Definitely back to normal

Mr. Lacer back to work today and of course that’s when the kids decided to have a lay in! We’ve been woken up early by them all holiday. I’m sure Mr. Lacer is probably at least slightly glad to be back at work, if only to escape the constant calls from Girl Lacer “Daaaadddddy, will you play with me?”, “What do you want to play then?” he replies, “I don’t know,” she replies.

We have a class picnic today but the weather looks pants. We do have an alternative meeting place but it’s a question of whether everyone has remembered the alternative meeting place / can be bothered to come out in the rain.

Other than that I have to make a start (again) on the tip that is the flat, it is suffering badly from the two weeks holiday and for a week of that we weren’t even here! I’m coming to the conclusion (again) that short of moving to a bigger place, the only solution is the dreaded Flylady. I have to do something, there’s so much I want to do with the kids and with my life creatively but all my time and energy is spent fire-fighting this place!

Lax

I’ve had my head far too much stuck in books over the last two days and the housework is now piling up, I fear I may need Flylady again, specially with the school holidays coming up which always makes the flat even messier, I just can’t seem to manage my time. The kids are currently eating raisins off saucers as they’re the only clean plates I could find.

No chance to do housework this afternoon either, as Girl Lacer is having a playdate after nursery and they’re getting the paddling pool out, so I need to pop into town and get her a swim suit, her last one would have fitted ooh a 2 – 3 year old. Pre-Boy Lacer we used to go swimming a lot, but now juggling two children, particularly one terrified of water, on my own, is pretty much impossible. We do actually own a ridiculously large paddling pool ourselves, brought in the hot summer of 2005 when I was pregnant with Boy Lacer and needed one big enough for me to lay like a marooned whale in, the summer of 2006, we had water restrictions so we couldn’t use it, the summer of 2007 was pretty miserable, so we couldn’t use it again and now it’s buried under 3 years worth of junk in the shed and we can’t get at it. Anyway Boy Lacer is also going on the playdate, but I will decline to get him a swim suit, it’d be a bit of a waste of money, considering at the most he’ll only get his feet wet, I’ll take a change of clothes though.

Not looking forward to the summer holidays

It feels like Girl Lacer has been on holiday forever and it’s only been just under two weeks, one of those was mostly spent in Wales. but I’m (along with everyone else) slowly climbing the walls, so whereas I was looking forward to having Girl Lacer at home all the time for what will probably be 8 or 9 weeks over the summer, I am now sure that I’m going to emerge with grey hair. This is all becoming very reminiscent of the not very fun summer we had last year when Girl Lacer’s playgroup closed early in May and we had from then until September unoccupied. Girl Lacer (like most children her age) requires a certain level of stimulation and having too much ‘quiet time’ at home does not cut it. Hopefully the weather will at some point improve, although it didn’t last summer did it? We’re lucky (or should I say we’re just about bankrupting ourselves) to live in a lovely part of London and there is a lot to do outside when it’s not tipping down with rain and blowing an arctic gale but when it’s the aforementioned weather conditions (like it is again today) we’re cooped up in our tiny cluttered flat and it is not particularly fun.

When we came back from our ‘holiday’ in Wales the flat was in a bit of a mess, Mr. Lacer didn’t go back into work for another 4 days and the flat during that time got even messier, Mr. Lacer’s first day back in work on Tuesday and I managed to tidy two of three messy rooms (mine and the kids’ bedrooms) but the biggest headache, the living room which is the living room, come study, come play room, come dining room is still complete and utter chaos and now far far worse. I don’t know about anyone else when it comes to tidying but it’s not exactly easy tidying a room when there are 3 – 4 people in the same room at the same time. So I’ve been trying and failing to tidy the living room since then and the general chaos is not providing a calming atmosphere and I’m sitting here trying to imagine 8 weeks of this and thoughts like that always lead to thoughts of Flylady which is a housework system I know that works but is so not me it’s unbelievable but like I say, it works. Do I grit my teeth and knuckle down to it, so that the last 8 weeks before Girl Lacer starts a new phase in her life and starts school is actually fun, I’m thinking having the space to do craft, bake and generally play, have friends around etc. etc. or do I want the 8 weeks to be “no I can’t do that I’ve got to tidy this pigsty”, pretty obvious answer really. Well it’s 3 months till the summer holidays, so nice long lead up time.

