Trying to get organised.

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.