Summer 2026 - that was a wild ride, random musings from the last few days and for the next few days

Somehow we are at the almost end of summer holidays. Last week I was in work 3 days, and then my dad arrived for a visit and I took Thursday off work to adventure with him at the big kids. We went to the cinema which was showing the Parent Trap - the adorable 1998 version with Lindsay Lohan when she was oh so cute

I'm fairly sure the last film I saw before this was Mary Poppins returns in 2019 with baby Ezra.

September starts Birthday season, which I am trying not to think about too much, except that Lily turns 6 on September 2nd and then we have birthdays for every other person in my family between September 2nd and October 30th.  It's a lot.

But this is not a looking forward post! This is a random Sunday night post.

My lack of Rachel time has meant my planning remains terrible, and I am hopping from one thing to the next without much thinking at all. This weekend I had a somewhat truncated Rachel time where I used ChatGPT to help me figure out what to wear to an upcoming wedding.  I had already bought the dress, but it guided me to a handbag and earrings.  Since wearing earrings was a 2026 goal of mine I felt this was a OK use of time and money (I currently own 3 gold ball earrings and nothing else)

Hopefully everything arrives in time,  I realize I haven't blogged about it but the wedding is in New York and the attire is "Semi-formal cocktail attire" (the people are younger than me) and ChatGPT accused some of my suggestions of being a bit too "British preppy" which is funny but also... ouch and I guess that's the style I aspire to.

Here's what I went with:

I also realized that if I wanted to look put together it would probably take a lot of work to think about what to wear all the time so perhaps my recent musings on looking a bit meh all the time are because I only have time for meh at the moment.  But style would be a fun thing to play with someday when I have more time / when it is a bigger priority.

Although last week was technically the last week of summer, this week feels like summer with school not starting until Thursday.  It's a 3 day weekend for August bank holiday.  Today we crossed a someday adventure off our life list and took a steam train into the mountains on the Brecon Mountain Railway

Tomorrow we are going to a Roman museum, and then depending on weather we will think of other adventures for Tuesday and Wednesday.  Then school Thursday and a Rachel Day, which I have already filled with gym, lunch, and a nail appointment.  

I could really have used that Rachel Day to plan birthday season and get caught up on the rest of life, but there is never actually a "caught up on the rest of life".  I have forever and never to get caught up.

Speaking of being caught up - have I mentioned that I am all caught up on kids photo albums?  That is a major gold star achievement of the summer!  I am 6 months behind on the family album still, but 4 of 5 is not bad.

Oh and one final note on this random blog post - I read two excellent books in August:

Now I feel the pressure to pick my next book because these were both soooo good.

Any great August reads?  Have you ever used ChatGPT for fashion advice?  What's your next "season"... fall? Back to school? other?

Twins at nearly 3 - Change Change Change, a Breach has occured.

When my first baby was about 9 months old I was truly marveling at all the new stuff he was learning.  I asked a friend (who has older kids) if it all slows down from here because they can't keep learning all these new skills all the time right?

My friend kind of stared and said "it's different" because she is nice and didn't want to say "what you are seeing is the most boring bit, just wait! No one cares that your kid can roll over or sit up, all kids can do that, you have a boring lump of kid like everyone else's boring lump of kid".  

Maybe she didn't think that at all, but as a parent of four kids I can now confirm that it is true and only first time parents can marvel at their baby pointing to a black star or trying avocado for the first time because *yawn*

Anyways, there is change afoot in twin land now though!  

In May they moved to beds, because Clara is a crazy monkey who was going to break her foot climbing out of bed.  The transition was either just as bad or worse than I expected, because I expected it to be a horror show and it was

Then the twins suddenly got interested in using the potty, which is good, because they are about that age and I am tired of all the nappies all the time.  

It also made for some pretty weird photo ops, like this one:

Since then, one twin has really embraced the underwear situation, and the other twin has... not.  But when we leave the house we now have one twin in pants/underpants - and thankfully we have so many pairs of kids undies because we already did this twice before.  She gets to choose tractors or unicorns!  It does mean that I'm constantly on toilet vigilance, but I know it's one step closer to twins being real people.

