Hiding from Ironing with Julie and Julia

I am hiding from the weeks worth of ironing again. I have a rail of shirts to be ironed ( none of them mine ) and an overflowing basket of other stuff, all of it staring at me while I avoid doing it.
I have set up shop in my living room, complete with iron, ironing board, jug of water, can of beer, spare coat hangers, Julie and Julia on the DVD ( which is really good - Meryl Streep is hilarious ), they are talking about 'bathe the thighs' ( of chicken ) ... now anyone who knows me knows I love cooking and baking, but I hate ironing. One of the main reasons why I chose not to keep our maid ( I know, I know, but it's how it's done here ), was because I love to cook, and quite like cleaning, and got tired of someone else in the house doing it less well than I can! Plus I work only part time and there was just no good reason for having a maid. I have teenagers for goodness sake - they can clean their own rooms! Anyway, right now, I would have one back, just for an hour or two, to do all this wretched ironing!
I love this film...'Is anything better than butter?' asks Julie - absoloutly not! says I.
Husband is off on a boys night out, one nameless teenager is upstairs watching Rebel without A Cause - I am so proud of her discernment - how many 15 yr olds have even heard of James Dean? The other nameless teenager is getting his fill of COD before going to India on a school trip next week..and I , well, it's Friday night, so of course, I turned down those hoardes of invitations I had to join people on their nights out, because I wanted to beat down the ironing pile....oh well.
I am giving up on the ironing for now, and will settle down with my beer and the dvd and I am going to day dream about making lemon drizzle cake tomorrow.
Hey, and Julie writes a blog too, like me! Except she has followers and I don't...sigh...well, maybe tomorrow I will have one...I live in hope after all. So, if anyone is reading this, remember, life is too short to iron other people's shirts, and you can never have too much butter! Or can you - actually, yes of course you can..my ever expanding waistline is proof of that. I used to be a size 6...now I hover around 2 sizes up from that. My ever helpful husband keeps giving me meaningful glances then points out that my Davina Fit dvd is getting dusty. Men!!

A Night of Cosmic Shifts!

Last night was the occasion of the Annual TRC Ball - for those of you who don't know, TRC stands for Tanglin Rugby Club. Jonny used to play for them and Simon has been a coach there for about three years now. Last night it was either black tie or James Bond - hence the vast majority of the guys in their DJ's, and the women...well...thankfully most of them were in formal wear. I am not sure the guys could have stood having more than a few, lets say, more mature ladies, in gold jumpsuits or hot pants dancing around. It is always interesting to see how people are at these do's - there is a palable atmosphere of self satisfaction in the air - but hey, why not? TRC has had a great year this year, and the club is fantastic..so what if the parents let their hair down once a year and pretend we are still young :-)

I do enjoy these do's but they are always kind of surreal - having been in Singapore for a while now, I have been to several balls and formal dinners and they are always odd. Nice, but odd. The women, bless us, all think we are 17 again and the men also revert straight back to their teenage years as soon as The Jam or Madness or even, God forbid, Abba are played by the DJ who has of course, been forewarned about the average age of the party goers. The music is usually, well, how can I say it... naff, the food is always good and the free flow wine and beer flows exceptionally well.

Last night was no exception apart from 3 major cosmic shifts that took place in my head - I am astonished that the world looks the same this morning, as I fear I have changed beyond recogntion...

Cosmic shift 1 : I didn't get drunk - in fact I drank more water than wine! This has never ever happened to me before in a situation like that.

Cosmic shift 2 : Two visiting players from the Saracen's Rugby Club were with us last night - rather dishy the pair of them - and I felt OLD when they were talking to me...the flirty fairy has clearly given up on me and is now working elsewhere :-( The picture above is of me with said dishy player....

Cosmic shift 3 : I had been bundled, reluctantly onto the dancefloor by my husband and after a few minutes of 'dancing' found myself happily singing along .....'dancing queeen, young and sweet, only 17....'

Oh help me.. I am turning into an expat wife after all...

feeling strangely fine

Well, today I feel strangely fine... I have spent 9 hours in the office, have a banging headache, have totally failed again to be organised enough to make a meal for the family ( it's curry night tonight I think ),and have lost the use of the car as Simon is back...BUT, hey I feel fine.
You know why? because today when I got home, my beautiful dog, my gorgeous daughter and my lovely son all gave me a cuddle ( in their own ways - with the dog it involved headbutting my knee and then lying on her tummy and waving her legs in the air ). I was forgiven for being disorganised and both of the kids have actually followed a house rule and changed their school uniforms for regular clothes!
Now I am off for a curry...
See ya!

Ahh...Sunday..??

