Midnight reflection

Recently a very close friend of mine lost her youngest brother to a sudden heart attack at the age of 34. His wife was a few months pregnant and they had spent just one night together in their brand new house in Brighton. The couple had been married for less than a year. It's all so tragic for his wife who is a pregnant widow, his unborn child who'll never have a father, his family who will always miss him..and yet he's probably untouched by all the tragedy since he's hopefully moved on into the glamour of the other side! Well I hope it's glamourous for all our sake!

I can't help feeling helpless when I think about where he must be right now. What happens to our conscience once we shed our physical body? Is there even a thing called physical self and spiritual self, or is it all just physical? May be there is no spirit or soul or may be there is. The voice inside us that tells us who we are, in other words our conscience, does is just switch off? Where do we find our loved ones after we're gone? Will we ever meet again? Does our love remain in our hearts? Do we still care and miss our family when we die? Do we hurt? Does the soul weep? Is it scared of the unknown? Where are the answers? All the religions in the world claim to know the answers. We all have theories but apart from Chinese whispers and " because it's written in the holy book" do we have any other possible clue? Why do all holy books and religions vary on the aspect of afterlife? Truly, if it was all true then all theories would lead to the same conclusion. But while one promises paradise another promises afterlife in 80 different avatars and yet another refutes the possibility of afterlife. So where do we begin to ask questions? Who has set this puppet show called Life on a planet called Earth? Who controls the strings and what happens after the puppet has performed its last dance? 

Needless to say, all this has got me thinking about how fleeting life can be. How precious my children and my family are to me. Every morning that I wake up alive is a beautiful gift and I want to make the best of what little lfe is left in me. So yes, I'm really "feeling the love" today and with that thought here's wishing all you lovelies a very good night!

Sleep tight and here's hoping I do too!

X

Aging Alert!

I found this pretty upsetting article that I thought I'd share with you all! I'm approaching 30 soon and finding out that I'm guilty of having at least 7 out of the 10 ageing habits means that I'll be a 40yr old going on 87! But "Central heating" for goodness sake!! What's the world coming to?

10 surprising things that age you

Surprising thing that ages you 1: Watching TV

While we all know that spending hours in front of the television is bad for your waistline, you may not know that it can also shorten your lifespan. Researchers from the University of Queensland found that for every hour you watch TV you may shorten your life by as much 22 minutes. Furthermore, research has suggested that watching TV could increase your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Surprising thing that ages you 2: Drinking from bottles and through straws

You probably know that what you drink can affect your looks, but you may be surprised to hear that how you drink can also influence how well you age. In fact, sucking on straws and drinking out of sports bottles causes the same pursing action – and therefore the same fine lines and wrinkles around the mouth – as smoking. Try drinking directly from the glass whenever you can to help keep the wrinkles at bay.

Surprising thing that ages you 3: Too little (or too much) exercise

 The benefits of exercise are immeasurable for keeping you looking and feeling young. Not only does a lack of exercise shorten your life and increase risk of obesity and heart disease, but exercise can also keep your brain young by protecting against Alzheimer’s, boosting your mood and leaving you feeling alert and energized. Furthermore, increased blood flow to your skin can help keep your complexion clear, bright and youthful-looking. On the flipside, while we should all make an effort to stay active, too much exercise can cause stiffness in joints and increase risk of arthritis.

Surprising thing that ages you 4: Central heating

Many of us spend a fortune on anti-ageing skin products, yet we may regularly accelerate skin ageing without even being aware of it. The central heating and air conditioning systems that many of us use at home and at work can severely dry out skin, leading to premature ageing and wrinkles. To help keep skin youthful and soft, try turning down the heating and wearing more layers to stay warm. Keeping a glass of water in the room can also increase humidity, while wearing a protective face cream can help relieve dryness.

Surprising thing that ages you 5: Sugar

Eating too much sugar is clearly bad news for your waistline; however sugar consumption is also up there with sun exposure and smoking when it comes to the major causes of wrinkles. When blood sugar levels are high, a process called glycation occurs which damages the collagen in your skin. Once damaged, the normally springy collagen hardens, leading to wrinkles and sagging.

Surprising thing that ages you 6: Listening to an iPod

Hearing loss is a common symptom of ageing, yet many of us may suffer from diminished hearing early on due to listening to loud music through headphones. While listening to music sparingly and at a moderate volume is unlikely to do you much harm, a study has shown that listening to music on headphones for an hour can temporarily affect people’s hearing, while some researchers have suggested that listening at full volume could put you at risk of permanent damage.

