Feeling the January Blues

So far this year, I have tried so hard not to get down & depressed. I spent far too much time last year feeling this way, wasted too much time. January so far has been quite upbeat, I've been busy creating & organising the house. I have learnt from last year to not set my goals too high, for instance, giving myself 1 day to organise (clean, sort, purge) the whole house (why did I do this to myself??) & then feeling like a letdown when I didnt achieve anything. I would start 1 job, then get sidetracked by another, & so forth, until the house seemed to be even messier due to all of the unfinished jobs. Then on Monday, the lightbulb went on, so to speak! Whilst waiting for an electrician to finish a job, I emptied out the baking cupboard. It was a mess, & overfull, it had got to the stage where you took your own life in your hands by opening the doors, ha ha! It was emptied, cleaned, purged & reorganised. It felt so good to start & complete something. As I still had some time on my hands, I tackled the next cupboard. A short while later, this cupboard too was finished. By then the electrician was finished & I had other stuff to do, but it felt so good for these little jobs to be done. Then it twigged: if I just set myself 1 cupboard/area to do per day, it would probably get done. Rather than aiming too high. So far this week, I have sorted the kitchen cupboards, half of the shoe/coat/bag cupboard (its a big cupboard, hence why only half has been done, the other half needs serious planning in order for the space to work better) & the dreaded cupboard of Doom, where all the crap gets dumped

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself *insert happy but slightly smug smile*

Until yesterday. Heres where the title of this post comes in. Yesterday, it all came crashing down. To start with, I woke up with the start of a stinking cold. I knew I felt ill when I turned down the opportunity of a shopping trip with my friend, to instead come home & lie on the sofa under a blanket, with a hot cuppa. Then Miss L-R threw an almighty temper tantrum, which eventually disolved into tears, a request for some medicine, & a sleep on the sofa. The Postman then decided to ruin my day even more by bringing lots of bills. The afternoon saw me flittering around the house trying to do anything, to feel productive. The washing up got done, & that was pretty much it. 3pm saw me & Miss L-R wrap up warm to venture out to pick the older girls up from school. Both of the girls teachers called me in to discuss pretty innocent events which had resulted in both girls being worried about my reaction. Which in turn resulted in me walking home from school feeling like a pretty crappy Mum.

It seems like the January blues have caught me.

On arriving back home, I decided to make a major effort to cheer myself up, in order to not bring any one else down. I spent time with Miss M, finding a new set of earrings to replace the one she had lost in school (this being what she was worried about) We enjoyed going through my jewellery box & trying on earrings that she will not be wearing outside of the house for quite a few years. I then helped Miss K with her homework, making an extra effort to not get stressed with her. Not surprisingly, she sailed through her homework with no problems. The crappy Mum feeling soon went away when I had all 3 of my girls in hysterics by just acting silly with them :-)

After dinner, all 3 girls went to bed happily, with a story.

Unfortunately, all 4 of us have woken up feeling yucky today, we all have this nasty cold. However, I think a pj & sofa day is in order, to just chill, get better & beat both this cold & the January blues.

The organising will resume tommorrow, as long as we are all better.

I have finally got around to updating my blog header. There really wasnt an excuse for waiting till January 19th to get rid of the xmassy look, ha ha!! What do you think?

I kept meaning to do a 2011 round up post, but it just wasnt happening. There is a fair bit that I didnt post about last year, so instead of stressing about wrapping up 2011, I am just going to let it go, & all the unposted bits will have a brand new Ta Dah (a la Lucy) over the next few weeks. I also have a January crochet project on the go, I just need some decent daylight to photograph it all.

Phew, thats turned into a bit of a ramble!! Congratulations & thank you if you have managed to stay awake till the end. I'm going to sign off now, need to dispense medicines to my poorly girls & make a fresh cuppa. I hope that you are well, wherever you are & that the January blues have left you alone.

Until next time, take care of yourself.

xxx