Where and how to begin?

How to start and where to begin????? How do I pick it back up? Do I at all? How do I explain when it's been 12 months? Do I have to? Do I even know why it's been 12 months? What will I share first? What photos, projects, news, stories do I begin with?

 Questions, questions. Too many to contemplate, too many to answer. I figured in the end that trying to answer these questions, the umm-ing and ahh-ing was taking more effort, thought and worry than just one post would take. Just write one post and see what happens.

Months and weeks of wondering and worrying was achieving nothing other than a feeling of disappointment and a little guilt. Letting this small, insignificant space of mine slide was not the plan. Certainly not my intention. But before I knew it, there seemed to be too many other things. Too many important things that took my attention and time. And then, in the moments when there was the chance, maybe even a window of opportunity, it seemed too hard. How do I start again? What do I say? Is it really worth it? Will anyone even notice I'd gone, never lone come back again?

Then, enough I said. No more thinking, worrying, pondering. I'm often reminded of a poster on a staff office door at my first high school - Just Do It. So, here I am. Here is my new start - my number 1 of 2012. How many there'll be, I do not know. I certainly hope I can do better than last year! I know I want to. Hopefully there will be some friends out there sharing in the journey with me! I still enjoy reading the stories of my favourite blogs and hope that I may have something to share, show or inspire others with.

So to briefly fill you in, 2011 was the year of:

 a) doubling the size of our house (that's 9 months of building, extending, renovating and living here through it all) We moved out for only 6 nights: when there was no kitchen.at.all. and the timber floor was being polyurethaned,

and b) Mummy going back to work relief teaching after 9 years of being a very happy and proud stay at home mummy. 

You can probably guess that b) and a) are inextricably linked. Till then, the single income was fine, plenty. No need to be at work until........we needed more bedrooms, more living space, an ensuite and our first ever deck. Two five year olds shouldn't really be topping and tailing in the same bottom bunk bed.

To be honest, the new deck (read: our first level outdoor space) has been nearly the most exciting thing to come out of the project. But only nearly. The rest is wonderful, too. We are spoilt for space now and we would do it all over again. A wonderful builder made it smooth and relatively painless. He worked around us and took care of everything.

And being back at work, though I would rather still be at home, was exciting and enjoyable. I did relief work at 6 different public and private schools in my area, and in every single year group from Kinder to Grade 10. I finished the year with 7 weeks on a 3/4 class, 3 days a week (and nothing else!) and loved it. I did not love the late nights, early frantic mornings and missing quite a few of my little girls' non-kinder days (I'll be ever so grateful to our day time nannies!!!!) but it was worth it to have our house finished. I know I love my job, there's plenty of work available and I also know I'm not ready for a year-long commitment to one teaching position. Relief suits me fine for another year, though there may be one day a week where I'll be making myself otherwise occupied!!!!

I'll share some house photos next time. And then some of the little projects I've dabbled in since I was here last.

For now, it's time to sleep. Promise I'll be back soon.

x