Wine, TV and flirting

OK, so kids in bed and its wine time. Hubs is gonna go out and get some mulling bags so we can make mulled wine (or rather so he can and I can stay on sofa and be waited on like a queen - or invalid - or lazy person). I, however, cannot wait and have snuck a bottle of wine out of garage and poured myself a glass.

Pretty good day today. Spent most of day working on flirty bosses boss's thing he wanted me to do. Very tedious and involved finding a photo of a person, checking off on a list that I had that photo and saving it to my hard drive, marking green for yes (I have photo) and red for no (no photo found) - also orange for not sure which individual is right one. Then once I had all photos I had to put them in a Power point - one per team - correcting the size of the photos so they looked uniform and if there was not a photo, putting a box with the person's name in instead. It was very dull. Spent some of the time exchanging ever so slightly flirty messages with said bosses boss. Very naughty. Will tell hubby later. Told him about it before as think a bit of flirtation is good for the soul but do not want existance of flirtation to upset him or him to find out later. Am very happy with my life and my hubby. Will blog about him another day maybe. Might do the "How we met" story or story of our wedding or something. 13.5 years of marriage - quite a lot of possible material really.

Also at work, sorted out my finances. Put all figures into my fancy spreadsheet that works out how much I'm allowed to spend per day - yes, per day. I don't trust myself with a monthly or even weekly budget! I need something that refreshes every day. Thankfully this month even AFTER my 2 daily coffees (if at the office) I have about £8 per day which is good. Leaves enough for a lunch out or treating myself to something. I have an app called iXpensit on my iPhone which is absolutely brilliant (when I use it) as I can input my budget (weekly daily or monthly) and choose to have it roll over or not and it will automatically calculate when I put my expenses into it, how much I have left to spend. I set up 2 budgets - one for my daily allowance which rolls over. And one for my coffee budget. I have set this up as a monthly one. Its calculated on 2 x 1.65 (price of a grande latte in the office Starbucks - yes, I know, I'm SOOOOO lucky to have a starbucks in my office) per day.

What else did I do? Erm..... Sorry am a bit busy watching House. I'm almost incapable of sitting in a quiet sitting room. Have to have the TV on but have to keep pausing it as I can't concentrate on getting my thoughts out with the TV on.

Sod it, wine and TV beckons. 

Google related confusions

I just wasted about 45 minutes trying to work out what do do about my Blogger vs Google account.

I set up the Mum in a Hurry blog via my own personal gmail account. However, I wanted to stay anonymous to all but my very good friends and I realised when I looked into connecting Google+ to my Blogger blog, that this wouldn't be possible. So I set up a new google account purely for Mum In A Hurry. But then realised that I wouldn't be able to move my Blogger blog over to the new account - except I could as I realised the minute I googled it: you can give the new you permission and then as them, remove the old you. That gives the new you (and the new Google + account that you can create with it) full rights and makes you the main administrator to the Blog. (the new you, that is). I have now linked the new Google+ account belonging to the new Google email account to the old blog, then readded the old me (as I may want to post on it without having to log out of my usual Gmail account.

I'm not a big fan of anonymity on the web - especially not if your purpose is to "troll" and be a big fat meany basically. But I just don't want my colleagues and relatives and non-close friends knowing what I write. Cos I might write about them. Some of the mean ones anyway! Ha!
Anyway, I seem to have resolved it now, even though it really made my head hurt. But if I want to do this blogging mallarcky (and it seems I do) then I figure why not be on all the platforms. I am now on Twitter, Blogger, Facebook (only one like :( ), Google Plus, and Instagram. Have I missed anything? For links to all these platforms, just check my blog. Oh, you are. OK, so look to your right in the side bar where I put some buttony things.

I'm going to get some lunch now and bring it back to my desk and ACTUALLY do some work.

Feeling guilty

I feel a bit guilty.

Have been reading Manic Mum's blog and absolutely loving it. But to me it is an enjoyable read. A distraction. She is a really funny writer. I know that I have yet to get to the very sad event in her life and I suppose for me it hasn't really happened. I commented earlier that she should try to get it published and asked her some questions about her earlier life. I now feel bad that I'm treating her as if she is a story with no feelings and just there for my entertainment.

Is that silly? Maybe I worry too much.

Chicken Kiev & salad

Kids in bed. Hubby in bed (was working until 1am last night). Chicken Kiev in oven. Salad on plate (with cheese & bacon plus lovely chilli dressing - Tesco finest). Tidied up after self (mostly - will wipe surfaces before bed).

