Xmas is a coming...

Ah yes.
Christmas (know as Xmas henceforth: I am not in any way,shape, or form a religious person, thus it feels hypocritical of me to use the Christ part.  I have two children,so must celebrate something for their sakes.  Let it be known that had I not had kids, I would use this time of the year to bugger off somewhere hot and drunken instead of wasting money on commercial shite.)

This year shall be a homemade Xmas.  At my left hand is a notepad with a list of recipients who are going to get some homemade rubbish :)  Joy.
Bet they can't wait.

I have never homemade Xmas before.
It's one of those things I've always wanted to do, I've always meant to do, but never got around to doing.

Why have I chosen this year?

Why does the wind blow?

I Hate Moving House

Recently we moved into what is my 15th house ever.

I am well used to moving by now,but it doesn't make it any easier; indeed I dread the 'M' word.

All of my life I have dreamed of being settled in one place. It must be nice to know that you don't have to go anywhere anytime soon.

The only place that ever felt like 'home' for me, the place which defines being at home, was my grandparents' house. Everything was settled and for the most part, idyllic. It defines for me that one short period of time where we didn't have to move anywhere or worry about being moved on; it just felt more permanent.

Of course, nothing ever really is, and as my grandparents' health declined with age we became transient once more. I look back upon the time that we had to pack up their house with grief and mourning, nothing less. Being told that we were done there, that it was to be no more, that we had to leave it all behind; the strawberry patch, the pitch of grass we learned to play football on, the patio where we had all spent many summers as a family, the path which rambled through the garden and led to the wooden back door that creaked, through the kitchen where xmas was made and homemade chips were a saturday night fixture, the living room where my grandad demanded hush to watch the football fixtures and where my nana taught us to play scrabble, up the stairs that each had their own noise as someone came down, almost musical, and the bannister which we could whizz down if we held on tight. The bedrooms where we spent hours playing Nintendo, and making dens and chatting and playing.

Devastating.

I don't think I'll ever get over it, and to be honest I will always look to that as the ideal; what I want again for myself, what I want to make for my husband and what I want to create for my kids.

My mum was a single parent, and although now more than ever I can begin to understand why we moved around so much, I also realise that she is just one of those people who like to move around and keep looking for something better.

One day I might get back to my ideal and live a blissfully happy life.  Maybe. Can I ever?  Can it ever be something to aspire to, or just a memory?

Today is a new day

Doesn't make it any better though. The youngest was awake for around half the night with teething issues.My husband is excellent with issues like this, as he takes him away to settle him elsewhere to let me sleep, but very often I can't get back to it.

I am living for the day when I wake up refreshed after a night's sleep. Actually, we both are. It's coming soon isn't it? Funny, with the oldest we were always a bit smug about his sleeping (oldest has always loved his bed and even now still takes afternoon naps, which is bliss) and now I feel like we are paying for this smugness. Karma rules.

Last night I decided to mow the lawns (we have a large on out back and a smallish one out front). My father-in-law, who we rent this house from, has let both gardens run a bit wild. I can see the method in his madness - let things grow if they like to grow there and conditions are favourable for them to. And conditions have been, well, favourable. To the max.

We live in a street full of mainly older people who obviously all like having tidy, uniform, presentable gardens (some of them have even been in a garden competition this year) and these people are retired, thus have a lot of time to spend in them. So our street goes; garden, nice garden with lovely flowers, garden with manicured lawn, garden with gorgeous rose bushes, JUNGLE.

My Father-in law has prided himself on his garden for a few years now. When asked what this plant, or that plant is he can name a few. But mainly (around 3/4 of the time)he'll just say 'I dunno what that is, but it flowers', which is his main criteria for keeping things in his garden. Nothing wrong with this, but I am not retired, I do not have time to lunch a lot of days, let alone lovingly tend the garden(s). Mowing the lawns last night has been the longest time that I have spent in either garden since we moved here a month ago.

I realise now that FIL has taken the minimalist approach to gardening; all of those times that we spotted him, mug in hand, surveying his land for hours on end, wandering from one tufty piece of lawn to the next uneven, heap of mud, I thought he was planning things. I thought he was looking at plants and thinking of tending them, or picking out the odd weed, or even wondering if he could be planning new border plants.

No.

It transpires that he was simply standing, mug in hand, jimmying around his lawn and looking busy.

As he has done with the rest of the house.

I had aspirations of making a veg garden for next year. I am hoping that everything dies back a bit so I can see some soil. But for now, my new trade is gardening. Hurrah!

(Just add it to the pile)

I am a little bit excited about taming the jungle to be honest. Like the house it will be hard work, but it'll be damn good when it's finished (is a garden ever really finished?)

I wish that I could look into the future and see how long we are going to stay here. I hate pouring my soul into things and then moving on - I've done it my whole life.

The question is, should I stifle my soul and live my life without it or take the chance that this time might be the last time I have to do this?

Fingers crossed.

Do you ever feel as though you blend in too easily?

In October 2008 I gave birth to our first son. It changed my life so dramatically; everything was instantly different. Until then I had been at University, finishing my much-wanted degree with so many plans for the future. So many possibilities and doors were open to me; then WHAM. All gone in a blink.

Suddenly I became a mother. Sorry,a Mother.

Why the capitalisation?

Well, I suppose that it irks, nay, really pisses me off that just because I have had a baby that suddenly that's all I am.

I have spent a lot of my life being the strong one, the patient one, the energetic and bubbly one. Clever, talented, confident, finds it easy to make friends.

I still had all of this, of course, but it fell by the wayside in terms of the horrid post-natal depression amongst other things. Which wasn't helped by the fact that nobody tends to see past the label of 'motherhood'.

I have to admit, I struggled with this a lot ( I still do in a way, but have become more thick-skinned as time goes on). Nobody sees the potential, the skill, the sheer relentless energy and talent involved in looking after a small child.

I have gained new reserves of energy and strength that I never knew I had. I also faced my weaknesses in ways that I never knew I could, or would ever have to. Having children, it just rips you apat and then puts you back together again very slowly. Everything you thought you knew is wrong, everything you believed to be relevant, is no longer.

You will find it again. It will come. You will build yourself up to new heights which never seemed possible from your lowest moments on the kitchen floor crying your eyes out.

I now have a second son, who is nearly a year old. This year I have been to hell and back (in a different way, as I knew what was coming).

This time I have been prepared for the stereotyping, the labels, the prejudice. It still nips at times, but I can take it.

I have skill, I have talent, I have done a hell of a lot with my life so far. For all of those people who think I should be out there stuck in 9-5 or working or 'doing something finally' with my life, who cannot see what I have done to myself, my body, my confidence, my very soul in order to make these two gorgeous boys and do my very best for them, just see what I can do.

I am young and able and I have a great family and my whole life ahead of me. Sometimes I think I should fit into other people's templates for a 'good life'. But no matter what I do, nothing will ever be good enough.

If there's one thing I have learned from all of this, it is that only you can make yourself happy. Nobody is going to do it for you.

And all of those people who flit in and out of your life will only see what they want to see. You are the full story. They are only a small chapter, no, a paragraph.

Only you will be in the book all the way through to the end.

Ninjas blend in and wait for the opportune moment...