Saturday Confessional - Things that are not going great

Kid art is going great and not related to this post

Hi! My name is Rachel and if I wasn't me I would compare myself to me and feel bad about it. (EDITED TO ADD: what I meant was that when I read my own posts sometimes I think "oh wow that person has it all together!" and then I realize that person is me and I do not have it all together.  It wasn't meant to imply anyone should feel bad about not being me... if I was less tired I could think of a better way to word it.)

I do try to do a good job blogging the bummer bits of life, as well as the good bits.  I have no problem with stream of consciousness "parenting is hard" posts.  But then, sometimes parenting isn't as hard and things can still feel blerg.

Here are some non parenting things that are not going great:

Sleep

Yesterday one of my happy things was my current reading life.  I *am* reading a lot now and that's great! But one of the main ways I get lots of reading done is by waking up multiple times a night and not being able to get back to sleep... I hate 3:30am on the clock.  We've also had some kids wake ups on top of the me wake-ups.  I was at about 6.5 hours average sleep for the past 2 weeks and that is not enough sleep for me.

Last night I slept through the night and it was great.  

Exercise

My exercise is going OK this year but only on work days, I cannot figure out how to fit movement into kid days.  I mean, I could be doing exercise right now instead of blogging, but I'm not.  Sometimes, at great effort, I get a 30 minute Peloton ride in during twin nap while the big kids watch a film with Andy.  It's a lot of effort for 30 minutes of sport.  So at most, I am exercising well on 4/7 days, and fewer if I go to the office.

Mornings

Maybe it's the aforementioned sleep, but I cannot get up in the morning.  I used to be a 5am morning person.  Now I wake up around 6 or 6:20 and then don't want to get out of bed and then sometimes do get out of bed but don't want to start anything I like doing (ie a blog post) because any kid could get up at any time.  This morning I got up at 6am and started writing this blog and now twins are awake at 6:30 and I don't know why because this is so early for them.  

In general I would rather not try to have morning time than try and fail to have morning time.

Birthdays 

I have a weird relationship with birthdays.  I don't think I really care about birthdays, but also last year I did the ultimate not caring and didn't really celebrate my birthday at all.  It was my 40th and it was on a Saturday.  I took Lily to a play date with people I didn't know very well and didn't mention it was my birthday.  Lily did mention it, which was awkward.  I did a Peloton ride with a friend which was fun and we had the same friend over for pizza which was fun but it all felt a bit... forced?  Or like it wasn't measuring up to some birthday metric, doing a live peloton ride at 9am shouldn't need to be reserved for a 40th birthday, and neither should eating pizza with friends.  But also, I didn't plan anything better or more, and didn't have the headspace to plan, so that turned out to be my 40th.  A mostly at home day.

In retrospect, I didn't want to be disappointed with my 40th so I pretty much planned for disappointment and it was all exactly as planned.  Is that success?  It felt like even more pressure at the time because it was my 40th birthday and it was on a Saturday.  People asked if I was having a party.  I generally didn't tell anyone it was my birthday.

AI has now informed me that I will never have a round number birthday on a Saturday again.  My next Saturday birthday will be my 140th.  If I want to celebrate a milestone on a weekend, my next "milestone" birthday will be my 75th on Sunday January 25th, 2060.  

All this to say, Birthdays are odd.  I would love to be a Birthday person who plans a big things and enjoys stuff, but I am not that.  Maybe it's because January isn't the time for planning big things?

After some more AI-ing it appears my 45th birthday is a Friday.  Maybe that birthday will involve a trip somewhere sunny.

Photo Albums

After 5 years of consistently updating my photo albums monthly I am just... behind.  I havent started the kids new albums (each kid gets their own album which runs from birthday to birthday).  Lily's needs updating from September, the rest from October.  I fished all their current albums and then... stopped.  Our family album runs through November (not as bad as I thought!) but needs December adding and then Printing.  It just feels like... a lot.  

