Making it up

Today we have swum. The children played games. I read a book. They watched a film, we swam some more.

Let’s dwell on those positive moments.

Goodnight.

The evening got away from me tonight, something to do with a poorly toddler, swim club at a different time that I haven’t got the hang of, and life in general.

Poorly toddler is now in bed, hopefully sleeping it off and I’ve decided it’s too late in the day to try to catch up with everything I had to catch up on. So instead, I’m going to read for a little while then go to bed.

Hoping tomorrow is good for us all.

Actually, I’m not quite sure what passes for normal around here. Just as soon as we settle into some kind of pattern something changes. So for a while I’d been saying after Christmas or in January we’ll do… And then we got to January, Big changed swim groups which doubled her swimming time, Small went up a group so changed lesson time, and Smallest started swimming which has completely stuffed up Thursdays. And we’ve a Hillary next week, so there was no point in getting into any stable rhythm when it was all going to get thrown out then.

Hohum. I’ve got that feeling of running to stand still, but the reality of it is I’m wading through treacle and going backwards. I’m not nearly as launched as I wanted to be with my new projects, I’ve barely done any crafting and I’m treating it as a major achievement today that I managed to read a book I was supposed to read a month ago. Which at least means I’ve cleared the deck for the book I’ve got to read this week!

On the positive side of things, I am still keeping on top, just, of the housework in terms of cooking, washing and washing up. Though some days it is all I can do to manage those things! I need to rework our planned meals around the new swimming club sessions, though I was pleased I hadn’t planned this week as Big broke her braces on Tuesday night and we’ve been on soft food since. They were adjusted today, and it’s going really well. One more adjustment apparently, then it should just be fine tuning. Which means she’s running well under the two years originally predicted.

Decluttering has been rather neglected this week, but I’ve enlisted Big to give me a hand tomorrow, in the hope I can beat back the heap that is encroaching on my bedroom again.

Personal physical achievement of the day was walking Smallest down to her swimming lesson (dp was taking Big to orthodontist at the time) *and* swimming while she was swimming. However I may have overdone it slightly as my right leg is in that peculiar pre crampy state and I’ve a feeling I’ve a sleepless night of twitching ahead. And I could really do with the sleep

And with that I’m taking me and smallest to bed and hoping I can get her to sleep without it making me cry…

Togetherness.

Turned the radio on tonight while I was in the kitchen cooking tea (toad in the hole for carnivores, cheesy yorkshire pudding for the less meat thirsty, ok, me, thanks for asking) and was greeted with the dulcet tones of Billy Joel. Love this song, and sang along loudly to it then had all sorts of strands of things running through my head afterwards.

It’s not accurate is it? You wouldn’t want to not change at all as you go through life – life should change you a little at least. Bruised and battered, or stronger and taller, whichever occurs, life events don’t leave you the same from day to day. I know there are things about myself I still want to change. I want to lose the procrastinatory habit I have wherever paperwork or forms are concerned. I want to develop organisational skills that will let me fit all my hopes and dreams into the limited hours of a day.

I want to go on dreaming and hoping, and bring my dreams into realities and then build on them and dream some more.

I still want to write a novel. OK, another novel. But one that actually gets published this time. I’d like to be a more recognised blogger, but without selling my soul too far down the line. That’s a difficult one. I think this blog will have to go on pottering along the way it is, and I’ll try a few other directions for the making my name.

I want to go on wanting and changing and growing and hopefully improving. Because to remain static would be a cop out. Be a failure of living I think. There’s nothing wrong with trying and failing, or making mistakes, but there’s a lot wrong with not trying at all, or being so afraid of making mistakes that you make nothing.

Am I right? Or was Billy, and I’m talking twaddle?

Today I started with an osteopath appt. Well, actually that was at 10.30, so I tried to get up and do stuff first, but didn’t really seem to get very far. That is the way I need to go though, getting up early, getting the day started. So that at least was good.

Osteopath was good. Am not suffering the kind of back pain I’ve had in previous pregnancies – I put that down to the lift in my left shoe. But I am getting a lot of seized up muscles and cramping, and having someone stretch them all out really helps. Of course, heading off to the supermarket right afterwards didn’t really help…

Did a super supermarket shop, hopefully won’t need to go there for a couple of weeks. Will have to alternate with Aldi – Lidl doesn’t carry any cereal we eat, and boy do we eat a lot of cereal! Shopping at Aldi isn’t nearly as convenient though as there isn’t one within 10 miles, so I try to wrap it into a journey into next town to save on the fuel costs where possible. Budget shopping at the cheap supermarkets means I don’t feel I’m pushing the boat out when I top up on fresh fruit and veg from the greengrocer’s down the road, but I’m still keeping expenditure under control. And in another attempt to keep that in check, I went so far as downloading Home bookkeeping Lite on recommendation of NickiCawood after reading her post on budgeting. Tomorrow I might get really brave and actually open the program

Got unbelievably soaked carrying shopping in from the car – rather regretted the ten minutes I’d sat in the car while it wasn’t raining, just recharging in the quiet after the shop and before the house full of children. I did feel the hail was the universe rather picking on me though.

