I'm Baaaack

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, a Happy New year, a joyful January and a fabulous start to February. After two months of complete inactivity, I'm back again to fill you in on what's going on, and let you know all my thoughts. 

As you can expect the Christmas period was incredibly busy for me, and it was made even more so because David and I both got new jobs. I've started writing for a parenting company called Bella Kidz and I decided to concentrate on that while I was still getting to grips with the role and my new responsibilities as a freelance writer. Bella Kidz is a brand new parenting website that was went online in December last year. They post loads of interesting stories and articles and they also have some great forums where you can chat you other mums and share your thoughts and opinions. If this sounds like your cup of tea then head over to the site and sign up for free! 

Although I love writing for Bella Kidz I have truly missed my little blog. I might not get many viewers and I'm certainly not on my way to becoming a millionaire blogger (do they even exist?) but it's a nice platform for me to share some thoughts, some anecdotes and even some advice. Look out for more reviews and recipes in the weeks to come as well as a few surprises! 

Being a Young Mother: Four Things I've Learnt

I had my son William on the 2nd of May 2012. I was 19, which technically made me a teenage mother, even though I had been living away from the parental home for nearly two years and had supported myself financially during that time. William was a planned baby, and I had spent nearly nine months preparing for his birth - buying clothes, baby furniture, decorating, getting essentials like nappies and bottles and imagining how I'd deal with the sleepless nights and the teething and imagining what type of mother I would be. Nothing could have prepared me for the emotional and physical rollercoater that is motherhood. No amount of pregnancy books or parenting books could have taught me what it is to be a mother, no episode of 'One Born Every Minute' could show me what it would feel like to hold my own baby, no advice from friends or family could convince me how hard parenting really is.

(My little boy at three days old) 

Having a baby comes with a whole lot of positives and some negatives and at whatever age you are the learning curve is always going to be a steep one. Here's a list of what being a young mother as taught me:

1. Selflessness 
   
   Gone are the days when I would get paid and spent nearly all of my bank balance on clothes for myself! Now William comes first - always - and I wouldn't have it any other way. I am ashamed to admit that there have been times when I have walked around in glue stained, paint stained, crotch-worn jeans that would get refused as a donation to a charity shop, just so that William would have something brand new. If I'm feeling tired and William needs his bottom changed or some play time with Mammy then there's no having a quick nap on the couch any more. I truly believe that sacrifice is an integral part of being a parent, whether your sacrificing your time, your money or your mental health. I also believe that young parents usually have to sacrifice a lot more. They are more likely to have to give up work because of child care issues, more likely to be in education and have to give that up, and more likely to enjoy an active social life which become severely diminished. Young parents are also less likely to be financially secure and will probably struggle more with money than an older parent of say thirty years old who has been able to establish themselves financially.  I have been so fortunate, I have not had to give up work, or Uni and while I don't go out for drinks and meals with friends as much as I would do if I didn't have William, I still see my closest friends on a regular basis. Although I miss being able to go out on any given weekend on the spur of the moment, and I would like to spoil myself with some new clothes, William is my number one priority. For nineteen years of my life my only priority was myself, so having a wonderful and fragile new baby to look after and tend to twenty-four-seven was a big shock!    
    
2. Being Comfortable in My Own Skin
   Before William was born I was a over a stone lighter. I dyed my hair on a regular basis, wore full make-up everyday and always had something new to wear. If I didn't have all these things I felt uncomfortable, and when I'd go out for the day, even if it was just to the shops I'd feel like people were scrutinising me. I could walk around with a full face of make-up and immaculate hair and feel like the ugliest person in Wales. Now, for the first time in my life, and despite being overweight, I am more comfortable in my own body than ever before. I can happily leave the house with no make-up and my hair just tied up neatly. I don't have time to pamper myself any more, and even if I did, I wouldn't. Having William has made me realise so many things, but one of the most valuable lessons has been that there is a lot more to life than how you look and what other people may or may not think of you based on this. Now I am content and happy with myself on the basis that I know I am a good person and a good mother and I will never feel bad about myself for not being a size six or not having perfect teeth and hair again.
   
