Yay !!! We are on the nice list!

Update

I love my job. Yes That is right. I work full time and It is full on but never feel like rushing home at the end of a busy day. True, I miss my girls. I miss Amelie's 'precious moments'. She learns a lot each day. New words, new songs, tries new food, makes new friends, may be she hurts herself and cries and I am not there to comfort her. I can smell other women's crappy perfumes in her soft silky hair sometimes and I feel sad. Feel so sad and guilty cuddling her before I put her to bed every night. Isabelle hates going to childminder's after school. She cries almost every morning. We all have to suck it I guess. This is life. They are healthy and safe. And we spend quality time- about an hour a day- cuddling, playing, laughing, dancing, singing. That's what matters, yes? Work- life balance - what a load of rubbish! There is no formula, always a compromise.
Let's focus on the positives; I have a job that I love, my girls are happy to see me when I come home every day, daddy does more childcare than before, we have a cleaner now, we have more money so re- decorating the house...

Home improvement?

This house we bought about 3 years ago used to be 'home' to another family. I'd like to imagine they were a loving, happy family. There was a little girl who grew up here, she had a play den in the attic, where her mummy made little curtains for the little window, carpeted the floor and she hung disney pictures on the walls ( also found some newspapers and magazines from 1950s) and played there for hours with the wooden play kitchen that her daddy lovingly crafted for her. That girl is in her 50s now and lives in Canada as far as we know. The other day one of our neighbours rang the bell and brought us that little toy kitchen which they had inherited but now their kids are too old to play with it.

The mum who lived here, loved gardening and must have been proud to have created such a beautiful garden, which, even after all these years of neglect, happens to surprise us with lovely flowers every now and then.

We don't do gardening. I wouldn't know what to do and can't seem to find time to learn. I can't even manage to pull out the weeds correctly. Nick cuts the grass and that is pretty much it. So we kind of ruined the beautiful garden.

The play den is our storage room and full of our rubbish at the moment. Our girls have an Ikea play kitchen in the garden play house but they have so many other toys they hardly find time to go and play there.

Tomorrow the builders are coming into the house. They will knock some walls down, build some other walls, etc. We will get new kitchen, new bathroom, new flooring...The current kitchen has lasted 62 years! Our Ikea kitchen will probably last about 5. The faded carpets we have at the moment have also been here for 62 years. The laminate wood floors we are getting will probably last about 5 years also.

Dear Checkett family, I am sorry that we are not really improving your home. You would probably say that we are ruining your home. May be right. But we have to do it our way. Everything in the house are likely to change 10 times in the next 60 years. I have one question though; wallpapered ceilings throughout the house? carpet in the toilet and bathroom (which are separate rooms)? why why why?

KPIs in life Vol.1

Just received a letter from the Chartered Institute of Marketing congratulating me for completing the first year of my Chartered Marketer Programme. It's titled; Evidence Of Improvement. Suddenly I am feeling positive about myself. Since this is such a rare occasion, I would like to document it for future reference!

Here you go, I am thinking about my KPIs in life. 

1- Are my kids healthy, happy, loved and cared for? ✔

2- Is my husband healthy, happy, loved and cared for? ✔

3- Is my house in a reasonable state? Hygenic, tidy, functionable etc? ✔ Well half a tick perhaps as it is crying for some improvement.
4- Am I trying to provide and promote a healthy lifestyle for myself and my family? ✔
5- Am I keeping up to date with what's been going on around the world and trying to make a difference e.g. volunteering, donating, taking part in campaigns? ✔
6- Am I taking care of my body? Physically maintaining and improving my health? ✔
7- Am I stimulating my brain? Reading, writing, thinking? ✔
8- Am I constantly developing new professional skills and knowledge? ✔
9- Have I got a job, where I would be able to utilize these professional skills and knowledge, share, learn, get the satisfaction from being useful, achieving goals etc? NO
10- Have I got friends who care about me and what I think, listen to me, ask my opinion, ask for help or help me out, to have fun with ? ✔

To be continued...

quick update

So, I finally quit my hideous job a couple of weeks ago. Well technically, I didn't want to quit, just told them I wasn't happy, suggested a few things to improve my happiness and they said no unsurprisingly. Because clearly they don't give a sh.t.
Not sure what to do next and the fact that school holiday is almost here makes me think: hmm 7 weeks of school holiday. Do I really want to search for another job in this period of time? What if I got a job then how are we possibly going to sort out childcare for 7 weeks when every single childminder and holiday club has already been booked. So now have done the school run, Amelie is at nursery today and I have all day to myself. Hoorrayyy!:)

Monday morning. Can't say I like work. But I don't mind driving to work

yoga :)

Birthday No. 6

Once again, I have spent months trying to find the best presents, planning the best party and making the best birthday cake. I am knackered. But it's all worth it. My baby girl is 6. She loved her cake and her presents and they all had a great time screaming and dancing and running around...

By the way, turns out 6 year olds don't dance to nursery rhymes any more...they like pop music apparently! Isabelle's favourite songs now are Uptown Funk and Your Lips are Moving! Ahhgh why do they have to grow up so fast!

Artist's spirit

Isabelle says: Mummy, I want to go out to the garden and do some still life drawing
I say: It is a bit cold outside, why don't you sit inside and look out of the window?
Isabelle says: No, I want to feel the wind on my hand while drawing!

Part-time job is a joke. Honest!

Well, a mum of two, who wants to work part-time in a marketing environment has two options as far as I know;

You would either do all the ad hoc and odd jobs, e.g. sourcing and purchasing lowest priced double sided tapes for your company's trade show attendance, feel like poo at the end of the day and say to your self "well that was a money well spent on a masters degree then! Well done girl!", or you would persuade yourself and your boss that you can do what other people can't do in 40 hours and manage two large accounts in 15 hours a week and after each working day driving back home, in your foggy brain taken over by migrane, try to think of ways of committing suicide in a way that won't look gross and that won't cause permanent damage in little girls' psychologies. Then of course you would come to the conclusion that there is no such thing and so you would just have to quit.

Yes, I decide to quit my job at least three times a week. But I haven't been able to action this yet. Because apparently deep inside, I am not a quitter.

Thank you

Dear anonymous reader,

Thank you so much for your comment. I have only seen it now while I was trying to clear my inbox. It was a wake up call. So, thank you!

My health hasn't been great recently. But shouldn't be an excuse to neglect my beloved blog. I still love the thought of my daughters reading it when they are older.

I will try to put some more effort into it from now on. yes i will yes i will yes i will yes i will

The witch's cats are watching telly

Cherish life!

Sevdim, sevildim, gezdim, gordum, agladim, guldum, yedim, ictim, okudum, yazdim. Bana bunlari yapacak yuregi, kafayi, sagligi verdigin icin, hepsinden ote,  beni bu iki muhtesem varligin annesi yaptigin icin... hayat sana cok tesekkur ederim.