Yesterday, another milestone.  We have a 3 story house with the top floor being the converted loft.  Ezra's room is up there, as well as my office, and then a small landing with toys and other misc things on the way in or out of the house.

We have 3 baby gates - one on the top of the steps (blocking the middle floor), one on the bottom of the loft steps (blocking the top floor) and one on the twins bedroom door (supporting them not wandering at night).

Yesterday there was a top floor breach:

And now, nothing is safe.  Or at least the top floor isn't. The top floor has all the good toys - the marble run, Ezra's K'nex, all my in process things, stuff for the charity shop.  It's going to be another adjustment knowing twins can get anywhere.

You know what's not interesting as compared to a roving band of nearly 3 year old twins?  A 4 month old lying on their back batting at a swinging object overhead.  But that's just like, my opinion, man.  And I'll probably find this bit intensely disinteresting when I get to discuss history with my 15 year old twins.

Wedding outfits, ChatGPT, and an (im)morale connundrum - internet helps needed!

I am going to a wedding in September and recently I decided to face my wardrobe issue head on... I don't have anything to wear.

I have some nice-ish dresses from when I used to go to work Christmas parties when I had 0 kids and 1 kid... but I am fairly sure I haven't bought a new "occasion" dress since 2020 and it turns out the pre-2020 dresses don't exactly fit my post 2020 and 4 kid figure.

I decided to use ChatGPT to help me find a dress.  I told it my age and shape and wedding location and it gave me some suggestions which were pretty good! I ordered 5 dresses from Hobbs, mostly on sale, but not particularly cheap.

4 dresses arrived and one was great - thanks ChatGPT!

Twitchell Linen Dress - Winner!

The 5th dress arrived separately and they sent the wrong dress.  I ordered the Carolyn Dress:

They Sent the Katelena dress:

The Katalena was a bit big and not as nice as the other one, so I reached out to customer service to ask what I should do.  They suggested I send everything back and they'll refund me.  Unfortunately while on their chat support I did some googling and found the internet was full of people waiting months for returns to be processed and I got a bit worried about sending it back, especially as it wasn't the dress on the receipt. I asked if I could just have a refund for the dress I didn't receive, which they did authorize, and asked me to send the other dress back with my returns

After reading reviews I decided to instead return the other dresses in store, which was a 5 mile bike ride away and a bit of faff.  Because I hadn't had a refund for the dress I didn't want to take the wrong dress back and then get no refund and have no dress, so I returned the others.

A week later I did get my refund for the dress I haven't received.  So now I am one dress up.  

I should be a good person and try and return it, but I will need to reach out to customer service again, or cycle into town to drop it off.  There is also a £2 fee for returning things online, so if I reach out to customer service they may ask me to pay the return fee, which feels a bit crappy after they sent the wrong dress.  They may not.

Also, their returns chat takes AGES.... like 45 minutes.

The easiest and most morally wrong thing is to keep the dress.

Also, the dress I'm keeping is now £15 cheaper online than it was 2 weeks ago when I first ordered it.  I realize that this doesn't really affect what I do with the other dress but it is annoying.

And the Carolyn dress they didn't send is now in stock, and also £15 cheaper!  

So, internets, bloggo friends... what would you do?  Am I a bad person for considering keeping the dress they sent?  Or when I'm next in town in a few months I can give it back to the store then?  Or do I spend the time to reach out to customer service and maybe pay for the return and also ask if I can have the markdown price of the other dresses?   Or should I take this straight to ChatGPT since that's who got me in the mess in the first place?

Update: I asked ChatGPT what I should do (I know this is basically the worst use of natural resources ever) and it said to make a low key effort to return the dress so I emailed them and they sent a shipping label and I will send it back.  And I found a form online where I could ask for a price reduction if an item went on sale, so I did that and I'm getting £15 back too.  I feel like a morally good human, except for my excessive ChatGPT usage.