Children were chivvied into doing their maths – I’d hoped we’d get a bit more into an educational frame of mind today, but there still appeared to be chilling required. Small explored Pottermore and Big watched The Golden Compass, and enjoyed it enough that she’s now taken Northern Lights: His Dark Materials 1 to bed with her. Can’t be a bad thing. My impression of the film was it went on, and on, and on…did they ever make the sequels?

Pottermore is rather a point of contention. We jumped through the hoops to sign up for the beta, tracking down quills two days running, and doing everything we were supposed to do. Then out of the three accounts I successfully signed up for, only two were informed they’d get invited to the beta. And only one actual invitation turned up. So I obfuscated somewhat, assuming that the beta would finish more or less on time, and that both children could get in together. And the beta that was supposed to finish in October is still running, and Big *still* doesn’t have access.

She is a complete Potter fiend. She has read and reread the books. She has watched and rewatched the films. She goes to sleep each night to the dulcet tones of Stephen Fry reading his way through the audio books and one of her absolute best presents this Christmas was a book all about the films, Harry Potter Film Wizardry. (It is rather fabulous. Has all sorts of reproduction props in it, like a Hogwarts letter and a Marauders’ map as well as explanations of special effects and lots and lots of pictures of the cast.) She is now taking the continuing beta status of Pottermore personally, and getting really quite quietly upset about it. I’m not impressed – things outside of my control that upset my children are not likely to make me happy. And an unhappy Big will make my life difficult in all sorts of ways. Sort it out Pottermore!

And other than that, my todo list rather defeated me. I didn’t feel inspired to write blogposts or deal with reviews. Or even read books off my TBR pile, which is quite intimidatingly large. Or finish either of the craft projects I have underway. So I didn’t start any more, though I may have accidentally ordered a little yarn to have a different go at the Daria bracelet – the recycled Sari silk isn’t giving quite the effect I wanted… I did declutter my virtual inbox to the tune of about 2000 emails, so that was something I suppose.

Now I’m going to try to get Smallest and myself to bed at a reasonable time, in the hope that we can get up at a reasonable time in the morning, and continue getting things sorted out.

New Year’s Eve is an odd day for my family. It should be my youngest sister’s birthday, it is her daughter’s. So we gather together to have a party for a nine year old, those of us from further away swap Christmas presents, and we don’t really mention those missing.

It is a day for remembering, nevertheless, not that there is ever a day for me that isn’t. You can’t disentangle someone from your life that was part of it from so early on, and for so long. And why would you want to? Even though it’s a sad thing, it is how it is. And watching her daughter grow is a peculiar bittersweet happiness.

Happy New Year.

there are nice ppl around.

It was a glorious morning this morning. So obviously I sat in the house and put off shopping until there was a freezing rain this afternoon. Sigh. In my defence my phone didn’t warn me…

so when I went out to walk to the other end of town it was getting dark, blowing unpleasantly and the rain was, as I mentioned, a bit on the cold side. By the time I reached the doctors’ surgery my jeans were soaked through and my hat was sodden. Not pleasant. So it was a little disappointing to discover that my prescription for gaviscon hadn’t been sorted. The receptionist looked at me, looked at the prescription, and offered to go in search of a doctor to sort it out. Which was incredibly kind of her – she said she understood completely why I wanted it…

Once that was sorted I headed back outside to discover at least it had stopped raining. Bonus. The fabric and hobby shop didn’t have what I wanted though, which was a little annoying, but I guess I’ll just have to cope.

The Works didn’t excite me either – I could quite see why their remnant books had been reduced to 99p. Next stop Boots to get the prescription filled – I dropped it off, then headed for another couple of gift shops.

Back to Boots, to be told they didn’t have peppermint gaviscon. I said I really didn’t care what flavour it was, so they sorted out aniseed. And the pharmacist remarked that she had lived on it when pregnant, then looked at me and realised why I don’t care what flavour it is She agreed with me that prescribing not quite enough to get through two days at the prescribed rate is a bit ridiculous and asked if I had the repeat script. Leave it here, she said, we drop it to the doctors, and I’ll put a note in suggesting they up the amount a bit. And we pick it up and you can pop in after the New Year and pick up the next lot.

I do like helpful ppl. And that’s two helpful medical professionals in one day. Three if you count the midwife who put the prescription in in the first place this morning

And eventually I wended my way home, to make pizza and chivvy children. My achievement of the day? I’ve learnt how to make icord, and wound a ball of recycled sari silk from a skein so that I can make my creative challenge bracelet. Plenty of time for you to join in if you fancy challenging yourself