Monday 19 January 2009

High Resolution



So, I suppose you're all wondering how I'm doing with my new year's resolutions, and if you weren't that's probably because I forgot to tell you I had made some. Oh yes, Millennium Housewife (and family by default) is excellent at making new year's resolutions, excellent I tell you. On the 30th December, every year without fail, I hop skip and jump to the kitchen table to make a long, substantial and to be fair incredibly ambitious list of new year's resolutions. Then, with true diligence and determination I eradicate them one by one using the following criteria:
1)Remove all resolutions that prevent consumption of stress relievers (wine/chocolate/Solpadeine)
2)Remove any that will result in time away from family and friends (gym/volunteer work/weight watchers)
3)Remove the one about making friends at the gym
4)Remove the one about the gym family membership
5)Remove any weight orientated resolution to prevent sense of failure next December 30th
6)Remove any resolution that requires Husband to keep a resolution too. The likelihood of failure is directly proportionate to the number of spouses involved in said resolution.

So, that leaves me with: Join or create a new religion, which I am going to give a really good go this year. Last year's attempt was lame to say the least, I only attracted eight followers, mainly from the local Slimming World and a couple I found outside Weatherspoon's. It had it's successes too though, the Thou Shalt Not Walk a Mouse on Thursdays decree was followed, ahem, religiously, as was the Turn Up When You Feel Like It approach to worship. It was a good religion I felt, just a bit lacking in a worshipable deity, I think that's where I went wrong. So the next few weeks are going to be dedicated to finding a good deity and a place to put it. Ha! Resolution almost complete - dedication and planning always win the day. Anyway, while having a heart to heart with Husband last month, we both agreed that we really should try and keep up our fitness levels (unfortunate turn of phrase from him, my fitness level is easily maintained by sitting watching Murder She Wrote and drinking Horlicks), but he's right (sigh), fitness is important and crossing out fitness related resolutions is becoming less and less satisfying every year.

So it was back to the gym (by back to, I mean creeping in, back to the wall, hoping nobody can see me, not as in returning to the gym), the treadmill, the (kid's) weights, the aerobics classes, the step classes (although if you can't actually manage the step can it feasibly be called a step class?), the coffee shop, the melting cookies. I calculate that 2.3 cookies=1 step class, and they said maths was my weak point, Ha! Take that old maths teacher, 1 weak subject+1 weakness for soft cookies = substantially improved ability at weak subject, I may try to sell that concept to the Education Minister and win a Nobel prize for singlehandedly improving School Performance. Watch this space.

Anyway, I have been really good at the gym, and improvements are being seen. I have this huge mental image of where I want to be in a few years time: Thin (obviously), even thinner, with new teeth, boobs, hair, nails, oh go on then while we're at it, new brain. Then of course everything will be different, people will notice, cue Tyra Banks, doe eyed and full bosomed, fairy godmother heart worn ostentatiously on her sleeve lest you forget who this show's really about, holding aloft my best studio shot breathy voice whispering: Congratulations Millennium Housewife, you're 197,000 steps away to becoming America's Next Top Model. Yup, that's what I'm aiming for, I'm nothing if not ambitious. In a few years I'll be stretched to six foot (I'm not sure how but I'm sure stretching technology will have moved on by then), buffed and betoothed to perfection, you won't recognise me. Watch out Kate Moss, The Middle Aged Modelling Agency only has a few places you know.

Sunday 18 January 2009

Hitting The Pelvic Floor




This gorgeous award was given to me by the fabulous Morethanjustamother, a relatively new blogger who can write beautifully and has managed to make me laugh and cry already. Thankyou.

Just to explain, the Pelvic Floor Award is not, as you may have imagined, an award for the strongest (or weakest for that matter) pelvic floor, oh no. But for a funny blog that makes you wet yourself. Quite. Hmmm, reading that back I'm not so sure now, firstly how could any of you have thought it would be for the ability of your pelvic floor to contract sufficiently to retain all liquids (or release all liquids)? Ewww, shame on you! How do you think Morethanjustamother would have tested for this award? Is there some cyberspace equivalent to one of those 'exercisers' advertised in the back of Mother and Baby? (come on ladies it's a vibrator that was so badly designed that it doesn't vibrate. I know it, you know it, lets just all go to Ann Summers and be done with it). Did she pass the 'exerciser' out among the Mummy bloggers, let them take the test (it involves cold water, hot water and lots of squeezing. Apparently), then score them out of ten for Pelvic Floor Performance? And then (and only then) can you be awarded the Pelvic Floor Award. No. So it's not that sort of award.
But.
It is an award for blogs that make you wet yourself. Cheers. Visit Millennium Housewife and leak like an anywayup cup standing the right way up, i.e. copiously (you did get the irony there didn't you?). In fact, best remove underwear and sit on a plastic sheet before logging on, and you can forget it if you really do have a weak pelvic floor. Carnage is all I can predict (and absolutely no hope of a real Pelvic Floor Award, but you could peruse page 125 of Mother and Baby if you felt the urge).
Soooo, if you've braved it this far then I thank you all, those who have had to run off for a quick change I thank you too, mainly for coming back to read the rest. I hope the plastic sheet isn't sticking to your legs.
I'd like to pass it on to A Confused Take That Fan, I'm not sure about the state of her pelvic floor, but I know I worry for mine when reading her blog, she's hilarious.