What's Saving My Life Right Now: Summer edition

While I'm stealing blog concepts let's go with the classic - Whats Saving My Life!

In no particular order

My Hydroflask

I bought this before the twins were born and I didn't realize what it was and how it was heavy and temperate tight.  I didn't use it much because it seemed overkill.  But now, I have ice water all the time and I love it.  I put ice in it twice a day and there is basically always ice in it.  And it doesn't bleed water on my desk.  And it's a pretty color.

Summer Camp

There are a lot of summer camp options in Cardiff and the big kids go to one of the more expensive (ie £50/day) summer camps with really excellent staff and the they LOVE their camp days.  I feel I get a lot of shade from other parents for sending kids to the expensive camp... and maybe they would love the cheaper camps... but childcare is not something I'm frugal about and it makes me happy when the kids have had a great day at camp.  

We did two camps this year - one was run by the school (at £30/day, which is cheap in my opinion) but it doesn't run all summer.  So they have 5 days of the more expensive camp before school starts.  At pick up today Lily asked if she could go back to camp tomorrow.  I told her it was a mommy day, and she said she would rather be in camp.  Sorry Lily - mommy would rather spend that £50 on other fun stuff

Grocery Delivery

We get grocery delivery once or twice a week.  We have a pass for free delivery (well the pass is £8/month, and then we get unlimited free deliveries) and I sometimes wonder if I should start shopping in store or find a cheaper store but where we shop works for us.  Also, food ordered for delivery is the same price as in store, which really dissuades me from going in store.  I always add so many little extras when I shop in real life.

My Orchid

I got this orchid for my 40th birthday and I thought it was dead but I left it on the window and watered it occasionally for about a year and now it is blooming again! I don't understand how a flower that looks so dead can be... not dead.  

Salads

I know this makes me a very basic human but I just love a salad with lots of different things in it. And yes, this is lunch at my keyboard.

These Shorts

I know my selfie game is poor and my mirror needs a clean and my office is a mess BUT I love these shorts.  I love tucking shirts into shorts.  I realized these shorts sit perfectly mid rise on me and I will need to find jeans that sit mid rise on me because my jeans (from the same brand!) appear to be mid-high rise. 

Also, shorts are so comfy.  my legs need to breathe. And they're not too short.  I bought 3 pairs.

Tempeh and Tofu

I'm a little obsessed with tempeh and tofu.  It's because I have an air frier.  Air Frier + tempeh or Tofu = the dream.  Today for snack I ate a block of tofu.  I think soy is supposed to be good for lady hormones too.  I'll let you know.

Knowing that I won't have to pack lunches forever

I've got a love/hate relationship with lunch packing. First, I don't know anyone who has a PlanetBox lunch box in the UK, and I worry that my kids have weird lunches and get made fun of.  My son said that his lunch was bigger and had more things than anyone else's lunch, and that made him feel special. Aww! but I still worry kids will be mean about my kids lunches.  

The camp they are at this week requires lunch and two snacks, and all must be nut free.  I miss nuts in lunches because now it's all bread and cheese. This week I bought the kids some "fancy" snack things for one of their snacks.  I did a lot of mental gymnastics over this as they cost £2.25 for 3, and I could chop cheese and combine it with pretzels for less than £0.75 and save the planet and avoid single use plastic but also I remember as a kid how much I loved a lunchable and sometimes I figure a £0.75p snack is a kid delight. 

For morning snack they have the worst named yogurts in the world:

Packing lunch is fun for 5 days of camp.  Packing lunch is not fun forever.

Good weather, the sun, not too hot

Good weather and no heat waves make everything better.  It's saving my life that it's just a bit warm now and also it rained a bit today and that was nice.

And that's what's saving my life.  What's saving yours?

Demerits and Gold Stars: Summer Edition

I've decided to completely steal this Demerits and Gold Stars idea from Elisabeth - thanks Elisabeth!

