniqueness to add to the list?

Of Birthdays and Babies

2007-01-31T13:35:00.000Z

It was my birthday on the 20th of January. I turned 37. *sigh*

It was a day like any other. In fact I had to remind myself a couple of times through the day that it was my birthday. But it’s been like this for a few years now. Since I turned 30, birthdays have become less of a celebration and more of a time for reflection.

Am I where I want to be? No

Is this how I envisioned my life at this age? No

What do I want to achieve over the next 12 months? Several things spring to mind.

Am I happy? Now, this is a tough one. I am not unhappy. Let’s just say there is a restlessness within me which comes from knowing that my life isn’t going in quite the direction I had anticipated it would when I was say, 25. But that’s not anyone’s fault. If I want change to happen, then I’ve gotta change.

**

Last week Wednesday I went for my 20 week scan – I know! I can hardly believe I am half way through my pregnancy already – and all is well. Baby is growing fine and all the functional bits are in place and the pregnancy is progressing as it should.

I also had the baby sexed i.e. boy or a girl. And I am happy to announce that come June I will be giving birth to a bouncing baby ……….

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!! You didn’t really think I would let the cat out of the bag, did you? If I told you what I was going to be having then you wouldn’t have anything to look forward to now, would you? You’ll just have to wait. All I will say is, I am glad I know what the sex of the baby is as I can be better prepared this time around. With my first I had bought all the baby clothes in neutral colours but this time I can be more specific.

One thing I will tell you though is that having a child at 33 and having a child at 37 is a whole different ball game. My body ain’t what it used to be. Four years ago when I was carrying my first, I was full of energy, no aches or pains and I was positively blooming. Everyone who saw me always used to comment on how radiant I looked. But now, I tire more easily and at 21 weeks, my back is aching like mad. If I sit down for any length of time, it’s an ordeal to get my muscles moving again and my belly feels so, so heavy. My husband reckons I don’t get enough exercise –which I don’t actually. So I shall pencil in some evening walks for at least a couple of times a week. Nothing like some movement and fresh air to get the body working again, n’est pas?

APOCALYPTO

2007-01-27T20:58:00.000Z

Went to the movies to watch Mel Gibsons' Apocalypto with hubby yesterday. I have only one word

W.O.W

Never, ever have I watched a movie like this before. It is brilliant but if you are not into blood, guts and gore this will be the one to pass on. You've been warned.

Genevieve - One Puzzled Reader

2007-01-24T11:27:00.000Z

Although I mostly get to read it a few months late, I am a fairly consistent reader of Genevieve magazine and have been for the last couple of years.

However with each publication, I find myself scratching my head and puzzling over exactly what sort of magazine it is.

I was under the impression that it was a glossy magazine and when I read a glossy I look for the three G’s – Glamour, Glitz and Gossip (gossip meaning articles, information and entertainment) however, I find that with each published issue Genevieve is leaning increasingly towards being a Christian/Religious magazine.

I am a Christian yes, but I don’t expect to buy a glossy magazine only to find almost every article heavily laced with scripture, praise reports and personal testimonies. If I want to read these themes then I will pick up my copy of The Word for Today, Leadership and Lifestyle or Joyce Meyers Enjoying Everyday Life.

I would have thought that the main goal of any glossy magazine would be to reach as wide and diverse a target audience as possible but the strategy that Genevieve is knowingly, or unknowingly, adopting is alienating readers who don’t share the same religious beliefs. After all, the Nigerian market is a mixed bag of Christians, Muslims, Traditionalists and people of other religious leanings and people who don’t believe in anything at all. I think Genevieve should be more embracing and broad minded.

If they find it impossible to avoid sharing their beliefs, then surely it must be possible for them to write an article or give advice incorporating basic biblical principles without having to resort to quoting whole chunks of scripture. Oprah adopts this approach quite often in her O Magazine column ‘What I know for Sure’.

I think Genevieve has to tone it down a bit to regain their mass market appeal if not they’ll lose readers, myself included, to their rival True Love.

International Slow Down Week

2007-01-19T11:04:00.000Z

Click HERE to watch

Technology – an extension of me

2007-01-19T09:52:00.001Z

Yesterday my iPod froze up for about an hour on me. I eventually figured out how to reset it but for the 60 minutes I was without it, it was like my right arm had been cut off. It made me realise just how dependent I am on the gadgets I have around me.

Say for instance, I lost my mobile phone I would be beside myself because 1) my major means of communication when I am out and about would be gone and 2) I don’t have any of the numbers on my phone written down anywhere. A disaster waiting to happen.

The same applies to my email, broadband connection and memory stick – all technologies I rely so heavily upon. I am not sure if this is a good or bad thing but it’s something to make you think.

Why Not?

2007-01-11T11:50:00.000Z

My mood today is reflective. There is a dull feeling inside.

I remember the last time I felt like this was watching the twin towers come down on the small television screen in my office, and then turning back to the papers spread across my table and thinking just how inconsequential everything now seemed. Nothing made sense.

Yesterday I walked into my daughters bedroom and just stood there watching her as she slept. I bent over her, drank in her toddler smells and kissed her, over and over. I felt my fears retreat when I did that.

The tears have finally come and understanding and acceptance of what has happened are desperately trying to fight their way through the dullness of my mind. I have read and re-read all the comments that have been left. I have been surprised at how many of you have suffered the loss of a friend as well and I have been touched by your kind words of encouragement and support.

I think what has rattled me the most is that death, or grief, seems to be coming closer and closer to home. Death, in my naiveté, was the exclusive reserve of the elderly, the terminally ill or those caught up in unfortunate situations like car or plane crashes. But obviously, the joke was on me. The realisation that I, we, are not immune from it is hitting hard. We are now losing friends – people who are our age in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s- the age where we are at our most indestructible, or so I used to think. And the deaths are all so weird – happening for no apparent reason or cause. No lengthy illnesses, no genetic disorder, no apparent ill health. Just normal healthy people dropping down dead.

As a friend of mine told me, When it is time, it is time. I find no comfort in that.

As Ekoya so eloquently put it…

"What's the point?"

I would rather ask: "Why not?".

Since we do not know what life holds for tomorrow and whether we'll even be here tomorrow, I think like your friend did, the best we owe ourselves is to live the things we want today hoping tomorrow will be ours.
And if perchance tomorrow never becomes ours, we would at least die doing what we dreamed. The alternative would be to do nothing, afraid of "struggling" because it may not be worth our while and then tomorrow comes, and we would have done nothing. That would be emptiness.

The baby I carry has begun to move reminding me that as one life departs another is about to be born to replace it.

So I move on, draw a deep breath and ask ‘Why Not?’

My friend, this is for you....

I Squeeze a Little Tighter

When I hug I squeeze a little tighter

When I kiss I kiss a little longer

When I speak I speak a little softer

When I smile I smile a little warmer

When I touch I touch a little firmer

When I listen I listen with a little more interest

When I search I search for a little more understanding

When I question I question with a purpose

When I see I see with a little more clarity

When I am tempted to complain

I stop

Think of you

And I squeeze a little tighter

What's the Point?

2007-01-10T15:30:00.000Z

This is a bit of a difficult post to write because my thoughts and feelings are all over the place at the moment. So forgive me if it reads a bit incoherent.

On the 27th of December I was chatting on the phone with a friend of many years who had come over to the UK late last year to do a Masters Degree, about life, future plans and the holiday season. Y’know, general stuff.

Then yesterday I got a call from another mutual friend informing me that she had died.

Just. Like. That.

Apparently she had complained of having chest and stomach pains, a few hours later she was dead. It happened on New Years day.

She is being buried on Saturday morning.

I just can’t get my head around it.

I can’t cry, the tears don’t come. I can’t think because I don’t understand. The question that plagues me is So What’s The Point??

What’s the point of all the struggle? We struggle to get through kindergarten, primary and secondary school. Then we struggle through University. Then we struggle to get a good job. We struggle to get a promotion and when that doesn’t come we struggle to save up money so we can do a Masters preferably abroad. We struggle to get a partner. We struggle to make ends meet, start a business, make our marriages/ relationships work, raise a family, become a success. From the day we are born life seems to be one long struggle. It may not always appear that way but my cynical mind says we do. And at the end of it? Well, we die.

I know that this is perhaps a very bleak way to look at life but that’s the place I find myself right now.

My friend was full of life, full of plans, full of strategies for the future. Asking her if she intended to settle down over here after she finishes her Masters ‘Abeg no-oh’ she replied emphatically ‘Naija is too sweet. I’ll be going back O!’

I keep seeing pictures of her flashing through my head – her skinny legs sticking out from beneath her school uniform skirt, making noise at the back of the classroom during lessons, growing up, going into University. So many pictures. But the worst thing is I keep playing the last conversation we had over the phone in my head over and over again. I can’t believe it was barely two weeks ago.

Life can sometimes be so crap. What the heck is the point of it all??

Women Explained

2007-01-08T15:05:00.000Z

For all the men who ever wondered, this explains us in a nutshell.

Baby Update

2007-01-04T15:03:00.000Z

This is just a quick baby update to let you all know how I am faring.

I am now 17 weeks pregnant – yes, isn’t it amazing how time flies - and I have had my first scan. I have also had my midwife’s appointment where I got to hear baby’s heartbeat for the very first time. How exciting. Baby is well I was told, heartbeat is very strong and my belly is the right size.

Talking of bellies, mine is huge considering I am just over four months so I dread to think just how much bigger I will become by the time June rolls in. I have also outgrown all my normal clothes but, good news here, I found a shop which does quite trendy maternity clothes so I have managed to get myself a pair of brown tweed trousers, a lovely embroidered black corduroy skirt and some other stuff.

Thank God for changing fashion! It seems this seasons big fashion hit is going to be Babydoll dresses which I am all excited about –not because I particularly follow fashion trends but simply because the style of the dresses lend themselves well for use as maternity clothes. Hoorah! So I walked into Topshop on Monday and got a lovely dark olive green baby doll dress which will last me throughout my pregnancy and hopefully beyond (if I haven’t rocked holes into it by then).

There is something I must mention though as I am faintly bothered by it.

I have not been able to connect with this pregnancy as I did with my first. I’ll explain.

With my first pregnancy I couldn’t get enough information about it. I bought books, magazines; I trawled through the baby section of Boots buying all things buyable. I out did myself picking up bargains during the sales of baby grows, booties and other nick knacks. But this time around I have done zilch. I have not bought a single magazine, I am weeks behind on my entries into the pregnancy journal I started, I haven’t even looked in Boots for baby stuff and I have walked right past the aisles of baby clothes on sale. I haven’t obsessed about this pregnancy for one day like I did with the first.

Is something wrong with me? Why can’t I seem to connect or form a bond this time with the child growing within me? Why am I not sitting around dreaming up possible names or talking to my bump? Other second time mums that I have spoken to have assured me that it is quite normal to feel this way. With first time pregnancies you have all the time in the world to sit around and day dream about the coming baby. You have time to shop and prepare and sit and read endless mother and baby magazines and besides it is a journey into the unknown so there is a lot of build up of excitement surrounding the whole experience. But the second time around, you are occupied with your first offspring- making sure they are washed, clothed, fed, entertained and occupied and this eats up a lot of a mother-to-be-second-time-around’s time. Second pregnancies are also tinged with a feeling of been there, done that.

I know they are right of course but I can’t help but be concerned about it.

Some other news to share is that my morning sickness has finally abated but has been replaced by acid reflux so I need to contact my GP to get a prescription for an antacid. My energy levels have also risen and I don’t feel so tired anymore. My friends and colleagues tell me that I am glowing although I take this with a pinch of salt as I personally do not think so. My walk has also developed a distinct waddle as well.

In the next three weeks, I will have my 20 week scan where I will have the opportunity to find out the sex of my baby. I think that this time I will ask for the sex to be told me. I didn’t check the first time around as I wanted there to be an element of surprise but this time I want to know so I can mentally prepare myself. Besides it would be helpful to know what to buy when then baby shopping bug finally bites me.

A Colour Meme

2007-01-04T12:25:00.000Z

Thanks to Starshyne for this idea.

[ RED ]

1. Closest red thing to you? The box that holds my index cards at work
2. Has anyone ever cheated on you in a relationship? Yes, several times actually.
3. Last thing to make you angry? Watching the idiot behaviour of Paris Hilton on TV.
4. Are you a fan of romance? Real life romance yes. Romance between the pages of a book, No.
5. Have you ever been in love? I am now.
6. Do you have a temper? Unfortunately I do, but I’m working on it.

[ GREEN ]

1. Closest green thing to you? The office Post Record Book.
2. Do you care about the environment? Not as much as I should
3. Are you jealous of anyone right now? No. It’s not in my character to be jealous of others.
4. Are you a lucky person? I don’t really believe in luck. I believe in circumstances coming together and working out just right (or wrong) for me and so far, life has been good.
5. Do you always want what you can't have? Sometimes.
6. Are you Irish? No, not even close.