3. Patience
   
   Anyone who has tried getting a hyperactive twelve month old to sleep has learned the art of patience, and while I'm lucky that William is a genuinely pleasant and well behaved baby, he still manages to test my patience every now and again. There have been a few nights recently where I have been trying to get him to sleep and have found myself counting the thirty, or even sixty so that I don't get too stressed out. The thing that helps me to maintain my unfaltering patience is the thought that the more frustrated I become, the more upset William is going to get. I hate the thought of him going to bed upset, and on the odd occasion that I have lost my patience and said something like 'Shush William!' or 'Just go to sleep!', the sight of his little face crunching up, and the sound of him crying has been enough to upset me and make me feel absolutely awful. In extreme patience testing scenarios I will leave the room for a minute or two, make sure he's safe and that I can see him (I usually go into the kitchen) and then go back in when my stress levels are a bit lower and I'm ready to approach the situation with more understanding. When you are a parent you have to be patient in many ways. I felt like it took William ages to cut teeth, then to sit up, then to walk, and although he's talking now (he says 'no', 'Mam', 'Dad', 'Nan', 'hello', 'hiya', 'down', 'tata' and 'Tilly'), he's not using language in a way that I would say is conversational, so at the moment so I feel like I'm waiting for a talking breakthrough. I've spent so much time being excited for him to start doing all these things, and at the time I felt like I had waited a lifetime, but when I look back now I'm staggered at how quickly he's developed. This time last year he was still a proper little baby but he becomes less like a baby and more like an independent young boy everyday. A year ago he was just learning to sit up and cut teeth, now he roams around the living room, playing with toys and irritating our cats.
   
4. Compassion
   It's hard to explain how becoming a parent can make you compassionate and I suppose everybody likes to think that they are a compassionate person. Let me give you an example of what I mean. You know those charity adverts that they show on TV for abused animals and children living in poverty? Before I had William I could watch one of these absent mindedly and although I felt sorry for the poor children and the neglected animals, I wasn't emotionally invested. When these adverts come on TV now I have to change the channel instantly because they really upset me. I was watching a documentary on North Korea a few weeks ago and it was about how the citizens of North Korea are living in poverty. There was one boy who caught my attention. He was living on the streets and a spy collecting footage of North Korea recorded him. The little boy was eight years old, and his mother hadn't been able to afford to look after him, so she told him to leave and he had been living on the streets ever since, begging for pennies to buy food and going through rubbish to collect scraps. His clothes were tattered and worn, and I couldn't help thinking 'What if that was my son?' and I actually cried. I also have a lot more compassion for parents. We've all been in close proximity to a parent trying to console or control their screaming child. It could be on the train, on the bus, on a plane or in a shop, and most people will agree that it's bloody irritating. While the sound of a screaming child goes through me like sharp nails, I can't help but feel a deep sense of sympathy for the child and the parent alike. While there is obviously something that the child wants or needs that is making them so upset - perhaps they're unwell? Perhaps they're hungry? Perhaps they're just spoilt? It is the parent who ultimately has to deal with the exasperated sighs from strangers, the annoyed looks, and the judgement. There is very little that is more frustrating for a parent than being out with your child, have them scream and wail for the entire outing and not be able to appease them. Not only is this a stressful situation to be in, but parents who go through this (myself included) often end up feeling like failures to their children, and on top of this they have to deal with the social pressure associated with having crying children in public. 

Spicy Chicken Drumsticks

David and I were out food shopping a few days ago in Morrisons when I spotted an excellent deal in the fridge section. They had an offer on for ten chicken drumsticks/legs for just £2.16. I can be a bit of a 'food snob' at times, or at least that's what my mother calls me. I like to prepare nutritious home cooked meals for my family using fresh ingredients. This can sometimes make my shopping bill quite expensive. From week to week I notice that prices for fresh meat are rising, even if it's only by a few pence it all still adds up, so when I saw this bargain today I snapped it up!

