So lucky

I have become an avid blog reader in the last couple of years. The list of blogs that I follow is ever growing, with many favourites.
There is a clear pattern to my favourites, strong, loving women sharing their lives.
Today I read this http://motherhoodmatters.blogs.deseretnews.com/2012/04/10/your-children-want-you/
and I reflected on what I was feeling as I read it. I felt lucky, blessed. Motherhood for me was.....and it is hard to say this without sounding saccharine sweet....perfection. I have spoken before about how complete I felt holding my first baby in my arms. And there is no doubt that time has softened the edges of the difficult, challenging days of motherhood with three young children, now that they are so very grown up.
But even accounting for the rose tinted spectacles, there is no denying that I was privileged to spend the time with my children as they grew. To give myself heart and soul to them. I learned more from them than I ever did at school or from any books.
Reading the motherhood matters blog also had me thinking about the many amazing mums that I have met throughout my life. And how often I hear from them that they feel inadequate, what a struggle it is to 'fit it all in', and all the pressure that they feel under from so many sources. My heart has broken time and again when I have seen family's striving to 'have it all', to give their children 'everything they want', meaning holidays, new cars, toys and 'stuff'...when all those children really craved was time with their mama and daddy...
I have heard every justification going, 'we can't afford for me not to work', 'I need time away from the children', 'my work defines who I am'...and that's when I know just how lucky I am.

For me being a mama is who I am, I rarely felt the need to be away from my children, time enough as they began to grow and stretch their wings and step out into the world without me...

I know that this is my path and mine alone. And that one woman's medicine is another's poison, yet I can't help thinking that there isn't lots of room for improvement. For our society to value the role of motherhood and make it easier for mothers and fathers to spend more time with their children. I firmly believe that over time this would lead to more women looking forward to being at home with their babies instead of dreading it and wondering how on earth they can feel fulfilled until they get back to work.

Anyway, I have gone off track and stepped up onto my soap box, when really all I was planning to do was celebrate just how blessed I feel to have been a stay at home mama. To have been any kind of mama really.

So thank you, to the three wonderful children who chose me as their mum and to Chris for being the best dad and husband, I love you all so much.
XXXX

How adorable is this....I am utterly torn between my desire to protect such a wonderful creature and allow it to have it's natural right to nurse from it's own mama and my love of wonderful ice cream. Mostly I avoid cow's milk for many reasons, animal welfare and health being the two main ones, but with the sun shining the other day Heather and I headed to Archers http://www.archersjerseyicecream.com/ to sample their delicious wares.

Heather chose easter egg (creme egg) and toffee fudge whilst I sampled Turkish delight and hokie pokie (chunks of honeycomb and toffee sauce)

Then on the way to the car Heather noticed there was no-one on the zip wire and no-one around to see....

finally finished these adorable spring colours socks that I began last summer

flowers....

...galore!

SPRING!!!

I was giddy with excitement this morning.....drum roll.....I got to hang out the washing on the line to dry! The weather has been lovely the last few days, sunny and really quite warm. And I have been a proper busy little bee!

I completed my evaluation cycle, the final piece of work for the diploma and posted it off for marking...this left me in a rather odd state of limbo. On the one hand I had no more work to do (beyond putting my portfolios together) but couldn't completely move on. So we began sprucing up the house...and boy did it need it!

First the porch I repainted with similar colours, then Chris laid new laminate flooring (why oh why we had put up with that filthy carpet for so long is beyond me!!)

A new light fitting, door mat and shelves that don't wiggle all over the place and it's done.

Next the stairs and landing...I still have a bit of gloss work to do and the voiles need hemming, but it looks fresh and clean with freshly painted ceiling, ivory walls, new lampshades and curtains.

A beautiful bouquet...just because he loves me *swoon*.

Now for the crux of this post...oh be still my beating heart spring is here! I spy daffodils in bud at the bottom of the garden. Crocuses opening their faces to the sunshine. This called for washing on the line and jars of red and yellow tulips and daffodils on as many window shelves as I could find!

I have had my evaluation cycle back and am just waiting on my tutor report and then the portfolios can go off in the post (EEK!). I have the gloss work upstairs to finish then I will start on the hallway (then the utility, loo, kitchen, bathroom, shower room, our bedroom....it really is like the Forth road bridge! You just finish when it's time to start over again!! Seriously though this is only really the second wave of decorating since we moving in TWELVE, yes TWELVE years ago. And most of the rooms have only been done once, so it is by no means excessive!)

Stream-of-consciousness

I am feeling the need to write, however, having no particular topic in mind I thought I'd try my hand at a stream-of-consciousness.

So here goes...

I have printed off and posted my evaluation cycle...the final piece of written work for the diploma...(that sounds so simple and painless written down..it wasn't!) It feels quite odd...yet I am still somewhat in limbo now as I wait for it to be marked, work to come back from being ratified, getting an assessor then sending off my portfolio. All hopefully before 26th March when I am due to teach!

I think my excitement at finishing is somewhat tempered by not being well, just a heavy cold, but it wiped me out on Sunday, and although I'm feeling much better now I'm still full of snot (sorry!) and easily tired.

We had snow at the weekend too, not much, but just enough to get a whiff of that slowed down vibe...the sky is heavy and pinky grey right now, I wonder if more is on the way?

A cobweb catching snowflakes.

It's a long time since I wrote...a new year has begun, yuletide festivities been and gone. It was lovely having Josh home, we didn't see an awful lot of him, but when he and Kate were here it felt like we were whole again. We had a lovely games night one evening. The 25th was interesting with him going to Kate's until the afternoon and Lorna and Joe with his family until lunchtime, leaving just Chris, me and Heather to unwrap pressies...guess it's a sign of the future..

I have done a bit of knitting, a scarf and gloves for Katie (Rob's girlfriend) for xmas, I'm halfway through a scarf/hood for Heather and about 70% of the way through the 2nd of my lovely socks.

 I dabbled with making a tiny Cookie monster peep,

this is a picture of what I was attempting to make!

but wasn't successful. This cute little chap resulted in the experiment to make eyes though!

We had a super time on New Years eve. We did one of those murder mystery dinners. Everyone threw themselves into their part (two parts in my case! A differing accent for each so that there was no confusion about who I was being!) Turned out Joe's character did it, but none of us guessed!

I'm loving watching the birds in the garden. I put food out for them on the patio and in a feeder down at the bottom of the garden, Then I stand at the kitchen window and watch! One day I took over 50 photos! I love it!

We have had some glorious sunrises, sunsets and moons.

Chris and I had a lovely walk by the river the other week.

...think i have exhausted my stream! There that feels better!