ONE MORE SLEEP!! Thank you public schools.

Well I don't know about you but I, for one am pretty damn happy that school returns tomorrow.  Its been a long 6 weeks with the kids on holidays and we are all suffering from "School holiday fatigue".

I was saying to my husband yesterday after another annoying argument with the kids that you get to a point where you all need some routine and structure back in your lives and perhaps 6 week is just a tiny bit long for the kids to be off.  I then got a tweet from my friend after complaining about my little shits, (whoops, I mean angels), saying her kids get 8 weeks off and they are not due back until the 3rd of Feb.  To be honest, I nearly vomited reading this as I just couldn't imagine 8 weeks with my little angels.  Of course I love them dearly but sheesh I need some Katie time badly!

The holidays always start with so much excitement, the kids have school fatigue and are dying to get out of the routine and constraints and I'm always dying for it to finish too so I can get a break from the school lunch routine, homework stress and the drop off and pick up nightmare.  There is Christmas and Santa to look forward to and the joy of Summer sets in.  Of course the first few weeks are never that fun for us mum's as we are the ones organising all the Christmas and Santa excitement but after that is done with we can hopefully relax a bit too and the family is at it's peak of happy togetherness and wonderfully relaxed attitudes. 

I find the period around New Year to be the best as I am normally not working and the kids are still excited from Christmas and I eventually get to relax and lie around the pool a lot.  I also tend to drink a lot of cocktails at this time as I'm experimenting with all the left over booze from Christmas day and I'm drinking for the fun of it and not for the stress of it!

My favourtie Margarita

So then the holidays continue and this is when things start to get a tiny bit ugly. The kids start to get bored and you start ringing around their friends to organise sleepovers and catch ups and then they start wanting McDonalds pretty much every day and you start handing out money like water.  You are driving them everywhere trying to juggle work and you are texting people to see if they would be happy to have the kids for the day whilst you work (thank you to all my girls who help me out at this time) and then you feel obligated to have their kids for the day too even though you don't like Johnny cos he is a little shit but you have to suck it up cos you need the favour returned again the next week.  This is when I start drinking for the stress of it and not for the enjoyment of it!

In the final 2 weeks of holidays things are now getting very ugly.  The kids are tired and bored, they have bad attitudes and are getting stressed about going back to school.  This year is a particularly stressful one for my kids as they are both starting a new school and have no clue about their teachers or friends so this may be adding to my drinking situation (that's my excuse anyway). There is also the issue of how much you have to spend to get them ready to go back to school. New school shoes and sport shoes, new uniforms and haircuts, book packs, lunch boxes, drink bottles and I'm not going to even begin to talk about contacting the damn books! That job is the devils work!

Just some of the crap to take to school

So here we are, the day before school and although I'm excited about getting my time back I'm also nervous and worried about my kids.  Will they meet new friends?  Will they have nice teachers?  Will they be happy? Which is really all I want for them at their age.  I know I will be over the lunch box stress after about a week but I'm glad they will be getting back into a routine and hopefully they will start being angels again (although angels might be a bit of a stretch for my kids).  I'm sure the tiredness will make them grumpy after the first week and the early bedtimes will frustrate my daughter but once we get on a roll it will be just like riding a bike and we will settle back into our routine and I will start drinking for the enjoyment again and maybe even start whipping up a few more cocktails on a Friday afternoon.

So to all the mums out there who are getting their own time back this week, cheers to us and I hope your kids settle in well to their new classes and all goes smoothly.  And to those mums who have to wait another week, my sympathies to you and be sure to make sure the liquor cabinet is full for the last week!

Love ya guts

Katie xx

The best present ever

So in my last post I wrote about how much I love to spoil the kids on Christmas morning and how I go all out for them to have a fabulous experience but I didn't mention that this Christmas I got very spoilt as well.

Over the past few years I have always had a passion for taking photos and have loved using my iphone to snap thousands of shots of different things, the whole Instagram thing just sent me crazy as I felt I could finally share my passion with everyone else all over the world.  I dreamt about one day buying a professional camera and learning how to be a real photographer but the outlay always seemed too excessive and I put the idea to the back of my mind many times.  Something else more important came up.

In the lead up to Christmas my husband told me he had bought me a present I really wanted and I assumed he had bought me a bike as we had been talking about going biking with the kids a lot and I was the only one who didn't have one.  My son even managed to lie brilliantly and told me that yes indeed I was getting a brand new bike.  On Christmas morning after the kids had gone bizerk in a present unwrapping frenzy I sat wondering when hub was going to wheel the bike out and also where he could have possibly been hiding it for the past few weeks?  I imagined her was in cahoots with the neighbours and they were going to rock up any moment with my new bike.  He then came downstairs with a small box all wrapped up and I thought, hang on a minute, this is way too small to even be a helmet to go with the bike.  When I opened the present and saw the most amazing Canon 700D camera inside I burst into tears as I had just never imagined he would get me something so expensive and especially that he had managed to keep it a secret.

It truly was the best Christmas surprise every and also the best present I could ever wish for.  Over the next few days I only used the camera here and there as I was so overwhelmed by its sheer magnificence (Ok yes that may seem a bit silly to some but humour me here people) I knew I needed space, silence and complete alone-ness to read all about it and take the time to figure out how the hell you actually use it.  There are so many bells and whistles with this little beauty.

Since then my initial intimidation of the camera has subsided and  I have booked in to do a beginners course in a few weeks and I have even created my own Facebook page to start loading up the loads of practice photos I will be taking!  So if you are interested in following me on this little journey and helping me to live my dream of one day being a professional photographer go ahead and like my page and let me know what you think of my beginners photos.

www.facebook.com/katiemuzphotography

I promise not to bore you with endless photos of my dogs, although I can't promise that they wont be featured here and there!

Love ya guts
Katie xxx