Why do I feel like I’m still trying to catch up?

It’s the 2nd week of january and I feel like I’m still getting over christmas*. I’m not the only person to feel this way, surely?

Last week FB was definitely missing the stream of friends and relatives who’ve been around over the christmas break. Suddenly he was at home during the day with just his sister and mum for company and he didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

And me? Well I have yet to feel that ‘clean slate’ feeling that usual comes with a new year. I have some important non-Oxford Kitchen Yarns projects which have to be out the door in the next couple of weeks, as well as a broken camera, and limited light.

Point being? It’s wretched but I’m probably going to be quiet for the next couple of weeks. The shop will still be open, and there is new stock ready to be added, which hopefully will happen at the end of the month. Miserable huh?

But then I’ll be back, and new, exciting yarn things will happen.

I promise!

*Not in a food or drink way. Just so you know. ;)

The next few weeks are really busy in our house – two birthdays (exactly a week apart – well done small ones!), a party, two work deadlines (which are exciting but I’m in the thick of it all right now!), fencing, nudging the stove closer into existance before it gets to cold… as well as the usual orders going out, yarn being dyed, family life going on all around me, day to day stuff.

So if the blog is a bit quieter than usual, please don’t worry. I’ve lots of exciting things to show you when I bob back up again.

In the meantime I was inspired by this post by Happiness Comes In Little Bits

1. Go outside (just for a bit.)

2. Do some jobs (just for a bit.)

3. Play with your children.

4. Eat (a bit) of something that tastes really lovely.

5. Make sure you can see where you have been (in the house, in the work you have to do.)

6. Listen to something that might make you smile. Or (if you’re on your own, and you think it will help) something that lets you cry.

7. Don’t go over it again and again. Unless you know it’s going to get you somewhere better than this.

8. Accept that your heart hurts right now. But it won’t forever.

9. Keep your hands busy.

10. Watch your children play.

(No one has died, no one is ill – well I have a head cold – it’s not depression, and it probably won’t last forever.)

(Mordanting today. And lots of yarn drying. )

Someone told me recently that it must be amazing being me, and ‘getting to dye yarn all day.’

Hey – I’d love to be me too! That sounds brilliant!

It’s not true though. Yarn dyeing has to find it’s place amongst a toddler and a baby, and washing and food shopping, and keeping up with the allotment, and keeping up with the house, and trying to make improvements to said house so that next winter we’re not as cold as we were last winter.

I make things because I love making things, and because I am compelled to make things. And because I really like knowing where something came from. And because I can’t afford to buy lots of nice things, but I can afford some of the supplies to make some of them myself.  So that has to wedge itself into snippets of time where possible.

Nicole Shiffler at The Sleepytime Gal, wrote today about perfection -

This perfection for oneself, one’s family, one’s home, one’s abilities, one’s children is rapidly debilitating women and, more importantly, mothers.  Many of you that I have talked to carry the same burden.

That and some personal experiences I’ve had recently, really struck a nerve.

I’ve only been doing this parenting lark for three years or so, and Oxford Kitchen Yarns has existed about a year longer than that – which is really not much time at all.

I am sometimes confident, and sometimes totally winging it.

I am sometimes confident, and sometimes a mass of exposed nerves – deeply hurt by random comments or looks, deeply protective of my children who are – at the very worst – only acting their age.

But I feel like both these aspects of my life (along with trying to work on our house) is lived inside a giant fishbowl. People have opinions – family have opinions. People feel compelled to ask if you’ve ‘thought it through’ – as if the things you deliberated over were pulled like a bunch of magic flowers from your sleeve, rather than the culmination of hours and weeks, and months and – sometimes even years – of thought, and conversations and soul searching.

I love my life, but that doesn’t stop me feeling tired, doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad that I’m writing this one handed while trying to stop my son from being to rough with his baby sister, who is attempting to wiggle off my knee. I probably shouldn’t be writing this now. I feel like I shouldn’t be writing this at all.

But maybe when I get my act together and write new posts about the clothes I’ve made the children, and the bag I made for myself, and – yes – even – the yarn that is waiting patiently to be put on sale in the shop – you will remember this rambling post. You will remember that life is a lot more complicated than it looks through the lense of a blog, and this will have done some good.

It’s warm!

(At least right now it is!)

I am brimming with ideas! It’s all very exciting.

Back to the family and the dyevats.