2012 Reflection and 2013 Projection

As is common at this time of year, I have been reflecting on the year just gone and thinking about what I want to achieve in the year ahead.

So, firstly, looking back. Its been a busy year!

It started on rather a low note as we had to say goodbye to our beloved cat Lottie who had been part of my life for 15 treasured years. Aside from the place in each of our hearts where she’ll always be, I am reminded every time I take to Callum to nursery or pick him up as the vets is right next door. It breaks my heart when on occasion Callum has looked over and asked where Lottie is.

Then life took a much brighter path as we bought and moved into our lovely house in March and then there was that small thing of having a baby girl in August!!!

Stuart has been through yet another hard & gruelling year at work – I swear every year he says it’ll be better the next year and then the next year is harder still. Its was hard for us as a family with work taking over precious family time more and more until it was with no surprise (but made no easier nonetheless) that Stuart fell ill when he went on to paternity leave and was forced (during long days spent unable to get out of bed) to consider his priorities. That was a turning point for him with how he balanced work time and family time. Unfortunately for him, it doesn’t mean his work has got any easier and probably harder as he has had to try to squish much more into a shorter period as he had made the decision to make working from home the exception rather than the rule. But it has made a big difference to our evenings and weekends so I thank him for that sacrifice – and for a work-a-holic, I appreciate that it is in a way a sacrifice.

We had hoped that by now, following our relocation from Surrey to Bournemouth, to have grown our local social life a little more than we have. We knew that meeting people and making connections was going to be a slow process in a new place but its probably taken longer than either of us expected. Again, probably harder for Stuart as I have at least made many mummy friends especially through my addiction moderate use of Twitter but for Stuart, his only interaction with the outside (of our family) world so far has been at work. This is starting to change now though and I am hopeful we will both start socialising and meeting more people in 2013 [makes Puss in Boots eyes at you all].

The new addition to the family has been another life changing moment on a par to when Callum entered our lives. In some ways the transition from a family of 3 to family of 4 has been less of a shock to the system as from 2 to 3 but it brings with it different challenges and the hormonal breakdowns and sleep deprivation feels much tougher 4 years on from the first time. But when I think how blessed I am with my gorgeous son and beautiful girl, I both beam and shed a tear with happiness . I couldn’t ask for anything more wonderful than the family I have – and knowing that I hopefully wont have to be pregnant ever again just adds even more sparkle to it all (I’m not a very good pregnant lady – Stuart will testify!).

So it will be fair to say 2012 has been an emotional rollercoaster.

Which brings me on to my hopes for 2013.

Quite frankly, above all I hope for a much more chilled year! I wont be making any resolutions as such but there are things I would hope to achieve in the next year.

• OK, I best make it my first point as I’ve already mentioned it above– to start socialising more as a couple. Making the relationships we have already made stronger but meeting more people that we hope will become good friends of the future.
• In addition to the above, I would also like to see more of our current very good friends who are now spread over the UK as our paths have taken us on our different journeys.
• To go to Thailand. It is my current dream holiday. I spent a very brief couple of nights there with work back in 2007 and I’ve been desperate to go back there for leisure and to take Callum with me. Because it is only worth going there for a 2 week period, we would need to take the kids. For both cost and comfort reasons, if we don’t go this year, it would mean waiting several more years longer for either both kids to be old enough to stay with relatives, or we came into a healthy sum of money [checks the lottery numbers!] plus I consider Callum only now being able to cope with a long-haul flight without sending us crazy as the other passengers made plots to throw us out the plane without a parachute between us! I imagine it will be another 3-4 years minimum before Millie is at that stage too.
• I would like to find a good job which I love but allows me to balance my role as a mother. I very much see my job as a career and I feel sad to think I may not be able to embrace it in the same way I could before children. I worry about how I will manage the juggle of school/nursery runs, childcare and work. I wont lie, I have struggled with the sacrifice that my career will always be second to Stuarts as when we took the decision to have a family, my primary role became that of a mother. When I worked full time after having Callum – the balance worked out fine as Callum was in nursery but this year he starts school so I have the confusing arrangement of schools, breakfast clubs, after-school clubs, nursery, child-minder or whatever we decide best suits our lives. Others manage it, so I am sure we will too but I do see it as being one of my biggest challenges of 2013. Firstly finding a job I love and that works for me and secondly sorting out the childcare.
• Finally, as I’ve just mentioned, Callum starts school this year. I hope that he settles well in his new school and our little boy continues to grow in confidence as well as academically and enjoys himself along the way.

