A Routine .... well sort of ......
This evening our three young SJA Cadets have gone to check out their new unit and meet everyone, I am sitting here on the sofa, Harvey is asleep on the other one and hubby is stretched out beside him all quiet just recovering from his long drive up north yesterday to collect the last of our things and plants and wondering how they are getting on, whether they will be happy there and as big a part of their team as they were in the north with Holly and Michael who miss our three just as much as the kids miss them. Each week for two and a half almost three hours no matter what the weather, and boy did we have some freezing weather up there, they met and spent time teaching and learning from either side. Imogen has always been an independent stand-on-her-own-two-feet kind of girl but Angelica and Ivan were scared of their own shadows if I wasnt there, so making them try out St Johns Ambulance with Imogen was one of the best things I've ever got them to do, both have come on in leaps and bounds, no more shyness, no more hiding away and Ivan got the fear of handwriting well and truly knocked back with Michael sitting with him for half an hour each week determined to help Ivan past this massive hurdle. I am willing the new unit and people running it, Andrew and Kirsty to be just as good for them I really am.
Last night chatting with Lionel on the video chat was quite emotional on both sides, he said that when he'd seen Dad and got his bike out of our car, he badly wanted to say he just wanted to come home to be with us instead. He's not finding any of it easy at university. Moved in to his friend's mum's house now having left the pokey little room at his £80 a week flat, the landlord is now chasing him down trying to get more than one month's rent out of him, she wants almost £2,000 to let him out of his contract the greedy bitch. I told him to stand firm, he has made his decision now and cant pluck money out of the sky or off a tree so she can go whistle for it. She told him in an email she will be contacting his guarantor, good luck with that one then, we never submitted the forms. I know my own son and would only send them in completed if he'd actually paid for the flat until the end of the year and was going to actually live in it, if I was offered that place I wouldnt have taken it, the room was so small nothing else could fit beyond the furniture which was already in there, his flat mates never gelled with him and he simply didnt like any of the four girls, he said that two of them wouldnt talk with him or even make eye contact, they kept hiding his milk and generally making things difficult for him, he felt sad there but now likes it at his friends place but wants to come home. So talking with me trying to say wait until his assignments come in on Monday then the time between now and Christmas will fly by because he will be so busy but I felt so sad for him and know deep down that is not the place for him just like Joseph only Joe was strong enough to accept that before we moved away and came with us transferring his place to a creative arts university here instead. Lionel asked me a lot of questions about transferring so there is hope.
The weather is changing again, it was a full ten degrees cooler today than two days ago and yesterday, easier for me to breathe but I am so exhausted the relief from the heat has seen me sleeping instead of doing things around the house. I cooked a nice meal today after the girls prepared all the food, cut up the chicken, onions, vegetables and cleaned up in the kitchen so all I had to do was put the meal together in the pots and cook it, was so tired towards the end though that Angelica popped both the rice and casserole type meal into the ovens to finish off whilst I went and got into bed for two hours, she even gave the kids their food and cleared away everything before I came down stairs then hubby and me had ours together.
Louise our friend from ravelry sent Angelica a nice art bundle today, Angelica is excited with metallic card and other bits and pieces as she'd wanted to make some cards at the weekend and now doesnt have to buy anything to make them, so it was a lovely surprise, thank you Lou :)
Its Dom's 17th birthday this weekend and Angelica's 15th next weekend, so lots to plan for, have absolutely no idea what to do for Angelica now we've moved, I was thinking of something but now wont have the money so need to rethink and quickly in order to get it organised. Very proud of her right now, she is growing into such a beautiful strong young lady, very determined with her head well and truly screwed on the right way. Very funny too, she has a lovely personality, dont know quite what I will do if she says she wants to go off to college several miles away one day, we do everything together and have done for the past 14 years! Its true what they say, having a son will pass on the family name but having a daughter will give you a best friend for life.
Christmas is only ten weeks away now, ten weeks! that means in eight weeks or just after Lionel will be home and Dom in ten weeks as she is arriving two days after Christmas Day so the house will be nicely full and hopefully packed with laughter and good food like it is now only with more of us. Cant wait to put up the trees, I know it sounds silly as its only the start of October but I feel genuinely excited at having bay windows to put them in now and cant wait to see the kids faces when they see the decorations, its always an exciting time in our house, now we have masses of space to decorate with lights etc too. Fun fun fun.