In other news my cucumbers I planted out yesterday are already not doing well, which has to be a record for my bad gardening skills, I think I may have planted them out too early. There wasn’t a frost last night but there’s a real chill wind at the moment (argh it’s the middle of April!), I’ve moved them to a more sheltered spot in the garden and will think about bringing them in tonight to stand in my kitchen (unfortunately haven’t got the space to bring them in all day). I could really do with a green house and we do technically have space for a small one but it was full of junk when we moved in and we ah hem added to it and now Mr. Lacer claims it’ll take a pick axe to clear it. But considering I have some chilli plants arriving at some point, ten of them, and they’ll have to live on our windowsills he may see the light. But on one final greenfingered note, I did sow some basil seeds inside the other day and they’re starting to sprout, yipee! 

Bleurgh!

Well the norovirus got me or at least I hope it’s the norovirus, I don’t want to have had to suffer through this and then get the norovirus which is doing the rounds at the moment in a few weeks. Well whatever it is it’s a charming little b*gger, not, putting the typical intestinal symptoms aside the hot flushes and the aches and the killer indigestion today, all makes me want to leap out of bed and do housework if only I were feeling fit enough just because doing housework is actually preferable to being stuck in bed ill! (Needless to say I have yet to start my latest attempt at Flylady).

Other than that I have been trying to read, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters which is proving a very dense read indeed.

Oh and on one more final note, thank you WordPress for the space upgrade! (Only wordpress users would know what I’m talking about there – must go find some more pictures to upload tee hee).

Got to do something

That believe it or not is my bedroom, the space between my bed and wardrobe and you know what’s even worse? The day before I took the photo (I took the photo yesterday) I had spent the entire morning clearing that area and it was clear! I have to do something and maybe putting that photo above on the net will prompt me to do it, I think I need to ‘shudder’ go back to Flylady.

I have a mixed relationship with Flylady; I know that (in theory at least) her house management system works, I’ve tried it twice and each time for ooh about a month I’ve had a reasonably tidy house but it’s so regimented it really isn’t me but maybe I need to make it me. I think (from experience) the trick with Flylady is to read the many many e-mails that come flooding into your inbox on a daily basis as, the term they use, it ‘Flywashes’ you and I know where I failed both times I tried Flylady before, I stopped reading the e-mails, but they are so saccharine (and repeat a lot) I can’t bring myself to read them for more than a month. I think I need the ‘Gordon Ramsay’ method of Flylady “Sink – Shine – Done”, instead of having to plough through many many paragraphs on how shining my sink will make me and seemingly every housewife across America feel so much better.

Even though I haven’t been practicing Flylady for a while now I do still often wonder what Flylady would think of my flat, for example what would she think about the space between my bed and the wardrobe? Now I know the mantra, which seems to me pretty much to chuck out everything (declutter) but looking at the photo above, I need all that stuff! Ok the cookbook on the bottom right hand corner should have been in the bookshelf but there’s clutter in front of the bookshelves and I can’t reach it, the two large soft toys in the photo are the kids but they live in our room because there’s no room in the kid’s room and although we do occasionally try and get rid of them (the soft toys not the kids!) they notice immediately and have to be rescued from the bin bag (and my argument is that if my kids notice the toys are gone, they are obviously still using them and therefore it would actually be a bit mean to throw them away because they don’t fit in), the basket on the bottom left hand corner is actually a ‘Flylady thing’ I still do, one of her methods of tidying up is to tidy up with three containers, one for rubbish, one for recycling / giving to charity shop and the other for putting stuff in that should be elsewhere, the basket in the photo is the latter, my kids call it the lost basket. Beneath the cookbook are my boxes of books, I sell books (along with reading them voraciously) and I need to keep my boxes of stock somewhere and the only place is honestly my bedroom. The rest of the stuff in the photo is generally clothes because there’s so much in front of my wardrobe I can’t get into it! As I said I cleared the area completely the day before I took that photo, how did it get so bad again, so quickly? Well I think I read somewhere on Flylady about things acting as a nuclei for other mess and my stock boxes in this case are the nuclei, I’ve nowhere else to put them though (honestly, I live in a really small flat), they block the wardrobe, voila!

