Moving House: Dream v Reality

I'm dreaming of a White Kitchen .....with every Christmas card I write

Hello my lovelies. Maybe some of you are wondering where I have got to? All I can say is I am covered in scratches, my hair is full of dust and I am sneezing up a storm. Yes I have moved house and I'm dishing all about it at At Home magazine where I now have a column as The Ex-Pat Mommy. So click on the button below and check it out! And tell me if you too have lurid fantasies revolving around cookers with all the bells and whistles ... or is it just me?

The Best of The British Mummy Bloggers Carnival

Hi and welcome to the Carnival! I can't quite believe my time to host has come round so quickly. I remember applying to host it months and months ago and now my time has arrived slap bang in the middle of me moving house! That's why I'm posting a day early because I'm posting from the library - since my oven doesn't yet work (there is a knob missing) let alone my computer. But I am putting this together for your pleasure while I look forward to later savouring a delicious [not] slice of microwave pizza!

I've had a blast reading the entries, and now it's your turn, show your fellow bloggers some love and leave them a comment, find a new blog you haven't read before, (I know I have). So pour yourself a cuppa, or in my case a glass of Pinot Grigio, and enjoy!

First up is Bloggertropolis pondering what it would be like to have sex with Nigella

Cherished by Me posts about the pressure new mums are under to lose weight

Notes From Home ponders that this was not the sex education she planned on teaching!

Mummy Musings posts about how toys are biased towards gender and how she tries to rebel against this trend

Clare at Crumbs Feed Your Family has penned a side splitting open letter to Gordon Ramsay

Emma dishes on Mummybloggergate and confesses a rather unusual encounter at her dentists - she wants your stories too!

Pippa at A Mother's Ramblings wonders whether Dora The Explorer taught her boy to spell

Hayley at Singlemummy.net has been thinking about how bittersweet Accident and Emergency departments can be

A Modern Military Mother celebrates A Medal of Honor and A Royal Wedding

Sandy Calico reflects on the fact that there may be more than one version of beauty

Heather at Note From Lapland wonders whether British Women wear too much makeup

Bianca at Bigword's Blog reveals what men really talk about when they're on the toilet

Cocktails at Naptime writes a letter to Santa about what new mums don't want for Christmas

Cass at The Diary of a Frugal Family offers some great tips on shrinking down your monthly budget

Observations of Mrs. Average explains how bad parenting days are just as frequent as bad hair days in the Average household.

Mid 30s Life gives us her take on the Twilight Saga

Vegetmitevix is stressing out like mad about her imminent holiday and whether she can control the weather

Kellogsville dishes on how working from home sometimes involves going up in flames

Sarah from Catching the Magic posts about a British couple on their travels around Wellington, with a baby and four year old in tow

Emma at A Matter of Choice posts on an Unusual Proposal of Marriage

Tea Drinking Mum shares a Toy Store Story

Hazel at Hot Cross Mum wittily rewrites 'A Few of My Favourite Things' as 'Mother's Lament'

NurtureStore shows how to transform a load of old junk into an amazing model riding stables

Misssy M reveals how Twitter Is The New Toilet Wall

Mummybloggergate

Exclusive Report by Ivan Tpublicity

An angry mummy blogger slash cookbook author who felt she was violated when she was searched at an airport has started a slew of blog posts by other mummy bloggers who had not realised until that moment that they had been violated in the course of their every day lives.

Mummy blogger Emma K who is also the co-author of hilarious book Cocktails At Naptime is representative of the outpouring of grief that has flooded the mummy blogger community since they read the airport post.

"Until this woman posted about this I had no idea that I had been mishandled," said Emma K, as mascara ran down her face. "I am so angry. I feel so violated. What happened was I went to my dentist earlier today. How was I to know that he was going to use a large mechanical instrument on me or that I was going to have to lie in a chair with my legs in the air in a sexually humiliating position? No one had ever told me that was what one did at the dentists. I am too traumatised to talk right now but I feel my dentist inappropriately violated my wisdom teeth when he 'grabbed' my gums and 'waggled' the teeth about (without telling me what he was going to do first) causing me considerable discomfort."

The mummy blogging community, which is already licking its wounds after sex bomb Andrew Marr declared that bloggers were “socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald and cauliflower-nosed, sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting,” is now reeling from this second blow.

The airport search confession post scandal now known as Mummybloggergate has rocked the mummy blogging community to its foundations. Some pundits are saying that the repercussions of such an outpouring of mummy grief may short circuit keyboards and cause breakdowns of whole mummy blogging message boards. We are definitely worried that Mummybloggergate could impact the economy with mums too traumatized by their new found grief to go shoe or clothes shopping. We will monitor this sensitive situation carefully to see how things progress.

Do you have a story about how you were mishandled by your local shoe salesman or optician? If so we want to hear from you.

