What's in a name?

I remember between the ages of 7 and 11, 

being obsessed with finding out the first names of all of the teachers that worked in my primary school.

In the school dining hall 

(trust me, that sounds a lot more fancy than it was) 

there would be a little board with all of the teacher's initials that would be rotated depending of whose turn it was to have lunch first that week.

(As a little side note, I absolutely hated when my class was the last in for lunch, because I was such a slow eater that I would literally end up sat entirely alone whilst I finished up.

Sad, huh?)

I have no idea how I would find them out, but I was so happy when the day came that I could sit in the dining hall, look up at that little board and full name all of the teachers.

Now, I can only remember a few.

June Dunkley.

Malcolm Richardson.

Mark Abbott.

Jennifer Butler.

It blows my mind that in less than a year, my first name will be the subject of so much young fascination and intrigue.

Am I ready for that -

To be on the opposite side of my own childhood memory?

It scares me a bit, but I think that I might be.

A short but awkward conversation with a five year old

I feel that this needs no introduction.

Amy: Becky, why are your boobies bigger than my Mummy's?

Me: Erm..........

I also feel that this needs no conclusion.

But seeing as I think literally posting three lines and calling it a day would be really lame, please enjoy this video.
That, friends, is how you shimmey.

This is my mantra

I wrote this post sometime during the last academic year.

The amount of work that I had and things that I had to make time for when I wrote this was so, so much less than the amount of stuff that I have to do now.

It's kind of funny in the least funny way actually.

Anyway, with a to do list as long as my arm that only keeps on growing, rather than neglect this here blog, I decided to do a little bit of recycling.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you, 'repeat as often as necessary'.

Enjoy.

More and more often I keep having to take a deep breath and tell myself this. Inhale. Keep calm and just graduate. Exhale. Keep calm and just graduate. Inhale. Keep calm and just graduate. Exhale. Sometimes it helps. But most of the time school work gets very overwhelming very fast. Mostly because it's just nonstop. Day after day after day after day after day. Maybe it would be a bit of a help if I used more than just five days of the week to do school work. But having no weekend would make me crabby. Crabby and insane. And I don't think that Ross would like that very much. 

So I just have to take a deep breath, say a quick prayer and get on with it. Turn on my laptop (and exert seriously mental effort not to quickly log onto facebook), get out my lecture notes, get out my books and just get my head down and work. Either that or face hours of procrastination, looking for something, anything to distract me from doing my work. I've got really good at that. I would almost consider it to be a talent. I wonder if there's a career in procrastination? And if not a career, at least a first class degree?

Sometimes I just need to get a bit o' perspective. This time next year I'll be close to finishing my degree. My days as a student are numbered. This time next year. I'll be freaking out about stepping out into the big, wide world and I'll be applying for jobs in my very first teaching post. (In all seriousness, who will take me seriously?! I have nightmares of going to interviews and being laughed out of the school for being too young and having delusions of being an adult.) This time next year I'll be close to having a proper job. Nay a career! (And I'll be rejoicing in the salary!)

But until then, I'll just keep calm and graduate. 

Return of the happys

Here are some of my happys from this week.

1. The sense of achievement and satisfaction I felt when I handed in my dissertation proposal three weeks early! BOOM.

2. The greater sense of achievement and satisfaction I felt from handing in another assignment the day afterwards.

You better believe I've had a very productive week.

I now plan on doing absolutely nothing university related this weekend.

3. Singing old school Kelly Clarkson songs at the top of my voice and thinking that I sound exactly like her.

Yes, I know that I am seriously deluded, in reality I sound nothing (and I mean nothing) like her, but in the moment of getting lost in the power ballads of the early 2000s, I am her voice twin. 

4. Finding a new recipe for butternut squash soup that is SO good I made it twice in one week.

5. My hair finally being long enough to tie in a knot again.

(I am rejoicing so much at this fact! Why did I ever cut my hair short?!)

6. Lipstick. 

Just in general.

7.  Finally mastering Harvard Referencing.
After four years I'm finally getting it.

8. Sleeping in until 10am today.

9. Watching over and over one specific clip of Cam from Modern Family.
He is by far my favourite character.
Surprisingly, he's not gay in real life?!

10. Dinners with friends.
I don't need to justify adding this to my list.
I mean, come on...food and friends?
Win/Win.

Five year old with faith

I've told you before that the little girl that I look after talks about God a lot.

