And now it’s my turn to give some of you an early christmas pressie back.

So without further ado, here are the recipients of the goodies, and I only ask that you email me at nixdminx@live.co.uk to organise posting things to you.

Karaoke Golden Ticket

The Lucky Voice Golden Ticket with two hours free singing in this most glamorous of establishments with cocktails and microphones galore goes to: MummyTips

Uh Oh Oh Oh Oh and the song below turns out to be Crazy in Love by Beyonce!

Super Lush Sweet and Dreamy Box

This gorgeous Sweet and Dreamy Lush briar box of rosy dreams and sugar candy baths will be winging it’s way to Sandy Calico.

Festive Fun: Peter Pan tickets

Two tickets to see the Peter Pan show at the 02 from lastminute.com* will be winging their way to Liz a Living with Kids.

The Simple Human Sinky Caddy & Drainer is going to Gotyourhandsfull.

Tickets to SeaLife
And two tickets to Sea Life – take your pick which one you want to go to – are given to The MadHouse

Transformers DVDs
We have four winners of the of Transformers 2 Revenge of The Fallen DVDs and you are:

Amy at and1moremeansfour

Clarebabble at clareybabble

Vic at Glowstars

and finally Insomniac Mummy

Thanks to again for dropping by. And thanks also goes to Lush, lastminute.com, Simple Human, Lucky Voice and Paramount DVD for their generosity.,

*valid for performances Monday to Thursday before December 17 2009

And so, so glad to escape the glass towers where I had worked. Once a bustling enterprise, it was haunted by glum, grey, despondent suits wailing over share prices and school fees. Ironically they had kept their jobs but with a world gone so crazy in the throes of the credit crunch this oxymoron was quite the norm.
They lived in fear.
I was way past that stage.

Okay – I’m glossing over the bad stuff – there were bills to worry about, friends and family frantic about me not working, self doubt etc etc. but I could not allow this to consume me.

And I have to fess up to luxuriating in all this new found free time and being a full time Mum. All the same, I still kept a semblance of busy-ness to give myself a purpose. I wrote. A lot. For some reason, I felt that this would really help me out of this situation and lead somewhere, exactly where, I wasn’t sure but for the time being, it seemed 150% right.

Dropping Miniminx off to school became a leisurely past time rather than a rabid rush. Walking along the river on the way home, I’d start thinking of what to write. Life as a ‘no hoper’ had such rich pickings, and while it filled the yawning gap left by a career on hold, there was never any shortage of ideas.

Back in the tedious mind-numbing and utterly depressing world of jobhunting the jobs evaporated in front of my eyes. I spent hours trawling the web, calling people, meeting headhunters, writing my CV, following up, rewriting my CV, and uploading my CV to sites. But there was nothing out there for me or anyone else.

And then it was February.

I started to contribute to other blogs; London Mums, Mummo, Mumsrock and was a Mychild top blogger- it was really great fun, and I suppose I was of the moment; a vocal and blogging credit crunch casualty but that was just a sideshow. I’m a Mum, with a daughter, and I was able to share that with other Mums and for the first time felt I was able to discuss Motherhood and feel the empathy.

Then, I found out about a Carnival. I wasn’t quite sure what a Carnival really was – I’m an ex Notting Hill girl so to me it means one thing – a three day bender and a week to recover. But I soon learned it was much more civilised and a round up of blog posts with links to the stories and name checks. This one was to appear on AlphaMummy – the top site for Mums. I was in awe.

I submitted an article.

Well, actually I didn’t, I drafted the email.
Then had a coffee and thought it over.

‘Would it be such a good idea?’ I asked myself. ‘What if anyone reads it?’

I left the email in draft and felt a bit flustered.

‘What have you got to lose?’ I said to myself. ‘Hmmm, um, nothing?’

I pressed send.

Then I dashed upstairs and hid under my bedcovers. I’m serious, I did!

‘What the bloody hell have I done?’ I was cringing.

Gawping at myself in the mirror before heading out the door to pick Miniminx up from school, I splashed my face with coldwater and told myself;

‘Get a grip, it won’t even make it anyway – who’d be interested in me?’

And when I checked AlphaMummy a few days later, it was on there…I had made my first carnival!

It meant a lot and inspired me to keep on going.
For all my bluster, I’d still taken quite a knock and this helped me rise above it.

I began to love carnivals and continued submitting to them, even creating my own Credit Crunchista Carnivale which proved to be quite possibly a bit too tongue in cheek popular (thankfully!).

That’s when I started to really enjoy the whole thing with a passion.

And come to think of it, I never actually stopped working really, did I?

