Life & other interruptions

OMG!
What?
It's been a month since I blogged last! How could I have let that happen?!?

Well here's the thing, I've been meaning to blog before now but a little thing called Life got in the way. No excuses really but I offer the following as a run down of the goings on in my life, if you're interested.

To kick off I'd like to work backwards. Because frankly, it's easier to remember that way. And even though my girls are 3 and 5 years old, I still suffer from mummy brain. So just go with me on this.

Child Care

Most recently, one of my major daycare providers has gone on holiday. A big, international holiday. And while I'm super stoked for her and the international things she'll buy me, it has left a very large chuck of child minding to fill. Our secondary childcare providers have been wonderful in stepping up to the task of extra days a week etc and the girls have adapted to more days in care, earlier mornings and a slightly more stressed mummy. So far things are going pretty well. I'm managing to juggle both working in a new role and added school pick up/drop off without too much drama. Fingers crossed!

Promotion

In the last month I got a promotion! I've gone from being one of the team to running a team and it's working out really well. My team have said I'm friendly and approachable and as far as I can tell I'm not making any major errors! To secure my status as boss lady extraordinaire today I took in chocolate brownies for morning tea. Oh yes, complete with 100's and 1000's. Life is good.

End of Financial Year / Tax time

Dreaded for anyone in the financial sector (me), even more extreme if you work part time but have to meet end of month deadlines (me) and chuck in family illness (bloody man flu hit our house) and you've got the makings for a seriously stressful time. I'd like to think I handle stress well. That is until it builds so much that it explodes in an ugly mess of screaming tantrums (mine). This EOFY there were no tantrums. Phew I hear you sigh. Well yes, but while there weren't any tantrums from me, the same can't be said for Patrick or the girls.

So that's a brief summary of my past month and hopefully explains my laziness in full. If you follow me on Twitter you'll get much more frequent updates of the goings-on in my life so start following along! Otherwise, now things are somewhat settled I aim to blog to you all much more often.

Christmas in July

Ok, so the title might make you cringe (honestly, who wants a reminder that Christmas is less than 6 months away by having a Christmas party??) but it seemed fitting. Christmas in July because it's about this time of year that I start looking at the Christmas toy sales and layby.

Attention: Stop reading now if A) you're a child, or B) you're an adult that hasn't yet received the talk about Santa.

You've been warned.

So it's about this time of year that the major store have their toy sales and flog the idea of layby now for Christmas. A genius idea if you don't have a massive purse of cash in December, are time poor and crowds freak you out, or you have small, inquisitive children who feel that any area of the house is theirs to explore. I'm all 3. I have small children, limited storage space at home, no massive purse of cash in December and am very, very alone time poor. So Christmas layby it is. And this year I have discovered that one of the stores has a magical system of ordering anything you like from the catalogue online, print it out, take it to the layby counter and ta-da! you're done. Simple, effective and working mum friendly.

The catalogues arrived today and I asked the girls (3 and 5 years old) to go through and pick out what they would like to ask Santa for. Combined I think they racked up about $7000 worth of stuff, so while I struggle to find the balance between wanting to give them everything and the desire to not fill the house with more crap I thought I'd share my Christmas wish list (as it stands today).

A family holiday somewhere warm

A night out with friends... with lots of cocktails

New iPhone upgrade

Jimmy Choo heels - to wear on nights out



Black Lash Blast mascara



Black Dramatic Effect Eyeliner



Red lipstick