School holidays. Two weeks of them. Done and dusted. It's a bit scary how fast the year is going. I mean, Term 2 already?!! Before we know it it'll be the end of June, half way through the year, and into another 2 weeks of holidays. It's just not right!

Today was a pupil free day "staff development day". This varies from school to school. My kids are back tomorrow, then Wednesday is a public holiday for Anzac Day, and then, huzzah!, they are back at school for Thursday and Friday. At least that means we get to ease back into the madness a little more slowly, with no netball stuff on Wednesday - and a day 'off' for Marc. Which I like, of course.

I had had grand plans to make the most of Sunday and today - as if to make up for my lack of domestic achievements during the past two weeks. So much for all the grandiose plans to get the kids involved in a mega-cleanup while they had holidays (and we weren't gallavanting around the countryside on some holiday adventure or other.)

Instead Caitlin all but reinvented the term 'sloth' :

How? You sleep in as long as possible - if you get past midday, you're a legend. You drag yourself up, then plonk in front of the TV or computer the rest of the day. If you're really good you can stay in your PJs till dinner time. It's called pushing the envelope far enough that your mother just couldn't be bothered harassing you about it. Much. ie. if you keep ignoring her, she gives up in the end, because there are things worth arguing about, and things that aren't worth arguing about. Even if she is kind of bothered by it.

Alison seemed to work all holidays on my mother-guilt gene, expressing daily disappointment that every day she wasn't going somewhere or hanging with a friend. I was working on the concept of self-determination (ie. organise your own things), and the fact that kids shouldn't need to be taken out and entertained constantly. She didn't have a bad holiday. Really.

Zoe was obviously working on her magic skills - I saw her practising card tricks a few times. And the rest - she was working on invisible' - by disappearing upstairs for hours at a time so that I would easily forget she was around. She has always had the amazing ability to entertain herself with toys. She has a hideyhole under the upstairs stairs (an open type of stairway), and she can sit there playing with stuff for hours. When she wasn't doing that she'd be reading a book. And, thusly, tugging at that mother-guilt gene because she wasn't outside being active.

And me? I've practised my procrastination tendencies to perfection. School holidays where you stay at home are the perfect training ground. If there was a Procrastination Olympics, I'd be in it.

Take yesterday - Sunday - for example. Oh how I was looking forward to that day. Nowhere we had to be. A glorious sleep in after our efforts on Saturday.

Marc was a man on a mission. He had a lot of bike tyres to change - chunky ones he'd put on the tandem and triplet for the last day of the Big Ride (because it involved a bit of dirt), and so, because we are likely to do more bitumen riding, he wanted to put the smoother tyres back on. He then swapped my really chunky tyres on my mountain bike for a set of the relatively less chunky ones from the tandems. (Everything is relative!) He said it was pretty 'tiring' - a pun that would work better in print if we spelt tyres the north american way.

But! At least that was a job that would stay done. (He didn't get to the car tyre changing jobs he has as well - I guess he has another tiring weekend ahead.) I tend to get a bit envious of many of the tasks he sets himself to do, because they will stay done longer than, for instance, cleaning. Or ironing.

So I fiffed and faffed most of the day, finding reasons to talk a lot to him about our bike riding/holiday plans for the rest of the year (and next year), thinking of related stuff to look up online, and only managing to do a bit of a clean up of the 'clean' laundry that had been adorning our room. Like- putting sheets and towels away in the linen press. What a novel concept, hey. Only problem is, everytime I scrunched more sheets into the linen press I would groan to myself about how badly it needs a clean out.. but a clean out of the linen press? I couldn't face it. It seems like too big a task to tackle 'right now' (and the problem is I always use that excuse.) Besides, it would involve decisions. Decisions on what to throw out (and where to 'throw' it to). I threw it in the Too Hard Basket. Again.

So a big BZZZT to the 'spring cleaning' resolution. And, the exercise? Well, the moral to the story there is to Seize the Day Harvie.. Tracey. Or rather.. Seize the Morning when the Weather is Fine, Tracey. Because if you leave it till the afternoon to do your exercise bit for the day, and then you get a storm roll in at around 3.30, then, BZZZT, you've missed your self-promised endorphin hit and daily exercise dosage for the day. (And then today you compound that by stuffing around so much that before you know it it's nearly 4pm and you have to drive kids to town for netball, and call into the shops for something for dinner, then, strangely enough - given the shorter and shorter daylight hours thing that happens in Autumn - you run out of light. (So, bugger it, have a glass of wine, with crackers and dip instead...)

Just as well, then, that it's back to business tomorrow. No slothing, guilt-inducing kids hanging around. And, theoretically, plenty of hours in my day to exercise AND clean. Bring it on.

Labels: daily, holidays, introspection, Resolution