So, there you have it!

I’d like to say thank you to all of you who have followed my blogs and my journey through the 2012 and I invite you to stick with me through 2013 (here and here) as I value your support. I wish you all a very happy New Year and I hope you achieve all you desire for the year ahead, whatever that may be - and please feel free to share with me as I’d love to hear your hopes and dreams for 2013 too.

Our House, In the Middle of Our Street

We’re in! We’ve moved.

Sorry for the blog silence of late but it has been for two reasons:

1. because I am pregnant the Pregnancy-Mummy Diary is getting most of the attention; and
2. because we’ve been moving house and, apart from not having the time, we were also without internet for 2 weeks.

But all is well now and we are settling in nicely and making it feel like home…slowly but surely!

One thing I’d thoroughly recommend is getting removal men! Big win!

I’ve been parping on about doing so for a while. I tried to get Stuart to agree when we moved from Godalming to Bournemouth but he wouldn’t do it. I’d showed him lots of positive stories and was bringing him on side but then my parents put him off. This time, I was determined! I am pregnant and the last thing I wanted to be doing was lugging big boxes around the house etc and also, we were struggling to fit in the house as we were, we had no where to store a mountain of boxes again. Stuart finally agreed subject to me getting a good price! We were moving less than 2 miles up the road and from a small 2 bed house with no loft, garage or shed etc so I was hopeful.

I got 2 quotes – both from highly rated companies on check a trade. The first one quoted around £800 (incl of tax). I thought this was far too high and my hopes were dashed. The second company was also recommended by a colleague from Stuart’s (and my but that’s another blog post) work. They quoted less than £500 (incl tax) – bonus! We signed them up quick!

They did exactly what we wanted them to do – they packed, they moved and they got it all done in one day which was a day earlier than planned too. They were called Brown & Brown Removals if anyone local is interested.

Moving on (pardon the pun), we have also ordered our new sofas and I’m very excited. We ordered them from Next and they should be here in about 3-4 more weeks. We’ve also bought some new curtains for the lounge & dining room although they need to be taken up before they are hung, and also curtains for the spare room. We are still a long way from being where we want to be as we need lots of storage and other bits and ends but we are making steps in the right direction. Oh, how could I nearly have forgot…and our HUGE MAHOOOSIVE American style fridge that I was very excited about! I LOVE it!

Callum has adapted well to the move, as I hoped (and thought) he would. He has so much room to run around in, why wouldn’t he?

I also think we have (friendly) company. We obviously left someone behind when we moved as the doorbell went shortly after we were in and when Stuart went to open it, there was no one there. There was no sign of it being kids having fun and its not a very big street so unlikely. I’m pretty sure ‘someone’ just wanted to be let in. Also, I was ill in bed a couple of weeks after we’d moved and I heard running up the stairs and automatically thought it was next door – then remembered we are detached. Shortly after, I heard footsteps as if running on the laminate floor in the dining room – kitchen area. I don’t feel uncomfortable here though and even when I’ve been in the house on my own (with Callum asleep) I’ve not been scared so I’m not worried and I quite like the company as I am sure its friendly.

Window shopping and a door or two and maybe some walls and a roof…

So the hunt is on! We are looking for a new house to buy! I’m having so much fun!

