November

Last year I read Sieze the Daylight in an attempt to learn more about Daylight Saving time

 

It was interesting but did not really make me a daylight saving believer.  It did make me think a lot about how strange it is we have portioned time into hours and minutes without care for what type of hours or minutes they are.  Why does the sun set at 10pm in the summer and 4pm in the winter?  Why did I chose to live in Wales while there are lots of other places for more realistic sun rise and sun set times? The book had a lot of stories about people getting hit by trains due to daylight saving.  I'm not sure that's a huge plus.

I am still not a fan of changing our clocks.  I am a fan of getting up earlier when the sun is out earlier, but I'm also a fan of sleeping later when the sun isn't up, which doesn't really work with modern life.  

Sunday was the return to British Standard Time.  This has not gone well for me.  I like to wake up without an alarm clock. I like to say “self, we have a breakfast date tomorrow and you need to get up at 5:30.”  I did exactly that and woke up at 4:30 today, which would have been 5:30 on Saturday.  This is why I'm not a fan of changing time.   I’m giving myself a week to adjust before I get too annoyed, but no wonder everyone suffers from heart attacks when the clocks change.

Today is my non working day. This morning we are hopefully having a play date, depending on the state of the little. Isaac is still asleep and it’s approaching 6pm so hoping he might be starting to adjust to the new time?

(They woke up a minute later)

This evening is writing club. I also need to do some stretching today. Tuesday off work is great, but I really get “nothing” done when I have all day with the kids.  I know that’s not an ideal framing, because I get the fun/challenge of a day with the kids, but I would love some better kid/work/house split where I got kid time and house time and work time in smaller portions.

Our life is lived in hours but diminishing return on enjoyment is legit.

Happy Halloween

I love halloween.

This guy also loves halloween.

I had a parenting fail when we got to nursery and he was inconsolably sobbing because he wanted a scary cat costume.  I did not realize he wanted a scary cat costume so he was wearing his halloween shirt.  We also don't have a scary cat costume.  He had mentioned it a few times but I had not realized it was that important to him.

It was the first time I had to drop a sobbing clinging child off at nursery. I know I am very lucky to have avoided it for over three years.  At pick up he seemed to have had a great day (as always) so no harm was done (hopefully, maybe?)

We stopped at Morrisons on the way home for pizza.  Kid pizza (the teeny tiny pizzas) are now £0.79! So we opted for small pizzas for Isaac and Lilah to share, which were twice the size but still £0.99.  Andy and I got a spicy veggie pizza which was £4.50 and risotto rice for tomorrow which was £2.20.  The cost of food is ridiculous at the moment and we probably should start being more strategic with our meal plans.  Our house is full of food, why am I buying risotto rice?

Isaac had a great time handing out candy to trick-or-treaters and looking at our pumpkins.  Ghost was out in full force! And all our halloween lights.  Unfortunately the little one had a temp in nursery and came home early, which meant canceling our evening halloween dinner with our friends, but the kids still had fun eating pizza and handing out candy.

Tomorrow is November! I have signed up for NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month - so I'm aiming for an actual post a day for a month! Wish me luck?

Week ahead, week behind

I have been a bit off this week and weekend.  I am very tired and I don't know why.  Time change? Darkness? General meh?  It's a bummer because I have had a lot of fun stuff planned, and I have enjoyed the stuff I've done, but I haven't been much fun to be around for family.  

Luckily I get another week to try and be better / nicer / calmer.

Today we carved lots of pumpkins with our NCT buddies:

We made this pinterest worthy snack spread:

This week Andy is in Bristol overnight on Wednesday so I get a double-double kid nursery day (assuming no illnesses... it's all going around right now!).  I have put in the calendar that I am going to take a bath on Wednesday night.  I am looking forward to this bath.

My run club is on a bit of a hiatus right now, and I don't really have any spare evenings for running this weekend anyways.  I managed a barre3 on Friday morning before work and have scheduled another one in for this Friday. 

Next Saturday is a ladies MTB day with my new MTB buddies so I am hoping the weather stays OK!

Also, clocks went back this week and here is a summary of my experience:

Fast Friday

1) While fall is my favourite seasons I also find a crash into winter in a not so positive way sometimes.  As in, I am grumpy.  I'm not sure if it's the darkness, or the fact that working from home means I live a lot of my life in my own house, but I just felt a bit *meh* this week.  Perhaps lack of excercise and winter bug only added to this, but I was not on my best form this week

2) Sometimes having a really good system means I get grumpy when things aren't easy.  Good systems aren't in place to make life easy, they're in place to make a good life possible and an easy life easy.  Sometimes it's not easy.

