A Little Happiness Every Day

The world can seem such a miserable place sometimes and we don't always appreciate the little things that make us happy. A year ago I planned to write a blog about the little things that made me happy every day. At the time I was 8 months pregnant and had no idea how much time my daughter would take up. But now, a year later I'm ready to start and have every excuse to be happy. I also want to take the lead from my daughter. She had a rough start - being allergic to milk and soya she had severe reflux, bring up acid, burning her throat, mouth and even my thumb if she sucked it. Yet between each acid attack, after minutes of screaming and crying she smiled. She always tries to smile. Now, I no longer eat anything with milk or soya in she smiles all the time. I think we can learn from my daughter. Even when things seem really bad, there is still happiness in the world. Together, you, me and my daughter, I hope we can all bring just a little more happiness to everyone else. Oh - and the banner image on this blog is my 'Happy Place'. If I am ever feeling anxious, down or unhappy I remember this beautiful tranquil place in Bolivia. We were the only people there, me and my husband, and the memory still brings a tear to my eye. We just stood there for over an hour in awe at the beauty of it all. As to who am I? I am a mum to one gorgeous little girl, wife to an amazing husband and an aspiring board game designer. I think that just about covers it all :)

[dravvin]

I'm Back 

I’m Back 

I’ve not written a post in quite a while. Almost 7 months in fact. Unfortunately last summer I became quite ill with a late diagnosis of appendicitis resulting in I comparison along with a lengthy hospital stay. Recovery has been a long process and I just didn’t have the energy to write but I think it’s about time to start again.

Even in bad times there are good moments. My lasting good memory of…

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[dravvin]

In the sky before the sun

Today I got up earlier than usual. I had a plane to catch. Today I’ll visiting the Netherlands and Belgium then back home to the UK almost in time for dinner!

Amelie slept pretty well last night for a change (just 1 brief wakeup) so when my alarm went at 5am I want feeling to tired. 

My flight was at 6.55am so no time to hang around. As I walked outside the sky was beautifully clear, the crescent…

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[dravvin]

Gaming Fun with Brexit

Gaming Fun with Brexit

Tonight several friends that we hadn’t seen in a while came round for dinner and (enforced) games. They may not admit it, but I think they enjoyed most of the games we played.

Some of you may or may not be aware of a game called Dixit. Essentially, you have a hand of cards with interesting/beautiful/weird art and you need to give a clue that’s good enough for someone to guess which card is yours,…

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[dravvin]

Hard to Be Happy

Hard to Be Happy

I know this is a blog about ‘happiness’ but today I’m just finding it so hard to feel happy. I live in the UK and have obviously been following the repercussions of Brexit with some interest. And by ‘following’ I mean feeling depressed, heart broken, scared, ashamed, upset, cheated and defeated. I have never felt this way about an election before, and I doubt I will ever again.

It’s hard to be…

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[dravvin]

Pulling Together

I put up a post on Facebook today letting my friends know that my daughter would be dressing up as Super Girl on Tuesday in aid of charity. Tommy’s is a charity which supports parents who have had a miscarriage and also does scientific research into them. Given our struggle to get Amelie, we felt that this was a charity  that is high appropriate for us to support.

Within minutes of putting my…

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[dravvin]

Team Work

Yesterday and today I’ve been working on a big proposal at work. We misread the date  which meant we had 3 day less time than we thought! Oops!

Today was the deadline and we had 5 proposals to get out. Having only just finished another big proposal on Friday there wasn’t much time to pull this one together, but we did! We seamlessly fell into different roles, writing, editing, reviewing, updating…

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[dravvin]

Hug

Today my daughter learnt the sign for ‘hug’. My husband has been signing to her throughout the day for few weeks now and she’s been picking it up pretty well, learning about a sign a week. So far she’s learnt ‘more/again’, ‘nappy’ and now ‘hug’.

After getting in late from work today I had to see a demonstration. I asked her for a hug and instantly she signed. This has got to be the cutest sign…

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[dravvin]

Father's Day

Father’s Day

Today was my husband’s first (proper) father’s day. I day proper as the lucky fellow for a card last year too even though I was still pregnant.

Whilst he was still in bed I got up and brought through one of his presents and have our to our daughter to give it to him. She took a little encouragement as the present looked interesting.

Here I need to give a bit of history. In the 2+ years we were…

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[dravvin]

Little Birdy

Today was my first day of working from home. Given that I got back so late from Paris the previous night it was good to be able to take it easy today.

The sun was shining and I sat in the lounge with my daughter crawling around and playing with her toys whilst I worked on some documents. 

A little later I had a teleco and as I sat there I saw a starling washing itself in the neighbours bird…

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[dravvin]

Beautiful Morning

I went to Paris for the day today. To get there in time I had to catch a 7am plane from my local airport which meant getting up at 5am.

A year ago I would have winced at the thought of such an early time, but since my daughter insists on a feed at around this time every morning and I often struggle to get back to sleep before my alarm at 6.30am, 5am is no longer a stranger to me.

On cue, my…

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[dravvin]

Morning Treat

Each morning my husband brings my daughter to the front door and they wave me off to work. All the way along the path, until I get into the car. It’s become a morning ritual and I love it! It set the day off to a good start.

To get to the main road I have to drive past our house, almost going round in a circle. Every morning I check the house to see if I can gain a final glimpse before I start…

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[dravvin]

Too Scary?

Yes. This post is about my daughter again but this will hopefully make you laugh – even though it made her cry!

My daughter’s favourite book at the moment is Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy. It’s about a little scruffy black dog that goes on an adventure into town with his friends and meets a nasty big Tom cat. Obviously the Tom cat beats off all the dogs (including the rather large mastiff)…

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[dravvin]

Nappy Dilema

When I started the blog I promised myself that I wouldn’t write about my daughter every day, but today I just can’t help it. As a first time parent hopefully you’ll forgive me writing about her again!

This morning when I was changing my daughters nappy, she went from being really happy to crying in an instant. This was a unusual for her, there’s normally slightly more of a gradual shift but I…

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[dravvin]

The Gift of Memories

The Gift of Memories

Today I got a phone call from my gran. Well my gran-in-law, but I don’t have any grans now so she’s essentially my gran.

She’s not been well recently. She’s had a fall and hurt her neck which has made her feel really low as she’s been in a lot of pain. I normally send her up photos of her great grand daughter each month as she lives so far away. Unfortunately, I’ve had some technical difficulties…

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[dravvin]

Sleeping Baby

Our daughter has been a bit of a nightmare to get to sleep this week, but tonight she fell asleep on my lap. I transferred her up to bed, deciding to leave her nappy until she was in a much deeper sleep. This meant if I woke her it would be much easier to get her back to sleep again, plus I had a board game to play! (Alien Frontiers if you’re interested).

A couple of hours later I went up to find…

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[dravvin]

A Long Time Coming

A Long Time Coming

Today the company I work for had a celebration. This week we received a massive order. Bigger than our turnover for the past 10 years in a single blow – the company has finally made it! Although I’ve not been there long, I feel really proud to be here at this major milestone.

So today we all went out for lunch to celebrate. Everyone was made to feel part of the team and it was good to get…

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[dravvin]

Little Things

The office at work today was hot. Very hot! There’s no air conditioning in the office which isn’t great in hot weather but does have the bonus that the office is never too cold (I feel the cold). However, with the still air outside today, even opening all the windows in the building meant that the air inside was still, hot and stuffy. The temperature reached a toasty and stifling 27 C!

Then,…

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