me on a friday

Here's my contribution to this week's 52 Fridays. I missed last week, due to it being the busy-crazy-mad-rush week that it was. I'm hoping there is at least one nice photo of me from Mishi's party (taken by my father-in-law).

So, anyway. Today I did the quick and easy computer photo. With silly prop! My new beautiful cup, that I bought last week from Shibui Homewares in West End. I had a lovely chat with the lady, who owns and works in the shop, about her visits to Japan, and about Japanese tea cups.

Right now I am being deliciously cheeky. My cup contains a yummy, hot / cold concoction of vanilla icecream and coffee. Otherwise known as affogatto. I haven't had one of these for ages - icecream  is rarely bought in this household, this is left over from Mishi's party. And Ari tempted me. Friday afternoon, afterall. Icecream and afternoon television for the boy. Before we get the girl from her kindy.

Today I have spent a fair bit of time reading and working on planning. I spotted Steady Days in the side bar of Soulemama's blog*, and clicked over and purchased. The book arrived in the post on Wednesday, and I've been carefully reading it in spare moments. This isn't a cute-pretty sort of book, but it's so easy to read and so well laid out. I really like the way that there are no half-page headings for each new chapter (saves on paper). This book feels like one of those Cliff's notes to .... (you know the cheats guides to Hamlet or McBeth that we all read at school?); it breaks things down into simple language, honest words and truthfulness in the telling and the story. I really like that Jamie (the author) doesn't pretend as if she's perfect, actually she often reminds us that she's not. 

So, I've been planning how to be more organised. These past few months (weeks especially) I've felt lost and drowning in the vastness of it all. I've been weighed down. And have felt pretty useless at a lot of stuff. You know when you feel like that it takes a lot of get back up and get going with stuff. The piles of paper normally just keep building up, and the mounds of laundry almost topple onto the kids while they're trying to find clean socks. 

I've written out a daily, weekly and (still working on) monthly plan for the whole family. I've included chores - silly things that shouldn't need to be included in a to-do list, but that have been getting  begrudgingly pushed between Sam and me lately (like the washing up, or the laundry). I've included a half hour every evening, before dinner where the whole family sits down and talks or plays a game, or writes / draws together in our journals. We do always sit together at breakfast and dinner time, but we're often caught up in the 'kids sit down', 'stop putting food everywhere', 'use your fork, please', 'eat your veges', rush to school, work or bed deal. So - I'm hoping some small amount of time to sit and enjoy as a family will help us all be a little bit happier in where we're at. 

I also added a whole hour, once a week, for Sam and me to sit down together and talk about our plans and dreams and goals (both personal and professional). This is something that we rarely get to do, and if we do, it's normally moments between making school lunches or reading bedtime stories or rushing out the door to work.

I'm going to spend the weekend working on and finalising the planning. Steady Days book suggests to put everything into an easy to reference binder, and I'm going to work with that. I'm also going to consult Sam and the kids on it all, as I want it to be something we do together, not something that I enforce and dictate.

Hopefully this time next week I'll be well into the good feeling of being organised and on top of things. And I'll be getting some proper solid work happening. Rather than this dribble-drabble-nothingness that's been happening around here lately.

*And look, it's on her bedside table today as well.