Sick Days, busy weeks, re-entry report

One of my goals with our recent holiday was to not get ill after I got back.  Over Christmas we went away for a week and then had a guest the following week and then when work/school started I immediately got ill and ended up taking 2 days of sick leave.

This time I felt pretty good when we got back from Portugal.  We left on Thursday the 26th and got back on Saturday the 4th.

Sunday (the 5th) was Easter Sunday and we did a local Easter trail in the morning

We had a somewhat fractious day at home, but we also managed to make chocolate easter nests

Monday was a bank holiday so we were off work.  The kids had another week off school (Easter is a 2 week holiday here).  We met friends at a local garden for another Easter egg trail.  

This one had some pretty excellent games:

Tuesday we were back in work, and the big kids were at a holiday club for 3 days.  The holiday club is a 15 minute drive away.  I forgot how much time goes into transport when the school isn't a 10 minute walk! Drop off took 45 minutes door to door, as did pick up.  Somehow I added 1.5 hours of driving into my workday for 3 days.  

I tried to take it a bit easy after having almost 2 weeks off work but mostly I felt unfocused AND I found some errors in work I had done before I left and mostly I felt a bit blah about being in work and didn't accomplish as much as I would have liked.

I figured all was fine as long as I could really get back into flow this week.  I'm still settling into the job I started in October and sometimes I feel way more confident and sometimes way less and right now I'm in a bit of a "less" state.

3 days of work later and it was the weekend again, and my Aunt was visiting us from the states.  She arrived Thursday after work.

On Friday I dropped Lily at a play date and Ezra went to the in-laws for the morning while I took Aubrey and Clara and my Aunt to see THE MOON which is guesting at a local museum

Saturday Clara and I walked to the local library and went to a cafe with my Aunt, while Andy took Ezra, Lily, and Aubrey to the bike park in the morning.  We all got back before it started hailing.  In the afternoon we did random house stuff / arts and crafts.

Sunday we went to another local museum since the weather was a bit meh all weekend and the museum had both indoor and outdoor areas

We also went out to lunch with my Aunt.  We have entered a new world where the big kids can enjoy eating at restaurants! It's very exciting... if only there were restaurants near us that I particularly like.  But it does mean when we have visitors we may be able to enjoy future lunches and maybe new foods are on the horizon for everyone.

Sunday afternoon I went to a playdate with the big kids, and Sunday evening we had a grocery order delivered while I called my dad and then we went to bed by 10 because life is tiring.

Yesterday (Monday) I got up at 5:30, had my coffee, did my planner/calendar stuff, had my second coffee, packed lunches and snacks for the kids, got kids up, made breakfast, and everyone made it to school/childcare by 8:30.

At 11:00 I just couldn't figure out why it was so cold, and why I couldn't think.  My hands were cold.  Also, my legs were sore.  Was it the 20 minute workout I did on Saturday? Unlikely.  Around 12:30 I realized.. .I'm ill.  Waah.  I took a lunchtime nap (I would say this is a working from home win, but my office also has a "quiet room" where I have been known to lie down when I was early pregs with the twins).  I dragged through the evening and bedtime and this morning I still didn't feel great (even though I had 9 hours of sleep)

One of the tricky things with working from home is... when does one take a sick day?  If I had to go into the office I would definitely be calling in sick. But since I'm at home, is it better to work at quarter speed rather than booking a day off?  Maybe I can do some simple data tasks while wrapped up in a blanket?  

I am fairly sure what I am going to do is work at slow speed today rather than booking a sick day, but if anyone asked me what they should do in this instance I would advise them to take a sick day.  Hmm.

In other news, we have another busy weekend coming up, but then hopefully some downtime.  I realize those in the US enter MAYCEMBER and in the UK we just enter... 2 more more months of school.  I'm looking forward to the school.

Do you feel different about taking sick days when you are working from home vs. in an office? Do you have different standards for sick days for yourself vs. what you would recommend to others?

We went on a holiday!

We went on a holiday! And it was fun!

I promised I would not become a daily blogger... and I did not.  We went away to Portugal last week and I suddenly felt weird about live blogging a holiday so sorry for the bloggy silence.

But also, the holiday was super busy.  There really wasn't much down time, and the down time was way better used catching up with our friends who joined us from America for the trip.  (FYI, they called it a "trip" and not at "holiday"... which was apt)

Anyways, it was great.  We flew to Lisbon and stayed at an AirBnB in Colares which was about 45 minutes from the airport.  I need to figure out how to both blog it and what to do with my 1,000 photos of it.

Our friends have a 2 and 5 year old so the kid game was strong.  My friend learned to say "I would like a table for 10, 6 children and 4 adults" in Portuguese, which helped to get tables and also to realize what a crazy number of kids we (I) have.

We booked flights on Easyjet, and paid for 1 checked bag between the 6 of us.  

Packing cubes are great.  We had to shuffle a bit to get it to the right weight (23kg/50lbs) but we just managed it.

We each got one small carryon item (under the seat - no rolly bags or overhead bags).  We mostly used this allowance for bags of sandwiches and food.  Big kids and grown ups had backpacks.

We also get 2 "child items" per kid.  This has to be a pram or baby backpack or travel cot etc.  We did make use of this allowance:

I'm not being lazy - I had Aubrey in a pram.

• The IKEA bags had our carseats (4)
• There are also 2 travel bedrails
• And the backpack Andy is wearing
• And the pram I am pushing.

We looked like a circus, but we made it to our rental car (7 seater, and we barely fit)

We spent 8 days in Portugal with 2 days of travel either side.  I will have to do a bigger post on that later, but it was definitely one of the best trips we've ever done.

We somehow managed to explore the famous Quinta De Regaleria in Sintra

My friend and I took our "big kids" (5, 5, 7) to Pena Palace

Mostly I made traveling with two year old twins look casual and easy:

Just kidding.  The trip was great, but two year old twins are not the easiest travel companions.  However, they loved it.  

And I am not too tired to function. I am just normal tired, and have had an awesome trip.  Traveling with friends is the best.  Especially ones who put up with 20 hours of flights (Portland to Lisbon is not Direct) to hang out with twin two year olds.  

Also, less importantly, I managed to get a new jacket on the day before we flew.  Marks and Spencer came through!