(Remember when she thought God's favourite song was probably Lady Gaga?)

Well, recently she's been bashing out some pretty special pictures.

They're only your standard Mummy, Daddy, Amy & Jake pictures over and over again, but recently there's been a new addition to the family too.

Amy: Becky! Look at all of these pictures that I've drawn.

Me: Yeah, they're great. I can see Mummy, Daddy, you and Jake.

Well done Amy!

*I notice the additional character drawn in orange in the sky.

He's there in every single picture, 

always in orange and always with a big cross over it, 

like she's made a mistake.

Me: Who's this person in the sky? 

Amy: *Looks at me like I'm stupid.*

Errr Becky, it's Jesus.

Don't you know that?

Me: But why have you crossed him out?

Amy: I haven't crossed him out, that's him on the cross.

You know? Where he died.

Me: Oh, ok.

Why is he in the sky?

Amy: Because from up there he can watch over me and family 

and make sure that we're all alright 

and he can keep us safe too.

How lovely is that?

Ohh, melts my heart!

Suivez-moi: No heat curls

As an unrelated slightly related side note, can we just begin by agreeing the curlz is possibly one of the most annoying fonts EVER. 

It's right up there with comic sans.

Oh, how I detest (can anyone tell I had a French class today?) comic sans. 

It's the go-to font of old people that are trying to be down with the kids.

Anyway, now that my little font rant is over, let me share with you the secret of how to curl your hair without using any heat!

I promise, it will change your life.

I only learnt about it on Friday, and I've done it every day since. 

See, life changing.

Observe.

First off, you need hair clean hair that is probably about 85-90% dry.

(Side note, I also tried this with day old dry hair and it worked too, but not as well.)

Picture one is me with 90% dry hair (and no make-up!) in case you hadn't figured that one out.

Next, you need an elastic head band. Preferably a plain one.

Then you put the head band around your head in a 1920s flapper style.

Basically, that means put the thing straight across your forehead.

Then you take about an inch section of hair and wrap it once round your head band.

After you've done it once around, you add in a little extra hair and wrap it around again. 

Then you just keep going until all of your hair is wrapped around the band.

At this point (pictures 2&3) you feel like a mix between a legit 1920s flapper and Princess Leia, 

which is a pretty strange combination. 

You'll feel like wielding a lightsaber (with added sound effects of course) and simultaneously doing the charleston. 

Then you can either sleep on it or leave it for a few hours and give it a blast with a hair dryer.

Last, but obvious thing, you just need to pull the head band out, and voila.

Don't be alarmed if it first you have some serious 1970s flicks going on! 

Just brush through it with your fingers and twirl your hair into more defined curls.

And your done.

Super bass

As far as the seven deadly sins go, gluttony is definitely my favourite.

Actually, I'm not sure if knighting it as my favourite is exactly what I mean.

More like out of the seven deadly sins gluttony is my biggest vice. 

That makes me sound like I'm as wide as I am tall - I'm not.

Why am I even talking about this?

Holy cannoli.

Basically, we went to Red Hot Buffet last weekend for Ross' birthday dinner and it was all kinds of glorious.

Sushi, duck pancakes, chilli tacos, corn on the cob and piri piri chicken all on one plate?

How had I never been to this place sooner?!

And the creme brulee...best I've ever had!

I may have even had two.

And when I say I may have, I mean I definitely did have two.

Seriously, best.place.EVER.

And whilst I'm in the mood for singing the praises of random things that I've loved lately, please watch this video.

It's an absolute crack up.
Also, where can I get me one of those skirts?

In other news, as if you didn't know already, today is Friday.

(REJOICE!)

It mortifies me that when Friday comes around Rebecca Black's song still pops into my head.

And now it's stuck there.

Oh joy.

Anyways, I'm not adverse to finishing this off by quoting a little Rihanna and saying 

"cheers to the freakin' weekend."

Raise your glasses my friends.

PS. I'm sorry that this post is so weird.

I haven't left the house in 24 hours and

I've also just consumed a massive

amount of sugar.

Oh, Ronda

Oh Ronda, 

my dear, dear Ronda.

You were so pleasant. 

Your sky was so blue and your scenery was spectacular 

- I've never seen views like that before.

You kinda took my breath away actually.

You offered us tapas, and we gratefully accepted.

