The good things in life...

"When you finally get something good, enjoy it. 

Don't always go looking for something better."

I saw this quote on facebook today and it really struck a chord with me. Many years ago when my eldest, who is now 13, was very tiny. I used to read a cute little book to her. It was about a mouse family who took walks along the sand, swam in the rivers, lived in the country with fields and trees where they made rope swings and went for jogs... you get my drift. When I read it to my little girl, who was then a toddler, I would tell her that one day we'll get to live by the sea and have walks along the sand, be able to climb trees and swim wildly in the sea or rivers. 

A couple of years later, when my daughter was 3 and my, then youngest, was 8mths old, we moved to live near the sea. Unfortunately I had long term postnatal depression that lasted from when my son was born until he was 2 1/2 yrs old so, despite it being exactly what I had wanted for years, it wasn't something that I appreciated fully for a long time.

A lot has changed over the past 10 years that we've been living here. We've had good times and bad times, the last year being one of the worst we've ever had for varying reasons... but all of that has led to something amazing happening. I have felt this on and off for the past few years now, but not as much as I feel it now. I am so so happy in my life right now. So grateful for what I have. I'm approaching 40 and I guess it's a time in my life that I can look at it and see what I've done. I have achieved SO much. Maybe not in the same way that someone else might view achievement. But for me it is all I ever wanted. 

I live in that house by the sea. We have a woodland running along the back of our garden so our view from our decking and our bedroom window is nothing but green trees and an abundance of birds and wildlife. 

We have been lucky enough for a colony of bees to set up a temporary home in our garden 3 years running and a permanent home once. We don't have a lot of flowers in our garden, but we do have lots of green hedges, and I guess that's just something they must like.

 We go for walks along the sand, swim in the sea, the children climb trees and play in the woods. 

We are lucky enough to have made some wonderful friends since we have lived here and my parents and sister also live within walking distance to our house.

I haven't made a huge career for myself but I do what I love. I write. I create. And I surround myself with my beautiful beautiful children. Home educating 2 of them is amazing. In July I will have all 3 of them here with me learning and enjoying life together. We have great plans for the future and we are so excited for what we hope to achieve. Our home, however busy and hectic it gets, is where all our hearts lie. I love my home and have big plans on how to make the spaces within it work better for when we are all here (watch this space).

I was always the one who was "looking for something better". There was always something that I was searching for to make my life complete. But this is it. This is what I dreamed of when I was a child. This is my life. C x

Random Acts of Pefectness!

I've recently been working on something that I'm hoping will help other people keep on top of their perfectionism. As I worked on it, it got me thinking that to feel like you have reached "perfection" it may be worth jotting down some random perfectness from our days.

For example, I've been trying to teach my 3yr old to jump off an object. He can jump on the spot but he won't jump off anything. It's always been something he struggles with so over the half term holiday we concentrated a lot on it. Jumping off steps on to the beach etc. And Wednesday, he jumped off (on numerous occasions) the horse and the beam at his gymnastics class! Very proud mummy moment and a little bit of smug perfectness that I was part of him learning that.

Yesterday, we spent the morning at the beach with a "perfect" blue sky. We enjoyed it so much we almost forgot to go home for lunch!

Today, I wrote an article from beginning to end and was actually happy with it! Another tiny bit of perfectness from my day!

What have been your perfect moments today? (Anything from cleaning the bathroom to show home standards, to having a perfect meal with your loved one). xx

Exciting times

So, I opened my shops at the end of 2014 and have actually made some sales on and offline so that's really exciting. I'm now officially a self employed writer, artist and crafter - yes I know - all or nothing with me - I've told you that before!  I couldn't just settle with being a writer (I have spent the last 4yrs on and off completing a comprehensive writing course with the writers bureau which has been hard work, wonderful, educational and lots more besides. The feedback from my tutor was brilliant and I am so glad I struggled on, despite varying things happening in my life over that time, including my youngest (now 2yrs9mths) coming along. But it is now completed and I hope to get going with my various writing projects I have in my mind now I don't have to be completing assignments.) - The artist side of me has been desperate to get out for a long time. I was a very keen artist at school but didn't do so well in my final exam which totally zapped my confidence. I still doodled here and there, and was the main artist for the many wall displays we had in my workplace (nurseries and pre-schools) but it never really occurred to me to take it any further. Well, that is about to change. I hope to put some of my work in my Etys and Folksy shops. I have already started painting gift plates, but I hope to put some more unique artwork up there too...watch this space!

Right now, the "crafter" part of my self employment has been a couple of crochet items, the plates and plaques, however, I am currently in the process of making some gemstone/crystal and silver plated costume jewellery which you can view over on my other blog Catherine Creates but I am such an all round crafter no doubt I will find other things I want to do too. Catherine Creates has lots of my past work/gifts/swap presents so you may see some of those things popping up on my shop at some point... again... watch this space!

In my last post I spoke about having more family time. Well, last weekend, as a family, we went by train to a town about half an hour's train ride away. F, who is nearly 3, was SO excited by this that I suddenly felt guilty that he doesn't get to do it more often... and then I thought that actually, it's probably better that he DOESN'T do it more often so that when we do he will bounce for joy like he did last weekend and talk non stop about all the things he could see out of the window!  We got to the town and had a lovely walk along the river.

We were only there for a couple of hours in the end but we all had such a lovely time. Despite it being a city centre, it was very peaceful and such a lovely sunny (if cold) day. Edited to add... those photos make the river look very brown and murky but in reality it really wasn't like that at all! Might need to photo shop it!! Ha ha! x

Where is spring?

A couple of weeks ago it reached 17 degrees in our town!! 17 degrees. I didn't even need a coat on and neither did 10 month old F. The skies were blue...

Then today... We woke to this!!

Seeing as we'd planned a day out including a picnic we were not impressed.

 So we decided to take a walk to the library and get some more books (we're all book obsessed in our house!)  And spend the rest of the day chilling, reading and crafting.

At one point daddy and F were taking a snooze so C and N starting some papier maché crafting and I decided to get going on sorting out our spring season table (just so I can pretend it is going to be spring soon!) I've got lots of ideas of what else to put on the spring table and so has N. We have ideas for painting, felt items, photographs, tissue paper items... Let's hope we continue to find time to do it all.

 What have I done with F this week? Water play, walks to the park, visited Nanny and Grandad, library visits, painting, messy play with cornflour, as always lots of looking at books, taking puzzles apart, baths and housework with F on my back in the mei tai.