Category Archives: blogging

A Bit About Why

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I can’t not write this I’m afraid, but what I can do is promise with hand on heart and right hand raised to my head in the Brownie salute that I’ll be honest about it.

You see, it’s the MAD awards time of year again. The time when the parent blogging world whips itself up into a frenzy of voting and wanting to be voted for and talking about voting and thinking about voting and wondering if anyone has voted for you.

I can’t not ask you nicely *flutters eyelashes* to consider voting for me, I’m far too competitive and this blog means far too much to me. The thing is, the categories have changed and I’m having enough trouble trying to squeeze all of my favourites into my nomination hit list, never mind categorising myself.

Why do I want to win…? Honestly, because I am proud of myself for the first time in a very long time and although this blog doesn’t drip with the copious bounty of traffic that some do I’ve worked hard, I still work hard.

I want to go to the award ceremony again, only this time as myself. I want to be off medication and free of everything and I want to go and take the husband and the Bean and have a night away and spend an evening surrounded by amazing bloggers and lovely people and eat and drink and feel like maybe, just maybe, I deserve to be there in some way.

I want to feel the stomach churning, heart fluttering rush at seeing my name among the list of finalists.

I want exactly the same as we all do, recognition for all of this.

I work hard at it, I really do. I force myself be totally open and honest and real. I make myself write the things that I don’t want to and that in turn has made me do the things that I haven’t wanted to.

I took Beans to toddler group, totally alone, for the first time ever this week. It might sound menial or boring or just dully normal but for me it is huge. Beyond huge. Had I not had the space to write and the support when I did it wouldn’t have been as easy.

You see, I really do credit having this space as a huge, massive part of my recovery, which although ongoing has been spurred and encouraged and 100% aided by everything I’ve written and all of you who have read.

I can’t even begin to put it into words but really truly all of this has saved me. When I was so ill that I couldn’t even bare to talk I wrote and you read and wrote back and I read and slowly little pinpricks of light were poked through the heavy curtain of darkness that cloaked everything and things started to get easier, better.

There is so, so much that simply couldn’t or wouldn’t have happened without this blog and honestly that in itself is recognition and praise and support. And I’m not talking freebies or perks but friendship and help and support and love.

But it would really, really mean the world to me if I was nominated for a MAD award. God that sounds superficial doesn’t it?

Sometimes I am proud of my writing or my ideas. Sometimes. Mostly I am proud to be a part of this community and proud of what it has given me. When I signed up and logged on and wrote some words for the very first time I had no idea and I was in a bad place with this tiny baby I had no idea what to do with or how to feel about. Now I can fiddle with CSS and most importantly I have a very nearly two year old who I love so much I could very nearly eat her all up. I tell her I love her every day. I hold her hand and wipe her nose and she is mine and I couldn’t be happier about it.

I want to stand up and say yeah, I have come this far and made it through all of this and I am alive and I am a mummy and it really is all because of you.

And if none of that does it for you, I can promise to wear some glorious handmade crocheted monstrosity creation if I make it to the ceremony. Really. I’d do that for you.

Click here to nominate…and then come here so I can give you a squeeze.

MAD Blog Awards

Random Acts of Kindness

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A hell of a lot happened in 2012, but the one big thing that I took away from it all was just how amazing it is when someone does something selfless. No matter how big or small the gesture, the fact that people that I had never met did something to make my life easier was a big deal.

As a result I have been thinking a lot about how I can do similar things for other people and pay it forward. When someone thinks of you in some way it feels good and similarly thinking of someone else feels good too. It’s something that most of us would probably agree that we could do more of I think, it really is amazing what a difference the smallest, simplest gesture can make to some ones day.

And in that vein I’d really love to put this into action and for it to work.

I’m promising to make something for the first six people who comment on this post. I won’t tell you what or when and it could arrive any time between now and the end of 2013 (if I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise would it!)

If you want to take part either comment quickly or feel free to start your own pay it forward project on your blog.

If you comment to receive something you must blog and promise to do/make/send something to as many people as you choose. Because that’s what paying it forward is all about isn’t it?

This isn’t about money or extravagance, it could be anything from a  handwritten letter to a knitted blanket or a doodle or favourite book…literally anything. The point is to think of others and spread a little unexpected happiness.

I’ve started a blog hop, so if you do get involved please link your posts up there – you can find it on the Random Acts of Kindness page. There’s a badge to grab there too if you want one.

If you’re one of the first 6 to comment please could you ping me an email with your address? Thank  you!