[ PURPLE ]

1. Last purple thing you saw? My new suede covered journal.
2. Like being treated to expensive things? Of course, which woman doesn’t?
3. Do you like mysterious things? No, especially mysterious men. They usually turn out to be slimy gits.
4. Favourite type of chocolate? Hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmellows on the top. Costa does a fantastic hot chocolate.
5. Ever met any royalty? A couple of Bini chiefs. Does that count? LOL!
6. Are you creative? I’d like to think so.
7. Are you lonely? Not usually. I really enjoy my own company and regularly look forward to being on my own when I can.

[ BLUE ]

1. Closest blue thing to you? My jeans.
2. Are you good at calming people down? Yes.
3. Do you like the ocean? I love it. I can just sit and stare at it for hours. I’d love to live by the sea one day.
4. What was the last thing that made you cry? Watching the opening of Oprah’s Leadership Academy in South Africa. I don’t know why I burst into tears when I watched it. High levels of pregnancy hormones perhaps?
5. Are you a logical thinker? Yes.
6. Can you sleep easily? Usually yes but not in the past eight weeks or so.
7. Do you prefer the beach or the woods? Definitely the beach.

[ YELLOW ]

1. Closest yellow thing to you? A post-it note in my post it dispenser.
2. The happiest time(s) of your life? When I lived in Abuja and when my husband (then boyfriend) and I got back together after breaking up for about a year.
3. Favourite holiday? Jamaica!!
4. Are you a coward? On dark and stormy nights – yes.
5. Do you burn or tan? Tan.
6. Do you want children? I have one already with another one on the way.
7. What makes you happy? Tough one. Being with family, writing, creating stuff.

[ PINK ]

1. Closest pink thing to you? The flowers on the little cactus I have on my table.
2. Do you like sweet things? Yes.
3. Like play-fighting? I do, I do – especially with my husband. Hehehe
4. Are you sensitive? Yes, sometimes overly so.
5. Do you like punk music? NO, NO, NO!!!
6. What is your favourite flower? Lilies.
7. Does someone have a crush on you? Not a clue.

[ ORANGE ]

1. Closest orange thing to you? A biro.
2. Do you like to burn things? No.
3. Dress up for Halloween? No, can’t stand Halloween.
4. Are you usually a warm-hearted person? Usually.
5. Do you prefer the single life or the security of a relationship? They both have their advantages. I got a lot more done when I was single in terms of my self development but I’ve had a lot less time to focus on myself since getting married, and especially since having a child. Marriage shifts one’s focus. I will confess though that in stressful times, I long for the single life, albeit temporarily.
6. What would your super power be? The ability to see into the future.

[ WHITE ]

1. Closest white thing to you? A4 paper in my printer.
2. Would you say you're innocent? No. Not anymore.
3. Always try to keep the peace? No. Sometimes a good fight is necessary.
4. How do you imagine your wedding? Been there, done that.
5. Do you like to play in the snow? No, too cold. Give me the African sun anytime.
6. Are you afraid of going to the doctors or dentist? Not in the least. I have been poked and prodded so many times in my life that all my fears have been dispeled.

[ BLACK ]

1. Closest black thing to you? The telephone
2. Ever enjoy hurting people? No, not knowingly anyway.
3. Are you sophisticated or silly? I’m not silly but I wish I could say sophisticated.
4. Do you have a lot of secrets? Yes, and they’ll remain just that.
5. What is your favourite colour(s)? Browns and Beiges.
6. Does the colour you wear affect your mood? Yes. When I wear varying shades of brown I feel calm and sophisticated. When I wear red I feel vibrant and like a sexy vixen, when I wear grey I feel distinctly dowdy.

2007

2007-01-02T16:35:00.000Z

I was moved to tears today when I watched on CNN the opening of Oprah’s Leadership Academy in South Africa. We so rarely hear about good things happening on the news that this just overwhelmed me. It is completely free – board, tuition, the facilities, uniforms – EVERYTHING is free. Oprah’s generosity and kindness of spirit just takes my breath away. If ever there was a good woman, she definitely is one and along with millions of other women around the world, she is my number one mentor. I wish her well. For more information see here.

So, 2007 is finally here. What are your hopes and dreams? What habits will you be changing this year? What is the one thing you’ll be doing differently when you wake up in the morning? Which friendships are you going to nurture and which ones have got to go? Is this the year when you’ll reconcile with your enemy? Start that new business? Forgive some who needs to be forgiven? Grow in your faith? Love yourself more? Sow a seed of good into someone else’s life either with your time, compassion, generosity, patience, goodwill, kindness and yes, even your money?

Whatever you chose to do this year, let it be the year where you make a positive impact on someone else’s life because one thing I am beginning to realise is that the good you do onto others always, always comes back to you.

I wish you all the best for 2007!!

Being PC

2006-12-27T15:50:00.000Z

Gone are the days when gay meant happy and queer meant strange and Baa Baa Black Sheep was a harmless little nursery rhyme. These days the English language has become fraught with do’s and don’ts - a minefield of offence causing verbs and pronouns.

Here is a brief lesson in how to be politically correct in our increasingly touchy world.

You don’t say Black
You say African-American, Afro- Caribbean and for a thorough bred African or non White person, you say Ethnic.

You don’t say Baa Baa Black Sheep
It’s Baa Baa Woolly Sheep

You don’t say Blackboard
You say whiteboard or Wipe board

You don’t say Fat
You say overweight

You don’t say Disabled
You say Otherwise Abled

You don’t say Short
You say Vertically Challenged

You don’t say Cold Blooded, Heartless, Vicious little Creep
You say Thermostatically Defunct

You don’t say Merry Christmas
You say Happy Holidays

You don’t say Homosexual
You say Alternative Lifestyle

You don’t say Husband/Wife
You say Partner

You don’t say I believe in God
You say I am Spiritual

You don’t say Brainstorm
You say CloudBurst or Word/Thought Shower

You don’t say Blind
You say Visually Impaired

You don’t say Clumsy
You say Uniquely Coordinated

You don’t say Chairman
You say Chairperson or simply, Chair

You don’t say Fail or Failure
You say Deferred Success

You say it’s being Politically Correct
I say what a crock of …*Bleep, Bleep, Bleep*

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-24T17:29:00.000Z

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

The Maternity Wear Conspiracy and a New Look

2006-12-20T13:11:00.000Z

I have come to the conclusion that there must be a worldwide conspiracy among clothing manufacturers to keep pregnant women looking as unattractive and dowdy as possible. You don’t believe me? Well, have you tried looking for maternity clothes lately?

Last Friday I did just that. I took a day’s annual leave from work and headed into the City Centre in search of some maternity wear. My clothes are all tight and I can’t get away with having the zip of my jeans half undone hidden under a long shirt and being held together by a scarf anymore. I didn’t have much on my shopping list – all I wanted was a pair of jeans, a pair of black trousers and a couple of nice tops. Easy peasy one would think. Ha, I wish.

People, there was no shop I didn’t go into from Marks and Spencer (they have discontinued their maternity line. Now why would they go and do a thing like that?) to BHS (Ugh!! Who goes into Bhs???) – No joy. Why didn’t I do the obvious and go into Mothercare I hear you ask. My reply to that is, I did but have you seen the prices of their clothes?? I’m sorry but I am not paying a kings ransom for a flimsy little t-shirt.

The cost of maternity clothes is extortionate!!! And the quality is crap. Lets put it this way, you wouldn’t want to stand too close to any candles if you had on any of the maternity clothes I saw being sold on the high street. Plus, the clothes are the untrendiest things you have ever clapped your eyes on. Anyway, after four hours (4hours!!!) of trudging up and down the high street and round and round the Bullring a nice lady at M & S asked me to have a look in Dorothy Perkins. I would never in a million years have thought that Dotty P had a maternity range but they did, surprise, surprise. Their collection wasn’t huge but it was acceptable and I ended up getting a pair of jeans. However, as I can’t exactly live in a pair of jeans for the next six months I decided to have a look on the internet when I got home. Good News – I found loads of sites selling maternity wear. Bad News - the prices!!! If you don’t have £60 and above to spend on ONE item then forget it, and if you haven’t figured it out by now I’ll spell it out for you – I’m a tight fisted git. I am a £20 and less kinda gal. Besides I’m funny about buying clothes online or even out of a catalogue. I am a great believer in trying on clothes first. I like to try before I buy.

On Tuesday, I took the plunge and went to the hairdressers and had all my hair chopped off. Yes, I am now the proud owner of a head of hair no longer than a centimetre long. In clipper speak, I’m a number 3. It feels great to be able to wake up in the morning and just go. No more blow drying and shower caps and heat protecting hair spray. Freedom!! My daughter wasn’t too pleased though as she burst into tears when she saw me. Why did you cut off all your hair mama, she wailed . I had to reassure her that it would grow again. Now if only I can find the clothes to go with my new look….

Office Rule

2006-12-13T15:08:00.000Z

Here is a little office rule for you – I just discovered it from first hand experience and thought I would pass it on.

If your colleague has been in the toilet for longer than 10 minutes, DO NOT go in as soon as s/he gets out.

Air freshener anyone?

Beta Blogger or Not?

2006-12-13T10:50:00.000Z

Since blogger introduced their new beta blogger I have been torn as to whether to switch over or not. My biggest fear, and the primary reason I’m holding back from doing so, is losing my template. I have worked hard and long on it and I won’t be a happy bunny if it got all messed up or even worse, disappeared completely.

Have any of you switched over yet? Have you had any problems with it? Did your templates remain intact? Is it worth switching over? One thing I find though is that I have problems leaving comments on blogs that have switched to beta blogger. I have to click on the publish button several times before my comment appears.

Please let me know if you’ve had any problems with it before I take the plunge.

Goat Meat Pepper Soup, Anyone?

2006-12-11T17:42:00.000Z

Of Death, Rights and the Future

2006-12-08T11:16:00.000Z

(A dark post)

As I watch my belly swell with the new life that grows within me, I find my mind increasingly filled with thoughts of death. I try to shove these thoughts aside but it’s difficult to and they forever hang onto the fringes on my consciousness.

You see I have what one would call elderly parents I guess. My father is seventy-six and my mother is sixty-seven. They are both in very good health, for which I am very grateful but I know at the back of my mind that they both perhaps have on average about twenty years each left on this earth. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not being morbid or wishing the inevitable to happen, but it’s a fact of life and I know, more so now than ever before that my parents are not going to be around forever, as much as I would like them to be. Each time they come to visit or I go over to see them, they are that bit more frailer, more greyer, more older, that bit more not able to do certain things. The last time I saw my dad after about three years, I had to go to my room for a good cry. This wasn’t the strong athletic man I grew up with, who seemed to be invincible. This was an old, frail man that stood before me. I was so shocked by what I saw and it hit me really hard.

Now, practically every time I speak with my parents the conversation almost always includes this bit…

‘PTS, do you remember Mr/Mrs. so and so?’
‘Don’t tell me. They’ve died’
‘Yes, two days ago. The funeral is next month.’
‘How old were they?’
‘Sixty-five/Seventy/Eighty.’

And I have to hold myself back from blurting out ‘Oh, they tried now. That’s a good age.’ Why? Because it hits me that my parents are in the same age bracket, and suddenly sixty-five/seventy/eighty is not a good age after all.

When I think of the future and the unavoidable, I guess I worry most about my mother. As a foreigner living in Nigeria, I don’t think my mother will have many rights in the event of her husbands death in spite of the fact that she has lived in Nigeria now for almost 47 years. I may be wrong though. However, even if the law is on her side in terms of inheriting the property and other worldly possessions, it largely depends on the largesse of my dad’s extended family.

Let’s be realistic here. On the death of a woman’s husband in Nigeria, be she a foreigner or not, seven times out of ten the family can make serious wahala for her regardless of what the law says. For now, my fathers’ family have been great – all of his siblings bar one have passed on and my dad, although the youngest, put all his nieces and nephews through school. The majority of them are doing well for themselves but there is always the possibility of someone popping out of the wood work – as it so often happens back home. And it’s these wood work popping individuals that can make life very miserable for the family the man has left behind. I worry about this, I really do. In addition, there’s the fact that my parents had only girls – so there is no mighty Son to fight for us. I have no idea if my father has made a will and I have never asked. Wills are still a bit of a taboo subject as the person you are asking usually tends to think that you are planning their demise.

And even if the worst case scenario doesn’t play out i.e. some stranger wanting to claim all my dad’s property for themselves, I worry what will happen to all the property of which he has quite a few. I know for sure that I will never go back home to live – not in Benin anyway, where the said properties are – and I don’t envisage my mother remaining there on her own. Both my sisters are married to foreigners so there’s no chance of them returning either. What’s going to happen to all the stuff in the family home? What’s going to happen to all the houses? Do we keep them (to what end?) or do we sell (which would break my heart as the house I grew up in holds very many dear memories for me)? There will be so many life changing decisions to make. I get weary and depressed just thinking about it.

It’s a strange post and a sensitive subject I know but it’s the place I find myself at, at the moment.

