Friday, March 23, 2007

Friday Meme: One Word Responses

1. Yourself: reserved
2. Your partner: gorgeous
3. Your hair: sexy
4. Your mother: trying
5. Your father: enigmatic
6. Your favourite item: ring
7. Your dream last night: disturbing
8. Your favourite drink: Horlicks
9. Your dream car: Beetle
10. The room you are in: uninspiring
11. Your ex: forgotten
12. Your fear: mediocrity
13. What you want to be in 10 years: content
14. Who you hung out with last night: Husband
15. What you're not: trusting
16. Muffins: fattening
17: One of your wish list items: Laptop
18: Time: fleeting
19. The last thing you did: typed
20. What you are wearing: jeans
21. Your favourite weather: sunny
22. Your favourite book: Journal
23. The last thing you ate: toast
24. Your life: evolving
25. Your mood: thoughtful
26. Your best friend: AWOL
27. What you're thinking about right now: change
28. Your car: functional
29. What you are doing at the moment: thinking
30. Your summer: busy
31. Your relationship status: Occupied
32. What is on your TV: DVD
33. What is the weather like: cold
34. When was the last time you laughed: Yesterday

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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Man of the Year

And once again the question had to be answered who will be the Man of The Year 2006.
It has not been easy to select the top 3 candidates from thousands of nominations from all over the world. But a relentless jury has finally awarded the top 3 nominations.

3rd Place














2nd Place














And the winner....

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Sunday, March 11, 2007

Pre-baby Blues

I have been feeling down lately and it’s one of those feelings that I can’t really put my finger on. I went through a phase like this when I was pregnant with my first child and I thought that the second time around I would escape it but no such luck.

I felt quite sorry for my hubby yesterday when he asked what the matter was and I just burst into tears. He was totally at a loss for what to do so he just let me cry.

I don’t know what the matter is. I am plagued with guilt at the moment. Thoughts of … I’m not a good mother, I yell too much, I am not patient enough with my daughter, I let her watch too much TV, I don’t do enough with her and so on. Much of this is not strictly true but I still feel guilty about it. Then I am plagued with the way I look and feel – I am huge, I waddle, I am uncomfortable, I suffer from heartburn, I have to wee every 10 minutes, I feel clumsy, I miss wearing nice clothes, I am growing to hate my maternity jeans because I wear them all the time and on and on and on. Stuff that a week from today won’t matter in the least but which right now, my mind is occupied with.

All I want to do is just put my feet up and stay in bed but having a four year old and a husband working weekends, doing that is wishful thinking. It’s unbelievable just how demanding a four year old can be. They constantly want something or want to be doing something and guess who the first person they pester for all their wants is? Yep, MAMA!! And here is where I miss home – the network of family and nanny’s who can take your child off your hands for a few hours so you can relax.

I am not one to moan but I really feel down in the dumps at the moment.

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Tuesday, March 06, 2007

My Time Log

So, for the last one week I have been keeping a time log which basically was meant to give me an indication of how I fritter away the 24hrs I am given each day. I cannot lie- it was tedious to do mainly because I had to consciously be aware of time all the time (excuse the pun). But I am glad I did it and did not take the easy way out and quit.

I actually kept the log for 6 days, Mon – Sat, as I felt I should have a day off on Sunday to spend as I pleased without keeping tabs on my time.

Doing this exercise flagged up a few things for me – TV watching for example. I spend quite a lot of time in front of the TV especially in the evenings but then again, I do so much during the day that when I settle down in front of the box at 8pm, I feel I deserve it. Another thing that struck me was the extraordinary amount of time I spend in the kitchen. As I am not at all a ready meal person I tend to make every meal from scratch – I guess it’s a Naija thing but the good thing about this is that know exactly what goes into my food and meals are always fresh and nutritious. However doing this takes up enormous amounts of my time. For instance mixing a cake can take up to an hour (excluding baking time) and that’s a lot. But then again I don’t do it everyday.

I have to add though that this may not be the most balanced of logs as I have had the week, save Wednesday, off from work. So as I go back to work this week, should I care to do another time log, it would look quite different e.g. there would be a lot less hours spent on household chore, cooking and watching TV.