3) BBC literally puts sadness into my brain so why do I read it all the time?  

It's the start of a new month, time to do monthly goals.  I usually divide my goals into Personal/Professional/Family/Adventure but there is a lot of crossover in the last two.  I'm wondering if a goals structure rethink is needed?  

Also, pondering my journaling for next year.  Bullet Journal style is working okay but also I've let it lapse a bit.  Is that autumn ennui or do I need to look for something else?  

Is it time for me to look at Erin Condren?

Tonight we have friends coming for dinner.  I like seeing friends but I am very tired on a Friday.

Fall is my favorite season but darkness is not my favorite view

I love fall.  Leaves changing colors.  Pumpkins.  Thanksgiving! Halloween. Candles. Scarves.

The one piece I dislike is the darkness.  I realized this is the worst week for darkness - the clocks will change next week and I can get one more glimmer of morning light before resigning myself to a dark winter.

I used to notice it when I rode to work every day, leaving at the same time but the sun being lower and lower in the sky each day.

This is the first time since fall of 2019 I've experienced this season while employed.  I started maternity leave in September 2020 and was entirely WFH (and only 3 days a week) in October 2021.

The once weekly commute means the darkness feels like it set in very fast. 

Andy is unfortunately ill with ??? winter disease.  The joy of a 5 year journal is I can tell we were all ill last year, and I am definitely less ill this year.  Andy was ill this week last year and is ill this week this year.  It will be interesting to see if this is just illness week?

Today:

• Hope kids are better and can go to nursery
• Put away the piles of laundry around the house and dream of a dryer
• Make a vegetable laden dinner including mushrooms and aubergine
• Try and maintain focus in work and avoid unproductive task switching (I have set up my calendar as a time block today, so hopefully that helps me get through the list better)
• Arrange C&A sleeepover / social - our weekends are full but fun.

Storing Kids Artwork

When Isaac started nursery I saved all his art.  He came home with wonderful things, like painted ladybirds and finger print flowers

I quickly realized this pile was unsustainable, so switched to hanging pieces I really liked on a board in his room.  I also take photos of every piece of nursery art and put those photos in their photo albums, usually lumped together by month 

(Lilah - September 2022 page)

I throw a lot of art out after I take the photos, but I can't always get rid of everything, and I don't really think one "should".  Recently I made each kid their own art album, with is a cheap wilco binder with 25 poly pockets.  I put all their art in this, and have decided they can go through and keep whatever pieces they like the most.  

The albums were a pretty immediate hit.  Lilah almost immediately broke one of her pieces of art, so that went in the bin, but my hope is that this keeps the kids interested in their art and maybe even gets them to decide what is worth keeping and what is not.

I know I'm only 4 years into the art thing, but I am also aware that's somewhere between 25% and 50% of the amount of time kids will bring home art!  Isaac also has a large framed art display of his first year of nursery.  Lilah... doesn't.  Perhaps the kids art work project will teach them that life isn't fair.

A Failure to Plan is a Plan to Fail but a Planned Plan Might Also Fail.

On Sunday night the social/hobby schedule for the week was ideal:

Monday PM: Run Club

Tuesday AM: Breakfast with G

Tuesday PM: Writing Club with N

Wednesday PM: Date Night

Friday PM: Drinks with colleagues

On Monday my run club buddy texted to say she wasn't well, followed by G postponing breakfast until next week for very legitimate work reasons.

I went for a short solo run Monday evening anyways, and realized that a fortnightly run club isn't an ideal way to maintain fitness.  I'm glad I got out, even if my running buddy couldn't join me.  And we've tentatively rescheduled for Thursday.

Thankfully N was able to come for writing today.  It's great having a once a week hobby of me time, especially as it overlaps with Andy's MTB night so I have to be home anyways.

I remember even as a child getting upset when my perfect schedules were uprooted.  I sometimes struggle to tell the difference between "going with the flow" and "being directionless".

Andy swapped his office day now, so we're redoing our own weekly schedules.  Running will be on Thursday and breakfast/writing on a Tuesday, with a backup morning open on Friday.  This all comes back to Laura Vanderkam's  Rule #5: Create a backup slot.  On that topic - my library ordered a copy of Tranquility by Tuesday and it's on it's way to me.  Very excited.

Tomorrow my schedule is disrupted once again, as the kids will probably not be in nursery due to generic toddler illness so Andy and I are taking half days for childcare.  We managed almost two months without being off nursery for illness - the longest stretch of uninterrupted childcare since.... having children?