My second favourite F word...guilty pleasures and pretentiously awful people doing fabulous things.

So I've got a confession to make. This is beyond embarrassing, but in the interests of full disclosure, here we go:

I've started watching #RichKids of Beverly Hills. And I can't stop.

Feel free to hurl abuse here. It's deserved. Completely. I might cry but that's my cross to bear.

I think I must have been really bored one weekend, or comatose, or whatever, because even I know how wrong this is on any and every level, especially for someone my age who really should know better. Heck, a 10 year old would know better than to indulge in this crap, but there you are.

Anyhoo, it's even worse than the title. It's hideous, pretentious and stupid, filled with some of the most un-endearing, spoiled characters you'd ever hope to (not) meet, ie. horrible people doing fabulous things. Like the Kardashians on crack, who nonsensically  impart such UN tongue-in-cheek wisdom as:

'My arms aren't really long enough for a selfie sometimes'

'Walking from Barneys up Rodeo is cardio'

'My occupation is being funemployed and fabuluxe'

'When Saachi spilled sangria on my marigold yellow velvet Chanel boy bag and satin Charlotte Olympia shoes, I kind of freaked out initially'

and my favourite (after viewing yet another selfie):

'Do I look this bitchy in real life?'

Why yes. Yes you do.

Watching these spoilt  Bev princesses hit NYC was one of the funniest things, you can clearly see that everyone in NYC thinks they're provincial little hicks while they swan around in their own (self-perceived) fabulosity. Hilarious.

I think the only saving grace of this show is Morgan, one of the main characters, who is the only one who is seemingly in on the joke. She seems completely aware of how ridiculous she is and seems to deliberately revel in the hideousness, coming out with gems such as:

'I will literally check Instagram four times in a row and then be like, I’ve seen all these pictures, it’s awkward, I should probably call somebody or do something with my life'

Morgan's singular claim to fame is her blog 'Boobs and Loubs' which I must admit I haven't yet read, but sounds pretty self explanatory. She outright admitted that she barely updates it anymore (it's pretty hard to find the time between spin classes and pressuring her boyfriend to propose) but then turns around and throws a $25,000 party to re-launch the blog.

Yes, you read that right.

I'm so ashamed that I've gotten hooked into this drivel. I mean, there's the Real Housewives, there's The Bachelor, and then there's this.

I've hit a new low.

What's your guilty secret?

Happy Friday, y'all!

Bec xx

Numb butts and dead brains. It must be Thursday.

So I'm soldiering on after a mammoth week starting with driving a few hours to collect # 1 son on Monday (more on that later) followed by a 2 day conference where I came out feeling brain dead and with a totally numb butt....

So I am an assistant and so by nature spend much of my time in an office sitting at a desk, so the abundant sitting (which can clearly be evidenced by the size of my ass) usually isn't a problem. So what's the diff, right? Well my wonderful, amazing, fabulous boss has given me a gazillion dollar Eames leather office chair which seriously is like a piece of heaven and akin to sitting on a wonderfully suspended, swivelling cloud...

Even the most comfy conference chair is clearly going to rate poorly in comparison and I must say I am so happy to have my butt back in the matter to which it has been accustomed.

I have just realised that my first post in like a bazillion years has so far focused on my ass. Oh dear.

Moving on...

So # 1 son went to Sydney for an extended weekend with my stepmother, stepsister and fam, and a cast of other thousands from their side of the family. The purpose was to go see the Lion King at the theatre and well, why not spend some time exploring Sydney too? This was pretty wonderful for a number of reasons, ie. # 1 son hasn't been to Sydney or in a plane for that matter for years so that he barely remembers it. Plus he gets to have an adventure and I get some peace and quiet! Haha.

Anyhoo, because my parents live in Tenterfield, about 3 or so hours away, we tend to meet halfway to do swapovers (I must admit we do feel like battling exes doing the kid swapover in the Maccas carpark at Warwick, but at least we do get out of the car, and you know, exchange words and stuff).

Hence the driving. I think I've probably said before that I'm not the world's biggest fan of driving.It sounds stupid but I really started to effing hate driving when living in Brisbane and dealing with stupid traffic whose singular purpose seemed to be how quickly it could make my blood boil. The more I drove, the more I started to seriously despise every car and every idiot in every car on the road. So whilst I developed an equal hatred for public transport, it was for totally different reasons and at least my blood pressure thanked me for making the switch.

Toowoomba traffic is kinda an oxymoron, so driving isn't nearly as heinous here so I've learned to tolerate it to an extent. I still would much rather have a personal driver at my beck and call but it's OK.

Still not a fan of driving more than a 10 minute distance though, which works pretty well usually as nothing in Toowoomba is really more than 10 minutes away.

I have just re-read this entire post and apologise in advance for either being offensive or dull. If I had the choice, I'd rather be offensive because there's just no excuse for dull.

