Here are some thing that are making my life easier right now (I think in the blog-o-sphere this is called "saving my life right now" but that feels more of an autumn/winter vibe for me)
1. The canteen at my office. My office is a 2ish hour commute away. I go once a week. On office days I don't have to pack any food as they have a subsidized canteen. In the morning I usually get either a salmon bagel and cream cheese (my fav!) or a yogurt and fruit and granola parfait. They do hot lunches most days, and have excellent sandwiches other days. Also, the chef makes AMAZING cakes and I wish I could eat last week's chocolate raspberry cake forever. It both gives me something to look forward to on my office days AND relieves any stress of packing lunch. No matter what I get, breakfast and lunch and drinks never come to more than £5.
2. My kids sleep. Or maybe my kid's sleep. Basically, I am super lucky and my kids sleep. They sleep by 7:30pm every night. Sure, they wake up early (before 6 is too early, if they sleep till 7 it's a miracle), and sometimes Lilah falls out of bed, but in general, they reliably sleep. It has SO MANY knock on effects for our lives. Andy can go out at 7:30 knowing the kids will 99% be asleep by then. We can get the house sorted and we can start a TV show by 8pm. I can have friends over anytime after 7:30.
3. Handy Andy. My husband is very handy. He can fix and build stuff. I am lucky as I am decidedly not handy.
4. Flexible working days and working from home. Honestly, how did we ever do it before. I could never be moving forward in my career the way I am without flexible working.
5. Kindle. I wasn't sure if I would use it enough, but I do and I love it.
6. Fruit. I am anemic and trying to up my iron, and I remembered how much I love fruit. Some dried fruit has iron, some regular fruit has iron. I love eating fruit. Unfortunately I'm also on Iron tablets now, which can have some digestive side effects, but these side effects can be fixed with... you guessed it... fruit!
7. Vinted. I know I'm so late to this used clothing buying game, but today we had 8 shirts, 3 pairs of shorts, 1 button down shirt and 1 sweater delivered for Isaac for less than £30. For comparison, one button down shirt from M&S is £14. I need to list some of my own clothes on there soon too. Unfortunately nothing Isaac wears survives enough to be resold (most ends up in the clothing scrap pile as it's so stained and usually has holes. Who are these kids who leave clothes in good condition?)
8. Planning. Life is somewhat complicated. Our weekly FLOM is helping us keep it all together and do fun stuff. We have so many moving parts and I'm glad I have one space in the week to go through everything with Andy.
9. Massage. Because it is amazing, and I bought myself a package of 6, and I found someone who does amazing deep tissue massage that feels moderately painful at the time and immensely restorative after.
10. Blogs. Thank you all for entertaining me!
I honestly can't even imagine my life without a Kindle now. It's maybe more important to me than my phone!
ReplyDeleteThat's what I want to know! HOW THE FREAK DID WE MANAGE BACK WHEN WE HAD TO BE IN THE OFFICE 5 DAYS A WEEK?????????????????????? I can't begin to imagine that craziness right now. Your 1 day a week arrangement with a chef sounds pretty good.
ReplyDeleteBlogz 4 Life!
I recently told a colleague I couldn't come in on a specific day because Andy was going to be in his office that day. Then I paused and realized that in the past both partners would go into different offices on the same day all the time. How did we get parcels? Who picked up sick kids? Who made dinner? It's weird that three years ago seems a lifetime ago.
DeleteAwww, this was a fun list! So many good things! I love that your office has a canteen. It sounds like a wonderful perk. And SLEEP. When the kids sleep, life runs smoothly!!!
ReplyDeleteI really, really enjoy the flexibility of a hybrid work environment too. Why wasn't that a thing?
ReplyDeleteI also love my Kindle (App)... I currently don't read any other way.
Thank you for this uplifting post! I am also lucky that the kids go to bed by 7:30 and wake up early, too. 6:30am usually. I love stone fruit!
ReplyDeleteDaria from momofchildren
DeleteOh yes, I remember the days when my kids were in bed by ~8:00!! It sure was nice in many ways, to have a good chunk of time after bedtime to relax, watch a show, etc. I will warn you, as you obviously know, that this doesn't last forever. ;) Now they usually are up until more like 9:30-10 on average, and it can be challenging for me to wind down and relax until they are in bed. But then I still end up wanting some "quiet time" with my husband to watch TV or just relax, and then I can end up going to bed too late..... sigh. There are many many advantages to kids not needing a 7:30 bedtime though too, don't get me wrong! :) Love not having to worry about the kids turning into bears because they are the teeniest bit over tired, we can travel and go out to eat or go to fireworks late at night or just whatever!! So that's great. :)
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