I'm honoured! And bonus answer to the question: 'Just what on earth is my wee sister doing in Sri Lanka?'

Not even a month since my last post and I'm doing ANOTHER one. The powers of procrastination, now that studying has finished all I have to avoid is housework and it's definitely much less interesting and less guilt-inducing to avoid so blogging doesn't seem like such a waste of precious time. And I do have some Uni related news - yesterday I had my interview with the honours convenor for the courses I plan to do next year. The original plan was to do joint honours in English Literature and English Language but I have decided, with the long term game in mind, to just do single honours in English Language. So now it is just a matter of playing the waiting game and seeing how I do in my exams. I was suffering from tonsillitis on the day of my English Language exam and right up until I headed into uni, I wasn't even sure if I would be able to do it however lots of painkillers got me through on the day, although one side effect was making my mind go blank quite a lot throughout the exam. Hopefully I've done enough, my grades so far have been good so hopefully it'll all be okay.

In other news, on Sunday me, my husband and our two eldest children, Andrew (9) and Lewis (8) are taking part in a 4 mile fun run in Strathclyde Park in aid of MND Scotland. Donations are most welcome, and really couldn't be easier to do - all you have to do is text MNDS88 £5 to 70070, and you've donated £5! You can change it to any amount as well.

It's been a charitable couple of months here in the College Mummy household - last month we did a family 5k in aid of the charity my sister Jennifer is currently working for out in Sri Lanka, Animal SOS. You can read her story over at her shiny new blog. What she is doing is really impressive, and sounds like hard work! We all miss her absolutely loads, but as soon as I heard about the job and all it entailed I just knew it would be absolutely perfect for her. Here we all are being featured in our local newspaper. Sadly they've not included Jennifer but I did take pictures of the feature in the paper when it came out:



Anyway, hoping to be back on here again soon, probably just rambling about life and stuff.

Yet another I'M BACK post

Difficult as it may be, I'm not going to get into a 'oh MY will you just look at the time' type post. Yes, it's been ages since I updated but I wanted to start blogging again, I'm supposed to be studying (so therefore I am procrastinating) and well, here we are.

Brief updates on life so far: Coming to the end of 2nd year at University. Loving it, but it's stressful and right now the stress is manifesting itself in a multitude of ills - unexplained swollen ankle pain, another bout of uveitis (DON'T google it. Don't. I warned you) and now a chesty sore throaty cough thing. 3rd of May is my last exam and then I can collapse in a heap somewhere for a week or two.

The kids are doing absolutely brilliantly. Both boys are doing great at school and have been playing as part of a Handball team since the beginning of the school year last August, which they love. On top of that Andrew has also joined the local Athletics team and is doing very well there too. In fact, this Sunday the two of the them will be participating in their very first proper race - a 5k in Glasgow which we are doing to raise finds for Animal SOS in Sri Lanka, if you would like to support our run and the charity you can donate here: http://www.justgiving.com/TeamBroonforAnimalSOS or even if you are just curious to see why we are supporting a charity so far away in a country we've never visited - well, go visit that link and you can find out! You can also text donate by sending ANIM50 £5 (or change it to whatever amount you can manage from £1 upwards) to 70070. I gave it a go myself and it's incredibly easy to do! Andrew and Lewis are delighted with how much we've managed to raise! Elise isn't taking part in the 5k this time, as we'd hoped to all run the full race however with the chesty ill I have I'm not sure I'll manage to run, but I'll definitely be completing it even if I have to walk.

Anyway, I think that will be all for now. Who knows when the next update will be. Who knows if anyone even reads this these days. Please say hello if you do!

Hello! It's me! Remember me? No?... Oh well...

Well... it has been almost and entire whole calendar year since my last blog post. University took up a lot of that time, then an endless summer spending time with the kids took up the remaining months. Now, I'm preparing to go into second year of Uni in a couple of weeks and the children are back at school and nursery, so really I thought what better way to procrastinate when I should be getting the house organised than write a post on my neglected, forgotten blog!

First off, University has been almost exactly 77.3% less scary than I thought it would be. It also actually wasn't quite as hard as I'd thought it would be! I was worried I'd soon be found out as a complete fraud and escorted from the campus once they realised I was a. extremely old and b. completely incompetent, but neither of those thing has happened. I have felt, at times, very very very very old, which I didn't think would be an issue at 31 but I guess when you spend all day with 18 year olds it was bound to happen. I haven't felt all that incompetent and that has just been down to a mixture of just doing the work I have to do on time and keeping up to date with reading and lectures (mostly). I can't deny though that the unions haven't been visited. It's been a fun year!

