Mrs.B

I’m stressing out. It’s that darn job interview I have next Tuesday, it’s doing my head in. I have a written test in the morning, about the EU and probably something work related (web publishing), then in the afternoon an interview with my current boss and a panel of probably 4 others :| Some of this interview will be in German :| …

I have now had three 3-week manicures back to back. They are very lovely and keep me from totally butchering my cuticles (by picking) but unfortunately I will not be continuing. The reasons are simple: …

Last night’s German lesson took me straight back to 1993 – that year I arrived in the States with plenty of English in my brain but not enough speaking experience to actually get it out in coherent sentences.

The mental strain in the first few months actually made me physically exhausted (as well as frazzled my brain so much that …

I remember clearly the day when I was filling in university applications in 1994 in St.Louis, Missouri. I had no idea what I wanted to major in and was advised to just pick something I enjoyed because “you can always change it later on”.

I picked German.

But I didn’t change it later on. …

What can I say, I’ve had a lovely birthday: gluten-free pancakes for breakfast, a new iPad cover, a cookbook and Chanel foundation as pressies, a 12km run in sunshine along the Thames in Chiswick/Hammersmith while the boys were in Estonian school, coffee in Chiswick House Gardens cafe afterwards*, a nap when we got home, …

There is something really exciting happening in my life. Something that makes me jump out of bed in the morning and go “WHOA!”

(Well, actually I should scratch the jumping-out-of-bed part as I’m not an out of bed jumper as such, I’m more of an open-my-eyes-and-see-how-long-my-wakefulness-can-stay-undetected kind of person… but anyway…)

Ever since Oskar was born my sleep has been very light – the tiniest amount of noise would make me up, child related or not. That means 7 years of dreamless, superlight sleep. I thought that this was just one of the things of motherhood, something that might change once the kids have moved out and gone to college, something that just comes with the territory and should be gotten used to… BUT…

I have a very bad habit of picking on my cuticles. I have tried all kinds of cuticle oils and I’ve even contacted a hypnotherapist, but the oils never worked and the therapist never called me back.

My next plan of action, therefore, was to try something different – a long-lasting manicure. Surely nice colourful fingernails would make me quit my frustrating cuticle demolishing habit? [...]

The bad news is that without any make-up I look exactly like Cameron Diaz without make up – no eyebrows, no eyelashes, a bit blotchy and very pale.

The good news is that with make up I don’t look too bad – almost as good as Ms Diaz when she puts make up on :)

I am now old enough to say that I have tried MANY different beauty products over the years and I have finally settled down to using my favorites, not buying new stuff very often anymore.

Here are my tried and tested favorites… [...]

I read the BritMums blogging predictions for 2012 today and there was one that totally struck the chord with me:

Veteran bloggers will rethink their focus. Just like magazines get makeovers every few years, longstanding bloggers will update and adapt their blogs to reflect their changing interests and online skills. Those who started blogging as new parents will switch from “baby blogging” to write about other topics that interest them, taking their audience and influence along with them.

I have definitely reached the point in my blogging life (this blog will soon celebrate its 7th birthday) when it’s less about adjusting to life with child(ren) and more about all the other things that make up my life. [...]

In 1993 at the age of 16 I won a Rotary scholarship to go and study in America for a year.

I was one of two kids selected from the entire country of Estonia. When I got on the plane a mere 2 years after Estonia had gained its independence from the Soviet Union, I was totally terrified. I had never been outside of the “eastern block” before and America seemed so far away and so foreign.

America did turn out to be far away and foreign. I didn’t speak much in the first months, my brain was in total culture and language shock. In the beginning I tended to hang out with other exchange students mostly, it was easier that way.

However, by the end of that year, [...]

Momma on the Rocks published a list of things she’s never done yesterday and I thought that was a great idea for a little trivial Friday night post.

My list is divided into two, to clarify whether I actually am sad about the things I’ve never done or not :) [...]

It’s been almost 6 months since our papa, J’s dad, passed away.

I have lost grandmothers and my own father over 15 years ago, but my grandmothers were old and my own father had never been in my life, so their deaths were sad but did not affect me much in the months or years that followed.

Contrary to those experiences of loss, I still find myself thinking about papa almost daily. It might be considered weird maybe because he wasn’t my own father, but [...]

I have written at least a few times in the past how Estonians tend to have an issue with expressing their feelings verbally (here and here most recently). Whenever a nation has that kind of a common “issue”, you’d think that they would be a nation that’s really reserved, meek and modest.

Reserved they can be, but meek and modest?

I still am amazed every time I go to the beach there at how everyone is flaunting their bits (and often lots of them) in little bikinis. In other countries you often see large elderly women in the sea with bathing suits that have little skirts and maybe even little ruffles in the middle, but that kind of attire is not to be found in Estonia. In fact, you’d have a hard time to find even the skimpiest bathing suit on a beach in Estonia – it’s always a bikini. No matter your age or size.

I find it a bit confusing as it doesn’t line up with Estonians being emotionally reserved, but I also find it liberating because in wearing a bikini myself I can be sure that I look better in it than 98% of the people around me :) [...]

A few weeks ago I decided it was time to resurrect the German part of my brain again after 10 years and I ordered a novel from Amazon called “Nachtzug nach Lissabon“.

I’ve read 206 pages now. In German.

I have 291 to go.

It’s sort of coming along nicely [...]

I learned yesterday that I definitely do not like being in a crowd of 400+ without actually knowing anyone personally.

I am, however, the kind of person who never walks out on an uncomfortable situation until a mission’s completed, so I battled through the presentations (some quite good ones), chatted to a few cybermummies, and once the official part was over and I met up with the expats I had organised to have dinner with – good times, good times! Finally :)

Fast forward through several glasses of wine (thank you, Naked Wines) and a lot of laughs to sometime past midnight o’clock. As I relayed the day’s events to my husband while for the first time unpacking the one hundred million bags of freebies I had acquired – I have to say it: [...]