Hi ho hi ho it’s off to school they go …

Well it was a tad more stressful than I had planned! My alarm went off and hub had already got the kids up and sorted breakfast – he up at 7 and out of the house by 8am, so I take over when I get up at half seven.

Hub’s clothes were all over the floor – where they’ve been for the past few days and I’ve refused to pick them up for him. I tripped over his pile of crap this morning and hurt my foot. Made it to the bathroom and it was stinking like only a bloke can leave it with dribbles of – well, use your imagination over the toilet seat and before I had even started my day I was throwing up. Great! So yeah, by the time I faced the family I was in a foul mood. Hub immediately started on me with the “Oh you’re so cheerful in the mornings” crap – which of course only serves to make the mood worse!! Needless to say he scuttled out of the house pretty quickly and I dealt with the fallout.

Nathan had a complete and utter refusal to get dressed. He wanted to go and play on his computer – his computer that Hub was SUPPOSED to have put a time lock on a few days ago – but errr apparently Hub has been “too busy” to do that (too busy playing PC games all evening) Megan was dressed and ready with her coat on half an hour before we needed to even go anywhere!!!

Finally got out of the house and thank you thank you to the god of rain for allowing us parents to be able to chuck them straight through the school doors instead of hanging around in the playground!

I’d wanted to get a photo of them before they went off on their first day … but the rain was too much outside and I couldn’t get a decent shot indoors because it was so DARK! Autumn is definitely gone!!

So I am having a very well deserved cup of coffee before I go to work!

So near yet so far

Number One news – Megan is coming home tomorrow! I pick her up at 7pm … I’m sure it will be 7.30pm by the time we’re out of there after she has done all of her goodbyes … and then she’ll have excitedly told me about absolutely everything by the time we’ve driven home!! I’ve missed her! It’s been nice in a way to spend so much solitary time just me and Nathan and he’s been great – hardly had to RAAAHHH at him at all this week!

Number two news – well it’s not news as I mentioned it yesterday, but OMG I am so looking forward to it that it’s worth re-iterating!! Three days and three nights of sanctuary when hub takes the children down to Cornwall to stay with his family. 72 hours of complete and utter sanctuary and pure unadulterated ME time! Ooooh thinking of it as JUST 72 hours makes me not want to waste time sleeping!! Too much to do!!

72 hours of solid …

• Me time. Nobody else to worry about, dish out ADHD meds to, make meals for, force to brush teeth/hair or wash or anyone else to even remotely consider. Totally selfish time for ME ME ME.
• Nobody hassling me about whether I have eaten today or not. Yes people I eat, I just don’t restrict myself to set mealtimes and don’t always feel hungry at 6pm when the rest of the farm my children demand feeding! Yeah okay so Mum will probably phone and ask, but that’s also probably why she’s taking me out to dinner on Saturday night too!! I eat when I am hungry and I drink a butt load of water - it’s how I’ve lost weight recently too (well, that and stress!)
• CLEAN HOUSE! This will be the most noticeable thing of all I think! I’ll scrub the house top to bottom when I get back from loading the car up on Saturday ready for Ford market on Sunday… and it will then STAY clean until the masses descend back here Tuesday late afternoon!

Anyway to change the subject … well, actually, it IS the subject – or, the title of my post anyway. So near yet so far. It seems to be the story of my life right now. I feel like I am constantly battling and constantly struggling for so very little in return and my emotions run so high on a day to day basis that it’s almost like I am THRIVING on the stress and like I can’t function without it.

I need to change that – and soon.

When it rains, it pours

The last few days have officially all rolled in to one! Today has been a day from hell but it’s too late at night and I am too tired to get into it right now – it’ll have to wait! UGH I am busy, stressed and there is too much to do and not enough time to do it all…

I have SO much to write … it will all just have to wait.

Plus my wax melter died … yeah don’t ask!

Supportive? Not from where I stand

I am so utterly pissed off at home right now. I’m working my proverbial backside off daily and I feel that I get very little support for it from hub. I won’t go into detail about the state of our marriage as it’s not something I want blasted all over the web, but let’s just say it’s difficult at home. He claims to be supportive and will stand there and argue the toss with me about how he is being supportive … but he isn’t! His salary puts a roof over my head and food on the table … but it doesn’t mean that what I do isn’t important!

I don’t have the luxury of being able to leave early in the morning and finish at 5pm. I have to fit my working hours into the time that the children are at school, then I go back evenings and weekends if I have to. I am working my backside off to try to build the business back up. I’ve invested hours and hours of my time to build it into something for the future – for my future and for the kids.

