Life lessons...

All that time he was working away, he really would have rather been at home more.

I would do pretty much anything to preserve my children's happiness.

Getting a puppy was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Natalie Portman in Teen Vogue

I can feed our family of four, good square meals that don't cost much, with enough careful planning and clever shopping.

My hair is really going grey and I really don't like it.

The pangs I get when I miss my oldest and dearest friends are common to us all; life got busy and we got less time together. It's a sad fact.

I do care what others think of me.

It's OK that I  spend a lot of time thinking about my outfits.

Christy Turlington

That time I first felt a wave of pain in my jaw, I so should have seen a Physiotherapist and not a dentist. Or a doctor. Or a consultant.

A strong marriage is one where you are not both competing to be the one working the hardest. It's not a contest.

via foxontherunbride

I have too heavy a reliance on earl grey tea.

There is only so much housework I can do; there is more to life than laundry.

I heart the 1980's in the way my parents hearted the 1960's.

Ohhhh Rob Lowe...80's heart throb

Relinquishing control of my influence over my child's future is exceptionally hard. (As in: I can't sit the exam for her)

In order to be truly physically fit, to the extent that you are your optimum weight and are thoroughly toned, requires daily training. Three times a week actually doesn't do it...unbelievable, but true.

In most matters, what goes around comes around.

Good writing still has the capacity to take my breath away; just like it did when I was 13 and started studying literature.

It really was a mistake to get rid of that fur-collared, wool coat I had at University. Same goes for that perfect pleated skirt that formed my burgeoning 'work wardrobe'. Not to mention that vintage red Mulberry clutch. Ditto those perfectly faded Levi 501s.

Tell me...what is your latest life lesson?

December time...

December is one of my favourite ever months, I like the whole build-up to Christmas more than the event itself! Well, nearly...

We went away for a day and a night to Bath to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I love this city  - I love its Jane Austen-esque streets and its hilly walks. I love the fact that it reminds me of my University days. I love that we have always retreated there as a bit of a bolt-hole, away from things. I love that art galleries mingle with cool one-off individual little shops. I love that time went really slowly when we were there. But most of all, I love that I returned knowing afresh why I married my husband in the first place. I like him. He's good fun :-)

The Circus, Bath...photograph by Mal Bray

I return as well to the final weeks of the school term before my children break up for Christmas. It's a round of choir concerts and Nativity plays, interspersed by moments of quiet reflection about what is on my mind. Once they are around, there are certainly fewer quiet moments and much less opportunity to make life ordered...

In readiness for Christmas, I re-trace all the old traditions, especially the Danish ones in honour of my Scandinavian heritage. The house will soon be adorned with quirky decorations and lots of white candles...

via latte lisa

I've been thinking lately about self confidence. A few reminders of how precarious self confidence and self esteem can be. I watch my children growing up and can see how some actions give confidence but conversely how some take it away. If I could give any gift to them, this would be it. But as a parent, it's actually hard to know how to instill confidence and I wonder sometimes if my methods are too obvious. There is only so many times you can tell a child she is beautiful. Is that ever enough?

Things of beauty...

I write a lot about my children and my life and my home but rarely about my husband. Odd, as he is of course such a big factor in my life. At the moment he is working very hard and Monday to Friday has become a time when we pass each other in the hallway and I think...how long ago it seems that we were away together on holiday. I miss him. It's a double edge; half of me wants to support him utterly and be the dutiful corporate wife. The other half of me wants to say - was this the deal? Did we choose this? We hardly never see each other!

I loved the comments I got this week, especially those recommending new blogs to read. It was wonderful to cast that net and get such a response. Almost without fail I loved them all - so I guess that shows we all like the same thing. One though was particularly notable as the writing is just...heart-achingly good. It's this blog and as the writer Meg says, she likes to pen notes to the man she will marry. Don't think she's met him yet - but it got me thinking, if I was writing to my husband many years ago what would I ask for?! Certainly one proviso would be time together on a fairly regular basis! Isn't it ironic that we marry for love and then work hard for the future and in the process spend less and less time together?