I could stop now, but it also feels a bit unfair that the big kids will get yearly albums from ages 0-7 and 0-5 and the twins will get 0-2 only.  I think I need to carve out some time to just get caught up.  Once caught up it's about an hour or an hour and a half a month.

Social Life

This is totally on me - I am tired.  I don't feel like seeing people and doing stuff.  Over Christmas I think we had one too many play dates and my desire to "hang out" went negative.  Normally I am all over the "people are a good use of time" mentality.  I usually love having people over, doing stuff with people, going out to a meal, grabbing a coffee... but right now my social battery feels drained.  And then I feel worse because I have texts from people I like wanting to hang out and the limiting factor to our hang outs is... me.  I hope I get back to social soon.

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I'll stop there on my list.  I've got no great solutions, but I have started time tracking again because I am feeling very time pressured (and like I have no me time) and I'm sure that's not true.  Hopefully I'll get some more time & energy soon and then I can tackle some of the above. 

Do you have things that are not going great? Want to swap some things with me? Are you a birthday person?

Friday update, house goals, food things, and some happy things

Last week Andy and I took Friday off to get house projects done. It was great.  We had goals of mounting 3 shelves and 3 pegboards and instead mounted 1 shelf and no pegboards, but it didn't matter because mostly it was a really nice at home day and we haven't had one of those in ages.  When Andy used to work from home we could sometimes get things done midday... now he's in an office fulltime and it feels like things just build up.

We "finished" Ezra's room with the addition of the shelf and wall sticker:

The boy loves a cluttered aesthetic.  

I cleaned out our "pantry" shelves (which are actually bathroom cupboards we mounted in the dining room)

I threw away poppyseeds that expired in 2021 and sesame oil that expired in 2023. I chucked away some spices that were over a year out of date and put chutneys and jams in the fridge so we will eat them and not just save them forever.  I also baked my Trader Joes Pumpkin Bread I had been saving for a special occasion.  Trader Joes Pumpkin Bread is magic.

Because of the reshuffle I could move the pasta "backstock" from the kitchen shelves to the "pantry" and make room for the air frier!

I am loving having an air frier.  Really we would need a bigger one but I have been eating more veggies because I can quickly make roast veg just for me and I love roast veg.  For example, I added a pepper and mushrooms to this leftover fish curry to make it extra veggies:

There's no way I would turn on the oven just to roast some peppers and mushroom.  But the air frier is easy.  I know it's basically a tiny version of our oven, but it's cheaper and faster and less cleaning and I am here for it.

Speaking of cooking, I made a Lasagne!  I made this 30 plant Lasagne. It was in a magazine.  It wasn't the best Lasagne but the fact that it's even possible to make a lasagne means life less chaos than it used to be.  I even made a white sauce.  Are you so impressed?

In other news, Aubrey and Clara have started 2.5 hours of nursery on a Friday now.  It started last week, so of course Clara is now ill and missed nursery today.  It's still calmer being home with one two year old than with two of them.  Especially in this moment, where I am writing this blog post, and Clara is having a snooze next to me:

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I have a million half written blog posts in my head, but days have been so busy recently. But in honor of Elisabeth, here are some quick HAPPY THINGS:

• I picked up a set of super fancy montessori toys at the charity shop - these are about £100 new and I got them for £12

• Most of the kids are healthy right now
• My reading year has started strong - I've finished 3 books so far.  
• I got invited to a book club! I've wanted to be in a book club forever and I'm super pleased to be invited
• I've managed Peloton a few times this week
• I've got a new make-ahead lunch staple that I'm enjoying - Fruit, Yogurt, and a bunch of nuts and seeds (Chia, Hemp, Flax)
• The big kids are doing great in new swim lessons and are actually learning how to swim
• I'm enjoying Saturday morning tennis - kids have a 1 hour lesson and I get a 30 minute walk, a latte, and 30 minutes of watching a bunch of kids "play tennis"
• It's my birthday on Sunday and as I was writing the postman brought me a delivery of my favourite cake - thanks mom!
• My work gives us a day of leave for our birthday so I have Monday off work with childcare.  Time is an awesome gift.