Surprising thing that ages you 7: Your job

While having a job is pretty essential for most of us, it can also be one of the biggest causes of premature ageing. Firstly, work is a big source of stress for many people, which research has found can increase risk of heart disease and speed up cell ageing. Secondly, spending too many hours in the workplace can mean you have little time for essentials such as exercise, proper meals and sleep. To help minimize damage, try to avoid working exceptionally long hours and make the most of your evenings and weekends as times to relax.

Surprising thing that ages you 8: Soap

While you may think that soap is your skin’s best friend, this is actually not the case. The reason for this is that your skin has an acid mantle which is a natural protective barrier of the skin. When you wash with soap – which is generally alkaline – it can remove this protective layer of oils and dry out the skin, eventually leading to wrinkles. While it is not advisable to stop washing entirely, try swapping the soap for a PH-neutral and chemical-free cleanser, and bear in mind that there is such a thing as over-cleansing your skin.

Surprising thing that ages you 9: Your pillowcase

You may think you’re indulging in a bit of beauty sleep when you hit the hay at night; however the opposite could in fact be true. If you regularly sleep with the same side of your face pressed against a cotton pillow case this may cause creases on the skin which can eventually turn to fine lines and wrinkles. To help stay youthful overnight try sleeping on your back instead, or switch to a silk or satin pillowcase to create less compression wrinkles and help maintain skin’s moisture levels.

Surprising thing that ages you 10: Low fat diets

Many of us switch to low fat diets to help shed excess pounds. However, cutting out good, healthy fats such as omega-3 fatty acids could negatively affect the speed and way in which you age. Omega-3 fatty acids – present in oily fish, walnuts and flax seeds – are essential for keeping you looking and feeling young. Not only do they help keep skin supple and wrinkle-free, but they help boost brain health, keep your heart in good condition, and can even increase your lifespan.

Source: http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/10-surprising-things-age-100609173.html

Apologies Apologies!

I apologise profusely to all my ghostly readers! I have been caught up in a whirlwind of early X'mas shopping and have been unkindly ignoring my infant blog! To make up I do have some delish news to share! My Berkeley arrived in yesterday's Mail! Yeaaaa! As promised I did take some snazzy pictures which I will upload once I have figured out the password on my laptop! (Ever since I got an IPad, I have rarely used my laptop and now takes me a while to figure out the password...I know! " silly billy me" as my son would say). So that was the highlight of my day yesterday!

And today I'm pretty excited because I have a bidder on EBay! Yesssss! I'm telling you..all good things come in threes! So this story has a flashback>> Last month I went to Bicester Village hoping to get some good deals on some pretty drool-worthy handbags/shoes/trenches/anything. I finally found this gorgeous Gucci handbag which I knew my sister would absolutely Love Love since she's been harping on about how she's looking for that perfect Gucci to add to her budding handbag collection. So I went ahead and bought the bag as an early Xmas present for her.. (There was no way I could wait until Xmas to give it to her!) But turns out she has gone ahead and declared a " no gifts" policy this year.. Instead she's raising money for her favourite children's charity! Fair enough! And then I find out that the Gucci in Bicester don't refund your money..no sir! Only exchange! Needless to say I found myself in a bit of a pickle. So EBay to the rescue..I am hoping to get part of my money back from selling the handbag at a marginally lower price! I have One bidder so it's not too bad at the moment :)
Check out my eBay post and bid away! You will not be disappointed..it's truly what it is! Genuine all the way!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brand-new-Gucci-tote-/261127128627?_trksid=p2045573.m2042&_trkparms=aid%3D111000%26algo%3DREC.CURRENT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D27%26meid%3D3464250899611173111%26pid%3D100033%26prg%3D1011%26rk%3D2%26sd%3D150944700155%26

And finally..it was my daughter's first Diwali yesterday! My baby is growing up so fast..I still remember Feeling pregnant last year..I was hopeless at the Xmas sales and if I had a blog back then I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been ignored because I had energy to do Nothing that involved walking. She was a big baby too..by my standards anyway! She weighed 8lb 1oz and still has the softest skin and the brightest eyes! My sweet sweet angel..if only she'd sleep longer during the night! :( oh well! At least I caught up with my blog.

Farewell strangers..I do hope you all have a lovely day/night! Sleep tight everyone and here's hoping I do too!

