Busy, busy, busy

I have been super busy the past few weeks. My appointments at work have really started to fill up so I feel like I get in and rush all day until home time! On top of that I have started doing my permanent Wednesday's too so that's four days a week at work.

As part of the training scheme I'm on at work, I've had to apply for a postgraduate course at Birmingham University and that has taken me countless hours to put together. I even had to write a personal statement, I haven't done that since I was 17! It seemed harder this time around, the honest reasons for applying for a course such as 'it's necessary for me to keep my job and I really need that to pay the mortgage and feed the kids' don't seem as glamorous as 'I want to save the world and everyone in it', which I probably intended as a teen! Still, I really have always wanted this training and to have it paid for is amazing.

The application required so much work; finding references, getting out old uni documents and worst of all waiting for colleagues to fill in parts of the form. All that, added to the fact that our area was very late applying as the course that was intended for us isn't running has added to the stress.

Last week I also went for a chat about doing some locum work in another local GP practice. I don't have the hours in the day, but then I also don't have the money to make the house habitable. They were very flexible and said I could do Fridays around school pickup and Saturday mornings. I'm hoping to  alternate so I can still have a day off with baby girl occasionally. Before I've even started I feel the guilt of being a full time working mother, it's not something I ever wanted to do.

I've spent the last few evenings trying to catch up on form filling, emails, reading documentation for work and today having done a lot of it I am feeling more positive and less stressed. I may even get to read some blogs tonight.

The house hasn't come on much, I have run out of time and James is running out of materials. He is ploughing on with plaster boarding and fitted another internal door frame this week.

Last Friday I went out with my girlfriends and we made Christmas pudding ready for the big day. On Saturday I steamed it on the woodburner, it was on anyway so it saved the hob being on.

Sorry no pictures this week but things should settle down into some semblance of a routine soon!!

Let there be light!!

No I have not found God, James has wired the upstairs lights in and we no longer need a torch to use the bathroom!!

Yesterday James cut the skirting and architrave for baby girl's room and this morning caulked the gaps ready for me to paint. He wired the plug sockets in there too, so once it's connected to the fuse board we're in business. I did the final coat of white paint on baby girl's room and the window sill.

Friday night I took the wee man to ASDA to pick some bits for his operation Christmas child box. It was so sweet to see him pick things for another little boy, we got a bath toy, some toy cars, a little lego set, a calcliator (calculator to you and me), soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, pens, pad and pencils and a wooly hat. It really made me think about kids who have nothing and it does our children good to appreciate how lucky they are.

On Saturday night we visited the local schools fireworks for bonfire night and they even had a traditional Guy for the bonfire, I haven't seen that in years, there's nothing like burning an effigy! It was two hours from the gates opening to the fireworks lit though and the kids were up past bedtime and starting to get cranky and tearful, next year I think we'll arrive a bit later.

My sister and her fiancé came to stay Saturday night so we saw the fireworks as a family, had a few drinks and a chat and James and I were up a good three hours before they appeared this morning, the joys of being child free!

Today we had a change of pace and watched a film this afternoon together and I had a nap throughout and it was delightful.

First new room plastered

This weekend just gone James and his friend started plastering baby girl's room, all very exciting. We went on Saturday evening to a halloween pumpkin walk and so they had to leave off around mid-afternoon. Sunday morning and James got back to it to, finishing the last walls. Unfortunately the little man was sick all night Saturday night and Sunday morning so I spent the day on the sofa with him cuddled up under the blanket and watching Disney films. If I'm honest it was nice to have a long cuddle when he wasn't in a rush to get to the next game. 

The pumpkin walk was so much fun, the kids enjoyed it no end, as did we. Our friends and their children came so it was even better. I hadn't had a party for the little man and he was asking when it was his turn, so I asked my friends to play along and say it was his party. I brought cakes and doughnuts and one friend's mum even brought him a balloon, which made his day. The kids squealed round the walk, they got to roast marshmallows, listen to stories and got a lolly at the end. 

Monday was my birthday and James and I started Christmas shopping in Birmingham, it's much nicer when you go mid-week before the rush starts. I got a fab book from James about the origin of phrases, which is my favourite, I've read hundreds of them and he managed to find me a book with a collection of them. For example the phrase 'pull your finger out' has a naval origin. The firing hole of a cannon would be filled with gunpowder and a wooden bung put in to keep it in place. In the heat of battle a finger was used to do the same job and an artilleryman would yell 'pull your finger out' to enable the gun to fire, lots of people lost fingers this way. So I have a whole book of these to enjoy!

On Wednesday I didn't have any locum work so the baby girl and I started painting what's to be her room. She borrowed one of her dads working tops and splattered the walls and her mum with paint. We were finishing the pot so the room isn't finished, but at least it's started.