If there are any lawyers reading this post, or if you are knowledgeable about what the rights of foreigners married to Nigerians are I would really appreciate some advice or signpost me in the direction where I can look for further information.

Proving myself Nigerian

2006-11-30T11:28:00.000Z

I generally try to steer clear of race, religion and politics on my blog but this particular issue has been bugging me for a while.

In the UK, according to their equal opportunity and ethnicity forms, I am known as Mixed Race (sometimes I have the option of White and Black African), in Nigeria I am commonly and wrongly referred to as being half caste, in the slave days I would have been known as a mulatto, and I have even been asked what breed I am. Excuse me?

I, on the other hand, have always referred to myself as being Mixed. And sometimes, when I do not see an appropriate category on a form in which to place myself, I make up my own – Afro-European.

As nature would have it though, I have taken most of my physical features from my mother (who is the white – oops is that PC? or the Caucasian parent) – I am pale skinned, becoming even more so now that it’s winter and there is no sunshine in sight to tan me golden, I’ve got long straight hair (for which I was always the envy of my friends as I have never had to use any sort of straightening products), and all my life I have always been asked if I was Indian, Chinese or Hawaiian. When I was six months old and in Germany, my mum was congratulated on being brave and compassionate enough to have adopted a Vietnamese orphan!!

Sometimes looking the way I do has been an advantage. For instance, when I was in university and we had to queue up either to pay for hostel accommodation or at the bursary to pay the tuition fees, nine times out of ten I would be called from the back of the queue to the front to pay before anyone else. It was like the general thought amongst the university officials was that I couldn’t cope with standing in the heat so it was best to attend to me first – I was presumed to be an Aje-butter because of the way I looked. Did I put them right and behave all noble and wait my turn patiently in the sun for four hours? Hell no! (LOL).

At other times, it’s been a disadvantage. Most traders and market sellers always tried to rip me off. I was always a beacon in the dark for the area boys on the beach who just assumed I was loaded with ‘dolla’s’ and so hung around me like flies on shit – and were sometimes quite aggressive as well. But coming to think about it Area Boy and Aggression kind of go hand in hand. And last year, I was almost refused renewal of my Nigerian passport at the immigration office in Enugu because the immigration officer didn’t believe that I was Nigerian. As for the original passport that needed renewing? Well, he thought I had greased a few palms to get it in the first place, naturally. My husband, quickly sensing that I was on the verge of telling the officer where he could stick his non-advantageous green Nigerian passport, stepped in in the nick of time and soothed things over before I had a chance to explode and thus seriously jeopardizing my chances of renewing my passport EVER. I did get the passport renewed in the end but not before we were fleeced of a few thousand Naira.

And what always made me laugh was the little children who would run after me in the markets yelling ‘shpree- shpree- sphree’ through their noses in their imitation of a foreign accent I guess.

But the focus of this post is to do with my fellow Nigerians and their reactions towards me.

Whenever I find myself at a Nigerian gathering (for example a general meeting of Nigerians in Diaspora or at a Naija only party) I always notice a slight puzzled look fleet across the faces around me as they try and figure out what exactly I am doing amongst them. Then one person invariably plucks up the courage and asks ‘Are you Nigerian?’ and even when I respond that I am, I can still see the doubt and this is when I find myself adapting my language. I either start to intersperse my sentences with pidgin English, or I casually drop in some conk ‘you-will-only-know-these-words-if-you-are-Nigerian’ speak into my conversation. Only then do I see them visibly relax. Then the final question comes ‘But you are not full Nigerian, are you?’

The scene described above has played itself out many times over the years and I sometimes despair that I have to ‘prove’ myself Nigerian to my fellow country people. It’s almost as though because I have white blood flowing through my veins I cannot be considered a thorough bred Nigerian in spite of the fact that I was born and raised there. I lived there for 30 years for chrissakes, how much more Nigerian could I possibly be?

I adore African/Nigerian arts and crafts so every room, flat or house I have lived in has always been decorated with a strong African theme – leather poufs from the North, terracotta pottery, woven baskets, mud cloth throws and so forth. And so it was when I lived in Abuja, I had decorated my house in exactly this style. One day, I invited one of my friends from the office round for lunch. When she entered my house she looked around for a long time and then said to me ‘I love the way you have decorated your house, it looks so beautiful. But if we (Nigerians) do the same, people will say we are bush’. I was gob smacked when I heard this. Why would anyone consider you ‘bush’ for appreciating your own arts/crafts and having them on display in your home? I have never been able to understand this line of thinking.

I have also had my Nigerian friends tell me that I am able to get away with stuff that other Nigerians won’t be able to because ‘ah-ah, you are Oyinbo now’. What??? We have been friends since birth and you still consider me as being ‘Oyinbo’? Oh, and the mother of a guy I once dated told him straight off as soon as she saw me ‘Ah, me I don’t want any Oyinbo grandchildren O!’ Needless to say, that relationship was doomed from the start.

I could go on and on about the way some Nigerians view mixed race people – like the woman onboard the flight back from Nigeria to the UK earlier this year who declared to an inter-racial married couple who were having a bit of a problem getting their child to behave, ‘Eh, that’s how all these half caste children behave. They are uncontrollable. No home upbringing’. You know how your hand begins to itch when you want to just reach across and slap someone? If that wasn’t the height of ignorance, I don’t know what is.

And the thing is I never really consider what I am – it’s a non-issue for me. When asked, I always say I am Nigerian- whether I am being asked the question by a Caucasian or a fellow Nigerian. Only if they venture to question further, do I admit that my mother is white. Not because I don’t embrace my ‘white side’ but it’s just that I feel myself more Nigerian than anything else. But I realise that my being mixed race is an issue for some (hopefully a minority) Nigerians and I guess my inquiring mind wants to know…

If you are mixed race, have you experienced similar situations where you feel you have to ‘prove’ yourself Nigerian? And even then, do you feel that you are not quite accepted as being one?

And if you are a Nigerian, you do think mixed race Nigerians are not ‘authentic’ Nigerians? Do you think mixed race Nigerians are promiscuous and wild (oh yes, I have heard this said loads of times). Or do you think that we ‘to-do’ (heard this one as well)?

Keep it clean.

My Scan

2006-11-29T15:26:00.000Z

I am officially three months pregnant today and this is when most mums-to-be start to spread the word because the potential ‘dangerzone’ of having a miscarriage is now greatly reduced. But as you all know, I didn’t quite wait for the three month mark to break the news. I was too excited to hold it all in.

I also had my 12 week scan yesterday – yaaaaaaaay!! And I am pleased to report that baby is healthy and happy and bobbing about in my belly. I don’t think there is a more exciting stage of pregnancy (apart from having your test give you the positive blue line/cross) than having your first scan. There is something so exciting about it and seeing that little blob in your belly show up on the screen makes it all so real. I mean I know I have been pregnant for the last few months, but actually seeing the proof, so to speak, confirms it all.

My three day window of renewed energy and reduced sickness has closed and I am back to square one (head down the toilet bowl) again. I am really fed up with it but if I am to believe all the many ‘Your pregnancy’ booklets that I have been given to read, then it shouldn’t last for much longer. Fingers crossed. Hard to believe that something not quite 10 cm long is giving me so much grief.

On Feeling Better, Being Single and the Reading Bug

2006-11-23T16:06:00.000Z

For the first time in about 7 weeks I am actually beginning to feel like a human being again. The last few weeks have been really rough, as you all already know, so I am hoping I am coming to the end of it and I can finally settle down and really start to enjoy this pregnancy.

However, the by product of feeling better is that my appetite seems to have trebled!! For the last two days I have been eating for England and the funny thing is the only sort of food that calms my stomach is Nigerian food and I don’t mean rice and stuff like that. I am talking heavy ‘swallow’ dishes here. For instance, last night I had a bowlful of eba with a wicked Oha soup (or Ora soup, not sure how its spelt but it’s an Igbo/Ibo soup) I had cooked and then two hours later (at 9 pm!!) I was having another round! And when I am not eating a main meal, you’ll catch me snacking on celmentines, digestive biscuits, rice cakes or sucking furiously on a polo mint. At this rate I will balloon out of all proportion if I carry on like this. My salivary glands have also kicked into overdrive – but I think that’s a bit too much information, don’t you?

Moving on…

I was thinking the other day, as you do, that had I come to the UK as a single woman, just how easy would it have been for me to meet ‘somebody nice’ .. in other words a potential husband?

For a start I don’t do pubs, clubs or bars (popular places, apparently, for meeting members of the opposite sex). The office would also have been out of the question seeing as the men I have had to work with in the past have all been prats. Sorry. Church may have been an option but then again, not. So where would I have met someone?

And so I wonder about the single (Naija) women living in the UK. Where/how do they meet potential life partners? For instance, all my married friends (myself included) all met our husbands at University back home – which I believe is where most future couples meet. But many of the single women I know living here have either a) gone back to Nigeria to look for a husband/partner or b) are finding it really hard to find someone to settle down with.

From what they (my single friends) tell me good Nigerian men are in short supply – the operative word being ‘good’. If I am to believe what they say, most of our Naija men here know they are in ‘demand’ and so milk the situation for all it’s worth – in other words meet girl, start relationship, end relationship and move on to the next. Apologies to the sincere ones out there, I am only going on what I’ve been told.

I have also been made to understand that modern relationships i.e. 21st century relationships are a whole different ball game these days. Like many of my friends, we married (almost) solely for love – I remember I used to say to people that even if my husband had lived under a bridge I would still have married him. Aww. I am not saying that everything else was disregarded – a future, education, upbringing, beliefs etc – it’s just that they didn’t play that big a role when I made my choice.

However, it seems that these days things are very different. My young single university/just out of university female friends all say that they don’t hesitate to ask a potential suitor about his plans for the future – career or business wise, dreams and ambitions and most importantly, are they going in the same direction as them? Are you going to be able to provide for me? If not, it’s goodbye Jack! I guess it must be scary for a guy being asked on a second date for his Five Year Plan – but then a girl has gotta look out for number one I suppose. I also understand that dating has changed as well. Where in my day the man footed the bill each time we went out on a date, now couples tend to go Dutch. Now, I don’t know if it’s influence of being in Jand or the lack of wonga on the side of the men.

And…

I have been bitten by the reading bug again – but I am not complaining. Reading is good for the soul, me thinks. I just finished Waiting for an Angel by Helon Habila. A very good book – it stirred up in me so many emotions and though I was still living in Nigeria during the period/s that the book was set, I was amazed to realise just how much had passed me by. I sort of operated in a little sheltered cocoon back then so the deaths of people like MKO, Ken Saro-Wiwa and Dele Giwa where nothing more than bold headlines with I read with removed emotion. Selfish youth perhaps? What I do remember though is when Abacha died. I was working in Abuja then and it was as if a heavy oppressive blanket had been lifted. The air was suddenly lighter and the mood of the people around magically became jolly and relaxed. I also remember being warned on my first day at work to be careful who I spoke to and what I spoke of because one never knew if the person you were speaking to was an agent of the government. Scary when I think of it now.

I am on a quest of discovering some good books by Nigerian authors so if you have any suggestions please let me know. Thanks to UKnaija for the link. Most helpful.

Five Years and Counting

2006-11-17T11:19:00.000Z

Five years ago today, my husband and I got married. Yes, today is our wedding anniversary.

Being romantic is not one of my husbands strong points so I was very pleasantly surprised this morning when he gave me a lovely potted plant (I prefer live plants which stay with me forever than a bunch of flowers which wilt and die after a couple of days – nice to look at but basically a waste of money) and this ring which I have been lusting after ever since I clapped eyes on it in Paris. I love it, love it, love it!! And it fits perfectly – When I asked how he guessed at my ring size, he said he tested one of my rings on his little finger to gauge my size. Isn’t that sweet.

But now I feel so guilty because I didn’t get him anything. Yikes!! So I shall be hurrying myself into the city today to get him something equally as romantic.

My Changing Shape and more Cravings

2006-11-14T18:15:00.000Z

So the waistband of my trousers are beginning to get a little tighter, my skirts are sitting a little snugger and my t-shirts are beginning to strain a little around the chest area. Yes, people, the little one within me may be only 10 weeks old, but s/he is starting to make it’s presence visible on my body. I can’t believe that I soon have to start stocking up on maternity wear and get a bra fitting at Marks and Sparks. Unfortunately, my belly is at that stage where it doesn’t quite look pregnant yet. It just looks like I have had a serious case of overindulgence of the culinary kind. You feel like telling people ‘No, no, I don’t need to go on a diet, I’m pregnant’. Ah well.

The morning sickness has still not abated (sorry for going on about it) on the contrary it seems to be getting worse and the result is that I am exhausted most of the time. Sometimes being in this constant state of ‘unwellness’ makes me quite annoyed because I know I am not sick and yet I feel sick, if you know what I mean. I have also become quite irritable – from having people touch me, to feeling the water on my skin as I take a shower, to having the duvet on my body – all irritate the hell out of me. Even the feeling of having my hair brushing again my neck is a constant source of irritation so I am thinking of visiting the hairdressers soon and going for an extremely low crop. I have been wanting to do this for ages so this is my perfect excuse. My daughter is going to be devastated though as she says I look like a princess with my long hair. *Bless*

I am also having these crazy dreams – being in a plane crash, having violent quarrels with strangers, and posting abusive comments on peoples blogs are just a few of the dreams I have had in the past few days. But the experts say pregnancy sometimes does this and when I think about it, I do remember having very weird dreams when I was expecting my daughter. I’m still having my crazy cravings and here are a few of the things that wander in and out of my mind.

