Zap

I wish I knew an electrician who could come round and check out the wiring in this place. Our main lights, the ones that hang from the ceiling, keep blowing. Last night my bedroom light went so now we have no ceiling lights in one bedroom, the livingroom and the kitchen. And they are so a pain to change. Edinburgh ceilings, in old flats (by old I mean over a hundred years old) tend to be pretty high so ladders are needed not chairs when new lightbulbs are required. But this is the second time our bedroom bulb has gone in less than a year which to me is a bit too frequent. Electricity seems to be our curse. In Tooting we had exactly the same problem with lightbulbs, in Wallington it was appliances that kept going on the blink, and here we're back to lightbulbs with the odd flaming shower chucked in.

Was it yesterday I mentioned the mice? Or the day before? Doesn't matter because I was gropping about in the kitchen last night looking for the under cabinet over sink light when I heard skitter skitter skiddddd crash as a mouse shot across the floor, skidded round the corner into the wine cellar and crashed into something. Grrrr!

day three and things are still going well. Our bathroom has a very old enamelled bath which currently sports a not so pleasant ripple pattern on it. The bath didn't start out with this pattern, it gained it over many years of sloppy cleaning, and I am trying to get rid of it. Unfortunately the blasted stuff seems impervious to all bar one cleaning product and the one exception so far only fades the marks rather than remove them. But we shall continue and maybe one day it will be gone, probably in time for us to move out.

Spent the afternoon with a friend and her children. One is in the FB's class and the other a few years ahead. Was good to sit and talk about books, politics and organic vegetables and not discuss children and the usual stuff for a change.

crash, bang, smash, waaaaaaahh

such was the theme tune of my day. It's Victoria day today in Edinburgh which means the schools have a day off to give the teachers a break from their little horrors and the parents a few more grey hairs. The FB's school has got inservice days for part of this week as well and MrV has a very well timed (purely coincidental he swears) business trip to London. It therefore seemed like the perfect time to start getting the house under control. I've cleaned, tidied, retidied, further tidied the livingroom, bathroom, hall and both bedrooms but despite the children's best attempts to keep us living in a tumble of brightly coloured plastic debris they have been thwarted and the place is tidy.

As for the mice, well as I type there's a very suspicious rustling sound coming from inside the wall to my left. I'm still finding droppings, but not in the kitchen any more and we're not actually seeing them running about either. I suspect that word of MrV's amazing mouse catching skills are making their way round the rodent population.

beige continued but with a hint of sunshine

Well after a walk to the playground, a stroll to Blackwells for a book of Burns poetry, and then a trip to Black Medicine for a chocolate milkshake I'm feeling a bit more upbeat. I've got to get this malaise beat otherwise I'm never going to get anything I want done and we'll all end up wearing filthy clothes and living on takeaways. So I decided that I'm going to make myself do one thing a day towards one of my personal goals, and a couple of things for the housework.
We also came up with a few rules for the boys which will be stuck up on the kitchen wall. They're simple rules like only one toy out at a time, no hitting, you know the sort of thing.

So my thing for today was to put my list of books to read onto the excel spreadsheet where I'm currently inventorying the books. Eventually that spreadsheet will go back onto my phone and when I'm in a bookshop or library and pondering whether or not to get something I'll know if I've got it or not. Next step is to go through the pile of magazines and look at their book suggestions.
Housework front? Dishes done, laundry will go on tonight, boys' room tidy as is the hall and livingroom.

beige beige and more beige

Things are getting on top of me again. The house is a pig sty, the laundry is piling up and I'm getting absolutely nowhere on any of my freetime stuff. When we were in Wallington I had a routine and it worked, and since moving up here I just can't get a routine in place. I try but it just doesn't work and so nothing gets done and I am getting so frustrated by it all. I think that was (apart from the Ikea coffee mornings with MrsT) the only good thing about Wallington, the bad things are too many to list! So any suggestions on how to get over this?

On a daily basis I have to do the following
get myself and the boys up, dressed etc
take the FB to school
do the housework
go to the gym
do laundry
cook dinner
have playtime with the Count
do something of my hobbies

not much huh but none of it (bar getting the FB to school and cooking dinner) actually ever gets done. I have a fantastic book called Time Management for Manic Mums that tells you how to get your life in order and do things not just that you have to do but also stuff that you want to do; and I follow it and make lists of what I want to do and then never actually do it. Its very frustrating and infuriating and many other words meaning exactly the same thing

Any suggestions very welcome!