Journal Entry: University!

 
It's been a long time coming, but I finally bit the bullet at the end of last year and applied for university. I'm studying a Nursing degree through Charles Darwin University (yes, in Darwin!), and then I will do a post-graduate degree in Midwifery. No, we won't be moving to Darwin any time soon though! 


I'm studying externally, which, while it does have it's drawbacks, was the perfect option for me. For starters, it's saving me around 2 hours of travel time a day. That's a huge time-saving right there. I can start studying as soon as the kids are at school, and I can finish studying and go straight into cooking dinner in the evenings - no waiting around for trains and buses or drive time. Studying externally means I have flexibility - no conforming to lecture and tutorial timetables, no contact hours. It also means I don't have to carry all those books to uni every day! The online learning environment takes some getting used to, but each unit has a learning guide and a weekly study plan which outlines your readings and tasks for that week. I also have a wide support network through the Learnline (that's the name of the online learning website) and unit discussion boards, my lecturers are all available to give help and advice and the CDU external nursing studies facebook page which has been a great help and given me a wealth of information.


Studying full time though, has meant an immense change for me. All of a sudden, I need to use time-management skills in a completely different way. I have to fit in 30 hours of study a week, as well fit in the things that I was already doing as a SAHM. I've just finished my first week and I am completely exhausted. I feel like I'm back to working 10 hour days. For most of this week I've felt like I got thrown in the deep end, completely bypassed the treading water stage and just went straight into drowning. I was in tears at one stage. But my wonderful husband, my dad and a few facebook friends (one of whom is in her 4th year doing this degree externally) put things into perspective and gave me some great advice.


We moved house right before uni started too. So uni started and I was STILL trying to organize the house the way I needed it to be. I do feel a little crazy :)


So, the next month or so is going to be difficult as I adjust to my new study schedule, and slowly change the way I run the house and the way we do things to accommodate the change in pace. For now, I am concentrating on getting into a study routine and being thorough - that is, checking each unit carefully to make sure I get all the information I need each week - I'd hate to miss an important assignment or something!

Journal Entry: Busy Busy Busy...

I just realized it's been 3 weeks since I last wrote on my blog. I thought it had been about 3 days! That should tell you the state of my brain in this last month!

I finally stopped working, YAY! I finished 2 weeks ago, and it's amazing how much better I feel in both mind and body now that I'm not worrying about work. Having said that, the extra 30 hours a week I've supposedly gained are flying by... 


It's wedding season, so Hubby is incredibly busy at the moment, made slightly (only slightly) worse by the fact that I'm no longer able to be his assistant on the job. He's been up to his neck in weddings, phone calls, emails, client meetings, album design, print orders and invoices. I'm not the best administrative assistant either. 


While he has been doing that, I've been taking advantage of the 2 completely child-free days we have during the week (with Cory at school full time and Kem in day care 2 days a week) to spring clean and organize the house. I started with the laundry and the cleaning cupboard, then moved on to the kitchen and organized the pantry and the kitchen cupboards, then the kids bedroom and our bedroom. 


Now that everything is clean and tidy, I'm just trying to work out where to put the PILE of stuff that doesn't have anywhere to go. Our house is very small, and has almost NO storage at all. So finding convenient places to store things is a bit difficult... All the usual spaces like the space on top of the pantry and under the beds are already taken. I have several large bags full of fabric, scraps, patterns, notions and unfinished projects that need housing somewhere... preferably not the shed. Then there's 2 corners in our bedroom which are crowded with things... I'm sure they could go in the shed but hubby is not convinced.

There's still a lot to do, all the toys in the kids room need sorting out and there's a few bags to drop off at goodwill, their clothes all need sorting because I know they've grown out of half of what's in their drawers, and I don't know how on earth I'm going to get hubby to cull his wardrobe yet again (I shop a hundred times more than my husband, yet he still has ten times the amount of clothes and shoes that I do...). Our bedroom needs rearranging to make some room for the bassinet, the queen size bed and single bed in the kids room will have to go and be replaced with bunk beds... We're hunting around for "our" perfect pram (which is very different to "my" perfect pram), and a cot for later on after the baby has outgrown the bassinet.

And somewhere in there my cousin and my two sister-in-laws all had their babies. So I was busy making baby booties and burp cloths. Right now I'm also working on a pile of projects... they are all unfinished and they're all for Christmas so unfortunately, I can't post any of them until the New Year.

And of course, only 5 more weeks until our new baby arrives, and I just can't wait to see the joy on my husband's face when he holds his brand new baby for the first time!

A Place For Me

Hi! My name is Mesha, and this is my very first blog post! 

I'm both excited and nervous about this.

Having been an avid blog stalker for...well, long enough, I've seen so many wonderfully inspiring ideas and creative blogs. Blogs about family life, motherhood, marriage, love and children. Blogs about crafting, sewing and DIY, blogs about food (because I am a definite lover of food), and about so many other things that I love.

Finally, I thought about doing my own blog. The idea was there in the back of my mind for a while, I was just too scared to push it to the front and do something about it! Yes, I thought about doing a blog and chickened out. Self doubt is one of my specialties. And I'm such a procrastinator.  Was I really creative and motivated enough to do a blog? Did I have enough ideas? Because at first, it was going to be a blog about crafting and DIY. But then I decided it was just going to be a blog about all the things I love. And that's when I bit the bullet and signed up. 

So this is it. I have a place where I can share my ideas and my goals, tell people about my projects and write about the things that inspire me and the people that I love. 

And well, if I'm the only one who reads this, so be it. I'm sure I will get a lot out of it, if no one else does!