Chicken is a wonderful meat because it can be used in so many different dishes, from a cooked dinner, to Mexican wraps to an Italian pasta dish. Having recently learned to make a Chinese curry from scratch, I decided to utilise my new culinary skills and make Chinese spiced chicken with vegetable rice and boiled vegetables. 

I made a marinade for the chicken by combining the following ingredients in a large bowl:

• About 6tbsp of olive oil (I coated the bottom of the mixing bowl. You need to make sure that you have enough so the mixture is wet enough to coat the chicken, but not so wet that the meat is drowning in oil). 
• 1 tbsp of curry powder. 
• 1 tbsp of paprika. 
• 1 tbsp of mixed herbs. 
• 1 tbsp of soy sauce. 
• 1 tbsp of tomato purée. 
• 1 tsp of tumeric. 
• 1 tsp of garlic purée. 
• Generous amounts of salt and pepper. 

Although I understand that mixed herbs, garlic purée and tomato purée are not commonly used ingredients in Chinese cooking (to my knowledge) they help to create a richer, rounder flavour. You can ,of course, adjust the above quantities according to your own taste.  

Once you have made your marinade mixture, add between eight and ten chicken legs to the bowl and mix everything about with a sturdy mixing spoon until the chicken is evenly coated. Leave in the mixture for up to four hours for all those lovely favours and scents to penetrate the skin and for the chicken to reach room temperature, and then cook in the oven on Gas Mark 6 or 200c for between 30 and 40 minutes or until the skin is crisp and the meat itself is white. Many people will tell you to stab the meat and check the knife. If the juices run clear the meat is meant to be cooked. For some reason I have never trusted this method - I think it's just paranoia, so if you (like me) want to be extra safe, then just take a knife and cut some of the chicken away from the bone. Check to make sure the meat is white, and if in doubt return to the oven for a further ten minutes.  

Serve with rice, chips, vegetables or whatever you fancy. Eat them on their own if you like! If serving to young children you might want to remove the skin. Although the flavour is not overly hot (in fact it's quite mild) it might be a surprise to little mouths. For an additional cooling effect serve with savoury mint yoghurt. 

Christmas Stocking for a One Year Old

I'm usually pretty organised when it comes to Christmas. I'm usually almost done when this time of year comes around, but due to silly things such as money and jobs I'm a bit behind this year.

For the past few weeks I've been picking up bits and pieces to go in William's stocking, and today after a trip to Home Bargains I was finally ready to wrap everything! 

When I first thought about getting things for William's stocking I was worried. What small things can you buy for a one year old? Luckily I shopped around and have picked up a few bits and pieces. My favourites are the Christmas bandanna bibs and the reindeer slipper socks that you can see in the lower right corner. I think I bought both from Matalan and they cost me about £5 in total. 

Once you start you'll find it easy. The trick is to find small and inexpensive objects - and if in doubt buy chocolate, treats, toiletries and stationary. I picked up some jumbo crayons in Home Bargains today for about 80p which will really be great for William as he's starting to enjoy scribbling and larger crayons are much easier to use. Another benefit of crayon it that its fairly easy to clean if it gets on any of your furniture, but you can always buy chalk instead which is even easier to clean. 

In no time William's stocking was all done. A few of the more oddly shaped objects such as his start shaped bottle of shampoo (which I think I picked up in Lloyds Pharmacy) were a little tricky and took a little more time and care. Now I have one less thing to sort out before Christmas and I can't wait to see my baby's face in Christmas morning when he sees his stocking and stars ripping open all his little presents! 

Product Review: Dyebrow by Eyeluere

Big heavy eyebrows. You either love them or you hate them. While some people go to extreme lengths to achieve the perfect 'scouse brow' others find them repulsive and slug-like. At the moment defined eyebrows are a trend, they define the face and make putting on your eye make-up a whole lot easier!

My eyebrows are naturally blonde, and I mean bleach blonde to the extent where they are invisible against my pale skin. For the past few years I have been using eyebrow pencil on a daily basis just to give myself some sort of visible eyebrow. Have you ever seen one of those pictures of celebrities with their eyebrows photoshopped out? They were sailing around the net a few months back. That's what I look like with no pencil on my brows. 