You even offered us donut flavoured ice cream and we even more gratefully accepted that.

You showed us the oldest bull ring in the world 

(I'm sorry that we arrived there after dark though)

and a plethora of other gorgeously architected buildings. 

Thank you Ronda, you really were the best. 

What the doctor ordered

And when I say what the doctor ordered, I actually mean what Ross ordered.

Today was overwhelming.

Another early morning of getting up in the dark (I hate that!), 

another morning of work, 

another afternoon in the library, 

another intense session of thrashing out ideas for my dissertation, 

and an sweep over of pressure knowing that if I want to keep a promise to myself, I have to work harder than ever. 

So when I got home and I was playing at been a full blown Negative Nancy - again -  

Ross hugged me, rubbed my shoulders, made me dinner and told me to go and watch a cookery programme whilst I have a bath. (That man knows me well)

Throw in a couple of bath bombs, a scented candle and an early night and you've concocted a sure fire way of making me relax. 

Sigh.

Also, when did I get to be old? 

Weird. 

Sometimes Mondays suck

Today hasn't been a bad day. 

But it also hasn't been that great.

It's just been blah.

So when Ross got home from work and I was being a full blown Negative Nancy, he took it upon himself to try and cheer me up.

So we went to McDonald's.

You know, that place where dreams come true and people are so happy that they sing instead of speak?

That's what the McDonald's closest to us in like.

Not.

(By the way, this is a completely pointless story of immaturity)

So to make us both crack a smile, after we were finished using the drinks machine, Ross cheekily turned it off.

Then we sat at a table close by that gave us a pretty clear view of said drinks machine.

Two minutes later a woman came to fill up her drink, pressed the button and nothing happened.

So she pressed it again, this time harder.

Nothing.

So she pressed it again.

Nada.

Then she tried a different button.

Still nothing.

By this point, Ross & I were creasing up, like absolute kids.

So the woman calls a worker over who tries pressing every.single.button on the machine.

None of them work.

We see confusion in his eyes and he calls over his manager.

He tries pressing every single button and not a drop comes out of the machine.

By now, we're actually lol-ing, for reals and people are staring as us, including the two McDonald's workers and the now very thirsty lady.

It took them a good five minutes to figure out that the machine wasn't even turned on. 

But those five minutes of flat out immaturity were just what I needed to make my Monday good again.

Birthday antics

My love turns 24 on Sunday.

And seeing as you can't do all that much to actually celebrate your day of birth on a Sunday, 

his birthday weekend started right the second he walked through the door from work tonight.

Me: Hey babe
(I never call Ross babe, so I'm not sure why I decided to right then)
 whaddaya wanna do tonight?
For your birrrthday?!
Him: Pause.
Erm, I want to sit on the sofa and watch ten episodes of the Simpsons.

What can I say?
My man knows what he likes.

And how to party, apparently.

PS. Check out my little giveaway. 

Feeling lucky? Giveaway.

You see that necklace right there?

The beautiful purple one?

The beautiful purple one that is made out some kind of semi precious stone?

Well, I have one. 

Chloe has an orange one.

And if you cross your fingers, toes, arms, legs and eyes you could have one too.

Well, 1) if you're lucky and 2) you're smart enough to head on over to Chloe's blog and enter our giveaway to win one. 

So go on, do me, Chlo & yourselves a favour and take a minute to enter. 

Because everyone deserves a little bit of beauty to wear around their neck.

Well, only one person will win, but everyone deserves it.

Chlo has all the deets over here....

Varsity

Every year in Leeds, the two universities have a random day that is dedicated to competitive sports.

I know little to nothing of these things, but apparently it's the biggest student sporting event in England.

Sounds like a big deal, huh?

It was also apparently a big deal that I had got through right until my last year of university without ever having gone to the big varsity rugby match. 

So basically just to say that I'd done it (talk about peer pressure) I bought tickets for me & Ross and went with some of my Frenchies last night.

It was quite the experience.

Let me jump back in time to varsity night two years ago.

I lived in a student house right behind the rugby stadium and completely oblivious to the match decided to drive to a friend's house on the other side of the stadium.

I started my journey just as everyone was piling out of the stadium and onto the streets after the match has finished.

And when I say 'everyone', there were 10,000 students there that night, so the street was absolutely rammed.

10,000 students that were all feeling pretty merry and probably a little bit drunk.

