The party's over...

The first bit, anyway! Am just about recovering from a weekend of partying. Nicki Gaskin of Select Cakes did us proud with really, really fabulous cakes (and they tasted even better than they looked - went down very well indeed) - the joint one was because archery is a dad-and-son thing, and the 18th one is - well, he's planning a PhD in chemistry so it just had to be a chemistry cake.

And this is the four of us just before our posh dinner party :)

18-50 party prep...

Helium balloons, birthday banners, table confetti and extra cake fountains - tick. So tomorrow is picking up cakes, delivering one to the hotel for our posh dinner party, and shopping for the houseful-of-teenagers bbq/cakefest. Sunday is manic baking. Oh, and I have a deadline :) Good 121 this morning but forgot to press 'stop' on my workout (and the fitbit doesn't want to edit it, sigh). Rough estimate, we're looking at about 520 calories - 6m peak, 31m cardio and the rest fatburn. Righty. I have words to put down and a shopping list to double-check. Have a nice day :)

(Also - new hair...)

M&B #66 sold...

Yesterday was a lovely day (despite exams!) - son had a really lovely birthday. As well as giving him money, we wanted to give him something special to keep for his 18th, and it occurred to me a while back that he'd love the Isle of Lewis chess set. He was really pleased with it. And we had a nice dinner out - he enjoyed ordering his first pint, too. Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes :) Oh, and a bit of news from me - my ed liked the revisions, so book 66 has been accepted. Medical romance - no title yet - and we think probably January next year. (Pandora bead for it will have to wait - I'm up to my eyes in party organising!)

Happy 18th to my eldest!

Happy 18th to Eldest Teen (well - we intend to make it happy, despite the fact that he has his two toughest exam papers today!). He's brought us a lot of joy over the last 18 years and I'm very, very proud of him - he's kind, he's thoughtful, he's bright and he definitely makes the world a better place. This is one of my fave pics of him as a toddler. Happy birthday, Chris, and may the world be your oyster.

Trying something different...

Firstly, huge apologies for neglecting my blog. There just aren't enough hours in the day!

What I'm going to do from today onwards is to post my Facebook status here as well. Frankly, I'm sure that my readers and my editor would all prefer me to produce stories rather than cudgel my brain to come up with something fresh and new for every single bit of social media every day - but apologies in advance if that comes across as being arrogant, uncaring or snotty. It's not. I'm a working mum of teens in the middle of exam season and milestone birthday, there's other family stuff going on which is a major timesuck (let's just say that dealing with care homes isn't a lot of fun, particularly if you end up with one that's not great at communicating), and I need to use my time productively. Beating myself up about social media isn't productive. Neither is whining. Life is what it is. At the moment there's a surfeit of lemons, and I'm making lemon cake as well as lemonade...

So... welcome back to my blog, thank you to everyone who's stuck with me through the neglect, and hopefully from today on I'll be better :)

If you've read my posts on FB, then you'll know that I'm sticking with my goals of the gym - and I have a Fitbit Charge HR to track everything, which I'm enjoying hugely! If you haven't - then here we go!

Mad cardio today on my 121 (aka my ankle has stopped hurting so I can push it again) - 515 cals, 9m peak, 33m cardio and 10m fat burn.

On a countdown to Eldest Teen's 18th, so picked up five rolls of wrapping paper this morning (it's a BIG box!) and something else he doesn't know about (he is worse than I am for working out what the surprises are!).

Spent a lot of time yesterday going through very old photographs for DH's 'Half a century - this is your life' book and I think he's going to be pleased with the result. Righty. I'm on deadline. (This week, I am measuring out my life in deadlines and milestone birthdays...) Coffee, breakfast and GO! (That's your cue to sing MCR's 'Planetary Go' and for Youngest Teen to roll her eyes at me...) Have a nice day :)