I love fashion, I always have. 20 years ago I trained as a designer and pattern cutter and spent 5 years or so in the industry as a designer and buyer.

15 years and three children later and I’m two weeks away from 40. I’m not that bothered by my age, 30 was worse, but I’ve recently found myself stressing over what to wear.

The problem is that in my head I’m only 25 and feel myself drawn towards clothes for the age group. I spend ages in Topshop salivating over dresses, tops and trousers only to find myself miserable after trying them on a realising they aren’t made for middle aged women with post caesarean tummies, bingo wings and droopy boobs!

Yesterday, it all came to a head when I went shopping with two girlfriends of the same age. We were all excited and full of hope about our shopping trip to Solihull. After 4 hours of wandering around the likes of River Island, Topshop, Miss Selfridge and H&M  my friend piped up. ‘I feel old!’ Oh thank god one of us finally admitted it!

So what happens now? We all agreed that we’re not ready for Boden and Wallis, but what is there for ‘young’ 40 year olds.

Despite the three children, I have always tried to look resonably trendy and have never succumbed to tracksuit bottoms and trainers but I had to admit yesterday that I always wear the same black skinny jeans, baggy tops and coloured scarfs and I need a change!!! NOW!!

Please someone, come and give me a fashion makeover.

Tweet This Post

‘MY name is Andrea and my 8 year old still wets the bed!’

We feel like we’ve tried everything. Using night time pull ups, not using pull ups, stopping all drinks after 6pm, no dark drinks, getting him up for a wee, not getting him up for a wee, seeing doctors and health visitors but we are honestly no further forward.

And I’m not talking about a little patch of wet, I’m talking soaked from bottom to top. Even his hair gets a drenching!

Although my OH and I are sympathetic and don’t make a big deal of it, it doesn’t stop his evil older brother teasing him, despite our pleas.

Accompanying the bed wetting, are night terrors. It seems that when he wants to wee he tries to wake himself up but instead has a night terror. We’re talking full blown shouting, crying, sweating, shivering and then remembering absolutely nothing about it.

We do seem to have cracked this though, by leaving his radio on as he falls asleep. It may be a fluke but the night terrors have, for the time being, stopped.

We’re now at a stage where he’s starting to be asked for sleepovers and so far he hasn’t been brave enough to go. Then a couple of weeks ago, I saw a request for parents of bedwetters to try out a new product called ‘UnderJams‘.

I put forward my request and soon received a pack of UnderJams. Made by Pampers they are similar to ‘Dry-nights’ which we have used before.

I am aware that the general advice seems to be, that the bed should be protected and not the child. But trust me….after years of ruined mattresses, disrupted sleep, a distressed child and shares in plastic sheets…..I am more than happy for him to wear night time pull ups. As is he!

Underjams are slim,discreet and when I asked middle son if he would be embarrassed wearing them to a sleep over he said, ‘No, because I could hide them in my bag, put them on in secret under by bottoms and no one would know. Would you know mum?’ And with that he performed a little pirouette!

And no, I couldn’t tell he had them on at all! They didn’t make a crinkly noise, they weren’t bulky and he said they were very comfortable.

Also, if it hadn’t been for UnderJams, I wouldn’t have heard of ERIC or Education and Resources for Childhood Continence.

Pampers are working with ERIC. It has a great website with loads of information, advice and best of all a helpline to call. It also made me realise that we weren’t the only ones and it’s actually a very common problem, especially in boys.

We’re now trying a hypnotherapy CD designed especially for children up to the age of 9 who are still bedwetting. He’s listened to it 4 times now and last night he was dry. So I’m hopeful that with the help of underjams, ERIC and the CD we may at last be getting somewhere.

This blog post can also be read at http://blogs.coventrytelegraph.net/fromdawntillrusk/2010/02/bedwetting-issue.html

Tweet This Post

I’ve spent the first part of January musing over this blog.

I originally started it to help promote my business. The business then took off and became a success despite me blogging, tweeting, viral advertising or anything else that I was doing ‘online’.

Next I started to write about my family and quickly found that there were a whole host of ‘mummy bloggers’ out there writing about their families too. I got involved with that crowd and have read some hilarious blogs and made some great ‘virtual’ friends.

On the back of that, I began to be approached by companies who wanted me to review their products. I chose a couple that I really liked and ended up with a few swanky bits in the house that I love using and enjoyed writing about.

In between all of this, due to a temporary lack of cashflow, (A posh way of saying ‘we were skint’!) I started to write about my frugal cooking tips. This attracted the most attention but then I started to feel like a cooking guru, which I definitely am not!!

All of the above then paved a way for me to be the new resident mummy blogger at the Coventry Evening Telegraph and this is where I began to write about my family again!

All of this has left me feeling that this original blog  is all over the place with no direction, which would explain the recent lack of content.

So, I’ve decided that this blog should be a feeling blog…that is….I’ll write about anything that I feel like writing about! Be it family…business…cooking…reviews. Hold on! Isn’t that what it was all about anyway!

See….it wasn’t confused after all!!

Tweet This Post

At the end of last week a little parcel was left on my doorstep. I don’t know about anyone else, but I love receiving parcels and this time I was even more excited as this was going to form my first ‘proper’ review!

