life Archives - Penny Blogs

If you only read about what I’m up to here on Penny Blogs then it may well seem like I’ve not been up to much lately. But if that’s your thought then you couldn’t be further from the truth!

Life, as it always seems to be, is manic!

Having three kids, plus a part-time step-daughter, is pretty much a full time job in itself. Keeping on top of all their social arrangements, plus Brownies, Beavers and Cubs meetings (yep, two children but one of each!), after school clubs, swimming lessons and the various Brownie, Cub and Beavers trips and sleep-overs that seem to be going on at the moment, means I need some ninja logistic planning skills. Then there’s all the things that they seem to need. Dressing up outfits for World Books Day. Cakes for cake sales in aid of Red Nose Day, World Downs Syndrome Day and Autism Awareness Day. Remembering which day one kid needs to wear odd socks and on which the other needs to take a superhero toy with them. Ticking things off on camp packing lists. Sewing badges on to uniforms, paying for school trips and collecting plastic bottles for Arts week. No wonder I feel tired at the end of the day.

Add into the mix a four month old baby, who luckily is happy to be dragged all over the place, but one who still needs feeding at least once every night and that there is your reason I get through so much tea in a day!

There are a few other things that are keeping me out of mischief though.

Firstly, this week we are celebrating a whole year in our “new” house. In a way it looks like we’ve done very little since moving in, and there are still plenty of reminders of retro decor that need sorting. We have though managed to replace nearly every window in the house so far this year as well as getting the garage roof repaired. As I sit here now I’m waiting for a man to come back to finalise a quote for fixing the gutters and some problems with the main roof too. It can be hard sometimes to remember that things don’t just happen overnight. There’s plenty more that I need to crack on and do though. The decor in Master C’s room probably being top of the list. He’s trying to push tings on a bit by peeling wallpaper off himself whilst he lies in bed at night listening to audio books!

On the work front I’m being kept busy with various bits of writing work and some social media stuff too. Having created a whole new online presence does mean that some work has slowed down (which is sadly to be expected) but there are a few leads that I’m chasing at the moment so please cross your fingers.

I’m working away at both Penny Plays and Penny Travels on an almost daily basis. Bonn and I are slowly working our way through a huge pile of vintage board games that we are wanting to feature on Penny Plays as well as some new games and toys that I have been sent to review. We’ve also set up a Facebook Group for people to talk about vintage board games here in the UK. I’d found a couple of American groups, but no British ones, so decided to set one up myself.

On the travel front we’re slowly (see a theme here?) working our way through the 270 London Underground stations that we’re hoping to visit with Tube Stop Baby. We’re up to 28 so far. That’s over 10%! Last weekend saw us cover off the top bit of the Metropolitan Line and I’ve totally fall in love with how unlike London it feels there. Chorleywood (where we parked our car) felt like driving into a small village in the Yorkshire Moors rather than approaching a tube station. I’m a bit behind in writing up all our trips, but I’m hoping to have a bit of time over Easter to catch up. Her Instagram account is a bit more up to date though.

I’ve also realised just how much I need a daily dose of fresh air in my life. The days that I don’t get outside for a walk I find myself struggling with motivation to get anything done. I’ve recently discovered geocaching (and have written a little introduction to it over on Penny Travels if you don’t know what it is) and I’m finding that a great excuse to get outside and explore with Tube Stop Baby. It can sometimes be a bit of a challenge finding some of the caches when you’ve got a pushchair with you, but even if I don’t manage to retrieve every cache that I go after, I’m getting the fresh air and exercise which is making me feel better.

In between all this I’ve discovered just how addictive Netflix box sets are. Especially whilst you’re pinned to the sofa under a feeding baby. I’d honestly forgotten just how much I love a good crime drama on the telly. I’m desperately trying to make time for crochet, as I know that crafting is another thing that I really need in my life to keep a bit of balance. There aren’t enough hours in the day to do as much as I’d like, but small progress is being made.

