Take the time for yourself

Recently I talked about choosing how best to spend my time with other people.  Lately I am all about taking a bit of time for myself.  Now I'm not going to be ridiculous and imagine that any of us have huge amounts of free time tucked up our sleeves but when I renewed a library book for the second time (meaning I will have had it 6 weeks) and it's not even that long a book, I realised that if I don't make/take the time for myself, no-one is going to hand it to me on a plate. 

So on the odd day that I arrive early to pick up the kids, I sit in the car and read for 5-10 minutes.  I've put a stash of hand cream and nail varnish beside my spot on the couch so while I am watching telly I can try to transform my dry wizened winter hands into something not resembling a witch's.  Note to self, must start wearing gloves.

Yesterday, having realised the tap had been turned to hot and the bath was half full of scalding hot water and therefore not really suitable for children who have a conniption if the temperature exceeds tepid, I decided to lash in some cold water and hop in myself.  Despite having inherited a fancy spa bath when we moved in here, I rarely have a bath.  By the time the kids had finished eating dinner (they are the slowest eaters in the world), I had had a nice soak for myself and was ready to get out so they could jump in.  All 3 of us trying to squeeze into the bath together would not have been remotely relaxing.  As with so many things in life, timing is everything.

Now that I have eventually finished the book, I'm thinking I need to start putting a bit more activity into my day so weather and humour permitting, I'm going to start going for a quick trot round the block while waiting for the bell to ring.  Mostly this is because one of the people I see regularly at pick up time is a particularly active grandma who always goes for a walk rather than waiting around.  Nothing like being shamed into activity!! 

In real life you rarely get a big fat chunk of time for yourself so stake your claim and grab your 10 minutes wherever you can.

Nude Minstrels

Some days it's the little things that have the most impact. 

I've been looking for a nude nail varnish for ages.  I have gazillions of dark varnishes for my toes but it seems like 30 seconds after I put a dark varnish on my fingers it has chipped so I figured it was safer to stick to something more neutral.  Everything I've tried has either been too pale or too peachy or just gick.  I was in a shop looking for a grey scarf (to no avail) when I cruised by the nail varnish section.  Without much hope of success I bought another pale nude looking varnish thinking, hmm this is probably going straight into the charity shop bag but low and behold, I think I might be on to a winner with this one.  It is called "Bride to be" by Essie.

Then a couple of days later when I was looking for a corn fed chicken (which are nigh on impossible to find here), I found Minstrels!!!  Now I appreciate that Minstrels are not normally a cause of great excitement but they don't sell them here and while I was never particularly fond of Galaxy chocolate, I am partial to a bag of Minstrels.  The tag line suggested the bag was the perfect size for sharing but I took that to be optional. 

So the moral of the story seems to be, it's good to have a plan when you go shopping but never discount the fact that you could end up bringing home something completely different.