X

Best Halloween story

This is my favourite Halloween story that really tickeled me!

This story is originally sourced from - http://uk.omg.yahoo.com/gossip/the-juice/simon-cowell-spooks-us-halloween-rather-puffy-face-121552874.html

Simon Cowell spooks us out this Halloween, with a rather puffy face

Simon Cowell's face is spooking us out this Halloween. Copyright [Xposure]

The media super power appeared on Jay Leno with US X Factor judge Britney Spears.

But rather than focusing on the pretty American blonde, all eyes were on SiCo and his rather inflated cheeks.

Simon Cowell's face looked a little inflated, shall we say. Copyright [Getty]

Simon, who has recently hired a personal trainer after confessing to gaining weight, also showed off a very rosy complexion.

With the 53-year-old being quite open about using products to keep looking young, the pictures have lead to speculation he might have overdone it on the botox.

Meanwhile 30-year-old Britney did her best to divert eyes in her direction by wearing a VERY low-cut patterned grey dress.

An apple a night..keeps the Winks away

Happy Halloween you all!

I had some Halloween fun in the rain with my nieces and son this evening! We went Trick O Treating in the cold British weather! It rained on us and the wind blew our pointy hats away leaving us chasing after them, my son fell in a muddy puddle on the way and thoroughly enjoyed it! He had a George Pig moment there! Oh and we had lots of sweeties. The people on our street are a bit tight and live in big houses with gates. Not a very halloweeny friendly neighbourhood. So I drove the kids down to this sweet little road where most of the houses had Pumpkins flickering in the windows and cobwebs hanging off the front doors! There was candy galore and the kids had the best Trick O treat ever and we were all very pleased with our Loot! 

But alls not well this Halloween night! Here's a synopsis-

I'm probably an average techy person although some consider me fairly good with handling electronic devices and do trust me to update, backup and restore their devices such as cameras  and phones and this annoys the hell out of me mostly because while backing up my devices would be a straightforward easy five minute process but backing up another's takes up my precious hours because either they have either not installed the device correctly or just attract bad luck by some non-techy genes that they must posess and I therefore seem to lose an entire day sitting in front of a PC solving Their muddles while they go about their day happy as sunshine and just getting on with their Day!

Sometimes in such circumstances I have found that Ignorance must be bliss! It's blissful to Not know how to backup files and ruefully admit that they "just don't Get It" and then find a scapegoat to pile their troubles on! I say it's not Rocket science to learn how to Plug in your techies and follow basic instructions! It's just plain old "I can't be bothered" syndrome.

So anyway, the above ranting is to highlight my present status of a burden bearing Ass who is backing up a friend's iPhone 5 at 00:25 midnight. It's been over an hour and half and I still have about 35 mins to go before backup is complete! This is because the phone was last backed up in Nov 2011!! But my friend is somewhere sound asleep oblivious to the fact that I'm having a good old moan about her on my very pink and pretty blog!

So what do you non-existent readers think of Iphone 5 anyway? I've had mine for two days and I must say I absolutely love it. It's lighter than 4s and feels heavenly. That could also be because it's still unscratched and my kids sticky fingers have yet not found its smooth shiny surface. Yes I do love my I-5! 

Another day gone without my Berkeley.. Oh! How I'm tired of waiting! :( perhaps tomorrow?

Sleep tight everyone! Here's hoping I do too!

X

8 years on..

Celebrating 8 years of marriage! 8 years on and life is good, love has matured and sensibilities have ripened.. Not bad I say! It's been a wonderful day today. Im feeling very grateful as I write this. Grateful for this wonderful life I'm experiencing with a wonderful husband by my side.

Day was spent running after kids 1 and 2 and evening at Movies with husband. Snacked over sweet popcorn and coke zeroed out! Managed to smuggle a bottle of wine into the movie hall too :) Yes! We've all done that at some point in our lives..some at 16 and others a tad bit later in life! (I'm not giving my age away)! Husband hid a lovely card in my Ipad case whereas I completely forgot to buy him one! I'll worry about that tomo..I have some making up to do. Probably will get him a "I'm sorry" card? :(

I must say I'm warming up to the idea of blogging a bit more now. By now my non-existent readers know that this blog was created so I had something to do at Midnight in between feeding my baby. I have a few ideas for my blog which will come into existence the minute I find 10 mins free during the day to actually execute my plan coz lets admit it, my brain is slower than slush at midnight. This blog up until now is top notch babbling of a sleep deprived human who will not sleep even when presented with a 5 hour sleep window. It's mostly self inflicted! Yes so, as I was saying, I have a few ideas for the blog mostly discussing fashion, no politics but definitely some moral issues.