I’d offered to review some toys, or at least get my kids to try them out and then write up their thoughts and opinions.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect other than I’d been told that the product was called ‘PlayMais’ and was like ‘Playdoh but without the colours merging’.

The weekend that it arrived, I had my 7 year old step-daughter staying with me who is incredibly creative and I knew that she would be an ideal candidate to try it out. What I didn’t expect was my middle son wanting to get involved. He’s also 7 and would rather be outside kicking a football than…well….than anything else!

I have to admit that I was surprised by the look of the product as it appeared to be a cross between multicoloured cheesy wotsits and polystyrene packing.  The pack itself came with a small cloth that you make wet and then dab the ends of the coloured pieces onto it so that they are also wet. (Am I explaining this properly?) Once wet the coloured pieces become sticky and ‘Hey Presto!’ stick together like cheesy wotsit building blocks.

At first, the kids couldn’t gauge how much water to use and the pieces quickly became soggy with the colours coming off onto them and their hands. Once they got the amount of water correct, they were sticking the pieces together with no problem.

Once they had been playing for a while I asked them their thoughts. They both agreed that it was incredibly easy to use and was better than normal plasticine or PlayDoh. It wasn’t long before they had created a river scene with boats, sunshine and swimmers in trunks. As you can see from the picture, they did a pretty good job.

My middle son said he couldn’t think of anything that he didn’t like about it and asked if we could get some more!!

Personally I was impressed by the colours which were bright and vibrant and by how sturdy it was once it had been stuck together.

It’s an innovative product and as it’s made from cornstartch once you’ve finished it’s easily recycled.

Overall they loved it, and so did I because it was the quietest they had been in a long time. I would definitely recommend it, the only downside being that once it’s been played with, it can’t be used again.

Tweet This Post

My Other Half introduced me to this last week. He loves anything new and ‘gadgety’ on the ‘net and he’s always showing me stuff, most of which I only have a passing interest in, but I immediately liked the look of this.

I have a ‘Dream Builder’ application attached to my website www.beingamillionaire.com/dreambuilder , and it’s basically a series of pictures that subscribers can pick and choose to create a ‘Dream Album’.

I’ve got some great looking pictures on there and ‘Animoto‘ seemed like the ideal way to showcase some of them.

O.H uploaded a handful of pictures from the ‘Love’ category on dreambuilder, added some basic text, chose some music and Animoto does the rest. You can check out the results here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VycKk_tYBus

Once you’ve created the video, you can leave it on Animoto and direct people there, send it to YouTube or place it on your own site.

Considering that the basic package is free, you can create some fantastic and professional looking content for your site or to upload elsewhere.

Tweet This Post

I’m now on Twitter.
You can follow the expoilts of BeingaMillionaire as well as notification of new blogs!!

Tweet This Post

Ok…so it’s almost Mothers Day.

Now to some It’s probably just hype and another way for card companies to make money!

To me, it’s very important and when you read on you’ll see why.

I have three boys and OK the youngest doesn’t even know what day of the week it is and is only concerened about where the next plate of food is coming from, but the other two on Mothers day they actually do stop and think about all the ’stuff’ that I do for them.

Well, not even all the ‘Stuff’ that I do for them but they take it upon themselves to do ’stuff’ for me and to say ‘Thanks Mum.’

I love the home made cards and attempts at making breakfast and the kisses and hugs that kids don’t always remember to give out. I think it is so important to teach kids to say Thanks and this is one way of doing it so I’m all for Mothers day”!!!

Tweet This Post

It’s so important to be thankful and grateful.

To be thankful for what we have, who we have in our lives and for where we are.

Today I want to say thank you to Sarah from Macmillan support who came to see me at home today to talk about my fundraising campaign.

What a kind, friendly and helpful ‘young mum’ (she’ll know what I mean!)

So who are you going to say ‘thank you’ to?

Andrea.

Tweet This Post

Our tagline at BeingaMillionaire.com is ‘Being a Millionaire, it’s more than having a Million.’

You’ll find it on our website, it’s written throughout our literature and if you’ve ever had an email from me, it’s how I sign off!’

So…my question is….if it’s more than having a Million, then what is ‘IT’?

Ok, I’ll start. ‘It’ for me is feeling good.

‘And what Andrea…’ I hear you say..’makes you feel good?’

This week, I have been feeling good about my new bread maker.

I have been banging on about having one of these for years, so last week I bought one…reduced…of course. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I never pay full price for anything. I also love telling people, whether they want to know or not, how much it cost!!

So…my breadmaker was reduced to £34.00 which to my mind was a bargain!

We unpacked it and placed it in it’s own little spot on the kitchen worktop and promptly and proudly produced our first loaf. Now if any of you out there are building anything at the moment, this loaf would have made an excellent brick! It was horrible and rock hard!!!

So there I was, straight on the internet finding bread recipes. After a week of trial and error I have found the perfect recipe that makes beautiful bread and you can find it here, http://www.carrsbreadmaker.info/recipes/wholemeal_flour.html.

If you’ve got any recipes that you think I’ll like, please post some here or email me on andrea@beingamillionaire.com.

Thanks

Andrea.

Tweet This Post