The big ship sank to the bottom of the sea

Today the children have the day off so we're heading down to see my in laws. We've not been there since Felix's big 80th birthday party in the summer, so I know they're desperate to see the kids, and maybe me and Menard too! (If daddy wakes up in time to come!)

I also need to take jj to get school shoes as the stop gap pair I bought at the end of the summer term are also well and truly scuffed through to a hole at the toes. What is it about boys and shoes? Soph is hard on her shoes too, but they've not ever been as bad as Jj's!

Other than that I'm just settling in for a nice quiet weekend with jj. We will leave Soph to stay with nan for a couple of nights and collect her on Sunday.
Hm, did I say quiet with jj?! We shall see. Perhaps we can locate some local ish geocaches and get the last three we need for me to hit 200.

Time for me

Now both children are at school six + hours a day I have time! I will be job hunting soon, but for the moment Menard and I have agreed that it's important for me to focus on me.

The past year I've been focusing on my brain - I've had some CBT and been on a ten week course about self esteem which have helped a problem to with my mental state, helping me find techniques to deal with and work through anxiety and negative thought patterns. I'm by no means 'sorted' but I think it's helping my thinking and keeping me on a more even keel. But next it's time to concentrate on the physical again. I've put a lot of weight on since I moved to new town, and although I've had various pushed towards losing it, all of that has piled back on again. Tomorrow I'm going back to a weight  loss group with a friend and it's time to face the number on the scales again. I'm also trying to move more. Working at making the little man on my pedometer cheer more (when you hit 10,000 steps). And Menard and I are also looking into going swimming together now we have time without kids around!

Autumn

Lying in bed fiddling on my phone and breaking back into blogger, I can hear the wind blowing outside in a slightly wild way, different to how it blows in the summer. There's a wildness, an expectation of things to come. It says, just you wait, things are changing.

And lots of things have changed around here. We still live in new town but JJ is now in full time education at the same school as Soph. This means a whole stretch of empty day awaiting mummy. I've filled some of the days and others I've enjoyed just being me, and others I've just clock watched, waiting for the moment it's time to go and collect them, not quite certain of what this new season is bringing.

It's exciting, it's scary, and it's going to be more than a little bit different.