The work Christmas Party

The following blog post is the true story.  It may well be the most cringey christmas party story you ever hear (or read about)...

Okay, this isn't actually me - this is Scarlett Johansson.

It was that time of year again - staff Christmas Party time of year.  My boyfriend (who I later married) worked for an advertising agency who always put on fancy shindigs at Christmas time.  I was looking forward to it - I hadn't met most of his colleagues at this stage so though this would be a good opportunity.

The function was to be held at one of Christchurch's best restaurants at the time (Michaels).  It all started out beautifully.  I dressed rather demurely, and I was on my best behaviour.  I rather nervously met his workmates, had a small glass of wine and we started to eat.

I am not sure exactly when things started going 'off-track'.  I think it may have been after the main meal, when the bubbly was brought out.  I do remember it was expensive champagne, and I do enjoy expensive champagne.  Somehow I managed to polish off most of the bottle on my own, and then ordered two more bottles...
At this stage the CEO's personal assistant asked me to stop drinking and to stop ordering $100 bottles of wine.  I made a remark about how she should let her hair down, and them commented that she was actually sporting a rather unfetching mullet hairdo.

The toilets at the restaurant became out of order (this had nothing to do with me) and we had to cross the road and use the toilets at the bar across the street.  Whilst I was visiting the ladies room I ran into an old acquaintance, also very drunk.  This friend was a lesbian, who really looked like a lesbian, who has always had a crush on me.  So she joined us over at the restaurant.  I personally have always been used to her advances and never really think anything of it.  However all of my boyfriends colleagues seemed to think the fact that I had an over-friendly lesbian hanging off me was shocking.

At this stage I am sure you are thinking - what more could I do to make a dick of myself?  Plenty.

I discovered that our waitress wanted to get into advertising, so I introduced her to a couple of the managers (who at this stage were 'close friends') and wouldn't let them off the hook until they had actually scheduled interviews into their diaries for her.


About this time in the evening I was getting on famously with the CEO himself.  Well, at least I thought so.  I was playing the bongo drums on his head and then using it as an armrest....Well.  It wasn't my fault he was the size of Danny Devito was it?  Really short men are just asking for trouble around a very drunk me.


I then decided I was far to cool for this party and these people so me and my lesbian mate buggered off to a club to dance the night away.

***home, crash-out, wake up sometime the next day***

My boyfriend is sitting up in bed next to me.  Not happy.  It took a wee while before the memory flashes began...
No, surely I wasn't using your boss's head as a bongo drum?
What? I spent how much on the bar tab?
The lesbian?

It was rather amazing. He forgave me almost immediately.

I on the other had, didn't attend another one of his work functions for an entire year.  When it came around to the next Christmas party, I was more nervous than last time.  It was at the same place.  Everyone, restaurant staff and all the colleagues remembered me.  Even the new staff members had heard about me.

It was all good however - the waitress was now working for the company!

Be Natural Cereal Review

I would like to clarify that I was recently asked to review this product.  I was not paid to do this.  All opinions are mine, and are honest.


I was recently asked to review the Be Natural range of breakfast cereal.  I am a big cereal eater.  I eat cereal everyday for breakfast.  And as a breastfeeding mother, I eat a LOT.  I like a breakfast to be healthy, tasty and I like it to fill me up for a decent amount of time.

I was sent three flavours of cereal - Pink Lady Apple & Flame Raisin (RRP $6.49); Cashew, Almond, Hazlenut & Coconut(RRP $6.49); 5 Whole Grain Flakes(RRP $4.99).



I was impressed with the cereals.  They 'ticked all the boxes' so to speak.  My favourite was the Pink Lady Apple & Flame Raisin.  It had the Grain Flakes, and then lots of 'bits' - apple, raisins and these little 'clusters' of yumminess.  My second favourite was the Cashew, Almond, Hazlenut & Coconut.  I really enjoyed the nuts in the cereal.  I thought the 5 Whole Grain Flakes was a bit boring to be honest.  But I jazzed it up with some sliced bananas.

There are no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives in any of the cereals.

