For sleeping tablets! :-) And for the privilege of living in the lovely country of Australia (It's Australia Day, today!) And for an awesome relationship with 2 of my kids. For much improved relationship with DH!

If I remember correctly, Australia day is the birthday of your dear little Australian, Marek. Hope you and your daughter are doing OK. Sending hugs to you both, and to all those who loved him, and an open hug into the universe for your little free spirit. :grouphug: :grouphug:

It's a nice mild day here at 32C, and we have a lazy day planned. Hope you are all enjoying your day wherever you are, and celebrating our awesome country! :)

Friday: thankful for Google translate..so much easier than using my Dutch to English dictionary while I translate a book in my quest to learn more of the language. Thankful to my FIL who has supplied me with a couple of sleeping tablets, so I can get a better sleep in the next few nights (hopefully).

I love your choice of Heidi Noelle. Your other girls have four syllables each with first and middle name put together, and Heidi will too with Noelle, but not with the other two.

Can you delegate some of the smaller things to the kids, or hire a local teen for the day to help you get some things done? I remember that feeling! So much of what was overwhelming me was really silly stuff, like having all the house windows clean before school started for the year, or having a pantry and fridge full of good food. Stuff that, when you really ask yourself how important it is, comes very low on the list of priorities. Sometimes a visual helps....writing everything down, categorizing into essential, preferable, and nice. Many of the nice can really be struck off when you see that although nice, it's not worth the stress at the moment. The act of striking it out seems to remove it from your brain better than just telling yourself it doesn't matter about doing those things.

Grateful to a friend who has asked us out for dinner tonight....I didn't feel much like cooking! And to be able to see beauty in small things, like seeing our bull and cow outside my kitchen window early this morning standing close to each other with their heads touching for a good few minutes. Kind of like a bovine hug, I imagined!

haha…I know that feeling, too. It's very sweet, but sometimes with my 3 kids being the same, it always feels like someone needs you for something! But I love that they have a good relationship with me. I never had that with my mum, and always wanted it for my kids. My 21yo dd called me this morning to say she locked the keys in her car, and what should she do! Her spare was here at home, and she was 3 hrs away. I was as clueless as her this time, though, apart from saying I'd drive up and deliver the spare to her. She couldn't wait that long, so she ended up organising a professional herself. It was good for her to do it for herself, but sweet that I'm her first port of call for all info! :-)

You might be surprised when you start, and you'll enjoy the change? :grouphug: Hugs, anyway, as you navigate this new stage of your life. And my advice would be, if you want the easiest thing to do, is to choose something that you actually ENJOY! This will make the difference between a mind-numbing job where you very soon can hardly bear to face each day, or one where, although you might be tired out, etc….you are enthused by the thought of going to work because you love what you do.

I'm 42, and last year started to work again. I had no training in anything prior to having kids, homeschooling etc. I did some training to become a Bowen Practitioner (I took quite a while with the training, but it could easily be done in 9-12 month (not full-time), and now I do practice, but at a slow rate (only because my other commitments take up so much time, but I do want to change this around sometime soon!) I can get $50 a treatment, which is around 50 minutes, but I allow an hour for some chat time, etc. I also help a lady with 10month old twins that don't sleep much, and a busy toddler. I cook, clean, bath babies, bounce on the trampoline with the toddler, hang washing out, fold it up, and lots more. I do this for 2 days a week for 5hrs each time @ $25/hr I also privately tutor 5 students for remedial spelling and reading. Each of them has 2 or 3 1-hour sessions each week, and I get paid $25/hr. I like having the variation of jobs. I love each of them. It's only about 23-25hrs per week, but it's enough for me at the moment, especially having to still run the house. Although I do pay a neighbouring teen boy to mow my lawn and do some gardening for 2hrs a week, and his sister helps me for 2 hours cleaning in the house. Of course, being teens I pay them the going rate for their age, so it's a good deal for me, and they love the money, too. Win, win! This is more than you needed to know, but you might find helpful anyway. :)

I mostly just brush only...I know..that's bad and very lazy! I floss every few weeks maybe. But when I do floss, it's mostly brush, then floss, then rinse. But sometimes when I feel squicky, I brush, floss, brush.

I've had a dry cough now for 4 weeks after the flu, and various things help temporarily, but the last few days, a steam 'bath' with eucalyptus oil and Vicks Vaporub has helped immensely. I just pour a capful of the eucalyptus oil and a fingerful of Vaporub in a basin. Pour boiling water over, and sit at the table with the bowl in front of me, with a towel over my head to trap the steam. At first, it's a little strong, so I need to just breathe it in with no towel over, but within a minute or so, it's not so strong, and I use the towel. I try to breathe in the steam through nose, and mouth (separately). If a nostril is a little blocked, hold the opposite one closed, and try to get some steam into the blocked one. I probably do 5 breaths through the nose, then 5 through the mouth, then repeat...for five minutes. This has helped reduce my coughing and wheezing to almost nil so that I can sleep longer periods. Up till then I'd slept no more than about 2 hours without waking from wheezing or coughing.

For a comfy couch to sleep semi upright on, and for a straight four hours sleep yesterday night, and six hours straight last night. Makes the days so much better! Thankful that after four weeks the post viral cough and fatigue are getting better. Thankful for a dh who has been trying to be as helpful and patient as possible. :)

I just ordered this http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/371039054411for my school room. It's a wallpaper. Can't wait for it to arrive. If you Google world map wallpaper, there are tons of different colors etc. If you add the word room to the search, you can see them on the wall in actual rooms, which is quite helpful.