Which reminds me that my friend Berkeley from Paris has not yet arrived and I'm eagerly waiting for her. I've not forgotten to post pics of her if by then I've figured out how to post pics here. So watch this space if anyone's out there..

Sleep tight peeps and here's hoping I do too!

X

Midnight crushes

I know it's been a while since my last post. I feel really guilty writing this today especially since in my last post I promised to write in more regularly. But all that guilt couldn't hold me back tonight! I'm super excited and super charged at the moment! Had to share my Big crush!

So a little background Story to set the scene first! By now you all must know how little sleep I get since my 10 month baby refuses to go for more than 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep! It's driving me insane but I bear no grudge coz she's my baby and obviously in a lot of pain due to teething etc! (Aww!!) but it also leaves me with a lot of time tossing and turning in my bed trying to go back to sleep in between feeds. I've been filling the time by crawling through YouTube and Web. Thanks to this I now have a YouTube account, I'm an active eBay seller and I also have this blog! These are in addition to Facebook and twitter accounts that I already have. I must say its a lot to keep on top of and I'm building myself a massive web that will eventually end up taking all my time and my baby will just have to wait for her feeds while her mum rambles on her blog in the middle of the night! (must stop!)

So getting back to my Crushing-- as a result of all this web browsing and encouraged by insomnia and resulting reduced levels of brain functioning I have finally given into my crush of 3 months and ordered myself a...<drum roll>.. Louis Vuitton Berkeley ebony handbag! I ordered it half an hour back and couldn't wait to tweet, status update and post it on Twitter, Facebook and my blog respectively!

Im hoping it'll arrive first thing Monday morning and I'll post a few pictures of it here.. Not that it'll look any different to the pictures that are already out there but hey! A girls gotta shout her Love to the world! Love of Louis!

Later peeps, sleep tight and here's hoping I will too!

X

Midnight post!

A midnight post Again! Had a lovely time meeting with an old friend tonight. We used to work together many years ago. That's 5 years to be exact but 15 in Mum-years. Does seem like it was a long long time ago that I was carefree and happily irresponsible. I slept for 11 hours and had long showers and rich foamy baths. My nails were perfect and I never had a hint of shadow on my upper lip. Ah! The bittersweet memories come flooding in now!

My daughter very nearly stood without support today, for a fraction of a second. I think she'll get there quicker than her brother did. It's been the highlight of my day today. That and having dinner with my old friend. I was rather looking forward to it as she has had quite a few setbacks this year and I was hoping to cheer her up. Mission accomplished over Big glasses of red wine! So I may be a bit buzzed as I'm writing this but the evening made me realise how much I take my good health for granted. I'm naturally a thin person so it's been easy for me to indulge my sweet tooth without having o worry about it..but guess what! The pounds are adding up and the fat is starting to stick! I need a new plan for fitness.. Well not a new plan as I don't have an Old one! I just need a plan..

Come tomorrow I'm going to hatch out a plan and the pounds will shed and the Gorgeous me will emerge! Hopefully while that's happening Brad Pitt will be walking by and notice the new Gorgeous Me and fall in Lust with me! (I'm thinking his love will be too shallow anyway..him being a gorgeous movie star and all that). Oh! How a girl can dream!!!!

Night night lovelies...here's to a new Me!

An introduction..

Hi! I'm Naina Singh (name changed to spare myself embarrassment on school runs). Pleased to meet all you readers out there! This is me jumping on the " blogging band wagon" I've heard so much about! To be honest I've had so much on my mind lately that I have caught myself talking Loudly to myself..! My 4yr old son is starting to stare..probably thinks I'm talking to my imaginary friend. So it was either blogging / venting or scarring my sons psyche for life. Blogging it is.

So I live in UK. I'm married and have two gorgeous children. My son is 4 and my daughter is 10 months. Another reason why I created this blog at 12 midnight.. I don't get much sleep with my daughter waking every couple hours! Sob!

In this blog I will try to ramble on daily about anything and everything that I feel should be written about. I must admit I'm excited to find out just how many thoughts I can assort on an everyday basis that are readable for adults and not just a load of baby talk!

Please be kind and try to leave encouraging comments if this blog gets read at all! :)