THAT tupperware mountain can wait...

Having dropped the kid off at school, I gingerly began to plan my day.  An amass of 'permajobs' aka uni work, job applications etc loomed ahead however I made the decision that housework came first with the idea of 'clean environment, clean mind'.

As a working mum and full time student I'm constantly threatened by the 'mother's guilt' attributed (god forbid) having responsibilities outside of the home.  Yes, my house is cluttered.  Yes, there is a constant pile of washing up to be done.  Yes, my coffee table is littered with research papers, coffee mugs and post-it notes.  Yes, that box in the corner of my living room that contains pieces of paper and exercise books is important.  No... it doesn't bother me.

Judging glances often get thrown in my direction; my mummy friends are annoyed because I never have time to see them, my son's sleeping patterns are thrown in my face, and a casual scroll through Facebook is a constant reminder that other mums are being better at being 'mums' than me.

So this morning I cleaned.  And I had THAT realisation as my house began to gleam;

... If I didn't have all this going on... things would be... easy?...

My house would have a 'permasparkle' rather than being weighed down by the 'permajobs', THAT tupperware mountain that falls out of my cupboard every time I open it for a glass would be... organised? There would be no constant pile of washing up... I could sell some of my clutter! I could be a yummy mummy and go to the gym every day when he's in preschool! I could take my son to mummies groups and discuss his sleeping patterns and maybe they could suggest some solutions to me! Dear lord! Things could be normal?!

But I don't want normality.  I want something extraordinary.  The hit we take now as a family will shape our future.  I wouldn't change this in exchange for all the mountains of tupperware in the world.

To those who judge me and other mothers who have responsibilities outside the home - our kids ARE our priority.  We are doing what is best for our family circumstances to achieve the best lifestyle for our children.

I want to be that mum who excels; I want my son to be able to experience the world as I have.  I want him to see that his mother was something awesome - juggling work and study whilst showing him that love that I know is no different from any other mum.  That mum who kicks ass... That mum who never got to the bottom of that washing up...

That mum who always had that mountain of tupperware in that cupboard next to the sink.

Ok for WW2 plane, but slap lady luck on a t-shirt and you've got trouble!

As a self-confessed feminist, I'm pretty pissed at some anally retentive women ostracising the Rosetta scientist for his 'colourful' fashion t-shirt pattern showing an anime design. Equality and treating men and women the same is an important thing to me, and double standards really hack me off. These are the points I would like to make after careful consideration.

1. Fashion is a form of artistic expression. A designer friend (aka an artist) created this shirt for him. Art has always used both male AND female form in work and I can't see how a shirt designed with fashion in mind has caused such an uproar.

2. So far as kicking off about being an object of sexual desire, the female gender are potentially currently some of the worst for double standards. Women are unhappy being objects of desire by men however it's accepted that we can have a centrefold 'torso of the week' in a popular celebrity gossip magazine... Where the male is wearing less than the ladies featured on this poor scientists shirt.

3. Generally speaking, (and I am generalising here) anime and computer game characters and design tend to be very popular amongst the more (for want of a much better word here) 'geeky' types. This guy clearly enjoys the anime theme, and his shirt celebrates this.

4. He landed a freaking probe on an asteroid fgs, give him a break! Most people can't even parallel park and he's just accomplished this...

My main message is... might be a good idea to pull that pole out of the bottom extreme feminists, things work both ways, it's not one rule for one and another for the rest... It's giving feminism a really bad name. There's an awful lot going on at the moment (Gamergate etc) that is causing controversy and true champions of equality need to step up and separate themselves from this bigoted behaviour. Feminism is about equality, not kicking off at every tiny thing you deem 'unacceptable'. Meh. The guy could stroll about in a mankini for all I care :)

Thanks for reading until the end folks. Much love xxx

Working to other schedules

I think the reality of me being on time for anything now is incredibly slim to none... For the second time this week my little boy and I braved public transport.
We caught the bus first... I aimed for the hour before one in the eventuality (or reality) that I would miss the first. Good plan!
Obstacles attempted to stop me being on time from the outset. 11.06, baby pees over me and himself. 11.09 baby poos whilst nappyless. 11.17 after myself and baby have changed clothing realise the cat has chewed through the phone charger and I am attempting scary public transport with no means of communication... 11.29 eventually leave the house.  11.31 realise left the changing bag at home and go back for it. 11.46 frantically waiting in a huge queue in poundland with one bleeding cashier waiting to pay a freaking pound for the shoddy replacement phone charger the cat chewed through, considering if they would actually do me for shop lifting if I walked out for the sakes of a quid. 11.48, running like a mad woman with a buggy to the bus station to catch the 11.47 bus...11.52 sat in Costa coffee with a latte.
Today's debacle went pretty much the same way apart from Crewe's stupid entrance to the train station being the final "screw you" to my rush for the train. Baby needed a feed just as we were leaving the house, it was ok, had built in extra time for this! Fella just had to drop us off then...stupid inconvenient drop off point!!!
I would have waited until I'd gotten to the train station but social convention would probably deem me to be a weirdo for buying a ticket with a baby attached to my boob. Damn you social convention and your inconvenient ways!
I'm not surprised people drive, I would if I could, even with the petrol strikes and increase in cost! At least the smallest of inconveniences wouldn't throw my whole day out by hours. Working to other people's schedules with a baby both sucks and blows!

Budget Fudge-it!

