Plan for more time

Last year was tough. I'll say that now. It was really tough. JB and I have been run off our feet for 3 years now and this year ended up with us both with pretty bad burn out. My long term illness came out of remission this year because of it and well, let's just say that JB has looked better and has certainly smiled more than he's doing these days. We've just taken a month 'off' and it's been two weeks now (I think) and we haven't stopped. Literally haven't sat down other than to eat or read the kids the odd book apart from the two days we were at Dad's for Christmas, and let's face it, that was busy for me as I was cooking and all the things that go with Christmas. Somewhere about mid-year we realised how bad and out of balance things were getting, so we chose to put DS into daycare for three days a week. THREE days. It almost killed me having to do that, but we couldn't cope alone. We unfortunately have no one to help us (apart from about 8 hours a year that Dad looks after them - and then we hear about these 2 - 3 hour stints for months afterwards... he really can't cope with little kids very well), so we do it all on our own, so daycare is the only solution. We *started* to get our lives slowly back into balance after that and then the neighbours got wind of an easy, free babysitter. Started with one child for a bit, then by the end of the year I was babysitting all three of their kids at least once a week, usually more like 5 or more times. Didn't matter if I said no, didn't matter if it was on my days I have the kids in daycare so I can work, didn't matter that JB and I were getting more and more worn out as we had to work later and later into the night (and early morning) just to get the basics done for the business to make up for the slack that we couldn't get done during the day. All the housework, washing, MYOB etc backed up and the bags under our eyes have become deeper, our feet and backs sorer and our moods crankier and crankier. A few days ago I was so exhausted (on our holiday!!) that I was yelling at the kids like a madwoman by 9 am. The neighbours kids were due to come over for babysitting (yes, all three, again) any minute so part of me was so frustrated and angry that I yelled even louder, throwing in a "I'm so bloody tired because I never get any help around here and all I need is some sleep and to sit down for once and the least you could do is clear the table when I ask you to" at the top of my lungs to make sure they heard. Didn't stop her dropping them off anyway. I was so foul though that when she was here I was even yelling at her kids. I'm SO over it. So over not being able to sit down. I have seriously been taken advantage of and both JB and I are quite angry and upset about it.

SO, this year I'm going to put my foot down and say FIRMLY that the kids cannot come over here on my work days. That's it. I need to keep on top of my work around the house so that I can focus on the businesses properly so we can actually make some money and have a bit of time for necessary things like SLEEP. You know something is seriously wrong when you feel bad for sitting down for five minutes. I said to JB the other day, "do you remember that six years ago I used to have time to actually watch tele and I knew all the shows on the lifestyle channel?" Amazing. Now if we watch an hour of tele a week it's been a big week of viewing. It's just ridiculous. Time for a change. Jenn starts back at after school care this week - only one day a week, but that's a start, then on the 27th Jan we're back to three days a week for me to work. Hopefully with a bit of time we'll be able to catch up and I'll be able to get on top of the business and housework.

On a good note, after that big rant I've just had (sorry, I've had no internet all day and I think I needed to get that off my chest), today I did get quite a bit done. I know JP is a bit frustrated with how long the bathroom reno is taking (especially seeing as that wasn't one of the things on the holiday to do list which is a mile long), but it is looking good. I've managed to find the bottom of Mt Foldmore, so hopefully by the end of the week I'll have reached the bottom of the dirty washing baskets too.

I did take a bit of time to take a few photos of some wildlife that appeared in our garden throughout the day. A gorgeous kookaburra eating a lizard on our front porch and a massive swamp dragon who was taking some time out in the back yard. Gorgeous.