Girl baby (actually 2 years and 3 months old) was sooooo cute tonight. Love that far away look when she (or any baby/small child) drinking their milky getting ready to go to sleep. I could just have gobbled her up. Makes me want another one. No not really! No I don't really. I don't. I promise! Erm....

Am watching House again. I think I'm actually in love with Gregory House. I don't know if its the bad boy or the fact that I grew up with the comedy of Hugh Laurie (although I also gave that reason for never watching it when it first started - didn't think I would be able to get used to him with an American accent. But after 10 minutes I had forgotten he was an English comedian and was totally engrossed in the drama. It could also be (the reason I kind of fancy him) the neediness. He needs someone to save him. Not that I actually go for needy types in real life. In real life I've been married for 13.5 years and if I'm honest would rather be looked after than have to look after someone. Am not completely useless but I'm not a natural housewife and (maybe) mother. For instance I don't iron and I don't sew. I don't cook (I can throw together a basic meal but I'm not nearly as good as hubster).

Right. Better go see if my chicken Kiev is ready.

Chocolate spread and angry birds Star Wars

Why does my dog insist on barking her head off at the one time of day we need to have a little wind-down time. My dad dropped the kids home and they wanted food - dog is incessant beggar and thief and won't leave kids alone and I didn't have the energy to police her today (after my hard day! haha not really) so have locked her in her room (we have a dog room - get us!) with other dog just while they eat their chocolate spready bread.

Am quite proud I managed to get my son into Chocolate Spread just now. He's never gone for chocolate spread or peanut butter before no matter how much I try and tempt him (so never before managed to use my kids as an excuse to buy it when really I just want it cos it makes me feel cosy and warm and reminds me of being a child - I have no idea if I had chocolate spread as a child but its just that kind of food).

Dog is STILL barking head off. You would think husband would consider it his responsibility, as he's currently downstairs with kids, to go in there and tell her to shut the f*** up. God knows what the neighbours think of us - actually I think I know what they think of us.

Just had to go downstairs as kids upset about something & hubby was giving chickens a late night snack (its only 18:50 but is past chicken bedtime) as they were refusing to go to bed (PS am not making up having chickens so I can be more like ManicMum4 (her early catalogue anyway) - I really do have 6 chickens but mine have never tried to lay an egg on my car seat. They have however laid in the flower beds and I think there have probably been quite a few eggs laid under the decking (where they hide from the dog))) (not sure how many brackets I put to start with - I give up now. Sod brackets.

Anyway, son had obviously been playing Angry Birds on iPad and clicked on an advert to Angry Birds Star Wars and wanted to download that game. Of course I had to get the iPad HD version and also the iPhone version so my daughter could play it on hubby's phone too. The kids aren't allowed my new iPhone 5. I made that rule before I got it and I have managed to stick to it. Some friends told me I'd keep to it for a couple of weeks before I handed it over to the kids to shut them up. But thankfully we have the trusty iPad (a bit rattly now) and my old iPhone (it had some issues so I decided it wasn't worth selling and its become the kids spare now - with no Sim Card in so they can't make calls).

Oh, I forgot to say. I was hiding upstairs writing this and then the kids started climbing up the stairs and I thought. Oh here we go. Anyway, hubby says "child 1 [he said his name obviously but I'm trying to stay anoninimous] wants to ask you something. He'd like to know what Aunty Helen's name is?"*. Cue giggles. Its quite funny really. I said "I don't know son, what is Aunty Helen's name?". Cue more giggles. "Helen". Hehe. He's not stupid, my boy.

*Note: Aunty Helen's name isn't really Helen but I thought making a name up sounded better than Aunty X or Aunty insert name here.

Shavings in sink

Just had this conversation with hubby:

I go in bathroom and see beard shavings on glass shelf and round sink. Hubs told me he'd cleaned it up before viewing today so go in office & ask him about it.

Me: I thought you cleaned up shavings today.

Hub: yes I did but then I had to shave again.

Um......

Dog is barking head off. Waiting to hubby to go feed her as is his job (he insists on feeding rank raw meat food so I refuse to do this duty).

My day

As I've already said. Totally engrossed in the blog Anecdotes of a Manic Mum and I'm loving her style and as I'm a little bit of a copy cat - well, actually I like to think that I'm open to ideas of improvement - I thought I might do a blog post about my day today. Have just put the kids back to bed for the umpteenth time and my cheese and onion pie and chips are in the oven. I can still hear the kids running around upstairs but have got to the point of just ignoring them unless they are actually downstairs in my face. If that happens I will probably resort to shouting loudly. Hubs has gone to the gym. Which means I'm free to watch as much crap TV as I like, at least until he comes home.

