My "need-to-finish-this -soon" list

1. My son's second scrapbook

2. My best friend's scarf which has been on my knitting needles for almost 4 years

3. The crochet shopping bag I was making out of green parcel string

4. The children's book I haven't even started yet

5. Re-string the necklace the above mentioned best friend gave me when I last saw her (it snapped whilst I was picking up my bags to leave for work)

Love this idea...

Baraka from Rickshaw Diaries is collaborating with a friend to publish a book called Love, Inshallah. Check out the details here.

Weekends

Weekends, I find, always see to zoom by in a flash. Blink and you miss it. The same has just happened with this one. All I had planned to do was to meet up with two friends at Pizza Express with my little one on Saturday and then just laze around today. Lunch with the friends was lovely. The Boogster stayed in his high chair the whole time and gave me no trouble at all except when it came to getting back into his car seat. (And trouble before we left has he has developed an intense aversion to changing his clothes).

Then this morning, whilst doing some dusting, my brother announced he was going to Covent Garden. I love Covent Garden. And so hubby, Boogster, brother and myself packed ourselves into the car and headed to central London. I made a bee-line for Bare Escentuals, a cosmetic company which sells mineral make-up, had a little make-over and ended up spending far too much on the Getting Started Kit. Then, to feed my stationery obsession, I browsed in Artbox. On the way back to car we all stopped off at Scoop for some fine Italian ice-cream. That went down well with everyone as the ice-cream was absolutely lovely. Will be visiting it again next time to try out some of the other flavours.

As a child, there were two places my parents used to take us for a treat: one was an little ice-cream parlour in Goodge Street (we'd wait in the car while my dad got us ice-cream and we'd have it while driving round London at night) and the other was a place called Bloom's which sold wonderful kosher beef sandwiches. I've always wanted to do the same with my kids as I have fond memories of those times. I've found the ice-cream place...now all I need is a Bloom's substitute.

The evening was spent watching Tangled at Cineworld. Ammi and I were supposed to watch it on our own but the hubby and Boogster tagged along. I'm impressed that he watched the entire cartoon without a peep. I had to keep checking to see if he was awake. I had envisaged him making a racket and having to be carried out by the hubby.

It was an all in all lovely weekend. Work tomorrow. Bring on next weekend!

Holidays

One of the perks of being a teacher is that I get the holidays off which in turn means I get to spend lots of time with the little one. The downside to being a teacher though is that during every holiday, I catch the flu (or a very bad cold). I spent the first week of my holiday in bed with the flu: aches and pains; the chills; a hacking cough and vomiting too. the second week was spent trying to recover. It's almost time to go back to work and I'm still coughing! Getting ill in the holidays is such a pain! I missed seeing one of my oldest friends who was over from Norway (she succumbed to the flu herself); I missed the first couple days of the sales and I didn't get to spend the first week with my son much as we tried to avoid him catching it from me.

All that said though, it's been good to have a break. My son has turned into a right little chatterbox. We still don't understand 80% of what he says but he's so earnest when he talks we pretend to understand him. Sometimes I look at him and I still find it hard to believe I've become a mother. Other times I wonder where time has flown. He's already 2. How did that happen? That's why having the holidays off is great. I work full time and often feel like I'm missing out on so much. This gives me time to spend with him and I enjoy every minute.