1. Amuge – I have no idea what else this fruit is called but growing up in Benin it was always called this. They are little black velvet covered pods which grow in bunches and when you crack a pod open, it contains a little orange fruit which you suck on and there’s a tiny seed inside which you spit out, obviously. Anybody know what else this fruit is called or even know what in the world I’m going on about?

2. Otien (you’ve got to forgive my spellings here, I’m crap at native words) aka Cherry – I’m sure you guys all know this one. An orange coloured fruit with a brown plug like contraption on the top which you pull out with your teeth and then you suck on the fruit pulling out the soft sweet sour pulp into your mouth. It contains hard brown half moon shaped seeds. Sometimes, there is a bit of it which you can turn into chewing gum. Ring any bells at all?

3. Ube aka Black Pear – Ahh, you all know this one well! It’s popular during corn season. You either roast it or pop it into boiling water until soft. It’s greeny soft flesh is delicious on it’s own or sprinkled with a bit of salt. It’s usually eaten with boiled or roasted corn. And speaking of corn, can anyone tell me where I can get some REAL corn from? Not this sweetcorn crap that’s sold here.

Ah, I’d better stop now before I start to dribble down my chin.

Donald Dukes Blog

2006-11-10T12:08:00.000Z

For those of you who are interested, Donald Duke, governor of Cross Rivers State has just started a blog. I must say, I admire the man.

http://donaldduke.blogspot.com/

Junk Food

2006-11-09T12:11:00.000Z

Over the last couple of months I have become more aware of what I put in my mouth and now that I am eating for two, I am even more so.

I worry sometimes when I read food labels. There are so many additives, colourings and preservatives put in foods these days that I begin to wonder what’s real or natural about it in spite of a huge label which assures you that it’s ‘100% Natural’.

Have you ever read the label on a loaf of bread? If you haven’t then I’ll enlighten you. In an innocent looking loaf of store bought bread you’ll find it contains the following:

Wheat Flour, Water, Yeast, Salt, Vinegar, Soya Flour, Vegetable Fat, Emulsifier (Mono and Diacetyltartaric Acid Esters of Mono and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Fermented Wheat Flour, Flour Treatment Agent (Ascorbic Acid).

If that isn’t scary I don’t know what is. What the hell are all these things? All I wanted was a loaf of bread. Not a chemical time bomb! It seems that the word ‘Junk’ is not being confined to KFC or McDonalds only.

Even things that you think are fresh and natural and ‘straight off the farm’ – say for instance a head of lettuce – are not as fresh and natural as you might think. How natural can a head of lettuce be that can sit in your fridge for two weeks and still look as green and crisp as the day you bought it two weeks before? Back home (Naija), you’d be lucky if you can make a head of lettuce last for more than three days in your fridge. And anything which has a label on announcing ‘Sugar Free’ or ‘No added Sugar’ I avoid like a plague because although they don’t contain any sugar they sure contain a lot of sweeteners such as Aspartame. For information on Aspartame and pregnancy go here and for general info on Aspartame go here.

Granted, Nigeria may not have the huge variety of foods on offer (which coming to think of it may not be such a bad thing) that they have over here but one thing I must say is that the food in Naija, in my opinion, is much healthier. Most things are fresh and meals are more often than not cooked from scratch. Vegetables are (mostly) organic and most importantly, the food tastes better. I bought a mango the other day but had to put it in the bin because it tasted of nothing – absolutely no flavour to it whatsoever. And I remember when I first got here; I used to think the fresh chicken (you know the 2 for £5 ones?) was off because it had such a curious smell. It took me a long time to get over that smell, which I think is caused by the feed that the chickens are given. To this day I only eat that chicken if it has been heavily spiced.

So what alternatives do we have? Well, we could go Organic although that could work out to be quite an expensive endeavour. What I tend to do though is work out the difference between ‘normal’ food and ‘organic’ food and if the difference isn’t too much I go for the organic alternative. For example, the difference between ‘normal’ Weetabix and organic Weetabix is 50p – a difference which doesn’t break the bank. And I don’t know if it’s psychological or not, but it does taste different.

The other option is to buy your vegetables from open/farmers markets. They may not always be convenient to get to but most cities have them. I personally think the vegetables are better quality (if not organic) and far cheaper than the store bought ones.

And finally, although time consuming, cook your food from scratch. Fortunately this isn’t a problem for me as I always cooked this way back home. If you can’t stand to cook each and every day (or are too busy to do so) then cook over the weekends and stick it in the freezer (at least you know say NEPA no go strike).

So I encourage you to please be more aware of what you eat. You just might be saving your life.

The Da Vinci Code

2006-11-08T10:02:00.000Z

After one year of hearing all the hoopla about it and being bombarded with countless spin off documentaries on The History and Discovery channels, I finally decided to read Dan Browns The Da Vinci Code.

I found it to be a very mediocre book. It started off alright but lost me in the middle. The book sometimes read like a history book and I was left feeling overloaded with information. Mr. Brown was also a bit too eager to get the story out and so left nothing to the readers’ imagination. Bits where I felt he would have done well to leave the reader in a little bit of suspense, he just blurted out. For instance, already mentioning about three or four chapters before the event happens that the bad guy will escape. This really annoyed me – the fact that he left me nothing to look forward too.

I also found bits of the book a bit stretched in terms of believability. Like having the story of the ‘Holy Grail’ being embedded in Disney cartoons and almost everyone save the hero, being a baddie. It’s one of those books which leave you (me at least) wondering what the fuss was about. The end was an anti-climax as well.

Overall, a generally good story but I found Mr. Brown’s writing clumsy and too long winded. I am not surprised that the movie was panned.

Conclusion: Read it if you must, but borrow it rather than buy it.

Crime Gets Out of Hand in Lagos

2006-11-06T08:13:00.000Z

Craving!!!

2006-11-03T21:00:00.000Z

Oh My God!! I've got this crazy, mad, insane, all consuming craving for Eko (Agidi)!!!!!!!!!! It's so bad I have dreams about it. Huge basinfuls of the stuff wrapped in fresh banana leaves, eaten with some fresh, hot palm oil stew.

Chei, I could just cry with longing.

London and Ante Natal Care

2006-11-02T10:46:00.000Z

I was away in London for the weekend visiting friends and it made a nice change from the same-same routine of home – I was able to put my feet up a bit and relax. But I must say, I am glad I don’t live in London.

I was intending to visit a few of my fiends who live in London and whom I haven’t seen in a long while but I ended up only able to visit one of them. Why? Because getting from one point of London to another is a major journey. Not wanting to use the tube as I had my daughter with me, we decided to drive instead – never again! The friends we stayed with live in Essex so getting to say Finchley or Isleworth is like travelling from Benin to Lagos. 1 hour later, and you’re still no closer to your destination. Utter madness. The only thing going for London, in my opinion, is the weather – which was beautifully mild and sunny compared with Birmingham which is about 0 – 2 degrees centigrade at the moment. But I guess the appeal of London is a bit like the appeal of Lagos – once you live there for a while you find it hard to live anywhere else.

Had my first ante-natal check up yesterday and I am officially 8 weeks pregnant (another 32 weeks to go, yippee) and my EDD (expected due date) is the 12th of June (isn’t that a significant date in Nigeria? Something to do with elections? My memory is a bit fuzzy). Anyway, I had a good moan to the midwife about my nausea (yes, I am still plagued by it) and she suggested that I eat a small meal every 2 hours to give my stomach juices something to work on constantly. Good idea, but can you imagine how much weight I would have put on by the time I come to the end of my first trimester? But, I guess now is not exactly the time to be worrying about weight, huh?

I had forgotten just how good the care is here for pregnant women (I don’t care what people have to say about the NHS. After you have experienced the (non existent) healthcare system in Naija, you’ll never complain about anything again). As a pregnant woman here, you are bombarded with all sorts of resources (for free), you are talked through each stage of your pregnancy, there are aqua natal classes available and if you happen to work on the days these classes hold then your midwife will write a letter to your employer asking for you to be let off work for the required amount of time (they are legally bound to do so). You are also given a special telephone number to call in case of emergencies.

Très bon!

Coping at Work

2006-10-26T12:17:00.000+01:00

I think the thing I am finding most difficult to cope with is feeling so ill and still having to come into work. I can’t get anything done at all. My eyes are all blurry, my mind’s unwilling to jumpstart itself and my body just wants to crawl under the duvet and sleep the whole day.

And the thing is I haven’t told anyone at work that I am pregnant yet (I don’t have to officially until the 15th week before my EDD) so I can’t tell them the reason I feel so under the weather. They all think it’s a ‘bug’ going around because two other people in the office are off sick. I think I’ll beg off and go home now.

The Fifty Pound Note

2006-10-26T10:40:00.000+01:00

Have you ever paid for something using a £50 note? And have you ever noticed the reaction you got when the person behind the till noticed that you were paying for your items with a £50 note?

I never fail to be amazed at the fuss shops make when they see a £50 note. It’s like you’ve handed them a vial full of a deadly disease. The first reaction you get from the checkout person is a very funny look as if to say ‘where the hell did you get this, you unworthy cretin’, then the note is carefully scrutinized and rubbed between the thumb and the forefinger, then it’s held up to the light and if that is not enough, in some cases the shop manager is called to vet the offending note.

You know the feeling that overcomes you at passport control at Airports? You know the one I mean - feeling like a criminal in spite of the fact that you know all your documents are in order and your passport is certainly not fake? Well that’s the feeling that overcomes me on the rare occasions that I am opportuned to hand over a £50 note at the till of a shop.

I don’t get it. Every time it happens I feel like asking them whether or not it’s legal tender. One would think it wasn’t from the reaction you get.

Belly Churning ...

2006-10-25T10:13:00.000+01:00

I promise that this will be the last post I make on feeling sick – after this I shall focus on the positives, okay? Like I always say, Pregnancy is not an illness.

But I have to tell you, I have been as sick as a dog. Everything just makes my stomach revolt and no sooner have I eaten something, I feel queasy again. I have managed to hold it all down but it’s been hard.

I am also being made queasy by smells around me – my shampoo, hand wash and soap all have me reaching for the retch bag. I am also incredibly tired and could sleep all day. Thankfully, this stage only lasts the first 12 weeks (I am about 7 weeks now) and after that I should be back to normal (at least I was the first time around).

I popped into Tesco before work this morning and got myself a pack of chargrilled chicken and red pepper pasta which I had for breakfast (yes, breakfast). Wasn’t bad – I avoided the little tub of salad dressing which it came with and enhanced the flavour with salt instead. So far so good, my stomach seems to be reluctantly embracing it.

My daughter is getting into the spirit of things by telling everyone within ear reach that ‘my mummy has a baby in her belly. And it’s going to get bigger and bigger and bigger’. Ahhh kids, there’s nothing like keeping a secret with them.

The Joys of Morning Sickness

2006-10-23T17:12:00.000+01:00

Awwwwwwwwww. Thank you so much everyone who left a comment. I have really been touched by your warmness and concern and interest – and to imagine that we don’t even know each other. The joys of blog land!

Oh, I must warn you that my blog may turn into a bit of a pregnancy diary over the next nine months, so please bear with me. I just hope I don’t bore you too much.

Warning! Do not read this post if you are about to have your lunch!

Just as I was beginning to think that I would escape the dreaded morning sickness it has stuck with a vengeance and I feel so pooped at the moment.

Now morning sickness is not really what you think it is – you don’t wake up in the morning, puke and that’s it for the day. No, morning sickness should actually be renamed Morning, Noon and Night sickness. It is a constant feeling of nausea which plagues you throughout the day (and night). When you eat, the food just sits there between your belly button and the bottom of your rib cage and it just doesn’t budge. Your stomach just churns constantly and it feels a bit like you’re carrying a piece of lead around with you. And the worst thing is that you want to puke but most of the time you can’t. Awful.

I didn’t get much sleep last night as I spent half of it with my head down the toilet bowl and because I had had a really spicy meal in the evening, my throat was pretty raw by the time I had emptied myself out. Oops, sorry if I’m being a bit graphic.

So I am avoiding spicy, greasy and fried foods. Today I am surviving on dry crackers, Heinz tinned soups and water with a bit of lemon squeezed into it. Not exactly a riveting menu. I also have a tin of mints by my bed.

I went to Boots and got myself a pair of motion sickness bands. These are knitted elasticated wrist bands, which claim to eliminate morning sickness by applying pressure on the acupressure points on your wrists by means of a plastic stud. If you are pregnant and you’re reading this, I have two words for you – DON’T BOTHER! What a rip off! I feel like going back to boots and demanding a refund and they’re pretty pricy at £8 a pop!! I guess they reckon that women get so desperate to get rid of their morning sickness that they would do or buy any thing. And they’re right – I’m living proof.