G6ZKZVQZJWNE

I Want My Newness

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It was around this time last year that the old blog became the now, erm, old blog. I promised myself never again, that enough was enough and this name would stick forever and ever and ever.

Clearly I lied.

I’ve felt for a while as things here became more about me – I’m so self centred - that the I Want My Mummy title didn’t fit as well. It’s also a bit weird when people you have never met ask the name of the blog you write and after a nervous gulp (I’m never great at meeting new people, especially when I have’t had half a glass of wine and especially especially when I stalk their blog a little bit and am a bit starstruck) you shakily reply ‘eep, I want my mummy…’.

Plus I have actually started doing things outside of toddler wrangling / blogging / sleeping / eating / etc and I want to be able to write about them here too to negate the need to start another blog that I have to work out how to run along side this blog and all of the aforementioned toddler wrangling and life and everything.

More on that later. When I get a minute.

Not having my blog up and running for a few days has been hard and I have so much to write about and so much to catch you up on. So stay tuned.

Oh, and the layout and design and look of everything is likely to be tweaked a few times too. Sorry about that, I can just never get things looking right.

I promise to remain unravelled for the foreseeable though.

Thanks for sticking around.

(When I Hardly Talk About The) Future

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I figure New Years resolutions are usually just a way to set yourself up for a big fat fail. And when the year is so new and full of promise too. I’m the sort that always makes New Years resolutions only to rarely carry them through beyond the first week of January, if at all. For as long as I can remember I have had a ‘life plan’ that has been amended and added to with each passing year.

Well, no more. Because, and this is me having a little introspective breakthrough and learning about myself, all I seem to do is set myself up for never ending cycles of plan → failure → guilt → self loathing → pressure → plan →… stuck on repeat for all of eternity.

I like to think that I am not saying this because I have failed my plans but because after 27 years on this planet I have finally realised that setting, and in fact achieving, vague and hugely spanning goals similar to ‘happiness’ is actually the best way to go.

Case in point: I missed my target to get married (yeah, I had one of those. Yeah, I know) by ONE WEEK. There is now no way that I will manage to create, incubate and expel ‘at least three babies before I am 30′ because, well, because of life init.

In all of my mental grand plans I didn’t once factor in getting ill or job loss or homelessness or all of the other super fun things that happened to us in 2012.

Every time I tentatively makes noises that sound a lot like I’d really like another baby one day in the not too distant future I am met with the icy gaze of the husband reminding me that we have a long way to go. I know we have a long way to go. It needs to be a spur to focus the process, not a pressure.

*crumples stupid list into a ball and sets alight*

That’s better.

2013 is mere hours away and I have no goals or hopes or stupid bastard plans.

2013 is the year that I take it all one day at a time, enjoy, allow myself a little bit of congratulation for just making it through every now and again.

Hang on, that doesn’t count as a plan does it?

Blogging wise I’ve also decided to make a few changes, the main one being that I’m not going to post photos of Beans anymore. Her face is hers (obviously) and it’s not up to me to decide whether it pops up in some obscure Google search or on random corners of the internet. Two very different camps exist in relation to publishing photos of kids on blogs and I have sat in the middle since I started, swaying from total ease to questioning myself and then jumping right back on top of the fence again. This way just feels right for now.

For a while I suffered from a bit of a crisis. Do I keep the blog, change it, delete it, start all over or forget it ever happened?

Thing is, I thought myself around and around in circles until I landed on one pertinent question – do I want to be defined by this?

Throw all the titles at me you like, ram me into any pigeon hole with careless abandon, I don’t mind being Beans mummy or that girl with the bad house or a blogger or a wife or a mummy blogger. Actually, I don’t really care if I am referred to as the one with PND or similar accolades.

What I got scared of is it defining me, the PND part that is. Because in reality that is mostly what I write about and mostly what I deal with and what will I do when I get better and have fluff to write about and everyone forgets me andandand…

And then I realised I was being an idiot and running away with myself and jumping head first into a bubbling pool of confusion when there was a perfectly nice looking bridge I could have skipped across instead.

So the blog stays.

Over Christmas I have struggled though a self imposed social media hiatus in an effort to do that bullshit sounding thing of reconnecting with the real world. It has been hard work. The husband has been subjected to plenty of snippets of my mind in 140 characters or less because I need to let it out somewhere damn it!

