Kids parties are modern warfare

I really think that this is true. It's like a competition between mums to outdo each other. Organising one is stressful. Where to have it, who to invite, what food to provide. Honestly, it's the stuff of nightmares. At the end of the day, it's the childs happiness that is the most important thing, but it's still seen as a reflection of parenting.

Emilia has had 2 birthday parties this weekend. One was in a place called Funsters, an indoor play area. It was for a little girl called Taya in her class. Taya has just turned 5. Taya already has highlights in her hair. Do you see where I'm going with this? A party in Funsters costs £10 per child (this does include food, you know, chips and something). We know this as Taya's mum told every single mum. There were 14 children including Taya there. You do the maths.

The second one was in the local leisure centre, where you can hire a bouncy castle for 55 minutes with supervision. This costs £85. You do need to provide your own food. It all adds up. However, in 55 minutes, it's hard to provide food for children who only have such a short time to bounce, and do any party games and blow out candles. This party was for Danny, who is commonly known as Emilia's boyfriend. Danny is rather besotted with Emilia and follows her around at school. I'd like to tell her that he'll change as he gets older, but I don't want to lie to her. Life is cruel. Anyway, it was a good party. Tanya (Danny's mum) made a cake, an Angry Birds cake (AMAZING!), had some drinks and packets of Quavers.

So at the end of the day, whose party was better? Well, my answer is, does it really matter? All of the kids that went to the parties had fun. The birthday children felt special for the day, as they should do. And the parents were left stressed out and wondering why they went to such fuss when it was all over so quickly and never to be mentioned again. I can tell you that they're not discussed in the playground as much as you hope they would be. I speak from experience.

Seriously though, I'll make Emilia's party next year even better. It's war.

The Angry Birds cake!

Family... is blood really that thick?

So, there has been a bit of tension in my family today. Well, in reality, there has been for a while, but it came bubbling up to the surface today. I'll be honest, we're not a close family. If something is going wrong, my sister isn't the first person I'd call, and I doubt I'd be hers. However, I do still care about her, as any big sister would. I can't help it. And it seems as sometimes it comes across as criticism. Things have now been said from both sides that have hurt one another. I worry because she puts silly things on facebook like about how drunk she is and how she's got to look after her baby daughter. If Ellie's(her daughter) dad did ever decide that he wanted custody or something like that, aforementioned things put on facebook would be so damaging for her. I only say this because I am living in the aftermath of that kind of situation. I don't mean it to be horrible. I don't mean to say that she can't look after Ellie, because she clearly can. But to be told that I don't know anything because I am a pretend parent, that hurt me. Fair enough Emilia isn't my daughter, but doesn't mean that I can't look after her like she is. Seeing as her own mother didn't look after her, surely she deserves love and stability. It's not pretend when she says she loves me and gives me a cuddle. I work hard to help Edd support her, and if it weren't for step-parents, there would be a lot of messed up children in this world. I would be one of them.

We've spoken about it now. My brother and sister said that I'm lame because I don't ask how they are. The thing is, I do. I have tried repeatedly to get in contact with them, but I never hear anything back. I ask my mum when I phone her every week how they both are. It's not a case of not trying, it's just a case of that so much has gone on in our family, it's hard for us to be close.

But, at the end of the day, there's the saying that "Blood is thicker than water", and I wouldn't change my family for anyone else. I can't really, I am stuck with them. And I guess today has shown us that we all need to try a little harder to stay in contact and helo each other out, because when the rest of the world walks out, my family will still be there.

This fire is outta control, gonna burn this city......

(My finger is in the shot because it was a sneaky photo taking moment)

Well, not quite. But we did have some drama at work today! The bin outside the shop was on fire for some reason. There are many differing viewpoints. The most logical explanation is that someone threw a cigarette in there and it set fire to something. There are many other lines of thought. The grumpy woman from Thomas Cook a few doors down who keeps leaving notes on people's cars if they park in her parking space. Bored teenagers was another explanation. Someone trying to burn the shop down, possibly my manager as she is rather adverse to working. But anywho, Cam helped by bringing a mop bucket of water down to the security wardens. They got the fire out, when the fire service turned up. Great timing there. So, we watched the firemen, hoping for a nice dishy one. We were sadly disappointed, but not overly surprised. This is Swansea after all. Good looking men are few and far between. And the ones who think they are good looking, spend longer in front of the mirror than most girls. But I digress, the firemen turned up to a fire that was clearly out. They still got the hose out anyway, and gave the bin a few squirts. It was all rather exciting.

Yes, my life has got that boring that watching a 40 year old fireman squirt a bin with water is the highlight of my day.

When does the honeymoon period end?

So, I've heard it said that after 6 months of being in a relationship with someone, the honeymoon period ends. I've been thinking about this, and I'm not sure it really applies to my relationship.