More to follow…

I’m am so chuffed – in fact gobsmacked to be a new entry in the Top of the Pops (well Moms and Pops) – it’s brought back memories of me and my brothers and sisters (six of us, a veritable bratpack) dragging out the dressing up box on a Sunday night, sticking polystyrene cups wrapped in foil on the end of bamboo sticks and glamming up to sing the Top 40 to an audience of two screeching, coughing, choking and (looking back, I hope) laughing parents.

This is obviously a sign of my age – whatever happened to Top of the Pops, 45s (flexi-discs????), chart show run downs and seeing my brother (then 11) drag up in a shiny gold and orange number over his Leeds footie kit? Who knows.

I digress darlings, caught up in the flow of nostalgia, I’m neglecting to mention what has brought this all on. It’s the Tots 100.…

Thank you lovely ladies for this lovely present! I was advised to post this gift in the sidebar, but I don’t know what one is, well I do really, but you lucky buggers bloggers on typepad can do this I can’t on WordPress right now…and I’m a little bit confused too, because looking at the code I can’t enlarge it (if you saw my last post you know I’m not one to undersize my images).

So that’s a drat and double drat from me but I don’t care! I’m gobsmacked-blown-away-cheshire-cat-like-and-have-a-warm-fuzzy-feeling-all-over. And it’s made me think a bit more about my months of blogging.

So what’s the big deal? It’s a huge deal because blogging has become a true essential in my life, it’s an extra pair of hands in parenting.

I began at the very tail end of last year because I’d hit a big wall and been quite seriously credit crunched – a new job had sadly evaporated almost as the world economy crashed and burned and I was left facing January 2009 with apparently no hope. So there I was wondering where to go, what to do and how to keep busy and out of trouble.

Hmmm, oh well, I thought. Perhaps a blog would help keep me sane. So I started to write, a bit gingerly at first, a real scaredy cat, but then I got hooked. I had no expectations, I didn’t think anyone would even read it.

But guess what – it has kept me out of trouble, sane at times and even better, some lovely people have even taken the time to read it and speak to me. Wow!

I kid you not, if I was a psychologist, I would recommend it as therapy.

Blogging has been really given the thumbs down by a lot of people ‘in the know’ in the media, such as Janet Street Porter here slagging off all us child-laden saddoes who have a reason to live,  but they don’t understand the real reasons why people blog. It’s rather like the time when paste up designers refused to learn DTP. Failure to embrace the future means it will reject you. I’ve always loved Janet Street Porter’s work but I think this time she is wrong. I can’t wait for Janet Street Porter to start twittering and feel the noise – come on rise to the challenge!

Anway, back to those of us back at the ranch who put the kids off to bed and sound off in the 2.0-scope. Why oh why do we venture into this new and unknown territory? Perhaps it’s very much like parenting and we are all curious and want to hear about other people’s experiences. Well if you don’t, I certainly do, and I hear these reasons from blogging parentsall the time about why they do ;

1. Catharsis
What a great place to indulge that need to let out niggles, worries, wants, whatever it is in our lives, it’s better out than in!

2. A diary
I believe bloggers are journal writers. The most beautiful thing I ever read on a blog was that these blogs are ‘love letters to our children’ – so whoever wrote that, I’m sorry I can’t remember where I read it, but it is the most poignant and touching belief and a beautiful thing to define, so thank you…

3. A discipline
Blogging is a way of keeping addled minds on the straight and narrow – be it sleepless nights, unemployment, separation, forthcoming nuptials, long haul flights, ex-pat living, we all need to verbalise it, albeit online. Apparently, poetry helps to fend off depression, I truly believe that blogging has the same effect.

4. Connecting
I never in my wildest dreams ever thought that blogging would enrich my life the way it has. I’ve met interesting people, read great stories, had amazing conversations and feel that the other bloggers I connect with are interested people with a common goal – it’s not about business or self aggrandisement, we’re raising the next generation and all of us in very different circumstances but it’s a great new playing field we’re on and so much fun to boot. But that aside, it’s affirmed my Motherhood, flippant as I may be, being a single parent is no easy road but through blogging it seems easier.

