MrsB

The drafts folder of this blog is piling up again, but finding the time to actually finish something is difficult at the moment for some reason.

I guess I could blame being busy at work, choosing to exercise at home every evening on my non-running days and reading the second book in the Hunger Games series.

The weather is cold again so there’s no inspiration to take spring photos. A lot of trees are in beautiful blooms but I’m waiting for the next sunny day to capture that season. [...]

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, [...]

1. iPad of course :)
2. Comfy felt slippers (etsy)
3. Liebeskind Berlin bag
4. Pea USB hub
5. Digital piano
6. iPhone charger disguised in a book (etsy)

Made you think of Christmas? Good :D

Have a great weekend!

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: [...]

So did I mention I’m going on this conference for bloggers on Saturday?

When I first signed up I thought “oh, just another conference… go in, sit down, learn lots of great stuff, chat a little to the person sitting next to me if absolutely necessary, have free lunch, go home…”

The thing is that having to “network” or socialise in a crowd of a few hundred without really knowing anyone is probably in the list of my worst nightmares.

However – I think that a lot of bloggers are introverts just like that (the extroverts probably spend their time clubbing, not blogging), so I’m not really freaked out yet. I think I will even try to just walk up to people and talk to them… I think Saturday will be a different kind of day, a day out of my comfort zone, but an eye opening one, a refreshing one, a friendship building one, a fun one…

And as far as uncomfortable shoes, I’m leaving them at home. Life’s too short to wear uncomfortable shoes. I’m wearing my “it” dress and flats.

I think today is the day will ramble. I usually never do that.

It’s raining… again. We had a week of summer in April and nothing in May and then again a few days in the beginning of June, but the past week has sucked freezing temperatures and gale force winds and rain and rain and rain. Yuck. I think I have one of them Seasonal Mood Disorder things – I am totally unable to get that “life’s a peach” feeling when I’m freezing… [...]

I mentioned in my last post that living with one’s mother comes with perks. In fact it comes with a LOT of perks (and this word all of a sudden looks really weird to me, but I’m pretty sure it is a word…) – most obvious ones being unlimited childcare and 24/7 Estonian “tutoring”.

I am certain that the main reason that my kids are speaking both languages very well (according to their ages) is because of my mother. The kids know that I can speak English so they forgo addressing me in Estonian (even Oliver has started to do that), but with my mother there’s no option – they have to speak Estonian to her.

So without my mother living with us my kids would not be as bilingual, I couldn’t work at the capacity that I do, I couldn’t go running as often, etc. etc. etc.

However, it is ever EASY to live with your mother when you’re 30+?

Hmmm…. [...]

Kate Takes 5 likes lists and this week’s topic is “Top 5 Things I’d Change About My Wedding Day”. How very appropriate considering tomorrow is yet another public holiday for us thanks to Wills and Kate :) As for my wedding day – it was very close to perfect as it was.  In the ideal [...]