How was your week? What is your favourite cake? Do you take (or get) a day off for your birthday?

Budget Fun Time! Where our money went in 2025

It's budget fun time!

Andy and I keep a budget in excel. We make a best guess at what life will cost (based on last year) and then we live our life.  I think rather than "budget" I track "where our money went".  

We track expenses but not income and take a monthly snapshot of our cash position to make sure we are not going bankrupt slowly or quickly. 

Here's where our money went in 2025:

Categories as follows:

Groceries (10%). Online grocery order, butcher, local shop.  Occasional alcohol if Andy and I are drinking together or having wine at home.  We try to buy sustainable and organic and so probably spend a lot more here than we could.  But we also try to buy on sale and don't each much meat.  Overall, food costs what it costs.

Andy and Rachel Fun Together (1%) We started this category last year because it was our 10 year anniversary and we both turned 40.  We had fun together, we went out to eat, we went mountain biking.  We went climbing.  It was a good budget item.

Bills (20%) Includes gas, electricity, council tax, car tax... all the bills.  about 50% of this is our mortgage, which we are trying to overpay but still have at least 5 years left.

Dining Out (2%) This is mostly cafes for lunch or coffees. Dining out is only applicable if we are eating with other members of the family - if we eat out alone or with friends it's a hobby budget item.  And if we eat out together then it's a "fun together" item.  We went out to lunch once this year (as a family) but we do go out to a coffee shop with the kids fairly often.

House (4.5%) We thought of the house things we wanted to do and then did a bunch of other things last year.  We got a new washer, we replaced our bath panel, we bought a stupidly expensive bin (trash can) because it fits the exact space and has 3 compartments for our new multi-recycling system.  We split the cost of trimming trees with our neighbour.  We got a new hoover, and we built a ground frame for our outdoor slide.  There was a lot of house expense.

Clothes (2%) We just don't buy a lot of clothes.  But also... we look like we don't buy a lot of clothes.  We sort of want to spend more here because both Andy and I can look a bit un-put-together.  I buy all the kids clothes second hand and manage a very complicated clothing rotation system but I don't have good luck second hand clothes shopping for me.

Misc (1%) This is basically photo albums, holiday cards, and stamps.

Transport (2.5%) This is petrol, parking, train or bus tickets, and some bike things for Andy's commuter bike (and his waterproof commuting jacket)

Rachel & Andy Hobbies (7%) Hey, we had a lot of hobbies and a lot of fun this year! We intentionally gave ourselves big allowances this year.  I sometimes get apple music, I sometimes get massages, I sometimes go swimming, I go to the gym, I buy new running shoes.  It was a bumper hobby year for Year of 40.  We expect to spend less in 2026.

Entertainment (1%) We usually get Disney+ or another streaming service in the winter.  This also covers entry to museums, our castle membership, and other entertaining things (theatre tickets etc)

Kids (3.75%) This is stuff just for the kids, like swim lessons, tennis lessons, if we go to soft play or something that is mainly for kids.

Child Care (33%) This is insane to me.  Here's an article about how childcare costs in the UK are the second most expensive in the world.  And here's a BBC article about how childcare in Wales is more expensive than the rest of the UK.  I realize we have 4 kids and a nanny and a bunch of childcare, but we also still barely make it work with being in work.  I feel so lucky I have a job where I can afford childcare, and I also feel that having a the resources to have a job (as a woman) shouldn't be something I have to be grateful for in 2026.  

Gifts (1.5%) This year I decided to be more generous with gifts for people.  I don't know if I feel like a better person because of it, but I do feel like I've spent less mental energy on gifts now that I'm not trying to buy to a budget (ie if I see something someone will like I buy it for them).  Or if someone at work is leaving or having a baby I'll just give them £5 or £10.