Here are a few things going great, and a few things not.  In no particular order (I should have started with Gold Stars... I give myself an immediate Demerit for the layout of this post)

Demerit: Planning

I hit a planning groove in July.  I got my new Sprouted planner out, I made a fun landing page for the month, and I kept it updated... until I didn't.

I even wrote "Consistency is the Real Flex" on the top, because I just love an inspirational Robin Arzon (of Peloton) quote.

And then school ended on 20th July and everything went blank.  Here's my August looking forward:

I realize that it's summer... and planning or not, things do get done. Fun stuff happens.  But also, I usually like planning, so it's always a bit odd to me when I suddenly don't.

Or maybe it's that I'm enjoying now so much that I don't need to plan fun for the future?

Of course, that is the exact behaviour that makes the future un-fun... I'm enjoying the fun summer I've planned since May, but it's going to be a cold dark winter if I don't plan anything fun at some point.

I ordered a Sprouted weekly planner in the supersale which is arriving next week (there's always a delay when planners need to be brought over from the states by friends and family!) and maybe I just need a change of planner scene.  Maybe daily planning is not my jam right now.

Gold Star: Walking

When we went camping I wore my apple watch and I realized I was walking 15-20k steps every day and felt great.  I stopped wearing the apple watch many months ago when I realized I was walking 2k steps a day on my working days.  

Since we got back I've been trying to go for little walks more - maybe a few times a day - and I am loving the walking - and think it's good for me.  

It's not a shocking change, but the lows are less low and the highs are more high and that's good enough for me. 

Gold Star: Food Tracking / Protein

I know food is a weird topic BUT I started tracking food about a month ago and I have found it interesting.  First thing I discovered (which I already thought, but nice to have data) is that I eat a lot of food.  And that it's usually because life is hard and I need energy to manage the day to day of kids and jobs and house etc.

This is a good start because it's nice to be a person who can eat a lot of food, but it might also be nice to be a person who can eat healthier food to fuel me better and not 50 random things from the kids snack pot and then a giant plate of kid dinner (mac and cheese, cottage pie, etc) every night.

Also, I've been keen to cut down on meat and increase protein and there are very few quick win high protein vegetarian foods.

I've been eating more eggs, tempeh, tofu, seitan... and then other foods like lentils (which are surprisingly protein rich!) and I think I've been feeling more energetic?  I obviously can eat better when I have time to make food (ie my work days) than days when I'm with the kids all day, but it's been interesting to track over a few weeks.  

Demerit: Sports

I have been exceptionally demotivated in the sports arena as of late.  There are some pretty valid reasons for this.

1) It's been hot and my peloton is in the loft room which is also my office which is also upwards of 80 degrees many days in August.  It's just too hot to ride or work out (for me)

2) My gym buddies have been away some, and my one buddy and I are in a bit of a motivation lull anyways (we both like goals, we started going to the gym together to get stronger for circus skills, then quit circus skills and stopped getting stronger).  

3) My office slash gym room has been full much of the summer.  Lots of projects on the go does not make for an inviting workout area.

That floor space with the boxes and cords is my workout area.

Gold Star: Cleaning my house

I cleaned this weekend and it's great

Gold Star: Planning kid fun
I had a morning with just the girls and I took them to an adventure trail. I don't normally go to this one because it's £10 a ticket but the kids had a great time and I got lots of steps in and sometimes £40 is worth it:

I am fundamentally against activities where kid tickets and adult tickets cost basically the same - kid activities should cost for kids, adult activities should cost for adults.  

Demerit: My own aesthetic

I wish I spent about 15 minutes sorting myslef out everyday instead of wearing my hair in a bun and my face without makeup and generally looking as tired and as one would expect a mom of 4 to look.  I get a bit envious of the put-together moms with 1 or 2 kids.

Demerit: My Social Life

Things are busy and people are busy over summer, but I'm in a bit of a "meh" state with my own social life.  I used to be much more social with play dates and people over but too many times I just feel like such chaos that it's not worth trying to engage with friends.  And then it gets longer and longer since I've seen someone and harder to invite them around for what may be some sort of poop spectacular and then I really won't see them again.  It's just... easier not.  (Although it's also easier if people just live around the corner from me and come over all the time like when Elisabeth was here.  Can someone come be my neighbour friend?)