So anyhoo, completely different topic...50's Housewife has turned me onto The Real Housewives and recommended I begin with New York City or New Jersey. As I can't even tolerate looking at pictures of the one who really needs to laser some of the hair off her forehead, I decided to go with NYC. Another obvious reason I that I am still having a potent and passionately raging love affair with NYC and any excuse to see images of Manhattan is OK by me.

So totally years behind, I get this, but how awful is this rift with Bethenny/Jill and how hideous are alien-eyes Ramona, the manly, permatanned Kelly and The Countess (or Dis-Count or Countess as I prefer). It's a sad state of affairs indeed when the desperate social climber and most hated from Season 1 (Alex) suddenly becomes the voice of reason. I feel quite robbed actually, that the producers made us love the devilish Bethenny/Jill combo and then suddenly you realise that both of them kinda suck.

I am persevering but it is getting difficult as I really have gone from watching in a slightly amused 'who the hell do these completely un-self aware twits think they are' fashion to really quite hating the whole entitled, horrible pretentious bunch of them.

Damn you 50s housewife. And damn you producers for creating such a car wreck of a show where I am finding it difficult to simply just look away.

And don't even get me started on The Bachelor. Or Couples Therapy. Let's just not go there.

So here's to numb butts and dead brains and junk food tv. It must be Thursday.

Bec xx

Bizarre Monday's and bad hair days. And outsourcing.

Happy Monday all!!!

What a weird day. I've had the funniest and most bizarre morning in the history of working as an assistant, and I'm so sad that I really can't tell you about it or else I'll probably get fired!

Suffice it to say, in future when a rather forgetful someone from my work texts me late Sunday to drop by their house to collect something for work because they're not coming in...I'll be sure to call ahead. Enough said (no I didn't catch them naked and/or in a compromising position) No really, enough said.

One day, when I'm retired from the assistant biz,  I'm gonna write a book about being an assistant and I can guarantee it will be a gut-buster and a bestseller. I think I've previously mentioned about helping my boss unload his rifles, yeah? Well it only gets better. My book will probably be the antithesis to The Devil Wears Prada though, as through some excellent selection processes on my part, I've been fortunate to not have had a boss from hell (at least never for long), however I have been known to attract some seriously...um...eccentric...characters in my time.

I wonder what that says about me?

I love my job though and it is the variety that keeps it interesting.

So #firstworldproblem of the day: I may need to rethink what I put in my handbag seeing as when driving one of the company vehicles earlier today, the car kept demanding that I put the seatbelt on my 'passenger'. Oh dear. It would make an excellent set of my own version of brass knuckles, however, should anyone ever decide that I'm a prime mugging suspect.

Look out.

Now onto something that I simply cannot NOT comment on, because, let's face it, every single human being on the planet is going, 'crap, I wish I'd thought about it first'.

So a highly paid software developer has been busted for outsourcing his own job to China at a fraction of his salary...FOR YEARS.

Quote of the day:

'Quarter after quarter, his performance review noted him as the best developer in the building'

Brilliant.

I would have been more impressed if he'd someone managed to wangle a work-from-home arrangement as quite frankly, his daily schedule seems mind-numbingly boring but otherwise...hat's off fella.

See the hilarious story here http://www.news.com.au/business/worklife/software-developer-busted-for-outsourcing-own-job-to-china/story-e6frfm9r-1226556262107

Sorry, for some reason my 'links' button, nor my 'open brackets' key on my keyboard appear to be working today so a full copy/paste jobbie is in order instead.

Sadly for me, I haven't managed to sublet my own job yet, and despite my current boss' eccentricities, I do believe he may work out sooner rather than later should he wind up dictating to an entirely different person at some stage. Maybe.

So I have to say that despite the 'interesting' morning I've had today it's been really, really hard to get going today. I didn't sleep very well for no reason whatsoever, I spilled breakfast AND coffee down my white shirt before even making it to work - hence a reason why I wear white like about once a year - and I'm having a bad hair day.

I tried this new shampoo and conditioner, some Nioxin stuff I got on special at Hairhouse Warehouse, which is super expensive usually and supposed to be like this miracle stuff that will sprout me Miranda Kerr hair in no time - as long as it gives me the face, body and husband as well, then a worthwhile investment - but sadly my initial report is even whilst blowdrying my hair felt really sticky and just yuck. I've been reading today on the internet - a completely productive use of my time - that you need to shampoo for 60 seconds minimum so I'm thinking maybe I didn't do it for long enough so I'll give it another go. I've yanked it into a dodgy ponytail today just so hopefully people don't notice that I look pretty darn crappy.

Speaking of not looking crappy, and I'll be writing a whole post on this sometime this week, but I'm staring down the barrel of my 40th birthday - September - and watching my friends succumb to the curse one by one. I think it's forcing the mid-life crisis and one of those things in the firing line is my skin. For years I had wonderful skin however when hitting my early 30s, my skin decided to rebel and I developed adult acne. Horrible, embarrassing and just ugh.

