A Day in the Life....

PIPPA O’CONNOR revealed the cover of her new book this week and invited people to pre-order it ahead of its release in October. It’s called Pippa: Simple Tips to Live Beautifully. Sounds great. Between herself and Rosanna Davison’s book, Eat Yourself Beautiful, there really is no excuse for me to be going around looking like I’ve got scales instead of skin, thighs made of mince meat that’s been painted a blueish white tinge and a hair style I’ve been sporting since the age of 14. Pippa is ready to give birth to her second child any day now and apart from the basketball shape that’s up her top, you’d never know it. She’s still got cheekbones to contour and highlight, collar bones to illuminate and  let’s not forget the elusive a thigh gap. Her feet don’t seem to have swollen into lumps that resemble slabs of boiled bacon either. What the actual hell is her secret? She’s nine months pregnant and looks more stylish, slimmer and more put together than I ever have. Pippa seems lovely. She’s the girl next door type that can do no wrong and everyone seems to love her. I’ve interviewed her a few times and she was as lovely then as she is on Snapchat, on Facebook and on the telly. What a bitch…I’m joking. Kind of…Anyway, I’m not a bit jealous of her, I swear. And I’ve decided to take some inspiration from her and give people a sneak peek into my daily routine, just in case there’s anyone out there who wants to emulate my lifestyle instead of hers.

Not a candle in sight at 9 months pregnant! Image taken from www.pippa.ie

Look at that perfect bump and glamour! Image taken from www.pippa.ie

1. Prise my eyes open and remove the two year old from my tit and hope that no one has pissed the bed. They all sleep in with me a lot of the time. Practically every night. Bed wetting is a rare occurrence nowadays, thankfully, but I’m still scarred from waking up shivering and soaked in someone else’s urine. 

2. Reach up and touch my hair and mentally calculate when I last had a shower and decide that another 10 minutes in bed is more favourable than getting up to put the immersion on. I’ll wash myself tonight when the kids are in bed. Maybe.

3. Pick up the jeans I’ve been wearing for the past two days off the floor and pull them on along with whatever happens to be clean and least wrinkled from my wardrobe, which is jam packed full of too-small clothes and stuff that hasn’t been stylish since 2009. I call this period BC - before children. 

4. Drag myself downstairs and eat a slice of toast and drink half a cup of tea. It’s always half. I never ever get around to the second half. I keep planning on starting the porridge and seeds and protein and raw diet malarky that I keep seeing everyone bang on about. Maybe another day. For now, it’s Barry’s instead of Matcha tea, which I think I saw for €20 in Supervalu the other day. Feck that. I could get two good bottles of red for that price.

5. If I have work meetings or Skype calls, I do try and spruce myself up a bit and will generally attempt to put some makeup on. I’ve got the same bottle of foundation that I got when I got married five years ago and I dread to think how long everything else has been in there. In fact, I’ll probably end up being a clickbait article you see on Facebook on of these days: “YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT THIS MOTHER FOUND GROWING IN HER EYELASHES AFTER USING 20 YEAR OLD TUBE OF MASCARA”.

6. I’ve been guilty of using hand cream on my face and shaving my legs with hair conditioner. The shampoo I’m currently using cost €3 in the chemist - it’s made from coconut oil, I keep hearing that coconut oil is magical, so it must be good, right? It’s an upgrade from the 79c bottle from Lidl I was using before that anyway. Which was decent, by the way. I recently treated myself to Kinvara Cleansing Oil and Rosehip Day Cream after seeing someone recommend it online. I used it for an entire week while on holidays and my skin was like silk in comparison to the irritated dryness I was used to. Any day now, I’ll get back into the routine of using it again. I can literally see the wrinkles creeping back into my face.

7. In the morning, squeeze as much as I possibly can in - laundry, picking up bits from the chaos that is the morning routine and settle in to work. Snacks are usually apples that have a couple of bites taken out of them and put back in the fruit bowl by the kids. I don’t drink enough water and generally go the entire day without having a wee because there’s just too. much. to. do. 

8. Dinners are old fashioned. There are carbs and there is fat. There is meat and there are vegetables. Pasta, rice, spuds, noodles, and dare I admit it, even chips. 

9. Exercise is running around after the kids but that is going to change too. Any day now. My free taster class was before the Easter holidays and I’m definitely signing up for regular classes. Any. day. now. 

10. Evenings involve more tea and usually chocolate and the couch. 

So there you have it. 10 tips on how to live like me. Good luck. I might actually pre-order Pippa’s book this week. If it makes me more like her, surely it’s a good investment.

A day in the life in our gaff