little white truths

Geez it was an awful night. My room was somehow full of mosquitoes so every time I tried to sleep, one would come whining towards my head and I'd be socking myself in the face before turning the lights on and trying to find it to kill it. 

I'm tired. We're having people over today for Christmas Eve. My daughter has been in the world's worst mood for the last couple of weeks and my son has bacterial conjunctivitis. Again.

Bah humbug.

Sound like a good day to rustle up some positives. Wish me luck ; )

We're going to be eating leftovers for weeks

One of the things I do like about Christmas is the amount of food we always wind up with. Sure, that's always been a good thing, but ever since having kids my cooking hasn't been quite as inventive or frequent as it once was, so the fridge is usually full of one-pot meals because that's the easiest way to make sure that everyone's eating well without me having to think about it too much.

But then Christmas comes around and we cook for Christmas Eve (which we always host) and Mum does Christmas Day, and there's always so much food leftover that the fridge starts to look interesting again. I know that won't be a huge thing for some, but life with young kids can be seriously monotonous so any change feels like big change and it makes a difference, believe me.

I'm pumped for Pan that Palette 2018

I know there are those who don't understand the thrill of panning projects - I mean why would you want to make yourself use the same things every day and leave the rest of your collection to gather dust? - but there are also a lot of us who just can't get enough of them. I'm in that camp.

Every year I look forward to working out which products I'm going to pan and how I'm going to do it, and for some reason Pan that Palette 2018 might just be my most exciting panning project to date.

As you may know, I'm focusing on my Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush Palette, a Burberry eye quad and a bunch of shades from one of my custom palettes, and I'm excited about the blush palette especially because Hourglass is my favourite brand and I can't think of anything better than panning an Hourglass product because I never tire of them.

Also, my custom palette is already showing good progress on some shades so I know that I'll be finishing a few shadows early in the game, which means I'll be able to recharge my palette like I did last year, just to keep things interesting.

Can't wait.

I'm about to announce a skincare spending ban

I've done a spending ban before (for both makeup and skincare) that was meant to last a year and I did ten months so I was super happy with that. After doing it, I vowed to never let my collection get too out of hand again because I didn't want to do another one!

But this year, my skincare stores have gone rather bananas and while I know that I can get through everything before it expires, I'll need to stop bringing any more in until I've made a dent in it or otherwise I'll get myself into hot water.

I realised yesterday that I haven't bought any skincare this month - unlike me, because there's almost always something I run out of and don't have a back-up for, even if it's just sunscreen - so I thought, why not just extend that to say six months and then reassess at the beginning of June?

So that's what I'm going to do. I'm no a skincare no buy until June (I'll do a separate post on that shortly) and I can't buy anything until then, unless I run out of something essential like body cream. Bring it.

I just got the email about our 20 year reunion

Yep, that's right. As of next year, I'll have left school 20 years ago. Yikes! While of course receiving the email about our upcoming reunion made me feel about a thousand years old, I'm still kinda looking forward to going. There'll be people there that I haven't seen for years and I reckon it'll be fun see them.

I guess the difference these days as compared to days of yore is that, thanks to Facebook, I already know what most people are doing with their lives. I know who has kids, who still lives in Australia and who doesn't. So in many ways that cuts out the small talk because we all already know that stuff about each other, and cutting out small talk can only be a good thing. Bloody hate small talk.

Looking forward.

My daughter starts 3yo kinder in January

As you may know, our kids don't do full days in childcare. Both of them started out with two half-days (so five hours, between 7.30am and 12.30pm) each week when they were around one year old, then my daughter went up to three half-days when she turned two.

While I've preferred to do this because we can - I work from home and can squeeze my work into mornings and weekends - it's also meant that we haven't had the longer breaks that many people have because these days a lot of mums return to work in offices and need the full days off.

But as of mid-Jan, my daughter will be starting full days at her new kindergarten so she'll be there from 8am until 6pm three days a week. The change is needed, believe me. Yes I'll still have my son doing half-days, but one child is easier than two. Plus it will be good for my daughter because she's getting bored and needs more stimulation, so it's a good thing all around.

Yay.

In sum

That's all from me! I hope you enjoyed this little post and that you've got plenty of your own positives for the month.

It's always a crazy busy time of year and I think it can be hard for a lot of us to hold on to our sanity, but at least January's coming and January is always a sleepy month: so many people are away and there's less traffic, less people in Chemist Warehouse, less to do overall.

Hope all's well with you, and speak soon x

* All images courtesy of unsplash.com