So, while I’m still agog, and possibly sounding a little twee, I have to raise a toast (be it sliced brown Hovis or champagne) to all those others who have created this extraordinary new cultural phenomen. Here’s my shout out here (or rather post-bedtime whisper) and a big thank you to all of you who in the first instance reached out to me and gave me that little nudge, that kind comment and more than occasionally a huge laugh and also left me reaching for the tissues to either stem the eye watering laughter or the honesty of a bad experience that made me cry. I may not know you all so well but I just want to thank you for being there, that’s all

Violetposy
A Modern Mother
Rosie Scribble
Potty Diaries
Jo Beaufoix
Dulwich Divorcee
MTFF
Alpha Mummy
I promise That I will Do My Best
Single Parent Dad

PS: I don’t take saccharine. I’m giving you all a cup of builders’ tea with two heaped spoons of Tate & Lyle, enjoy! Btw, tagging maybe a bit scraggy, sorry all x

Take the time Miniminx had a school trip to the beach. With bucket and spade, wearing her very cute stetsun sunhat, carrying a bag with a swimming costume and all the associated beach paraphernalia, we walked to school. She actually skipped and sang ‘The sun had got his hat on.’ all the way. Lovely.

We arrived a bit early and bumped into the head master.

‘Good morning’ big cheesey grins all round.
‘Hello’
‘Do you know where the coach is?’
‘Ummmm, coach? What coach…?’
‘For the trip today, the one for year 3.’
‘Ooooh, the trip.’ at this point I knew something was up
‘It’s next week’ Shit, shit, shit, what an idiot.

I covered my mouth with my hand and feigned coughing as a foil to the hysterical laughter I needed to quell. Two big blue eyes look up at me, one very cute mouth pouts and trembles. Cue big blobby sobs from Miniminx. Cue me cringeing all day at work. Two years later we can laugh about it together (I still laugh about it alone…what a meannie).

And then last month, we got back from Ibiza at midnight with Elizabethan Dress up Day at school in the morning. I got up early and made a paper ruff and dressed Miniminx in her garb. We got to school a few minutes late and had a peek into her classroom.
28 kids in white shirts and grey skirts sat on the carpet looking at the teacher.
Oh bugger….Miniminx gave me a silent howl and cue big blobby sobs.
Double bugger.

‘Ssssssh, they’ll hear you, let’s sneak out and get you home and changed.’

We ran home, I rang the school.

‘There’s no dress up day today, nothing in the diary sorry’

Confounded, I got her back into her uniform and then we hightailed it back to school. We got to the classroom and discovered that it actually was dress up day and the kids were getting changed after lunch. We had that instant Mother-daughter telepathy, locked eyes and shook our heads – the uniform was staying on for the rest of the day! I walked home for a medicinal coffee or four after two hours of behaving like a headless chicken – at least I didn’t have a job to go to.

And now, I’m back in the world of work. It’s a change and days are much more regimented. I woke up this morning to the alarm and got up after another cheeky few minutes sleep. I woke up little sleepyhead Miniminx and started the usual prework pick and pack malarky – lunch box, healthy snack, drinks, swim kit etc. Then I checked the time on my phone – surely it was nearing 8am. It was 6.20am. An extra 100 minutes were a bonus, so I decided (yes, very Doris Day of me) to do some baking. Raspberry and blackberry wheatfree muffins for breakfast and some flapjack for the lunchbox.
I even took a packed lunch to work for myself.
I even managed to get Miniminx in the bath and hairwashed BEFORE school.
With everything shipshape and ahoy, I booked a cab and we were out the door heading to school and Miniminx was ready to rock and roll at breakfast club.

We walked across the sunny playground, we smiled, we chatted. Miniminx waved at her friend. She stopped walking and looked at her friend again who was looking over at us curiously. Then she looked down. And so did I.

The horror.
FLIP FLOPS!!!
FOUR FLIPPING FLIP FLOPS!!!!

We had both forgotten to put shoes on.

Miniminx became hysterical. I mean big sobbing blobs of tears all over my new dress, she was mortified.

‘I’m – wear – ing – flip -flops ! MUMMMMMMMMMMMM’
‘Whoopsy daisy, how did that happen?’
‘I CAN’T GO IN TO SCHOOL LIKE THIS!!!’
‘Darling, it’s too late to go home and change,’
‘I have to go home now’
‘Can’t you wear your PE shoes’
‘I don’t have them at schooooooooooooool’
‘Darling, it’s a genuine mistake, no one will tell you off.’

Into breakfast club we went – it’s like Ministry of Sound in the good old days, but for under 10s – but the poor little thing was inconsolable. We chatted, she calmed down and we said good bye.

I left the playground under a cloud and sporting a tear-stain pattern on my new dress. Shit.

When I picked her up, I asked how she’d got on with the flip flops and she told me she had borrowed someone else’s shoes and a pair of socks and it was all fine in the end.

There were lots of ladies wearing flip flops in the office today. I sat down at my new desk, I looked down at my feet, without a trace of smugness, thinking flip flip, flop flop…where’s the coffee, I’ve done a day’s work already.

