Quote of the Day!

Quote Of The Day

Very Important I think xxA

Photo of the Day!

Made me smile !

Video of the Day - My Blackberry is not working!

Hi Gorgeous girls
I was telling my client the other day about a quote I heard, "Life was so much easier when apples and blackberry's were just fruit" I was told to look up this skit by "The one Ronnie". It is very clever and pretty hilarious xx A

Oh and my English sense of humour is shining through xx

Motherhood - The Stress of running Late

Imogen and Samuel - ready for school!

 Hi at last ladies;
Finally this week i get to write a post, aaaaahhhhhh! My week has been hectic as usual, the house is still being painted and i am still frantically interviewing for staff............ finally I found the perfect angel today. Excuse any weird grammar mistakes (thank god for spell check) but after trialling her today my nails are now far too long.


I have ran late every day this week, it is becoming a serious problem, and I am never late. Its this whole getting to school by 8.30 thing, its so inconvenient ha ha x And it doesn't seem to be me, its everyone else in the house.
Do you have one or more children in your home that seems to repeatedly run late? 

Perhaps they run around looking for their shoes, jumper or homework? 

Maybe forgetting where they placed their school back pack the afternoon before. 

Does it raise the stress level for your entire family? It sure does in our house. I read somewhere once that a woman's stress level peaks at around 8am (I wonder why?)

It isn’t a very good way to start your day, is it? 

Think of this…..Do you run late?  Do you often forget where your keys are? (always)  How about finding your purse or shopping list?  Do you see the correlation?  Maybe not if in fact you are a mum who is pretty organized and then it frustrates you even more that you have a child that seems to be in disarray!

If running late is a key component to your mornings it is time for a change.

I know we can get our children to gain tremendous pride in their accomplishment of being prepared for their day and getting out the door on time in the morning, its just putting it to practice)  You have heard it time and time again; learning by example will get someone much further than just being told what to do.

I find that some  mums I work with find it just plain easier to continue yelling 3 or more times trying to address the issue rather than changing their response.  Why do we fall into those habits?  Because – it is easier to stay the same than change.  Face it, we are creatures of habit, and yet even when a pattern of behavior is NOT producing what we want, we seldom see another method to reach the outcome we desire.  So stop and think about how your morning runs and how you could in fact be enabling your child to continue their pattern of running late and being forgetful.

You know helping our children develop new habits starts with us.  Plain and simple.   As we venture into the middle of the school year, and Spring, it is the perfect time to develop some new habits, both for our children and us!  I have found some obvious points that can help our children, but it doesn’t take a lot of thinking to see how we can adapt these simple tools into our lives too.

Being Prepared (my "always" intention)

What can you do in advance to make things easier?  Thinking ahead can certainly help make a difference and calm things down.  Does your child have an activity the next day?  Is his/her backpack placed in a spot where it is accustomed to being?  You can even lay clothes out for the next day if that is a battle that ends up producing anxiety for anyone! I always have good intentions of doing this but all of a sudden run out of energy around dinner time......... every day he he x

Remembering Tasks

I started using check lists when my kids were very young.  These are all items that need to be accomplished by a certain time, normally before leaving in the morning. (making their bed, teeth brushed, pajamas put away, etc.). This helped me out because I didn’t have to be the drill sergeant and it also gave my child a great sense of pride as he/she accomplished these tasks on their own!  In addition, once the checklist was finished they can spend the remaining time before leaving doing an activity they enjoy.  I find too many parents let their kids watch TV or play video games before the work is done and then wonder why it is such a battle.  Work before play is a standard principle in our home.

Decide what type of system is going to work for you and your child.

Work on it together and brainstorm about what will help them.  You may be surprised at what they come up with.

Staying on Task

This one can be completely aggravating for many parents – because you have a dilly dallier!  You know, the one who looks up from one task and is completely distracted by something else. (me for sure)  We have used different things at different times, but a few that work well are using a kitchen timer to keep a child on task, having a one task at a time policy – where they cannot move on from one thing until one is completed.  Also having them check in with you during their progress is helpful too.

Listening

Truly making sure your child hears you and understands the instruction can be half of the frustration.  So, have your child repeat back instructions and then verify he understands.  We also found giving too many instructions at once was not a good combination.  Give one task at a time and wait until that is completed.