Hub has been complaining about HIS LACK OF WEEKENDS!!! It makes me so angry. He expects it to be absolutely fine for me to just not go into work for an entire weekend and either have to fit more into less hours or fall behind with orders … just so that HE can go and do HIS stuff.

How is that supportive???

The latest one??? AFTER we had already had an argument about how unimportant my work is and how he doesn’t get time at weekends … he told me he wanted to go out on Saturday 26th – some bike or canoe thing – I didn’t really pay much attention to the “what” because I couldn’t believe it – not only did he blatantly not listen to me earlier in the day about how I need the weekends … the 26th is the weekend after his daughter’s birthday … the weekend I have got 3 of her friends coming over to all go to the cinema and then pizza and a sleepover! Yeah okay hub, what do I do with Nathan while you are off doing whatever it is you want to do while I am with our daughter and her friends?!?!!

Is that selfish of me? Am *I* being the selfish one? Should I just cause myself MORE stress and MORE worry by having to work harder and faster during the day while the children are at school just so that he can have a weekend to do whatever he wants to do??

Is that selfish of me? Am *I* being the selfish one? Should I just cause myself MORE stress and MORE worry by having to work harder and faster during the day while the children are at school just so that he can have a weekend to do whatever he wants to do??

On the upside I wore new shoes today – so at least the bad parts of the day had a bit of sparkle to them.

it was "Yell at Dee Day" today … and the resulting melancholy!!

I got yelled at twice today by two different people – both pretty important people in my life … and both within a couple of hours of each other!! I am not going to elaborate or go into detail of the who/what/why/when/why and how because both people did apologise for the yelling part (even though I admit there was a reason behind the yelling – i.e. Dee has fucked up again) and it’s all dealt with and okay now … but it really did get me thinking.

I am wondering whether I’ve been too “up in the clouds” about everything lately. I do have a tendancy to kind of go off on a tangent with things and I KNOW get a little over enthusiastic … but if I don’t put myself out there and actively make changes then nothing is going to happen. I cannot just sit here and wait for things to happen for me because life just doesn’t work that way.

It just feels like no matter what I do I am in the wrong at the moment. I seem to go from feeling up to feeling totally crap and that I am the worst person in the world!

Translated – I am a bad mother.

I’m worried about my relationship with my children. Part of me doesn’t want to say anything here because I know Megan sometimes reads my blog and a lot of my friends & family read what I write here … but if being honest on my blog means that the people close to me can get inside my head more … then that’s what this is all about!!

I am working a LOT at the moment. Every spare minute I have is spent working … I’m either on my laptop working on the website, designing promotions, doing accounts & paperwork … or I am out of the house at the workshop.

I worry that I don’t have enough quality time with them – that I am too focussed on myself & the business right now and that they will end up resenting me for it. They are at such a critical age at the moment – both of them and I want nothing more than for them to both look back on their childhood and say to people that they had a brilliant childhood!!

In short, I worry I am not doing a good enough job as a mother.

Nathan is a funny one … because of his “problems” … I honestly think that as long as he is fed, watered and has access to a computer and his nightly “snuggles” with me on the sofa then he’ll be just fine. If I want to actually TALK to him, I need to sit with him on the stairs where there are no distractions and then I’ll get all of 5 minutes before he loses interest! He is very hard to actually get inside of because of his ADHD/Aspergers … but at the same time he is very very loving and we have a wonderful relationship. I can say without question that Nathan hugs are THE best in the world!

It’s Megan I worry about. She is nearly ten and those double figures are a scary birthday number for a mother – well, for me anyway! She is so grown up and at the age now where she is really developing as a young lady as well as an individual with her own distinct tastes, likes & dislikes. I’m worried that I work too much and don’t spend enough quality time with her. I want her to look back on her childhood and truly know that her Mum was there for her no matter what. I worry that I don’t get to spend enough time with her and that there is just “too much to do” with the accounts, working on the website etc when I am at home … that’s when I’m not trying to clean up and stay on top of the housework! The rest of the time she’s at school or I’m at work!

I just want my kids to know that the whole reason why I am doing this is for them. I need them to know that I work hard to try to give them a better future and to make up for the mistakes I made in the past. I still make mistakes every single day, but I realised not too long ago that I’m not superwoman and that it is okay not to be able to do everything. Gawd knows I still have a hell of a lot to put them through yet, but I’ll take it one day at a time.

Even though I am very much aware of mistakes I’ve made in the past and I work so hard to try to fix them, I still screw up! I’m not perfect. Far from it. Today for example … being yelled at twice by two different people for two different reasons. It really brought me down.

Anyway … I think I need a bath and an early night. It’s Monday tomorrow – a new day and a new week.