Health & Personal Care (1.75%) We have the NHS and a lot of healthcare is free (as long as you can wait 20 years) but some stuff (dentist) still costs money.  Also toothpaste and vitamins etc  go here.  And my haircuts and hair dyes because if Andy would learn how to cut hair then I wouldn't need to pay someone to do it for me. I cut everyone else's hair (although my hairdresser sometimes cuts my daughters hair for free because she is lovely) (my daughter and my hairdresser are lovely)

Holiday (8.5%) We booked A LOT of travel for 2026! We have already booked France in Feb (me and the big kids), Portugal in March/April, Austria (just Andy and big kids), Camping in July.  Also, last year we went to Sweden! Andy took Ezra to Birmingham and I took Lily to Bath overnight.  And our Christmas away was also not cheap.  But it's all fun, and I'm super excited for holiday times.  ! 

Do you budget? Do you try and stick to certain amounts of spending or do you track what you spend or neither? Do you have budget goals?  

2026 goal - build a better organisational system for my life - a bloggy rant about planning and an overfull brain.

Our garden is the perfect representation of how my current life organization feels

One of my goals for next year is to get organized.

I feel like people say all the time "oh you are so organized" and while I do somewhat agree, I also feel like it's out of necessity and effort rather than a state of being.  

Like when I am a runner or doing a half marathon I am not actually that fit, I am just a person who does a lot of running.  That's how I feel about my planning right now... I'm not necessarily good at it, I just do a lot of it.

I carry a million things in my head all the time (which might be why my head kind of reaches its limit, and then instead of being nice to my kids I use all my brain resource to plan 100 meals and packed lunches and school pick ups... and so then when someone needs something (like basic human niceness) I don't have that thing because I already used up all my things with a million other things.)

And I know this is all a bit twee because there is a literal book about how to plan your life now but it's not out in the UK until Feb so blargh.

I started reading "Rest" recently because I probably need to. (I probably need to both rest and read the book Rest)

I've long realized that one of the problems with my current way of managing the million spinning plates is that it is highly dependant on my own steady state of productivity and emotional resilience.  I am good at dropping balls and picking up balls and tossing balls and keeping things moving in the right direction while remembering that we need to add tunafish to the grocery order and also it's library day tomorrow and also holy crap am I good enough at my job to have gotten two promotions in a year and do they regret hiring me and are they going to go back to full time in office and should I just look for a new job now to avoid the slow process of being terminated...

Anyways, as I was saying, there are a lot of balls in the air and I'm not always at the 100% or 90% I want to be because no person is, and definitely no hormone driven person is.  

I know there's a billion hormones involved in having babies and nursing, but as a person who spent almost 6 years straight doing all that I am fairly sure that there are also a huge amount of hormones involved in being a 40+ year old human female.

Anyways, as I was saying, one of my goals this year is going to bo to get a better organizational system in place for all the many things that are happening. One of the cornerstones of this system will have to be TIME and a designated time to plan and review.

Andy and I are pretty good at doing this on a weekly level, but our FLOM at this point is almost a meal planning exercise with some basic weekend ideas thrown in.  

So this friday is a planning day.  I don't really know what that means yet.  And then, on that planning day, I am going to pick another planning day.   And then when I have my days I can... plan them.  

So that's a very long winded explanation of one 2026 goal - build a better organisational system to support my life being awesome that is not entirely based on me always being awesome.

5 Randoms on a friday - house stuff, twin stuff, air frier update and viral youtube from 12 years ago.

I know you all have been anxiously awaiting a curtain update.  I realize I am terrible at taking photos that match, but here are (half the) old curtains:

And here are the new sage curtains:

They need to be hemmed, but I like it better.  It's way calmer.

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Today was supposed to be the twins first morning at nursery (2.5 hours) and I was supposed to get 2.5 hours of time to myself, which I was OVER THE MOON EXCITED FOR.  Unfortunately the big kids could not get out the door for breakfast club (which closes at 8:40) and so by the time I got them to school (8:55) there wasn't enough time for me to get the twins to nursery and instead of a Rachel morning I took the twins to gymnastics.  

