Check in…

Hello world??

Gosh, I have been bad, haven’t I? I am not gonna even attempt to make excuses for my nonexistent irregular postings of late. Let’s just leave it at ‘life has been a bit hectic’.

Instead, I am going to tell you five random things I learned this last month…

• I am addicted to crime books… Let’s not even try and hide or deny it. I kept the midnight candles burning in December reading the Lewis Man trilogy. And once I started the Dexter series properly, waking up at 2am in the morning, it was much easier to fain insomnia and read a bit, than going back to sleep.

• I am being asked more and more to ‘keep secrets”. And I am pretty good and keeping people’s confidences. One of the most embarrassing moments this month was when a friend asked me to keep her pregnancy quiet. And I did. I did not tell a soul. Until we went for dinner at their house and her husband asked me if she told me their news, and I excitedly said yes. Only to find out she told him off a week before for telling one of his friends…

• In The Odd Life of Timothy Green, his parents make up a list of qualities that they wish for a child and bury it in the garden, from which the little boy is miraculously born. I learned that if I had to make a list of qualities for a child and somehow managed to create a child matching that list, I would probably not be able to re-create the awesome girls I have. They are caring, respectful, independent, responsible, witty…

• I do not have the work/home balance that I wish for myself, at this stage of my life. I often work too long hours, and when I get home, I am grumpy and irritable, which in unfair on my girls. And I realised that I can do it for much longer, but actually, I don’t want to.

• It is incredibly easy for ‘fall out of’ an exercise program! Before I did the Inca Trail in April, I was pretty proud of myself about the amount of exercise I was doing. But winter and work has had its toll on my exercise routine. But, I am doing another 5 day hike again in April next year, so I am desperately wanting to get back to a regular exercise program.

On a positive note, I starting a five week camera course last week and cannot wait to put some of the theory into practice…And I am terribly excited about being able to share this experience with my 15 year old daughter, because I booked in the month when they were running a ‘two for one’ Spring Special’. So, we are learning about ISO settings, apertures, F-stops and white balance and enjoying it very much. Hopefully at some stage I can show you what we are capable or not capable of!

Hope to be writing you soon!