This morning I am getting myself together – it involves a lot of lists.  Lil H is now in school full time as of yesterday, Baby G is off shopping with my mum, I have a great social media project on the go and a house I’m doing up.  My hands are full to overflowing.  I have posts to write, review posts, posts for me and for others.  So here’s what’s going to be coming up on Cheshire Mum, in no particular order …

Lil H’s and his new ears – we had surgery, it went well, the boy did good!

Lil H starts school – so proud of my guy

Baby G turns 2 years old – yep its true, 14th October 2011 Baby G gets promoted to Diva G

The best thing in my kitchen is my Stokke Tripp Trapp – Fact!

My morning yesterday at The Radisson Edwardian Sienna Spa

Have you been to The Land of Me?  We have!

We’ve also been to the BBC and they have a fab new website for grown ups

I am having a coat crisis and Elizabeth Haydn is going to help me and you with the Autumn/Winter switch over

Listography of my favourite Galt Toys

Listography of my favourite Orchard Toys

I am massively behind on my photo’s but will sort with Photobox

I’ve received a Glossybox last week – just getting it made me happy!

The lovely Cara has upgraded Baby G to a SnoozeShade Plus too

My favourite “Zero points” diet soup recipe – its 95 days to Christmas folks, no really it is!

I’ve like to get all this written before next Monday, because next Monday I am heading to The Lowry to a Blog event with Kelloggs

But before I do any of those I am going to write 100 words for Save the Children, if you haven’t already signed the petition please make sure you do.

The challenge is set!  Then I’m going to bring you all up to speed with The New House!

Given that I wear my hair everyday I honestly don’t give it anywhere near the TLC and consideration it deserves.  Do you?  A girls night out or a special event and I’ll give it some time and that’s when I tend to think, I really should have got it cut and/or coloured.  Always too late.

My pre-children days saw me have my hair done every 8 weeks but two or three hours in a salon just gets trickier and trickier with one and then two smalls around.  Anyway I’m married with two small children so no one’s looking at me, right?  Its really easy to fall into that attitude when you work from home, behind a screen and only leave the house for the school run, trips to the park, coffee shops and baby music classes.  It doesn’t make it right!

So when Regis invited me to my nearest salon, which extremely conveniently happens to be in my local department store Hoopers of Wilmslow, a whole 15 minute walk away from my house I jumped at the chance.  I can’t be the only one making less effort on the appearance stakes since having children?  So with the intimidating new school run to contend with, a life plan to role switch with my other half to boost our bank balance and my self esteem a “new do” seemed like a great idea.

I had a great afternoon in the Regis Salon, they priortisie great biscuits, I like this a lot!  They know a lot about colour and we picked out a fabulous colour, highlights, a conditioning treatment then gave me a cut and blow.  I literally bounced out of there feeling and looking great.  I bounced into a BBQ with friends to lots of compliments and felt great as lil H started at reception and at work meetings.  Bouncy hair, bouncy Claire!   But every one looks great when they step out of the salon, so the proof for me is always after you left – a good cut should be do-able at home and a semi permanet colour improve the condition and shine and it does.  Ta Dah!  Here’s my new hair style by me!  So what do you think?

Note to self must get my hair done more often it makes me smile.  A lot.

A huge thank you to Roger and the team at Regis in Hoopers of Wilmslow for treating me like a Princess and treating me to my new hair do in exchange for this review.  The PR’s are watching this post in their search for more bloggers to review their salon services so make sure you leave a comment so they can find you if they need to!

Find your local salon here:   www.regissalons.co.uk/SalonLocator
Find Regis on Facebook here:  http://www.facebook.com/RegisUK
Follow Regis on Twitter here:  @RegisUK

The bedroom in our new house is VERY 1980′s with fitted wardobes, cupboards over the bed but no bedside cabinet/shelf/table thingys.  Add our Super King Sized bed  and ours from Lancaster Towers don’t fit.  The has resulted in a growing stash of books, magazines, chargers, alarm clocks and glasses of dusty water on either side of the bed.  Glasses of water are a great idea when you are going to bed but when you add small children to them in the morning they are a terribly bad idea.

To be honest I wasn’t that fussed by it, on the list of things to do at Villa Lancaster it was low, like page 2-3, but Mr L decided to “make something” and a jolly good job he’s done too!  Off he popped into his new, his first and most favourite place in the entire house, his garage.  Returning and installing these two child-proof, glass-of-water-protecting bedside shelves.

What do you think?  I was impressed?  Then I looked down – I was less impressed!

Luckily I had the  Dirt Devil Handheld vacuum given to us at The Lowry on our Dirty Stinky Day.  We have been putting it through its paces and Mr L initial declaration that it was “a nifty bit of kit” still stands.  I put it through the mammouth challenge of removing two weeks of beach from the car – it met that challenge with brushes, suction and passed the test.  The car is now a mess again but that is a reflection on my family and not the Dirt Devil Handheld vacuum.  I regularly use it after meal times mostly around Baby G’s Tripp Trapp and the wake my husband leaves from his lightbulb moments of genius!

We like the convenience of the Dirt Devil Handheld vacuum, its affordable price at £59.99, its rechargaeable, wall mounted and ready to go.  On the downside we found got a bit blocked up when we used on new carpets – its brushes are very good so to be fair I would say probably user error there!

Anyway – back to the bedside shelves – what do you think?