Gold Star: Watching TV

Andy and I watched a show! I loved White Lotus.  Best thing I've seen on TV for a long time.

Gold Star: Twin Bedtime / Andy time

We mostly sorted twin bedtime, it's not a nightmare anymore.  Andy and I get to hang out at home in the evenings again and it's nice.

That's it from me - any gold stars for you??

A Rachel Morning, come clean my house with me? Or at least help with my patio design?

 I feel that my blog narrative might support a theory that I am always complaining about the state of my house and also always cleaning my house.  I think the actual fact is that often when I get a chance to blog it's also when I've allotted time to clean, and therefore it seems like I'm always cleaning and rarely blogging.  This may not be your impression though.

Today started with a 6:30am swim at the Pontypridd Lido - a restored victorian outdoor swimming pool.  Most pools in Cardiff area are indoor because weather is awful, so it's nice to actually swim in fresh air.  The morning was hazy due to wildfires (a totally not-Welsh experience but we've had so much sun and so little rain it is currently a Welsh experience, sadly):

I came home, helped get Andy and the kids out the door to visit his family, and then started work on the house.  It was a tip

Two hours later the downstairs was not a tip!

I really do miss having a cleaner, but I cannot bear the thought of trying to find a good cleaner.  I did realize that if we didn't want to pay for a cleaner we could instead pay for 3 hours of weekend childcare sometime and clean the house ourselves.  The price is probably the same, although the extrapolated argument is that if we are paying for 3 hours of childcare we should do something fun that is not cleaning the house.

I had originally hoped to sort bedrooms as well but I was done after 2 hours and ready to move onto other more fun things.  Also, doing life admin in a clean house is way nicer than doing life admin in a chaos house (at least for me).

Oh and while I am sharing gross pictures of my hosue, we own a single nice chair.  It is the one you can see in the lounge covered by the throw blanket.  There are rules about this chair which is that kids are not supposed to climb on it or really be on it at all.  Today I removed the throw blanket and found the following:

Girl Next Door recently did a podcast called "This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things" and I guess... it's true.  I'm hoping it's water (we don't drink anything but water, and we're not supposed to have water in the lounge... but also I don't have enough eyes to watch all the kids all the time).  I'm also hoping it's washable, and at least the cushion is double sided so maybe in like 3 years we can flip that side down and then we can have a nice chair again with a grotty face down cushion.  Waah.

Then I had lunch and updated photo albums and the kids albums are now updated through June! Only one month behind!  Family Album is still back in January (it starts in January... so basically it's not started) but I think I will be caught up with kids by the end of the month which is a gold star for me.

I am not very good with before and after photos but we got another to-do off the list this week - a new light fixture in the dining room!

The old light fixture was from when our neighbours put this fixture out for recycling:

Andy installed the new one today - light fixtures are hard but I think I like it.  It gives off a lot of light which will be good in the dark dark winter.

But of course once we fix one problem I move onto the next one, which is our outdoor space.  At the beginning of summer we ate outdoors a lot and kind of awkwardly squeezed into this table

The table is a bit worse for wear from being outside all summer, and it's somehow not easy to sit at because it's tucked into a corner.  But our patio is mostly for toys (as you can see) so we can't really center it which is where it would need to be so we could eat at it.  

I know the answer is that we should have bought a smaller table really... but right now it's the worst of most worlds.  We don't sit at it because it's awkward and somehow just not appealing to eat at, and we can't move it further out because we need the space (and also because of the steps back there which we really regret having built).  I would love to have my coffee outside it the morning but I look at the table each day and think "not today" which is silly because I also want to get a tiny bistro table to have my coffee at.  There has to be a way to make this table coffee-ready.  Outdoor table cloth?

AI gave me the following ideas:

So, basically, I can't make it more nice because I'm not sanding or varnishing anything.  Maybe next year.

