Gentle reminder

I can't believe another week has gone already & that we're into the last few days of February. This year is flying by! We had another lazy weekend like the last and I'm now eager to pull myself out of my "cloud" & actually DO something rather than just waste time thinking about what I should be doing.

I stopped taking my anti-depressants at the beginning of the year & I am determined not to go back to them unless it is absolutely necessary - I've spent the last 6 years, more-or-less on & off in between babies, taking various medications & I think the time has come to try to cope on my own. I know it's not easy but I'm in a much better place than I was 6 years ago that I think I can do it - my family also deserves my best efforts!

The whole point of this post today was to remind myself that I have come a hell of a long way in the past year or so & that I am already doing a lot to make myself feel better & keep myself on track.

I know I keep going on about it, I'm sorry if I'm sounding like a broken record, but I've been following FLYLady & have found this to be an absolute blessing.  Since starting with the routines I have managed to keep up with the following:

- Get up & get dressed to shoes before doing anything else in the morning
- Do at least one load of laundry a day
- Make sure the kitchen is cleaned (with shiny sink!) every evening before I sit down for the night
- Put the dishwasher on every evening & wash up anything that doesn't fit in rather than just leaving it on the side to wait for the next load
- Ironing is kept up-to-date & I do it at least once a week (I used to leave it sometimes until all of our clothes had been worn & I had noo choice but to iron!)
- My Weekly Home Blessing is done without fail every Monday morning, so even if I have a bad week & don't get anything else done then at least the house has had a quick once-over
- I more-or-less know what we're going to be having for dinner during the week due to a little bit of planning in advance. This has saved us a huge amount of money on last minute shopping trips/takeaways

As I mentioned before, this post is really meant for me to serve as a reminder of the things I do do when I'm making myself feel bad about the things I don't do.

xxx

Ps. I realise that to a lot of people my list is going to seem somewhat pathetic, that the reaction may be "So what?! I do all that plus x,y,z every day" but to me this is a big achievement.

Lazy Weekend

We've been a bit poorly this weekend with the coughs, colds & sore throats that have been doing the rounds recently. What else can we do apart from laze around in our pjs while watching dvds, colouring, doing puzzles & snuggle on the sofa under cozy blankets?

Lovely.....(well, apart from the being ill part, obviously!)

I hope you've had a lovely weekend too.

xxx

Bad Week

How are you?  We're plodding along here - it's half-term so Freya has not had nursery this week. Thank heavens for the local Children's Centre though as the regular play sessions have still been running so we have been getting out of the house to let off some steam!

Personally I have been having quite a bad week. Not for any particular reason, I just haven't felt myself. I've been trying to keep up with my routines & have been successful for the most part but I haven't really worked on my zones this week & I have been beating myself up about it.  I shouldn't really be so hard on myself as it's not the end of the world but it's a habit I can't break easily.

I have suffered from depression on & off ever since I was about 15 so go through these phases where I'm a bit fed up. Now I have children though so I don't let myself get as low as I could do as I don't want that for them & I certainly don't want it for me either!

My bad phase has really not been helped by Hubby's situation as he seems to be on a real downer at the moment so I feel like I'm having to compensate for him to a certain extent for the sake of the girls. That in turn makes me feel like I'm under extra pressure & the cycle continues.

When I'm in this horrible cycle I start to put on a little "pity party" & think about how I haven't really got any friends, how my family are a long way from us, we don't have much money blah, blah, blah. I then try to balance my thoughts with things like "we've got each other & our gorgeous, happy, healthy girls", "we've got a roof over our heads", "we've got enough money to pay our bills & to feed the family" etc.  At the end of the day these are the most important things in life & I am very grateful for what we have got.  In fact, we are in a much better position than we were this time last year & for that I am also grateful.

Forgive my ramblings, I am not always able to share these thoughts at home and this is the only other place that I can release some of these "stresses".

xxx

Playing House

I am so pleased with my progress in keeping up with the FlyLady zones. Every month you do one zone a week and as a result you don't need to do "spring cleaning" ever again. Well, as I went in with a "gung-ho" attitude with the cleaning last month I've found that I really only need to do a tiny amount to maintain it so far this month.

This has meant I've had more time to play with my girls. Today we've built a house in our living room & they're loving it!

We've got my parents coming up for the weekend tomorrow, which I'm very excited about.  I hope that you have a lovely weekend ahead too.

xxx

1 Today

I can't believe it's here already but my gorgeous baby is 1 today!

Happy Birthday Abby

xxx