Not my favourite time of the year

Bloody hell, it's chucking it down and blowing a hoolie (hooly, hooley) out there today.  I hate hate hate the end of Christmas as much as I love love love the start of it.  Except I have to face the terror of the future on top of hating the end of Christmas, so it is worser.

No big, unattainable list of do-gooding resolutions this year.  I will engage and invest more in the development of my child, and in my relationship with my husband.  That's it.  And eat better, drink less alcohol and spend less money.  ya di ya.

Incidentally, have chosen my star spangled banner theme to reflect my current squeeze:
The West Wing.  Yeah, yeah, schmaltzy and Goddamn it - sooooooo American, but I lurve it.  God Bless America. 

A quiet, quiet start to the new year - we popped to Teignmouth for a scoot, and then went to my mum and dads in the evening(I really don't know where to put the apostrophe there - I am having a bit of an apostrophe confindence crisis right now, so I'm leaving it out altogether, so there), and my brother (who shares the house) had a new XBox Kinect and the Just Dance 3 game.  It is shit hot.  I was sweating after a couple of routines and it was such a laugh and an enjoyable way to work up a sweat - I am considering it as The Way to a fitter me.  And I beat my brother with a 5-star 10k+  dance (Rihanna Only Girl In The World, no less - get me) which upset him tremendously and has made me feel like a bit of a funky happening babe.  HA!  Still I am secretly sure I more resembled a hippo thundering its way through a pre-mating ritual than a lithe and youthful street dancer.  We were home by 9pm and saw in the new year by watching Big Ben chime midnight on TV and standing outside to take this memorable family snap:

Arms length photography my speciality, obviously. 

Talking of BB chiming, it was accompanied by lots Very Large Fireworks which went on for a Very Long Time.  I'm all for a celebration at appropriate times, but - yeah, there are children starving in the world - and no, I am not a frugal person nor do I work tirelessly for charity and I am as much a hypocrite with the allocation of my cash as the next person but - a lot of dosh was sent in the sky to explode there.  Depressing. 

Cracked open the Scrabble last night to play with Mark.  Now, thing is - Mark is a very clever bloke - but I would have to say I know many more words than him and my spelling (on the whole - give me a break) is pretty sharp.  I have never been able to beat him at Scrabble.  His theory is that it's a male-female thing and to do with spatial awaremess.  Since I don't go for the sexist thing, I am not offended by this thory at all, but am confounded by my constant inability to WIN, so tend to half believe it.  So - last night I tried to look at squeezing in letters to make max points rather than waste my time trying to make words like 'inconsequential' from 7 letters and fitting it onto the board somewhere.  I was winning - right up to the point I tried to put down 'Jain' using the letter 'n' on the end to start the word 'Ni'.  Yeah.  I was challenged.  Not on Jain, because I know what that means (I am terribly clever you know) but on 'Ni', because I didn't have a sodding clue if - a) it was a word at all, b) what the hell it meant, and c) because I must have looked unconvincing and shifty.  I got challenged by a snigger and a splutter and, after some indignant page-turning through the Oxford concise, even I was forced to concede that 'Ni', being the chemical symbol for Nickel and 'only spelt with an initial capital letter' probably wasn't really allowed.  So, I lapsed into a bit of a sulk, which I think it is fair to say, cost me the game.  I lost by 33 points.  I might even start reading the dictionary today for fun.  Victory will be mine.

Today I am going to write out a list of 'subjects' that I would like to cover with Oliver in a 'working week' and I am going to let him allocate them to the days and times he thinks he would like to do them.  The theory being he will flourish being in charge of his own destiny.  Or something like that. 

Keeeeeep dancing.