School holiday recap

The two weeks of school break for the kids went well overall - they had a great time. There was lots of family time with grandparents (two nights staying with Al's parents in the first week, seeing my parents every day in the second week), one day of vacation care, lots of fun outings to parks, playgrounds, the beach etc. And the most important part - lots of COUSIN time. My brother and 6 year old niece visited from Melbourne for a week and stayed with my parents, and we saw them every day.

O and cousin C at a hedge maze

It was wonderful, fun, and exhausting. I took two days off work and Al took one off (this time of year is too busy for us to take more than that off right now), and we did fun touristy things - went to a Ginger Factory (which actually isn't a factory but rather a place with lots of family friendly activities like a boat ride, a forest trail, playground etc with a ginger theme), and a hedge maze (I was excited by this, and it didn't dissapoint). We also went out for lunch and dinner a couple of times, and had lots of meals and my parents. One afternoon I hosted everyone - I cooked New Orleans chicken wings, coleslaw and corn, and it went so well. It was a lot of work but then such a fun evening.

The 3 cousins on the quirky boat ride we love

Me and my baby bro

Meanwhile I was also trying to work. I had some deadlines and some urgent tasks, and there was an inevitable feeling of being pulled in two directions. I ended up doing some work last Sunday in a local library, just to finish a grant application I was writing. I KNOW that I will have some very work heavy weeks ahead, because we are going into a busy season and the kids will be back into their school routines, so I was trying not to worry too much about the more disrupted days of the past two weeks, but it still bothered me. For me working at a University, really over Christmas/New Year is the only time I can take time off and really not worry about work, because the whole institution is "shut down". That is a nice feeling.

I've also been decluttering and organising! The last few weeks I've had the itch to declutter a few spaces in our house. I started with the kids toys - they have a section of our family/dining/office room - I spent a lot of one weekend pulling everything out from their toy area, sorting it into categories, working out what to throw out, donate, and keep. Then I cleaned the space completely (even washed the grubby walls and windows), and then re-organised the area with O's help. It is much more spacious and functional now, and O is enjoying it and its easy to pack things away. Hooray! E doesn't really care, at 9 she's using the space less and less, its her bedroom I want to tackle with her next. Since I was on a roll I also did my bedroom (the dresser top draw which has my makeup, jewelry, hair things etc. And my bedside table drawer, which has books and a few other things. I watched a bunch of Youtube videos of people decluttering for inspiration while I decluttered, particularly the "Clutterbug Cass" - who even did a video with Gretchen Rubin! - and it was a fun project.

Decluttering in process

The finished Toy Area

We've also been watching the World Cup, which has been fun. Australia had a couple of wins, which was fun. And Norway (a country I lived in as a young person and feel a strong affinity to), did SO well, making it all the way to the Quarterfinals until they were beaten by England in a great match. There were also some other great games I watched.

Up early in the dark to watch World Cup games

What I haven't been doing? Things that have fallen off the wagon have been

• Writing! Either this blog or my novel. The first week I did some novel writing, but not in the last week and a half.

• Enough exercise! I mean, I got some incidental exercise on all our outings with family, and I did take a few walks over the past fortnight, but I'm looking forward to getting back into my daily walking routine.

• Enough reading for fun. I've been reading a little bit the last few weeks, but I have some great books waiting for me to get back into my reading routines.

My brother and niece went home last Saturday, we had a very quiet weekend which the kids didn't even complain about! And now back to school and work this week. Nice to get back into routines and hopefully back into all those missing activities shortly.

Hows everyone else been these last couple of weeks? Do you try to keep routines during a holiday period, or fall off the wagon like me?

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