So the drive in this morning wasn't so bad. I drove the kids to their places this morning. I was going to get hubby to do it but he said he needed to walk the dog and do more housework in time for viewing this afternoon (only just put house on market and already have a viewing - quite impressed and hopeful). I left the house at 7.30am and managed to get on the road to work before 8am which means that I was actually early for a change.

Just had to take a break from writing this to put kids back in bed again. Daughter had done a poo so had to change her nappy and son was insisting on being a rabbit (wearing my girl's pink furry dressing gown with rabbit ears) even though its steaming in their room as the heating has been on all day and he has a slight temperature as he's got a bit of a cold. Girl child refused to get back into bed so just left her and shut the door. 

Back to journey. Got into work with time. However, no work to do so spent the morning reading Manic Mum blogs. Took break from that to do some work for flirty bosses boss. Uneventful day really. Left even before 5pm as colleague J was as busy as me (ie not at all) and she decided we should leave early.

Got to daughter's childminders just before 6 then went to pick up boy child at my parents house.

Kids still running round upstairs like baby elephants. Sod them. 

Just put kids to bed for 400th time. Son wanted toilet and insisted on staying on loo for 15 minutes so left him to it. Then he came down to get me to put him back to bed. Thanks son. Am sweating my arse off from going up and down those stairs and am stressed and now got tummy ache from scoffing my pie and chips too quickly. Oh and while I was tucking son in, daughter decided it was the right time to show me her feet. "Feet, mummy, feet" (rolling on her back grabbing her feet). Very cute but WHY AREN'T YOU ASLEEP!!! 

Anyway, back to my day. Picked up son from parents house. Had to go in to see all work son had put into decorating their xmas tree. Son now insisting on putting our tree up as soon as possible - I managed to placate him by saying we'd do it at the weekend - he seemed confused about why I was saying we should go out and buy one together ("but why mummy when we have one in the loft")....

Great. Child is crying again. Think is girl child. Off I go again.... or might just wait and see if it stops. They must go to sleep EVENTUALLY? Have visions of them still jumping around their room at 1am.... OK crying seems to have stopped or at least quietenned enough that I can ignore it (#terriblemother). 

Back to xmas tree. Problem is if we do sell our house quickly (which we probably won't but if we do...) we may have to move before Christmas which means no point putting tree up. We could probably do a small tree...

Child 1 (boy) still awake and making his way slowly down the stairs. Am thinking of hiding behind the sofa. Watching hubby's location on Apple Find My Friends app. Hurry up hubster! 

Run out of steam on recounting day now. Wasn't that interesting. Drove, pretended to work a bit, surfed net, drove, herded kids upstairs (using husband as human shield). Decided I'm going to work from home (use sick son as excuse - he's not really that sick that he can't go to granny's and I don't have enough petrol to get to work (Friday is payday).

Put kids to bed for 6000th time. Both insisting on going in top bunk and getting 7 or 8 kisses each. I'm done!!!!!

7 Things you didn't know about me

OK, so suddenly have this idea for a blog post which I have shamelessly STOLEN from the lovely Tamsyn from "Anecdotes of a Manic mum" blog. Here is the blog post in question.

I am currently totally addicted to her blog. I am a little bit anal about things - I hate coming to TV shows in the middle of the series and if I really like a show, if I miss an episode I'll download it to make sure I don't miss anything. So, I read one of Tamsyn's blog entries and loved her style of writing - she is so witty and entertaining - that I decided I had to start at the beginning of her blog and catch up to the beginning. So Tamsyn, if you are reading this, please STOP WRITING BLOG POSTS until I've caught up. Not really. Am actually catching up at a hell of a lick.

So anyway, back to my "7 things you don't know about me".

1. I used to sing in bands and actually applied for this years X-Factor. Sadly they thought I was rubbish.

2. I am a shopaholic. No. Seriously. Not just someone who occassionally treats themself to make themself better. I was using shopping as medicine. Not massive purchases although I did order a Mac Laptop on a whim the other night (had to cancel the order the next morning). I had to give my hubby access to my account and give up carrying cards with me and only carry small amounts of cash around with me a while back until I could get it back under control.

Wow. This is a lot harder than I thought.

3. I secretly long for the day my kids leave home to go to university (I am going to be the "Woman who went to bed for a year" - see book by Sue Townsend).

4. My father is an alcoholic (currently not drinking)

5. I lived abroad for most of my childhood (from age 5 to 16)

6. I once earned money by dubious means. I won't say how for fear of shaming my poor children. But lets just say I'm now a totally reformed character and it was only 6 months when I was 18 or 19 years old. Hmmmm. Leave this bit in or delete?

