dress you up

A friend of ours is having an 80s-themed birthday party next month, and I'm trying to come up with costume ideas. Do I wear what I wore back then, or the stereotype like puffy skirts, legwarmers, and neon?

I went through about ten different fashion phases in high school. I started in 1982 (egad) and graduated in 1986, and went through an arty period in university for the next few years. First it was New Romantic (lots of lace, big curly hair that spilled down my face, tons of jewellery/pearls/dangly earrings, puffy shirts, many items from Le Chateau), then it was Mod/Ska (60s inspired, clam diggers, cardigans, plimsoles, miniskirts with turtlenecks), then it was sorta punk/arty (everything came from Salvation Army or the army surplus shop, Doc Martens, trenchcoats, safety pins everywhere), then it was Goth (lots of black. Um...yeah and more black.)

And the hair. Oh, the things I did to my hair. I'm amazed I still have any. I did so many home dye and bleach jobs, my scalp should have melted away by now. The crimping, the blow drying (while hanging upside down for the most volume), spraying my hair with hairspray then frying it on a curling iron, using supermega hair gel/wax/spray and backcombing it until it stood on end. DIY haircuts in the university dorm bathroom at 3am.

My eyebrows were tweezed within an inch of their lives (until it became fashionable again to have eyebrows - or at least draw them in with pencil.) Blindingly bright eyeshadow and in fact, I remember using bright yellow lipstick (!) as eyeshadow at one point. Lots of eyeliner and layer upon layer of mascara. "Laser wound" blush, as my friend Michael used to say (blush that looked like you'd been struck with a laser beam.) I used the palest foundation colour I could get, topped with even paler powder. And why was heavy make up on men not an issue back then? We loved guys in eyeliner, blush, and eyeshadow, and even a little lipstick (or a lot of lipstick if you were Robert Smith.)

I was never much into the neon and legwarmers, actually. Although having said that, I did go through a very brief phase of wearing my dancewear to school (including my jazz oxfords.) So I dunno. So many ideas to choose from. So much of it completely hideous and will look ridiculous on a 43 year old. Maybe I'll just come as Alexis from Dynasty.

cut to the chase

Food bloggers: you don't need to photograph every single step of your recipe. Or if you can't resist doing this, please just put the full recipe at the bottom of the post. Because I really hate it when recipes are like:

First, bring the butter to room temperature.
[Photo of butter being removed from the refrigerator.]
And now I'm going to prattle on about butter and insert a witty quip about butter here. Woooooweeee I love butter! Don't you? It's like bacon! I LOVE BACON!! Next, put the butter and sugar in a bowl.
[Eagle eye view of sugar being tipped into a bowl.]
Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Hey, did I ever tell you this lengthy story about my little girl and that time she ate an entire 2kg bag of castor sugar? Well, it was back in June and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...
...three paragraphs later...
Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
[Arty shot of flour wafting through the air into a Williams and Sonoma ceramic bowl.]
Add the flour mixture to the butter, and add the eggs, vanilla, and milk.
[Obligatory shot of an egg being cracked, with shells scattered about in a seemingly random manner. May also contain added wooden spoon.]
[Photo of batter being mixed. Just in case you forgot how to use a spoon.]
[Photo of the batter being tipped into cake tins. Just in case you couldn't figure out how to get it from point A to point B.]
More hilarious anecdotes, possibly unrelated to cake.
[Highly stylised photo of finished cake, wildflowers cascading down the side.]

JUST GIVE ME THE DAMN RECIPE.

this woman's work

I've now been "out of work" for one year now. I put that in quotation marks because if anyone thinks that what stay at home mums do isn't work, you're greatly mistaken. I've seen a few articles and jokes circulating lately about all the nothing we do when we're not at "work", and although they've been funny and made me nod my head knowingly, do we really need to point this out? I've been amazed at the number of people - including other stay at home mothers - who ask me what I do with myself all day long, now that I'm not "working".

What. The. Fucking. Fuck.

