It's been a busy week.

Last Sunday we visited the travel agent. We sat down with a lovely travel consultant named Katherine and outlined our "World Tour 2012" plans. A couple of days later she got back to us with her initial proposal covering our flights and some accommodation in London, Paris and Orlando, Florida. Exciting! It's wonderful to have moved beyond the wishing and hoping and on to the actual planning!

I've worked a lot of hours this week between my time at the library and my teaching. I've been busy, also doing my bit to keep the house and family afloat, but I've been happy. The library work is going really well and I'm doing my best to make such a good impression that I'll be offered more work once my current block finishes.

Now that I'm at a healthy weight, I've been steadily building up my wardrobe. I'm really enjoying being able to fit into anything I like, and I'm trying to hold myself back from going the "mutton dressed as lamb" route. I see all these cute little dresses and tops - and I can actually fit into them - and sometimes I forget that I'm not 18 years old any more! I need to take a good, hard look at myself in the mirror to be sure that what I'm buying is "age appropriate". 

What do you think? Are there rules for dressing at (almost) 40? No bare midriffs, obviously, besides, no amount of weight loss will ever get my stomach back into midriff-baring shape! What about skirt length? I'm only 5'2" and I find that above-the-knee works best. And what about hosiery? My legs aren't fat, but they're snow white and have a few veins and a bit of cellulite. If I'm going to wear a short skirt, black opaque tights are my best friend. But come summer, I'll need to ditch the leg-wear. Does anyone know of a fake tan product that works miracles?

I've been meaning to take some photos of myself in some of my new clothes, but I just haven't found the time. Soon, I promise.

So, what have you been up to?

Exhausted

Kevin Soh, √ Just do it.

Pictures as Promised

I just got home from the hairdresser. Look how prettiful my hair is now!

I tried to take a full length photo so you could see me wearing my new "leather" jacket. Sorry, the picture quality is hopeless.

I ran the picture through one of the filters on Instagram to see if I could improve it a little.

In other news, I'm heading to the shopping mall tomorrow to pick up a few new items of clothing and visit the Travel Agent...

Random Bits and Pieces

1. I'm finally getting my hair cut and coloured tomorrow. It's long overdue. I know I'll feel fabulous once I'm all primped and preened! If you're very lucky, I'll post a picture sometime over the weekend.
2. I've got a new leather jacket. It's fake, but I don't care. It's dark brown and cropped with a little gather at the shoulders and ever so cute! If you're very, very lucky then I might post a picture of my hair in which I'm wearing my jacket.
3. I've totally given up Cityville. I'm now addicted to Spider Solitaire. I also haven't played Hanging with Friends for ages. Spider has totally taken over my life.
4. I'm thinking of trying a different browser after reading that users of Internet Explorer have the lowest average IQ's of all the browser options. That doesn't sit too well with me, so I'm going to try another one. Recommendations?

Check out my Omy.sg Interview!

Credits: www.omy.sg

Success!

Today I had a fairly unhappy customer at the information desk.

"Well, I've only got a minute, I've got a train to catch!" she started. Not a good start for me. I may have possibly felt just a little teeny tiny bit of pressure to be very quick with my help!

She slumped into the chair I offered her. "I've never used libraries until the last couple of days and since then I've had nothing but trouble." Oh dear. A new student, unfamiliar with the library, feeling unenthused about what help I'll be able to offer. Now I have to be not only quick, but brilliant!

She was actually a lovely girl. Just not feeling confident and happy about using the library. We had a chat, I showed her a couple of things, and lo and behold when she got up to leave she said,

"Thanks. You've actually been really helpful."

And she smiled. And walked away with a bit of a bounce in her step.

It makes this "baby librarian" very, very proud.

Sending the love to my blogging buddies

I love you guys!

I so much enjoy being part of the blogging community. I love my blogging buddies!

For this reason, I hate it when I get slack about posting. I hate to think that my blog is not regularly bobbing up to the top of your Google reader. I hate to think that you might start to forget about me!

For the next seven weeks I'll be working 20 hours per week at the library as well as continuing my private maths and music tuition business. So work wise, I'm going to be busy!

It's important to me that during this time I continue to be the best wife and mum that I can be. Especially important to me is that I am really "present" when I'm with my family. The best way I know to show my husband and children love is to give them attention; to really listen to them talk about their day, give them eye contact and hugs, and to "read between the lines" for what they need but they're not saying.

Because it's term time, my children are busy. They both go to academically selective schools and get quite a bit of homework. They also have always been very keen on after school activities and so we do a lot of running around six days a week.

My husband is a fabulously hard worker. He works full time, coaches a junior football team and picks up the slack when "mum's taxi" needs a hand. When I'm teaching in the evenings he makes sure that everything in our home runs smoothly. He spends his "free time" working on the house, which he has been renovating bit by bit for the last couple of years.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I won't always be very regular with posting on this blog. But I'll still be thinking of you all. I'll also stilll be visiting your blogs regularly and I'll try to leave comments every now and again so that you know I'm still alive!

Love and hugs to you all out there in blog land!