British Mummy Bloggers Carnival Call For Posts

Join Me! I want you strutting your stuff at the BMB Carnival

I'm hosting the BMB Carnival here on Tuesday 23rd November. It's my first time hosting and I'm counting on you all to submit your posts to me by the 22nd at midnight.

Your posts can be about anything, there is no theme this time, just submit your favourite post to me by the 22nd and you will be featured in the carnival. It's a great way to get new readers for your blogs and find some great new blogs too.

To submit an entry, just email me the link to emmakcontact[at]yahoo.com together with a one line description of your post.

Looking forward to reading all your entries!

 

 

And while I have your attention be sure to check out my pal Gillian Martin's hilarious article 'Five Things To Know Before Pregnancy' which can be found over here at Glamour Magazine. Remember - if you love it leave a comment and rate it!

A Bad Marriage Is Like A Dodgy Motor

My friend Alana told me the other day that I was unusual in being married ten years and still getting along with my husband. She claimed most people can't really stand each other after that period of time. And I think that feeling is fairly common and echoed by Slummy Single Mummy who said she was cynical about everlasting love. In any case I was strutting around like a peacock for a bit thinking what a success I was for being married for ten years. In fact so many people have said to me 'Emma, what's the secret to a happy marriage?' that I felt it was time to put fingers to keyboard and dish. [Actually it was really just Alana who is unmarried but still, I'm sure you're all dying to hear my pearls of wisdom].

Don't marry a spouse that is the equivalent of a rusty motor

It's really quite simple. There is no point marrying some hot piece of totty and after a few years things going flat and then embarking on a round of counselling or swingers parties and testing out all types of new fangled sex toys trying to insert the spice (or lager flavoured love cream) back into your marriage. It doesn't work and it's bloody expensive. You basically have to marry the right person to start with. If you buy a car you don't just buy a nice looking second hand motor do you? You get it checked out to see if it's rusty under the hood don't you? If you buy the right product - a good quality product - then you will have a keeper. If you buy a piece of rusty old junk you will have a car exploding on you on the middle of the motorway.

I suppose the tricky thing is knowing that you've got hold of rusty piece of junk from the beginning and not tying the knot with him/her. Usually people are cross eyed with lust at that stage and don't think these things through too well. Why things worked out for me I really don't know. I like to kid myself that I am an amazingly good judge of character but really I think our union was just plain good old fashioned luck.

Also I think sexual attraction is ingrained from early erotic experiences. Coming from the UK I fancy men with badly cut hair that straggles over the back of a collar, I get turned on by jumpers (you have to find jumpers erotic because there will never be a time save the two weeks in summer when English men will be out of jumpers), sideburns, glasses, little or no muscle definition, zero body fat and naturally crooked teeth. My husband - who by the way is Irish - has crooked teeth. It was quite funny, he went to a dentist here and they told him that for $30,000 they could break his jaw and put him in a headbrace to straighten his teeth. He told them, most politely, where to shove their head brace.

So, are you still with me? Firstly buy the right motor with the right er features on it to really get your engine revving. And then, to seal the deal of everlasting love move to a country where you are not sexually attracted to the men/women. For me that was America. Firstly American men are rarely in jumpers. They are also insanely clean, scrubbed and have large regularly spaced teeth. Lastly there isn't the opportunity to get it on with them since they simply don't try it on at every opportunity the way English men do. In fact it was quite a culture shock to go out to a club here and never run into a chap trying to impress me with a crude chat up line. In fact here the use of the words ‘nice rack’ ‘well put together’ or ‘screw’ said to any woman who is not a sales associate at IKEA can quickly lead to a sexual harassment law suit – something most American males will do anything to avoid.

So that about sums it up: marry a quality product to start with and then move to a foreign country where you do not find the opposite sex desirable. I hope my advice will prevent at least some of you from making poor marriage choices.

Has The World Gone Wack?

It's an unfortunate fact of life that those who have the energy to protest about things are often mentally unwell and that those who protest against consumerism actually defy logic. Take Buy Nothing Day (BND) an international day of protest against consumerism observed by social activists. Typically celebrated the Friday after American Thanksgiving in North America its motive is "a day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption." Right. Or take Adbusters who protest against advertising who say that saying no to ads is all "about starting a lasting lifestyle commitment to consuming less and producing less waste."

Or what about those Freeganists who dumpster dive and run their cars on used chip grease - don't they realize they're bankrolling their rather smelly lifestyle on the backs of the excesses of consumerism? What I want to ask today is: Why protest against consumerism? And if you are going to surely do it in a way that has some actual impact.

I think you can look at consumerism two ways. You can look at it like 'oh woe is me I'm such a victim of advertising and I hate that these pesky advertisers are making me buy stuff I don't need and the way manufacturers have all sorts of fashions I have to follow so I'm in with the in kids. I'm so angry ooh I know ... I'm gonna protest... I'm gonna deface advertising posters because I'm so angry about er consumerism.' They're quite funny I suppose but don't make much sense.