In over 6 months of being together, we've only had 1 whole week completely to ourselves. Even now, as I type this, Batman is walking over my torso to get attention. Paw to the boob isn't the most pleasant experience. Anywho, as I mentioned, we've only had one week to ourselves, where we haven't had Emilia or his parents around. In the beginning, we only had the time after her dropped Emilia off at school, and before he picked her up again. At weekends, we were rarely alone. So, our relationship didn't have a conventional start. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this was a bad thing in any way at all. It made us find out that we're good together very quickly. We're still learning new things about each other now, and there are probably still thousands of things we've still yet to find out about each other. But did we ever have a honeymoon period? Did we ever have that crazy about each other phase where we couldn't keep our hands off each other? Where we sickened other people around us with our lovey dovey behaviour? I think we did.

I still wake up every morning and feel incredibly lucky to be with such a lovely guy. I've never properly lived with a boyfriend before, and I honestly thought that the first time I did, it wouldn't happen so quickly. But here I am, and it doesn't feel weird or scary. His daughter calls me mummy, and it doesn't feel weird or scary. I still fall more in love with him every day, and maybe this is still the honeymoon period. Maybe the honeymoon period doesn't have to end, because when you find the right person, that's how love is meant to be.

Sorry for the excessive use of slushiness here. It has been playing on my mind recently, and I've been thinking about past relationships, and why they didn't last past the 6 month mark. This one is different, and I can't explain it. Maybe it's a sign I've grown up? Or maybe it's a sign I've completely lost my mind? Only time will tell. Until then, I'm going to keep doing this.....

Not so traumatised and looking positive

...Why I love hangoverless weekends now


So, I'm over the car crash now. We're still without car though. Edd's dad is my chauffeur to work at the moment. I feel really bad about it, and keep offering to get the bus, but his parents aren't having any of it. I'd also like to get the bus as it gives me time to listen to my music, which I don't seem to be doing much of these days, but I can't really say that to them. We're waiting to sort out a courtesy car, but apparently the place doesn't have any small cars. I don't know what this means, unless they only have Hummers left. I don't fancy driving a Hummer. Although I won't be driving the courtesy car anyway, as I won't be insured to. Maybe they only have limousines? It would be pretty spectacular to be driven to work in a limousine. I might speak to them about this. So, while Jay (the car, not my choice of name I'll have you know) is being repaired, we're pretty much confined to Gorseinon. Not so much fun. There really isn't much here in this litle Welsh village. Plus all of my friends live in Swansea. I just have Edd. And he's unavailable now that the Playstation network has come back online, and he can play Fifa with his "team" again. So, what is a girl to do with all this time??? Please, ideas would be useful.

Batman has been neutered. I have never seen a cat look so sorry for herself. The night before she went to the vets, we kept her in our room to make sure she didn't eat any food (vet's orders), and she was all snoozey. I was just bumming around on my laptop, learning Swedish, as you do, when I felt a tickle at my foot. I looked up and saw this.....



Isn't that the cutest!? (Please ignore the mess in the background, still waiting for the computer desk to be moved out of the room so we have space for all of our junk. I have a lot of junk) I do love my kitty cat. She is pretty awesome. She didn't even hate me after the vet took away her lady parts. She might hate me when I take her back to get the stitches out and have her vaccinations. But then again, she might be like me and like needles. Probably not though, she hasn't experienced the joy of a tattoo gun.

My first car crash

So today, I crashed Edd's car. Nothing major, it wasn't a huge collision, there were no injuries, but it shook me up pretty badly. I guess I was at fault, but I am generally a careful driver. Neither me nor Edd saw the brake lights of the car in front as it stopped, but apparently it did, and no amount of emergency braking stopped our car. So Jay (the car) has a buckled bumper and a grate fell out of the front. The other car only had a tiny scratch, but the guy was causing a fuss about it. The police took my details, but as we exchanged insurance details, they didn't pursue it. The policeman didn't seem to impressed with the other guy saying there would be loads of damage that we couldn't see because of the bump. I'm a bit worried about what he's going to claim. His wife was nice though. She could see I was shaken up. And Emilia got to press the button to make the blue lights flash on the police car, which calmed her down a bit, as she was a bit shaken up. So I've got sore knees from hitting the steering column when I slammed on the brake. But I've had sweet tea and cake to make me feel better. I'm just thankful it wasn't serious.

Life is made up of photos like this!

Life is going pretty well at the moment. I'm getting more hours at work, and as I've settled in more at Edd's, more stuff has got done. I'm going to start scrapbooking again soon. And I'm feeling crafty. I've made pink heart-shaped cupcakes today. They were rather yummy. I'm feeling rather contented with life right now.

Oh, and it's EUROVISION TONIGHT! One of my favourite television events of the year! SO much joy!



And not forgetting photos like this!