I have been thinking a lot about going out, havent been anywhere yet only three or four very short drives. But I keep pulling back, its partly because I want the children to be happy here and not looked at funny and partly because as each passing day ticks by its getting harder to face. Havent felt like this in a long while so not sure why its all coming back but I genuine felt this morning like I wanted to go out for a short stint in my chair maybe up the road but was filled with this awful dread at the same time, what if people look at me funny, the thought of going up to the doctors some 50 yards from my front door is also filling me with horror, but I need to renew my prescriptions by the start of next week so will have to go if I want pain relief. I felt so happy walking across to the other side of the road to post a card on the first Sunday here but now cant do it, why is that? I know I'm exhausted, I know I am physically weak right now so maybe I'm just pushing myself way to hard too fast and should relax more like I was at first when we first arrived. I have to keep reminding myself to pace myself not rush about, not over do things, stick to something nice at least once a day in amidst all the chaos of not being able to find anything, not really bothered about that so much its just coping with disorganisation I think that has me muddled a bit. So many things need seeing too but cant fit them all in any given week so am spending time doing at least one of the jobs a day and leaving the rest to choose another task to do the following day. Today Imogen and I unpacked a giant kitchen box that Andy had kept for us, it had my pots in it, some other bits and pieces like the can opener and some knives, so I felt happy seeing those things again especially my favourite knife for preparing meats. Imogen washed everything then put it all way and I disposed of all the unpacking materials which kept the breakables from breaking. Its nice to have proper plates to eat off again though I have to say, we'd missed those very much as we only had three so were sharing until we could find the box they were in.
Golden sparkly angelina and silk bricks arrived this morning, Imogen will be carding again tomorrow now, she is really excited and so am I to be able to have nice combed sparkly bundles to spin yarn from. Such a little gem wanting to do this work for me, and it is hard work all the combing too, aching arms, scratched knuckles and fingers, but Imogen absolutely loves it so that is fantastic for me as a handspinner, how lucky am I ?
Still spinning my way through mysterions, did loads yesterday morning but only one piece today, was simply far too tired. Going to try and get through some tomorrow though then maybe I will finish the second single by the weekend in order to ply both singles into yarn.
Excited to be able to re-open my folksy shop at some point before the end of the month, still waiting on my fibre order but am assured it will arrive by the weekend, the dyes are looking fantastic, it was easy to make them in the warm sunny weather we've had coupled with gorgeous outside space on the roof terrace balcony. Cant wait to use them especially the conkers one, it looks really interesting with depths of layers floating on top of each other, cant wait to see how dipping a length of wool top fibre into it turns out.
Kids will be home just after nine tonight, the new unit is only up the road next to the train station so they can walk it in minutes but as its dark hubby is going to get them during the winter months, safer until we know the area a bit more. I am going to put my feet up and just try and relax, reminding myself that I have more than a day to do everything. I get so excited about it all, fixing up the rooms, planning the decor, oh and I was contacted through facebook about a local magazine article for the house decor design this morning, something else which excited me no end. I think my trouble at the moment is that I am just too damn excited and overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all, moving so many miles, the kids being so settled and happy here, even Joseph loves it and feels well at home which is fantastic but a huge part of me, Lionel, is not happy so I feel so out of sync, unbalanced within and that is what is knocking everything our of alignment for me just now. I will get past it, rest rest and more rest is what is called for both physically and mentally I think.
Last night chatting with Lionel on the video chat was quite emotional on both sides, he said that when he'd seen Dad and got his bike out of our car, he badly wanted to say he just wanted to come home to be with us instead. He's not finding any of it easy at university. Moved in to his friend's mum's house now having left the pokey little room at his £80 a week flat, the landlord is now chasing him down trying to get more than one month's rent out of him, she wants almost £2,000 to let him out of his contract the greedy bitch. I told him to stand firm, he has made his decision now and cant pluck money out of the sky or off a tree so she can go whistle for it. She told him in an email she will be contacting his guarantor, good luck with that one then, we never submitted the forms. I know my own son and would only send them in completed if he'd actually paid for the flat until the end of the year and was going to actually live in it, if I was offered that place I wouldnt have taken it, the room was so small nothing else could fit beyond the furniture which was already in there, his flat mates never gelled with him and he simply didnt like any of the four girls, he said that two of them wouldnt talk with him or even make eye contact, they kept hiding his milk and generally making things difficult for him, he felt sad there but now likes it at his friends place but wants to come home. So talking with me trying to say wait until his assignments come in on Monday then the time between now and Christmas will fly by because he will be so busy but I felt so sad for him and know deep down that is not the place for him just like Joseph only Joe was strong enough to accept that before we moved away and came with us transferring his place to a creative arts university here instead. Lionel asked me a lot of questions about transferring so there is hope.
The weather is changing again, it was a full ten degrees cooler today than two days ago and yesterday, easier for me to breathe but I am so exhausted the relief from the heat has seen me sleeping instead of doing things around the house. I cooked a nice meal today after the girls prepared all the food, cut up the chicken, onions, vegetables and cleaned up in the kitchen so all I had to do was put the meal together in the pots and cook it, was so tired towards the end though that Angelica popped both the rice and casserole type meal into the ovens to finish off whilst I went and got into bed for two hours, she even gave the kids their food and cleared away everything before I came down stairs then hubby and me had ours together.