So anyhoo, long story short, I went and got myself cheese grated - aka microdermabrasian - the other day and have signed up for a course of them along with some 'cell renewal' stuff that will have my skin looking better than it has in a decade, or so I've been promised. I may or may not post some pictures, I'm horribly self conscious about my skin so like to avoid pictures that highlight it.

So there's my Monday. I'm missing my E who is still with his grandparents....boo. He's back Wednesday just in time to start high school next week...egads...

Hope you're all having a wonderful day!

Bec xx

Elections. Herding cats and my #FirstWorldProblem of the day.

To my American friends - congratulations on the re-election of Obama. You probably don't realise this, and I don't mean to feed your egos, but the world is only just slightly less obsessed with your election result as you are! It's on the front page of every news site today (right above Big Brother, we're tackling the big issues here). Yes you are the centre of the universe :)

You'll either be happy or outraged to know the general consensus around these parts is that the right decision has been made. Personally I don't give a fig for politics, but I do like the cut of Obama's jib so hopefully he'll make his second term mightier than the first.

And then his wife can go on and become the new Oprah.

And anything that pisses off the Trump simply CAN'T be bad.

Oh yeah!!

Now this is a stupid question, but did you see that photo? Well of course you did, it's now ranked the highest shared picture like EVER. So cute.

I only wish Australia had such charismatic leaders instead of the muppets we are presented with.

So apologies once again for being a bit quiet this week. Up until yesterday it was like one of those combined hamster wheel (spinning but never getting anywhere) slash herding cats weeks that had me working long hours and feeling utterly shattered.

Yesterday, fortunately for my sanity (which has been hanging on by a thread) was greatly improved so I feel like I'm slightly more back on track.

Some great news to report - I found out last week that my stepsister and her family were considering moving to Toowoomba and yesterday they basically confirmed it. Kids are going through orientation as we speak to commence their new schools next year. I'm so excited to have started a trend here. My stepsister and I grow closer every year and our kids are really really close. My major memories of childhood is playing with my cousins so I think it is wonderful that my son gets to make similar memories with his cousins.

Now if we can only hatch the plan to lure dad and my stepmother here...

I also had a long and lovely conversation with Cathy last night which of course as always covered subjects from the mundane (tired of cleaning up after stinkin kids) through to the supernatural and even randomly touched on the Celestine Prophecy for a bit. That's what we do.

The best part is next weekend I get to spend some time with my lovely gals, staying at Cathy's place in Brisbane before descending on a fellow mate for an old fashioned girls night at her place. Awesome stuff.

And now back to my #FirstWorldProblem of the day...I left my headphones at home and am sitting here music-less, shiftless and something-else-less that really isn't good. My life is over.

Or it will be until I go home and get them in a bit.

Hope you have a wonderful Thursday :)

xx

#FirstWorldProblems

So you want to see what an effective ad looks like?

Check this out.

Watching poverty-stricken Haitans read out such Twitter nonsense as:

'I hate it when my house is so big, that I need two wireless routers'

whilst standing in front of a mud hut about the size of my bathroom that honestly looks like it's being held together on faith and a bit of string...

Powerful stuff.

#FirstWorldProblems is a tag given to those apparently 'tongue-in-cheek' rants about issues we have in our lives that we understand really are trivial in today's Twitter-verse.

Unfortunately I think sometimes the Twits tweets actually forget the irony bit.

Look we all do it, I plead guilty. Just the other day I'm ranting on about my favourite mascara being discontinued so I'm certainly no innocent here. I can carry on about coffee guy (CAPPUCCINO!!! NOT LATTE!!!!) and same hair girl(EVERY.DAMN. DAY) forever and never get bored. I can (and sadly do) discuss pop culture and celebs like they're my neighbours and quote lyrics to describe my mood.

Our lives are totally overrun with all these myriad trivialities and sometimes it's really easy to let them overtake our lives.

Until something like this ad gives us a rude reality check.

And a well-needed one.

I woke up this morning with sore arms after mowing my first lawn yesterday in 3 and a half years, and was going to post a rant on how for the first time ever, I miss unit living (no lawns! no stinkin gardens to maintain!).

I was also narked that my iphone changed itself to Sydney time for some reason and I had to reset it.

And then...

Perspective.

So I mowed a lawn. Whoop-de-friggen-do. Yes, I was hot, dirty and tired. So I went inside my clean HOUSE to drink some clean drinking WATER and then had a SHOWER to freshen up and then got into some clean clothes, of which I had plenty in my wardrobe. Although most are a few seasons old...oops there I go again...

Oh poor me.

So Monday reality check, all. Back to earth with a giant bump.

So I'm off now to try to work out why my stinkin iphone playlist seems to play the same songs all the freaking time and not the ones I want today.

xx