Set a Schedule

We set up a schedule for Imogen that has helped her use her time better in the mornings.  She knows what time to get up, what time she had to start eating breakfast, cleaning up, getting dressed, all of that.  We have tried to spell it out for her

Celebrate

If getting out the door in the morning has been a thorn in your side, sit everyone down and discuss how different the mornings are when things go smoothly.  How much happier everyone is, how enjoyable the ride to school is.  Then think together what you could in fact do on the days that everyone cooperates and takes care of their own business to help the family out.  Have a special after school treat – it doesn’t have to be big, just something little, like a certain favorite cookie or ice cream, or playing a game together or maybe this – you do one of your child’s chores that afternoon since they helped you out?

Get creative, you can have fun finding ways to motivate you child to step up to the plate and be more responsible.

Now the funny thing is, we all know these things are the things we should do, but do we? I am always falling off the wagon after a good weeks work, but definitely if things run smoother its worth a try for sure, anyway better get on with some stuff instead of getting sidetracked blogging. xx A

Quote Of The Day

Ha ha ha xx A

The Mommy Diaries - Date Nights

Hello my Gorgeous girls,

Do you ever take part in scheduled date nights?

Romance......

Does it really exist? I often hear people/my clients/my friends, talking about date nights. It is sad that we have to schedule time nowadays to spend with our partners, but obviously in this day and age it is the way to go. I thought I would do some research, so I typed it in to google and I don't know if it is just me but I was surprised at the amount of sites there were suggesting ideas for a "fabulous date" with your partner.I think I am going to try it....... I will give it to my hubby on fathers day, so I had better start working on it now.

In any serious relationship between a man and a woman, love and romance always comes into the picture like two peas in a pod. Most people always associate love with romance or the other way around. But can love exist without romance or can romance exist without love?So when love and romance is brought into a relationship, it blends into a long lasting and excitingly intense dreamy feeling of attraction directed to another person without limits.romance is then a must in any relationship to keep it alive. 

I saw an idea (a fabulous idea) where a basket was put together holding 12 envelopes.  Each envelope is labeled with a month of the year. Each envelope then contains a pre-planned, (mostly) pre-paid date for me and my hubby, what a fantastic gift!  Some of the dates will take place at home, some are planned for locally, and some will take us further.  All 12 dates will be different. Some of them will be things  we have never done before, but always wanted to.

The plan is to open the envelope together at the beginning of the month, look at the calendar and decide on a date.  So right from the beginning of the month, we'll have a fun date to look forward to.

Here are some ideas I am thinking of adding to the basket:

Free Concerts Check your local paper or its website for upcoming free concerts. For shows in the park, pack a picnic basket and blanket so you can dance and dine in the same place.

Camping Roughing it can be fun…and c’mon, it’s only 48 hours. Pack a sleeping bag for two, graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate for s’mores, and get out of town for the weekend. Give the BlackBerry some well-deserved time off!

Day Spa Treat yourselves to a day of double relaxation. You can book almost any spa treatment together (hello, hot stone massage!). Want a recession-proof spa day? Here’s how to get a steamy massage going at home.

Movie Night Rent a movie, make some popcorn and get cosy on the couch with a blanket and a bottle of wine

Picnic Pick a beautiful Day, pack a picnic and chill on a blanket, just taking in nature and the scenery.

Movies Indoor or outdoor, take a night out at the movies, maybe with dinner included at a favourite restaurant.

Dinner at home Pick up the ingredients you need to create a fabulous meal at the grocery store and then return home and cook it together.

Sunset Pack some cheese, crackers, and grapes and your favorite old quilt and have a picnic on the lawn, sit on the roof and watch the sunset together.

These are just some ideas I have come up with but I need more if I am to do the twelve months of the year....... I am working on it xx A

Three of the Best! - Books I have read this year!

Hello Ladies,


Three of the best this week is a review on the three best books I have read this year. I love to read. and I love to read anything, probably why I enjoy reading peoples blogs so much. These three books are totally different in every way, but I loved every one of them tremendously. I hope by showing you all these books, you will also give one of them a go. xx A

Life By Keith Richards

For legions of Rolling Stones fans, Keith Richards is not only the heart and soul of the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band, he’s also the very avatar of rebellion: the desperado, the buccaneer, the poète maudit, the soul survivor and main offender, the torn and frayed outlaw, and the coolest dude on the planet, named both No. 1 on the rock stars most-likely-to-die list and the one life form (besides the cockroach) capable of surviving nuclear war. This book brought out the ultimate groupie in me, I think if I lived a different type of life in a different era, I would have so definitely been a groupie.
After giving us an idea of his post world war two upbringing in the little town of Dartford  in a very modest family Keith talks about the inevitable consequences of fame, the nearly complete loss of privacy and the weirdness of being turned into a folk hero by fans.