Anyway, not wanting to bore you with my time log for the whole week, here are three of my entries. And for those of you who joined in, how did you do?

MONDAY

AM


8.00 – 10.50 Wake up, have breakfast, shower, make a lengthy phone call to my parents, do some ironing

10.50 – 11.35 Watch The Oprah Show

11.35 – noon make a mid-day snack for my daughter, briefly check blog, call the GP’s surgery, sort out the post, write up time log

PM

noon – 1.00 Finish off the rest of the ironing

1 – 2.30 make lunch, clear up kitchen

2.30 – 4.20 SIESTA

4.45 – 7.00 Go to the park with hubby and daughter, do some grocery shopping, pick up prescription from GP’s surgery, miscellaneous tasks.

7.00 – 8.00 Shower together with my daughter, dress her up and make her dinner.

8.00 – 8.20 Read my daughter her bedtime story and put her to bed, write time log

8.20 – midnight have my dinner, watch the Oscars on TV

0.00 – 0.45 read a magazine, lights out


WEDNESDAY (AT WORK)

AM


7.00 9.15 wake up, shower, dress up, shower my daughter and dress her up, have breakfast, pack my daughters snack bag, drop her off at nursery, stop to buy petrol on the way to work, arrive at office

9.15 – 11am (Chaotic day as all the PC’s in the office are being changed) sort out my new PC, skim though my work folder, take a few phone calls etc

11.00 – noon Monthly Team Meeting

PM

Noon – 1.30 test new PC, deal with staff expenses (writing cheques, vouchers, other boring financial stuff), check my work email and respond to a few of them, make telephone calls etc

1.30 – 2.00 Lunch break

2.00 – 4.00 Deal with other mundane office tasks

4.00 Close from Work

4.15 – 6.00 Pick daughter up from nursery, drive home, make dinner, clear up kitchen.

6.00 – 7.00 have shower (hubby bathed daughter), dinner

7.00 – 8.30 Read bedtime story to my daughter and put her to bed, write up time log, browse the internet

8.30 – 11.00 Veg out in front of the TV, go to bed and read a magazine, lights out.


THURSDAY

AM


7.15 – 8.15 out of bed, bath and dress my daughter up for nursery, give her breakfast, pack her snack bag.

8.15 – 10.25 have breakfast, watch the news (20 mins), household chores;
empty and reload dishwasher, load the washing machine, dust living room, clean out the fridge, make preliminary preparations for lunch.

10.25 – 11.10 Watch The Oprah Show. During the commercial breaks I clear out the drawers of a side table, and pack a parcel to be posted.

11.10 – noon Make the salad for lunch and clean and spice up the fish – tidying up the kitchen as I go along.

PM

Noon – 2.00 Have my shower, re-list books for sale on Amazon, check blogs, grill fish for lunch.

2.00 – 3.00 Have lunch while watching Midsomer Murders on TV

3.00 – 3.30 Rearrange contents of side drawers.

3.30 – 5.05 SIESTA

5.05 – 6.30 Cooked a pot of spaghetti sauce, blogged

6.30 – 7.00 Bathed my daughter, dusted the book shelves upstairs while she was in her bath.

7.00 – 9.00 Gave my daughter her dinner, had my dinner while watching TV, chatted with a friend on the phone

9.00 – 9.40 Read my daughter her bedtime story and put her to bed, have my shower, write my time log

9.40 – midnight Watch TV, go to bed

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Thursday, March 01, 2007

Nigeria Changing It's Currency?

We received two phonecalls from Nigeria this morning giving us conflicting information. The first one was a slightly fantic one asking us if we had any Naira with us over here and if we did, to find a way to get it back to the Country before the 1st of April as this was the deadline for the change of the Nigerian currency. The second call was to say that No, Nigeria wasn't changing its currency, it was only planning an addition to the existing denominations.

Now we are a bit confused. Is Nigeria changing its currency or simply launching new denominations? I'd be grateful if anyone can clear this confusion up for us.

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