Resolve to resolve - my New Year's resolution

This year I simply resolve to resolve.

I'm not going to list a load of healthy, positive, success-oriented resolutions, which I will break within the first seven days of the new year.

No.

I'm simply going to resolve one thing. I will keep to what I promise to do.

In doing this, I make myself a rather large challenge. To actually define and decide on the right things for me. Not just a random list of things that 'should' be on my list for 2010, but a small, focussed selection of things that I actually want to do and therefore have half a chance of resolving.

Hmm... this is going to take some serious thought.

No time to dress... no time to impress

It's been one heck of a month. The Busy Girls Guide has been going from strength to strength and I seem to have developed a real capacity for multi-tasking.

I am now capable of putting the washing on, filling and setting off the dishwasher, hoovering the downstairs, feeding the dogs, making tea and breakfast and replying to my most pressing emails - all before 9am.

I'm not, however, capable of getting dressed during this time. Something's got to give...

As if he was aware of the intensity of my household duties, Himself seemed to be helping me out. I was upstairs drying my hair this morning and I heard the hoover going on downstairs.

"Wow!" I thought, "He's actually doing some cleaning for me, bless him!"

I stood for a while, listening to the soothing sounds of someone else cleaning up. I even chastised myself slightly for feeling so annoyed that he never did anything - how he was proving me wrong.

I crept downstairs, cheerfully practising my "Wow! Thank you darling!" expression.

As I turned the corner, my "cheerful, grateful' smile, immediately dropped into a "how bl**dy typical" frown...

There he was, sat in the middle of the room, lovingly hoovering his computer.

I heard it on the grapevine...

Yes, you heard it right BusyGirl.

BusyGirlsGuide.co.uk is coming back, bigger and better than ever. We'll be relaunching the new site at the beginning of October 2009... yey!

Although, that does although that does of course mean less lie-ins, coffee mornings and general lazing around for me...

Busy's good, don't get me wrong, but when I do get a chance to laze around, boy can I be a slob!

So, I'll be giving you the inside information on our progress over the next few weeks. If you'd like to be kept up to date with the new site launch, (and be available for all the fab giveaways and goodies we'll have ready for you) then simply sign up as a BusyGirl on the current site, or email us at readers@busygirlsguide.co.uk and we'll make sure you're one of the first to know!

Am off to make a cup of tea, and put my feet up, those few paragraphs have taken it out of me...

Eva x

www.busygirlsguide.co.uk - new site coming very soon! x

Pack it in

Wow! So the sun came out for the first time in what has seemed like months (what I mean is the sun and some heat came out at the same time) and I burst into action.

Typical Busy Girls style I managed to walk the dogs, go for a bike ride, ride the dogs around the block with the bike, weed and tidy the garden, make a Sunday Roast with all the trimmings, write a business proposal that has been bugging me all week and hoover the whole house.

It's 6pm and I've done a couple of days' worth of activities in one!

What a difference the sunshine makes... xx

why so bloomin' miserable?

As I did my weekly post office / chemist / milk purchase pootle around the local village this afternoon (I'm not eighty, just live like an eighty-year-old obviously), I couldn't help but notice how flippin' miserable everyone is.

The lady in front of me couldn't have cracked a smile should her life have depended on it... the corners of her lips were so down-turned that I nearly reached out and poked her face to see if it was stuck.

She may well have had a very bad day, but the poor man behind the counter didn't need to receive an onslaught of negative vibes just because she was unhappy!

So, to combat her negative ions, in a kind of crazy energy super-hero way, I bombarded the post office man with smiles, kindly looks, chuckles and giggles and wished him all the best.

Probably thought I was flirting with him... he was twice my age, plus some. Oh well!

Why not spread some happiness today Busy Girl? God knows no one else is bothering!

Ella xx

Very cunning...

Popped into the Trafford Centre for lunch with a friend at the weekend. On my way out I thought I have a quick squizz around the shops (would be rude not to), and stopped off at my old favourite TopShop - next to HMV.

I was delighted to lay my hands on some lovely bits - a gorgeous cobalt blue tshirt dress (only £35), a stunning blue party dress (only £30?!) and a rich yellow t-shirt dress. I couldn't believe only ten minutes in and I'd found 3 perfect items.

It was then that the confusion set in... what does DP stand for? Dorothy... "why have they got Dorothy Perkins stuff in TopShop?", "I never go to Dorothy Perkins, it's too old fashioned?!?"

It was only then I realised that about a month ago, TopShop had moved to the other side of the Trafford Centre and Dorothy Perkins must have taken their old store on. More to the point, they had totally copied TopShop's store layout and branding.

Well - that's really opened my eyes. I was blind to Dotty P's before this (too old, too dull, etc) - I'd become a convert - purely by thinking I was in TopShop

So I guess I'm saying get yourself down to Dorothy Perkins Busy Girl!

Ella xxx

Give in or get up

Somedays it's just so hard to get out of bed... I can honestly say that lying in bed on a cold winter's morning is so lovely, so comfy that I really can't tear myself away.

Yet I'm surrounded by people who need very little sleep - only 4 to 5 hours a night, some of them. I simply can't understand it - unless I have my full 8 hours I'm absolutely useless, yawning at 2pm and asleep in front of the TV at 8pm!

This morning really was a case of 'get up or give in'... could I get away with a day in bed? Not really. What would I say I'd been doing all day? I literally had to convince myself that getting up was the best option. How lazy?!

I haven't spent a whole say in bed since I was a University Fresher.

That's it you see. The truth is, too much of a good thing is bad for you, even lying in bed gets boring after a while.

Only 16 hours and I can do it all again...

Ella xxx