“I can’t untie the threads of how much I played up to the part that was written for me,” he says. “I mean the skull ring and the broken tooth and the kohl. Is it half and half? I think in a way your persona, your image, as it used to be known, is like a ball and chain. People think I’m still a goddamn junkie. It’s 30 years since I gave up the dope! Image is like a long shadow. Even when the sun goes down, you can see it.”I loved this memoir because of its honest way of writing (he pulls no punches). He’s decided that he’s going to tell it as he remembers it, and helped along with notebooks, letters and a diary he once kept, he remembers almost everything. He gives us a sort of time-capsule feel for the madness that was life on the road with the Stones in the years before and after Altamont; Accounts of his many close shaves and narrow escapes (from the police, prison time, drug hell); and a heap of sharp-edged photographs of friends and colleagues — most notably, his longtime musical partner Mick Jagger

Life is way more than a revealing showbiz memoir. It is also a fabulous portrait of the era when rock ’n’ roll came of age, a raw report of how music swept like a tsunami over Britain and the United States in the 60's and 70's. Of course die-hard Stones fans, will have detailed discussions of how songs like “Ruby Tuesday” and “Gimme Shelter” came to be written.

But the book will also dazzle the person who thought they had only a casual interest in the Stones or who thought of  Keith Richards as just a rock god who was mad, bad and dangerous to know, and later in the book they will know the rock star, who actually remains something of a shy romantic with women, worrying about finding “the right line, or one that hadn’t been used before.”

A Pressure Cooker Saved My Life By Juanita Philips

Juanita Phillips thought she could juggle the perfect life - career, kids, beautiful house - but, as she reveals in the book, something had to give. 

Once, when Julia Gillard was merely regarding the glass ceiling, not breaking it, she questioned whether a mother could become prime minister. Gillard's casual remark sparked controversy among readers of The Bulletin back in 2008 but did not surprise the journalist who reported it.

With the benefit of maternal hindsight, Juanita Phillips, the female face of ABC's national news, readily accepts that motherhood and political ambitions might be mutually exclusive in such a demanding role.

Something had to give in her life, and ultimately for her it was the home with the water views, her health and the career of her husband, Mario Milostic, as Phillips assumed the traditional patriarchal role of breadwinner and Milostic that of full-time carer.

Late to marriage and motherhood, Juanita, like many of us, had wanted her cake and to eat it, too. But two children, a public profile and career, and a large mortgage had proved an impossible juggling act and convinced her women could not have it all.

But no one could have predicted that Juanita Phillips, this female trailblazer of television news, would retreat to the nostalgic world of '50s domestic homemaker to help recalibrate her modern family life.

" A Pressure Cooker Saved My Life", was the result and chronicles her inner conflict, guilt and the emotional meltdowns of her attempt to "have it all, do it all and keep it all together".

Of course, Juanita admits something as simple as an op shop-bought kitchen utensil can't achieve a  state of domestic bliss and career satisfaction that has escaped 40 years of feminist agitation.

But nor does this part-journal, part-cookbook speak of the '70s feminist crusader. It's not angry, it's not political. It peeps over the white picket fence for inspiration. Juanita Phillips returns in memory to her childhood years, those long hot summers growing up in Sydney and then Brisbane, and discovers it has a commodity she now craves: predictability, tranquility and home as a peaceful refuge.

"Everybody has to feed their kids," she says, "even feminists.".
"Yes, it is possible to have it all – just not all at the same time, Phillips concludes. "If you try to have it all at the same time, you'll pay a high price. Whether you think it's worth the price – well, that's your decision and yours alone

The Secret By Rhonda Byrne

The Secret is a best-selling 2006 self-help book written by Rhonda Byrne, based on the self-help film of the same title. The film was released before the book in DVD format in 2006. The idea of this book is that the universe is governed by a natural law called the law of attraction. The law of attraction is said to work by attracting into a person’s life experiences, situations, events, and people that ‘match’ the frequency of the person’s thoughts and feelings. Therefore, positive thinking and feeling positive can create life-changing results such as increased wealth, health, and happiness. After being featured in two episodes of Oprah, the book reached the top of the New York Times best-seller list, where it remained for 146 consecutive weeks. It continues to frequently appear in the top ten and extended New York Times bestseller list. 

