Merry Christmas

28 December 2012


Merry Christmas! What I really love about Christmas is the time spent with family and friends. So far there has been time spent with my family, the one I grew up with; my family that I married into and old friends, many of whom we've known for so long that they are considered family. Happy, relaxing, warm times with great company and delicious food!

And it's not over yet: we're off to the Isle of Wight tomorrow for a few days to do 'Christmas' with my parents, before arriving home in Hove to see in 2013. Perfect.

Merry Christmas - enjoy the rest of the festive holiday. X

The picture in this post of the Pistachio and Boozy Cherry Pavlova I made when friends came over yesterday evening. This morning only a lone slither remains in the fridge.


Realignment

18 December 2012


You'd be forgiven for thinking that I had given up with Buttercup days: it's been so long since I have written a post. I haven't given up at all, just taken a bit of an unplanned break. 

I've been doing this blog for near on two years now and it can at times be all consuming. It's odd as I am obviously doing this blog off my own back and can indeed stop at any point, but as with so many things you start, build up and put loads of work into, it can be hard to just end it all: it would be like it was all for nothing.

But the truth is, over the last month or two life has been really busy. Nothing special, but just every angle of it demanding my time, energy and attention. My work / home balance has been somewhat off kilter during the last quarter of this year, which can in turn make for quite a stressful time. Family and friends are forever telling me that I take on far too much. They are probably right. So I am trying to cut myself a bit of slack and clarify what is important and deserves my time; saying 'no' to stuff, which is not in my nature. This blog is important to me, but not essential, so I put it on the shelf for a month to give myself a chance to slow the pace and get the other stuff done.

I've altered my work hours in the business too and am only taking on non-business work projects that I really want and, more importantly, have the time to do. For example, I was heavily involved with Lily's school in the run up to Christmas: organising and doing Christmas crafts with years 5 & 6, running the crafts at the school Christmas fayre and sourcing and collecting prizes for the school raffle. I was doing all this whilst working to launch our new business blog (the final part of our rebrand), writing my weekly food posts for Heart Home blog and getting everything ready for our family Christmas. So when the notice went up at Arthur's play-school asking for help with their Christmas fayre, for the first time ever I didn't put my name down. For me that was a hard thing to do. I turned up on the day with a batch of homemade mince pies, no flash cake, and that was it. 

I have just one more day at work tomorrow then it is headlong into Christmas. I really can't wait: we have some great days planned seeing family and friends, some days we're having family trips out and other days the four of us will just hang out at home doing nothing in particular, which is a pretty rare indulgence. It should be time enough to recharge ready for the new year ahead. So please bear with me, the regular post are coming back. 

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The pictures attached are of the kids making Christmas paper-chains for their bedrooms. They so can't wait for the festivities to begin and neither can I.