Sunday...the day of rest, that lovely peaceful day when the family gathers around the breakfast table, or the pool, or whereever and has real quality time together...breakfast in bed, leisurely walks with the dog, a small dose of trash TV and a browse through the Sunday papers...
I wish...
Here in Not Just An Expat Wife land, Sunday is usually one of the busiest days of the week...I get up early to go to church - this morning having a panic as I couldn't find, in order, clean clothes, ironed clothes, my toothpaste ( ?), my dog ( ??) my cheque book, my car keys and then my glasses ( I need them for driving ).
Once at church, I got lost trying to find the main room ( I am new there ) and then got lost again on the way out trying to find the door that leads to the car park...
After church, I went food shopping, and lost the car in the carpark...
When I came home, I thought I had lost my daughter but she was 'doing homework' aka 'still asleep until a minute ago' :-)
I then realised I had lost my flower cutting scissors - I had a flower buying binge in the supermarket as there was an offer on beige and purple and orange flowers .. I know, I know..
Then, I lost my phone for the first time today - I know from experience it will happen again within the next few hours...
After that, I wished I had lost my ironing board ( that has happended once ) as I totally failed to do the weeks worth of ironing last night as I got sucked into watching some random programme about house building in Scotland ( displacement activity perhaps?), then ended up chatting on FB till midnight while polishing off the remains of the alcohol left in my fridge..oops...
I actually lost my dog this afternoon for about 10 minutes when we went for a walk - then found her swimming in the muddiest puddle she could find (she is only a little dog so she can actually swim in a puddle, I am not just trying to be funny!)
I am now ignoring the fact that my dishwasher has not been emptied, my sink is full of dirty pots to go into said dishwasher, I have rashly promised to make chicken and mushroom pie for dinner, I haven't called my mother, and I still have a weeks worth of ironing to do. I also keep remembering things I need to remember for work tomorrow, then forgetting them again, and panicking. I am also wondering what time my husband said he would be back from a long business trip today - or indeed if it even is today that he is back...
My prayer for today is that God grants me serious amounts of organisational skills. Now, preferably...
:-)

Discretion at all costs ??

Well, here I am again, already in trouble for having this blog! 'You aren't going to put really personal stuff up are you Mum?'
'People will know you are talking about us..it is soooo embarrassing'
'Well, that's assuming anybody reads it of course.'
Teenagers - aren't they just lovely?
I have just been driving in the rain to drop one said anonymous teen off at a friend's house as I can't be bothered cooking dinner tonight ( we went to the British Club for a large lunch - i DO feed my children contrary to popular opionion ) and the drivers here in Singapore are a law unto themselves..but that story is for another day.
In the meantime, I have to warn any potential readers ( hello there ;-) ) that I have been told most firmly that I am not under any circumstances allowed to write anything of an even vaguely personal nature to do with anyone even remotely connected to me.
My response..
'Phoeey' ( or words/sounds to that effect )
Now I am off to do a weeks worth of ironing while watching Temple Grandin.

So, why do you care what my husband does for a living?

It is, as Jane Austen almost said, a truth universally acknowledged, that an Expat Wife must be lucky enough to have a husband in possession of a good fortune...or be in possession of a husband with a good fortune...or have the good fortune to be in possession of a husband...or at the very least to have had possession of a husband with or even without the good fortune.
I live the expat lifestyle here in Singapore, and yes, I have a husband who is in possession of a fairly good fortune ( but hey, its never enough out here ) and I am one of the few, that band of sisters, who work outside the home.
Now this is unusual here. Very unusual. So unusual that the attempts to have a normal life in this weird fishbowl existence are laughable and sometimes downright pathetic ... so I thought, let's share the stories.
A little bit of background - I am 37, I have two teenagers, 15 and 13, ( I am a seriously young mum out here ) I have the husband ( who is actually husband no.2 and that is also unusual out here ) and I have a dog. And a JOB!! I am NOT just an expat wife....
Why oh why does it matter to random strangers at school coffee mornings, British Association meetings or other social gatherings, what my husband does for a living??? Why do I need to be categorised by his means? We are not in 1813 now... I don't really care what your husband does for a living - in fact surely it is what you do for a living that is important?
If that's working outside the home, or more traditional homemaking, great...let's talk about us not the 'hubby's' ( horrible word ).
Women out here, expat women I should say, are wives...it is a very traditional society whereby the husband does the work, earns the money and the wife and kids spend it.. we all have maids to do the housework and we just worry about getting our nails done..yawn..it is Lost in Austen, 2010 colonial style

This blog will detail the ups and downs of expat living in the 'real world' - I work with a company that provides support services for kids with SEN..I am trying to find a new house, cope with the long distance difficulties of a recently widowed mother, and bring up 2 teenagers in a world that is so full of expectation of 'rights' that being grounded is not an easy option...my husband travels a lot and I don't have a maid anymore - by choice...keeping the balls in the air is fun!
watch this space...and let's have a laugh while I expound my various trials and tribulations...