Coffee & Cupcakes

Hi ho hi ho, it's off to work I went. As promised I thought I would fill you in on my few weeks - and the main change in my life routine was the trip back into the office! My lovely team had decorated my office with presents, posters, flowers and I was even allowed to drive my boss's mx-5 to my favourite totally "girlified" coffee shop for a huge slice of carrot slice! It was a lovely day and I left the children with a lovely friend and young person from our church who I knew the children loved and were excited to spend time with. It was fun, arriving back to work a month before our annual Holiday Club meant there was no time to ease back into things. I was back and my to -do list was already the length of my arm.... and I have weirdly long arms;-) I love my job, if I haven't said I am a Children & Families worker for my church. I get to spend my days doing children clubs, assemblies, popping in on new mums, visiting families, running toddler groups, pla...

At the family funeral I attended recently, Josh's aunt said something that has stuck with me since and has cause me to ponder many things. She said in relation to the death, through suicide of her husband: "we can choose to remember him by the circumstances around his death, this way allowing bitterness and anger to take root, or we can choose to remember the man we knew for the 60+ years before this! creating a memory of joy filled moments." Part of why that amazes me is because of the strength it must have taken to read that sentence in light of the circumstances but since it has made me think so much about how quickly we judge people and situations... Let me add a moment of light-heartedness to this post. A few weeks ago, it was my lovely friend's birthday, to help Josh and I offered to take her two boys out for a walk while her and her hubby organised the house. Now allow your imagination to wander as you see a young-ish couple walking toward you with what you m...

Welcome to another part of my mind... Some would say I am quite a competitive person, I don't like to lose - in fairness who does! I have constant competition with my husband, who can run the most each month, including the fastest mile and fastest 5k. My running buddy is also quite competitive and this means I now can't stop running, as that would be losing to her...not happening! I play scrabble with all of my family members and there is a definite pressure to win, thankfully my dad always "lets" me win...(sorry Dad)! Board games in our house are a genuine nightmare, not only am I competitive, I am a pants loser!! Whoever loses in my house is pretty much expected to be grumpy for the rest of the evening! Now here is where it gets worse... Today my daughter was allowed to bring home the nursery school teddy, Morris. I was instructed by my daughter that we had to do lots of fun things with Morris and then write about it in his diary - that was it - I was off!! This...

I have come to notice, more so since becoming a mum - that my own, and I'm sure many others out there create and continue to energise our worst enemy... What is it? I believe for many of us ladies, "comparison" is consuming us. There is such a tendency among us to compare ourselves to other women and never ladies do we allow ourselves to win! And not that we should for no two women can be compared equally and one win and the other lose. I have a massive struggle with this and through it have allowed friendships to dissolve, my ability as a mum to be put down and my service as a Christian and church worker to seem unnecessary. It scares me sometimes how I, and others allow ourselves to spend time comparing ourselves with others and for what purpose? To make ourselves feel better at the expense of another woman, to confirm that we are rubbish on one of those days when we feel like we are failing. 2014 for me is going to be the year I put aside some of my "comparing...