I don't know how fast funerals happen after a death in your part of the world, but in my experience, if someone died on a Wednesday, it's very unlikely that the funeral would be held that same week. I'd expect Monday or Tuesday the following week, so hopefully that is the case with this. I'm sorry for your family's loss though. It might make it easier if you think usually tensions run high surrounding deaths, especially for the ones closer to the departed, so perhaps don't take it to much to heart. :grouphug:

Happy Birthday, Rosie. Hope your day is special. :party:

I'm grateful for the 'tired' thread that has me rolling around the bed laughing uproariously! So many of them are like me, and it's therapeutic to read and relate! I'm grateful again for my neighbouring teens coming to clean and garden. It's so nice to see the the house looking better than it's looked in the week I've been sick. I'm grateful to have talked to my dear Aunty this morning. Her husband's funeral is tomorrow, and I called to tell her my thoughts have been with her. I ended up being so uplifted and amazed with her grace, her love for him, her happiness at his being called home when he was suffering, her acceptance, her positive spin on the last three years of caring for him night and day. It was amazing….I'm crying writing this.

This….which looks strange, and is more difficult to know to what you are referring. :p ETA: It doesn't much bother me, really, though. :)

See, this looks better (in my mind) than….

Feeling for all those affected by the fires. Fire is such a constant threat in Australia, where for six months of the year the ground is so dry and the vegetation very dry. Here in country WA, we had electrical storms a few nights back, and the lightning started a fire in a bush paddock on our neighbours farm. Thankfully it was discovered pretty soon, and all the farmers from miles around brought their fire units and were able to contain it. It's still burning today, but they have a few people there constantly monitoring it. Lightning fires in the summer in farmland can be awful, ripping through dry crops or stubble at alarming speed and wiping out many thousands of hectares very quickly. It's so amazing to see the community spirit when fire, or other disasters occur. I guess there's got to be positives in amongst the negatives.

Thankful for my daughter who was able to do my 5hr nanny/housekeeper job today while I'm still getting over the 'flu. Thankful I'm very nearly over the flu, and feeling better than I've felt for a week. Thankful that there is a cooler change expected tomorrow after 2 days over 40degreesC

I haven't read all the responses, but apart from your spiritual struggles, are you sure you are not just plain depressed? I'm not trying to minimise the spiritual, but we have to be careful about separating natural/physical issues from spiritual, as they are not the same. :grouphug: Hugs though, as you seek the help that you need.

You poor thing! :grouphug: And poor kids, too. :(

:grouphug: Sorry you are so sick! :(

How exciting for your kids and you both! As far as your question…..Its hard to tell….I guess you know your own family and what they'd like better than I would. I'll let you know our experience, though, for some input/comparison. We had seven weeks about 5 years ago with our 3 girls, aged 13, 15, 16 at the time. We did it very fast-paced, really. We spent 10 days in the UK…3 days with friends south of London (we spent one day in London), then the rest of the time we rented a vehicle and drove to Wales and Scotland. I guess a lot of the time was driving. We saw lots along the way..scenery/attractions, and of course stopped at most, even if briefly. My girls are farm/country girls, and none were big into culture/art/city things, so getting to travel around and see more was fun for them. They saw Alnwick Castle in Northumberland (where Harry Potter was filmed). I think one day in London was enough for the girls at the time. We did the usual bus tour around London, saw the Tower of London, London Eye, Art Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace Stables tour, and several more things. Then we went to Germany for a week and stayed with friends at one spot, before hiring a camper and travelling the rest of the time throughout Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, Belgium & Holland. We stayed 3 times with friends for a night (in our camper), but the rest of the time in camp grounds. Again, saw heaps, and got a good overall feel of the countries we saw, but nothing in depth. We didn't spend time in any of the major cities, though. On the way home to Australia, we spent 3 days in Bangkok, Thailand, at a friends home. This was quite good to get a good feel for the city, and do several-hour forays from her home. By this stage we were pretty exhausted, and the heat and humidity was adding to the exhaustion, so we probably couldn't have done much else at this point. This is just a brief overview of our time, obviously. It was fast paced, as I said….lots of driving (thankfully, we all enjoy driving!), and we were EXHAUSTED when we arrived home (partly to jet-lag, but also because we were on the move almost constantly for seven weeks). I think the way we did it worked best for us as our first trip to Europe/UK. We saw a huge amount, and I think after that we were more easily able to see where we'd like to spend more time when we go again. In fact, Dh and I are going again this year in June/July, and we have different plans that suit us where we are at now. Our girls are all independent now, so we don't have them to think about. I'll be fulfilling a long-term dream of staying in Holland for 8 weeks, and getting an Au-pair (although 43yo!) job. I want to be completely immersed in the culture, so I can learn the language. I already have a bit of Dutch, as my father was Dutch, but I want to become fluent. Dh, in the meantime, is shipping his motorbike over, and travelling around on that. I'll probably join him most weekends wherever he is. We are really excited! :-) Hope this helps you with making your own plans. :-) Have an awesome time, whatever you decide, anyway! And if you have any specific questions, please feel free to ask. :-) Edited to add a few more details. :)