Its December!

The second half of November was a lot - hence the blogging hiatus.

I had such a great time writing a guest post on Elisabeth's wonderful blog Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist - if anyone is reading this after that post - welcome! Thank you for reading and joining me here. I felt a bit bad doing a guest post and then not blogging myself for a while, but when life gets a bit much, I go into survival mode, and its my blogging that suffers.

And that's what happened in this case. After that post, November got hard. Some people close to me were experiencing hard things, I was dealing with some conflict which I never cope well with, and I also got sick, all in the same week. Then last week I travelled interstate AGAIN, to a research conference this time - I was gone from Monday afternoon until Thursday really late (close to midnight). The conference was good, the location was lovely (Newcastle, NSW), the weather was warm, and I enjoyed some great walks and time away from parenting.

Beautiful coastline on an early morning walk

AND by Thursday I also felt very ready to come home and not travel anywhere for a long time. I was also sick with a mild cold the whole time I was in Newcastle (which is still hanging around a week later) which didn't stop me doing anything thankfully, but did tire me out more easily. This year has been a heavy travel year from a work perspective, including one international trip and about 8 regional/interstate trips. Next year I may have only 2 or 3 trips, which I'm looking forward to. With my work, I usually have one year that is busier with travel, and then one or two that are quieter, (depending on the grants and research I am involved with) and that cadence seems to work well for me.

Given November was a hard month for me (earlier in November our cat also died, on the same day as the US Election no less!), I was quite happy to greet December this past weekend. It was a rest weekend spent largely with E and O, which I appreciated so much after being away, as well as some time with Al and my parents. It rained A LOT, so we went to an indoor play centre Saturday morning which was surprisingly not busy and the kids LOVED it! I also managed to have a long walk on Saturday morning in between heavy downpours, and got a lot of house chores done. I must say the kids were pretty intense at times, especially on Sunday (pushing each other's buttons, asking me a million questions, being LOUD), so by Sunday afternoon I was a bit short tempered. I was ready to put the kids to bed early, but when I tried, they were not tired (or overtired? but hyperactive). I eventually gave up and went to bed while they joined Al to watch a movie. They finally went to sleep at 9.30! At least they slept in a bit this morning.

So what's the plan for December?

E has two weeks left of school and one more week of Scouts. O and I have three weeks left of kindy and work. I am taking 3 weeks off work over Christmas/New Year period, and very much looking forward to it. We have a couple of end of year work parties, a couple of end of year events (including a school fundraiser at a local, amazing Christmas lights display I'm looking forward to) and a local neighbourhood festival. Christmas Day will be at my parents house.

And then there are all the other things we want and need to do:

• Put up the tree and Christmas decorations (we usually do this December 1st but it was raining so hard that I've deferred it to another day this week!)

• Gifts and cards for teachers, colleagues, and relatives

• Gifts for the kids

• Photo with Santa

• Some night drives to explore Christmas lights close by

• Some Christmas movies

• Host my extended family one night to eat baked ham (a special recipe and a family favourite)

Here we go…