But apart from this and feeling constantly tired I guess I am doing pretty well.

Plus One More

2006-10-19T11:16:00.000+01:00

I don’t think I can hold this news in any longer or else I will burst!

I am Pregnant with my second child!!!!!!!!!

It been a long two year journey to get here but get here we did in the end. Now where do I start?

When my daughter was a year and a half I finally made the conscious decision that I was ready to have another baby – before that I just wasn’t ready. I had found it difficult to cope being a first time mom and in hindsight I think I suffered a bit from post natal depression.

After about a year of trying nothing had happened. I began to wonder if anything was the matter – after all I got pregnant the first time without even thinking about it. Could it be the fact that I went on the Pill after I’d had my first child? Am I not relaxed enough (why does everyone tell you to ‘relax’ when you are trying for a baby?)? Have I put on weight? Am I too old? All sorts of thoughts were swirling around my head. Then in November of last year, bingo, I got pregnant but sadly I miscarried a few weeks later. However this helped get the ball rolling.

The next 10 months were filled with endless medical tests being carried out on me and my husband. Urine tests, sperm tests, blood tests, external scans, internal scans, internal examinations, and a hysterosalpingogram (HSG). On my medical notes, I was put in the category of Secondary Infertility. By this time any passion between the sheets had become a mechanical chore. There is something about trying for a baby for a long time and nothing happening that acts as a real passion killer. You get to a stage where you ask yourself what the point is.

But I think what I hated the most was

Constantly being asked by people, ‘So when is number two coming?’ and

Having the fact pointed out to me that I already had a beautiful little girl so I should be grateful.

Both situations elicited the same response from me, Piss Off! But I never voiced it of course; I just smiled through very tight lips and changed the subject.

(Listen, if you have a friend or sister who is trying for a child, please, please do not keep asking when number two is coming, or reminding them of what they already have.)

At the end of all these tests, the results showed that both my husband and I were okay. There was a slight possibility that I may have ovarian cysts but this turned out to be a false alarm (thank goodness).

I had my final visit with my Consultant Gynaecologist in September and I was prescribed a four month supply of the drug Clomid. All we now had to do was wait for my next period, take one Clomid tablet a day for five days and have lots of sex for the next twelve. Sounds fun, huh?

Within me, I balked at the idea of having to take a drug to get pregnant – I wanted to get pregnant naturally. But I had no choices left open to me. Prayers had long since ended and resignation had slowly but surely set in.

So I clutched my prescription for my Clomid and headed for the nearest pharmacy with the words of my consultant ringing in my ears:

‘Just chill out (yes she said that *smile*), relax (oh no) and the next time I see you, I want to see you with a baby.’ But (there is always a but) she added, ‘If after four months you are still not pregnant, we will have to refer you to the infertility clinic.’

Cheery news. What baffled me all the way through the numerous tests was how a perfectly normal fertile woman like myself, could suddenly become infertile.

I brought home the little white cardboard box with the word CLOMID printed on it in bold blue letters and sat it on my shelf and waited for my next period to arrive. And I waited, and waited and waited.

10 days late I dared to let this thought creep into my head ‘Could I be pregnant?’ It was a quiet thought but it carried so much hope. I approached my stash of pregnancy test strips (I had ordered hundreds of them during the period I was undergoing all those tests) and pulled out one of the white foil packets. Oh, how many times had I done this and gotten a negative result which left me devastated every time?

I tore open the foil packet, took a wee sample, and stuck the test strip into it and squeezed my eyes shut; please, please, please, please, please. Five seconds later, I pulled out the strip. I watched the wee soak its way up the strip past the control line and past the test line. Yes, there was the control line – a bright red – but wait, there was a SECOND LINE – the test line! POSITIVE!! I couldn’t believe it and I didn’t.

I so didn’t believe it that over the next four days I carried out four more pregnancy tests which all gave me the same results. At last, I could believe it. Then and only then did I break the news to my husband. We had done it and without Clomid!

Needless to say, we are both very happy and I wanted to share some of that happiness with you.

To Share or Not To Share {Part 1}

2006-10-18T20:38:00.000+01:00

Sitting together on the sofa last night my husband asked me an unexpected question.

‘How much do you think one should share in a marriage?

‘What do you mean?’ was my puzzled reply.

‘How much information should a husband/wife share in terms of what they are thinking or feeling?’ he expanded.

Knowing that this was leading somewhere interesting I sat up and paid more attention.

‘I would say everything. I think in marriage a husband/wife should share every area of their lives. There should be no secrets.’ (I felt a bit of a guilty prang when I said this but I’ll go into that later.) ‘But give me a specific example.’ I pressed.

‘For example,’ he ventured, ‘would you want to know if I was lusting after another woman?’

Talk about a question out of the blue! But I kept my composure.

‘Yeah, I guess so.’ I said a little uncertain. ‘Why? Are you lusting after someone else?’ I asked half jokingly.

‘No, of course not.’

‘But do you ever look at other women and think hmm….’

‘I would be lying if I said I didn’t, that’s just the way men are. But I don't take it any further than that. It’s how far you take it that matters.’

At the end of the conversation I was full of mixed feelings.

On the one hand I was happy my husband was being honest with me about such a sensitive subject but on the other hand it was one of those conversations that make you go Ummm.

I am one of those women that trusts her husband explicitly (I know some of you may be saying ‘more fool you’) but I also know that if I let things slide I could very easily be walking on thin ice.

You see, I do let things slide sometimes and I take my relationship with my husband very much for granted. I have bought into the idea that nothing can come between us. On the one hand it’s a good thing but on the other it’s an unrealistic place to be as it makes me complacent. I just assume that he will always be there and will only ever have eyes for me. But this isn’t always so, is it?

The truth is men do look at other women. It’s a fact of life and as much as we (women) hate this idea, it IS up to us to keep them interested (except of course you have done some very serious Okpor (juju) for him in which case he will never stray *smile*). Also it’s like marriage or a long term relationship changes us.

When we first start dating our partners we pull out all the stops. We do our hair, nails, go down the gym, visit the hairdressers once a week and generally make an effort to look stunning for them. And then we get married or settled in the relationship and everything just goes out the window. You know what I am talking about – we put on weight (sometimes), slop around the house with unkempt hair, jogging bottoms and stretched out t-shirts and expect our husbands/partners to salivate when they see us. And if there are kids on the scene, they are the ones who tend to get the blame for the way we look. Then we wonder why when our partners’ eyes begin to rove.

(Now I do know that some men are serial cheaters; those are not the ones I am referring to here.)

But I’ll tell you what gets me kick started into paying more attention to my relationship again - when I hear about a friend whose husband has strayed! It’s like the thought of it happening to me jump starts me into making a change. I become more attentive, I make more of an effort with the way I look, I start to notice him again (it’s true after being in a relationship for a long while; we tend not to ‘notice’ our partners). But then as the weeks go by, I calm down and stop making an effort. Why? Perhaps its human nature or perhaps I just hit my comfort zone again. I dunno.

To be continued…

How Honest Are You?

2006-10-17T07:30:00.000+01:00

I’d like to ask you a question and I want you to be totally truthful when you answer it;

Just how honest are you with your friends?

I cannot recall the countless number of times I have watched women in shop changing room struggle into dresses two sizes too small in colours and styles that are totally unsuitable and I hear their companions, whom I assume are their friends, say ‘Oh, you look gorgeous in that. It’s really you!’

‘Say Whaaaaat?? Are you blind?’ I want to scream my disbelief.

But I think it’s something we have all done at one time or the other. It may not be necessarily clothes related but when feelings are involved we tend to tread carefully. However, there are times when trending carefully is not in the best interest of your friend (ship). So here are some random questions I’m going to throw out. Would you tell your friend …

1. That she has bad breath?

2. That the outfit she has on makes her look like a prostitute?

3. That her husband/partner is cheating on her?

4. When she moans to you for the umpteenth time about the state of her life that she should get off her bum and do something about it then?

5. That that hairstyle and red lipstick she has on does her no favours?

6. That her husband/partner tried to hit on you?

7. That you’ve both grown apart and it’s time to move on?

8. That you’re jealous of her – because she’s prettier/richer/smarter?

9. That you did the naughty with her current beau long before he met her?

10. That her fake English/American accent that she puts on sounds just that – Fake?

What’s your honestly threshold?

The Fours Meme

2006-10-15T08:00:00.000+01:00

I was tagged by the Minx so here goes...

4 Jobs I've had in my life

1. Student (it felt like a job to me!)
2. Personal Assistant
3. Project Administrator
4. Handbag Designer/Maker

4 ~~Fictional~~ jobs I wish I had

1. Richard Branson’s Job (actually his money, not his job)
2. Any job that will take me around the world
3. Personal Shopper for the rich and famous
4. Co-host of The Oprah Show

4 Movies I could watch over and over again

1. Pretty Woman
2. What Women Want
3. Enemy of the State
4. Memoirs of a Geisha

4 Cities I've lived in

1. Lagos, Nigeria
2. Abuja, Nigeria
3. Berlin, Germany
4. Birmingham, England
... Goodness, how boring!

4 TV Shows I love to watch

1. The Apprentice
2. America’s Next Top Model
3. Oprah
4. What Not To Wear

4 Places I've been on Vacation to

1. Frankfurt, Germany
2. Paris, France
3. Tallin, Estonia
4. Kingston, Jamaica

4 Websites I visit daily

1. Blogger
2.Mininova
3. Hotmail
4. Verity Free Writes

4 Of my favorite foods

1. Sauerkraut and Bratwurst
2. Pouded Yam and Ogbono
3. Lamb in the Oven
4. Peppered Gizzard/Snails

4 Things I won't eat

1. Beetroot
2. Celery
3. Stuff they make on Ready Steady Cook
4. Pickled Onions

4 Things I wish I could eat/drink right now

1. Esie Ewu (sp?)
2. Mama put
3. A tall cold glass of fresh lemonade
4. A fresh baguette

4 Things in my bedroom

1. My husband, still fast asleep in bed
2. Cream coloured throw rugs
3. A bucket armchair
4. Shelves of books

4 Things I wish I had in my bedroom

1. More Space
2. A walk in wardrobe
3. A music system
4. Silk sheets

4 Things you are wearing right now

1. A ratty black cardigan
2. Espadrilles
3. Mismatched pyjamas
4. The just-out-of-bed look

4 Places I'd rather be right now

1. Somewhere sunny
2. In bed
3. A place of wealth
4. Any place where I wouldn’t have to be doing this meme

4 Fictional places I'd rather be right now

1. By the pool of my $7m mansion, being waited on hand and foot
2. On my own private Island
3. Having a private viewing of the new Chanel winter collection
4. Taking delivery of my Jimmy Choo shoes specially designed for me.

4 People I would really love to have dinner with

1. Maya Angelou
2. Oprah
3. Chiamanda Adiechi
4. My husband

4 Things I am thinking right now

1. I'm really struggling with this Meme – e be like exam!
2. Am I going to church today?
3. What’s for breakfast?
4. Oh God, winters here!

4 Of my favourite things

1. My blogs
2. My journals
3. My Self
4. My Twins

4 People I Tag

The first four people to read this!

Sisters in Law and Celeb Adoptions

2006-10-13T17:52:00.000+01:00

I watched a lovely docu-film on Wednesday night on the More Four channel called Sisters in Law. Set in the little town of Kumba in the Cameroons, this fascinating and often hilarious documentary follows the work of State Prosecutor Vera Ngassa and Court President Beatrice Ntuba as they help women fight often-difficult cases of abuse, despite pressures from family and their community to remain silent. I Googled it and was surprised to discover that it had been screened at the 2005 Cannes film festival. To read more about sisters in law, go here.

Please excuse me for sounding a bit cynical but what is this new fad with celebrities adopting ‘poor’ children from African countries? Seems like Madonna has jumped on the band wagon too. It was amusing listening to Benston Kilembe, Malawi's director of child welfare services fumble through an interview on BBC Radio four this morning on which he was grilled as to why the adoption rules appear to have been slightly bent in favour of Madonna. He claimed that they (Madonna and her husband) had ‘followed the normal processes’ for adoption. But when questioned as to whether these ‘normal processes’ would apply to other (ordinary) couples wanting to adopt, he couldn’t give a straight answer. In the end the radio four interviewer expressed the opinion that it seemed like Mr. Kilembe was making the rules up as he went along. I had to agree.

I mean come on. In Malawi, like in many other African countries, I am sure money is the name of the game and when Madonna comes along, hell, loads of rules are sure to be bent.

I am sure deep inside she does mean well and would give this little boy a life his biological parents could never have been able to give him in a million years, but I still can’t shake the cynical thought that these adoptions of African children by celebs smacks of faddiness. They sure provide a good photo op!

What Choice Would You Make?

