It's the little things...

I won't deny that a large amount of my blogging thus far (all three entries!) have been fuelled by frustration or mild disaster. Too early starts, missed dental appointments, missing trousers, late for school days and forgotten coats on a rainy day. The best way to cope with lifes ups and particularly the downs is to laugh about them. Find the comedy! Use your crappy day to make someone else feel less crappy about their day. Having said all that, I'm actually here this morning with a completely different mindset... I'm actually in a good mood with zero (or a lot less) grumbling to do! Imagine such a thing...

It's Sunday morning. The sun has well and truly got his hat on which is jolly decent of him after frankly bonkers weather over the past week. It was either super sunny or raining like Noah needed to head to Wickes for ark building materials. My OH is in bed right now and our children are playing Super Mario 3D World on the WiiU. They got Nintendo Nerd genes from their father, along with Lego loving genes... They can thank me for their mega chatty genes!

I'm sat with the French doors open and out in the garden I can see my washing on the line. Ridiculously, simple shit like that makes me happy. I feel at peace right now and I can tell you that moments where I feel that way are few and far between.

Like many millions of others, I have problems with my mental health. I won't say "I have mental health issues" because my dad (God rest his wonderful, funny soul) had an almost irrational hatred for the word "issues" so I endeavour not to use it too often. One of the reasons I came back to this blog a few weeks ago was so I had a platform to talk about mental health because I'm passionate about it being talked about often and therefore normalised. I've suffered from depression of some sort since I was about 14 years old and have seen numerous counsellors over the years. I've also been on/ off medication to help me with it since I was 21. Right now, 50mg Sertraline a day is doing the trick.

I am prone to bouts of overwhelming and non-specific sadness and I struggle to switch off and relax. In short, I'm a fidgety little fecker most of the time.

Outwardly I may seem confident but a lot of the time, it's a front. I'm playing the part of Confident Kati and that can be exhausting at times.

Hence, when I feel content as I do right now, it needs documenting! I want to be able to refer back to this post when I'm feeling not so shiny and remind myself that I am capable of feeling okay.

So what cosmic events occurred to bring peace to Miss Misery McFidget-Pants? Well, by some miracle I finished all my Slimming World related admin/ support work by Friday evening. This is rare! I normally do as much as I can until I run out of steam and then resume at 6am on a Saturday morning when Squiddly and Diddly (my children) drag me from my bed. Not so this week! I was done and dusted and that meant that I didn't boot up my work laptop from Friday teatime until about half an hour ago when I needed it to write this. That was a good feeling, let me tell you!

Yesterday morning I headed off to Nottingham with a bunch of my lovely colleagues from school. I love my job as a SW consultant but you don't get a lot of 'staff excursions' because one of us is always running group or busy with admin. Since I joined the school as a lunchtime supervisor I've recaptured that feeling of having 'work mates' in the traditional sense and it's quite lovely. We had booked to do an escape room experience - my first - and although I was a little apprehensive, I really enjoyed it. We didn't actually crack it in time but thankfully they let us out anyway! Phew! After a lovely lunch (which I managed to Food Optimise, win!) we headed home.

My wonderful (would be) in laws had my children for the day as I had my day trip and Pete (my OH/ their son) was off enjoying an all-day PS4 COD Zombie marathon at his mates house. As interests and pastimes go, it's a fairly innocuous one I suppose. I'd rather be with a Lego-loving, occasional gamer than a man whose moods are dictated by a football team although no disrespect to footie loving men and women. It's just not our thing.

Finding myself home with no Pete and no children was odd but wonderful. I decided to go for a run (get me!) as my sister and I are taking part in the Great South Run in October. I'm sure this will be mentioned again as I ramp up my training and therefore whinge my arse off about the fact that I hate running. I waited for the rain to stop then trotted off to my little sister's house. Three and a bit miles and it was quicker than Thursday's run of the same distance so I was pleased with that.

A cuppa and a catch up with my (step) sister, Laura is always good for the soul. I'm so lucky that she lives so close, despite ending up in Kettering for a completely different reason to me. I only wish my big sister was closer too.

The children were delivered back to me all bathed and pyjama'd. I don't know where we'd be without Janet and David. My children couldn't ask for better grandparents. Once E and H were tucked up in bed, it was a Nashville catch up and then bed for me too.

Perhaps my many (arf arf) readers will find this post a little dull. I don't suppose a blog should be a 'What I did at the weekend' report like school used to ask you to write on a Monday morning but I just wanted to focus on all the little things that brought about a sense of wellbeing and calm to my often noisy and troubled mind.

Of course I have much to do to get ready for the week ahead. Uniforms to iron, group prep to do, figuring out when I can food shop etc but for now, I'm going to make another brew and just breathe and be.

I wish you all a wonderfully chilled out sunny Sunday!

Organisation, thy name is NOT Kati!

I started my last post with the Urban Dictionary definition of 'the walk of shame'... Well I can tell you now that if you looked under 'organised' in a dictionary, one of the definitions might be 'what Kati Reeve is not'. *sigh*

I realise that as flaws go, being disorganised is a far from heinous personality crime but when you are the disorganised one I can tell you it's really effing annoying!