The one thing I struggled with was spending so much of my hometime studying and reading, and I felt I was neglecting my little family at times (usually when an essay was due) however my amazing long summer has totally made up for that! Only a couple more weeks of that left though... and right now I can't wait to get back!

It's all for charideee

Well, there's quite a few amazing people I know right now that are about to cause themselves all manners of pain and fatigue in aid of a few different charities over the next wee while:

First up, in exactly one week, my husband is going to run 10k in Edinburgh in aid of the British Heart Foundation. His donations page is looking a bit sad and lonely right now, if you feel this is a charity that you would like to help out (and lets face it, most of us are touched by heart disease at some point in our lives, whether it's ourselves or a loved one) then please pop a couple of pounds on his page. If you can't spare the pennies - retweets and sharing the page are just as helpful!

Second up - my big brother is going to run the same 10k but this time in aid of the ME Association. His page is here and if you can throw him a few pounds, it will help him get closer to his target (he's halfway there!). Again, if you can't spare the money a wee retweet is always appreciated.

And thirdly, two of my favourite girls Emma and Sara are doing the River Ness 10k (also in a weeks time) in aid of MND Scotland. Their page is here and they surely deserve a wee donation in appreciation of the chuckles their bio raises. (again, RT's always good).

So anyway, I hope you can manage to spare some pennies for at least one or two of the fabulous people and charities that I've posted here. All very worthwhile causes and all very amazing people that are partaking in the running!

I feel that every time I post a blog on here I'm coming back after a lengthy absence, so lets now just accept that I',m always going to be a sporadic blogger, yes? My life isn't interesting enough to warrant daily posts anyway. But, we do have a new laptop (praise be!) so at least that won't be an issue now. So! University has started! And it's really good! We've had some great lectures so far and next week seminars start. Have also kept up the college tradition of visiting the pub on a Thursday, by managing to get to a couple yesterday in between lectures. The diet is going pretty rubbishly and for the past week or so I haven't really made it to the gym at all however I am going to allow myself the time to get used to the new routine before I beat myself up about it. But next week I plan on joining the Uni gym and that means in the gapos between lectures I should hopefully get along for a quick run or swim. Anyway, I think that's all for today.

That's not Autumn arriving, it is Summer departing!

Only a few more days of the kids summer holidays left - they go back to school on Wednesday (I can't be the only person who is completely not ready yet?). I've still got almost a month until University starts - but I am now all registered online although I still have to enrol for classes. I'm now only about 10% scared and 90% excited!

In other news, I have given up chocolate since the beginning of July (anyone who knows me knows this is A Big Deal) and crisps since the beginning of August. Also getting back into the gym again and once an ankle injury I gave myself a week or so ago goes away, I shall start running (fast walking) again. You would think with all of this, I might have lost weight but no - not even 1 lb! Sigh. But I shall not let myself be put off. I will be skinny!!!

So, who else is started the dreaded ironing of school shirts and sewing on of name labels this weekend?

Just keep swimming...

I think my brain has turned to mush. This no deadlines, no essays, no thinking required has been great but I'm now really looking forward to going to University in a few weeks! I have even started my stationary purchases (three pads and an academic diary for fellow stationaryphiles)in preparation.

I finally chased up SAAS to find out what was happening with my funding as I hadn't heard anything - turns out my application was processed the day after I applied way back at the beginning of June but a letter had not been generated. Odd, but I now know how much funding I'm getting. On top of that I have been looking into other funding I can apply for. After the debacle of organising childcare funding last year I am going to be much more prepared so that I do not break down in tears in the Funding Department office.

Despite looking forward to getting back into studying, I am thoroughly enjoying having more time with the children. Elise is absolutely hilarious at the moment and comes out with the funniest things. Example: 'I'm playing at crocodiles...ribbit ribbit ribbit'. due to the typical Scottish summer holiday weather we've been partaking in one of our favourite family pastimes - watching movies! I now know Finding Nemo off by heart.

Anyway, it's that exciting part where they get swallowed by a whale! Must dash!