Luckily there is a twin charity that runs a hotline for twin parents in the UK a nice lady on the phone helped me feel slightly less depressed about missing my only teeny tiny Rachel moments.

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This evening I tidied the lounge (I was too tired to do any cleaning during twin nap and used it to lie in bed and read, which is fine and nice, but also meant the house was a depressing mess all day) and organised our christmas cards!  This brings me joy always. 

 It's been lovely to get cards from some blog-o-friends this year,  Thank you!

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I am really enjoying this air frier so far! I've used to to make really quick roast veggies for my lunches.  On Wednesday I actually meal prepped myself a pasta thing with pesto and lentils and roast aubergine and mushrooms and tuna feta and it meant I had delicious protien and veggie lunch on Wednesday and Thursday.  I also used it to make grown up dinner on Wednesday which was potatoes and salmon and leeks (you saw my leek right?).  

The food comes out good and cooks quickly.  Unfortunately we really don't have space to own one at the moment, but I am trying to figure out if I can rejig our existing food storage and maybe I can find shelf space.

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In the olden days of the internet there was a video of a talking cat on youtube which Andy and I thought was hilarious and so just 13 years later we have taught Clara to to say "Oh Long Johnson" and "Oh Long Piaaaaano" now and it cracks us up.

She also says "Six Seven" a lot.  Because my kids are jokes.

Crashing into the new year, toddler chaos, kid activities, weekends, and the ongoing search for the potentially imaginary "downtime"

I'm definitely not feeling any sort of "new year energy" - I think for me that maybe comes in August?  I wish I had it in January, but mostly I feel like new year more sleep (not a goal, a biological necessity).

Return to school and work has been... fine.  I think my brain is broken and I probably should have taken a sick day or something because I definitely did not perform at 100%, or even 30% this week.  I feel like I started to get into my work at about 11am this morning and now it's the weekend (in this context, 3 days of childcare) and I am already lacking in patience for kid shenanigans.

The 5 & 7 year old are also tired from their reentry into school.  This afternoon Lily did the classic crying walk home from afterschool club where she was freezing cold (because it was raining and freezing) but could only take one tiny step at a time (because she was tired) hence becoming more cold, and more wet, and more tired.  But - FYI - she was certainly not tired at 7:30 bedtime.  She told me.

The twins are completely thriving with our nanny.  She does all the amazing toddler focused play and chat that bores me to tears.  I am trying to figure out how to use more nanny help to destress my life, but even if we ask her to work on a weekend we still need to find something for the big kids.  Also, the dream for Rachel hobbies is quiet time in the house, which necessitates kids out of the house.  I think in the summer we will be at the age that we could perhaps ask her to take all the kids to the park... but for now there's just a lot of kids at home.  All the time.

Also, our house is a clutter chaotic mess.  We've used January sales to top up on things we need, but not yet put all these things away.  For instance, we bought new shelves for the kids rooms, but the one thing you certainly can't do with kids around is put up shelves.  

I was listening to a podcast where someone said "it gets harder as it gets easier" and I feel that is where we are at with the twins.  They are easier - they don't need constant 100% attention or they will die - but they are harder.  They need stimulation and they have opinions.  Clara does NOT want to get in her car seat sometimes and it's nearly impossible to get her in.  Aubrey will ONLY WEAR TIGHTS AND A JUMPER and I cannot seem to explain that tights are not leggings or trousers and need to be worn with a dress.  Andy is way better at doing 2 year old life, but I find it tricky.

Also, on the theme of ever diminishing "me" time, we signed up for weekend kid activities.  After being a weekend activity-free family for 7 years the kids started tennis lessons in November.  They love it.  I love them running around.  I love having a bit of structure to the weekend.  I like the other families in tennis lessons.  

BUT... our weekends now have a Saturday morning activity that is definitely not for all 4 kids.  So we split the kids, but then neither parent gets down time.