Now, what girl doesn’t like shopping? Well, me actually, when it is clothes shopping or food shopping! I am actually a crap girl where that kind of shopping is concerned. I can’t stand sales as I am usually looking for something in particular and they take all the usual stock off the shelves. I’ll be more than happy paying full price, I just want whatever that thing is but can’t find it! Otherwise, if I purposely go sale shopping I get there too late for anything good to still be left. I can’t be doing that queuing at the crack of dawn stuff to bustle all the other ladies out of the way just so I can grab a bargain!  I remember my sister going to the Next sale at 8.5 months pregnant and the other women were taking no prisoners, pregnant or not! I just can’t be doing that.

Anyway, I digress slightly.

House shopping is totally different! You get to go and have a good old nosey at other peoples houses saying “I like that bathroom but no, the garden’s too small” and “Yes, well the whole thing needs decorating and modernising”.

And some of the houses you see.  Some are like walking back in time – they’ve actually made me a little sentimental as they often remind me of my late Nan. The same walnut and glass cabinets containing dodgy porcelain ornaments and ornamental plates, the same gaudy carpets which clash with the chintz wallpaper that’s a different chintz to the 3 piece suite and most of all, the same musty smell! I love you Nan!

Then there are the houses that are just stunning – probably above your budget but you go to see them anyway because you can’t resist, telling yourself they may drop 50k, you never know…!

We have very particular criteria, like people often do when they are buying house, but may not be the usual things the Estate Agent expects to hear:

1. There must be a downstairs loo, sorry ‘cloakroom’
2. There must be a dishwasher or room to put a dishwasher
3. It must be perfectly decorated or needs very little doing to it, and finished to a high spec! After moving into our last property that was ‘liveable’ but needed a bit of decorating, new bathroom (I mean, mint green suite and brown flower tiles!!!) and ideally a new kitchen when we moved in and still needed mostly redecorating (we had done the 3 bedrooms) and desperately needed a new kitchen when we moved out 6 years later (having only just done the bathroom!)– we know we just aren’t cut out for decorating/renovating a house, as lovely as the theory might be. Even with my Dad (DIY man & decorator extraordinaire) just up the road this time – we don’t want to take any risks!
4. Preferably, not too big a garden – enough to stick a trampoline in and to sit out and enjoy with a bbq in the summer. Having had lovely quite big gardens in the past that I just couldn’t keep up with the maintenance for – I want to be a bit more realistic with my gardening skills (or lack of them) this time

There are others too, like number of bedrooms, guest room/study space etc but the above are what’s important to us!

Its also a bit like playing a game of top trumps.

You go to see a house and you do all the oohs and ahhs that the Estate Agent wants to hear and they tell you to get in quick if you want a second viewing. You are even contemplating the second viewing. Then you go to the next house and it trumps the last one so when Estate Agent A calls you have to say sorry, no, Estate Agent B has just shown me better house than yours, we’re not interested any more. So Estate Agent A says, have you seen this house then? And true enough, it is again even better than the last one.

Although, I am a little nervous as we haven’t got our mortgage in principle done yet so its a bit like shopping with a brand new credit card but you haven’t found out the limit! But then you can also kid yourself its free unlimited money that means you can afford that stunning perfect mansion!

And its easy to keep going higher when you don’t have a set budget yet. You look at what you think you can afford and you are relatively happy with that.Then you look at the next band up and think wow, they look lovely, think how much better it would be if we had that much to spend. You do some calculations and, good news, you can save a bit here and stretch a bit there, settle for 10% deposit instead of 15% and who needs chairs to sit on and an oven to cook on anyway? and you realise you can afford the next band up, then you see the band above that…and so on! Greed, I guess it is! We always want more and always think we deserve more!

Ultimately, I must remember, I just want a cosy and safe place to bring up my family – the home is what you make it, after all! Was going to say “as long as its full of love” but that’s just a little bit too cheesy!

So, bring on the next house!