Skip to main content

All the ways I love you

Izzy and Ellie enjoying a joke
It's all a bit manic at the moment. I missed writing a post on Sunday and suddenly it's Thursday - new year, new job madness. The weeks are spinning by quickly and it's the end of January tomorrow and we all know that means the year just starts to get away from you!

As it's January and I've started a new job I'm very much trying to maintain some balance and hold onto the sense of calm that I'd found over the Christmas break. 3 weeks out of office and a clean break from one company to the next is always going to provide a moment of peace in between the madness. Yoga helps hugely - my twice weekly chance to re-ground myself and breathe deeply. I also love to read books influenced by psychology and biology - I'm fascinated about what's happening in our bodies and brains, particularly as the kids are going through such a seminal stage of their lives.

I've just finished one all about how rushing about causes all kinds of biological effects on women's bodies and brains which then impacts everything from digestion, sleep, your immune and nervous system and so. All this makes perfect sense - we weren't designed to rush about like we do today with never ending to-do lists and technology which results in us being always on. One of the areas the book talked about was to take the time daily to be grateful - in doing so it makes you slow down and think if nothing else. To this end Izzy and lay on her bed last night and played a game of 'all the ways I love you' which I have to say left me feeling like I wanted to stop time and hold onto the moment forever - I guess the book has a point! I went first and my top 3 were:

1) Her never ending smile
2) That she comes and hugs me and tells me she loves me
3) That she is always open to a new challenge and will try new things

Her three for me:
1) Hugs and kisses
2) Looking after her
3) When I spend time with her and buy her presents I make her feel special

I plan to repeat this with Abi, but clearly not in the morning given she won't speak to me in the morning at all - she completely blanks me if it's a school day and she's had to get up at 7am! I have learnt now not to try and make her do differently - she's a teenager and I should be happy she's talking to me at all!

Talking about kids we caught up with JoJo and her 4 over the weekend. She's had a tough time recently so it was good to see her and check in on how she's doing. The boys are growing up so fast - Edward is now, like Izzy of course, in his secondary school years and is too cool for over the top demonstrations of affection but was obviously very happy to see the girls. Ellie, the one who knows Abi and Izzy least was ecstatic to see them and wouldn't let go of Izzy for the whole time we were together. We went completely retro and met at the Living Rainforest, somewhere they used to go together a lot.  They loved it, albeit commenting it's a lot smaller than they remember - welcome to getting older!

Got to go - I'm writing this on the train and blissfully the journey is not as long as it used to be - another little thing to be grateful for every day!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Snow!

After a beautiful day of sunshine yesterday, today it snowed... but more of that in a minute. Yesterday actually felt like a day of much progress. Despite Covid we managed to arrange a visit to Taunton School to have a look around with the girls and to meet the Headmaster. This was a massive relief as I had got to the point of thinking we would have to accept a place without ever stepping foot inside the school. In the end we had a very comprehensive, if a little deserted, tour of the school and the kids loved it, as did we. There may even be a small chance they might squeeze us in if we are there by the summer term - that is of course if the kids are back into school by then. The other news was that I managed to speak to Mr &Mrs Tucker - the people buying our house - and we tentatively agreed that we will try and complete during the Easter holidays which could have us moving in the third week of April. This does require everyone to have got all of what they need done, and that of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Busy, busy, busy

Full English brunch for these two! Life is VERY busy and I don't feel like we have stopped for weeks (or is that months?) It seems like the 'to-do' list is endless and while I know we don't have to do it all at once, I have taken on the unenviable task of trying to get the Muppet to finish all the work he promised / we have paid for and that has been like pushing a mountain of water up a very steep hill. We've got to the point where I think we have got all of what we are likely to get and the rest we'd rather finish ourselves anyway. The electric gates are clearly a work of his imagination based on the gates / the electric cables he spec'd and the cheapo motor mechanism - there is no way they'll work so we have decided to not bother and source proper gates that do the job and look better as well. Knowing that we are almost at a point where we sever the ties feels very liberating. Looking back this last 6 months has been incredibly stressful and just didn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Decluttering

Girls buying baby clothes - this could get addictive! It's Easter weekend already and we still haven't completed!! However we have made some progress, most importantly with the paperwork which has not been Steve the Builder's forte throughout this process. Stags finally got their act together and got in touch with the planning office and got an update from the Planning Officer. Apparently she is broadly happy with the application, and is prepared to pass it with only a few minor modifications which we are completely comfortable with. The Building Control Officer also came and did all of what he needed to, which means the final certificate should be issued which allows the warranty to also be issued. On our side we finally tracked down the paperwork (or more correctly got the BC Officer to come out again and do a second assessment) for the outstanding BCC on our windows (which went in 6 years ago but due to an admin error were never registered) - nothing is straightforward i...
Post a Comment
Read more