Because I am a glutton for bad scheduling, I signed the big kids up for a trial of small class swim lessons on Sundays... at 9am.  Again, single kid activity, which means neither parent gets downtime on Sunday morning either

Further decreasing the downtime is that we have double birthday parties this weekend - Ezra and Lily have one on Saturday afternoon (it's Ezra's classmate, but I asked if Lily could come for logistical reasons) and then Lily has one on Sunday afternoon (at the same place as the Saturday party.  It's a gymnastics party, which is actually a pretty decent kid party venue).

All weekend slots are now taken up with activities such that, even if it were possible for one parent to watch 4 kids, we don't have any time in which to do this.  I foresee a downtime-less weekend.

No wonder I am so tired every Monday.

Maybe also if I can't do the stuff I like, I may as well like the stuff I do.  I may as well enjoy watching my kids learn to swim and maybe have some nice parent chats at the party.  I've invited some new friends over for a play date on Saturday morning while the big kids are at tennis, they have one two year old so our two year olds can play together.  It's not as good as a long run or a bike ride or being in the house alone, but, as my dad would say, "it's better than a punch in the face, depending on who is doing the punching".

I don't really get that saying either.

Oh, and a photo to leave you with!  This is the classic online grocery order.  I ordered one leek and one zucchini.  And obviously I wanted a leek 3 times the size of the zucchini right???  What is this monster Leek?

Sunday random - cold snap, house projects, hairbrush, misc shopping.

Well we made it to Sunday everyone.  16 days off work.  I did enter the holiday with a bit of fear, and it turns out it was well founded fear because that wasn't the best holiday ever.  16 days in the winter is a lot of winter days.

I didn't get any sports in this week, I didn't do any planning, I didn't set any goals.  The house is kind of a tip (british for a mess)

I did go swimming with the kids a few times (not my favourite activity but an essential life skill) and on Saturday I took Lily to my favourite soft play with Aubrey and Clara and I enjoyed a peppermint mocha (first and last of the season, not sure I like the drink as much as I like the idea of the drink).

It's been brutally cold (for cardiff) hovering at around freezing.  There is a snow and ice warning today.  I can tell it's been cold because £30 is a lot to keep a house at 18c/65f during the day for 4 days:

Also, I did start another house project... because why not.  

Our lounge has long annoyed me.  It photographs well, but the curtains are A LOT.  They reflect the fact that we decorated in November.  

They looked good in November.  I finally found a new pair of curtains I liked enough, but it was £200.  Luckily it was down to £150 in the January sales! So I ordered the curtains in Sage.  When we hung it up it was a definite improvement, but I should have also tried Olive as the color was not perfect.  So I have now ordered the same curtains in Olive and carefully repackaged the Sage ones so we can return one... but in the interim my lounge now looks like this

Not ideal.

Also, I ordered a new hairbrush! Here is my current brush, was which gifted to me by my grandma when I was in high school:

I spent a LONG time looking at brushes.  I think the one that is most similar is this:

But that seemed super expensive and I couldn't face paying for shipping.  I also thought maybe a round ceramic brush would be a good idea?  Maybe the type of brush grandma bought when I was 12 isn't definitely the right type for the rest of my life?

So I bought this one:

And this one:

In unrelated news... We are currently borrowing a Air Frier.

I am not sure what to do with this air frier.  Andy used it to reheat a mince pie and it cooked it very fast! I am not sure we will keep it since we need counter space, but before we give it back i want to try cooking some things in it.  So far my ideas are

• Something with Tofu
• Aubergine/Eggplant thing?
• Salmon

Does anyone have an love an air frier and can send me your favorite recipe you use it for?  Is this like asking "What should I put in a slow cooker"? 

I'm back in work tomorrow, which I am feeling OK about.  I think it will be a hard day because the twins have gotten very used to having me around and are in a definitely mommy phase.  The big kids have started sleeping late.  I'm not looking forward to getting out the door, or the crying.  I'm not feeling at all rested after using almost 2 weeks of annual leave.  But whether I'm rested or enthusiastic or not, work starts at 8am and I'll have to remind myself that everyone probably feels much the same.