Take today for example... I get in from my lunchtime job (I'm a lunchtime supervisor at my children's school) just after 1.30. My car is already loaded for me to go to my 'proper' job so in theory I've got 45 minutes before I need to leave again and not much I need to do.

Fast forward to 2.25 and I haven't left the house yet. Not only that but I'm frantically trying to find letters to go in my cinematic lightboxes (the struggle is real people) before I can leave. It's a classic Kati scenario... "I'll just do this one job now, it won't take long... Oh shitting bastard hell! I'm late!!!!"

So I arrive for work ten minutes late. I'm self employed (as a Slimming World consultant) so there's no boss tapping their watch but what there is instead is me fleeing around like a blue arsed fly, trying to get everything done on time. Add to that the fact that I didn't have my usual social team there to help me set up and my 'shift' didn't get off to the best start. Thank goodness I have lovely members who pitched in and helped.

My members know me to be disorganised and will often ask me (affectionately, mind you) "What have you forgotten this week?" or they won't even feign surprise when I tell them I have forgotten something. I fear that when they talk to their friends and family about their Slimming World consultant, they'll say "Oh yes... she's lovely. Not the most organised creature known to man, but..."

As I said earlier, there are certainly worse ways to be described by others and I could live with being disorgainsed if it didn't impact on others around me but of course it does. Yesterday we experienced what can only be described as biblical rain and which massive div took her children to school without coats. Oh yes, that'd be me!! Once again, for the record: took my children to school coat-less in the midst of an epic downpour. So before I could go and do what I needed to do I had to drive home and back again to deliver said coats.

Walking in to the school's reception area I said, handing the coats over, "Officially nailing parenthood since 2008!" I make jokes about it but it does bug me because it's avoidable. I stress myself out with stupid shit that needn't even be a problem but it becomes one.

So I find myself wondering, is it possible to rewrite your programming? Can a perpetually disorganised spanner such as myself become an organisational badass?! In all honesty, right now I'd settle just for remembering basic shit like, oh I don't know, putting coats on my children when it's absolutely shitting it down...

I could've spent this time researching ways to become more organised but we all know that would've been half an hour of pinning stuff to my 'Get your shit together, Kati!' board on Pinterest. Yes, I have a board by that name. No, I have never actioned any of the things I've pinned to said board.

My bed awaits. I shall dream of a time when I shall have all my ducks in a row instead of the wee bastards wandering off in fifteen different directions!

The Walk of Shame

walk of shame

phrase of walk

1. 1.

   informal

   an instance of walking back home on the day after an unplanned casual sexual encounter, typically dressed in the same clothes as the previous evening.

This is the official definition of a walk of shame. When you are a 35 year old mother of two in a committed relationship, it has a completely different meaning. I define it as failing to get your children to school on time and therefore having to take them in through the office. And yes, you've guessed it! I did one this morning. The shame is compounded when the headteacher is waiting in the office to usher stragglers in AND (double whammy) you also work part time at said school. Oh Lord... 

I took a picture at about 8.15am yesterday. My daughter (Eva, 8) was curled up on the sofa, all ready for school and tapping away on her tablet. Her brother (Hal, 4) was sitting with their daddy (Pete, 34) playing on the iPad. My OH who does the school run on a Thursday, was stretched out chatting to Hal. They were not only ready on time but they were SO ready for school that they had time to RELAX before they needed to leave. WTAF?! I asked him what witchcraft this was, how could it be that he was reclining on the sofa on a school day? Why is it that my school run days (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) are an endless stream of me bellowing "Where are your shoes...? Did you bring your cardigan home? No, we  don't have any brioche? CAN YOU PLEASE JUST GET IN THE CAR?????" 

My day started at 5.15am when I woke for a wee and then couldn't get back to sleep, mainly because my brain (or what remains of it after two children) started going "Stuff to do. You've got so much to do. Do it. Do it now. So much work. Stuff. Stuff. Now. Get up!" etc. Stupid brain. So I got up and proceeded to procrastinate like an absolute bastard. 

"Katherine Emily Reeve, putting the pro in procrastination since 1981" 

Take now for example, I have 31 food diaries awaiting my attention. The dishwasher needs emptying. And reloading. I need to leave for my school job at 11.30 and before then I'll need to eat. So what am I doing? Updating my blog, obvs. Insert eye roll emoji here. 

One more thing before I go coz I made myself laugh and it might make you laugh too... Driving home from dropping E and H off this morning, another driver flashed her lights at me. Or at least I presume it was at me. I did a quick check of what she could be alerting me to... I was driving on the right side of the road, I had my lights on (it's a filthy grey day today)... The next thing I thought "Are my doors closed?" 

"ARE MY DOORS CLOSED?" Really Kati, really?! 

Jesus wept, I know I'm tired but did I really think I could have driven almost all the way home with my car doors open and not notice??

I am happy to confirm my doors were closed so I have no idea why I got flashed at. Anyway, that's enough work avoidance for now. Here's to getting all of my work done and being tucked up in bed by 9pm tonight! #lifegoals