The 2020 Diary of a 40 something housewife

15th December

Dear Diary,

I can hardly believe my happiness project year is nearly up, It doesn’t seem like so long ago that I made my drunken resolution in the early hours of new years day yet so much has happened. The whole world has changed, history is being made and now it’s December and we are all wandering around wearing masks and preparing for a rather different sort of Christmas than we are used to. Considering the levels of anxiety I experienced during the first lockdown I am very grateful that I feel as good as I do right now. I still experience intermittent low moods, but so far they have been transient and reasonably easy to cope with which is incredible progress for me! Somehow my happiness project has for all it’s fits and starts actually improved my mental health significantly. That is definitely worth celebrating.

I am pretty sure that all the fresh air and walking has played a large part in helping boost my mood. I am walking at least 5k every day by doing the morning school run on foot and going for walks on the weekends. The kids seem to have accepted walking as the new norm, they definitely moan less! Some days they don’t moan at all, or maybe I have just blocked it out? There are more perks to walking than just the fresh air and exercise, I also avoid getting caught up in the traffic hell that is Bin man day in Truro. For a while it seemed that which ever route I took on a Thursday morning the Bin men were there ahead of me, blocking the road and causing havoc. It was like some sort of vendetta and in the end became a standing joke. Now that we walk they can’t thwart me at all, unless you count enveloping me in the cloud of stink emanating from the countless bags of rotting waste tossed into the jaws of crushing machine on the back of the lorry. Still at least they can’t make me late, although they have nearly made me vomit once.

On a totally different topic our decorating project is fast becoming a never ending saga, I have forgotten what normality is in this house, if it ever existed. I am very pleased that we are decorating after 10 years of living here, don’t get me wrong, but I am sick to death of the bloody mess and chaos. I want our bedroom back. I want tidiness! There is rubble on the window sills, the house stinks of paint and white spirit and my clothes have been boxed up and piled into inaccessible towers for months now. I am wearing the same 5 outfits in rotation and living out of the tumble drier. Last night I was dangerously close to losing it because my dental floss has vanished and I had a berry seed stuck in my tooth. Middle age problems I know but maybe Marie Kondo is right and living in mess really does screw with your mind? Perhaps permanently covering the house in tools and plaster dust is my husbands cunning way to forcibly install in me the urge to tidy up? he must be some sort of genius as it seems to be working.

The 2020 Diary of a 40 something housewife

10th Novemeber

Dear Diary

I am feeling somewhat lighter of heart and mind today. As I walked back from dropping the kids to school everything seemed brighter, I noticed the colours of the leaves as I passed under the trees and I smiled to myself, I heard the birds singing and I felt happy, I noticed the delicious smell of pasties cooking as I walked through town and I felt like shovelling one down my gullet there and then and it felt so good to feel those little moments of joy again! it feels like I am emerging from the darkness finally. What I feeling of gratitiude I have right now.

I am also feeling some motivation! I have been listening to another audio self help book it’s called ‘Unf*ck yourself’ by Gary John Bishop, I definitely need to do just that! He talks about how the perfect moment to do something never really comes, if we really want something we have just get on with it and to be relentless about it. It has been the kick up the backside I needed, I want to be relentless about my sewing, my writing and learning to take great photographs! I am determined to be relentless! My husband thinks I should be relentless about housework and decorating but I am not feeling that today and probably won’t tomorrow either. We actually have rubble on one of our window sills, I am past caring now, it feels like the decorating will never end.

I have spent the last two weeks trying to make a pair of trousers for myself (Is this relentlessness?) I have learned pretty much every trouser fitting adjustment that exists and still the perfect fit eludes me, I must be a very strange shape! I got very upset about this and beat myself up over it repeatedly, I wanted to chuck the stupid pattern and badly fitting mock ups out of the window. But I realised I should stop with the self sabotage and be pleased with myself for my efforts! I have learned how to make a zip fly which I used to think was daunting, I have scoured the internet and books for solutions and learned so much, I didn’t give up even when I felt so awful and I haven’t chucked anything out of the window. That has to be a tick in the box for relentlessness surely? I think I deserve to give myself a tick for relentlessness and a gold star for effort if not for perfection. Perfection will come soon I hope.