(An example of me with some badly drawn on eyebrows)

Anyway, a few months ago I started having a regular tint and wax treatment. I would go to the beautician and she would apply a warm coating of wax to my brow area and then apply a small piece of paper and then rip it off painfully. Then she would make up a solution of dye in a little tub and then apply it carefully to my brow area. Although I was always pleased with the results, I would have liked my brows slighly darker. You see I was born a natural blonde, but when I was around ten my hair started to fade, first to a sandy colour then to the mousey colour it is now. I wanted my brows to match my root hair colour and they didn't, and I found that I was still using my pencil regularly after I'd had my brows tinted. And what was the point in that? My tint and wax had cost me £8 and lasted about a fortnight, my pencil cost me £1 and lasted me months! 

The problem is that I'm not too good with an eyebrow pencil, and when I'm wearing it I'm always conscious that My brows are not even, that one is thicker than the other, that's they're different shapes - that I look like a Russian transvestite. With a small child at home make up isn't my top priority and most days (unless I'm going somewhere special) I could easily do without it, but I'm aware that I look odd going about my daily activities with no visible eyebrows and a head of brown hair highlighted with streaks of blonde. 

I searched amazon and after a little scrolling I came across a product that seemed to match my needs and had the customer reviews to back it up. Dyebrow by Eyelure, and at £5 it was a bargain! I clicked the Buy button and a few short days later it was delivered to my home. I was at work when it was delivered, but when I got home I couldn't contain my excitement, I ripped open the box and was ready to have beautifully dyed eyebrows without the salon price or dissapointment. 

When I had opened the box the first thing I noticed was the little tools that you are povided with that look more like surgical equipment than beauty utensils, the second thing I noticed was the instruction leaflet, about 8 pages long and covering about the same number of languages. The instructions aren't the best. There's a lot of them for such a small and assumedly simple product and being on paper about the size of two credit cards they were quite hard to read, but I made it through them, quite impatiently. 

You have a tube of dye, and a small vial of 'activating fluid'. It's very much like dying your hair. Inside the box is a handy piece of plastic packaging that doubles as a mixing bowl, and you get a little white stick and a small eyebrow brush. First, add 2cm of dye to the mixing bowl (I was confused by this, don't worry. Liquids aren't usually measured in cm are they?). The dye is quite solid and comes out in a thin line so just get a line of about 2cm. Then add five drops of the activating fluid - tricky to do accurately, but don't worry if you go over the five drops, I found that I had to add more anyway to get the mixture to the right consistency. 

Then mix the dye and the activating fluid together until they were thouroughly combined and formed a liquid that does not drip. No drips! Dripping is bad! The mixture contains hydrogen peroxide and if it goes into your eyes it will hurt! 

When your confident that your mixture is the right consistency the box will tell you to vaseline the area around your brows to avoid dying the skin. I didn't do this and my skin is fine. Then you have to apply it using the white mixing stick (which has a small paddle on the end) and the brow brush. When I tried this it was useless and I would end up brushing it off rather than brushing it in so I just popped some on my brows using the paddle then rubbed it into my brows with my fingers, and then I cleaned my hands. 

I had to put two applications on. The instructions advice you to leave the solution on for one to two minutes, and then re-apply if neccesary, leaving the re-application on for no longer than five minutes. Because my eyebrows are so blonde I had an incling that I would need it on for longer, so I left it on for a few extra minutes but I wasn't satisfied with the colour so I did a re-application almost straight after and left it on until I was satisfied. My eyebrows didn't fall out and my skin didn't burn off. 

This what I looked like during appliaction. Sorry for the bad quality on the photo and for how awful I look. 

Haha! Altough my eyebrows are blonde their naturally quite thick and bushy and I wanted to make sure that I had dyed all the hairs because having darker (and more visible) hairs makes plucking them and tidying them up a lot easier. 

This is what my eyebrows looked like after the second and final application. As you can see they are quite dark, which I wanted, but also still quite bushy. I wanted to include this picture so that anybody else with fair eyebrows can see how the dye really picks up every little hair. 