Honestly, I would probably buy both the Pink Lady Apple & Flame Raisin, and the Cashew, Almond, Hazlenut & Coconut flavours at the supermarket.  They were really tasty.  And I didn't need my second breakfast for about 3 hours after I ate, which is good.

My love affair with Twitter

I love words.  I love to write.  I love to read.


I am also a bit of a stickler for spelling and punctuation.  I have recently began to appreciate the Oxford Comma.  Until I saw this cartoon, I had always thought it to be unnecessary.  But not anymore.

However, I digress.

Despite my preference for correct English, I must admit that I love Twitter.  I love to tweet, and I would check my Twitter timeline a few times most days.  It used to drive me a bit crazy when I would come up with an unusually clever tweet, and once it was completed I would have -2 characters.  So somehow I would have to make my clever tweet 2 characters shorter.  What do I do?  Commit a grammatical error?  Or a spelling one?  Do I change my tweet to make it slightly less clever?

Ahh, the woes of a modern day writer.  I know. Cry me a river.

I have, however, had to just get the hell over it.  So what?  A spelling error.  A missing full stop - nevermind.

I realised what I love about Twitter is the freedom.  Yeah, sure, you have the 140 character limit per tweet.  But I can say whatever I want.  I long ago made a rule that I do not allow people I know from real life to follow me.  That way, I can tweet about my family and friends.  I can moan.  I can vent about situations I want to keep secret.  I can get advice.

The strangest thing about Twitter for me is that I have actually made and developed friendships with people. Unlike facebook, where I would never accept a stranger as a friend, with Twitter all of my followers are strangers.  I might send out a tweet, I may get a reply, a conversation can develop.  I would say that I have made four real actual friends on twitter (none of which I have actually met though), and three of those people are now facebook friends.

I also think that as I don't have to worry about offending anyone on Twitter, as they are all strangers and they can unfollow me with the click of a button if they don't like what I have to say, then I can just say whatever I am thinking and feeling.  I often feel like the 'Twitter-me' is the real me.  I feel like I can truly be myself.  Geez, is that sad? I don't know.  Maybe I am just lucky that I have found such an outlet.  I wouldn't say that I pretend in front of my real-life family and friends, I guess they just get the version of me that I think they would like.  Where I omit to tell them certain things.  Or bullshit them a bit.  With Twitter I don't need to do that.

I'll do it my way

Parenting.  Who would have thought it would be such a minefield of opinions and advice.  The right way and the wrong way.  My way and your way.

I think it would be fair to say I am not a 'mainstream' type of mother.  I believe in gentle parenting, attachment parenting, and basically treating my children as actual real people, rather than some burden in my life.  Since the moment I told people that I was having a baby, I have been inundated with advice. Some of it good, and some of it bad.  The best piece of advice came from a man I worked with who said "Don't listen to anyone - just do it your way".

I started to get a bit upset with certain well-meaning people in my life (my mother, grandmother and auntie included), who would try and tell me that 'crying is good for your baby's lungs', 'he is playing you like a fiddle', 'you need to leave him to cry, or he'll never go to sleep', and so on.  I would get annoyed with them, and they with me.  I started to really think about this.

It is simple really - they are just telling me to do what they did, and they did these things because they were told to do it.  And they did these things because they loved their children and wanted what was best for them.  Twenty, thirty, and especially sixty years ago there was no internet, there was no easy access to 'alternative' parenting information.  All mothers were given the same set of advice, and told to follow it.  It would have been very difficult to go against this advice, if everyone you encountered in society was doing it the same way (and it was doctors orders).

My mother has actually come around - she has seen the research on the damage that 'crying it out' can do, to both mother and baby.

So now, when I hear "Back in my day, we did....", I won't take it badly, I will try not to be offended, I will just try to understand that they are saying it out of love and care.  They are giving me the only information that they know, the information that was drummed into them, which was the best way for their precious children.  I will try and be understanding that they may be deeply hurt if I try to tell them that new discoveries about babies brains have been made since their children were young, and the very things they did out of love for their children could very well have caused damage.  I think I will just smile and nod, say thanks.