Less Hausfrau, more Haus

Nearly two months into new job and the main reason I still don’t entirely trust it is that I feel too comfortable. I feel like myself on the job, and after nine months in a job where being me was very much not appreciated, that makes me a little nervous. But I’m leaning into it. Being me was a good thing in most past jobs, no reason it shouldn’t work out fine. It’s nice to relax and make choices (from how to actually do my job, to what to wear) based on what feels right to me, not what I think is the expected thing.

Meanwhile our garden project is complete (well, apart from new patio furniture and such) and it looks AMAZING. I think this is the most grown-up thing we’ve ever done; Having One’s Garden Done is really very adult. Not sure why it feels more adult than buying the house in the first place, but it does, or at least, it feels way more unlikely. We always do things ourselves. But mostly that means we don’t do them, actually, or at least, it takes freaking YEARS. And there were good reasons for needing pretty much every aspect of this redesign to happen sharpish. The only bit that’s kind of frivolous is the landscaping, with raised flowerbeds; that’s just for prettiness and okay, it wasn’t urgent, but also we physically couldn’t put anything in the ground until it was done, so it was a major factor in being able to actually garden.* Anyway I’m pleased it’s all taken care of, and I have mostly gotten over my vague guilt at paying $$$ for all this to Be Done for us by reminding myself that for two straight weeks we had 2-3 men with earth-moving equipment working hard all day, every day… it’s not remotely realistic to think we could have done it ourselves. And now we have a garden. And it makes me happy.

We have also acquired a few lights (still ridiculously slow progress, yes, but a large part of that is supplier delays, not our fault honest guv) and hung a few pictures. Which sparks a strong desire to acquire More Art. I like pictures to be clustered together, not hung singly, but that isn’t quite working with a lot of what we have, so: Moah! (Operating on the Kaffe Fassett principle, clearly. If you don’t like the colours, just add more colours.) Not likely to happen very soon but it is a happy thought, and meanwhile, I’m just pleased to have some small progress inside as well as big progress outside.

Next step – after lights and patio furniture, and not very soon, but next – is new lounge furniture. (This is directly related to the garden makeover, believe it or not, because we need to rearrange things so as to actually look OUT onto the garden now that it’s worth looking at!) I have been happily entertaining the vision of a dark plum sofa, or possibly teal, but to my horror C is strongly opposed because she thinks sofas should be BROWN OR BEIGE. I mean yes she has lived in a brown lounge for her entire young life but, kid, that is not a GOOD THING! I have spent most of that time vowing to brighten things up just as soon as I could justify a nice sofa! But nooo “brown is the colour of home” apparently, I have FAILED TERRIBLY.

Anyway. It’s now school holidays and of course that’s not quite as fun for a working mom as it was over the past year or so. Yes, the kids are big enough not to be completely exhausting, but M is still quickly bored and very much in need of attention. And his friends are away. And C is no help at all. I have not yet entirely succumbed to relaxing all screen time rules, but I have made allowances for Olympics; he has only limited interest, which is a good or terrible thing, depending on how you look at it. But hey my job is not high pressure right now. It’s fine. It’s all fine. And I’m doing my level best to make sure we actually Go Out and Do Stuff on my days off, which goes against all my laziest instincts and frankly those of my kids, but it’s worthwhile. And makes me feel like a Good Mom (TM). Obviously also worthwhile in itself.

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* Previously the garden consisted in its entirety of a few bushes, in a straight row, surrounded with stones. And the stones lay on top of a layer of mesh. Effective at preventing weeds, also effective at preventing any effort to make it nicer. And everything died back completely over winter. Depressing.