Week in review – Sunday 15th Feb 2015
This was the week that:
- Nerys learnt to ‘boop’ noses and blow kisses – and stayed up till 10pm so she could practice.
- Rhys had his last day on mornings at nursery school – afternoon sessions after half term and then full time in September – where has the time gone?!
- I drank a lot of coffee after a run of days when I was basically awake from 4am. I think I need to look into better ways to get cope with sleep deprivation than mainlining caffeine and sugar!
- Nerys had her first walk on the beach – she loved it!
Week in review – Sunday 8th Feb 2015
This was the week when:
- I launched this blog! Thank you everyone for all your support so far!
- Nerys really found her feet and started to toddle about.
- We made pancakes as a trial run for Shrove Tuesday and so I could put a blog post together with the recipe I’ve been using for over 10 years – look out for that next week.
- We had some lovely sunny days, meaning we could get out for a few walks, including a walk to Singleton park and the uni one day while Rhys was in school (resulting in a fab 2 hour nap for Nerys).
- I discovered that Alias is on Amazon Prime instant – that’s my new series to binge-watch while feeding Nerys sorted then!
- I made a version of this soup and it was pretty damn tasty!
I hope you all had a good week too – what was your highlight?
A little about me and this glorious life
So this is the part where I introduce myself and tell you a little bit about this blog (can I just say now that I’m really happy to be doing this from the safety of my computer; I’ve never been a fan of those ‘go round the room and tell everyone a little bit about yourself’ type things!)
My name is Madeline and I live in Swansea, South Wales with my husband and two children. Until recently I was working in administration, but took voluntary redundancy when it was offered just as my maternity leave was due to end.
I’ve been slowly building up my portrait photography business around work and school runs and nap times and feel like this has been the perfect opportunity to really go for it and see what happens!
This is a new way of doing things for me, outside of the security and routine of a 9-5 job, and, while it’s a bit scary, I’m so grateful to have a bit of breathing room to evaluate what is most important to me and to investigate ways of making life easier and happier for my family.
I studied Psychology and Philosophy at University here in Swansea and loved it. I find human nature and behaviour fascinating! In the 12 years (12 years?! Really?!) since I graduated I’ve always felt a bit disappointed that I’ve not ‘used’ my degree at all. I fell into office work out of necessity and stayed with it for the safe, regular income. But now that I’ve been given the chance to take some time and try something else, I really want to explore psychology a bit more again.
That’s where this blog comes in. I’m planning on it being a family blog with a healthy dose of psychology thrown in. Seeing how we can use our very nature to make the best of everything; to use psychology to our advantage to enjoy what this glorious life has to offer us!
Because I do believe that this life really is glorious. It’s so easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day stresses, to take our partners for granted and to not properly enjoy our children while they’re young because we’re constantly trying to do a hundred things at the same time as playing with them. I want to take a bit of control back and grab as much of the joy that family life can offer as possible. I want to acknowledge that having children can be really hard work and that life in general can get us down, and then I want to see how we can use psychology to turn it around and make the best if it all.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey!
Every new beginning….
…. starts with some other beginning’s end.
After nearly 12 years of working in administration in a variety of offices I’m trying something new! Just as my maternity leave with my 2nd child was coming to an end I was offered voluntary redundancy and felt that it had come at just the right time.
Just the right time for me to take a step back from a job I had just fallen into.
Just the right time for me to be able to be home for my children.
Just the right time for me to try and build a business and life my family and I can really enjoy.
So here we go! Here’s to a new beginning and to exploring ways to make the most of this glorious life!