2006-10-10T06:59:00.000+01:00

A friend’s daughter is a few months pregnant with her second child and because she is in her thirties she was offered a prenatal screening for Downs Syndrome which she took. She was then required to undergo a second test as an abnormality had shown up in the results. Second test done, the results came back. She has a 1 in 6 chance of giving birth to a baby with Downs Syndrome. There is already a child with Downs Syndrome in the family.

Talking to her dad, I asked what his daughter’s reaction was. She has decided to keep the pregnancy – whether or not her unborn child has Downs. She is already mentally preparing herself for this possibility. I admire her greatly and respect her for her decision.

I have had this conversation many times with friends. What would we do if we found out that the child we are carrying is in some way disabled – physically or mentally? Would we keep it? Would we terminate? Would we give birth to the child and then give it up for adoption? And although we all give our answers to these hard questions, the truth is that one never really knows what our reaction would be until faced with the prospect.

(Please note that when I use the term ‘disability’ I am referring to serious disabilities that would adversely affect the quality of life of a child.)

Discussing this very issue with my husband last night, he asked me what I would do should I find myself faced with the possibility of having a child with a disability. Without hesitation, I gave him my answer: I would terminate the pregnancy.

My decision does not make me a bad person, what it does make me is an honest person. I know my limitations; I know what I can and cannot cope with and I know, to a certain extent, that I am a selfish person. I like my freedom. I am not noble, and would never pretend to be. I cannot dedicate the rest of my life to caring for a disabled child. I do not possess that selfless nature. I do not have that strength.

I watched a close family friend raise her Downs Syndrome child on her own (she was widowed) and it was no walk in the park; and living then, as she did, in a so-called third world Country, made things even harder. There was no specialist care, no special school for her daughter to go to, no resources, nothing. Life was hard. She had to make many, many sacrifices and frequently had to rely on the (financial) goodwill of her friends for any help she needed. But she was a strong woman and never, not once, complained. I don’t know what regrets she may have had or how many nights she was kept awake by her thoughts of what life might have been like if things were different, or how many times she cried. And if indeed she did go though all these emotional states of mind, she never showed it to the world. Her daughter died of a stroke last year at the age of 25.

I have been trying for a second child and given my age (almost 37) research tells me that there is the possibility that my child may have Downs so it is an issue I have to think about whether I want to or not. Perhaps I may change my mind by the time I feel the baby kicking inside me – perhaps each kick it gives may give me the strength and resolve to give birth to him or her. I don’t know. It’s a bridge I will cross when I come to it. It’s a bridge I never want to come to.

Little Black Dress

2006-10-04T18:07:00.000+01:00

For the first time in my life I own a little black dress! I know, I know – what rock have I been hiding under?

You know how sometimes you walk around a shop and something you see just reaches out and speaks to you and you know you’ve got to take it home? Well, that’s exactly what happened to me on Friday.

I wandered into Zara (not a shop I go into often as I find their sizes are sometimes off) just to have a browse around as you sometimes do when I saw one of the shop assistants wearing the simplest little black dress I have ever seen. It was beautiful and it just spoke to me. I kind of guessed that the very same dress must be hanging on a rack somewhere in the shop so I went searching. After about 15 minutes of looking around I found it, hidden away in a recessed display in an easy-to-miss location of the shop. I pounced, frantically sifting through the tags on the hangers looking for my size and breathing a small prayer under my breath when, viola, and to my surprise, I found one.
I say to my surprise because nine times out of ten when I see something that I like, the shop either doesn’t have it in my size or in the colour I like or the belt is missing or a button is gone. But this time, I struck gold. And not only that, they only had three of the said dress left (on display anyway) so it really was my lucky day.

There is nothing elaborate about this dress but its beauty is in the simplicity of its cut and the tailoring. It’s a knit dress (all the rage for winter I understand) cut in an A-line style and it just falls so beautifully when worn. I love it!

For some interesting little black dresses see here

I am also lusting after this ring.

October Celebrations

2006-10-02T07:50:00.000+01:00

October is here and there’s a feel that the year is gradually coming to an end. Some of the shops already have Christmas gear on display, which annoys me somewhat because it underpins that fact that it’s a celebration that has been overtaken by commercialism and the true reason for Christmas is slowly being forgotten (being forgotten a lot faster here in the west, I might add).

Yesterday was also Nigeria’s Independence Day and we celebrated (is there really anything for us to celebrate about?) it in a very patriotic manner by accepting an invitation by the Nigerian Christian community here to join them in a church service and a promise of plenty to back up item 10 on the agenda (for y’all not in the know, item 10 was Refreshments aka Chop and Quench).

The Nigerian in me kicked in and we invited another couple to come along with us (that’s what we do now, isn’t it? Besides the invitation did suggest The More The Merrier) and we all had a great time. There were lots of prayers said for the Country – for some reason, and a reason I am baffled by, many Nigerians believe that reason Nigeria is the way it is today is because the land is cursed so a lot of the praying done was for the curse to be broken. Personally, I don’t go with that line of thinking – the bottom line is that we have crap leaders, people in positions of authority who are corrupt and a people who have to change from the inside before any significant change can be effected in the Country, not the fact that the land is cursed. But there you go… perhaps that’s why we remain where we are. But not being one for politics, I move swiftly on. [And for anyone thinking on taking me up on this, please don’t.]

After the prayers came the mandatory speeches. Now what is it about us and microphones? As soon as we see one we just have to grab it and say something, no matter how irrelevant. If that is not bad enough, we drone on and on and on. And the fact that people are looking bored out of their minds or falling asleep fails to make an impression on the speech maker who just drones on some more.

Finally, all protocol done, the kitchen opened and the real reason (I’m I being cynical?) for the attendance of many was unveiled! Jollof rice, fried rice, moin moin, Chicken, fish, Amala, Ogbono soup, salads and more were being doled out generously. (I went for Amala and Ogbono soup :-D). The best was saved for last – Puff Puff is all it’s gummy chewy glory was served. I took a doggy bag home of those, I might add.

The best thing though about the whole day was being with other Nigerians. No matter where you are and for how long, you only truly feel comfortable amongst your own people. There’s no getting away from that. The pidgin English flowed freely, the older women were called ‘Aunty’ (it’s just second nature for a Nigerian, anyone older than you is automatically called Aunty or Uncle without a second thought), jokes that only Nigerians can understand were shared and there was much laughter and merriment in the house. There was even someone passing round Gele’s (headtie) and attachments (weave) for sale. Ahh Nigerians, any opportunity to make a quick buck, and why not I say!! My hubby was accosted to buy a gele for me to which he quickly said ‘Ah, and have my wife hide her beautiful hair from me? Besides it looks like it would make a good fishing net!’ To which he got a dirty look in response.

But all in all, it was a fun day and a rocking celebration in honour of Nigeria’s Independence.

Parisian Women, Fashion and being Mindful

2006-09-28T11:43:00.000+01:00

I am finally just pulling myself out of the blue funk I fell into on my return to England. There is (sometimes) something so depressing about this country – my husband figures it’s because its home so it’s a case of the familiar but I think it is more than that. There is an inherent dullness to England and it hits you as you hover above the runway before your plane finally touches down. The sameness of all the houses you see from above – red brick and rows and rows of identical houses – then the grey skies and then the rain. But I shall dwell not on these things…

Paris was fantastic!! I had a lovely time and the weather was super – sunshine all the way, we had the odd day of showers, but apart from that I lived in my spaghetti strapped tops. We did all the things that as a tourist you are expected to do – went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower, took a boat ride down the river Seine, strolled down the Champs des Elysees, took pictures in front of all the designer shops (but didn’t dare venture into any of them), had freshly baked baguettes and croissants for breakfast and generally embraced the French way of life for ten days. Oh, and I mustn’t forget the mandatory crepes of course.

But the one thing that impressed me the most about Paris was its women.

Now, I have read and been told all my life that Parisian women are up there when it comes to style and fashion – and my trip only served to confirm this age old tale. Boy, those women know how to dress! And the funny thing is I didn’t see one of them, not one of them, wearing anything that was considered the ‘current fashion of the season’ and yet, they managed to put every ardent trend follower to shame. I am a firm believer of ‘if you’ve got it, you’ve got it’ and believe me, the Parisian women sure have got it.

I see loads of women here in England dripping in designer gear from head to toe, and it’s obvious that they spent a small fortune on their ensemble, but many of them still manage to come off looking cheap. Not so the Parisian woman. There is something about the way she wears her clothes – with a confidence and a knowledge that what she has on suits her. The use of accessories, I noticed, also plays a big part in their wardrobe. They always have something on that gives a little twist to whatever outfit they are wearing – a scarf around the neck that matches a ring, or a pair of shoes that matches their cardigan or a belt that matches their bag. And though they may not have spent much money on the outfit, they still manage to look like a million dollars. In my opinion, the difference between the way French women dress and the way women in England dress is that French women pay attention to detail and they make and EFFORT to look nice. Not so here – since my return I have not seen one woman who has evoked me to say ‘wow, I really like what she is wearing’. Here, the women all have on jeans, t-shirts and blond hair – Topshop fashion victims. No personal style just following the ‘what’s in and what’s out’ pages of Glamour and Grazia and this just creates a boring sameness to their sense of fashion. For instance, so called skinny jeans are/were all the rage but I know that they sure as hell don’t suit me – my African sized bottom and thighs scream NO, NO, NO when I dare to try a pair on – and so I avoid them like the plague. There is no need to look like an idiot all for the sake of following the flavour of the season. The style of the Parisian woman is classic and timeless and you can see that she dresses for pleasure – her pleasure, and I love that. They stick a defiant finger up at latest trends.

Another thing that stuck me about Paris and its women is that not one of them seems to be overweight. It’s true. Even my hubby commented on it as well. Not that they are skinny mind you, they are just not overweight. This has got me wondering how they do it and to help me understand this phenomenon, I have dragged out my copy of French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mirelle Guiliano once again and this time I will pay attention to what she is saying and not just whizz through it like a novel, as I did the first time around.

Being in Paris and seeing all these effortlessly glamorous, well pulled together women made me realise just how much I have let myself go over the years. There was a time I wouldn’t leave the house without lipstick on but now I don’t give ~~much~~ any thought to what I wear – I throw on whatever I reach for first in my wardrobe regardless of whether it matches or not, just as long as it fits – and my idea of a beauty routine is to hurriedly put on a smear of lip balm using the rear view mirror in my car. I don’t watch what I eat (my face is testimony to this as it’s covered with spots at the moment from eating too much butter and fat laden fried foods), and I walk like I am constantly on a mission – march, march, march. Even my shopping habits leave a lot to be desired as my motivation to buy clothes is mostly determined by the price tag rather than whether it really suits me (you know that buy, buy, buy frenzy that grips you when you see a red sale sign).

[I just got a book titled ‘It’s Vintage, Darling!’ by Christa Weil and it promises to teach you how to be a clothes connoisseur. I have skimmed it and from what I have read, it looks good. And don’t let the title fool you, it talks about clothes in general, not only vintage clothing.]

And then my poor husband – I cannot apologise to him enough. I remember there was a time (it seems so long, long ago now) when I pulled out all the stops to look good for him when I knew he would be coming to see me or we were going out on a date. Back then, every time he saw me I knew I took his breath away by the way I looked and he always, ALWAYS complimented me. But these days, five years of marriage later, how things have changed. I slob around the house with oil stained joggers, run down Birkenstocks and dishevelled hair and even when I do make what I think is an effort, I am the one who has to ask ‘Do I look nice?’. Not a good sign. I have taken myself (and my husbands’ interest in me) for granted for too long. So I have decided to change my ways – I have the desire to. I cannot hide behind the ‘I am mum to a toddler; I don’t have the time to look nice’ excuse anymore. If I care enough about myself, and I do, I WILL MAKE THE TIME. This is a gift to myself and to help me on my way I resolve to:

Take more interest in my Self (health, looks, body, spirit, and mind) and pay more attention to what I wear. It’s all in the detail.

Be mindful of what I put into my mouth – as the saying goes, a moment on the lips a lifetime on the hips.

Walk at a slower pace – life isn’t a race.

Take joy in the simple pleasures – there is always something to be grateful for.

Centre myself, focus on things that are important to me and get rid of the ‘drainers’ in my life.

Make time each day, to do something for myself – read a chapter of my favourite book, listen to a motivational CD or tape, go for a walk or simply just chill and do nothing.

Be mindful of the words that come out of my mouth (whichever way you look at it, a woman swearing is not pleasant to hear), my reactions to situations (things aren’t always the way they appear) and the way I handle the daily stresses of life.

Develop my communication skills – especially with my husband.

Think of others more.

And now, I gotta run. Oops sorry… walk. I’ve got work to do!

I'm back

2006-09-26T16:59:00.000+01:00

I’m back but swamped at the moment so I shall blog about my trip to Paris tomorrow when I have more time in the meantime, is this what every woman should have lurking in her bedroom?

Ready to Go

2006-09-10T06:50:00.000+01:00

So bags have been packed, the last minute shopping has been done and the only thing left for me to do now is go to the hairdressers and have my hair cut and voila, Paris here I come.

