And so it ends

My maternity leave ends this Friday so its back to work on Monday. I know it hasn't technically been 'leave' but I feel that I've achieved very little since being away from work (apart from raising a beautiful child!). I suspect this sense of frustration at being unable to do everything I want to do in my life will continue for some time, but I can't help getting cranky that I don't have enough hours, arms or resources to do what I want to do with my time.

I recently wrote some 'commandments' as suggested by the happiness project which I'll share with you.

1. Don't overthink or overdo
2. Breathe
3. Realise there are limits to what activities I can maintain in my life
4. I can do anything for fifteen minutes
5. Get dressed and showered and beautified* every day (currently this means 'use deodorant and run a brush through your hair')
   
6. Get outside
7. Be compassionate to myself so I can be compassionate to others
8. Nothing will change, if I don’t do anything different
9. CHOOSE to be positive
10. Be grateful

I'm constantly trying to work out systems to do more and do it better and do it faster so much so that these mini-mantras can sometime be my last defence against self-harm. Sometimes the pathological critic is the only voice I hear all day. And seriously, I'm the luckiest woman alive! I have a wonderful, supporting, loving husband who is a wonderful father to my two healthy, loving children. I have a job, a house, [more than] enough to eat, can afford health care and luxuries. So. I don't really know what the point to this post is, except to say that I will now have work to add too my list of stuff to do. And that I should probably try to be a bit kinder to myself.

Anyway, have a lovely day everyone. The sun is shining (should really get in and fix the garden, plant and fertilise... and then there is the washing to do, and oh my g*d that pile of folding could topple and suffocate one of the kids... then there is the ironing, and the kitchen is filthy, and i've got those couple of sewing jobs for the in-laws that I really should do... why do I spend all my time on the computer?... gee there are some amazing people out there, you could do that if you stopped phaffing about looking at blogs, maybe you should check out flylady, or diy planner.com, they could help you organise your life, surely an hour looking at an organising site is time well spent? Meanwhile the vacuum isn't going to run itself around the house. Shame I can't knit and vacuum at the same time. Watch out cat, geez, we don't look after you much anymore do we? Best check you've got water and food. And when did we last clean the kitty litter? This garage is a mess! I really need to unclutter this place. I'm hopeless really. Where is that unclutterer website again? etc etc etc etc).