I deleted my Instagram account mainly because I made the decision about no more toddler photos but also in an effort to reduce my social media-ness. It’s been some pretty hard cold turkey I can tell you. Not so much for the need to share but for the need to nose and see what everyone is up to because I am so used to having that privilege. Twitter and Instagram and yes, I suppose Facebook too (begrudgingly) can be such wonderful little huddles of community. The comforting chatter of your family through the walls while you lay in bed at night. Always there, it’s nice.

So yeah, I miss it and I have missed Twitter and more importantly you all missed out on my high pitched crazy excitement when Beans drew a face, an actual face with eyes and nose and mouth all in the right places resembling the right things and I was so proud and excited I wanted to scream it from the Twittertops. But I held off.

(Until now – SHE DREW A FACE! She is an artistic genius!)

toddler drawing of a face

I have met some awesome people on Twitter as well as finding some awesome blogs and making friendships too.

These are some of my favourites because they have helped me in some way or because they’re just little pieces of wonderfulness in the universe:

· ChelleMcCann · Mammasaurus · SeasiderClare · ClaraVulliamy · MummyGlitzer · RomanianMum · TwoUnderTwoToo ·

· TheBoyAndMe · MissieLizzie · MummyBarrow · Alice Harold · DorkyMum · NotMyYearOff · BizzyMum · Kiddycharts · Lulastic ·

· RedTedArt · Actually Mummy · MummyDaddyMe · DearBeautifulBoy · Emma Harris · Merry · MummyNeverSleeps

;

Follow them, read their blogs, stalk them etc. You won’t regret it.

So. The future. Did I talk about that? In all honesty I have no idea where it will take me. But I have decided that’s a good thing.

The last year has taught me a lot about the sheer kindness that lives inside some people. It’s reminded me that even the smallest gesture can mean a mind bending amount to someone. I really hope that I can become someone just like that, giving with thoughtfulness and kindness and time…Go forth and spread the love.

*dismounts soapbox*

Happy 2013, I hope it’s your best one yet.

#Healing4Kerry

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There is so, so much to be said for the power of positive thought.

It can be the tiny glimmer at the end of a tunnel, blinking and shimmering while absolute darkness licks and curls at its edges.

It can pull you through the most awful, give you something to cling to to stop you free falling through the ether, comfort, help.

The power of positive thought emanating out of many is an amazing thing. So is the community that exists among bloggers, and that is why, although I have never met Kerry aka Multiple Mummy personally I am sat here writing this.

This is why. But also…

Because she’s a beautiful woman who I know from brief Twitter chats from ages ago to be funny and lovely and kind.

Because I read her blog and I miss her words.

Because I fought back the lump in my throat and blinked back tears with everyone else at the MADs 2012 when her husband climbed on stage to accept her award.

Because along with an absolute tonne of other bloggers and Twitterererers and friends and family and people I am praying for her to get better and to come home.

She’s strong, she’s fighting, she’s loved and she is going to have one epic blog post to write when she’s back.

At 10pm tonight (24.11.2012) say a prayer / send positive thoughts / raise your glass / think a happy thought / munch a bar of chocolate for Kerry?Because it’s something super positive for all of us to do for her.

You can read more posts from other bloggers by clicking the links below and use the hashtag #Healing4Kerry to find us all today on Twitter.

The Truth? You Can’t Handle The Truth

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I am a mummy. Look.

20121111-033742 PM.xjpg

I made that and squeezed it out into the world. Allow me a second to bask in the pride because I think that’s pretty awesome.

Also, I am a blogger. See, here I am blogging on my blog.

By definition, being as I blog predominantly about being a mummy I am therefore a mummy blogger. And that’s cool with me. Both being a mummy and being a blogger are pretty amazing things.

I would like to take a second to briefly point out that I am many other things besides as I am not a person who likes to be defined in whole by one small aspect of my personality or interests or beliefs or culture or religion or, well anything really. I’m not going to list the many strings to my bow however because that would be boring, safe to say I am a multifaceted human being.

Anyway.

It has come to my attention that another human being who appears to be less multifaceted and somewhat less happy with their lot has had some opinions, which y’know they’re totally entitled to, and because I am a mummy blogger and as such have my own platform to air my take on them I consider myself lucky.

Pigeon holing in any walk of life is something that I find offensive not to mention narrow minded and unintelligent. Does every woman who happens to have produced a child from their woman parts have the same interests and ideals and hobbies?

Does becoming a mother instantly render us useless human beings good for only knitting and washing and baking and ironing? Should we in fact be happy with a life where we push out our babies before breakfast so we can make it to the office on time and not miss a day. So what if we are either, neither or both. It’s for no one to judge or dictate.