7. When I am really down or poorly, my favourite things to eat are: Sainburies Walnut & Gorgonzola Tortellini with 3 cheese sauce, Guerlain sea shell chocolates, houmous and pitta bread (sometimes chilli houmous and often will be sundried tomato and olive pitta bread - sainsburies),

8. (yes, I know its meant to be 7 things but I'm on a roll now) I only drink earl grey tea without any milk in it.

There you have it. Do you feel blessed to know me better? lol

Daydreaming

You know how you often get a musical or very very silly episode in many American TV shows (usually in about series 7 - thinking of Buffy, House, Angel, that kind of thing).  Well, I'm yet again not amazingly busy and daydreaming about this house that we may or may not buy (depends on if we can sell our house in time). But because dreams are no fun unless you can change around or even completely rewrite the other realities of your life, I've actually imagined a whole different life. I will try to describe it here:

We've moved and are now living in this gorgeous house which we are hoping to buy. Its very rough around the edges cosmetically but the layout is amazing. It has three levels. On the ground floor it has a hallway, kitchen & breakfast room, living room, dining room, family room, playroom, toilet, utility room, study & 3rd bedroom with ensuite (like a granny flat). On the 2nd floor it has the main bedroom with ensuite, what would be the kids bathroom, two bedrooms (for the kids) or one for them, and a spare. Then it has a 3rd level. Like a loft conversion but it does also have a loft (storage space). the third level has two bedrooms (or really just rooms). Our plan would be to eventually turn that into a master bedroom with ensuite and walk in wardrobe. It also has a front garden which is quite big and a smaller but very nice back garden. Basically, one garden for grownups and kids (or maybe just grownups) and the front garden (which has fences and gate) for the dogs, chickens and vegetables. And maybe the kids and all their kids toys. Although I might be happier having them play in the back garden (watched too many TV shows where kids were snatched while playing in front garden).

So, in my dream world, I'm not working full time. I'm certainly not commuting every bloody day for at least an hour each way. I think I'm either allowed to work from home all the time. And I have a nice office all of my own where I can focus to my hearts content. Or I'm running my own business doing something creative or enjoyable. Maybe I have the kids around more than I would if I were working full time. but somehow money is so much of an issue (probably cos I'm hugely successful in whatever it is I'm doing). The house is lived in but still tidy and organised. Maybe we have a cleaner (but one that doesn't put things in the wrong places and clean things you don't want cleaned or not clean things you do want cleaned - and one that comes when I'm out as I always find it very embarrassing having to be in when someone is cleaning my house for me).

I have lots of energy in this dreamworld. When the kids are home we bake cakes and do fun creative stuff. And they run around playing hide and seek and playing hopscotch together in the garden. And my son will teach his little sister games he learns in school (he's in school by now - must have skipped forward a year or two). The house will still be mid decoration but we are loving doing it up - I can see us in overalls with music on enjoying painting together (I HATE painting!!!). Its Christmas and all the decos will be up by end of November and we'll go choose a tree together instead of lazily getting the plastic one out of the loft (in fact we ARE going to do that this year as I spoke to the hubby and said I'd like to start it as a tradition).

Anyway, what was the point of this little dream. I don't know. I guess it was that in it I didn't have shoulder and neck ache from being stuck in traffic for 2 hours in the morning. I didn't have to race across town to drop my kids off and watch my son say bye bye and my daughter run off with the childminder with not even a backward glance at me (you can't win, can you - if they cry you feel awful, if they run off without looking back you feel like you are no longer important to them). I guess my dream world is a slightly slower pace. A bit like the Good life, but with iPhones and iPads and iMacs (hopefully one day a MacBook too - yes I am a little Apple mad). I guess its a little unrealistic too as I seem to end up getting stressed, tired and depressed occassionally no matter where or how often I'm working (or even IF I'm working), where I'm living (although having lived in the same place for probably 8 or 9 years a change must be as good as a rest) and whether or not I have kids.... Maybe one day I'll learn to cope.

Musings of a working mum

I am not a happy bunny today.

It took me 2 hours to get into work today (45 mins on a good day but 1 hour normally if I have to drop kids off first). I left the house at about 7.40 with the kids. Dropped my son at nursery (5 mins round the corner) then drove across town to drop my daughter at childminder number 2. Then headed off to get to work. I have TomTom on my iPhone and it was already indicating an 11 minute delay on my normal route so I clicked reduce delay button. However, this route seemed as bad if not worse than the normal route was indicated to be (of course I only found this out when it was too late). The route also tried to take me down a road that was closed (probably for flooding) and by the time I arrived at work, 2 hours later, I was ready to kill someone, or myself. OK slight exaggeration. No, not really.