Being out of work is any oxymoron – I’m am actually working very hard to get a job even though the KPIs below amount to failure. Maybe I should just do nothing…and wait

A year ago this would have been an adventure and I would have had  five or so face to face interviews by now and maybe two serious offers on the table but it’s no longer a job seekers’ market.

My efforts are not to be sniffed at, I haven’t succumbed to daytime TV and microwave lunches just quite yet but hey ho, it goes like this;

Hours spent trawling the web for jobs = 280

Registrations on job sites = 6

Paid subscriptions to job sites = 1

Recruiter meetings = 5

CV submissions = 15

CV re-edits = 6

CV rejections = 2

Non acknowledgment of CV submissions = 4

Jobs that have evaporated due to the credit crunch before I even put a foot through the door = 2

Job interviews = 0

Interviews that are still in the pipeline = 2

Oh, I know it looks really bad on paper. But it only takes one job to come up trumps doesn’t it?

There’s a massive flipside to unemployment (apart from lie ins, daytime drinking, no commutes etc.)  It is not have to spend time with people you just wouldn’t hang out with under any other circumstances.  Workmates are just heinous at times – all that gnashing of teeth, loose eyes in head and frothing of the mouth, and that’s just me.

I know they don’t mean it but there’s loads of plain old crap that you suffer daily in the corporate office environment that you just wouldn’t bloody tolerate don’t get at home (unless you’re in Downing Street or the Whitehouse)…and there’s a lot to be said for swapping the at-work-alpha for the out-of-work-omega status.

Zero is the new hero for me as I realise that my work angst is nil.

Here goes, all those jaw clenching petty things that I no longer have to put up with;

1. The silent farters – you know who you are! – 0
2. ‘Does my life amount to this moments’ = 0
3. ‘URGENT’ work calls during home/sick/holiday/weekend-time = 0
4. ‘Are you REALLY sick?’ phone calls from unconcerned revenue/deadline driven colleagues = 0
5. Snide, snitchy, backbiting comments from septic single work ‘mates’ = 0
6. The ‘I found your idea and made it mine so I get a promotion and you don’t’ = 0
7. Unwelcome advances from drunken executives at work functions = 0
8. The ‘Sorry mate but I dumped you in it on a Friday night at 5pm – I’m off for a stag weekend’ = 0
9. Infuriating, desk sharing nose-picking, nail-biting toetappers = 0
10. Smokers who come back to their desks humming with the smell of fags/frantic Nicorette guzzling
    addicts = 0
11. ‘Oops I just shared that drunken photo of you to 2,000 people’, can I recall the email? = 0
12. The ‘I’m going to make you look SOOOO bad’ triple cc emails chasing you for a deadline you ‘supposedly’ missed but the cow colleague has just not read your email from three days ago
13. Snickering gimps on instant message who NEVER turn off the high pitched alert
14. Four word emails on crackberrys
15. The ‘I know you’re on holiday but if you’re reading emails, can you just ….’

But the thing is, these are the things things that make the world go round in working life, so now I’ve had a break, let me at ‘em!

I’m taking it easy today and will be lolloping on the sofa as I did a major work out with my personal trainer yesterday, he may be fit but I look more like this at the gym…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qXWCm3X7qg&hl=en&fs=1]

I got a bit of a knock back today. I’ve been rejected at first stage for a freelance job (that means on sight of CV in my world) because I’m not relevant. Well, that’s a bit of lie actually, I’m just being melodramatic…other people are more relevant apparently. From what I gather, there are just too many candidates around for too few jobs. I did the old peashooter/moon trick again yesterday (that’s what I call uploading your CV to apply for a corporate job…see here). I’m spending my days following up on job options and there’s nothing at my level around, I’m overqualified for what’s out there or too restricted by the commute. I simply refuse to spend three hours commuting and missing out on seeing my wonderful Miniminx.

As usual at this time of day, when I’ve exhausted the usual avenues of searching for work, I’m left wondering what I’m going to do. I need some inspiration as I feel like I’m going round in circles at the moment. Do I just start up my own business and dump the career and do my own thing?
Or do I just tough out the next few months? I’ve got some options up my sleeve at least but for now I’m going to get creative again and finish my collage…it could be a good career move!

On days like these, this is the song that always lifts my spirits – INNER CITY BLUES, MARVIN GAYE – I found it on youtube…go on, have a listen, I might just have to play it again, it’s just brilliant, the lyrics resonate completely with our times even though the track was released in 1971

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPH3xNkHFhE&hl=en&fs=1]