Such stereotyping coming from the mouth of someone who brands herself as stridently for feminist equality seems to show a more old fashioned, generalised view of women than anyone else.

I am a stay at home mum in that I don’t go out to work and instead look after my daughter full time. Some days I would rather have a nine to five, other days I know exactly how lucky I am to be in such a position.

I do work. I do earn money and I do it in a way that has no baring on my freedom of speech – sure, this blog allows me to run the odd advertisement which pays in cold hard cash. But I would never compromise myself to do so (I recently had a request to publish an article about growing weed. The money was good too. But erm, no) and the money that it does pay is certainly not enough to make a living from.

In the same way that being a mummy doesn’t mean that I swathe myself in Cath Kidston and while away the hours painting my nails and subsequently blogging about how I have just painted my nails while my unattended toddler causes mayhem.

You want the reality? Some days I don’t even get dressed. Not because I’m lazy or too busy blogging and not because I own Cath Kidston pyjamas. Sometimes my house is a mess and the washing up needs doing and I don’t even show a comb to my hair but my daughter is happy and being showered with attention and learned a new word and gave me snuggles. And that’s what’s important.

Equally, some days I have to work or iron or clean or be a grown up and she has to follow at my side while I do the things that keep us going. Neither makes me a bad parent or a bad person. And my husband loves me either way because my life has absolutely no baring on his masculinity.

I have blogged about hair and make up and baking and babies but I have also blogged about wanting to drown myself, becoming homeless and not being able to move from my bed for months on end.

Please don’t pigeon hole me. Please, please if you are going to speak or write about something, anything, please do a tiny bit of research first. It’s not hard or time consuming; typing ‘mummy blogger‘ into Google instantly brings up reams of reading material from the pink and fluffy to the downright dark and everything in between.

In blogging, as in life, there are all walks of people. Because behind every blog believe it or not is a real life person. And these people and these blogs lead to a community that in the most part is caring and intelligent and wise and lovely. This is a community that helps one another regardless of class or race or difference of opinions.

This is a community that won’t take your shit lying down.

I tend to avoid Liz Jones. I tend to avoid the Daily Mail all together to be honest and I’m sure I don’t need to explain why.

What I find questionable is why a woman who has such views and opinions and a general air of misery and disillusionment about life and woman and children was booked for an event for women and mothers of children.

Surely it was known that her views on attending would be negative so why approach her? And, Liz Jones, why attend? Actually, just why?!

It takes some balls to stand up in front of hundreds of woman, passionate about writing and blogging and their kids, and let the words “It appears blogging has become the new home knitting, enabling an entire generation of women to leave the workplace for good” fall from your lips. It takes less balls to write a badly constructed article containing all the views that you didn’t air to these womens faces.

And this:

“They might just as well don a burka, and shuffle, so narrow is their vision.”

well that’s just ignorant racism.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to crochet something lovely.

Control

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481 days ago I sat alone on the sofa and wearing my pyjamas and a naive head I opened my laptop and began to type. That day led to this day and there is so much in between that I can’t even…

This became such a huge outlet, lifeline and support system during times when I honestly didn’t want to be here any more because everything was just so hard and scary and dark and bad.

This has opened my world and my mind and been so, so positive. Without any exaggeration I really don’t know where or who I would be without my little corner of the internet. Without you.

Other than this post I haven’t blogged about PND for a while now which has left me feeling odd and questioning why. A few things turned me off the idea I think, as much as it pains me to say, and along with reading some really terrible sensationalist stuff made me wonder whether my stuff comes across in the same light as well as becoming more out there with who I really am, in real life, made me a bit more cagey after the mask of anonymity fell.

Maybe too it’s because I am no longer in the depths anymore and have instead started to feel like I can say that I am recovering more than suffering. But I still need that support and a bit of a push sometimes.

All of these things have made me think a lot. About this blog, about the people that I’ve met and spoken to and read all of their lives, and about myself.

So many positives have come from what I have here. And I want to see if I can take them to another level. So think of this as a little experiment.

In July 2015 I will turn 30. This is when I plan to maybe grow up a little. Beans will be at school and I will be older and who knows what else.

Now the cliched 30 before 30 thing has been done to death but I would kind of like the excuse to, well, do things so…

If enough people want to come to the party then it will work like this:

January 2013 will mark the countdown of thirty months until my thirtieth. I want to do something every month, something chosen by you.

Something positive and different and awesome. I’m not talking swimming with dolphins or jumping out of a plane and I’m not talking all night karaoke or streaking – this isn’t going to be about humiliation or aspiration.