Inspired by the Sewing Bee I’m also hoping to get my sewing machine out again soon. There’s a cot bed quilt that really needs finishing, but I’ve also got a load of clothes patterns that I’d like to have a go at. A recently trip to a local haberdashery shop had me finding some Harry Potter fabric that I know Little Miss C would love a quilt made from so I’m wondering if I can do something “mummy made” for her birthday in June…

Maybe I should just give up on sleeping as being too time consuming?

Did I blink? What the heck happened to 2018? How on earth is it 2019 already?

With the exception of Pregnancy diary posts here on the blog (and let’s be honest they petered out a bit as the year went on) it feel like an age since I last wrote a catch up blog post. It’s fair to say that quite a bit has happened in 2018 and it only feel fair to summarise it all. Partly for people reading, but also for me to realise just how much I achieved in a year.

Back in January last year I only really had one ambition for the year, and that was to find somewhere to live. The house we now call home was one that I first went to see on about the 9th January last year. Yep, a whole 9 days after I started looking! And it was the first (and only!) house that I actually viewed.

As soon as I walked in I knew it would make a perfect family home for us. I instantly called B and told him. We managed to arrange a second viewing the following day and met there as he came back from a job about 200 miles north. It was pitch black and right at the end of the day, but the estate agent happened to live just a round the corner and was keen to make his first sale of the year. Just a day later we had organised a mortgage agreement in principle, so we put in an offer and amazingly were accepted!

Of course house purchases are never that straight forward, but we still managed to move things along pretty fast and exchanged contracts in mid March and collected the keys and moved in a week later. Oh, and did I mention that the day before we exchanged I found out I was pregnant?

Yes, it was planned, but you just never know when these things are actually going to happen. Moving in whilst suffering from awful nausea was rough, but we managed. By the school Easter holiday we were actually able to have all the kids to stay in their own bedrooms. It was all rather rushed, and involved far too many trips to Ikea, but we finally had a home that was actually big enough for us. And better still there was no more black mould constantly causing me sleepless nights!

Four months of settling in and getting a million and one jobs done followed. Along with planning ahead for a baby and dealing with all the early pregnancy niggles that you get when you’re having your third child. In this period I also received my decree absolute. My time as Mrs C was officially over.

By July I’d obviously decided that things were getting a bit dull again, so I added a bit of excitement to my 40th birthday by heading off to Tea and Tents with my WI friends. How many women celebrate turning 40 with a spot of pregnant skinny dipping?

B also probably though that I was sitting there with my feet up enjoying daytime TV a bit much because he also used July to formally propose to me. We’d talked about it for ages, but now suddenly there was a wedding to plan. Oh, and did I mention that we wanted to do it before the baby was due in early November?

It turns out that you can organise a (small, family) wedding in under two months. And it can be perfect too. Who says you need month (or years) of planning and vast expense to have a perfect wedding day. We had neither, but there’s nothing I’d change about the day at all. Everything was just how I wanted it. Perfect.

Wedding out of the way we managed to squeeze in a couple of days of honeymoon up at Penny from ParentShaped’s barn in the Peak District. It was exactly what we wanted and needed and Penny made our stay special with loads of thoughtful little touches for us.

Batteries recharged it was time for the final push to the end of the year and the birth of our daughter. I know babies don’t work to schedules, but this one must have realised that we were a bit tight on time. Her due came came and went, but once they took me into hospital to try to induce me she realised we meant business. A full birth story will be written up soon, but the fact that I was in hospital for a total of 24 hours and discharged just six hours after she was born probably tells you that it all went rather well. Most importantly though, we were able to take home our gorgeous little girl.

The sleepless nights since then have been tough (I can’t lie about that. I think I must have blocked them from memory from LMC and Master C!) but so worth it when she flashes you one of her gorgeous smiles.

As we sat there on new year’s eve (with a screaming baby in our arms – that six week spot is flipping hard work!) it was quite mad to sit there and think about how much had happened in the previous 12 months. I’m exhausted looking back at it all, but it’s been an incredibly 12 months. Filled with so many memorable moments.

My plans for 2019 aren’t as involved, but after 2018 I feel like I deserve a bit of a rest if I’m honest with you. Let’s see how that pans out though. I’ve never been one for sitting with my feet up doing little!

life

What’s keeping me busy right now

2018 – the year that…