mylolita

PS: Yoga, I have to add - your caregiving role I imagine sounds very, potentially, emotionally and physically exhausting. I can only imagine what you are dealing with. Please take my offerings with a pinch of salt as I am a pampered stay at home Mum whose only responsibilities are her three children so; I’m by the way not a qualified replier! ☺️ It did cross my mind if you could navigate some time for a dance lesson or something involving dance as, it seems to be a real passion of yours and seems a shame it’s been pushed out to some extent? All the best, x

Yoga! You sound as if you have a very full and busy life and also that you have some serious obligations and responsibilities as well - school, work and caregiving. I don’t know why I am replying to your thread Yoga as I am a terrible time waster and can spend my time doing everything but anything of importance! 🥲 I will say, at my old old age of 34 🥹 I would recommend doing one of two things or mixing and matching them. They are - outsourcing; and carving. When I say outsource, I mean, from time to time schedule in a paid helping hand maybe to replace one day of your caregiving if possible? Maybe arrange a cleaner to come once a week? Or arrange a food delivery for one day you would be cooking, or maybe having to run out to the shops to buy food - have it delivered that day instead? Any offers of a helping hand - I would try and take them from time to time too! For the “carving” which, is my personal fave; I would recommend looking at your average day, and seeing where you can twist out a “mini break”. This may only be a 15 minute time period. Or half an hour. But these mini moments throughout the day can really matter! For example - my first little moment of the day for myself personally happens on a morning. And this is where, when my husband is at home, he takes all the kids on the school run (outsource - LOL!) which gives me a good 40 minute chunk to get a leisurely shower/bath, and I can dress with a cup of coffee or two, do my hair, my make-up (which I find really relaxing) before the start of a day! If he’s away working, I still carve out time for “resting and dressing!” and I will get the kids ready then, I’ll pop a cartoon on for them so I can have half an hour after the buzz of an early wake up call to get myself set! For you it might mean thinking about what relaxes or energises you? Maybe waking up half an hour earlier on a morning to have breakfast and a smoothie or coffee out in your beautiful garden? Or maybe it’s taking an hour on an evening that may be taken up with other obligations like seeing family or friends to actually be by yourself, read in the bath or do your favourite yoga stretches before bed? Really look at your average day, and you may see little micro opportunities of rest or calm crop up where you thought impossible. Another example of me doing this throughout my own day is, today was a beautiful day, and instead of running the kids to the beach which is beautiful but hectic, I decided to instead take my girls to my parents and put their bikes in the car. This meant I got a 40 minute drive with calm music (which is a rest for me!) and while the girls had a nap I got peace and an iced coffee to sip on the way! I carved myself out a break, or, my idea of one anyway! And the girls got to ride their bikes! I understand not everyone can do exactly how I do and everyone’s lives are so varied. You may find at work or school, there may be a free period of study to go for a slow walk, or during work - when I did work, I used to always take the last lunch slot. There was method to my madness with this because when I went at 1:30pm to take my hour for lunch at the office, it meant when I got back at 2:30 it felt like the day was nearly over and my mood lifted because the end was in sight “sooner!” And my lunch break was taken strategically during my natural slump! So it meant I got to quickly drive right outta where the office complex was, and I found a really great tree on a sloping bank. I’d take an iced coffee there. Or I’d go shopping at a retail park I discovered and found a great florists. I kind of, manufactured this oasis of time in my working day where it felt like just for a second; the office was nowhere to be seen and forever! Minus being in a suit - HA! Anyway dear Yoga, I’m waffling… but, there may be niches and nuanced little moments you can create. Then once you get into those small moments being a regular thing, they will become habitual. I can’t remember the last time I left the house without being fully “dressed” and with my hair done. I was probably 11 years old. This is an essential thing to me I won’t compromise on! You will maybe discover or have something similar. I also play music as soon as I wake up, go outside and hang washing out (for some reason the smell of air dried linen is heaven to me and going out there with bare feet on freezing ground wakes me up!) Creating rituals is a personal and magical thing and a fun thing! I also light candles during the day, and will nip into a shop to buy flowers and quickly arrange them in the afternoon when I get 10 mins. I also clean for stress relief! And garden! I tend to get the kids involved with the gardening so I get to do it and spend time with them as well! Sometimes when I’ve been exhausted with a new baby and toddlers in tow, I’ve gone slowly through drive thrus and let them suck on fries while I sit and listen to the radio with a milkshake! Or I’ve even given them sweets and gone through the car wash just to sit down and chill out with everyone contained for half an hour 🤣 I’d also be realistic about what you need to do, what you have to tick off for your sanity and organisation and control over your life, and what you can “let go” of a little, outsource or switch up, reduce the time of, or re-arrange etc. Best of luck Yoga! Let us know how you get on! Busy bee! x

LOVE it YOGA! You are SO NEAT! Always been very tidy and precise? What do you drink? 🍹 And thank you!! Some inherited dinner sets in the cabinet! The older I get, the more I like things with family history! x

But back to the girl I love ♥️ x

What an utter babe. And what a voice! x

Late night hangin’ out in the Butlers pantry. Only kidding. Just my kitchen, and I’m the Butler. PLOT TWIST. x

Yoga you are so funny 🤣 Had a fantastic time, thanks chickadee!! Was just so nice to get out as a couple. I had three g&t’s and I can’t take it 🤓 I had a hang over at my sons football practice for 10am and my girls wanting me to “chase them round the mountain” 🤣 x

