July 1st - Life Improvement Plans and Immediate Alternate Plans.

The year is half over.  That's crazy.

The first half of the year was a lot - both good and bad.  The travel was great, I went to Europe THREE times! The kids went 4 times! We proved we can travel as a family.  I can tell I'm going to love traveling with my kids when they are all at least the age of my oldest.  

Work was a bit... unfocused.

My general resources felt a bit... depleted.  Especially in the last 2 months.  I think I got carried along with all the travel planning and adventuring that I never really had time to stop/rest/reflect/recalibrate and all that important stuff.

Last week I did some lovely planning and goal setting for the next half of the year.  I felt like I finally had all the pieces in place for things to improve, for more Rachel time, for better work output.  For living a bit more intentionally than reactively.

And then on Monday brilliant nanny had an unfortunate accident which means she can't work at the moment, and we're not sure when she's going to be back.  I don't want to vague blog but it's not my story. I do know a colleague of mine had a similar injury and was back in work 2 weeks later, however her work involved typing and sitting while nannying involves physically managing small children, so I'm not sure how this will all play out.

The weird thing is, while I'm sad for her and hope she recovers quick, the sudden disappearance of all childcare doesn't even feel stressful anymore. It just feels like this is exactly the chaos that I have been in for years and it's almost easier to be in the thick of it than on the other side.  It's easier to not plan and vision and instead live life a week at a time in the gaps in between watching toddlers and then more watching toddlers.

Someone asked if Andy and my work is flexible.  It turns out, any job can be flexible when you tell your employer "this is my situation and I can't come in".  I doubt I'm going to get fired, but I also don't know how much work I'll miss.  

I had a July onward goal to do exercise 3x a week, and maybe I can fit that into the twin days during their 1 hour nap.  Today I spent naptime catching up on work.  That's not sustainable longer term, because I definitely can't condense my 32 hour workweek into two days and 3 hours of nap.

Yesterday I was in work in London all day and I had my best work day in ages.  It felt a bit like celebrating on the edge of a volcano, knowing that childcare was going to fall apart today.  And tonight Andy and I are going out to dinner (it was booked ages ago, at a pop up restaurant!).  We can toast to the end of life as we know it.

Edited to add: It is now tonight and the twins didn't fall asleep until after our reservation and so we did not go out to dinner at a pop up restaurant, instead we spent a £30 deposit to not get dinner.  Again, this feels par for the course.

I guess, because blog posts need to end on some sort of positive note, I will add that yesterday I was on a train with 3 super nice doctors from our local hospital who work in paediatric oncology and it made me think that no matter how tired and grumbly and annoyed I am, I am also super thankful that I never have to see anyone in that field.  After our train ride the ladies said "nice to meet you, hope you never see us again".  They were lovely and I agree.