.JPG)
I think I’m suffering from a slight case of blogger burnout at the moment. My blog has been quiet partly because of the house move, partly because of the holiday, and partly because I’m busy doing paid work. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day.
Moving house was so stressful, I know this should have been expected, but I was surprised by just how stressful it was. I always thought when people talked about the stress, they meant the stress of physically moving, which doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t mind packing or unpacking, so thought it would be relatively plain sailing.
It wasn’t. It was ridiculously stressful. We sold our house back in February, within a couple of days of putting it on the market (pro tip: when trying to sell a house with a toddler in, take the toddler away for a few days so the house stays tidy). Our sale was going through fine, our buyers were lovely and patient. But buying the next house was almost impossible. The process seemed to stretch out for months on end. Every time something could go wrong, it did. At one point we thought we’d lost the house forever. I can only apologise to all of the friends who counselled me through this (very) whingy period in my life.
Then, all of a sudden it was back on, and we had three weeks to move. By this point my parents were off sunning themselves in Europe, so packing became a two step process of 1) putting things in a box 2) trying to stop the toddler taking them out of the box. I also had heaps of work on, so had simply no time for anything but packing, whinging and working.
Then we moved house, and Laurie went back to work the very next day leaving me with a toddler and a house full of boxes. Unpacking was slow, and is still going on. Do not look in the cupboard under the stairs. The week after the move, my workload increased and I was desperately trying to get it all done before going on holiday.
The house we bought has been unloved for some time. And is very magnolia. I think it will take us years to get it in order. It needed some (many) remedial works doing, so these were started while we were on holiday. The holiday was wonderful, it was just so nice (read: necessary) to get away from all the stress for a while. Away from the house, away from work, away from emails. I read books. I napped. We walked along the beach. It was perfect.
We got home to find the building works in process, so the house is a bit of a building site at the moment. It’s very dusty and noisy, and the neighbours probably hate us because our builders are not shy of 9am starts on Sundays. Unpacking has taken a backseat while the house is covered in plaster, but yesterday I managed to set up my office (MY OFFICE!), and already it’s made me more productive. I knew having to sit at a dining table was forcing me to check Facebook so much. Ahem.
Ebony keeps waking up early, and demanding that she eats breakfast immediately. After an early start, we spend our days seeing friends, going to groups and playing at home. It’s fun, and I love it, but it is tiring. At the end of the day, when Ebony is tucked up in bed, I open my laptop and start working. I try to work a couple of each night, and at the end of that long and exhausting day, I’m usually too wiped out to sit down and blog. I’m hoping to get on top of it soon, and have loads of things I want to write about, so hopefully I’ll be up and running again soon.