You can skip this one, I'm only hitting post because it took SO long to write.

Now that is tired.
Just tired.
Can't stand another minute tired.
Being 4 years, 11 months and 3 days is just too hard sometimes.
When you are happily living life, taking a 3 hour nap every afternoon and suddenly someone tells you you are a big boy now and you get to go to school, every day for SEVEN hours, well you can go along with it for so long and then, after 7 months, it just gets too much and you can't. do. it. another. day.
The last week has really been too much for Eli, bless his heart he has grizzled and whined and cried and fallen over and wailed and it is all soooooooooooo awful for him.
He has a friend at school, I so wish I could write his name, and for some reason this little chap has become the bane of Eli's life. He makes us laugh every day because this little boy, who is the little boy that Eli plays with every day gets the blame for everything!
He is responsible for global warming according to Eli. Naughty bad boy. IF Eli falls over at home it is Nathans fault ( except he always used first and last name) This child is mentioned a hundred times a day
"Is it my birthday yet? Can Hannah come? Not Nathan ******! Don't let him come will you?"
" I had yoghurt for dessert at school today, Nathan ***** made me spill it"
" Nathan ***** always says bad words, he called me the F word, I didn't say any naughty words just only Nathan ***** says it"
I love Nathan ***** he is the sweetest little boy, and actually he IS a bit naughty,which ( spell check just told me that 'naughty, which' is not a word that maybe I wanted to write chattahoochee!!!)I sit opposite the school every day and I park right opposite the playground, I can see and hear Eli as he plays with Nathan and I watch his face light up every time naughty Nathan does something, he loves Naughty Nathan *****.

We're having a couple of weeks where we are having to rob Peter to pay Paul. I am always amazed at how possible it is to live on a tight budget. I am so able to do it. It is not difficult although I really don't like it.
For 2 years we have been paying towards something, moving so many times, 2 trips to America, moving again, fixing the car etc.
This week I pretty much paid everything off, the last bits of money owed for various bits and pieces. With rent due next week that means that we are counting each penny and then, after next week we are done. Home and dry ( watch some big old bill turn up now!)
I am sort of excited to try and keep living within the budget I have become used to, maybe the odd splurge as I try and vamp this house up a notch ( watch out ebay here I come, you have had a break from me the past year or so but I'm watching you right now!) but for the most part I am determined to try and keep spending low, change the way I shop and perhaps go back to that great system we had, with the different pots. When it's gone, it's gone. That worked so well and I stopped a year ago when we moved into the barn because H couldn't do the shopping, I had to drive and get it all. Now we are back in town and H walks to the shops most days, I can start up the kitty again and he can pick up the things we need. HE buys what we need, I am so sucked into the buy one get one free offers, even if we really don't need it, I stock up, buy 4, see things we don't need but oooooooooh must have it!
There are so many things we don't need. The bins tell a tale, when I see the amount of waste we throw out every day, all that packaging and greed. More and more it drives me crazy and I am becoming like a muttering old lady, tut tutting and shaking my head. It seems we are always hearing about recessions and times of hardships and I can honestly see how hard things will become if we don't start taking note of just how much we waste in our world.
It's as though none of us, in the world of wasy come easy go notice what we are doing. I go shopping and can't help but think of how much we take for granted.
H and I love to watch those shows that place families in another time and place. This week we have seen families put into homes in 1920's and wartime Britain. To see how hard it is in the beginning, to see how these people struggle and weep at how different and tough life is, but then after a few months ( I think they live this way for 3-6 months) the difference is astounding, always a change for the better in health, without all the pre packaged foods and the salt, the physical effort of hand washing sheets and walking 4 miles to and from work, beating rugs and scrubbing stone floors. Slowly we see the huge benefits of living simply. Always, at the end of the experiment the adults cry at having to go back to the modern world. The harder the trial, the greater the joy. We watched a few shows about families sent to live like pioneers in the harshest of winters. These shows are fantastic, we love them.
This weeks family had a toddler who didn't eat much but drank a lot fo milk. To see the mother crying as she discovered that she had no way of buying milk, that she had just enough money to pay the rent and only 5pence left, a bunch of carrots for the whole family was 10 pence and the travelling grocer had sold the last of the milk. The family lived 4 miles from the nearest store and 4 miles from the pits where the men and boys worked every day, the men came home tired and soaked from the walk in the rain to find dinner was a watery soup with a few carrots.
Such hardships compared to anything we experience these days.
The strange thing is that the families were happy, the communities pull together,the laughter and fun is incredible. No TV just a wireless, no toys or play stations, no laptops ( oh OK that's enough, I change my mind......) Families spend time together, the children become calmer, more obedient without all the insanity and chemicals of today.
Any day now I am going to join a commune and wear cheesecloth, grow my own cabbages and sing Kumbya. Not.
I do hope that I can take on some of the things I think will help us as a family though.
I know I am rambling and not saying what I am thinking clearly. I'm not sure I am even thinking clearly, just that somehow I am restless and need to shake this old house up a bit.
Ha...could have said that in the first place and saved myself a few rambling paragraphs.
Also, I really love the sunshine.
The end.