Polly's Subtitled & Chaotic

Referring back to yesterday's post my apparent schizophrenic dress sense has its issues. While sensible, hard wearing boyish clothing is needed for all sides of scouting, I can hardly be expected to do my chores or even tend to the garden in clothing that'll be needed for the weekend's activities so that leads to the need for different practical clothing. Interviews, functions, weddings, good days, bad days, you name it. They all require different uniforms.

Take all of the above and multiply them by four and you have a bad case of CHAOS! To the recipe add the fact that I'm a hoarder and am still finding bits that can be given to the two year old next door, the fact that I've changed size several times over the past 10yrs and the boys and my partner have grown through several sizes too and it gets worse.

Storage has always been a problem. I don't have built in wardrobes rather two singles and a supposed double wardrobe designed for persons of the Edwardian era. I don't have chests of drawers, rather three overhead lockers, two drawers, a set of four drawers and those tiny drawers in bedside cabinets. All in all I've a problem. Yep, I also have mice in the airing cupboard/hotpress! They come in every winter and we've been trying to stop them for the past seventeen years...

You'd think that as a scout I'd be able to put a stop to the winter invasion, afterall, I'm supposed to be resourceful, aren't I? I've got my ultrasonic device, mousetraps, and poison (most successful at killing) but they still come in by the dozen. We've sealed off any visible holes, used hard board and expanding foam and still they manage it!

Hopefully this year won't see them adding to the CHAOS which is on its way to being much reduced as I'm working on my hot-spots, swishing & swiping, decluttering and organising despite the madness which surrounds me. LB was kind enough to errect my latest pine shelving. Destined to replace the dexion shelving in my shed, they have remained in the hall for a couple of weeks now. Rather than whinge about how people won't help me, I simply used them as a storage place for my towels. This has turned out to be quite a success with members of my family actually replacing towels in the bathroom if muggins here forgets!

At this stage in my life I've got to admit to being slightly mad. I must be to live in such a chaotic household with a family who appear to think I'll do whatever if they don't. Recently I took a couple of days off, to recover from slaving myself into an early whatever. The result? A somewhat cluttered and untidy kitchen! And?

Yes! The guys had to clear it away. Loading the dishwasher after unloading it appears to be beyond them all. Only on Saturday having worked from 8am till 9.30pm with about an hour off for lunch I sat and watched the subtitled Young Inspector Montalbano - such hard work, I think not!

Polly's Got A Shoe Competition...

Well, I've been away for a few days, not in real life but here on the blog! After a ridiculously long disappearing act I promised myself and anyone daft enough to want to read my posts that it wouldn't happen again...

So, I've been hellishly busy with admin work for my Scout Group. After a short summer holiday we're due back this evening. I've been e-mailing registration & group application forms to parents in the hope that they'll print them down and return them this evening completed. Hopefully they'll do exactly that and the usual chaos of the first night back will be reduced dramatically.

I've also lost my mobile phone. Or should I say I left it at my Assistant Cub Leader's house after a brief planning meeting. I also left my reading glasses and my wallet, in fact the whole of my handbag and its contents! What an inconvenience. It would only be a twenty mile round trip to collect it, but I'm sorry guys in this day and age there's no chance of that happening when I'll be meeting up with her again tonight.

I've been like a man without arms since I mislaid the blessed thing. I've been forced to clear my desk off so I could send webtexts and e-mails to the parents and other members of the scout group, my family and the Offaly Dyslexia Group. Oh, and I've also been suffering with my body again! This time it's principly my back, but it's been bad enough to prevent me from attending meetings and having to make my feeble apologies...

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now just to lighten the mood I've just entered a competition and so can you! It's a fantastic prize and if you enter it and don't particularly like your prize I won't object in the slightest if you give it to me!!! Yes, ladies it's a pair of shoes! Not any old shoes though, it's a pair of Claremont 1930's Vintage Oxfords... (aren't they to die for?)

Would you like a closer look? So would I, so please think of me when you enter the competition as these shoes are well and truly my style. When I'm not busy being a scout or slouching around in jeans I love to dress nicely, preferably wearing shoes which are similar to these...

Actually, my dress style is somewhat schizophrenic as I'm a great advocate of comfort. I often dress purely for comfort which means there is little evidence of style, one way or the other it's more a case of dressing down rather than up. However, if the occasion requires or I feel like it I'm just as likely to appear fully made up and dressed nicely but comfortably!

I love it when people take a second look at the other side of my dress sense. The shock in their voices and the fact that it makes me feel like a million dollars, it's so gratifying. It's comical, to say the least. When I'm not wearing a pair of jeans or hike trousers I can usually be found wearing styles which may be current, but take their inspiration from vintage fashions.

Be the eighties, seventies or forties I love to 'dress up' as you can tell from this St Patrick's Day Parade photo...