Just the speed that particular area reclutters has made me realise that I spend most of my life now fighting this flat, I have better things I’d like to be doing other than constantly clearing that space and all the other hotspots around my flat; I’d like to read more, write more, craft more, cook more, spend more time with my kids. We do not have any money to move anywhere bigger but I believe strongly that I have within me the ability to earn enough money on a self-employed basis to one day earn enough money so that we can move BUT that’s not going to happen if I spend all my time firefighting this flat. So tonight I think I’m going to have to ‘shine that sink’ but as for the e-mails I still can’t bring myself to read them (I never cancelled my subscription, currently they get automatically diverted to a folder which then gets deleted unread every now and then), maybe I need to use my writing skills and write myself a set of instructions to read every day Gordon Ramsay stylie!

New Year’s Resolutions

Okay, it’s that time of year. I’ve been thinking a lot about resolutions recently, maybe it’s an effect of getting older but each year seems more important now, less time to waste. Anyway here are my resolutions, recorded here so that I know at the end of next year whether I actually did them or not!

Writing

I’ve been following Susan Hill’s creative writing course on her blog and her last post on the matter for the year was a kind of put up or shut up ultimatum, basically a ‘are you a writer or just somebody who says they want to be a writer?’ and the ultimate thing, what writers do, it submit to be published and that in 2008 has to be my goal. So far in my ‘writing career’ I have submitted unsuccessfully three short stories and three chapters which I’m still waiting to hear on. I am currently working on a children’s picture book idea which needs more research but if I actually got down to doing it wouldn’t actually take that long (it requires some trips to the British Library, so it’s more of a trying to find the time issue), I am also still trying to finish my Egypt project. So those two projects have to take priority in my writing time, no more attempts at short story writing (although I’ll finish my current one that I’ve posted the first half of), I’m not very good at short stories, short stories require a different discipline to writing novels and I prefer writing longer stories. I am also a pragmatist, although I know my chance of making money at this is slim, there is very little money in short stories and alot more money in the commercial fiction I am attracted to. I’m sorry, typing this sounds like I’m trying to ‘debase my art’ or something poncy like that, but I need to make a living, I have a slim hope that I could do it writing but to make a living writing means having to think about money.

I need to plan my time more carefully concerning writing, researching and the all important reading. My experience doing NaNoWriMo this year made me realise that although I may long for all day to write, if I allow myself vast amounts of time I can’t actually write for that long anyway! So I need to stop feeling resentful at the other domestic chores that take my time away, as there is time to do both, I just have to be (and I hate this phrase) more organised about it. Last Autumn I was lucky, Girl Lacer was at nursery and Boy Lacer napped, so I had two hours free each day and what did I do with it? I faffed, that’s what I did. Ok I did use that time to complete a 40 000 word novella during NaNoWriMo, so I guess I did something but I then spent the whole of December recovering! Once Girl Lacer goes back to nursery I will not have the luxury of Boy Lacer napping anymore, as he appears to have grown out of them, so I need to find my time elsewhere and unfortunately I am not an evening person but all I think I need for the moment is an hour each day to read, write or research and that will be progress and my resolution.

Housework

As referenced in my previous resolution I do need to spend more time doing housework and to stop resenting it. I tried Flylady twice last year and it was successful, which annoys me even more know as I know there’s a method out there that works, so I’m annoyed at myself for not doing it. However it is so regimented and that is just not me. I think I need to find my own plan, something that works for me, using some of the tools from Flylady (some of which I still try and do even though I’m officially off the Flywagon). I spend too much time using the fact that we live in a tiny flat as an excuse, we could, in all likelihood will be, here for years, I can not wait until I get that big house I lust after. It is not just me who lives here, my children do to.

The internet

I need to spend less time on it. I am already fairly controlled with it, I know that there are some sites like Facebook, that if I got into that I’d never be off the computer and I have my messenger off most the time as well but I need to be more controlled, use my time more constructively. However on the other side of the resolution I do resolve to continue blogging! But less time on the internet means more time for housework, writing and the kids, which can only be a good thing.

Money

I’m still learning but I need to be in better control of it.

Cooking

I need to use my vast collection of cookbooks a little more often and to stop relaying on Captain Birds Eye and pasta!