5 on a friday - summer edition, Weather, work, admin rhythms, food, swims.

Using my colander to view the eclipse

"Summer" is now more than half over for us.  I know that those in the US are feeling the "end of summer" vibes but I'm squarely in the "late middle" vibes.  

It was hot again this week - 33c/94f yesterday.  I went to the office so I could get some air conditioning.  It was so nice not to sit in a loft room slowly melting into the afternoon.  It was also nice to see people.  I need to go into the office more.  The only downside is the 5 hour round trip commute.  At around 2pm I noticed that all the trains to Cardiff were slowly being canceled due to heat, and at 3pm I ran for a train to Bristol hoping I could transfer.  The 4pm train was cancelled but I managed to get on the 4:30 train and make it back home by 6pm.  In time to do dinner and bedtime.  Was that the right call..?  maybe.

Tonight I am solo parenting dinner and bedtime for the first time in a very long time.  I am a bit scared but everyone will be fine.  

I definitely miss my Friday life admin time I had when the twins were in 2.5 hour Nursery on Fridays.  I'm behind on a lot of things.  The house is really gross.  You know what makes a house gross?  Potty training.  Ugh I am not into the potty training.  We decided to start with Aubrey because she was more keen.  It's going well, I guess, but I can't wait to be on the other side.  Survive till 5!

Today our nanny is coming in the morning for the twins so I can take the big kids to the open air pool.  It should be fun, they can both swim so much better than last year.  The poor twins don't get to go swimming because often pools have a 1 to 1 kid ratio and at no time does my family work in a 1:1 capacity.  I realized the other day that at almost no time does 1 kid get 2 parents ever.  I think I'll put that as a future goal for the big kids.

I've started food tracking recently and it's gone on longer that I've ever tracked food before.  It's been kind of interesting.  I'm being a basic human and trying to eat more protein but also not eating meat (except fish) so that's a fun project.  I must have some unexpected brain space or something to be able to think about high protein veggie meals for me that also suit the family.  Last week I made DIY taco bowls with Tofu:

We have a pretty low key (for us) weekend coming up.  Maybe we'll get a chance to clean the house somewhat, or update photo albums, or install the new light fixture for the dining room... or maybe we'll ruin our life by starting White Lotus season 2.

Is your summer winding down or endlessly long?  Are you jumping on the protein trend or have you been there all along?

Day In the life - Stay At Home Mom Of Twins edition

Remember when I was a SAHM for like two weeks with twins?  Me neither, but it happened in June.  Here is what June 2nd was like:

6:30 am to 9:30 am, not pictured, dropped Ezra (7) and Lily (5) at school, packed lunches, slowly got out of house with Aubrey and Clara (2.5)

9:30 At the park:

10:00 Snack Time

10:30 More Park

11:00 Take the train from near the park for no reason going nowhere

11:30 get off train then get on train going back to the same station we left from

12:00 Spend hours (or maybe minutes) getting back into the car to go home

12:30 Lunch time gets messy

1:00 Naptime. See lots of mess to clean up and sit down instead and instantly lose all motivation

2:30 and also what felt like seconds later, time to get up from nap 

3:00 Pack snack and head off to pick up big kids from school

3:30-4:30, not pictured, walked to the park, suddenly a kid yells I NEED A POO and then we have to go home but the other kids cry because they wanted to go to the park.  And yes this is the same park that we previously abandoned a play date because a kid had to poo so I really don't understand how anyone does after school park trips because for us it ends with crying and running home for poops every time.  Is that a lot of poop chat for a blog?  Too bad, poop is my twin mom life.

4:30 Drive to a different park instead, after everyone uses the toilet

5:00 everyone looking tired from lots of park time

5:15 Walk back to the car, slowly.

5:45 tidy up before dinner

6:30 I have no memory of what dinner was but I guess there wasn't enough and kids are eating something with peanut butter after?

7:30 kids bedtimes done and time for tidying up and also bed

And that was a day of twin life.  It's cute, they're cute, and I feel tired and mentally unstimulated just logging that day out on this blog.