I have three children under the age of 8, two of whom are in school and the third is with me for the majority of the week (she does go to nursery two days a week. More on that later.) Little people require quite a lot of tending. Surprised? Then you're an idiot. I don't need or want to detail every little thing I do on a typical day because I don't want to make it sound like my life is miserable. I chose to have kids. I chose to quit my paying job. I love my kids to pieces and think they're the best things since chocolate-covered Pirate cookies. But yes, life's busy. This should not be news.

I quit my job to spend more time with the kids and because I felt like I was missing out on a lot. I couldn't go to assemblies, I missed out on Sports Day, and I couldn't help out in the classroom on special occasions like Christmas decoration day. I wanted to spend more time with them while they're still little. And now, one year on, I'm starting to go a little batshit crazy.

So I'm hitting the virtual pavement, looking for writing gigs that I can do in my spare time. And spare time I do actually have - Isla's in nursery on Mondays and Fridays, and I can increase her hours in September when she gets her grant sessions. Although my background is in technical writing (which I love, despite people thinking it's desperately boring), I'd like to branch out into writing that's...erm...not technical. I've been writing a weekly piece on a friend's site and a weekly blog on a commercial site, and it's been good to get back into the habit of writing regularly.

Now, if I could just find a part time job I can do from home that doesn't involve selling things or phone sex.

it's scary out there

You know, I think the whole reason why I lost the will to blog is due to the fact that the Internet is now filled with SuperMegaBloggers. Bloggers who have books. Bestselling books. Hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers. Thousands of comments on each post. Bloggers who are sponsored and have dozens of flashy ads in their sidebars. Bloggers who have things for sale on Cafe Press. Slick design and squeaky clean templates. Photos taken with SLR cameras way out of my price range.

Which isn't to say that this is something I want for myself. I can't handle the pressure or the trolls*. It's just that it makes blogging for us little people a little more harrowing. How do you get read these days? Back in the olden days, people linked to you and you linked to other people and so on until everyone on the Internet knew each other and got together for gatherings in pubs. This little blog is lost in a sea of SuperMegaBloggers. No one knows who you are unless you become Big.

On the flipside, the other reason why I stopped blogging was because I was getting a lot readers. The pressure of trying to think of hilarious and interesting things to say was wearing. I kept having children. I got more tired by the day. My brain ran out of ideas.

So now that I'm getting a little more sleep and trying to get into the habit of writing regularly, I can do it without anyone really noticing. Maybe one day the readers will come back (how?), but I'm actually pretty much okay with wittering away to myself for the time being.

*(That would be Internet trolls, or people who are deliberately nasty to gain attention. Not trolls of the Harry Potter variety, because they're not real. Sorry.)

bleah

Horrible, horrible, grotty grey day out there today. I am so fed up with doing the school run in the pouring rain, particularly with a toddler girl who prefers to take her sweet time in inclement weather. But then when I'm feeling a little down and stressed, I think about that guy I saw today who spends the day spinning the stop/go sign around by the roadworks in town. That must really suck.

memories

Had one of my sleepless nights last night, and stayed up far too late reading old blog posts. Don't worry, I'm not having some sort of mental breakdown; I was working on the site and couldn't remember when I started blogging (on Blogger. I used to use Notepad and vanilla HTML because I'm hardcore, dudes.) I looked back to the very first post written over 10 years ago, and just kept going.

It's funny because it felt like I was reading someone else's diary. I talked about places I can no longer remember and people I've completely forgotten about. Some names weren't even familiar at all - I think they were other bloggers from many moons ago. What struck me most is how I used to blog. I blogged like no one was watching, which ten years ago was probably the case. I didn't really care if it was mundane or silly (mostly the latter), or how it compared to other blogs and conscious of maintaining some specific level of writing.

It was life before marriage and kids, when Paul and I first started dating and then when we started looking for a house. We went out a lot with friends and together as a couple, I was woken up by kisses instead of an alarm clock, we travelled. Paul cooked for me and we spent lazy days on his sofa in Northampton. I bought my first car. It feels like a lifetime ago, and not entirely my own.