Creativity

I’ve been getting ‘sewing urges’ for a few years now and so far it has totalled up to a nearly completed doodle embroidery, a toy dog for Girl Lacer, a scarf for Boy Lacer and a sewing machine I brought 3 years ago and have so far been too chicken to use. I buy books on how to make your own clothes from a vintage handkerchief or how to make a quilt and I have a collection of baby knitting books which are useless now as both my children are too big, although at the rate it takes me to knit something and with the fact that I would in three years or so like another baby, that maybe I need to start knitting now. So my resolution for next year is to be more crafty, I have the urge to knit my own socks (?!?) and I must get out that sewing machine, actually next year I do need to get out that sewing machine, the school Girl Lacer will hopefully be going to (pretty darn likely, it’s at the bottom of our road) has chair bags instead of drawers for their children and guess who has to make them? Yep, the mums, all they provide you with is a rectangle of material (which you hve to buy from them of course) and the instructions. You then sew the chair bag up (which I think even with my complete novice sewing machine skills would be better than hand sewing) and then and here comes the ‘fun part’ you have to embroider your child’s name in large lettering onto the bag, honestly that’s why I’ve been practising my embroidery! That’s what you get when you want to send your child to a ‘momzilla’ school (ok, I did not event the term momzilla, I read it in a magazine but it is very very apt, momzillas are mums who pre-kids had extremly high powered jobs and are now devoting all the energy they previously spent domineering the boardroom into domineering the playground and they come up with silly ideas like embroidered chair bags. Girl Lacer’s hopefully future school is so popular it’s one of those schools with a minuscule catchment area and the majority of the houses in the catchment area are very big and very expensive, just to give you an idea of the average parent there!).

Christmas Holidays

This is really a ‘what have I been up to’ post, so feel free to skip this one and carry on browsing my Nigella posts! I’ve just got a free moment as both kids decided that they wanted a nap, mmm a toddler and a pre-schooler trying to nap in the same room, not going to happen but they are keeping each other occupied, I can hear Boy Lacer bouncing up and down in his cot as Girl Lacer yells “One, two, three BOUNCE!!!!”

Anyway in case you hadn’t guessed it’s the school holidays and it has been absolutely blissful not having to permanently be somewhere for 12.50, so that means no more rushing to the shops, actual hot food for lunch, wonderful. The last day of term was on Tuesday, after the palaver over the staff Christmas presents I got them a book (really for the nursery itself) which they loved and they read at storytime bless. As a rep they even gave me a Christmas present (me suspects they were ‘expecting’ a collection) which was sweet. Tuesday night the mums and teachers went out for a drink and buffet which was great, confidence fuelled by two large glasses of white wine I had a nice time chatting to everyone. Wednesday morning was a playdate with two slightly fragile mums (I’m an alcoholic light weight) and in town shopping afterwards, we were spending Boy Lacer’s Christmas money (have already secretly spent Girl Lacer’s on a Fisher Price Digital Camera), it’s nicer for them to unwrap something more than money. Anyway so me and Girl Lacer were shopping ‘secretely’ (yes, right in front of Boy Lacer) but on a visit to the toy shop one of the first things we saw was a  Dancing Iggle Piggle which I thought had sold out everywhere, so of course Girl Lacer goes “I think Boy Lacer would really like that,” translated as “I would really like that”, which as it happens I would like to as it looks really cool, so we brought that and a human sized Iggle Piggle blanket (mmmm lost track of how much In the Night Garden stuff he’s getting this Christmas).

Boy Lacer however had more control over the shopping however when we stopped off at Mothercare to get, and I can’t believe I’m typing this so soon, a potty! Honestly what with Girl Lacer taking forever to potty train and with Boy Lacer’s mobility / developmental issues and the fact that boys take apparently longer to train, Boy Lacer has been showing signs of being ready to potty train! We’re going to take it slowly, it could still take forever but he chose a nice little potty seat, which is more substantial than a traditional potty and being higher up easier for him to get on and off. He likes sitting on it fully clothed but has yet to do anything actually on it, although last night he decided he was too big already for it and insisted on sitting on the actual toilet!

So that’s what we’re up to at the moment, the flat is in absolute chaos, I never have a chance to tidy and to be honest if ever I need Flylady I need her now, but the artistically temperemental in me does not want to have to be sooo regimented!