The whole palarva has left me feeling quite angry. About what, I'm not even sure. Well, I guess I am. As I was driving (after dropping my son who has overnight developed a really nasty cough and my daughter who was being extra cute - both instigating the usual guilt about whether I'm really doing the right thing working full time or not) I was thinking about lots of things. I really don't want to be a stay at home mother. And doing a job 3 days a week that I hated didn't do me any good either. I like what I'm doing (mostly anyway) but I'm not sure how long I can cope with the long commutes. It just adds so much more pressure to you on top of all the usual working mother stresses. This is what I was thinking about, while fighting my way through traffic:

1. Why shouldn't I be allowed to work from home. We are in the 21st century. We have iPhones and skype and Wifi and Shared storage. All I need to do to use my work phone is plug my USB headphones into my laptop and I can make and receive calls - although I very rarely use them as most of the communications are done via inter-company online chat. We are trusted to sit at our desks pretty much unmanaged, but it is still generally frowned upon to work from home unless you have a good reason (a delivery or a sick child - even that at my last company my previous boss told me that if I had a sick child at home I couldn't work - which I guess is a fair comment some of the time but it is possible to field emails and deal with some queries and sometimes its quiet and you would be doing not much more than surfing the internet anyway!). Why should it not be possible for some employees (other than high-ish level managers) to work from home - even be BASED from home. Maybe my thinking & the technology currently available is just too far ahead of general corporate thinking.
2. I do want to spend time with my kids. I miss the chill time that I used to spend with them on a non-working day when I worked 3 days a week. I worry that I'm being selfish - wanting a life outside of kids - even at the weekends sometimes I wish the time away - that they could suddenly be of an age where they could just go watch TV in their rooms without constantly needing my attention. On the other hand I enjoy being out of the house. I just wish I didn't have to endure such stress to get there.
3. I also do want to progress and have a career. Either that or work for myself but to be honest, right now I'd rather work full time and be paid well, than work full time (trying to fit working hours around the kids) working for myself (which I would love to do one day) trying to make ends meet. I spent over 10 years working as a PA/Administrator for Senior Directors and I want to move on from that. I have great skills that I can bring into Project Management (currently an administrator in that capacity) and loving it. But if I want to do this somewhere else I probably need to stay here for at least a year before I can move on somewhere else (closer). Plus there isn't really much around now anyway. I was lucky to get THIS job.

My ideal job would be:

• Working for a tech company - tick
• Working in Project Management - tick
• Working from home - sometimes but got to be careful not to do too much (have done twice in last 6 weeks I've been doing this job)

Or working for myself. Not sure how. Thought about doing an events planning business. Thought about professional organiser. Done making bath bombs but decided was too much effort for not enough return & rules & regulations are very complex. Done handmade card making. Again. OK for pocket money and is something I enjoy but not exactly going to pay the mortgage.

Well, I'm going to post this and go get some lunch as its that time already. At least this morning went quickly (it did have a 40 minute head start on me).

Still figuring out this blog thing

I have done a blog before but I only did that one for about a year and I kind of ran out of steam as I started a new job and so my subject matter changed. Also I wanted to move away from being "me". Not cos I want to pretend to be someone else but because I wanted the freedom to be able to talk about things without people I know or work with judging me differently.

Anyway, so I've created my new blog on here and I much prefer how it looks and I used Blogger for my last blog so I have a bit more experience using this website. Plus Tumblr really wasn't very versatile that I could see. So bear with me while I get a handle on this road that is blogging. I am trying to tidy things up slowly. I have created a Facebook page and have linked up my tweets and blog posts to go to there too. I have found some cool buttons to add to the blog (follow me/like my page type buttons) but I am not sure how to make them go side by side. I guess I'd need to do some HTML code but while I do have some understanding of how that works I wouldn't know where to start.

If anyone wants to help me feel free to make a comment/post on my FB or Twitter page.

Thanks a lot. PS, links to FB and Twitter below:

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

Working guilt

I tell you what else I was thinking about.....

I was wondering, while lying in bed neglecting my kids (ie letting my husband look after them - not saying that he would say I was neglecting them but that's how your brain works sometimes as a mum - guilt-centric), will my kids grow up and not feel that I did enough with them.

