Growing Pains

So it's been about a year since I've posted here and I'm sorry about that.

But it's been a heck of a year.

I'm in full swing as a Pilates instructor, alongside my freelance work as a proof reader and copy editor. I've had some cool freelance jobs come in, and I've really enjoyed doing them. I've got another iron in the fire as a project manager for an online product, and I'm enjoying the people I'm working with. Thus far, it's all good and clearly this decision was the correct one for me to make.

I'm also still adjusting to the way things are around hearth and home. Things are a little less tidy, and I've learned that that's OK. Things are also a little bit more chaotic, but that I think goes with the kind of schedule that I've got, now that I'm no longer a 9-5 kind of gal, and that's OK, too.

The kids are fine, and growing up fast, and that's really the main reason that I've decided to do what I'm doing now. I see them a lot now every day, to the point where now they're saying things like 'Mummy I really liked it better when you had your other job'.

Out of the mouths of babes, eh?

Still, I suspect that it's just that familiarity breeds contempt. I'm always here (well, except for the nights I teach, but even then, I'm still around between when school gets out and bedtime), and so I'm the face they see all the time. And sometimes I'm the most horrible person/mother in the world.

But tonight I wasn't. Tonight I spent time with my eldest, who is soon to be nine. She blew off both the choir show she was supposed to sing in at the local beer festival, as well as her ballet class. She's been saying all week that she's just tired, she doesn't want to go to her after-school club, she doesn't want to go to Brownies...so today, instead of participating in all her stuff, she just put her jammies on and mooched around the house all day. But while the husband and the youngest child took themselves off to the event, I had strict instructions from the husband to not let eldest child use the iPad, have fun, have a friend round, etc., because if she was 'too ill' to sing or go to ballet, then she was 'too ill' to have any fun. Fair enough.

But tonight she and I made stuff. I've recently completed the crocheted blanket I've been working on for 18  months (gift for sister-in-law), and now I'm working on a quilt. But I, of course, have to have an interstitial project to go to when I don't have time to concentrate on the quilt, but I've got a few moments to spare. So I've started plaiting fabric scraps to make a rag rug. And eldest came to hang out with me. And after a while of her watching me and some chit chat, she said she wanted to make something. And tonight I taught her to sew.

She cut out some bits of fabric and said she was going to make an apple. I taught her how to pin the wrong sides of the fabric together, and sew a seam with a sewing machine, and then turn the right sides out, and she stuffed it full of sheep's wool that she'd collected on a walk a few weeks ago, and hand sewed the top closed, and put a green ribbon on the top. And it's great.

And then after that was complete, she just hung out and we talked.

(Incidentally, we've already had the chat about where babies come from, and how they get in there in the first place, and what happens to your bod when you get closer to being a teenager.)

So she asked me how old I was when I first decided I 'liked' a boy. I said 'about nine or so', and she said 'OK'. And then she told me about how a friend of hers (male, also almost nine years old) kissed her the other day, and then we talked about when that's OK, and when it isn't. And then she said, 'I know that when I'm a teenager I'm not going to like you or Daddy very much, right?' -- and I said yes, that that was probably right. And then she said, 'But I like you quite a bit right now.'

And then she got up and went to get ready to go to bed. And as she left the room, I said 'I love you', and she was silent. So I 'ahem-ahem-ed' at her, and she just looked at me and rolled her eyes, and the door closed behind her as she went out.

She likes me 'quite a bit right now'.

For this moment, that's lovely.

A Woman's Castle...

We have a bad habit of wanting to move. I think it's the challenge of finding a total dump, buying it for cheap, and then doing it up the way we want.

I've been online tonight looking at houses we can't afford, and having a splendid time. There are a lot of houses out there that I'd like to live in. But I think that I'd like to live in them for a few months, and then after a while, I might start to feel a bit lonely. Does anyone really need 3,500 square feet to live in (I know you're going to tell me 'yes, they do!', but I'm not sure I buy it).

That being said, some of the greatest houses I've seen and been in are houses where it wouldn't hurt to have either an intercom system that worked throughout the house, so that you could page people when tea was ready, or when you were looking for someone ('Boss - I am in the kitchen - report to me, please!'). Either that, or you'd have to have a scooter.

The house that we saw at Grey's Court last weekend was that sort of house. Terrific staircase up from the ground floor where the stairs were so plentiful that you actually went up the stairs, and reached the back of the house before the stairs turned, and then took you back almost to the front of the house again. Super great. The kind of stairs you want to come down for your prom, or your wedding, or when you're having a spectacular house party. Tres glamorous, of course.

But where we are now isn't glamour. It's big enough for what we need right now. Granted, we have way too much stuff. The kids have too many toys, and no matter how many times I suggest a cull, the suggestion is met with more than a bit of resistance. And I have too much crap, too. I love to collect things. I've got a great collection of blue and white creamers. I'm just waiting for a house where I can display them. I also have a lot of other things that I've collected.

My McCoy pottery collection is partially on display, and partially in storage at my mom's house. I've got some great art that's, again, at my mom's house. Although some of it is in our loft here. I've got knick-knacks galore. Books. Old tin toys that you wind up to watch something happen. Memorabilia. Biscuit tins. The list goes on.

It's like water. Crap seeks its own level. The moment we buy a new, larger house (one day), the level of crap will just expand until it fills the space available to it. Another good example is my crafting area (which I did purge earlier this year). The amount of yarn, fabric, do-dads, bits, pieces, notions, and parts of things that I kept in case I ever might need something like them -- it's incredible.

But I do use it. Slowly. I crocheted the eldest her name in brightly coloured yarn bunting a few years back. I just recently for Xmas gave the youngest a crocheted name bunting, too. I'm prepared to organize all the granny squares I've crocheted into a real, live blanket. I just need to sit, and organize it, and number the squares. I've got another blanket on the go - for the beach. I've got about halfway through my second quilt, so that needs doing.  I just need a week off of regular life to finish my crafting projects.

I guess it's just that for some reason I have this idea that if we moved to a larger house, we'd have more space, and I wouldn't feel like it's such a chore to craft. I can't get stuff out to do, and set it up, and then go back to it for a half hour at a time when I can. Instead I have to take things out, and set up in the kitchen, which takes a while, and then do what I want to do for a finite amount of time, and then I have to dismantle it all and put it all away. So more often than not I feel like it's just best to not get it all out.

May be in the spring. Maybe then, for some reason, it won't feel like such a chore.

But I'm going to keep looking at the houses that are for sale out there. You never know. We might find a place we like enough to venture forth, taking all our crap with us.