The freshness of September

I don’t know about you, but September always brings with it a need/desire for me to organize, clean and start fresh. Yep, as a friends of mine agrees with me, September IS the new year! January is all about the calendar (and perhaps a resolution or two) but September is about starting fresh.

My Labour Day weekend is usually (and this year was no different) full of my crazy need for organization. Closets are gutted, drawers are re-organized, nook’s and crannies are dusted. I NEED to know that when my monkey headed back to school, everything would be fresh. I think it adds to the thought that a clean space makes for better learning. A fresh start makes for a new outlook.

This September I have some cleaning goals:

- under the kitchen sink needs to be gutted and cleaned
- kitchen cupboards need to be lined
- coat closet needs to be gone through for donations to diabetes
- all the windows in the house need to be cleaned inside and out
- gardens need to be made ready for the fall
- the oven needs to be cleaned
- the tupperware cupboard needs to be gutted
- the glasses on my china cabinet needs to be dusted

Yep...those are my goals :)

Mat. Leave...where did you go?!?

I'm beginning to stress a little about the fact that I am going to have to go back to work soon.

 I've been on maternity leave for 10 months now...and I'm loving it. Well...not loving the bills that are creeping up a bit, but definitely loving the time I'm home with Princess Pretty Face (PPF for short), loving the cooking and baking and organising that I've been doing. Loving being home for Monkey when he gets home for school (even though he's almost 13 now). Loving the lack of office stress that I know is waiting for me.

In 3 more weeks, I'll be going back to the office for a few hours twice a week and putting PPF in a home daycare. I'll be doing that for a month...and then I'll go back full time. I'm a firm believer in taking steps and that's why I'm doing things this way. I really want to wean her in to being cared for by someone other than me. She's a very easy going kid, and is familiar with her caregiver-to-be but still...I know I'd feel better if I do things this way.

I know, I tell myself that I'm doing this for her when it's quite possibly just as much as for me. I'm not blind to that, but it's hard to go back after a year. Hard to give up that special time. Hard to be separated...especially knowing that there is a very good possibility that this little one will be my last.

In the meantime, I'm going to get everything I can out of the next 3 full weeks and then the following 5 part-time weeks. I have plans to exercise, organise, clean out cupboards, go on brisk fall walks with PPF in the stroller, and spend as much quality time with the kids and hubby as possible. Not that my life is going to end when I go back to the office or anything, but my 'casual' time certainly will!

Modern..Retro..what?

That's me...caught in between. I'm a modern woman with a lot of retro ideals.

I work outside of my home and want to make money because I want to have the freedom of buying whatever I want and help to provide for my family, and yet I'd prefer it if my husband made more so that I could work part time.

I love to cook and bake for my family, I take great pride in keeping a clean home (it may not always be completely tidy but it's always clean). I make hearty meals inclined to be considered more old fashioned and my Betty Crocker cookbook is my best friend in the kitchen, but I never over indulge because I'd like to keep my figure!

I have 2 children...a boy then a girl, a dog, a husband and a home. I keep my lipstick handy and my apron ready.

This blog is my attempt at sanity to keep it all in working order, put my thought and ideas down, share my happy times and frustrations, and reach out to others like me. Others who like some of the retro idealism yet still maintain their modern lives.