The 2020 Diary of a 40 something housewife

18th June

Dear Diary,

It been a while since I put my finger tips to keyboard and emptied my mind onto this page, I have missed it but I haven’t been idle. Instead of obsessing about happiness and how to obtain it, I have set my mind to improvement and learning. It has felt quite empowering and ironically, not obsessing about happiness has actually made me happy. Instead of writing this everyday I have watched hours of you tube tutorials on photoshop and followed along in the hope of one day actually understanding what it all means and eventually becoming proficient enough to create the pictures that are in my head. I still feel the familiar rush of frustration when I can’t get my head around something, tears still spring to my eyes and I get hot and bothered but I don’t give in. I now refuse to give in to negative reactions because they aren’t helpful to me. I tell myself this is just my chimp brain kicking in and if I let the sensation pass without interacting with it, it will fade. Instead of freaking out because I just can’t do it, I keep searching you tube for a tutorial that explains it clearly enough for someone as technologically retarded as me to understand and I am very grateful to those people, the internet is amazing!

Last week I slacked off running because I was a lazy git. I kept telling myself that really it was because I was tired and had a headache, a headache that lasted all week and is still hanging around which plays havoc with my hypochondria, I am trying to ignore that….but maybe I shouldn’t ignore it… aaghhhhhh! Stop it Abbi.
Then I started to worry that if I am not running I will get unfit and that’s not healthy for mind or body and that as I am getting old I must get fit or it will be too late and then I worried about worrying and that it was creating stress and a negative thought pattern and I was engaging with it and I mustn’t engage with negative thinking and then I got more stressed because I couldn’t stop it……And then, I took a deep breath and had a talk with myself about my self sabotaging bull shittery. Thanks to Gary John Bishop for that, its from his book ‘stop doing that Sh*t’ and it has helped me a lot, I really have tried to stop doing that shit.
So after my little pep talk with myself, I dragged my backside out of bed at 6 am on Tuesday and made myself go out for a run even though it was raining. It wasn’t just raining a bit, it absolutely chucked it down! When I got over my initial dismay at the weather I found it exhilarating, I know it sounds cliched but the greenery seemed so much more green and lush against the grey backdrop of city scape and rain clouds. The chirping and trilling of birdsong, the sound of the pattering rain drops on the leaves around me and the steady swish swish of my waterproof coat rubbing as I swung my arms were the only sounds I could hear, there were no cars or people. It felt very secretive. The rain was running down my face and dripping off my nose but I felt elated, it was so refreshing to be doing what I knew was good for me after more than a week of abstinence, my mind felt calm as my body worked. I went again this morning.

I have also discovered a passion for making bread this week. weird, yes but I really bloody love it! Eleanor enjoys it too though possibly not as much as me, she has becoming my bread making buddy. I love kneading the dough and smelling the aroma of warmed yeast and flour. I just can’t inhale enough of that incredible scent and the feel of it in my hands is just wonderful too. That warm, smooth dough with a tiny bit of spring in it, I just want to stroke it and rub it on my cheek. I even had a little tear in my eye because I was so ‘in the moment’ with this bit of dough, that’s definitely weird isn’t it? Perhaps I have just been in lock down way too long and have gone a bit mad?

The 2020 Diary of a 40 something housewife

27th May

Dear Diary,

It has been a fabulous day! I never thought a day that started at 4am on the living room floor could work out well, but this one did! Elizabeth and I had our girly evening, we both enjoyed it very much! We went to bed later than I hoped we would and camping out in the lounge meant two flights of stairs to get to the loo, although it didn’t matter too much as my phone informed me when setting my alarm that I only had 5 hours and 29 mins until I was getting up again so there would be no need for a wee break.

4am rolled around and we were up and out of bed, a glance out of the curtain less window (yes more windows with no curtains) revealed a foggy outlook and not the clear sky we were hoping for. We were on the road by 4.25 excited by the adventure and trusting that the fog would clear for our sunrise, which it did. After hiking through the woods we emerged onto the beach under a beautiful clear sky. I can’t explain how wonderful it was to smell the sea air, the flowers, the earthy woodland, I couldn’t stop breathing in that heady scent. The view brought tears to my eyes I was so elated.