Atleast it's the weekend and that means family time and chilling out and togetherness...

photograph by olivia graham

via copenhagen cycle chic

London...this is where my husband always seems to be...I miss him...

via skona hem

via luna and chloe weddings

via here

I like this; a bit much for the school run maybe but still...via crush cul de sac

photograph by aaron delesie

photograph by elizabeth messina

via atlantic pacific

photograph by emma lee

Its how I feel,,,via better than fine

Guest post by Fleur: Constant Change

Lou has kindly asked me...her S.I.L (sister-in-law for those of you who don't know me) to guest blog today whilst she takes a well deserved rest in the sunshine with hubby and the Boos.

So one year on....with a plus 1! (no I am not talking about my dress size). 

Mr Smidge - our baby boy is now 6 months old. A gorgeous boy....and oh how life has changed.  

Sleep, what's that? Grey hair.....aaah I now know what that is! Hard work...I have always been up for a challenge but this one being out of choice is well worth it!!  This weekend I am off to a good friend's wedding and I have been asked to do a biblical reading.  In the days before Mr Smidge I would have relished the opportunity to do public speaking but having a child tests your confidence in so many ways.  I don't think I have been so unsure of what I am doing or started so many sentances with "why?" and answered all of them with "maybe".  It has taken me 6 months to realise with babies it isn't black and white....in fact it is a colourful rainbow of chaos.  I have learnt about acceptance.  Acceptance that there isn't answers to everything, acceptance of change, acceptance to accept help.

What hasn't changed is my love of Sex and the City re-runs, reading Vogue, Mulberry handbags, Champagne, a good gossip with my girlies and weekends away with my hubby...they just don't happen as often!  They say absence makes the heart grow fonder...but I am a want-everything-right-now-girl and a little upset that I still haven't been able to sit and finish watching the final episode in the last series of 'Brothers and Sisters'.  

Despite the constant change in my life there will always be the constant of love.  Love for my man which is just as strong as the day I met him (except when he only makes a cup of tea for himself without asking if I want one, as he has literally done just this!), love for Mr Smidge, love for family and good friends, love for living life to the fullest.  To some up from an extract from the reading I am reciting on Saturday:

"And now these three things remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love"

1 Corinthians 13

Although I am a realist as in the past year four of my friends have separated after being married less than 2 years. That's life?! My motto is never be complacent, always keep it fresh and remember perhaps the only reliable thing in life is a GU hot chocolate fondant!
(in layman's terms don't lose your sense of humour)

Let the sun shine for everyone this weekend even if only metaphorically speaking (4 years ago this weekend we got married and it literally rained cats and dogs). I have to dash now as Mr Smidge is taking an unnerving attraction to my latest Issa number...mental note - move Mumma's smart wardrobe out of the nursery!!

 

 

The perfect wedding?

Weddings have always been big business but in my day, you choose a dress and maybe some favours for the table, invites and perhaps a colour theme; flowers and bridesmaids dresses to match. I got married to my sweetheart in 1999, I was 25 years old. From engagement to wedding there were just 8 months; I can still remember being told on my first wedding dress shopping excursion that a made-to-measure dress took at least six months and there just was not time to get it all done! I had some firm ideas about our wedding - I wanted it to be winter, I wanted twinkly candlelight, I wanted sumptuousness.

via 100 Layer Cake

The venue where we wed has now gone stratospheric in price compared to then. It was around the time when British stately homes were cottoning on to the idea of becoming a wedding venue, so we got it for a pinch of what it would cost now. Goodwood House. I wanted to get married in a place that would still be standing in 50 years time, or maybe even 100...

via 100 Layer Cake

I now browse these 'impossibly' perfect wedding blogs like the beautiful 100 Layer Cake and my mind boggles at the number of choices and decisions there are. I mentioned this to my new and lovely blog friend Rhiannon who is getting married soon. She commented that there were just so many options, it was sometimes too much to behold. I am, in a way, pleased that on our big day things were pretty straight-forward. When I look at the photos, which were before the digital age, so we only have an old-fashioned leather-bound album, there is an old charm about them! We were just so young....like this couple - and that wallpaper, may I just say, is to die for...

via 100 Layer Cake

The thing is - for all the wedding beauty on the big day, there is still a marriage that follows. I sometimes muse about these fantastical weddings that are featured; how many of them make happy marriages? I really do hope many, many do. To start from such beauty can only be a good thing. Sometimes keeping it simple works the best; the un-engineered...just a kiss and off you go...