I was extremely happy with the result. I had the colour that I wanted, but also the depth that I had failed to achieve using a pensil or having treatments. I just needed to tidy them up. Plucking was painstakingly hard and very time consuming, I would have liked to get a professional wax done but no way was I going past my front door with eyebrows that would make a caveman blush! Then I remembered that I had bought David a facial hair trimmer for Christmas that he had rarely/never used, so off I went to the bathroom and with the utmost caution I took the small electric shaver to my eyebrows. You can but speciallist eyebrow shavers in many stores and I would reccomend using one if these if you are able instead of a man's facial hair trimmer/shaper because they are a lot smaller. The best solution for tidying brows is a professional wax, bit a home wax or a plucking session would still give a neat and tidy result. 

This is what my eyebrows look like now. The shape is a lot more natural than it ever was with pencil, the colour is a good match with my natural root colour and the overall result is excellent. If you were to try this product and wanted a fainter result then you could leave it on for less time, or for a darker result you could leave it on for longer, for en extremely dark result you can also buy it in black. 

I am now competely happy with my eyebrows and as the pack lasts for up to 12 applications I'm sure I will be for a while. If I ever want a more dramatic look I can always dig out the old eyebrow pencil to enhance the colour and depth that the eyelure has given me, but I will not be returning to the salon any time soon! 

I would definately reccomend this product to others, not only is it fantastic value for money, it's also completely worth while, fairly easy to use (when you get your head around the instructions), quick to apply and it gives excellent results. I will be investing in a new box when mine run's out! 

Afterthought - Don't pluck or wax your eyebrows before using this product, as your pores will be open and it will probably sting you! 

App Review: Harmony Isle

Harmony Isle is an iOS game available on the App Market. The basic premise of the game is similar, infact amlost identical, to that of many others on the App Market - one that springs to mind is The Tribes. 

It is your basic 'build a town' game - you must build houses to increase your population of workers, and then use these workers to collect resources from various buildings such as the diner, where you collect food to power your little men and the diner where you collect wood for building. 

There is however one twist to this game which differentiates it from many others on the market, and that is the need to maintain a balance in your town between Nature, Social and Science. This is fairly easy to do and hasn't hindered my progress so far. If everything is in balane then you collect a bonus from each of your resource buildings. 

The game is also a time management game (as expected with these sorts of games), so you'll need to wait anything between 3 minutes and 3 hours to collect your resources, depending on which task you've assigned your little workers. 

The graphics of the game are pretty good, but not exactly mind-blowing. If you read the description on the app store then you'll see that the game boasts '3D graphics', however you can't rotate the camera more than about 75 degrees, or zoom in orout very far, and you can't even rotate buildings and decorations which makes customisation quite difficult. Many buildings such as the Science lab can't be moved at all, which may leave you (as it did me) with a lovely neighbourhood of houses right next to a laboratory. 

  

Game play is pretty slow, although I found it quick and easy to move up the levels my progress was hindered by the fact that I was unable to build any more houses after I had maxed out the number of cottages and houses I was allowed to build, and had too few workers to keep the resources coming in while also trying to upgrade buildings and construct new ones. 

I am now on level 13 and have reached a population level of 12, but to do this I had      to upgrademy restore two buildings, upgrade them several times, upgrade the town hall twice and build a metal working place so that I could collect metal in order to build a villa. I also spent 45gems building a manor, but that was to increase my science level. 

Although I can understand why the makers of the game would want to make progress slow - after all if you could complete the game in a day or two then they would make hardly any money from gem sales etc, but I really think that the progress of this game is too slow - to the point where it becomes frustrating. 

I will probably keep playing for a few days but if my experience doesn't improve then I think this game will be getting removed. Overall a good town building game, but doesn't really bring anything new into a market that is already saturated with games of this type. 

My Rating: 3/5

5 Things I'd Like to See in The Sims 4

The Sims 4 is the fourth instalment in EA's multi-million dollar game franchise for PC and Mac, although previous versions of the game have also expanded to consoles, it will probably be a while before you can play The Sims 4 on your Playstation, Xbox, or Wii.

