Going Green. And Grey.

Happy New Year! Hope you all had fun on NYE. Me and mr pickledweasel watched The Turn of The Screw, shared a bottle of red, and were in bed by 11pm :) We've never been much into NYE, it's always seemed a bit of an anticlimax. The new year had still arrived when we woke up the next morning, so I'm guessing we didn't miss much.

On New Year's Day we went to watch the Whitworth Duck Race in stupidly cold weather. We didn't stay until the bitter end because it was just too cold, but we saw the winner cross the line. 800 plastic ducks floating down a weir is truly a sight to behold. Here's Munchkin and mr pickledweasel in the hats I made them for Christmas, trying not to look like they've lost the feeling in their faces because it's -1.

So on to the inevitable resolutions. I'm always really wary of making a big long list of things because I'm often unrealistic about what I can achieve and end up feeling despondent by November because I haven't done have the stuff I wanted to do.

So I've decided on a theme - green. I'm going to try and do my bit for the environment, because I've seen far too many tv programmes in the last month about how we're messing up the world and it scares the bejeezus out of me. They're tiny little resolutions, but hopefully they'll add up to making a bit of a difference. I'm not going to bore you by listing them all here, but I might write the odd post about how my efforts are going as the year progresses.

The other thing I'm going to work at is me. Not as in some massive personality overhaul or extreme diet or anything, but just at being more comfortable with myself. And confident! Gah, if only you could buy confidence in a bottle. Staying at home with Munchkin is good fun, but it has properly wibbled my sense of self. I'm still not really sure who I am any more, whereas I had quite a strong sense of identity before popping a puppy.

So there are little things I'm going to do to try and help. It's not about getting the old me back, because I'm not that 'me' anymore, but it's about relaxing a little and accepting who I am now. The first thing is to stop dyeing my hair. After munchkin was born I had a colour put through it to help me feel a bit more glam, and then as the colour grew out I noticed how much grey I had and so I started to dye it on a regular basis. But it's a faff, and it's very bad for my hair (which has become horribly thin and weak - oh the joys of motherhood!), and it's lots of nasty chemicals too. I'm going to grow grey gracefully :)

Munchkin is going through the lovely imitation phase of play, where she copies everything I do. As I was standing in front of my mirror a couple of weeks ago, slapping on a full face of make-up after having straightened my hair, I could see her watching me as she was sitting on the bed. I started to think about the example I'm setting her. I don't want her to grow up thinking that this is what women have to do every day before the leave the house in the morning. I don't want her to see grey hair as something to be disguised. It's normal! It's just society that says it's not. So here's my beautiful grey roots in all their glory. I'm hoping I won't end up like my Dad, who had a full head of white hair by the time he was 40...