Him. And Me. And them. Us.

My husband (Mr Lou as he has been named) and I have been together since I was 18 years old and he was 22. He and I grew up on the same street; he lived at number 4 and I lived at number 5. We have been married for over ten years now, together for eighteen. I have so few adult memories that he was not a part of. We got together the first term I spent at University. But he lived in our home town and I travelled back and forth and we did the long distance thing for a few years.

A best friend, L, who was my bridesmaid and who has known us both since our first unplanned date told me to read back on this post about our two children, a girl and a boy and their characteristics. It was to see how much it actually described my husband and I.

I wrote this without any thought - it's what struck me first when I thought him and me:

Him

Sturdy build, dependable, strong.
Smells like freshly washed cotton.
At a party, always always the last to go home.
The first to invite everyone and anyone back to our house - Mr Hospitality.
Spontaneous.
Fit, muscular, did I mention strong?
Charming, funny, sharp-witted.
Outrageous - I worry who gets seated next to him at dinner parties, as he offends!
Honest.
Full of integrity.
Fearless.
Confident.
Responsible (most of the time!).
Messy, mucky.
Sport-watcher, sport-player, all things sport.

Me

Gangly, long-limbed.
Smells like Diptique Fig perfume.
Early to bed. Bed lover.
Obsessive planner.
Dry wit.
Big on etiquette.
Erudite, intellectual, well-read.
Sentimental, nostalgic.
Tidy.
Glass is half empty.
Stalwart friend.
Deep and meaningful.
Worrier.
Shopper.
Trashy TV watcher.

I thought, surely not, I am sure it does not bear a close resemblance. Does the apple really fall that far from the tree? Have we created two new 'mini-me's'? And for us, do opposites always attract?!

1950's family frolicks...

Sunday night insomnia, Mr and Mrs and piscean indecision...

This was what met me early this morning; the view from my kitchen window as I made my cup of earl grey...the most lovely frosty sunrise.


This is the view from upstairs in my house - that's ground water laying in the field - which contributed to the insomnia I had last night while I lay wondering - if my house flooded what would I save? I got as far as (in no particular order) the Mac, my Eric Ward paintings, wedding photos, jewellery, shoes and of course husband, kids and cat...

The other contributing factor to my Sunday night insomnia was the fact that my husband and I bickered most of the weekend like an old married couple, despite our recent enforced absence (absence makes the heart grow stronger surely?). I took this picture of ducks in the rain a week ago, I love the waddle, the 'Mr and Mrs' quality of it...she goes slightly ahead, he follows after with his fancy green head feathers gleaming. Its as if if she is saying 'come on, hurry up, stick to my pace, places to go, people to see...'


Did I mention that my husband and I renewed our wedding vows in Las Vegas a couple of years back? I always wanted to go to a Vegas wedding so we had our own. It was very entertaining, along with our little congregation we danced in the aisle as the Elvis impersonator sang 'Viva Las Vegas'. And this is me (my beloved took the picture) walking back to our stretch limo afterwards. I have this thing for photos of people (or ducks) walking away...


Just while we are on Vegas...I know I have posted alot about that place lately but let's just have a Monday appreciation for Brad and George in Ocean's Eleven. YUM. Raybans never looked so good...

Anyway, I digress...back to the insomnia. It wasn't even useful insomnia, wrestling with important issues, oh no. It was the mind-full-of nothing-important indecisive kind of insomnia. Shall I get up and have some milk? Shall I stay in bed and keep trying to sleep? Will I be over-tired in the morning? Is this because I was already hungover on Sunday from too many margaritas at a dinner party on Saturday? Are the kid's bags packed for school? Mental note: must make dentist appointments. And, and, and...

So after the lovely sunrise and a cup of tea, I logged onto Blogger for my daily fix and saw the inspiring post over at The Refocused Life which reminded me i) its 1st March today, ii) its my birthday month iii) lots of nice things ahead. Oh and iv) I am piscean; two fish swimming in different directions - I am in a constant state of indecision! No wonder I couldn't sleep...