We managed an early morning dip before the sun came up, it was pretty bloody chilly! Turns out my cold shower training has done sod all to harden me up, I dived in thinking how impressive it would look and nearly died of shock, it took a few gasps before I could breathe properly again. But oh what absolute joy to feel my body in the ocean while gazing at the sunrise colours in the sky. There is enough gratitude in that one moment to last me all summer! The Best Therapy Ever!

Sunrise in Cornwall

The 2020 Diary of a 40 something housewife

25th May

Dear Diary,

Today I have been off the booze for 145 days! I can hardly believe it has been so long. I must say that on days like this I really quite fancy a glass of nicely chilled Prosecco in the evening sunshine but I don’t want to break my dry streak. I don’t really know what I am aiming for, it was only supposed to be dry January. I can’t imagine not drinking again ever and to do a whole year would mean a dry Christmas too. I guess I will pop a bottle of fizz if/when a vaccine for corona virus ever turns up, or maybe I won’t…..I don’t know. decisions, decisions.

I have washed down the dining room wall ready to paint it today, I say wall because I am only going to paint one wall which is currently dark red and will be white to brighten the room a bit. The other walls are a whiteish colour and can wait until we decorate properly as Mark is going to build a bookcase so we can get rid of all the mismatched ones we have now. This is excellent because it will mean room for lots more books! I freaking love books, especially cook books and gardening books! oh and self help books, photography books and sewing books. I just love lots of books.

More lovely time in the garden again. Mark made me the happiest woman on earth today by suggesting we make our shed into a greenhouse. I have really wanted a greenhouse but we don’t have anywhere to put one, or we didn’t until he had this idea. The catch is that we need to find somewhere to store all the crap that we hoard in there at the moment. We do like to keep loads of old crap hanging around just in case we ever want it, which we usually don’t until it’s gone. Unfortunately the greenhouse isn’t something we can afford to do right now, financially and time wise but I am just content that it’s a possibility for next year maybe.

The 2020 Diary of a 40 something housewife

24th May

Dear Diary

I am sitting in bed next to Agatha who won’t go to sleep, she says she is bored and I don’t feel irritated….yet, I am in a very chilled out and happy mood. The smell of baking bread is wafting through the house and I can hear sparrows chirping in the garden. Out of the window I can see the tops of trees catching the evening sunshine and everything just feels quite perfect….apart from the highly contagious virus ravaging the whole world and killing loads of people of course.

I have had another one of those days where I feel tons of gratitude for everything. I ate my breakfast in the garden this morning in what I now think of as my spot. I sit on an old railway sleeper with my feet on a patch of grass that is free of weeds and I just look around, I quite like watching the Bees and other flying creatures on the flowers. I don’t take my phone, if anything I take a book but I rarely read it. I think I have finally learned to just sit and observe without feeling the need to be doing something. It feels like what I imagine inner peace to feel like. Yeah man, maybe this is inner peace then?

I have remembered to smile at myself today, I looked in the mirror this morning and started to criticise myself and I stopped, instead of being down on myself I thought abut how lucky I was to have my health and to be feeling happy. I looked for my 5 positives and I counted my blessings. Suck on that negative thinking. I absolutely freaking LOVE days like this, sunshine, gardening, happy family, happy, happy, happy me! Now all I have to do is not let my negative thinking hijack me, none of that self sabotage thank you very much, I must not let myself worry that tomorrow will probably be shit…..I won’t think it, I won’t think it! Tomorrow is going to be another great day, I can do this 🙂

The 2020 Diary of a 40 something housewife

16th May

Dear Diary

Sometimes I really think I shouldn’t say things out loud or write them down because doing so seems to change reality. Yes I know that sounds crazy but if I say my sleep is improving I will have a week of terrible sleep, yesterday I said my mood seems to be good if the weather is good and what do you know, today we have good weather and I have a bad mood. At least I know it’s not weather related…..must be the dreaded hormones then.

It’s been weeks and week since I had any quality time alone, certainly not since lock down and I am not even sure how long we have been locked down for now. Today I felt it. I felt like if everyone didn’t stop hassling me I would really go nuts and just scream FUCK OFF at everyone. All I heard was Mama, Mama, she did this, she did that, can I have a drink/ snack / play on my ipad etc, whats for dinner? and if they weren’t constantly pestering me for one reason or another they were up and down the stairs annoying Mark who was getting irritated because he was replacing the landing floor today and it wasn’t going well. After explaining to them that they couldn’t keep going up and downstairs today because there was no floor, all 3 of them suddenly needed to go upstairs every 5 minutes and every time they did Mark got cross.

