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Island Living 365

A year ago today……

January 5, 2017

 

Cast your mind back, what were you doing this time last year? You were probably knee-deep in Quality Street wrappers and quietly weeping for the extra tyre you were carrying. What was I doing (apart from wading through Quality Street wrappers and prodding at my spare tyre in disgust)?

 

Was I –

 

  • Meeting up with Ryan Gosling to tell him face to face that his declarations of love for me needed to stop? That it was getting embarrassing as I am a happily married woman with children? NOPE. Although, I hasten to add that I am happily married with children.

 

  • Penning my satirical guide to parenting – (titled –  All of the wine)? A guide that would be declared by Times magazine to be – “an honest and refreshing guide to parenting that has never been seen before. This woman is a genius”? Nope.

 

  • Was I designing a new gadget that would earn me billions and cause me to be hailed by parents everywhere “their saviour”? Nope.

 

What I was actually doing –

 

I was staring at the yawning year that was ahead, cursing the never-ending rain and eating all of the left-over mince pies. It was as I munched through my third mince-pie that I decided to do something. Since becoming a stay-at-home mum I have found it to be both rewarding and brilliant. I consider myself very lucky in that I am able to be a stay-at-home mum who is able to take and pick the girls up from school. However, I also find being a stay-at-home mum mind-numbingly boring at times. I love them but spending nearly all of your time with two mini-dictators can take its toll. You start to lose yourself. You find yourself telling your husband v-e-r-y  s-l-o-w-l-y to eat his midget trees. Someone asks you your name and you call yourself – “Youngest’s Mummy”. This made me realise that I had to change something NOW before I started wasting away from “Mumuenza”

 

 

Mumuenza – a common affliction that affects stay-at-home mums. One of several strains, also see Mumzombie that affects working mums.

 

Signs and symptoms of Mumuenza

 

Mumuenza can creep up gradually and often take hold before the mum or their family has realised. Common symptoms include:

 

  • Carrying around a Mary Poppins bag that weighs three tons and carries everything but the kitchen sink and then not having the one thing that you need

 

  • Talking really slowly and patronisingly in a sing-song voice

 

  • Dabbing at everything and everyone with a hanky

 

  • Obsession with anti-bac hand gel

 

  • Calling everyone sweetie-pie

 

  • Calling vegetables and fish by different names – mini trees for broccoli and tuna becomes the swimming chicken

 

  • Knowing the grading system for poop

 

  • Leaving cold cups of tea everywhere

 

  • Looking frazzled and dazed

 

  • Forgetting your own name and birthday

 

Treatment of Mumuenza

 

Place the mum in a warm bath with a glass of wine and a good magazine. Leave for one hour.

 

I had decided that I had an extreme case of Mumuenza and one bath was not going to sort it. Therefore, a year ago today I started writing this blog and overnight I became a multi-millionaire and secured several book deals.

 

No, that would be a lie.

 

But, I did start writing this blog. This is not going to be another gushing post about how amazing blogging is (although I do have a love/hate relationship with it), nor am I going to share all that I have learnt with you because to be honest I haven’t learnt a lot. I am, however, going to say thank you for reading me and thank you for the emails and comments. That has been rather lovely. I have had some very cool things happen as a result of my blog. Thanks to my blog I can now say that I am an award winner – huzzah! However, I have also learnt that winning an award might be lovely but it really doesn’t change anything. My blog has enabled me to raise money, talk about challenging subjects and to connect with people worldwide. When I started this blog no-one I knew in “real” life knew about this blog. One year later and lots of people in my “real” life know about my blog, including my family and some of Mr C’s family. You would think that this would make me think twice about what I choose to share and for a while I did worry about offending friends and family but then my Mum gave me a good talking to and told me to “carry on writing as you are, that is what makes you – YOU. Just write as if no-one is reading” Wise woman, she might now regret it after I chose to write about my bikini line (very tongue in cheek, I am not really a Chewbacca) and decided to tell everyone how Dad had made Mum village gossip.

 

Thank you all for reading. Cheers xx

 

Me with a glass of champage in my hand, pointing at it

 

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Filed Under: General, Musings

  1. Anna says

    January 5, 2017 at 9:38 pm

    Congratulations on your anniversary! Your blog is one of the ones that encouraged me to start blogging from an island at the other end of the country. Well, I’ve just published my first two posts so I guess I can say I have a blog?

    • Emma @ Island Living 365 says

      January 5, 2017 at 9:44 pm

      Thank you for your lovely comment and congratulations on starting your blog. Very exciting! I will head over for a read xxx

  2. Bridie By The Sea says

    January 5, 2017 at 11:49 pm

    Aww happy anniversary Emma – you’ve achieved so much in a year and we all love your blog! Can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2017 😉 xxx

  3. Donna Parker says

    January 7, 2017 at 12:15 am

    Congrats on your blog anniversary – cheers and to many, many more years! 🙂
    This really had me thinking, what was I doing a year ago today….hmmm.
    Dropped by from #FridayFrolics but I’m always glad to drop by here.
    Hope this weekend treats you kindly.

