It’s the 9^th February already.  The NINTH!  It feels like we were only just planning Christmas and New Year and now we are settling into our second month of 2016 already.  I definitely feel like it should be the middle of January and not Feb!

I always feel nonstop, so this is probably why the days whizz by.  Bella, Reuben, the house and my business all keep me super busy.  I always have something to do.  Every room in the house always has something to do in it, be it tidying, washing up, cleaning, organising, rearranging.  My website always needs tweaking, there are always networking hours I could be doing, emails to check, Twitter to check, stock to list, blog posts to write.  My reading list is always big and I constantly find more articles to read on nutrition, marketing, child development and not enough time to read them all.  Plus I like to cook homemade food from scratch so this is also pencilled into each day’s tasks somewhere!  I usually don’t leave the kitchen from after playschool pick up until dinner time.  Oh and did I mention I’m running again?  I’m running at least every other day and jump on as soon as Ben is back from work until our dinner is ready, so usually 10-30 minutes depending on when he gets back.  Every day is filled with so much to do and before I know it I’m in bed trying to switch off my mind to rest before doing it all again!  I’d love to get on top of everything (fat chance) and sit down with a cuppa with a mind of nothingness as there is nothing to do and everything is ticked off.  I’m curious to know when this will happen.  Maybe 20 years from now? 30? 40?  I feel like a holiday is needed more than ever now and would love to ‘switch off’ for a week this summer and take a much needed break.  I’m not sure if this will happen this year as we’ve still been doing up our new home (1 year and 9 months in), so all spare cash has been going to our house.  Plus I’ll be getting my braces in one month, so need to find the money for these!  If we don’t manage a week away this year, I definitely want a good bunch of days out enjoying ourselves in some lovely weather, rather than spending all our spare time doing work to our house or garden!

But as much as it feels nonstop and this can make every day feel quite hectic, I think I do love life being like this!  I love setting myself challenges, having deadlines and feeling a little pressured.  It keeps me motivated and gives me a buzz.  I’m definitely never ever bored!  I also find it quite hard to sit and do nothing.  If I do I quite quickly start yawning.  I need my mind to be active constantly.  I wonder if anyone else can relate with all this?!  So as much as I feel I need a break and it’s crazy all the time, I also quite like it like this?!  I think that’s what I’m concluding.

Anyway… January was the month I finally started getting back to ‘myself’.  I stopped breastfeeding at Christmas time, so January was the first month I could start getting back to being me.  I treated myself to a massage and morning shopping in town.  I needed an outfit for the upcoming Theo Paphitis networking event (eek), so it was the perfect excuse to pop into town.  By MYSELF!  It felt quite strange to go off and do something on my own, not having to worry about Reuben needing a feed.  I could actually relax and have an enjoyable massage beforehand too.  I had a couple whilst I was still breastfeeding and Ben traipsed round town with Reuben, so I couldn’t fully relax thinking he may be stuck with a screaming hungry baby!  I look forward to many more adventures on my own now and have already booked dates to visit friends in February.

I could also start running again.  I stopped running when pregnant and breastfeeding.  I’d read your body produces relaxin hormone when pregnant which ‘relaxes’ the muscles and ligaments for childbirth and this effect can last whilst breastfeeding.  I’ve no idea how true this all is, but I didn’t want to risk damaging any ligaments or muscles through exercise, so I was happy to wait just to be safe.  I’ve now been running for over a month and it feels sooooo good!  I feel so much more energised and I’m already getting that great runners buzz after each run.  The most I’ve done is 5k so far in 30 mins and I think I can get that down a lot more.  But I’m very impressed with my efforts so far after not running for 19 months!  I’ll be doing a 10k Race for Life in July and my aim is less than 60 mins.  It’s also going to be great to tone up all my loose bits.  Things seem a lot looser after having my second baby and hitting 30!  Time to get things pinged back in!

I feel even more like me just for wearing my clothes again.  Whilst breast feeding I could only wear clothes I could feed from, so lots of loose tops over vests.  Now I can explore my wardrobe again and wear whatever I like.  I forget this some days as I’ve been so used to wearing clothes to serve a purpose for so long.  It’s nice to really get back to normal.

We’ve enjoyed eating out this month at some great places, including two which have entire vegan menus!  I’m not vegan, only vegetarian, but interested in one day cutting out cow’s dairy and I mainly eat a wholefood plant based diet, so such menus always excite me!  It’s also great to see such choices as it must mean more people are requesting it and hopefully more people are embarking upon a healthier lifestyle.  I enjoyed a delicious nut roast at The Golden Heart Inn in Birdlip and a scrumptious salad at Portivo Lounge at Gloucester Quays.  We’ve since been back to Portivo Lounge in February and I sampled some Tapas which was equally scrumptious!

The weather was a bit all over the place in January.  There were days where I felt warm in just a cardigan and others where I was frozen cold in a thick coat and scarf! One day would be glorious sunshine, the next torrential rain.  We even had some flooding and closed roads around Gloucester!

I’ve started thinking about what veg I’ll be growing this year.  Mainly because we found these ‘veg trugs’ reduced to only £25 each at B&Q!  I was eyeing up the official Veg Trugs and was preparing to spend over £100 on one, so this was such a bargain.  I got two!  Ben set to work as soon as we were home to build them and they are just great - so deep and a great size for lots of home grown veg.  It will be so exciting to get Bella more involved this year.  I think I’ll paint them green and as soon as the weather is warmer I’ll fill with soil, our compost and get planting!

I’ve just recently blogged some Bella and Reuben updates, but didn’t mention how well they started interacting together and playing.  Bella is so good with Reuben and will share her toys and help him to use them.  He’s still not pulling himself up or walking, but I’m excited to see how they play together when he does.   A friend said to me recently her children really started interacting much more when her youngest started walking, so it will be even more exciting when he walks to see this!

In house ‘doing up’ news, we finally did our kitchen floor!  Whoop!  It’s whoop newsworthy as it’s the last floor in the house that needed doing!  We now have the same floor flowing throughout all of downstairs and we were very lucky B&Q still sold the same one!  We had childcare for the day so I persuaded Ben we had to do the kitchen floor.  I think he’d rather have enjoyed a day of rest, but it’s rare we’re childfree and can rip up a kitchen floor!  It was also great for me to get stuck in as when we did the bulk of the downstairs floor I was heavily pregnant and couldn’t help.  This is why we didn’t do the kitchen floor at the same time as I couldn’t help move the white goods out, so it’s been a long time coming! 

It looks so great and brightens the kitchen up.  The owners before us had almost black tile effect laminate which just added to the dinginess of a small north facing kitchen.  We have also purchased a new sink, tap, tiles and worktops, but are yet to fit.  The weather has not been on our side and we need a full weekend of dry weather just to oil the kitchen worktops 3 times and dry between each coat!  Hopefully we’ll be able to do this soon as we’re getting a bit annoyed with squeezing past it all in the hallway!  It will also make it feel so much more like our house once we’ve completed the kitchen.  The current worktops and tiles are nothing like what I’d pick so it doesn’t yet feel like my kitchen.

Hope you’re having a wonderful Pancake Day and National Pizza Day today!  I’ll be back with another monthly roundup at the end of Feb/start of March!  (Spring, yay!)