Obviously I do play with them and I love spending time with them (sometimes - sorry, I have to be honest), but I'm working full time which means we get up at 6am - when one of them, usually the 4 year old boy, comes and wakes us up. We get him to go back to his room with either an iPad or iPhone so we can have another half hour. At 6.30-6.45am, my husband goes and makes them breakfast and they eat it in their room usually, unless they follow him downstairs. Sometimes he brings me a cup of tea too. He's nice like that. Then I drag myself out of bed and get in the shower and get ready. My husband wrestles the children into clothes and then gets teeth brushed and shoes on etc while I'm getting dressed and putting makeup on. Sometimes I'll drive them to their various places (nursery 1 or 2 / childminder 1 or 2) or sometimes my husband does it and then I can leave the house and go straight to work (I have to drive about 50 minutes to get to work - and if I have to drop either of the kids at the place that is the other side of town it will take me an hour as I'll need an extra 10 minutes to get through town traffic. Either way, the time I spend with them in the morning is 10 minutes while they jump up and down on the bed while hubby makes breakfast and the 10-15 minutes that I'm driving them wherever they are going unless hubby is doing it in which case I don't even spend that time with them.

In the evenings, I usually pick them up (at 6pm) as hubby doesn't finish work until 6pm (he does work from home so this is quite convenient) and then once home I chill out with them until bedtime when hubby usually puts them to bed. I'll help if they are being particularly difficult.

Weekends I usually have a lie in on Saturday morning until 10am.

Today my son was driving me crazy. I guess cos I haven't been feeling 100% well and he seemed to be extra loud and full of energy it just got to me but as soon as I lay down for a (much needed) nap, the cogs started turning and I started to feel incredibly guilty.

The thing is I'm actually really happy. I don't like the commute and the job is not busy enough for me right now but its the run up to Christmas and I am getting my name around trying to be helpful so people will come to me for help. But generally, at work, I'm happiest I've been in ages. I did have a short stint as stay at home mum when I was on gardening leave before my redundancy leave started and the grandparents wanted to have a break from childminding our kids (fair enough really - I feel like that too sometimes and their MY kids) as I was at home. So I was at home with them all day apart from a couple of mornings and one full day (Friday - my day of bliss) where I got on with housework and TV! But I was home with them more than usual. And they drove me up the wall. I wasn't nearly as organised as I wanted to be. I wanted to be one of these perfect mothers who arranged playdates and did things with her kids and got the crafty stuff out. But I just couldn't do it. I'm not that person. Maybe its the perfectionist in me coming out again. At least when I'm at work, I can truly focus on what I'm doing without distraction. It also has other benefits like being able to drink tea and coffee and eat your lunch without being climbed on.

Am I a bad mother because I don't want to spend every day with my children? 

On a low

I was thinking about this while I was lying in bed too tired to move.

Everything has to be perfect or I just won't bother. And nothing will ever be perfect so why even start anything.

The thing is when I'm good I'm really good. I can be so productive and busy and organised that you won't even see me moving. I had a bit of one of these periods a couple of weeks ago. I was not busy at work and that didn't stop me from being super-productive. I created spreadsheets, tweeked spreadsheets, organised lunches, planned things, sorted out calendars, re-organised my Evernote account. OK, this was all done on a computer at work (as I had not very much work to do) but if I'd been at home I'd probably have been productive around the house.

And then my period hit me (sorry any boys or squeemish people reading this) and within a day or two of that starting, I got a mild tummy bug - Thursday night/Friday. And today (Saturday) I'm still feeling exhausted but I feel like I should be doing so many things.

We have put an offer in on a new house but our own house isn't even on the market yet so we have to get the house decluttered and tidy so they can come and do photos and I'm not even sure how we are meant to start. Its such a mess. The thought of getting it all done just makes me want to cry. I sometimes think that if we could only have the kids not around for a weekend we could get it done (not much good really as it would have to be this weekend of which there is only sunday night left now) but even so I know really that I use the kids as an excuse for my inaction. I am simply in a low-energy period, where I feel like I cannot achieve anything and can't even be bothered to try.

Well, I'm off now to go do a little bit of tidying up in the bedroom as hubby is cooking dinner and may well kill me if I haven't achieved anything by the time he has it ready.

Why I think I could be manic-depressive

OK. Take recently. I started new job. BEen pretty manic since I started. Not really had a choice. However, even after the busy-ness started to die off (is generally a quiet period) I kept myself busy organising my personal files, organising my evernote system (complete re-organisation from scratch - of about 20,000 notes including notebooks and tags), completely reorganised my childcare spreadsheet and did quite a lot of work on my finances spreadsheet. Organised a xmas lunch with friends. Yes, have a spreadsheet to go with that too. I’ve just kept myself incredibly busy. 