I want to do something that adds to just how inspiring and supportive and fun and friendly I have found the blogging experience to be so far.

I’m 27 and I have married the husband and between us we have made another pretty amazing human. I have seen things and done things and with my family I feel both fulfilled and pretty freaking lucky. But there are loads of you sitting reading this with different ideals and values and passions and these could be really brilliant things.

I’m not talking big money experiences – because I don’t have big money – nor am I thinking of some huge PR spamming stunt. We don’t need either.

I suppose what I am saying is here you go internet, take control! Think outside the box and make me do things or read things or see things or think things or try things that will be amazing and positive and exciting.

In an ideal world where unicorns graze next to pink lemonade streams with candy floss clouds I would like for people to suggest ideas. And I would like some people to collect these ideas because I don’t want to know what they are until the 1st of each month. And then I want to make this happen!

The more people that get involved (and I’m really hoping that there will be more than one or I will die of shame) the more interesting it could become as the idea develops…

So oh bloggy readery people, what say you? Help me make the next thirty months?

If you are up for being in charge and collecting the ideas and all that jazz before presenting them each month then please give me a poke here, here or here.

*hands over control*

Hiding Chocolate

1 Reply

We have well and truly reached the stage of toddlerdom that others smile wisely (smugly?) and nod about because they have older/more kids / aren’t so naive and have seen it all before and know what a living hell it is. We don’t though. We didn’t. Now we stare wide eyed and open mouthed and pale faced into the abyss of sheer crazy.

I thought we were there, I thought that the terrible twos were in full swing. We had all the symptoms: overuse and overemphasis of the word no, foot stamping, throwing, hitting, pouting…or a heady combination of all of the above preferably in public and at full volume while I smile back into the accusing eyes of tutting strangers and brush the hair off my sweat beaded brow and try to remain calm.

But oh no. No no no no no. It appears that all of that was just the beginning, an appetiser to the main course of absolute barmy that was being kept warm in the oven ready to be dished up onto a huge platter and plonked unceremoniously in front of us when the time was right. Read more…

 

 

MAD

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So here I am. Being rocked rhythmically from side to side as I take deep breaths of the warm stale air (does someone have an egg sandwich? Why do people always have egg sandwiches? *looks aggressively down carriage for the offending person*). An hour away from home and an hour away from London, exactly half way to somewhere I never expected to be.

I changed my mind about going to the MADs more times than I subsequently changed my choice of outfit. It has been a three stage process thus far:

Stage one: No. I can’t go. No no no.
Stage two: Yes. I must go. I don’t want to be a slave to my own anxieties. I will hurriedly book train tickets so that I can’t change my mind.
Stage three: Realisation. I am actually going. Shit.

Stages one and two alternated for months and then all of a sudden it was Thursday and I hit stage three with a big fat panic attack in the middle of town.


When I walked into the hotel, tendrils of matted wet hair dripping around my shoulders and my bag slowly cutting a deep groove into my shoulder, I was met with the sight of a giant red stag. I took an ‘artsy’ photo knowing that I would need something to document that I really was in the same place as everyone else that night, even if I was stone cold sober and therefore not sat astride it, rodeo style, once the party was in full swing.


There was something quite surreal about being in a hotel, being away from home and somewhere that was tidy and neat and posed no threat of death by toys strewn across its floors. I sank into a hot bath in an attempt to wash away my tension and the longing for toddler company that I found tugging at my heart strings.


More surreal still was that as I reclined surrounded by sandalwood bubbles and blank granite tiles all I could hear was the cackle of Mammasaurus echoing down the corridor, bouncing off the walls and creeping through the gap under the door to join me.

Weird.

Getting ready was probably the most relaxing moment of the whole weekend. No daughter with a dislike of loud noises barking to ‘put it back mama’ while aggressively pointing at the hairdryer as I dried my hair – I kept on drying for at least five minutes longer than it needed, just because I could and it was a novelty -my dress, from the lovely people at Marks and Spencer was awesome. It fitted perfectly, didn’t cling anywhere and best of all, I could put it straight on from my bag and there wasn’t a crease in sight. And I am not a good packer.

Just as awesome as a dress that doesn’t crease was DorkyMum who invited me up to her room to meet her so that I didn’t have to face new faces alone. It’s a pity that it took me five minutes of frantically jabbing at a button in the lift to realise that I had to use my keycard first. Ahem.