   

If, like me, you have been a fan of The Sims since the original Sims game (remember the one where you'd have to 'make out' with your partner to have a baby and a crib would appear? Then after a few days the crib would turn into a child and be stuck like that forever) then you probably have some high expectations for The Sims 4. 

The Sims 3 is an enjoyable game, but if you ask me the franchise sort of peaked at The Sims 2. There were better expansions, better characters and you could actually create a new town in a matter of minutes without the painstaking difficulty of placing 10,000 spawners and having to create every road and place every tree. Anyway, I'm not gong to use this post to complain about things I dislike in The Sims 3, instead I will share with you my hopes and dreams for the Sims 4. 

1. An easier way to switch between households WITHOUT losing their active opportunities, wishes and career progress.
   
   I don't like to play one family through the generations, I like to play the neighbourhood through the generations. I like to watch my neighbourhood change and grow, and I like to be the one who makes the changes. I've recently been playing my own world River Valley, I created a family who wanted children, but I wanted them to earn a good bit of money first so I could do-up the house to make it a luxurious family home. The best option for me would have been to play another family for a while, allowing my sims to rake in the cash while I concentrated on some of their neighbours. If I had done this however, I would have lost the Have a First Child wish, and the lifetime happiness points for completing this when I finally got them to have a baby.
   
   This brings me on to my second point.
2. More options in Story Mode.
   
   
   
   
   Story Mode is a wonderful thing in some ways, but in other's it's diabolical. I had this plan once, to marry up everyone in Sunset Valley, Mortimer and Bella would marry, and Bella's brother Michael would marry Holly Alto and I'd create two power-families. Of course, Bella and Mortimer are children when you begin a game in Sunset Valley and Holly and Michael are teens so marriage is a no-no! While I waited for them to age up naturally I played some other families - Jamie Jolina married Christopher Steel and Judy and Jack Bunch had another baby. By the time Mortimer had aged up into an adult, Story Mode had moved the Bachelors out of town, so my entire plan was ruined. Story Mode should be editable to player preference. The problem I described in point 1. wouldn't be an issue if there's been a little button I could press to disable inactive households from vanishing from my town.
3. More stylish options for clothing built in to the game.
   
   
   
   
   Anyone who plays The Sims 3 knows that base game clothing options are usually on the basic and/or ugly side of the spectrum, then we are charged quite expensive amounts to purchase premium content, and that's not always fashionable. Clever simmers who know how to download and upload from sites such as Mod the Sims  aren't burdened by this, unfortunately I'm a bit of a technophobe when it comes to downloading and unzipping files and I would probably end up killing my laptop.
4. More realistic traits.
   
   
      
   
   If you had to describe the personality traits of your best friend what five terms would you pick? Confident? Shy? Silly? Sarcastic? Mine would probably be Funny, Pessimistic, Clever, Ambitious and Lazy. That combination might sounds like it contradicts itself but you don't know my best friend. He's a bit of an oxymoron. My point is that I have never in my twenty-one years heard someone describe another person as Never Nude or Can't Stand Art. The creators of The Sims 3 seem to have gotten confused between traits, likes and dislikes and talents. Having a Green Thumb is a talent and not a trait, and Hates the Outdoors is surely a dislike? If they had worded some of these better then they would work - Never Nude could become Reserved and Hates the Outdoors could become Indoorsy. I just think that there could be much better traits in The Sims 4 and that the developers could look into this.
5. A mature expansion pack.
   
   
   
   
   There are a generation of players out there who have grown from children, to teenagers to adults while playing The Sims, and I am one of them. While I understand that mature themes aren't for everyone, and so an expansion back containing more mature themes would need to be given an appropriate age certificate, I think it would be a good option for older Sims players who want to add a little realism into their games. I also think that it could help to bring in new players, there are thousands of people out there who play online simulation games such as Second Life and I think that the Sims 4 could try to appeal to them too. What of your Sim could become addicted to nectar? Or have sex on the couch? I know that a more mature game isn't going to be for everyone, and many people will argue that The Sims should keep it's innocent and comic status but a mature expansion pack would make mature themes optional.