It's been a very busy week at work trying to clear my work folder out so there is nothing left outstanding and I don't start getting frantic calls to my mobile phone while I am away.

I have no idea what getting access to my blog will be like when I am there so I'll either post very irregularly or not at all for the next 10 days or so. Wow, I'm already looking forward to reading the backlog of all the posts by bloggers of my favourite blogs when I get back.

Have a good one and see ya when I get back.

Scrumptious September

2006-09-01T10:25:00.000+01:00

At last September is here and I cannot tell a lie, I am so glad that August is over. It was the longest, weirdest and most surreal month I have had in a long time – it just seemed to be one pothole after another.

September promises a lot of things – for a start summer seems to be officially over, leaving as suddenly and as unceremoniously as it came, so I guess it’s time to start trawling the shops for winter stuff again. *sigh*

A friend of mine just returned from a two week break (does one really go to Naija for a break?) and I asked her to bring me back the usual supplies of crayfish and Ogbono and boy, did she bring back some. I won’t be lacking in these two items for the next five years!! A bit of an exaggeration, but you know what I mean. ‘Didn’t you have any trouble at the Airport with all this stuff?’ I asked. She assured me that she hadn’t. Apparently she had called the airline (KLM) beforehand to let them know she would be travelling with some Naija food items and they said it was fine because every (Naija) passenger is entitled to take out a certain amount of food stuff with them. Hmmm, this was news to me. So I’m just passing it on to you all out there planning to make any trips soon. (Disclaimer: if you are caught don’t say you heard it from me!)

She also brought along two issues of The Guardian on Sunday for my reading pleasure. But I must admit that I was very surprised at –

The quality of the newsprint which is terrible! The pictures are all runny and unfocused and it they didn’t carry captions underneath telling you who the people in the pictures are, you’ll have a hard time trying to decipher it for yourself. Gosh, I remember when the Guardian first started (now my age comes through) it was considered the best quality paper in the Country and I especially loved the Sunday edition which always carried pictures by Summi Smart-Cole (whatever happened to him?)
The quality of English. The grammar is so bad!! Do the editors really sit down and edit this stuff? Expressions are wrongly used, words are misspelt and there is just a general lack of attention to the appropriate use of the English language that runs throughout the paper. One used to be able to read a newspaper and walk away haven learnt a new word or two but sadly that’s obviously not so anymore and
95% of the paper is just about politics, politics and more politics.

One article did catch my eye though – it was a review of the book 26a by Diana Evans. My oh my, the reviewer sure held nothing back – talk about letting it rip!! If I was Diana reading that article, I would never write another book, ever. Ouch! The reviewer was incredibly harsh. I think too harsh. S/he absolutely tore it to shreds. I agree that the book is not to everyone’s liking and we all (mostly) agree that the section where the family moves back to Nigeria wasn’t very well presented and could well have been left out all together, but overall it wasn’t that bad. I felt sorry when I’d finished reading that piece. But moving swiftly on…

I have got a few things I am looking forward to this month. A few of days ago I ordered a couple of my favourite things here and here. So that’s something for me to look forward to getting in the post soon.

But best of all, we are off to Paris for two weeks second week of September!!! Yay!! I am way excited. Really looking forward to it and this time I am going to do more than just take a picture in front of the HUGE model Louis Vuitton suitcases in the front of their store on the Champs-Elysées, I am actually going to go in! Aren’t I brave?! *laugh* I shall also venture up the Eiffel tower and not just loiter around the bottom of it craning my neck trying to get a good view of the top of it.

I plan to have me a Scrumptious September.

Book Recommendation

2006-08-26T06:56:00.000+01:00

Turned the final page of Half of a Yellow Sun last night and what a read. If you don’t read any other book this year, please read this one. I have only one word to describe it – FANTASTIC.

From the first page to the last I could barely put it down, much to hubby’s annoyance. At one point he threatened to burn the book because I was giving it more attention.

The main characters in the book are all believable and so real. I warmed to them and felt like I knew them. And this is the most daring book I have read in terms of, ehm, intimacy – most Nigerian writers (at least the ones I have read) tend to shy away from the subject of sex. Chimamanda doesn’t, she faces it straight on.

This book has whetted my appetite to find out more about the Biafran war. It was a bit of a revelation for me to realise that I know NOTHING at all about that war. Apart from a few stories from my parents about ducking down behind sofas when the air raids would begin, that’s about the extent of my knowledge. I wonder why it was never taught as part of the history lessons in secondary school. Wouldn’t it have been more relevant than reading about some ancient, bad tempered Benin Oba from the fourteenth century?

It was also a pleasant surprise when driving back home on Friday afternoon listening to Open Book on BBC Radio 4, I hear the announcer say ‘and our guest for today is Chimamanda Adichie talking about her new book Half of a Yellow Sun’. Adichie sounded nothing like I imagined – isn’t it funny how we imagine a person should sound when they speak? I would describe her as being very ‘together’ – that’s one lady who knows where she is going and what she wants. She has a quiet confidence about her that came across over the radio. If you are interested in listening to the interview click on the link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/openbook/openbook_20060820.shtml

Sex and Parenthood

2006-08-17T12:13:00.000+01:00

If you are a parent and your relationship is going through a sexual drought, PLEASE read this article. When I read it I breathed a sigh of relief as I felt reassured that I was not alone. This is something that is a bit of a taboo subject between couples and tends not to be discussed, especially not out in the open. It’s a lengthy read I know, but very well worth it!

One big headache
by Eve Ahmed

More couples than ever are turning their backs on sex when they become parents in their thirties. Our correspondent explains why the sex drought happens, and how to get over it

‘I haven’t had sex with my husband for five months. I haven’t wanted to and the idea of it makes me shudder. I have tried to force myself to do it, but I just can’t. He was understanding at first but then got frustrated and pushy. We ended up arguing. Now he’s gone completely the other way, showing no interest in me at all. I can understand his frustration and I know he’s feeling rejected. I could try the whole ‘candles, romantic dinner, quiet night in’ thing, but I really can’t stomach the thought of it’.
“I don’t want to leave him. He is a great dad and we get along well, generally. But I can’t have sex with him any more — it feels wrong and false. I realise this sounds selfish, but these are my honest thoughts. I’m at a loss what to do. Can a marriage survive without sex?”

Parenting websites buzz with stories like this from new mums complaining that they’ve started to dislike making love. This dilemma was posted by a thirtysomething; surveys consistently show heterosexual adults aged 30 to 40 have less sex than those in their teens, twenties and over forties. More babies are now born to women aged 30-34 than to any other age group, and most new mums do go off sex for a time, hence the surveys’ findings.

Other research reports that more than 90 per cent of parents say that broken nights and domestic responsibilities mean that they are simply too tired to make love as often as they used to; almost 70 per cent say sex is not so good compared with pre-parenthood days; 60 per cent have sex less than once a week, with 25 per cent on less than once a month.

“When a lack of sex following childbirth becomes protracted, it always spells trouble for the couple,” says Denise Knowles, a Relate counsellor. “Three quarters of clients identify the arrival of their first child as the time when their relationship started to go wrong, with a lacklustre love life cited as a major cause of conflict.”

Gordon’s story is typical. He’s 33, his wife Sarah 31. He says: “We’d been very happy until we had Connor, but then things went downhill.

“Sarah went right off sex and started constantly finding fault with me. She stayed at home looking after our baby and was resentful because she missed her career, while I still had mine. I’d get home from work and she’d go on about me not helping around the house. I used to dread the rows and from starting off wanting sex when she didn’t, I went off it too. I lost all attraction to her and wondered if I wanted to carry on in the relationship at all.”
They turned to Scottish Marriage Care for help. Maureen Hally, a counsellor, says: “After the initial tiredness, couples do need to ‘get back into the saddle’, or they’ll lose the habit of making love and lose their intimacy, which is what sets this relationship apart from all the others they have.”

That’s what happened to Georgie, 36, and her partner Sam, 37, parents to a three-year-old. She says: “I was too exhausted at first to want to make love and then, when I went back to work, I was even more tired. We’ve done it twice since Christmas, and that’s it. I know Sam feels resentful but for me it’s a relief not to have to bother with the whole business. I don’t miss it at all — it felt like yet another task I had to complete in my busy day.

“It’s a bit of a taboo subject for us so we never talk about it, but I do know at some level that we’ve lost our special closeness, and that worries me.”

Dr Petra Boynton, a psychologist, blames the pace of life lived by women today for the rise in the numbers who have “gone off it” that experts such as her are seeing.

“They’re expected to be great parents, great career women, have a beautiful house, be perfectly groomed, and be for ever eager for sex. It’s too much pressure. At least in our grandmother’s day they got away with lying back and letting him get on with it. Now women’s magazines tell them they need to put on a geisha-style show for their man each night, or he’ll leave them.”
These magazines are obsessed with sex and imply that everyone is at it like proverbial rabbits. “But couples with children really don’t make love much at all,” says Denise Knowles. “That doesn’t matter, though — it’s normal. As long as they keep the intimacy up with touching, kissing and cuddling, then it will come back one day.”

She says that new parents aren’t educated in the fact that not everyone merrily jumps back into intercourse after the woman’s six-week postnatal check-up, as pregnancy books imply. She cites cases of mothers of teens too embarrassed to make love with their husbands, in case the adolescent overhears. “Once you’re a parent, sex will never be the same again, sometimes until the kids leave home as young adults.”

There’s another reason for the 30-40 sexual drought. “After childbirth, sex is just not what it was, for both parties. As it’s less enjoyable, why put in the effort?” asks Barry Fowler, who’s evangelical about women exercising their pubococcygeus muscles, preferably with the PelvicToner he manufactures. “Men are very much focused on their own outcome during sex. That can’t be unconnected to the fact that only 10 per cent of women achieve coital orgasm. This would change if women took responsibility both for being better toned in the pelvic floor and for telling men what they want.”

There’s a consensus that, while new dads remain keen on the quantity of sex they have, for new mums it’s a quality issue. “Men are all about penetration and performance, which denies women the opportunity to find out what they want,” Boynton claims. “Guys can get into it very quickly but women take longer and need to be wooed back into it after giving birth. That sensitivity to how each other’s body works is something we talk about in counselling,” Hally confirms. But with conflicted couples typically accessing the service up to eight years after the rows start, the path back to conjugal joy may be a rocky one.

Sometimes, there’s no other option. Ben, a former client, says: “We’d have split up if we hadn’t got help. My wife didn’t want it after our son was born, first of all because she was too tired, but then it became a habit for her to say no whenever I suggested it, for months on end. At the same time, we started quarrelling about anything and everything, destructively raking up tiny incidents from the past. Sometimes I know she felt coerced into sex, but that made me feel bad and I stopped trying to get close to her at all. I slept on the sofa, because I couldn’t bear to be near her.”

Boynton’s tip for couples stuck in the too tired/too resentful for intercourse cycle is housework. “New mums don’t want to make love because they carry the burden of household duties, as well as all the other roles they play. If they divvy out the domestic stuff, they’ll be more amenable.”
Ben agrees: “Men do change if they know they’ll get something out of it — in this case, the resumption of a healthy love life. It’s really important. When you come together as a couple and fall in love, that bond deepens when you conceive a child together. It happens within that framework and it seems crazy that children should then erase that element of your relationship. Sex will always be important to us.

“It’s a way of expressing our love, being intimate, and it’s completely adult.”

HOW TO GET BACK IN THE SADDLE AFTER YOUR BABY’S BORN

Start small. Don’t expect to feel that you can suddenly buck up one evening and begin flirting while you fill up baby bottles. Instead, set tiny goals.

Day One: Just try not to say anything negative.

Day Two: Remind yourself to say please and thank you a lot.

Day Three: Compliment one thing about your partner’s appearance.

Day Four: Women — put on make-up, wash your hair, and look pretty so you feel pretty. The more attractive you feel the more loving and confident you’ll feel towards your man.

Day Five: Have a 60-second kiss.

And so on. It might take weeks but those weeks would have passed anyway, and this way you’re on a track towards getting yourself back in dating mode.

Having a baby is difficult because it can bring resentment into a relationship. It’s easy to start keeping score — “Well, I’ve stayed in every night this week, while he’s waltzed off to the pub twice.” If you’ve gone horribly off track, you have to take steps back to being nice to one another. You can’t go from rowing 24/7 and then expect a few pink candles by the bed to make you feel instantly lusty.

So work at just being sweet. Then you’ll find yourself laughing on the sofa. Don’t even think about sex to start with; just make sure that you get one long kiss in every day.
We take sex so lightly now, it’s easy to forget how important it is for maintaining the emotional bond between a couple. When we make love, we produce oxytocin, which bonds us together the same way a mother bonds with her child. It increases affection and attachment and in some men it can help cancel out some of the effects of testosterone, which means he might be less tempted to stray. Most of us take our sex lives for granted, because it is just there. But after kids, you have to start prioritising it

Climbing over the Wall of Silence

2006-08-17T11:16:00.000+01:00

There has been a stony wall of silence between hubby and me for the past week or more. Apart from the cursory ‘Good Morning’ not much else in terms of words has passed between us. It’s been one of those situations where, and I am sure many of you have gone through it (even for those who are not married) – one thing is said and then the other replies and then something else is said and suddenly it all gets out of control.

