my creative space: handbag organiser

I'm short on words today... or is that time?!


Here's the handbag organiser which I sketched a few weeks ago... now in real living fabric!


Lots more creative spaces over here

Friday's events

My dear lovelies, do I have a quick story for you today.  I seem to be having endless entertainment in my life of late.

On Thursday afternoon whilst picking up my monkey from school, his teacher asked if we were coming to the parents and children class breakfast on Friday morning.  I didn’t think that it was a big deal, but apparently it was.  So I put a quick call into work to tell them I’d be coming in later than usual so that I could attend the breakfast the next day.  That afternoon we made some mini tartlets to take with us the next morning.  All in a day, really.

We arrived at the breakfast all fine, but about 10 mins before I was due to leave, we heard a loud thud.  Then I heard some crying.  As I surveyed the room to see which poor kid had hurt themselves, I struggled to see through the crowd of parents who had nestled in around a child on the floor.  Then for a brief moment, I caught a glimpse of my child’s head through all the legs.  Of course it would be my child.  Why did I think it would be anyone else’s?

I quickly shuffled my way over to him and as the sea of parents parted to let me through, one of the teachers said to my Jaxon “let me see” and pulled his clasping hands away from his head.  Then all we saw was blood. More than I’m used to seeing with the usual scraped knees and cut fingers.  Ladies and gentlemen we have ourselves an injury.  The rest is a bit of a blur, but goes something like this.

Head straight to the infirmary, head bandaged (his not mine), stop on the way back to collect his school bag to chat with mums who had witnessed the episode, hop in the car and drive to hospital, run out of petrol a couple of blocks from the hospital, it starts to hail, nice man stops to help push my car off one of the busiest roads in Melbourne, walk in the rain with bandaged child, arrive at hospital and get told they don’t treat children there, but they make an exception and “glue his head back together” (in Jaxon’s words), leave hospital, husband arrives with a can of petrol, start car and drive straight to service station to FILL it up, drive home and exhale.

I have no doubt that this will be the first of many hospital trips I will be making with my very active (and even more clumsy) child.

So what interesting things did you get up to on Friday or over the weekend?

snapshot in time

via Pinterest

I'm outta steam today. Day 1 of a 3-day sales conference at the day job. And as I otherwise work part time it makes it all the more challenging to stay organised on the home front because the conference is for 3 FULL days.  


Generally, after school on Monday afternoons we have a scheduled play-date.  Another mum from school and I alternate taking turns looking after the boys, both of who are an only child in the family. It gives them some time to pretend for an afternoon that they have a sibling and for us, some time out (on alternate Monday's of course). 


So screaming round to their house I went straight after the 2-hours-later-than-scheduled-finish-time at work.  Then straight home to find that the husband had arrived home from work before me (that's a first) and already had dinner sorted (I didn't even care that it was just a frozen pizza in the convection oven). Phew.


After dinner, it's a quick shower, the usual reading of the assigned readers for that evening, brushing of the teeth, some monkey shenanigans, then 1/2 hour of "I don't wanna go to bed" before finally convincing him to go to bed.


Tonight when I took my boy-child to bed I offered to read him a bedtime story. As we flicked through the vast selection of accumulated books in his bookcase, we came across his Wiggles photo album filled with photos of him when he was an ankle biter.  He chose this over a storybook.  And I'm so glad that he did.


As we flipped through the pages filled with colourful memories, my heart filled with nostalgia. This little face that I know but somehow looked like a very distant memory.  When was he ever that little? Look at those pudgy cheeks! I want another baby. No I don't. Eew, nappies. Awh, warm unconditional cuddles.  I remember that cute outfit. I wish it still fit him.


All kinds of emotions came flooding in. I think he felt it too.  He asked me where the photo of mum looking angry was. Just when I was about to say "what are you talking about, there's no such photo" he found the photo.  He was right.  I looked angry in this one photo.  Why was I angry?  Wait. I'm still angry. Some of the time I don't realise that I'm angry. But I am.  My husband has recently been telling me that I need to loosen up. Relax. Not take things so seriously.


I get upset when he tells me that.  Why?  Because I don't know how to "relax".  Because I wish I were carefree, loose and fun. Those words seem to have disappeared from my vocabulary. Sometimes I am more serious-mummy, preoccupied-mummy, cleaner-mummy, got-63-things-on-my-to-do-list-mummy and that leaves little time for fun and carefree mummy.


Being the pedantic person that I am (blame that one on the astrological sign of Virgo), I find it hard to just let things go which in turn means that I'm really hard on myself when I don't completely have things under control. And let's be real. Unless you have a nanny, cleaner and a clone, how can things ever be picture-perfect in all aspects of life?  It's all good to give others advice, but I just find it hard to accept or take my own.


As almost six years have gone by since I became a mum, I'm still struggling to come to terms with losing control of what seems like my entire life.  Trying to have a career, be a mum, an entertainer, cleaner, cook, a loving wife, friend, daughter and a home-maker whilst still trying to be me somewhere in between.  It's a lot of shoes to fill and I'm not sure I can nor should I want to fill all of them perfectly. 


Should I feel bad that I can't achieve everything I want? Definitely not. But do I? Absolutely.


Maybe one day I will read this and finally take my own advice.  But for now, I will continue wishing that time would just stand still long enough for me to catch up.