Lighting the way

I love Starbucks' nursery worker. It is possibly inappropriate how much i like her. Sometimes i buy them biscuits or chocolate treats to make their tea breaks nicer. A happier worker, makes for a happier child at nursery. That's my theory.

Yesterday when i went to collect Starbucks, (she only goes two days a week while i work) it was only her and her worker, Ludi, in the room. Ludi started at the same time as Starbucks and they grew an instant bond. Its fairly easy to tell that Starbucks is Ludi's favourite baby. She always has lovely anecdotes to share when you collect Starbucks and she is always so excited about any new developments. She is, in fact, so much like Xss and I in the way we play with Starbucks, that she jokes that Starbucks is getting annoyed with her following her around trying to be her friend. Since Starbucks has learnt to run (yep run- i am proud), she is putting this to good use running away from people at inopportune times, and using this skill to create an air of disinterest and disdain for anyone with the slightest interest in being her friend (adults only).

Anyway, yesterday as i collected Starbucks she was trying to write with a pen. Ludi and I joked about what she might be trying to write to tell us and Ludi replied, 'i recon she's writing, Piss Off Ludi'. ahaha. I laughed, but Ludi had to apologise for her inappropriate comment in a childcare setting. This makes me love Ludi more, she is a real person. She truly loves Starbucks and views her as an independent person, with her own views and wishes despite not having a voice.

 

Starbucks practising her drawing skills on the wall. She drew a zigzag. 

Finishing her picture off with an extra straight line. 

 

6/52 Happy? Having someone you like raise your child while they are at nursery.

Toothpaste wars

Every family has their unspoken rules. In ours, it's that you shouldn't start a new toothpaste until ALL of the last one has gone.

 

Sometimes our house is like the three bears. Evidenced by mummy, daddy and baby toothbrushes and toothpastes in our bathroom.

When our toothpaste is feeling decidedly pasty (haha), when all you can feel is tube and not paste, the real competition begins. Who can bend it, push it and manipulate it enough to continue getting toothpaste out. I always lose and end up being the person who late at night has to rummage around in all the packets under the bathroom sink hoping that there is a new tube there somewhere, while planning how to cut the tube open and formulate a lump from the slim remains in order to brush my teeth.

Just lately, i am proud to say, i am winning toothpaste wars. I am winning by proxy. Xss has moved on to the Sensodyne toothpaste behind and abandoned the family Mcleans. If he stays on it long enough I'll be able to get the last toothpaste suck out and i will win.... It'll be just my luck that he will revert back to Mcleans for the last little bit of paste, and I'll lose..... Then again, if he doesn't move back, I'll get the last bit and I'll still have to eventually open a new tube and then I'll lose again.... Worst of all, Xss might not even be aware of these toothpaste wars. He probably just cleans his teeth and doesn't think in toothpaste manipulation tactics. He probably just puts toothpaste on his brush, and brushes. Some people say i am overly competitive.

5/52 Happy? making myself feel like a winner by over complicating minor household events. score. Next week I'll tell you about the competition of how to stack the washing up on the draining board the highest!

In Mourning

Happy has been a challenge to me this week. I thought it might be a challenge when i started, as i very much live in the real world. Its not fluffy, and its not nice. kids get raped by HIV positive gang members everyday (frank, but true). Most days i feel like i am addressing this though (through very minor steps!) but this week just sucked and i did nothing but moan,

The good thing about trying to record 52 weeks of happy however, is that when you are miserable it often highlights just how lucky you are, or were.

This week sucked because i realised i have no friends. And although this is somewhat driven by a teenage-style over dramatic tantrum, it is also somewhat true. I do have numerous great friends, that i am limited in my ability to see. Either they live far away, they also have children so a conversation is nigh on impossible around all the kids, they are dealing with stuff in their own lives.. the list goes on.

This week i realised that my favourite two mummy friends are moving away in September. Coupled with seeing very little of my London-friends-without-kids, i then came to the realisation that i have no friends at work. This adds up to a prospective September of seeing no-one on my two days off with Starbucks, speaking with no-one in my 3 days of work at the office, and seeing no-one in the evenings and weekends, apart from Xss and Starbucks. I'll admit it, i cried.

So where is the silver lining in this moan? Did my tears give the chocolate bar i was comfort indulging in, a salty/sweet combo that could be sold for marketed for millions? No. But it made me realise just how much i loved my old job, especially my colleagues.

Work makes up a huge percentage of your identity. Or i should say, what you do with your day time is a large part of who you are. For 5/7ths of my life before Starbucks i was a worker on a close knit team. I knew what to do, and i enjoyed doing it. When i was in the office i could discuss cases with colleagues if i was stuck, i could have a joke if i was down. I could phone any of them when i was on the street and ask them to look up a phone number or give me directions or guidance. There were numerous lunch time options. Takeaway could be communally ordered. We created games, ongoing jokes, discussed ways to make work better. My manager was my friend. I was good at what i did, and people told me this.

4/52 Happy? Having had the opportunity to work in a brilliant, well organised job with inspiring people who worked for the same goals as myself.

My letter to the camera fixers

Why do people write such boring straight forward things? This is my latest letter to accompany my camera which is being fixed, it's not brilliant and that 'out-there' but much too conversational for us Brits. And if it doesn't raise a smile, i recon at least it will raise a hesitation about calling me to confirm receipt:

Geek Inn
Annoying block of flats with extortionate managing agent fee's
London
SE



Hello.


Please can you fix my camera because it is broken and the men on the phone said to send it in.

When you turn it on sometimes only half the lens cover moves leaving half out obscuring the lens, also there is a black patch on the screen on the back. I am unsure how this has happened- it just appeared one day.

My reference numbers are 276rh and 346628.

Thank you for your help. I hope your office has nice windows that you can look out of and you are not stuck in a dark room like machines.

Please call me if you have any questions (about this enquiry, i do not have a great 'General Knowledge') (although i did learn the other day that ants can wage war on other groups of ants with each ant having a different specific job - only humans can also do this).

Thanks again,

LE Geek
01555-252 1879

3/52 Happy? trying to brighten someones day