I’m going out on a DATE TONIGHT! I’m as excited as eighteen year old me, and there are just as many clothes strewn about my feet and bedroom floor as first date me too. Some things never change. The logistics have a bit though! D has taken the girls out this afternoon so I can rest. Rest and dress. Two of my favourite things! But I’m not resting. What I’m doing is drinking, dancing, trying on 1000 dresses to decide on the same formula I always do with tweaks… and cleaning, and more drinking, and more waltzing. I always get that nervous, butterfly feeling. I hope he likes what I’m wearing. I hope I look nice tonight. I hope the bar has gin and tonic! It does it does it does! What coat goes with this?! All of the usual! Sixteen years in and I still jitter trying to impress him! x

In the last house, no sooner did six years finish - a full scale renovation, three children and a first buy, but the dust just settled, and we adored, congratulated, and for all but one minute, then we were out. All the personal objects, the collections, curations of art, had hardly a chance to be hung and displayed. The place had a minimal feel, like a blank gallery waiting for the display and spot lights! The best thing about this house, is we are just starting to properly settle. Personal and tender objects permeate the surfaces. A memory here, a portrait there; an album surrounded by books, an antique vase, shell bound trinket boxes. And my Grandfathers wooden boat he so expertly made, now sitting, played with by the kids, on the wooden bath rack. x

I had a strange little dream this morning. I’d already been woken up once by the kids, and lulled back into a deep, warm sleep, their chirpy squeals and chatter fading out into a distance tunnel. I was in the car park of a large retail park I go to now and then. I could hardly move, I was so stiff and bent over. My arms were contorted off at different angles, and my fingers riddled with the knots of arthritis. I just could not straighten up, I was trudging through treacle, I couldn’t get anywhere fast between the tightly parked sea of cars. I decided in my mind to make the best of it and force myself to sludge through and pretend I was walking normally, even though I resembled Quasimodo - then no one would notice. I see coming along from my right, down the central parking buffer where the pavement is raised, a tall, dark, angular, modelesque looking young man. He had dark sunglasses on and clean, swept back hair. He was striding forward, simply dressed in a navy t-shirt and dark blue jeans. I could feel my face burning at the idea of me, in my crippled state, giving the obvious impression that I thought he was very attractive. He held my gaze whilst still walking towards me for along time. My cheeks felt redder and redder, and then he said, casually and confidently, “It’s 6:30am, if you were wonderin’ what time it is.” A little smile came about his face, I swear he even threw a wink, before I could even reply, I was stumped, and then suddenly I saw him heading back the other way to large crowds, mostly of women. They were openly adoring him in a way a famous person would be lavished. Phones out, some were trying to take photos. And he had a sponge in his hand, and his car, in the middle of the gaggle of fans, was a dark navy Porsche. One of the 4x4 types, and he’s about to wash the thing in public and everyone is crowded around to see the show. I try for an eternity, maybe half a year, to make my way through the forest of cars. I can barely move still, and I can’t for the life of me raise my head. I struggle towards a huge supermarket I used to walk around with my parents - Marks & Spencer’s. I think to myself, if I can get upstairs to where the women’s clothes are, I can hide in a changing room. But then, by a large display of make-up and costume jewellery stand, are two old school friends who I fell out with massively and never spoke to again after I got married and had the kids. The embarrassment and nerves only lasted a split second, then I decide I would too fake it and they would believe nothing had happened between us. So I say, picking up a deep plum eyeliner, “Y’know girls, look at this purple liner?! I heard it really brings out green eyes.” It magically turns into a sparkly mixture within the tube. The two ex friends are agreeing and saying hi and smiling at me. And I go to open the lid. They look at me with disapproval, because I’m about to open a brand new liner and draw it across the top of each eyelid. I would have done it if alone, but I felt the social moral pressure radiating from the blonde pair. I pause and, moving as if still in treacle, popping the top back on, for face value, add, “I won’t do that though because, someone might want to buy it.” x

I am most definitely the “adoree”. To use other dating and mating terminology, I most definitely, definitely, live in my husbands frame. And that’s absolutely perfect amazing to me. I get to continue a first romance like love obsession, but up close and personal, whilst also being at the same time - afar. I surrendered to a feeling and just, simply, never stopped. If I were left ruined without anything all in the next year, I wouldn’t change one thing. As I get older, I realise the emotional intensity that I have sometimes cursed and revelled in is a ride not many people get to hop on. So I thank my lucky stars that there was an Angel over my shoulder the night I met you, and Cupid never left. I suppose if I were a Renaissance painting, there would be the tiniest hole from his arrow right above my heart, an open reminder - never healed! To truly love is to be in pain. It sounds like turmoil and, it is turmoil. You might know what I mean one day. x

The problem with me is, when I like something, I really like it, and, I want to do it all the time. Incessantly, obsessively - taken up with the whole thing. I want to sit around and drink coffee all day. Water constantly boiling every half hour, the smell of grinding beans never leaving the house. I can start at 6am and not stop till the next morning. It hardly feels like much time has passed at all. I could sit and talk with one person while the sun fell behind moving clouds, the shadows changed along the walls, abs the freshness of an early morning steadily transformed into a sleek night. Between winding in obligations, responsibilities, I can orientate myself around one spot, one eternal feeding of the open fire, looping round and round, the low jazz melting into a trance like sound track. And I’ll read, or write in parts, or like today, lose about three hours because an auction catalogue came through the post and, all at the same time, delighted my day and absolutely ruined it in one plonk of the brass letterbox. And I’m not sorry one bit - not at all! x

For any gardening, driving, dancing, relaxing, resting and dressing! @yogacat! 🎼 x

—- “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night” — x