A Mother's Ramblings

I've been thinking a lot over the last month or so about saying no to God. It started when a friend and I were chatting about how we knew what to do with our lives. The friend had been certain that there was a position at a school that he was right for. The School was lovely, the staff he had met were terrific, the interview went amazingly and to top it all off it was a near-perfect distance away from his home. He didn't get the job. Instead, he found himself accepting a role in another school. A school that he now realises is even better than the one he'd fallen in love with, he has developed deep friendships with the staff that he works with and has been able to share his faith with several of them and it's again a near-perfect distance away from his home. We'd been chatting about how sometimes God says No to us, and how sometimes it is because the plan is better than we could imagine and we just need to hold on, and of course, me being contrary it got me to think

Our food challenge starts this coming Monday and thanks to the lovely Top Ender sitting with me and helping me plan a few meals, I've managed to come up with not only this week's meals but meals for the entire month of February! Here are the meals for this week.

I had everything ready last week to post, and for some reason just didn't get around to posting. This did mean I had no clue what we were supposed to be eating each night, did accidentally not eat two of the meals I'd purchased ingredients for and now have so little space in the fridge and freezer that everyone has been reminded that lunches should be "typical" lunches and not something we'd have for an evening meal! Honestly, whilst I do kinda love the lockdown lifestyle (I could live with never seeing anyone), I do miss the bit where the children (and husband) don't eat us out of house and home and only leave the "healthy" ingredients in the fridge untouched...

Every February I plan a food challenge. I'm well aware that the rest of the family merely tolerate these adventures, but the point is that it gets us out of a rut with regards to the food we are eating, it helps us to be more mindful and it also encourages some of the family (cough Top Ender and Flyfour cough) to try something a little out of their comfort zone. Okay, so at times a LOT out of their comfort zone.

It was the middle of the night and Flyfour and I were laying in bed, wide awake and giggling under the covers. I'm sure we aren't the only couple who are often awake together at 3am. For us, it's normally because one of us has gone to check on Dan Jon and has finally come back to bed after an hour of lows, and as we climb back into the warm sanctuary that we call bed, we accidentally disturb the slumber of the other. A short conversation might follow, where we confirm what DJ's blood sugars were, or more often a muttered "need more snooze" but for some reason this pariticular night we were both wide awake.

Recently someone gave me a compliment, although to my ears it wasn't really a compliment. "Who knew you'd be so good at what you're doing!" I wanted to reply back that the people that hired me to do my current job had. They hadn't just decided that it was easier to give me the role than to hire one of the other people who had applied. That they had listened to what I had said during the interview, had looked at my experience and thought about the ideas I had shared and realised I was a good choice... even though I'm still not sure I believe that.

It's Top Ender's 17th Birthday today and I've tried to think of something to tell you about her, that I haven't already told you before. I mean, you already know she is kind and caring, funny and beautiful. You know she is smart and courageous and loving and giving. I'm not sure there is anything I haven't told you about her. So instead, I will say Happy Birthday Top Ender.

A new year, a new start and I really need to think what our February challenge is going to be. We did joke about an alphabet challenge but I'm not sure I can pull that one off! You might notice a lot of veggie meals on the menu this week... hopefully, the family won't notice and moan but I'm fed up of eating meat so everyone can live my preferred diet this week!

I've been thinking about resolutions a lot since September. To me, it's September that is the start of the year, thanks to years of British Schooling, my own children being in the Britsh school system and of course now working in a School. September is when the new notepads come out, when I start taking stock of what I have (or haven't!) achieved, thinking about what I want to achieve and having a little bit of a trial run before I actually set my goals for the year in January. I've come up with a few things that I want to achieve in 2021, I'm not sure if they are really resolutions they are more a mix of short and long term goals but I know that these four areas that I'm focusing my efforts in are the areas which will help me to be the me that I want to be, that they will smooth off my rough edges (or maybe give me some!) and help me to be better.