Our Week #4

I've been a bit of a rubbish blogger the past couple of weeks, I know. The last few weeks have been a bit busy as I was finishing work and needed to get everything sorted before I left, so I didn't have much time for blogging, or indeed much else! I didn't even get to take that many pictures!

Anyway I am now off work for 7 whole months! It still feels a bit weird and I am yet to get used to it, although I am aware I won't be 'off' as such once the baby arrives!

So here is a rather belated Our Week from last week:

Monday - A work day. This was the day I just got up and I knew I had to finish work this week. Luckily my boss is very understanding with pregnant women and said it was absolutely fine for me to finish on Friday. This meant that the rest of the week would be spent in a mad dash to get everything done on time.

Tuesday- Thursday - I won't even bore you with. They were pretty uneventful, busy days at work, tying up loose ends and getting sorted.

Friday - I finished work for Maternity Leave! yey!! Very exciting. It was a very strange feeling, leaving work, knowing I won't be back until September. I felt like a fraud and I don't know why. Anyway, hubby had had a bad day so we decided to go for a drink after work (we work in the same school), so we went to our local little pub on the marina. I, of course, had a celebratory coke, but hubby had something a little stronger! We picked up the step daughter for the night and also decided to pick up take away as no one could be bothered to cook. We came home and all took bets about who would win Celebrity Big Brother. Yes I know, bad parenting to encourage betting at 8 years old... I said that I wouldn't get into Celeb BB again this year, but when I saw Rylan was on it I had to watch it. I think he is fab and I was chuffed he won.

Saturday - Hubby and i had planned to stay in all day and not move as we were both so, so tired. However, I decided I wanted a new draining board for the kitchen and I had seen a cake mixer that I fancied. So after the step daughter was picked up we nipped out to a place called 'Shoprite Living.' On the Isle of Man, Shoprite is our local supermarket (we do also have Tesco and the Co-Op). It stocks a funny range of brands, from Waitrose to Iceland! It's a bit bizarre, but it's the local's choice of Supermarket. Anyway, they have a home store called Shoprite Living, which, again, is a mixed range of brands but is generally what in the UK would be a Wilkinson store. It's quite an excitement to visit it really, which you might think odd, but if you lived here you would understand, trust me!
Anyway, I had my heart set on one of those cross shaped draining boards (like this one) but they didn't have one :( but I did find a red washing up bowl that I was pretty excited about and I got my kitchen mixer! Very exciting I know! I came back and ordered a draining board from Amazon instead.

Sunday - Hubby wanted to watch football for most of the day, so that gave me some free time to nip out to somewhere I have mentioned here before, called Tynwald Mills. It's not like a mill shop you'd get in the UK. In fact, it's hard to describe. It's a home and clothing centre. It stocks Denby, Cath Kidston, White Stuff, Phase Eight, French Connection, Laura Ashley, Apricot, The White Company, Barber, Superdry, Le Cruset, Emma Bridgewater etc. Hopefully you get the picture? Anyway, I had a Cath Kidston bag that I wanted to exchange, so I nipped there and swapped the bag. I picked up a lovely spring coloured one that I was very pleased with!
After that, hubby had taken all the glasses out of the cupboard to be sorted through and to be rearranged, so I washed them all and then put them back in the cupboard - some people are calling this nesting! But it had been on my list of jobs for quite some time!
The snow finally melted this weekend as well, which we were all pleased about, even though it had looked so pretty.
After all this I just lazed around with hubby for the rest of the afternoon and then settled down to watch our favourite programme, The Hotel on Sunday night.

So all in all, we had a really nice weekend and it was sooo nice going to bed Sunday night knowing that I didn't have to set my alarm for the following morning!

