Ups and Downs

My poor neglected Blog - patiently waiting for another post, and now it's come it's not carefully crafted, but rather a hasty scrawl. One day, Blog, I will make it up to you...

Life has been a rollercoaster recently - not one of those exciting, white knuckle, stomach churning, life affirming rollercoasters, more like one of the 'baby' rollercoasters you sometimes get in the children's areas of theme parks...

Ellie got better from her chickenpox eventually (yeah). My boss was fine about my needing a few days off work to look after her (yeah! yeah!). My mum came over to manage the last few days of illness - and Ellie loved seeing her (yeah yeah yeah!)

But Ellie is still waking 3/4 times a night even though she's better, so I'm very tired. Work is very manic as I missed several urgent deadlines due to being off. And I ended up being so tired I had to go to bed at 6.30 (before Ellie!) on Thursday... but Paul put Ellie to bed and let me sleep so that's not really bad...

I saw an old Uni friend over the weekend, which was lovely! Although I'm left with mixed feelings of how great it was to catch up, and how annoyed I am that I left it so long... (but that' s probably exhaustion hitting!)

Paul has hurt the base of his spine and needs to get it x-rayed - which is Ok because it's under control, but he had a bad reaction to either one of his painkillers, or the combination of painkillers (or maybe both) that he was prescribed... and he's still really out of it 3 days later...
And I have remembered that my perfect husband is really hopeless at recognising when he is ill - swearing he is Ok to drive, but then driving home to the flat we left 3 years ago. Althoughhis being out of action does make me realise how much childcare he usually does!!!

And last night I was going to go out to meet a friend, to swim, and gossip with, but I had to stand him up at the last minute... because Paul was crashed out and Ellie isn't sleeping though, and I just couldn't be sure it was Ok to go out in case she woke and Paul didn't.

But today, I got a lovely parcel in the post - which I will photo and tell you more about tomorrow.... but thank you Stuntmother!!!! You have no idea how much that has cheered me up. And today I also had social work teaching/lecturing sessions confirmed at Huddersfield Uni (just 1 session) and at Leeds Uni (2 sessions, maybe more in future). Which is very exciting (especially as I still also have teaching at York agreed). But, the sessions are all in the next few weeks before mid November, and I have to plan them... and I'm tired, and work is really busy, and my ever so supportive husband who I rely on completely is poorly.....!!!!!!

Who knows what tomorrow will bring....?
(but right now, my tea is boiling over and Ellie is crying " Mummy", so I'd better go!

Too busy to blog

I was going to blog about how I was starting to have a social life ( I even had three invites to choose from last saturday night - and that's not happened for years and years!), with amusing highlights from out homelife (how the pavement is being redone, and the workmen managed to burst our gas main, and how it was ever so lucky that Paul was at home that day or they would have needed to get the police to bust in our front door to be able to fix it.... followed by how they left the pavement 'in progress' overnight and we managed to get our car wheel wedged in the foot deep hole they'd left, completely blocking the road and needed to get a specialist truck to winch us out).

But right now, Ellie has chickenpox. And she needs me more than my blog does... so no more entries for a while.

Dichotomies and Dilemnas

You may have noticed I've not posted for a while. It's not that I've not had anything to post about - just very little time.

The thought behind the title of this blog was that it would be my space. Some time and space just for me. Without needing to juggle several tasks. But the juggling just seems to take up more and more time and energy (with less time to blog). This sounds much more miserable that I am - I just need to find a few answers...

To questions such as:

1) How does a lazy (or busy - depending upon the day of the week) person balance eco-friendly attempts to save the planet with trying to cut the household budget?
You see I could walk more, saving CO2 emissions, and money on petrol - but it takes longer, and is hard when you work 34 miles away!
I want to buy organic food, but it costs a fortune in the supermarket, and I'm too lazy/buzy to grow my own or trail a toddler around local 'good' shops.
I used to use washable nappies, but now Ellie will only wear trainer pants, and I can't find non bulky washable trainer pants in any of the places I've looked...
And somehow, just using Ecover products really doesn't seem enough to save the planet for my daughter's future!


2)How do I find time to be a good mother, good wife/partner, keep the house clean (all of which take up lots of time)and still find time to be myself?
Because if I don't spend time doing things for me, that I enjoy, then I will be a less good mother, and a less good partner, and being in a clean house won't be enough...
But then I do also enjoy doing things with Ellie and with Paul - and there never seems to be enough time to do everything... And yet, I'm still gutted that I never made it to Infest,a nd that there are friends I've not seen in ages!

Oh this does sound miserable... and really, honestly, truly, I'm not. But I would be ecstatically happy if I could just answer these questions!