That Was The Year That Was

And so I haven't blogged for a month.  Not from lack of things to say, just a lack of time to say them.  I've never known such a busy December - pretty much every day there were things in my diary that needed to be done or bought or attended or arranged.  Most of these things were fairly minor, but just the build up of them left me feeling that I was going to collapse under the weight of my ToDo list.  Now we get to New Year's Eve and everything has calmed down considerably - the only thing that *needs* to be done is for the boys to do any homework they've been given and pick up the school readers they've been studiously ignoring for the past fortnight.

I suppose it's traditional on New Year's Eve to gaze upon the year that has just gone and assess it.  This took me all of two seconds; on a personal level, 2011 was a bit of a non-event.  This isn't to say it was a bad year; we had some lovely times as a family - camping in Derbyshire, in Anglesey (with the rest of my family), the Deershed Festival, Lake Garda.  And as a couple - in May Doug and I spent five days visiting Scotland while my lovely in-laws looked after the kids at home.

The kids had good years too - Sam has come on leaps and bounds at school and we're discovering just what a bright little boy he is, whilst he remains as fluff-headed as only my Sam can be.  We were amused when his teacher told us that he has to go to the Year 2 corridor to get his reading books (because he's reading books from the 7-8 age range), but that they then have to send someone else to bring him back because he forgets what he's supposed to be doing :)  My stand-out memories of him this year are as the lead role in the school production of The Gingerbread Man and singing in the school choir in Kirkgate at the Castle Museum.

Jacob has done well - his SATs results at the end of year 2 were very good, but the one I was proudest of was his handwriting being graded as average (2b).  This might not sound particularly good, but at the start of the school year, his writing was probably worse than that of children in Reception; the effort he put in to improving it to the point where it was "average" was fantastic.  And there were other, non-educational milestones met - he learned to ride his bike (finally) and started swimming strongly and confidently for the first time.  Learning to ride his bike has been rewarded with a nice new bike from Santa.



The big thing that happened towards the end of the year was the new addition to the family.  No, not a baby, but a puppy.  After years of talking about getting a dog, we finally got Coco in October and she has been a delight and a pain in the backside in pretty much equal measure.  She's five months old tomorrow and while we still have a fair bit of puppydom and its attendant frustrations to get through, she becomes a little easier every day.  Rather like a baby.

As you've probably noticed, my review of 2011 is all about the other members of the family and not about me.  One of the problems with being a stay-at-home Mum is that it is easy to let your life revolve around your children and to live your life vicariously through them.  Since Sam started school full time in 2010, I have been revelling in the 5 hours a day that are child-free, some time for myself.  Of course, it rarely works out like that; what I get is the opportunity to do housework, shopping and, dog walking without being pestered by the kids. All of these things take up the time I have for myself and it has got to the point where I think it would be impossible for me to ever to go back to work on top of everything else I have to do.

But I've decided to start thinking about ways of generating some income - obviously not up to the limits of what I previously earned, but just a bit of something, a bit of independence regained.  So I'm currently thinking and researching the possible options - from Mechanical Turk to freelance audio transcription to forum moderation to dog walking.  I'm prepared to give things a go and see how they work out; and if they don't work out, it's not the end of the world.

I've also started thinking about personal goals and what I have to do to achieve them.  One of my failings this year has been the inability to finish things; I've always had a tendency to do this (which is ironic, as my BELBIN profile is as a completer-finisher) but this year I've struggled to finish books, to finish little projects or anything much of consequence.  That's one of the reasons I've been viewing 2011 as a bit of a non-event; there's nothing I can point to and say "I did that".

I try not to be too introspective when I'm writing - I always think it sounds self indulgent and wearying, but I'm publishing the last three paragraphs by way of witness i.e. if I've put it in writing for other people to read, then I'll have to do it.  Or at least attempt it.  And rather than say "I'll blog again on NYE 2012 and let you know how I've got on", I'll give myself a tighter deadline.  So I shall blog again on 31st January with a little update as to how I'm getting on.  If I don't, feel free to shout.

An expensive week so far....

On Monday evening, one of the cats (Cosmo) started coughing and retching violently and was generally ill enough to warrant a visit to the vets.  Respiritory illness was originally diagnosed, with a warning that it could also be something stuck in his respiritory system; added to this was the fact that he'd got a hole in one of his teeth.  Anyway, after much worry and faffing, today they put him under and had a root around to see what they could find; what they found was a big blade of grass stuck in his nasal cavity.  They also removed the holey tooth while he was out for the count.

I'm going to collect him later on, but have already been warned that this is going to set us back by £300 to £400.  We have insurance, but that doesn't cover the tooth removal; however, by doing it as part and parcel of the operation to remove the grass, it should make it a whole lot cheaper i.e. we won't be paying for the general anasthetic etc, just the vet's time.

Still, it won't be tuppence ha'penny.  And added to the fact that my Sat Nav was pinched from my car overnight, it is proving to be a very expensive week.  So much so that Jacob's christmas present bike went from a posh ultra-cool one to one from Tesco that I could get through the Club Card Voucher swap.   Squeezed middle indeed.