Mummy Treats and Treasures

When it comes to technology we tend to be a household of early-ish adopters and one area we've really been exploring recently is home automation. Sonos and Hue feature throughout our rooms and are certainly put through their paces at times - even more so when you factor in our dodgy broadband! I guess it stands to reason really, both my husband and I work in the computing sector, him at an international software house, me, on a smaller scale in a secondary school IT department. Therefore we find it much easier to purchase technology than all those more mundane household expenses we really should be looking into! So when a colleague of mine reminded me about the MagPi magazine and drew my attention to their home automation edition my interest was piqued!  Even more tantalising was the fact it was out of stock!  We ended up spending a couple of weeks waiting for more to come in and having a mad scramble to order one before they all went again before we finally secured an iss...

So, in my quest to find the perfect subscription box, this month I decided to give a little known box called Artemis and Xena a go. At first glance I'd dismissed this one as it appeared to be aimed more at a younger teen market and, sadly, I'm very much not in that demographic these days! However I kept coming back to it as it looked like it might meet my desire for a little bit of everything. My experiences with Treatbox and Birchbox had taught me that I don't like just getting makeup (which rules out so many boxes!) but do like getting a bit (which rules out Treatbox); I like getting a little something to eat, a bit of jewellery, a bit of stationary... Yeah, I'm pretty fussy really aren't I?!? A & X looked like it might have this heady mix. It didn't disappoint! At the beginning of the month I have to admit I got a little nervous, my box was late despite a prompt dispatch notice on the first of the month and I began to wonder if I'd been draw...

As I headed back to work after maternity leave with my daughter I decided a monthly subscription box would be a great way to reward myself for the effort of getting us all out of the house on time each day and keeping the house in an (almost) fit state to live in when we returned!  My first subscription was to Treatbox , a lifestyle box centred around well-being and taking a little time out for yourself.  Here are my thoughts: My First Treatbox - February 2017 When the first box arrived I did wonder whether I'd made the right choice :-/  Whilst the items were nice: a dish to pop your jewellery in, a bracelet (which is actually really cute and I'm still wearing several months later!), a keyring, some lovehearts, a rose garland, some rose wipes and some motivational cards, at the time it felt like a bunch of things I didn't really need.  I did however post the dutiful " I love this box " photo on Instagram, I think partly in the hope of winning a small subscripti...

Like most mum's, I found the run up to going back to work after maternity leave with my little girl a huge wrench on my heart. The bittersweet mix of wanting to get back to a job I love tinged with the guilt of having to leave my baby for several hours a week. There was also the dread of having to juggle everything (although my husband keeps reminding me I really shouldn't be juggling the kids ;-)) getting everybody out of the house on time in the morning and tea on the table of an evening, tackling the ever growing washing pile, making sure we were all clean and well turned out.  The list seemed endless and I was mindful that I needed to remember to take time for myself and part of this was to reward myself for all I was achieving. I heard about subscription boxes a while ago but had never really looked into them properly as they seemed a bit frivolous - paying a chunk of money every month for something just for me. However, they seemed a great idea a this point in my life,...