Louise our friend from ravelry sent Angelica a nice art bundle today, Angelica is excited with metallic card and other bits and pieces as she'd wanted to make some cards at the weekend and now doesnt have to buy anything to make them, so it was a lovely surprise, thank you Lou :)
Its Dom's 17th birthday this weekend and Angelica's 15th next weekend, so lots to plan for, have absolutely no idea what to do for Angelica now we've moved, I was thinking of something but now wont have the money so need to rethink and quickly in order to get it organised. Very proud of her right now, she is growing into such a beautiful strong young lady, very determined with her head well and truly screwed on the right way. Very funny too, she has a lovely personality, dont know quite what I will do if she says she wants to go off to college several miles away one day, we do everything together and have done for the past 14 years! Its true what they say, having a son will pass on the family name but having a daughter will give you a best friend for life.
Christmas is only ten weeks away now, ten weeks! that means in eight weeks or just after Lionel will be home and Dom in ten weeks as she is arriving two days after Christmas Day so the house will be nicely full and hopefully packed with laughter and good food like it is now only with more of us. Cant wait to put up the trees, I know it sounds silly as its only the start of October but I feel genuinely excited at having bay windows to put them in now and cant wait to see the kids faces when they see the decorations, its always an exciting time in our house, now we have masses of space to decorate with lights etc too. Fun fun fun.
I have been thinking a lot about going out, havent been anywhere yet only three or four very short drives. But I keep pulling back, its partly because I want the children to be happy here and not looked at funny and partly because as each passing day ticks by its getting harder to face. Havent felt like this in a long while so not sure why its all coming back but I genuine felt this morning like I wanted to go out for a short stint in my chair maybe up the road but was filled with this awful dread at the same time, what if people look at me funny, the thought of going up to the doctors some 50 yards from my front door is also filling me with horror, but I need to renew my prescriptions by the start of next week so will have to go if I want pain relief. I felt so happy walking across to the other side of the road to post a card on the first Sunday here but now cant do it, why is that? I know I'm exhausted, I know I am physically weak right now so maybe I'm just pushing myself way to hard too fast and should relax more like I was at first when we first arrived. I have to keep reminding myself to pace myself not rush about, not over do things, stick to something nice at least once a day in amidst all the chaos of not being able to find anything, not really bothered about that so much its just coping with disorganisation I think that has me muddled a bit. So many things need seeing too but cant fit them all in any given week so am spending time doing at least one of the jobs a day and leaving the rest to choose another task to do the following day. Today Imogen and I unpacked a giant kitchen box that Andy had kept for us, it had my pots in it, some other bits and pieces like the can opener and some knives, so I felt happy seeing those things again especially my favourite knife for preparing meats. Imogen washed everything then put it all way and I disposed of all the unpacking materials which kept the breakables from breaking. Its nice to have proper plates to eat off again though I have to say, we'd missed those very much as we only had three so were sharing until we could find the box they were in.
Golden sparkly angelina and silk bricks arrived this morning, Imogen will be carding again tomorrow now, she is really excited and so am I to be able to have nice combed sparkly bundles to spin yarn from. Such a little gem wanting to do this work for me, and it is hard work all the combing too, aching arms, scratched knuckles and fingers, but Imogen absolutely loves it so that is fantastic for me as a handspinner, how lucky am I ?
Still spinning my way through mysterions, did loads yesterday morning but only one piece today, was simply far too tired. Going to try and get through some tomorrow though then maybe I will finish the second single by the weekend in order to ply both singles into yarn.
Excited to be able to re-open my folksy shop at some point before the end of the month, still waiting on my fibre order but am assured it will arrive by the weekend, the dyes are looking fantastic, it was easy to make them in the warm sunny weather we've had coupled with gorgeous outside space on the roof terrace balcony. Cant wait to use them especially the conkers one, it looks really interesting with depths of layers floating on top of each other, cant wait to see how dipping a length of wool top fibre into it turns out.
Kids will be home just after nine tonight, the new unit is only up the road next to the train station so they can walk it in minutes but as its dark hubby is going to get them during the winter months, safer until we know the area a bit more. I am going to put my feet up and just try and relax, reminding myself that I have more than a day to do everything. I get so excited about it all, fixing up the rooms, planning the decor, oh and I was contacted through facebook about a local magazine article for the house decor design this morning, something else which excited me no end. I think my trouble at the moment is that I am just too damn excited and overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all, moving so many miles, the kids being so settled and happy here, even Joseph loves it and feels well at home which is fantastic but a huge part of me, Lionel, is not happy so I feel so out of sync, unbalanced within and that is what is knocking everything our of alignment for me just now. I will get past it, rest rest and more rest is what is called for both physically and mentally I think.