Beauty haul

I'm having a bad week clothes wise. I am now at that very tricky in between stage of pregnancy where my bump is big enough for people to notice that I'm not just becoming a chunky monkey but not yet big enough to fit in maternity jeans without them getting all bunched up and looking silly. I found out today that I can probably say goodbye to trousers until at least March. This was even wearing a bump band (which, by the way, I don't like - I think I may have bought a size too large, thinking I would grow into it by the end of pregnancy, but it rolls up and looks ridiculous). I also bought a pair of Emma Jane maternity tights. It was the biggest waste of £10 I have ever made! Awful things, bloody uncomfortable and I ended up with the crotch at my knees at one point (one significant point whilst in the Co-op!). I am just uncomfortable in anything except pyjamas and leggings. As you know, I am a teacher and it's really difficult to get away with pyjamas at school. Leggings are OK to a degree, but I only have one pair  in black (have dispatched the mother to Primark today to get me some more - the Isle of Man has NO Primark, can you believe) so I can't wear them everyday unless I want to exude some delightful body odour type smells. Saying that, I have just realised I teach teenagers (well I already knew that bit) so I could probably get away with it....

Anyway, I've spent quite a bit of time (and money) online this week on maternity dresses and tunics and so I am eagerly anticipating their arrival in the desperate hope that some of them fit me and they are comfortable.

So, as I can't buy clothes with the same type of pleasure I used to, I have turned to beauty products to fill the gap. Over the weekend I came across quite a few blogs written by women who are or have recently been pregnant. They were all full of wonderful tips and hints and lots of 'real' stories about pregnancy and I have spent most nights since then ignoring the hubby as I eagerly read everything (and I mean everything) that they have to say.

Unfortunately, my skin hasn't been the best the past few weeks; I am certainly not feeling the so called pregnancy 'glow' and one particular blogger (who you can find here and I encourage you to read her blog as it is fab!) was talking about a facial scrub that they thought was fab after pregnancy so I popped to Boots after work today as I needed a few other bits anyway and I got a bit carried away. I love a good beauty product. I used to subscribe to Glossybox and loved the excitement of all the little products that came through the post each month. But I cancelled it when I found out I was pregnant. I thought £12.95 every month on things that, in all honesty, I don't really get around to using, was getting a bit excessive.

So here is what I managed to casually 'pick up' in Boots and Superdrug this evening:

Now, I can't claim that any of these products actually work yet as I haven't tried them, besides the facial scrub and so far so good with that, but they made me happy buying them and the hubby would be impressed (if I actually told him I had bought things) as there were lots of offers on in Boots and I managed to get some bargains!

So first up is the Neutrogena Pink Grapefruit Daily Scrub. Charlotte from Write Like No One's Watching recommended this on her blog and my skin has been rubbish lately, so I thought I would give it a go. 

Next up is the Carmex cherry flavoured lip balm. I've heard lots of good things about Carmex lip balms, so I am expecting good things from this. I may be disappointed. The smell is divine anyhow and I am looking forward to using it. 

Next is a product that I have never used before, but I love the brand - MUA from Superdrug. Dead cheap and supposedly pretty good, or so I've been told. This product is supposed to be multi-functional. It's called a 3 in 1 extreme contour pen. Now I don't actually know what this means but I am going to use it as an eye-liner. The the colour is lovely, it's called Auburn and I think it will look lovely with the eyeshadow I bought to match it. At £1.50, if it's rubbish then it doesn't matter.

Next up is the MUA eyeshadow palette. The picture below doesn't really do it justice, it's a browny beige set that appears to have hints of metallic or glitter in it. Again, will look great with the 'contour pen.'

Then, we have another product that Charlotte recommended to me last night on Twitter. I haven't tried this yet, but the colour is fab and it looked really good in the pic that Charlotte put up.

This nail varnish by Barry M is called Raspberry and I have been wearing it for years, well since it came out... It's very autumnal and not too red so I look like a tart. Boots had an offer of buy one get one half price on Barry M so this was only £1.49 as the one above was £3.99.  Bargain.

Finally, I picked up two lipsticks, again from the MUA range in Superdrug. I have a had a few of these in the past and the colours are always really nice but they can be a bit dry. I use A LOT of Vaseline so this isn't a problem for me as I just put it over the top of the lipstick. I got shade 1 and shade 8.

So, all in all a successful little after work trip! I only spent £20, which, for the amount of things I got, I think is pretty good. I will update you another time as to how successful they have actually been though!

Have you got any beauty product recommendations for a pregnant woman?!

mummystartingout x