This book was a fabulous read, but on that note I did find myself absently obsessing over my thoughts. You become quite obsessed with all your thought becoming positive, but it also makes you aware of all the negative thoughts you have every day x

Oh and by the way I recommend Life by Keith Richards xx A

Anxiety

I have posted many simple posts today, but I felt I had to share this post from mamamia, for any of you out there that suffer Anxiety  (all but one of you of you I think xx) this is a very inspiring read. Let me know what you think xx A

Aw look at that - You Tube "Life in a Day"

On July 24, 2010, thousands of people around the world uploaded videos of their lives to YouTube to take part in Life in a Day, a historic cinematic experiment to create a documentary film about a single day on earth.

Now, it's time to watch their story unfold on the big screen.

Directed by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald, Life in a Day wowed audiences at the Sundance, Berlin and SXSW film festivals and during its YouTube world premiere in January. This summer, you'll be able to watch the movie in a theater near you.

Be sure to subscribe and stay tuned to the channel for regular updates including information on how you can become a part of cinema history.

Quote Of The Day

No one can be yourself more than you can be yourself xx A
via Lisa Golightly, she is such a fabulous artist!

Photo of the Day!

I find this photo so inspiring!

Motherhood - Life lessons for your children!

Hello Gorgeous Girls

This weeks motherhood post is centred upon advice we pass on knowingly and unknowingly to our babies in hope that their lives are shaped in the best way possible.

As parents, we will fill many roles in our children's lives – from friend and
caretaker, to cook, taxi driver, doctor and number 1 fan.

But one of the most important and fulfilling roles is that of teacher. We try our best to pass on life lessons, both practical and philosophical. As a mum of two (two is enough don't laugh), I’ve already given plenty of advice although they are only 6 and 3. from the beginnings of homework to how to make friends and not annoy them (eek) and all things in between. Of course, I’m never sure how much of it sinks in, but I know some bits and pieces must.

So I asked some of my friends, mums at school and clients at work what one piece of advice they think is most important for children to learn as they grow up. Every response was different, but each was formed around an important life lesson that we all could benefit from. So, in no particular order, here are ten of the best lessons you can share with your little one!

1. You are important and loved, but you are not the center of the universe,  Find something outside of yourself that will give your life meaning so that, when people think of you they think the world is a  better place because you are here.

2. Norman Rubek, father of three boys, made sure his sons had a rule of thumb to give them pause when making choices. “Don’t do anything that leaves facial scars, a permanent record, or a good chance of death,” he says.

3. Never compare yourself with anyone who seems to have it better than you,  Remember there’s always someone worse off than you are. This client said " you called always wake up crippled tomorrow" - food for thought heh?

4. Learn to save money, save up before you buy something. Don't spend what you don't have! - a drastic mistake of today's "Y" generation.

5. Every child should learn to believe in himself, Make up your own rules, and don’t let anyone tell you you aren’t capable. You are only incapable if you believe you are!

6. Kids who play the blame game should take heed of this advice: “Be careful when you point a finger at someone else. You’ll have three others pointing back at you.” 

7. “Control yourself – your emotions, attitudes and behaviors – in the face of adversity and you will be the most powerful person in the world.”

8. “Do right, because it is [right].You don’t do right because it will get you something, or because it will keep you out of trouble, or because you will sleep better. You do right simply because it is right, and then anything good that happens as a result of this is the icing [on the cake].”

9. “What you say and do matters, even if no one is watching ,the choices you make from moment to moment shape who you are and the way people feel about you.” Happiness comes from making choices that reflect the real you, even if no one is looking.

10. And, finally, a reminder for the tough times. Everything that happens to you is teaching you how to get through it So look for the lessons in every experience – and apply them in the future.

And finally if I could teach my babies one thing, it would be to be true to yourself and you’ll save yourself a lot of stress.

What is your favourite piece of advice to pass on? I would love to know, everyone's ideas are so different but so important x

xx A

Happy Monday!

Hello Ladies,

Sorry about the late post. there is just not enough time in the day is there? I love this photo, it makes me want to swing this high, take a risk. How about you? Risk is a funny thing isn't it? I am tossing up a few of my own at the moment...... heh whats the worst that can happen?

Have a fabulous week ladies and maybe take a risk or two yourselves xx A