Monday, December 18, 2006

A dozen dozy dingbats

The most frustrating things in the world are "meetings".

A collection of people meet in a room which is usually too small with the purpose of making a decision about something. No one quite knows what the outcome is supposed to be, everyone had some radical life changing ideas but acknowledged that whilst good in theory they are all too busy to formulate a plan to implement them, not one person extended anyone the courtesy of letting any person finish a sentence before batting back the negatives and reasons why it couldn't possibly work. Not one word of encouragement passed the lips of those in the room!

And so an hour today was spent discussing the feasibility of doing some work into the possibility of formulating something which might influence and even help a needy group of people but we concluded that we all had neither the time or the staff to do this in our current situation when we are all so busy . . . . attending bloody useless meetings!

(12 people so 12 paid working hours plus travelling time, half hour each way that's 24 working hours - we all do this at least twice a week that's 48 HOURS A WEEK - that's a full working week focused on what we can't achieve)

I believe every person as an idea in them, a vision , however small to do something that WILL change someone's life. We are not all destined to change the world or influence the masses but perhaps if we listened to one another , encouraged and built each other up to believe in what we CAN do,we might be surprised what happens. Start small!

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Virgin Blogger!

What a day!

Woken up with a serious crushing pain in my chest, very hot and finding it difficult to breathe....first thought was angina and then who's going to finish the Christmas cake today? I then opened my eyes to find our smallest child asleep on top of me , our number two son cuddled up to me on the left and my husband to the right.
I love Saturdays no alarm no work and Saturday treat Coco Pops and pancakes/croissants for breakfast.

Breakfast done (spontaneous resolution of chest pain with removing small child from the bed) we started the Hanna bead Christmas decoration production. 7 children two new boxes of beads made 12 amazing decorations (which I had to iron carefully under very close supervision and instruction from each child) and a very large proportion of the 22,000 new beads ended up on the floor. A competition ensued to see who could collect the most beads off the floor, a competition which I lost :) amazing what children will do for chocolate!

7 children for lunch and then the tree and the decorations. I managed to convince them all that in order for us to start putting up the decorations we had to put all the laundry away and tidy up all of downstairs. What a result! An immaculate house and they were still raring to go! More chocolate and we started the decorations. Now all our children (4) are under 8 and our friends three are all between 4 and 10., average height 4ft and a bit hence all the decorations and the entire two sets of lights were below our waist level. The decs in the hall were all masked by the 25m of sellotape beautiful Ettie had tried to cut to put them up. I'll sort them later when they are all asleep, no one will be any wiser and no feelings hurt!


Decs finished , fruit bread and flapjacks to be made. Our friends picked up their children, Auntie Heather visited and Con popped in with some paperwork but production continued. They came, they went, frothy coffee was made and consumed not a beat was missed. I just need to sort the kitchen and load the dishwasher now!

Bathed all 4, hair wash for the big Christmas production at Church tomorrow, costumes ready (took a while to explain to Ettie why as Mary she had to have a tea towel on her head to which she answered "mummy , you are very silly , they didn't have tea towels when Mary was alive!" one wonders what they dried their dishes with??

Chip shop chips for tea! A true Saturday treat AND new film to watch because the kids favourite babysitter was coming over to sit whilst we went to another amazing friends 50th birthday party.

We left them all cuddled up with the beautiful babysitter and a huge amount of chocolate and left for the party. Here we saw more of our amazing friends, gassed, laughed and ate sumptuous food. I spent a long time talking to someone I have known in passing for a long time but never felt strong enough to talk to. An amazing woman who is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. I'm not good at talking to people as friends, spending my life hiding behind a barrier of professionalism and boundaries. I feel safe here most of the time but it can be very lonely. Tonight I met a new friend!

Came home to a quiet house, dropped lovely babysitter at home did the last minute shopping for tomorrow when we are having lots of our church family for lunch. Chicken bits are in the marinade, meats cooking, potatoes for skins in cooking just the chocolate cake to make , the decs to redo and the dishwasher to load.

I love being a Mum!