A Late Spring, Fresh Starts
Clear skies today (for a change). Almost enough to make you think that an actual Summer might be around the corner. Colourful flowers are stretching wide to greet the sun. There’s a hint of fresh starts and possible transformations in the admittedly still chilly air.
It’s been very quiet here on the blog of late. Where ‘of late’ actually means for months and months. It feels like this never-ending winter of dark days and various illnesses has been very unproductive, yet there’s never been enough time to get everything done. In actuality I’ve been working on quite a few little projects that could all do with more attention. Nothing awe-inspiring, but they keep me more than occupied.
Parenting a three year old. If that’s not a full-time activity, then nothing is. The only thing more changeable than the Irish weather in Spring is the mood of a 3 year old. He fluctuates from cheerful and helpful, to spending the entire day crying and picking fights over nothing in particular. Fighting both with me, and with the inanimate objects that quite unreasonably refuse to accommodate his every whim.
The daily drudgery of cooking and cleaning. It’s not glamorous. There’s little of interest to say about it. But it has to be done constantly in the background. Eating away at precious time. I could moan about this for a while, but we all know how it goes…
Selling a house. We moved back here last year just to sell this house. We knew it would be a lengthy project. It’s been on the market for several months now. The property market is virtually dead around here. Yet there are floods of people desperate for somewhere to live around the country. Moving south of the city to north of the city would be relatively easy. Trying to go the opposite way is virtually impossible in the current climate. Meanwhile I’m sick to death of keeping the house in ‘viewing ready’ state every week.
Buying a house. Yeah, we need to do that too. At the same time as selling one. It makes things a lot more complicated. Our Saturdays are obliterated as we traipse across the city to view houses that rarely live up to the promise of their obviously photoshopped online brochures. Such a waste of time. These trips are followed by rude estate agents ringing and complaining when told we’re just not interested in whichever ridiculously overpriced monstrosity they’re trying to sell. We walk up to see houses discussing whose turn it is to offer up their contact details, and weighting it by which estate agents are the rudest.
Growing a baby. What were we thinking? We sure haven’t mastered parenting one child yet, and we never will. I’m studiously avoiding thinking about the logistics of two of them. The first one still keeps me awake half the night and needs constant attention during his waking hours. He just might toddle off to preschool next September and give me a couple of hours break a day. Just after the next one arrives. Doh! Our timing is never good. Until then, I’ve discovered the hard way that pregnancy with a three year old is a lot more tiring than pregnancy while working full time.
Freelance work. There’s been an increase in that this year. Some website/blog hosting moves. Some website (re)designs. Whatever happens to come up. I’ve spoken before about the trials and tribulations of trying to work from home with a young child. It’s nice to do something that’s related to what was once my career, but it’s definitely not easy to manage with a child underfoot. It’s not a lot of work to be doing because my availability is limited, but it still takes time and effort. And brain power. None of which are in abundance around here. Some days I can’t even face the effort of powering up a laptop.
So that’s what I’ve been (not) doing. Many blog posts are languishing in the Drafts folder. Few will ever see the light of day at this rate. And that’s okay. Summer might be coming, the days are a bit less dark (ok, today was… tomorrow probably not so much). We have been doing lots of things in the background, and there’s lots more to do. And never enough time or energy to do them. We muddle on.