A new year

I guess once you become a parent of a school age child it's inevitable that your new year point shifts to early September and, as of yesterday, I am the parent of a Year 2 child as Lia went back to school for her third year (1st year is reception and doesn't count in the year numbering system - very confusing) .  She was a very excited six year old as she loves school.  Well, apparently she loves school apart from assembly which is boring.  I presume because she actually has to sit still and listen as opposed to talk, talk, talk which is her favourite thing to do LOL.

Connor too started his 'school' again this week and has pretty much settled in although he has been reluctant to be left in the mornings, but once they offer him food he's a happy boy and settles into his day. 

As for me and my 'new year', well it's a strange time for me.  I had a fab couple of weeks at home with the kids at the end of the holidays and now I'm back in the office kind of in limbo.  I'm now five weeks into my 'at risk' period, so almost half way, and, as you can imagine, I'm not exactly motivated to be doing anything.  I am trying because, let's face it, sitting at a desk for five hours doing not much is boring in the extreme but I have no projects to get my teeth into and nothing on my to do list is in any way inspiring or exciting.

So I'm focussing on home for my new year.  I've given DH an ultimatum that he must get the loft boards finished this weekend.  We have no other plans apart from Lia's ballet and Greek school commitments so he is going to be up there until it's done.  Once he's done that I can then get up there and sort things out as I have no idea of exactly what is up there!  Some of the boxes haven't been touched since we moved four years ago and we need a good clear out because once the loft is organised we need to move on to sorting out the garage.

I also want to clean up the house.  I talk about it all the time but all I really do is surface cleaning.  I want to do a proper deep clean of everything and write up a list of jobs that need to be done, can be done on a budget and will make the house a bit nicer.  You know the stuff, fixing doors that catch, filling cracks, adding hooks, storage, etc.

After that I'll be looking at bigger jobs like painting walls, building a cupboard, fixing the bathroom floor.  Jobs that we've been talking about for a long long time but just never get round to.  And then, of course, there's the garden.  I had such high hopes for the garden when we moved in and yet another year has passed with nothing done.  The plan is to work over the autumn / winter months to prepare things for planting in the spring so that next summer I don't sit around lamenting the fact that another year has passed and I've failed to get off my butt!

This probably sounds familiar to those of you who've been hanging around this blog a while but I really do mean it.  If I am made redundant (which is looking extremely likely) then this will be the perfect time for me to knuckle down and get this stuff done as I may well stay at home for a year.  I know for sure that if the September new year rolls around next year and none of this stuff has been done it most likely never will be LOL.

Anyway, on to crafty stuff. I've made some progress on my 1st Fat Man (progress pic will be taken tonight).  I've decided to look at each one as a project on their own, rather than all six being one big project so my WIP list will not grow.  I'm going to complete my first one (Snowed In) and then go back to WIP stitching for a while.  I might pick up my Lizzie*Kate Halloween Sampler as a bit of plugging away should provide a finish on that this month (and that too could head to Karen V for finishing with my Shepherd's Bush piece).

I also have two bits of obligation sewing to do and I will get those done this month. I will also work on finishing up another quilt top project as I bought a metre of material at the weekend that I needed for it.  I'm also determined to quilt and finish at least one of the tops I have already made and I have to sew up one of the Advent Calendar panels I have for Connor.  Oh and finish him up a quilted stocking too (nothing like getting prepared early right?)

I also have some cushion covers to make up from my MIL's christmas gift and I want to make a Christmas table runner as we'll be having Christmas at our house again this year with MIL and FIL.  Oh and then there's my Trick or Treat fabrics I absolutely have to get made up into something.  And I'd really love to get back to some Baby Jane blocks...

Is it any wonder I never have time for half the things I want to do!

The final 'news' I have to post about is with regards to The Affair just in case any of you are interested LOL.  Cheating husband and his family are moving house on the 23rd of this month.  Not far away but far enough that their daughter will be changing schools and we will probably never see them as we won't have any reason to keep in touch.

Cheating wife is getting a divorce.  She told her husband it was over about 3 weeks ago - her reason being they have nothing in common.  He's opened up to Leon quite a bit about it all and apparently he is suspicious that she's been having an affair and has asked her on several occasions.  She's denied it (well duh!) and he thinks she wouldn't lie to him. 

She has convinced him to do the whole thing without lawyers involved and the agreement is that he'll keep the house (by buying her out) and she'll get full custody of the girls plus £400 a month from him.  She's planning on moving out at the end of this month but he doesn't know yet if she's going to stay nearby or move as she's currently working in a town 19 miles away but she's not sure if her contract will be renewed come October.  If it is renewed I'm sure she'll go closer to work.

As DH and I predicted all along her husband is just rolling over and letting her call the shots.  He's not demanding custody or even regular access to the kids, he's not objecting to her moving, he's not fighting for anything, he's just accepting everything she throws at him.  She's going to screw him over big time as this plays out for sure and he'll end up losing any contact with his kids.  They only have one car and she'll take that as he doesn't drive that much and takes the train to work so if she moves the kids away he'll have no easy way to get to the kids and just won't bother.

I have no idea whether the actual affair continues but I would be surprised if it doesn't, either that or she's started up with someone else...

Anyway, this post turned out a lot longer than I expected (that's what you get for me being bored at work LOL).  I'll return to the scheduled crafty posts tomorrow with a picture of my 1 fat man...