When stuff like this happens I ask myself why we let things get to the stage where the only ‘solution’ is to lapse into giving each other the silent treatment. I have always wished I was a better (verbal) communicator. I have no problem putting things down on paper but that’s not the greatest approach to adopt in a close relationship. I see it becoming a bit of an issue if the only way you communicated with your partner was to write to them.

The thing with me however, is that instead of bringing issues to the table as soon as they happen, I let them fester and rot until the fetid fumes cannot be contained any longer and the can of worms finally explode. And in typical female fashion, years of long forgotten grievances spew out and get dragged into the present day vent. This mostly makes for a very ugly scene. And for some reason, it is so much more difficult sharing hurt feelings with those that are close to us. We would rather blog about it for strangers the world over to read, than sit down and have a heart to heart with our nearest and dearest. Is it because by sharing our deepest feelings and fears with those we love, we leave ourselves open and emotionally vulnerable – a fear that what we have shared will be somehow ‘used’ against us in the future perhaps?

But I have missed my husband this last week. I have missed our daily discourse and although we talk about mostly mundane things – what’s for lunch, have you paid the phone bill yet, we need to go grocery shopping tomorrow, my sunflowers have refused to bloom and that type of thing – there is something warm and comforting in our mundane conversation. I don’t feel pressured to sound intelligent or to complete my sentences because he knows just what I mean. Even the silences are warm because you know at anytime you can reach out with a word and the other will be there to answer. Its no wonder the saying ‘the silence will drive you mad’. It’s true.

The good news though is that we have made up now *coy smile* and climbed over the wall of silence to reach out to each other. All is warm and fuzzy again.

Yellow Suns and other Trivia

2006-08-17T10:56:00.000+01:00

Chimamanda Adichie’s new book Half of a Yellow Sun dropped through my letter box yesterday and I can tell you folks, it’s already got me in its grips. I am only on page 19 (and that’s because I was dead tired when I started reading it last night) but I can see myself being done with it by tomorrow (it’s 433 pages long.)I have brought it into work with me- Teehehe.

There are few authors who have the ability to catch your attention and hold you spellbound from the first page of their book and, for me, Chimamanda has that. Perhaps it’s because I can relate to what she is writing about and I can vividly imagine the characters and I even read the words of the characters with a faint Ibo accent (and I am not even Ibo!). I can also imagine the scenery because I have been to Nsuuka before and so know exactly what she is writing about. For someone so young (29) she writes in a very mature way. In this book she tackles the Briafran war (the story is set in that era) and I am amazed that for someone who was born way after the said war, she is able to write about it so well. I can’t and I was born in 1970. But then that’s why she has published two books and I am sitting here blogging. *laugh*

This month has been a funny month for me – sort of disconnected and dreamlike. I don’t know why but I guess we all get that way sometimes. My schedule has all gone haywire and there is no flow to my days – almost like I have lost a grip. It’s disorientating to feel this way because normally, I have things (and my life) under control. Ah, never mind, it’ll blow over soon and I will look back at this period and wonder what the fuss was all about.

And onto something really trivial.

Driving into work today a piece of news on Radio Four filtered through to my consciousness and this was it – hold on to your pants guys:

Scientists have finally agreed that Pluto IS a planet after all.

Nooooooo, you don’t say???? *heavy sarcasm* Now, forgive me if I am being ignorant and fail to see the life saving importance of this announcement but what the hell difference does that make to anyone’s life?????? To think that taxpayers money is being wasted to ascertain whether or not Pluto is a planet??? Don’t these scientists have anything better to do??

My Awful August

2006-08-11T10:43:00.000+01:00

I am generally not a superstitious person, but I am seriously beginning to wonder about this month. I mean everything that can go wrong is and seems to be going wrong!

First is was my tire, then it was my memory stick (I am seeing HELL trying to get the company I purchased it from to give me a replacement and/or refund!), then on Monday when I went for a hospital appointment my car wouldn’t start and all the ‘danger’ lights on the dashboard kicked in, scaring the living daylights out of me – fortunately I was still in the parking lot when this happened. I would have died (literally speaking, of course) if it had happened on the M5! Eventually had to call Green Flag to come tow it home. Oh, and guess what? As soon as the tow truck got it back to my house, the stupid car started!! Then this morning, someone drove too close to me and broke my side mirror!! Why does all this stuff seem to be happening when I am behind the wheel?

I mean WHAT IS GOING ON??? I am beginning to get paranoid just stepping out of my front door. As for saving any money this month? I might as well forget it, as it ain’t happening.

I do wish August would hurry up and leave – hopefully September will have a more positive spin to it.

African at Heart

2006-08-11T07:41:00.000+01:00

I got this by email today and when I first read through it I must admit my hackles rose, but when I calmed down I had to agree with ~~all~~, ~~many~~,some of them.

You know you are an African at heart when

1. You unwrap all your gifts carefully, so that you can reuse the wrapper.

2. You call a person you've never met before uncle or aunt.

3. More than 90% of the music CD's and cassettes in your home are illegal copies

4. Your garage is always full of stuff because you never throw anything away, just in case you need it someday.(a gum boot without a partner and the baby walker - baby's now 12 and you are 48)

5. You have a collection of miniature shampoo bottle from your stays at hotels. (Gocool, Sweet heart, African pride....)

6. You almost always carry overweight baggage when travelling by plane.

7. If a store has a limit on the quantity of a product, then each member of the family will join separate queues to purchase the maximam quantity possible. (sugar,soap,rice,cooking fat etc etc during old good days)

8. All children have annoying nicknames.

9. Nobody in your family informs you that they are coming over for a visit. ( uncle, wife, sis-in-law, two nephews and a neighbour) have camped at home.

10. You stuff your pockets with, mints and toothpicks at restaurants. (Murray mints, wrappers, and salt shakers!)

11. Your mother has a minor disagreement with her sister and does not talk to her for 10 years.

12. You only make telephone calls at a cheaper rate at night (especially beepers).

13. You never have less than 20 people to meet you at the airport or see you off even if it is a local flight.

14. You keep changing your Internet Service Provide because the first month is free. (I know some people O!.....)

15. Office supplies mysteriously find their way to your home.(Yes,staple machine, office pins, punch machine,cellotapes, post-its,etc.)

16. When you are young, your parents buy you clothes and shoes at least two sizes too big so that they would last longer.

You gotta laugh folks!

Foiled Again!

2006-08-05T18:27:00.000+01:00

First it’s my tire, now my memory stick has gone bust. Aaaaarrrrrggghhhhh!!!!!!!!! Am I going to be able to save anything at all this month? Which kind wahala be dis now?

Money Na Love

2006-08-05T08:23:00.000+01:00

Going through an old collection of poems I wrote years ago, I found this.

Money Na Love

You say you wan marry, you say you want wife
Who you think say go marry you live yeye life?
This na Nigeria, you sef for know that
Dem no dey put woman for house if pocket no fat

After all, if we sleep finish na wake we go wake up
Abi you think say na sleep I go chop?
You fit say you love me na you sabi
If you no get money, lie lie, one of my eye you no go see

After all, I no suffer for my papa house
So why I go come dey follow you live like church mouse
So before you wear cloth to follow woman anyhow
Go put money for your pocket now, now

Changing my Mindset

2006-08-02T19:07:00.000+01:00

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that making changes in your life is all about changing your mindset - the way you think and perceive things. Is this what the Bible means when it talks about 'renewing your mind'?

Take for instance my quest to become thriftier with my finances. Since I consciously took that decision, I suddenly don't have a mad urge to go to the shops anymore. It’s not that it doesn’t cross my mind, it does, but I am not driven to act on it.

I work round the corner from a large TESCO's and every lunch time I would invariably wind up there, not because I need anything in particular but just because it's there, I’m bored and I need to take a break from staring at my computer screen. I’d walk down the isles, browsing mindlessly and, as if in a daze, I would wind up at the checkout counter with a trolley full of stuff - a bag of apples here, a box of cereal there - never mind that my cupboards and freezer are already stuffed to bursting capacity.

An aside: Hmmm, now why do we do that, because I know I am not the only person this happens to? Although, my cupboards and fridge are full of food, I still go out and buy more. As a friend, who came to visit from Nigeria, recently observed 'There is something wrong with you guys who live here (the UK). Why do you buy more and more food from the shops when your house is already so full of things to eat?' How true. I couldn't give her any answer except look sheepish.

I did visit Tesco this lunch time but I went armed with a list and I stuck to it - no extras. Plus I carried and paid for my items with cash. It makes a big difference, I find, paying for goods with cash as opposed to your debit or credit card. It's so much more painful watching the cash disappear into the cashiers till than it is to watch your card being swiped.

Another thing I want to do this month, is
a) keep a gratitude journal and
b) a normal journal as well
and make an entry into each one every single day for the next 30 days - not as easy as one might think. It takes a lot of discipline to write something everyday. Sure it does, if not then you would be updating your blogs everyday, won't you?

I have set myself these particular tasks several times before but have always failed for a number of reasons - lack of time, no motivation, nothing to write etc, etc - but this time it feels different. There is something within me that actually wants to do it, y'know? There's an inner excitement bubbling up within me at the prospect of writing something in my journal everyday. Yay! I am really looking forward to it.

This post has been one of my sources of motivation.

I think I am on the verge of some major changes!

Counting the Pennies

2006-08-02T08:57:00.000+01:00

As August rolls in with blustery winds, sudden downpours and grey skies, I have decided to make the month in which I cutback, downsize and streamline my spending habits. Yes folks, this month I’ll be counting the pennies.

The first thing to go will be my spending on non-essential items – Ooh, that journal looks pretty I just have to have it! – and staying will be a regular amount being put into my savings account every month – Ooh, look at my bank balance grow! I am proud to say, I have set up a standing order which will sort this out for me on the first of every month but most ingeniously, I am having the money transferred into a new account to which I don’t have easy access. I have also downloaded a budget sheet which I intend to complete and put up on my fridge to remind me every day of my (self imposed) financial restraints for the month. *sigh*

Saying that however, I walked into Jones Bootmaker yesterday (nothing like a huge FOR SALE sign to drag you into a shop) and instantly fell in love with two gorgeous pairs of shoes. Being the shoe addict that I am, I just had to – of course, darling – try them on. Ooh, it was like surrounding my feet in butter. I had to use a chisel to pry them off and put them back on the display rack. I did walk away from the shop sans the shoes but I’m still dreaming of them though.

All in all, I am determined to follow through as I want to treat myself to a state of the art PC which comes with all the bells and whistles. My current PC is so old and grumpy; it’s time to get rid of it. I also want to go to Ghana (with a stop in Nigeria) for Christmas and that requires some serious cash.

Oh, if you are reading this and know of any good financial blogs, sites or other info to do with finance, budgeting, money saving tips etc, etc please let me know. Thanks!

Hello August

2006-08-01T20:43:00.000+01:00

Handling Compliments

2006-07-31T21:40:00.000+01:00

Why do I find it so difficult to accept a compliment graciously? Compliments either embarrass me or I pretend I don’t hear them when they are paid or I mumble something unintelligible in reply. But more often than not, I don’t believe them or rather, I am skeptical about compliments. For some unexplained reason, I tend to feel that the person paying me the compliment is just trying to be polite (or make conversation) by saying something nice to me but inside is secretly thinking ‘Ugh’. Which is unfair on my part and I am probably 90% wrong in thinking this (or am I?) but I can’t help but feel this way.

Another thing I find myself doing in automatic response to a compliment paid to something I am wearing, is to immediately say ‘Oh, do you know I only paid so and so for this?’ like I’m trying to justify why I own the item. WHY DO I DO THIS?? Why can’t I simply say ‘Oh, thank you?’ and smile mysteriously?

What’s the secret to handling compliments graciously?

Sods Law!

2006-07-31T09:44:00.000+01:00

So trust it to be the month when I decide to pull my purse strings a little tighter, that I go and hit a curb at a bad angle while trying to park and burst my tire! Now I have to spend £60 - £80 to buy a new tire.

Sods law!!

For Free

2006-07-28T18:56:00.000+01:00

You don’t have to pay to smile
It doesn’t cost a thing to laugh
You better thank God for that.
- India Arie

26a

2006-07-27T09:41:00.000+01:00

Thanks to the post on Diana Evans on Ores blog and the write up on her on Cassava Republic, I finally took 26a off my shelf after having had it sitting there for about four months.

I finished 26a in three days flat – a feat for me considering that for the last four years or so it has taken me 6 months or more to finish a book and more often than not, I don’t. 26a is a very funny, haunting and tragic story and it’s going to take me a while to get the two main characters, Bessi and Georgia, around which the story revolves out of my head. My eyes are still swollen from crying.

Conclusion: I strongly urge you to get a copy of this novel and read it.