The last post I read before going to bed was about securing our current house. Goodness, look how far we've come. Life changes, we grow up, the daily routine is something else entirely now, but what I want to get back again is the ability to blog like no one's watching. I don't think my life was particularly more exciting then compared to now, but there was a lightness and ease in the way I wrote that makes me think I've become too self-conscious. Self-conscious about what people will think, and about the quality of my writing. It's not really me anymore, and maybe that's why I stopped blogging regularly.

So yeah, I'm back - filling the Internet with drivel like it's 2002!

i enjoy being a (middle-aged) girl

There comes a point in a woman's life when you can no longer blame things on past pregnancies, particularly when your children are in high school or university. (True story. I have actually witnessed this logic.) For example, my youngest is now 2 1/2, which means this is now officially no longer Baby Weight. This has only become a recent revelation to me; there are a myriad of things I was blaming on pregnancy, when in fact, I think I'm just getting old. My theory is reinforced by the fact that every time I seek professional help for my medical woes, the answer is consistently: "Yes well, that just happens as we get older." It must be great to be a doctor with a patient who is over 40, because you can use this answer for pretty much anything without a lot of investigation. Increased and unexplained allergies? Ageing. Brittle hair? Ageing. Inability to see well in the dark? Ageing. Intense and irrational hatred of going to Tesco? Ageing.

I've come to the conclusion that the long list of health-related oddities I've been attributing to my post pregnancy body are more likely due to Becoming Older (or BO, as it shall now be known.) The foggy brain, inability to make decisions, oversensitivity, fatigue, and complete lack of short term memory hasn't stopped since my newborn became a toddler and her sleeping habits improved greatly. My periods are terrible not just because of the mood swings, but because every month for a week, I go through early pregnancy: heartburn, IBS, nausea, bloating, and insomnia. Because all of this has happened so gradually and time flies when you've got three kids, it's only now dawned on me. This isn't just BO, it's the beginning of The Change. From The Curse to The Change, all in the blink of the eye. Girls, enjoy your lives until age 11-16 because once you get your period, YOU ARE DOOOOOOMED.

I did a little online research, because why seek help from trained medical professionals when you can get instant Internt access to information available from hospitals, universities, and antisocial psychopaths who never leave the house? The data might not be accurate and every site leads you to believe you likely have cancer, but generally you can weed out the sensible articles from Wikipedia-esque. I learned that:

Women of all ages suffer from PMS, but it can be more of a problem at these times:

• After childbirth

• During your 30s and 40s

• During times of stress

PMS is often worse at either end of a woman's reproductive life, around puberty and before the menopause. [source]

Well, that's me all over. The solution? Don't get fat, exercise, avoid coffee and alcohol, don't eat sugar or fat, and sleep more. Well, that's me screwed. On top of all this, it's very likely that I've entered perimenopause. That's the decade or so before you actually go through the menopause, because the menopause isn't fun and hilarious enough on its own. The Mayo Clinic tells us that "Women start perimenopause at different ages. In your 40s, or even as early as your 30s, you may start noticing the signs." These signs being everything I listed in paragraph 2. Fantastic.

So where do I go from here? There's no test (or no test that's terribly useful) to determine whether or not you're going through perimenopause, and no treatment that doesn't involve taking pills or completely removing your internal lady parts. I'm going to try eliminating wheat completely (not that I eat a lot of it, but I don't totally avoid it in things like soy sauce, HP sauce, etc.), avoid caffeine at certain times of the month, and getting some weight off by avoiding sugars and grains. Running is also in the plan, mostly for my mental health - I loved that few minutes of peace and fresh air when I went out for a jog/walk/waddle. Maybe a little yoga too, because being bendy surely must do some good.

I can't fight mother nature (she obviously has no sense of humour and must be pretty sadistic to have come up with this whole reproductive life cycle thing), but I'll try to find something that will keep her at bay.