Tuesday 6 January 2009

A Tale of Two Fishes


Happy New Year to everybody out there, I hope 2009 brings you more money than we're promised, less doom and gloom than we're promised and a fairly sturdy umbrella if it all happens to come true. The Millennium Housewife family had rather a chilled new year actually, for once less than a vat of wine was consumed, although this was mainly due to Husband being at death's door (read: in bed with a cold demanding lemsips and attention). The only glum moment was the goldfish dying. Yup, sorry to say but old Sally has carped it (pun utterly intended, should you have doubted it for a second), in fact less of the old actually, she's only about six months but then every goldfish month is the equivalent to twenty human years according to the man who sold it to me (door to door, he also sold lucky heather which I bought and tied to the goldfish bowl). So really Sally was about eighty and had had a good innings and was due to visit that old fish pie in the sky.
Sorry if all this has come as a shock, I know how much she meant to you all and how you enjoyed hearing about her adventures in the bowl water continuum having had ooh precisely zero posts dedicated to her. But a death in the family is a death in the family and worth noting.
It happened New Year's Day, I'd staggered down bleary eyed, with Isla already waxing lyrical about the adventures Barbie and Sally were going to embark on today (it involved Barbie's new bikini which I have to say is far too old for her, and possibly pornographic). Isla's lilting crescendo of waffle died low (but not as low as Sally's obviously) as she spied the upside down, floating, mouth-stilled Sally (you've all seen it before). Look at that mummy she yelled in her prettiest voice, Sally's sunbathing like Barbie. Grasping the oft withheld opportunity to not explain Life And It's Miseries to my child I hummed agreement and carried on a one sided conversation about how Sally might like a bikini to match Barbie's while simultaneously fetching the sieve (bless that multi tasking gene). It was at the point where Isla was musing as to whether Sally would like a two piece pink sparkly bikini or a purple all in one that she saw the sieve. What have you got mummy? Ah. Errr, I stalled, shirking yet another opportunity to enlighten my child (come on, I was in the zone), I was going to sift some flour.
Really? boomed Isla, are we going to make shortbread?
Um, OK, why not?
So the morning was spent making shortbread while Sally sunbathed it away making absolutely no effort to help. That is until Husband lumbered down and enquired loudly as to why the fish was dead. Dead? Isla squeaked (at last! a way to get her to lower the decibels), we thought she was sunbathing didn't we mummy? Husband shot me a reproachful look and knelt down as if to begin a heart to heart with his eldest child about life, love and the Universe. She probably is sunbathing yes darling, he said (coward!), I'll have a look.
As we bent, ear to ear over the goldfish bowl we whispered urgently about how to save the situation. In a moment of inspiration I ran to the cupboard and grabbed a straw. Lifting Sally I attempted the kiss of life by breathing down the straw. Husband looked at me as if I had just offered to clean the skirting boards. But I knew, I'd seen My Mother do this to a catfish we'd inadvertently caught while fishing in Florida (apparently my dad hadn't thought we'd catch anything so it wouldn't do any harm. It did do rather a lot of harm though to the catfish). Husband whispered something along the lines of My Mother's face looming over any corpse would be enough to scare it back to life, but soon got into the drama by coaching, one two three, clear! yelling in time with every breath. He even cut a sliver of carrot and waggled it above Sally, she might think it's a man goldfish and give her something to live for he explained helpfully. But to no avail, Sally's little fishy soul had well and truly left the building, no autographs please. We lifted her towards Isla, look towards the light! bellowed Husband in a moment supposedly Spiritual but I suspect lifted straight from Hollywood. We knelt down, attempting to stroke Sally kindly and without any sign of fish phobia, and explained as gently as we could about dying and how a fish's last wish was always to be flushed down the toilet. Isla took it well and even said a few farewell words above the toilet bowl before waving as we flushed. She turned to us, sadness etched on her face, are you OK darling we asked kindly, yes she said, it's just..it's just.. who's going to swim with Barbie now? Quite.
So now we have another fish, a more resilient one we imagine given the race to get her back in the bowl after Isla attempted to get her into her bikini. One that hopefully will live to at least a hundred and give Isla many months of pleasure. We've pulled out all the stops and placed another piece of lucky heather on the bowl.