 

Last night it kind of all came to a head with the person out in Turkey who manages our holiday home (yes, I know lucky us to have a holiday home) quitting on us due to a big cock up concerning getting money out to her in time (completely our - well, my husbands, fault) and culminated with me saying that I would now deal with all the issues related to that (if she would not quit) as my husband clearly didn’t have the time. I mentioned that I really needed a laptop as work one is horrible and heavy & then I pretty much went online and ordered it. On finance. Sneakily in the kitchen while hubby was watching TV. 

Now I’ve been found out and have cancelled the order I feel like all my energy is gone (not just because I’m sad cos I’m now not getting a new toy - its more than that). I have very little work to do but I now have no inclination to either find anything to do, or to do personal things. I can’t even be bothered to walk to the cafeteria to get a coffee. I’m only making the energy to write this because I feel like I need feedback and answers. 

Maybe its a bit of a jump to think that I could be “manic-depressive” or Bi-Polar, but there are varying levels and I do seem to go through these stages. Or maybe I’m just a hyperchondriac that should get a grip!

New mums - overprotective or rightfully cautious

I was in my local supermarket’s starbucks on Sunday afternoon waiting to meet a friend for coffee.
There was a large gaggles of new parents (both men and women) who all had very new babies with them. I’m guessing they were all the members of an ante-natal group or something…. They had taken up most (but not all) of the comfy chairs but I managed to move some around so that I could get a little corner with two comfy chairs for me and my best friend (and her 18 month old).

So I sat in my little corner reading my book. I decided to wait a while for my friend as I didn’t want to have to get through two coffees (money being a tiny bit tight at the moment) before my friend had even arrived. So I sat there, on my own, with no coffee just reading my book. One of the little babies was in its pushchair asleep opposite me. Arms up above its cute little head. Now I am quite a maternal person and I can’t really help myself - when I see a tiny baby I come over all clucky!

Maybe it was because of the way I was dressed (big hoody jumper and tracky bottoms - these mums were a little better turned out), and the fact that I hadn’t brushed my hair - just pulled it back in a ponytail and the fact that, as I later found out when I eventually came across a mirror, that I had panda eyes from Friday’s mascara (how on earth does Mascara managed to continue marking the bit of skin under your eyes even after two days - yes, I know I should probably just get busy with some make-up remover but I’m more a fan of taking the leftover makeup off before I reapply the next lot and as I only wear makeup to go to work at the moment, there is a gap of 2 days when I forget that I have old make-up rubbing its way down my face). Anyway, suffice to say I looked a bit of a mess and sitting there on my own eyeing up their babies, its not surprising I got some funny looks.

My friend seemed to be taking a good while to arrive (can’t blame her as I know what its like trying to get yourself and a toddler ready and I was quite enjoying my book) and so after a while I thought I’d better let these ladies know that I wasn’t there to steal their babies and when one of them came back from the loo or somewhere I engaged her in conversation. I asked if all their babies were the same age, how old that was and explained that they were making me clucky, and that I felt a bit sad that I’d never experience that stage again (explained mine were 2 and 4 and that we’d just been at kiddy rugby in the sports centre). This woman seemed very friendly and nice. Then I went back to reading my book.

Then after waiting for a bit longer for my friend I decided to get a coffee, so I asked one of the mums if she could watch my bag for a few minutes while I went to the counter. She gave me a funny look but said yes. So I put my bag a little closer to her (not on my seat sadly…). I noticed when I had got my coffee that another woman had taken my seat and the woman who I’d asked to watch my bag either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared that I’d lost my seat. So I went back to get my bag, giving the intruder a good glare in the process, and hovered nearby. There were other tables and chairs but I had gone to reasonable effort to get a comfy one. Anyway, some of the mums had gone and there were a few unused chairs around them so I asked if they were going soon and they said they were in a bit. So then I asked if I could move some of the chairs around so me and my (invisible) friend could sit. They said yes, so I moved the chairs around so me and my friend could have a nice little comfy chat. Friend had arrived just as I was grumpily huffing about loss of first comfy chairs and was queuing while I tried to figure out what to do so was quite glad when she eventually turned up and we sat down so that protective mother (of twins) didn’t think I was a complete stalker person who was going to run off with her babies!

I suppose the point of this post is a few things:

1. I never had an ante-natal group - well, we did go to one when I was pregnant with No1 (boy) but there were about 50 people in the class all squashed into one little room so it wasn’t really conducive to friendly chit chat - and even if it had been a smaller group the sessions were from 8-9pm and for me as a pregnant lady that was a struggle to be sat in hard plastic chairs basically listening to a midwife lecture you, so I probably wouldn’t have been that into meeting up afterwards. I actually set up my own local group of Mums to Be (which later became Mums & Mums to Be) on Facebook so I did get some of this socialisation but I was slightly envious of all of them knowing each other. My group was fairly spread out. Some would converse only on FB and never meet, others would meet up regularly. Often if I arranged a meeting it would never be the same person each week.

