Stuff to Do

So why, my dear friends, do I persist with this notion that it should be easy? I shall tell you why. Because the internet is full of everyone's success. Smiling photos of happy children, holidays, crafts, cakes, amazing dinners, 5 easy steps to getting your kids to - clean their rooms or eat their vegetables or stop fighting with their siblings. If all of those things are so stinking achievable, then why on earth am I so unbelievably bad at it? Because the reality isn't found on the internet. Reality is all around me. Reality is sometimes delightful of course - but it is also the opposite of delightful. I am always reading something, but recently I read this book, "Idols of a Mother's Heart" by Christina Fox , and she pinpointed so much of why I feel disappointed with motherhood. I have long served at the altar of my own expectations of what parenthood 'should' be, how my home 'should' look, and how my children 'should' behave. Non...

This time of year is so full of hope, expectation, and promise. I mean, Advent is too, for a very different reason. January though? Without even considering the whole New Year buzz, January is MY JAM. Organisation out my ears, creative solutions to challenges from the year before, chore charts, furniture rearranging, cleaning and purging of belongings, fantasies about how organised I am going to be this year and how nobody will say to me ALL YEAR "I can't find my shoes/socks/underwear!" and everybody will say "Thank you Mother for this delicious and nutritious meal you have prepared and served with so much love" every night. It's like those chips that tell you "you can't eat just one". Each idea gives birth to a dozen more, and I'm like an out of control bushfire.  This is all before the excitement of back to school shopping. There's the shopping for the kids and their stuff for school, but also the school supplies for home. Which ...

It's January again - I'm still a bit baffled as to how this happened, even though it does every single year. I started the year with my three girls and my husband in Sydney, where we watched the fireworks on television but heard them in person. Then we set off as a family for a camping trip next to the Snowy River. It was literally the best holiday. No mobile reception or reliable Wi-Fi, and while the hot days were tricky with the kiddos, the evenings brought respite in the form of lazing about in the river. It was magic. It was actually the first family holiday I haven't felt the need to recover from. And now we're back. I'm in the process of getting us back into routines, working backwards to a more sensible bedtime, creating chore charts and schedules.  Basically, I'm in my happy place, especially when you add in household cleaning/organising/DIY projects! I think last year at the end I was just burned out. Turning off for the time I did, it was so helpfu...