So you'll be using the hand cranked gramaphone will you?

And as for protests....Hey lady was that protest against the computer printed on a computer?

The other way you can look at it is the Western economy functions only when there is growth in the economy (ie producing more and consuming more). Whenever this growth is static we call it a recession. So if we stopped consuming crap and stopped buying the latest versions of Windows and didn't think we needed an iPad or the latest trend in flourescent leggings the economy would be up shit creek without a paddle.

Then there are those people who are doing their bit, like me like you, like most of us. They're 'reducing their consumption' by only taking one holiday or driving a mini van with a 'I Care About The Planet' bumper sticker and buy organically raised pigs. Nice idea and all that but you're just skimming the top of the glacier my friend. And even if you're trying to reduce the mess in your back yard just take a trip to somewhere like India and see just how polluted their seas are due to the fact that they don't legislate for the dumping of toxic chemicals from the manufacturers who just produced your cute $5 t-shirt.

Never mind free speech ban naked cyclists

So I say consume consume consume. Or go live on a self sustaining farm. Because you can't be somewhere in the middle. And even if you are on a self sustaining farm without electricity unless everyone is doing it what's the point?

So what do you say? Is there any bleedin' point to those wacko schemes about 'turning off the lights on Tuesdays' or 'not buying designer jeans on Fridays.' Because to me it makes not one bit of sense!

Blame it on the Alcohol

I'm pretty sure Octomom didn't make it through Halloween sober and neither did I

Don't get me started on my weekend. People need to know something and that's that if you have a party you need to have alcohol at it. Preferably a selection of cocktail liqueurs, some fine shakers and lots of mixers but heck, last year's Thanksgiving peach wine will do just fine at a pinch.

No I don't care if it is a 'kids' party - if you want adults to hang around crack open the Schnapps I beg you. My husband is away and I think it's safe to say I'm hanging on to my sanity by a thread. Friday had me 'doing my bit for the community' by volunteering at the school and helping thirty kids make Halloween frames using a hot glue gun. After burning my fingers and getting blisters - I know, why did I touch the hot glue? - I felt quite fulfilled but also, being nice to kids is really hard work and frankly I needed a drink. That evening I drank the remains of a bottle of wine but it didn't really hit the mark.

After a Saturday driving the kids around like a headless chicken I thought I could drop them off at this kids' Halloween party. So I get there and there are twenty tween girls dressed as vampires and screaming like they were at a Justin Bieber concert. Although my head was threatening to explode, the parents, earnest types who looked boring even dressed up as mad scientist and witch -  looked like they wanted me to stay so I hung around for a few minutes before the migraine kicked in and I started casing the kitchen for alcohol. At first I got excited at finding bottles of spirits next to some plastic orange cocktail glasses but the mum 'humourously' informed me that those were just 'kiddy lookalike' spirits for the kiddies to mix cocktails with. I'm afraid I completely failed to see the humour of the situation and said, "Look do you have any real alcohol?" She looked at me like I'd asked her if I could molest her son. Well I'm sorry but I was at the end of my rope. "No we don't," she answered curtly so I said, "In that case if you don't mind I've got some errands to run," and walked home and and was just pouring myself a large G&T when my younger daughter phones me from the party and says she's scared so I walk back. When I get there she's calmed down but says she was freaked out by something called 'The Chop Shop' they have set up in the bathroom where if you put your hands in the sink you feel fake eyeballs and if you put your hands in the bath it's like fake intestines. I'm like, Right, don't go in the Chop Shop again I'm outta here. So I go home and drink the G&T and come back and later the mum tells me "Oh you do know your daughter was crying earlier," like I didn't know about it. I wanted to say "Well don't have intestines in your bath at a kids' party and then expect me to hang around without giving me booze." Jesus, some people!!

So anyway then I spent yesterday trick or treating for about ten hours with the kids - I was stone cold sober - I mean seriously do I get a Knighthood? Then luckily we went to a Dutch friend's house and she rolled out the booze by the bucketload. The downside was there was a highly strung Little Lord Faultleroy there who was one of those obnoxiously privately educated brats who was throwing himself all over the place theatrically and kept storming off. For example, he told a really lame joke, "What's Black and White and Red all over?" And all the kids said, "A Newspaper." And my seven year old said, "That's a really lame joke," and he huffed off and was found crying upstairs and you could hear his mum - one of those Mia Farrow types who always talks in a sickly sweet way - saying, "Come on now Roland they didn't mean to upset you. Maybe we should go home now. You seem to be a little overemotional." What Roland really needed of course was someone to say "Get over yourself you spoilt twat." But I wasn't going to be the one to do it - I was happy as Larry and half way through a bottle of Spanish red.

So how was your weekend? Mine was fine except for a bit of a hangover....
Oh sod it just blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alchohol



What do you say? I mean COME ON I would never have a party of any description without tons of booze. It's just not on.