Struggling to *go gently*

Ah, my friends. Welcome to *Exhaustion Central*. I think I have finally reached the end of my tether. Or even snapped it. Mmm, heading for the hills like an untamed brumby is an enticing prospect – unbridled and free of responsibility and obligations.

Source

Back here, I mentioned how a close friend was urging me to *go gently* in the wake of my Dad’s recent death. And over at Simone’s blog here just the other day, I touched on it again, this time in the light of advice by my doctors.

But talking the talk and walking the walk are two completely different beasts, I’m discovering. And they’re not walking in lockstep. Or even holding hands. Hmm, how did I get here?

Overdoing it with the birthday parties

Joshua

Well, let’s take the obvious, for starters. Having two parties for Joshua’s 6^th birthday was always going to be a challenge. I posted about the first one here. Now that was a very long post which took me hours to write and edit photos for. Seriously. Not to mention the fact that I’d actually lived through all the work described in it as well! But, that said, Joshie was delighted and that’s all Mr PB and I needed to confirm our belief we’d made the right call. Even though we were physically shattered after it.

Then we had his second party only 7 days later. Mad? Maybe. I’ve been too tired to even post about it and so much has happened on Planet Baby since then that it’s slipped off my radar. The short version? We had 18 people under 7 at our house for 2 whole hours and this time, the parents and siblings just left. Mr PB was in his element as the *Entertainer Extraordinaire*, even appearing as a magician to his enthralled audience. It was noisy, chaotic, crazy, exhausting but fabulous.

And this cake was infinitely more successful than the soccer ball!  Note: whilst inspired by the Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cookbook, it was entirely our own creation – much easier that way!

The number 6, a treasure island with hidden wells filled with smarties underneath the icing, an erupting volcano, Playmobil pirates and the odd dinosaur  - it was a winner, according to Joshua.

Here’s a view from the top.

The Carnival of Joshua then over, you’d think we’d have time to draw breath.

But no, siree! We’ve just had a weekend of Joshua and India attending other children’s birthday parties, not to mention Miss India turning 4 today.

India

After an exhausting weekend (which also involved Christmas preparations and Mr PB and I standing on our roof, chopping back branches from our neighbour’s property – let’s *so* not go there, especially as we didn’t have any proper shoes or harnesses on), Mr PB and I were up to 1 am this morning (I know!), making presents (as our finances are sooo tight at the moment, we had to make most of them) and baking the cake and slices.

We had the grandparents and great-aunts around for afternoon tea today. But just to complicate things, A Certain Father had forgotten to invite his parents so we did it all twice. All lovely, fabulous to have them there but still, two sittings with a bath in between for fractious pixies as witching hour descended. Hmm.

We had a marble cake this time, smothered with pink icing, of course. Not to mention those dratted 100s and 1000s – remember this post?!

She’s having a party for her daycare friends in a fortnight so I’ve also been hand-making the rainbow invitations and envelopes (due to cash shortage – see above). We then had to hand deliver them all over town today as we didn’t have most of their addresses and had to drop most of them off at her old and current daycare centres.

Do you think mine will look as marvellous as this?

I’ve promised her Meredy’s fabulous rainbow cake for her party since I’ve seen so many of you all having a go ☺. She can’t wait!

So with her party a fortnight away, you’d think that this weekend would be free. Er, no. It’s already booked up with work Christmas events and other birthday celebrations.

I’m hyperventilating already.

So after her party on 18 December, Christmas will be a week away. *Sigh*. Even typing that hurt!

Starting the Christmas preparations

In the midst of this, we’ve started our Christmas planning. We’re still in the middle of The Great Unpack so finding our decorations has involved a lot of ladder climbing. But our wreath, Advent Calendar and our real Christmas tree are up – a special post on that soon. So at least we’re underway.

Dealing with the crawling-to-the-end-of-the-year syndrome

We’re tired. So very, very tired. It has been a tumultuous year for us. Now the ordinary end of year tiredness is overlaid with emotional exhaustion.

I am still grieving my Dad’s death. Deeply.

Especially on a day like today when his absence is so stark. Tears are spilling down my cheeks.

Just 9 more school days to get through…

Trying to find some ‘me’ time

In an effort to boost my spirits, Mr PB has really been trying to give me time to myself as much as possible, bless him. I attended a Seeker Lover Keeper concert last week which was absolutely enchanting (post to follow). But I arrived home quite late.

And I’ve been staying up way too late blogging and flirting with Twitter.  Just trying to work out if it really is the thing for me. I’m undecided.

So where to now?

My energy reserves are finite and I need to harness them to best suit me and my health.

I also adore connecting with you all and keeping up to speed with your lives.

So, in order to truly *go gently*, I think I’ll try to:

Ø     write shorter posts (I can hear you clapping, Bron!);

Ø     turn off the computer at 10.30 pm (that will be very hard); and

Ø    limit my time online (it’s high time for a *bloggy rehab* update, don’t you think?).

I hope you’ll hold me to account, as good friends do! And I promise not to change the time of my post to make it seem earlier than it really is (there – my guilty secret is out ☺). I’d love to hear any other ideas you clever Planetarians might have to help me crawl to the finish line this year!