Well, it's been that time of year again, politically controversial and chaotic... The Budget.  I was glad to see that this year they had indeed budgeted for a new briefcase for the Chancellor, nice shiny red thing, bet Gordon Brown was immensely jealous.  Despite this being what I would usually consider a bleak time of year, suffice to say the only thing that really annoyed me about the Budget was Ed Milliband's face.
After the announcements Mr. Milliband's smug face emerged on the TV, his lopsided toothy grin began to nit-pick on the smallest of unexplained things in the way that a reader of The Sun would take to a scaremongering tactic.  Irritating ugly little man.
'The Budget favours the millionaires!!!' well, no.  I don't pretend to be a millionaire or even someone who earns a ridiculous amount of money but I do believe that if someone has worked hard for their wage why should they have to contribute 50% of what they earn to pushchair brigade skets and their benefits way of life?  So what if their 50% contribution has been dropped to 45%, it's their money! I did notice however the canny way of increasing stamp duty on expensive properties to 7% was a way of getting back some of this money... with their increased amount of expendable income the 'millionaires' would be able to contribute to economic growth by purchasing, say, more expensive houses thus contributing in the form of, say, stamp duty!  Nice work.
'The Budget will hit the middle earners the hardest' well, no.  The BBC showed me in their Budget calculator that we, as a household were a whole £278 better off a month, hurrah! That's our social life funded for the next year.  Plus, again, that's £278 that myself and my partner will be 'throwing' back at the economy because, in the classic British way of things, we can't save for toffee, so we'll probably end up spending it! Failing that I'll be setting up a 'Sponsor a Pensioner' charity and my additional money will be donated to my sponsored Pensioner to help them out.
As I watched further these MPs throwing political insults and interrupting each other, it reminded me of a visit to Chester Zoo as a child.  I remember the Gorillas going mental and watching them throw faeces at each other, similarly as the MPs hurl insults in the Houses of Parliament... And these people are in charge of our money and lives? Worrying.  It's all a bit Planet Of The Apes if you ask me...
With all of the explanations of government spending and cuts, one fundamental problem became apparent - the plan for increasing economic growth and reducing the country's deficit all depended on one thing... The current government being able to complete their plan.  With this in mind, and Mr. 'Annoying' Milliband's and the media's scare tactics, in all honesty, what are the chances of this?

Don't call us, we'll call you.

Since being off work during the day I've found that my home telephone number is subject to an increasing amount of calls from nuisance cold calling companies trying to sell me things (no specifics, I rarely get past the opening sentence).  'Hello?... (10 second wait, or the best one, a ring like I'm calling them)... Hello, I'm Rajesh calling from *CLICK*.
I know these guys are out to make bread, most of the time I do take a moment to explain to them that I'm not interested and that I'm ex-directory, I'm not supposed to be receiving marketing phonecalls as I'm on a register for it, and 'HOW DID YOU GET MY NUMBER???' to which they reply with something along the lines of 'oh but we're trying to give you a better offer than your current energy supplier!' *CLICK*...
I do however draw the line when they call and say 'Can we speak to a Mr or Mrs Mudd?'.  I used to tell them that neither Mr or Mrs Mudd were available as they didn't live here, until they cottoned on that I was the woman of the house and I was not married.  Now 'Can we speak to a Mr or Mrs Mudd?' is met with a hearty *CLICK* of my phone hanging up.
I am an avid user of Skype nowadays and was appalled to see that even online telephone use was not free of these nuisance callers.  I was shocked to receive a call from a robot this afternoon attempting to sell me computer protection (?) it appears that Pop Ups are not the only annoying marketing strategies being employed throughout the internet any more... Fortunately I was able to hang up, censor future calls and even block the computer from calling me and selling me things, surely this would be a brilliant addition to BT's phoneline protection from these annoying people?  
If I indeed wanted to save myself money on my energy bills, wanted a grant for heating insulation, was interested in signing up for some scheme or other I'll get in touch with you.  I'm happy to keep 'paying more' with my current energy supplier because they don't call me up and annoyingly hassle me all the time thankyou very much.  Next time you call, I will be employing this technique for comedy value for myself.  Annoy me, I'll annoy you more.  *CLICK*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifMjLEKgRhw

Shameless YouTube plug....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJp12oN9PMc

Please view this! It's a friend's film, I promised I would shamelessly plug it for him!!!

Please Don't Reproduce...

Being a new mum I probably fall into the category of 'overprotective' when it comes to my little man.  Obviously I want what's best for him like any good parent, included in this is education and not hanging around with warts on the ass of humanity.  As much as I do actually like where I live due to transport links, things to do and top quality Belgian beer and coffee bars, I was both disheartened and amused by this YouTube video that was brought to my attention over the weekend...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI1UlEfC72g&feature=share&fb_source=message

There was a horrified 'mum' moment where I realised that my darling little man might one day have to potentially breathe the same air as these excuses for human beings when it came time to go to school, if we took to a local school, until I had a few rational realisations.

1. What are the chances that these amoeba brained idiots actually stepped foot into their local comprehensive?

2. Clearly never had a music lesson... Again adds to the idea that they never went to school

3. Would someone truly 'gangsta' and into stuffing Class A's into their body actually post a video on YouTube to emphasise their 'gangsta' 'don't f**k with me cuz I'll cutcha blud' attitude to the world?

4.  The Muppets are in need of some new characters, with their impending Hollywood fame at least they'll be kept away from my child...

5. Could've sworn the one on the left rode past me on a girls' push bike the other afternoon... very 'hard'

yep... 'gangsta'...

So there was my rational thought behind why I shouldn't worry as a parent about my baby one day being within a metre vicinity of 'well 'ard' (not really) socially inept misfits.  Just got to hope that they haven't already knocked up some 14 year old so the cycle begins again... I appeal to any sense in that single braincell shared between the two of you, boys, PLEASE DON'T REPRODUCE.