2. Mums (new mums particularly perhaps) can be very closed and suspicious. I don’t think I was ever like that. I loved showing my baby off. I never thought that someone was going to steal him/her just because they showed an interest. Obviously if someone had been particularly suspicious I would have been careful though (maybe I just didn’t realise how suspicious I looked!).

3. Maybe this particular mum was just very tired - she did have twins afterall - and didn’t have the energy to be nice to some stranger getting love eyes for her babies….. maybe I should just mind my own bloody business.

Just thought I would document this experience as it really did make me feel quite uncomfortable (because I realised that these women were suspicious of me - if I’d had my own kids with me it probably would have been different) and it made me think.

A bit about me and stuff

A bit about me

Excuse me if I don’t get my words out today. I have a frigging SPLITTING headache. 

I thought I might get this blog thingy rolling by putting some words together about me, who I am, what my life is like blah blah blah

Me now

I’m 35 years old mum of 2 kids (girl, 2 and boy, 4). Wife to one husband. Got 2 dogs, a snake, a rabbit and 6 chickens. Hubby works from home most of the time and travels quite a lot (although is on a break from that now at least until after xmas). I recently started working full time after being made redundant from my previous company. I’m loving the new job and the full time pay (although only received the first two weeks so far) but I’m finding the commute (gone from a 5 minute commute to at least an hour - and thats if I don’t have to drop the kids off at various places first which I usually do). 

History

I grew up kind of around the world as my dad worked in the oil industry. While this was good in many ways, it kind of left me feeling like I didn’t have a base to call home. So therefore I’ve never really wanted to live in different countries. Travelling? No problem, but not living abroad. And not “dragging” my kids around the world with me. Not that I’m saying it was terrible but you really did have to learn to make friends easily. Guess it made me who I am today. 

I moved to England with my mum and sister when I was about 16-17. My father continued to work abroad until quite a few years later until he retired and developed (or rather it became apparent that he had developed) a problem with alcoholism. I went to college in the town in Surrey where we had moved to and that’s where I met my husband. I quit college to work for a couple of years and then went to university when I was living with my then boyfriend/fiance. We married in my 2nd year at uni. That was 13.5 years ago. Man time flies. 

We were quite late (apparently in everyone elses opinions) at getting on the having babies train, but I’m glad it worked out that way. Wouldn’t have hurt if we’d have got on with it a year or two earlier. Might have avoided a few marital hiccups along the way. But they do say what doesn’t kill you (or your marriage) makes you (or it) stronger!??

Back to now

So now we have two beautiful babies. I’m back in work full time (which I never thought I’d do - never thought I wanted to). I hated my last job. There was something about the building, the company that never quite felt right to me. I thought it was because deep down I wasn’t meant to work in a 9-5 job, stuck inside in an office. But actually I’m loving my job. I’m stuck in front of spreadsheets all day. And I’m in heaven. I’ve made friends already and I have to say for once in pretty much the whole of my working life, I’m happy. 

My husband and I are looking at moving - probably not straight away but in the next couple of years so are looking occasionally at nice big houses with no adjoining neighbours and in slightly more rural settings. 

Life is busy and a bit stressful and its really hard to get my bum to the gym twice a week when all I want to do when I get home is veg on the sofa and watch TV or have a bath and go to bed. But I’ll keep on going as its worth it. Its all good! 

Oh please follow me on twitter - https://twitter.com/mum_in_a_hurry

Reasons to be cheerful

Inspired by a blog I found via Twitter, http://glitzygleam.blogspot.co.uk/, I thought I would write my own version of her blog post:

Reasons to be cheerful

1. I have a great job (even if the commute is a bugger) which I’m loving at the moment
2. I have two beautiful children who don’t seem too traumatised by me going back to work full time
3. I’m getting a new car soon
4. I have an iPhone 5
5. We’re quite well off (with me going back to work full time, money is not nearly as tight as it was - although I could always manage it better)
6. A family member who had a breast cancer scare has been cleared. Yay!
7. I have some wonderful friends
8. I’m happy

That’s all for now. But I think its enough.

New blog

OK, not done Tumblr before but thought Id give it a go. Recently started my new Twitter account - @mum_in_a_hurry - to talk about my experiences working full time. I am not sure if I actually have the time to write a blog or even if I’ll find things to talk about but hey, it can’t hurt to try. Still finding my way around Twitter (and now Tumblr too) so bear with me. Not sure how this is going to go.

[since writing this post decided to move to blogger as found it a lot easier to use and more versatile]