So because I literally couldn't drive because the road was crammed with people, I locked my doors and just inched forward when I could.

Well, several people tried getting in the car with me, which was traumatic enough, but there was also one severely more traumatising occurrence that should have told me what to expect last night. 

I'd been sat on this street getting nowhere for about five minutes when a group of lads stopped literally an inch from the bonnet of my car.

One of the lads looked straight at me and then before I knew what was happening, whipped down his trousers, whipped out his...thing and then proceeded to do what I can only describe as a helicopter motion.

Vile.

So last night, I watched an hour and a half of rugby, which for me was an absolute first. 

I couldn't even tell you if it was rugby league or union. 

I do know what a conversion is now though, which honestly, I am so proud of.

Additional to the actual rugby, I also saw lots of people dressed up like Where's Wally, one of the Leeds Uni cheerleaders fall over in the middle of their routine, a fight in one of the other stands, one guy that stood next to me and sang "shoes off, if you love Leeds Met" who then took off his shoes and stood on the wet ground, one somersaulting streaker,  three other regular streakers (all of which ran around a bit and then got rugby tackled to the ground) and a guy about 10 meters from who weed into an empty cup on the floor and then threw his wee over one of his mates.
Again, vile.

Seriously, I could not make this stuff up.

But believe or not, despite all of those things, I actually had a pretty good time.
I won't ever go again though.

Story of a psycho wife

I am the psycho wife in this story by way. 

And when I say psycho, I don't actually mean psycho. 

(Psycho is one of those words that gets a bit weird if you say it too many times. Psycho. Psycho.) 

I mean, just a little bit strange/neurotic. 

And even when I say story, I mean this isn't going to even be a story.

Probably at least one half of my personality could be pigeon holed in the category strange/neurotic, (psycho on a bad day) but the particular trait that I'm referring to is my frequent need to test mine and Ross' compatibility.

Now, I married the poor man, so that is a pretty sure confirmation (you'd sincerely hope so, at least) that we're compatible.

But sometimes I just like to test it anyway.

Well, I only ever test him to make sure that his opinion is in line with mine.

But that is what any good wife would do, right?

Let me share a few examples...

1). Walking past a shoe shop window, I stop and say 

"I'm picking out in my head the pair that I like the best, which ones have I chosen?"

2). In the ice cream section of the supermarket.

"I'm craving a particular flavour right now, which one do I want?"

3). While we're sat in silence.

"I'm singing a song in my head right now, do you know which one it is?"

Ross says that they're not compatibility tests, more like me seeing if he can read my mind or not, which rather impressively, he sometimes can.

And here is where the neuratic-ness really takes centre stage. 

If he doesn't guess right/know what I'm thinking I am grumpy for at least ten minutes and demand lots of hugs and snugs to make me happy again.

But if he gets it right I have never loved him more. 

That's normal, right?

Weekend in a jar

This weekend I took a lot of photos.
I walked up an down a steep cobbled hill, ate some lemon drizzle cake and went into an apothecary. (Apothecaries are about a million times cooler than regular chemists, because one, they have things in cool jars and bottles and two, saying the word apothecary makes me feel like I'm in Harry Potter.)
This weekend we wandered around a really old cemetery and I took some photos of that too. I'm not sure if the fact that I'm married to a funeral director makes that activity more, or less creepy. I'm going to hope for less, definitely less.
This weekend I may have reignited an old flame. Me and 24. One episode and I'm drawn back in, like a sucker. This is definitely not a good thing, because I have 15 deadlines in 17 weeks. Oh please, kill me now - writing that down makes me want to lock myself in room with my good friends Ben & Jerry and never come out.
This weekend I did a lot of baking and cooking. Pizza, chicken and leek pie, bread, honey bars, brownies and bread. Did I already say bread? I am stuffed until Christmas. Apart from the hole I have for my friends. (Ben & Jerry, I don't go around just eating any old friends.)
This weekend I watched a lot of general conference. (Insert sentences on generally being uplifted and inspired here.) I promise I listened to the actual talks, but one of my favourite things was pointing out every time the Spanish guy mixed up his b's and v's. Oh, and I'm often the first to poke fun at the MoTab, but when they sang I Believe in Christ, I humbled and rebuked. Forever.

This is probably the lamest thing that I have ever written. But I'm tired. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Amen.