Normally on days like this I get more and more frustrated until I either loose my temper and end up shouting at someone then feeling terrible about it, or I get so annoyed I burst into tears and then wallow in misery at how crap I am coping with life. Today I did better, I kept telling myself that I could make a better choice, I could take deep breaths and smile to myself. It was a bit more of a weird grimace at first but it really does seem harder to be cross when you are physically smiling. On the whole this approach has worked today so I will keep it up and see how it works when the novelty has worn off. I still have 3 things to be grateful for –
1. I have happy, healthy kids even if they are a bit annoying at times
2. We nearly have a new landing floor
3. I feel rather proud of myself for managing my emotions like a proper grown up

The 2020 Diary of a 40 something housewife

15th May

Dear Diary,

My efforts to stop the negative thinking and encourage positive thinking are still on going. I have read a few books lately that suggest a getting a gratitude journal and writing in it twice a day, first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening. There are differing opinions on how many items to write or how long to do it for. The one I read before lock down suggested 15 minutes but I found that a long time and it very quickly became a chore and I stopped doing it. I have decided re start and to make it more manageable by going with the suggestion of writing 3 things morning and evening. The theory is that if you make it easy for yourself you are more likely to stick with it. And it’s better to do 3 things than none.

Luckily today has been a good day and I am bursting with gratitude for lots of things! I am not sure why some days I feel great and some days I feel angry and irritable with the entire world, my moods are very up and down generally for no apparent reason. This week however, I have noticed I definitely seem to feel way better when it’s warm and sunny. It’s not hard to understand why I suppose, warm sunny weather takes me out into the garden so perhaps it’s the nature effect boosting my mood? The more time I spend in the garden the more I love it, just sitting with my bare feet on the grass makes me feel so serene and joyous….yup I actually feel joy from being in the garden! how amazing is that? I am absolutely definitely very grateful for that, it’s lovely, it’s free and it is actually good for me so long as I don’t get sunburn!

1. I am grateful we have a lovely garden
2. I am very grateful I have developed such a love for our garden
3. I am very, very grateful Mark does all the hard work in our garden 🙂

The 2020 Diary of a 40 something housewife

14th May

Dear Diary,

Have a ton of masks to sew for people and have run out of time this evening so this is a super quick one.

It’s been a good day, sunshine, garden time, a run this morning at 6.30 and I ate a healthy meal of salmon with garlic, ginger and miso and brown rice with steamed veg for my evening meal. Feel like I did a great job today as far as physical and mental health go, in terms of housework and getting my sewing done, not such a good job.

Mark is camping out in the lounge with Elizabeth in the den she made. Agatha was supposed to be sleeping with her but she bottled out at the last minute. I am hoping that Agatha uses the available space and gives me some wiggle room tonight! wish me luck.

The 2020 Diary of a 40 something housewife

10th May

Dear Diary

Another cracking start to the day! I woke up early and after getting snacks for the girls I jumped back into bed and read a book for a while. As we don’t have curtains at the moment the morning sun was shining right into the room and I opened the window open to hear the birdsong, it was bliss. a

I went for a run this morning, the first time in weeks and weeks. After my lovely relaxing read in bed I got up full of beans and actually felt like doing some exercise, which never usually happens, especially not before 9am on a Sunday as it was today. I decided to risk my leg and go for a gentle run while I felt motivated. My crazy brain tried to dissuade me by convincing me that going for a run would mean I would definitely catch Corona virus and die, it was a good example of my negative, extreme thinking in action, I handled the objections, listed my 5 positives and carried my point, I went for a run.

I have felt really happy for the majority of the day. There was one small hiccough when Mark and I nearly started arguing again, my mood came crashing down ready for confrontation but it was only a brief skirmish rather than all out war, luckily I had gardening to do so I calmed down quicker than usual. My mood is too easily knocked, clearly I need to work on how I react to other peoples crap as well as my own. Taking long, slow, deep breaths while rubbing my temples and muttering under my breath ‘be calm’, ‘be mindful’ every time someone annoys me works a bit but isn’t ideal, it makes me look a bit like a nut case. There has to be a better way.