  4. Sarah - Mum & Mor says

    January 7, 2017 at 8:57 pm

    A huge congratulations to you! You have achieved so much in such little time, Emma. I’m astounded. I love reading your blog and feel you’re going to move on up. You really are a blogger to keep a watch of.

  5. Mummy Muckups (Anna) says

    January 12, 2017 at 9:35 pm

    I would totally buy a book called…”All the wine.” And I regularly suffer from mumuenza; just cannot kick it most days. Amen for blogs. They should be prescribed. Happy blogiversary. #fridayfrolics

  6. Turning Up In Devon says

    January 12, 2017 at 10:25 pm

    Huge congratulations to you on your birthday blog which encompasses great humour with proper grown up stuff and definitely comes under ‘class’ on my mental list of blogs. I really liked Mouse Moo and Me Too’s write up on you in her recent blogs to read in 2017 post – very apt! Here’s to another year of class (and some stuff about your Mum – she rocks!) x #fridayfrolics

  7. kristin mccarthy says

    January 12, 2017 at 11:55 pm

    Brilliant! I’ve suffered from this illness as well.

    #fridayfrolics

  8. Nicole - Tales from Mamaville says

    January 13, 2017 at 12:51 am

    Such a lovely, heartfelt post. Here’s to many more successful blogging years!
    PS: Love the term Mumuenza. I definitely suffer from it!!!
    #FridayFrolics

  9. Rach says

    January 13, 2017 at 7:29 am

    Great post. And great blog too. I love the look of your blog (and of course the content too). You have a great one here and you should be very proud.
    A year ago today I was making excuses about why I shouldn’t diet. Not too dissimilar from what I’m doing today funnily enough.
    #fridayfrolics

  10. jenny walters says

    January 13, 2017 at 10:10 am

    Congrats on your anniversary and doing so fabulously!I’m a newbie but loving it still.Love the fact that you keep your integrity. #FridayFrolics

  11. Helen says

    January 13, 2017 at 10:30 am

    Swimming chicken- that’s one I’m using haha! I genuinely thought you’d been doing this a lot longer, congratulations. A year ago today I was probably waddling around the park stuffing my face with pineapple or bouncing for hours on end trying to pop out a baby! #FridayFrolics

  12. Helen says

    January 13, 2017 at 10:30 am

    Swimming chicken- that’s one I’m using haha! I genuinely thought you’d been doing this a lot longer, congratulations. A year ago today I was probably waddling around the park stuffing my face with pineapple or bouncing for hours on end trying to pop out a baby! #FridayFrolics

  13. Claire - Life, Love and Dirty Dishes says

    January 13, 2017 at 12:07 pm

    Happy blog birthday Emma. But what I really want to know is has it cured the mumneisa? I think mine is getting worse!!! #FridayFrolics

  14. Mama Zen says

    January 13, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    Haha brilliant. I fear there is no cure for Mumuenza? I’ve had it for five years!!

  15. Nyomi says

    January 13, 2017 at 7:47 pm

    Happy one year anniversary. I love your blog, well done on everything you have achieved so far. You should be very proud. I started not long after you did, my anniversary is the very end of this month. Can’t wait to see what you do in year 2!

  16. Ashley says

    January 13, 2017 at 10:42 pm

    Congrats on your “birthday”! 😉 This post actually made wonder how long I’ve been writing mine. I just looked and holy crap it’s been over 2 years! I originally started this so my own mom (who lives quite far away) had easy access to pictures and the everyday happenings of the Terrorists. I didn’t really expect anyone else to read it…had I expected readers I might have toned down my colorful language. By the time I realized my mom was sharing the posts far and wide I was 6 months into F-bombs and decided it was too late to worry. I actually had no idea how cathartic it would end up being. The kids are getting older and not as funny as often, so I may need to find a hobby in order to get more material.

    Keep the posts coming! They’re great!
    #FridayFrolics

  17. WebMDiva says

    January 16, 2017 at 1:09 pm

    LOL! I’ve been suffering from this for way too long!

    I love that despite the “real world” knows about your blog, that you stay true to you. Here’s to your continued blogging success! XO

  18. Silly Mummy says

    January 19, 2017 at 4:11 pm

    Ooh happy blog birthday! Your blog’s done so well in just a year! Also, I have mumuenza, but will soon be contracting mum zombie instead (hopefully)! #FridayFrolics

Back to Blog

Hi, I’m Emma

Mum to two girls and wife to Mr C.
We used to live in wild and wonderful Yorkshire on the edge of the moors. We have now moved to the rather lovely and sunny Jersey, Channel Islands. Read about our adventures here.

Thank you

“BiBs

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