What followed was a flurry of meeting lovely bloggers, wishing that I had been a bit more forward thinking with my online identity as I rattled off ‘ClarafromIwantmymummy’ eleventymillion times (short and snappy is the way forward), hugs and ohmygoodness that’s Myleene!


Before I’d even sat down I had met Grenglish, Not My Year Off, Mummy Daddy And Me Makes Three and tonnes of others, been a little sick in my mouth at Mammasaurus and her sweaty phone, encouraged Actually Mummy to harass Myleene Klass and decided that I 100% knew that I wasn’t going to win but I was 100% glad I was there.


And I didn’t win. But I did feel so proud to see my name up there with all the other finalists. I chatted to Merry from A Patch of Puddles and Me The Man And The Baby (as well as keeping her chicken warm when she dashed off to feed said baby and giving her my napkin to mop her tears at winning). I did give all of my squid to Merry, I did stick to water all night, I did cry at Mr Multiple Mummy‘s wonderful speech. And again during a few others.


I did try to sneak one of Mammasaurus awards when she wasn’t looking (she did win two, I mean…). I did stay up later than I have in years, have cheeks that ached from real laughter and hands that tingled from applauding.


I did meet so many people who I tweet/stalk/read often and genuinely found them to be even nicer in real life – Fiona from Coombe Mill, BizzyMum and Helen from KiddyCharts to name a few.


I didn’t meet so many people who I tweet/stalk/read often and so I still couldn’t spot The Boy And Me in a crowd, didn’t tell MammyWoo that I would sell a kidney for her shoes, didn’t tell DomesticGoddesque how glam she looked or get to chat to infinity other amazing bloggers who I just wanted to stand near in a starstruck fashion grinning manically and hoping some of their amazing rubbed off on me.


I didn’t freak out, I didn’t make an idiot of myself or fall over in my heels or run away and hide.


I didn’t manage to get around the room quickly enough to speak to people that I wanted to see again, despite trying several times there was always a distraction or someone else I wanted to meet or sweets in my path.


I didn’t hitch up my dress and ride the stag with the aplomb that he deserved. I didn’t get a second to thank Sally for her evil overlordness and (frankly) superpowers for organising something so epic and making it look seamless.


I did miss my baby. I did have an amazing time.


And then all of a sudden I was back home, tired and aching, with my baby attached to my leg while I grilled fish fingers and made a brew and felt like the whole thing was just a dream.

And the man with the egg sandwich did totally catch the train home with me.

I Am Not Worthy

12 Replies

You guys. You guys. The support and the love that my little family have received over the last few weeks has been astounding (amazing, incredible, overwhelming, breathtaking, awesome)and really truly I don’t know how we would be doing this without you.

Words like these mean more than anything ever.

I want need to thank every single one of you individually, and I will, but for now this will have to do. All of these people have done something or given something or said something that has helped. I really can’t thank you enough. I know that there are more people with more help and support still on the way, thank you too, you will be added to the list! Similarly, if I have forgotten anyone then I’m sorry and it’s simply because I have been so overwhelmed that it’s been super hard to keep track (you try matching up emails/Facebook messages/real life actual people to online identities!). From me, the husband and Beans – Thank you. Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

For Beans:

Cheetahs In My Shoes Tricky Customer Mummy Barrow Capture By Lucy MissieLizzie John Crane Mummy Pink Wellies Domestic Goddesque Geek Is The New Chic Mummy Climbing Up The Wall

For The House:

Perfecting Pru Mrs_Rev Crafts On Sea MummyBarrow JBMumOfOne MummyCentral Capture By Lucy MissieLizzie Bunches Mummy Mishaps Coffee Curls Dear Beautiful Boy SeasideChelle BizzyBee RedTedArt ReuseGirl Cambridgeshire Community Reuse and Recycling Network Galina Lauren Karen Piccy Pavilion Web Design PinkOddy

The Helpers:

Mammasaurus TwoUnderTwoToo SeasiderInTheCity MissieLizzie

The Bloggers:

Mammasaurus – Welcome to your council house Two Under Two, Too – A friend in need Me and my shad0w – Welcome home – a social housing disgrace Seasider in the City – Norwich – a fine city? Crafts on Sea – Not hassling, not being mean, just being sensible Mummy Barrow – An Englishman’s home is his castle. Right? Wrong Stitch This – DIY because you have to Cheetahs in my Shoes – See it, Snap it, Love it – Help The Petit Mom – The 411 on council Housing Stitch This – House? MisterDoctorBeckyMark2 – What Really Grinds My Gears, Part 2