Middleagedmum.com: New Years resolutions for all at Middleaged Towers

In the run up to New Year, I thought it might be helpful for all here at Middleaged Towers if instead of me gently suggesting things that may make our lives more pleasant/ me nag less in 2011, I might simply write out everyones New Years Resolutions for them. That way we all know where we are from January 1st and can start as we mean to go STS (so to speak).

TBH ( to be honest') I really CBA (oh please keep up – can't be arsed!) because I must have been saying the same things for a good ten years now, but somehow if they are written down, it makes it seem more official. Although it's unlikely any of them will read them, as no one at M.A.T ever reads this blog (occasionally teen daughter might, if she thinks 'it's about her') but M.A.D and son never do. In fact they never read anything I write. I can leave features I have written (some have even have my picture on them, just to help them work it out) open on the kitchen table for days, to get covered in baked bean and chocolate spread, before I eventually say, 'have your seen this, I wrote it, do you want to read it?' to which they will all grunt over their cornflakes, ' nah, you're all right.'
I could write and star in a Hollywood blockbuster, and they would still expect me home to make dinner. 'Why are you all dressed up and holding an Oscar mum, BTW what's for dinner'?

It's the simple things that make me happy, I don't want or expect much (which is lucky) but there are a few things that would make my life feel less 1960's housewife and more like the mother in Cheaper by the Dozen (who has 12 children and a job and never seems to shout – (WTF!!!).

So family (and any other families who wind their long suffering mother up) if you do happen to stumble across this post on route to Facebook/Hypebeast/RouteOne/YouTube, have a little read and make the mum/wife in your life happy, at least for a couple of days.

Please, please, please, pick up you towels when you have a had a bath/shower, this is not The Ace Hotel, we do not have a laundry service.

Ditto, breakfast, lunch/constant snacking plates, we do not have a maid either………………….

Or short order cook and I have never had aspirations to be one. Make your own pasta/ beans on toast/chocolate spread on white bread. They will take a good five minutes longer to prepare than a Pot Noodle, but the results will be worth it, trust me.

Putting clean clothes in your dirty washing basket is not tidying your bedroom.

Do not steal things from my bedroom/bathroom (Powdergate continues), they are MINE- end of!

This also applies to M.A.D, do not MOVE my things in the name of 'tidying' and forget where you have put them. Also please do not 'tidy' the teens things either, causing them to accuse me of moving them.

Do not speak in slang when relatives are visiting, your grandparents do not understand that 'BMX's are bare sick' and get confused when you talk about someone being 'buff' or 'butters'.

LOOK when you can't find something, do not ask me first, then feebly attempt to look, flop pathetically on a chair and moan 'I just can't find it'.

Do not eat all the food on the day of the supermarket delivery and then spend the rest of the week staring into the empty fridge, saying 'why is there never any food in this house?'

Do not invite most of year 10/12 around for 'a jam', when I have a deadline/hangover/PMT/new book to read/ Eastenders is on – so that'll be never then!

Try not to text me at work with information from home I can do nothing about, eg 'the cat has been sick and the dog is eating it'.

Never criticise my cooking, even if it is hideous. Your life will be much, much easier and you will have more chance of extracting money from me, if you lie – always!

Ditto homework/revision/coursework, even if you are lying on your bed reading Keith Richards autobiography, it'll make me feel better if I think you are working.