A change is as good as a rest...

So.  Here we are.  It's the middle of January.  People are booking holidays, joining gyms to lose those few Christmas stones pounds and generally looking forward to the year ahead.  Everyone is full of good intentions, the kids have been back at school for nearly 2 weeks and we are in the "sweet spot".  This is the calm before the storm...

In approximately 12 days time it will begin.  Christmas holidays are a dim and distant memory.  Everyone has forgotten their New Year's resolutions and the takeaways have started to creep back in.  Not drinking on a school night has turned into not drinking on a Wednesday night (unless you've had a really bad day of course).  People start to look backwards, not forwards, but their memories have been altered by rose tinted filters.

The playground hosts scores of yawning parents, chatting and stamping their feet against the cold. They reminisce about how fantastic the Christmas holidays were. 

"Didn't we have such a lovely relaxing time. Isn't it horrible having to get up for the school run when it's so cold?  We need a snow day so we can all stay in bed until midday and watch movies in our pajamas, drinking hot chocolate."

Don't be fooled! It wasn't actually like that - don't you remember?!  Tantrums about having less presents than someone else; tears over advent calendars thrown in the bin with chocolate still in them; constipation from all the sweets and vast quantities of meat consumed - and don't get me started on the kids' behaviour!!!

OK. I adore Christmas, and this was one of the best we've had in years, but (and it's a big but!) by the time the first day of term rolled round I was literally skipping into the children's rooms, trilling about how wonderful it will be to see their friends again and get "back into the routine".  The point is...nothing is good forever.  I imagine being rich and thin without having to work at it might come pretty close, but apart from that...everything turns sour after while - just like Mullerlights that you haven't eaten because ice cream is much nicer.

That's why a change is as good as a rest.  I was really looking forward to going back to work in the new year.  Now it's been a couple of weeks, I spend countless hours moments thinking about all of the things I should be/want to be doing at home.  These include, but are not limited to:

• Cleaning/hoovering/tidying
• Starting my own business which allows me to work one day a week and make £50k a year
• Making a massive stash of cards for this year's birthdays so that I don't have to run around the house like a Tasmanian Devil, half dressed, leaving a trail of craft knives, embellishments and discarded "that's-the-shittest-card-I've-ever-made" pressure induced rejects, 10 minutes before a birthday party!
• Looking up that recipe on Pinterest (and then spending an hour laughing at pins about people who go onto Pinterest to look up one recipe and spend an hour on Pinterest...)
• Buying a vintage table/cabinet for 99p on Ebay and upcycling it by painting it badly with a layer of undercoat and then selling it for £100.

I could do any of the above now that it is Thursday and I am not at work.  I only did one...

The point is, that's what life is like!  Half term is designed to give you just enough of a break from the "everyday" to realise that you aren't really that exhausted...just in need of a change. I vote that we have a week off every month instead of saving them all up for the SUMMER HOLIDAYS (a cold shiver just ran down my spine...and it wasn't to do with it being frosty outside)

So, I'm off to clean the bathroom - it will make me appreciate the cup of coffee I have afterwards much more.  I'll just look up that homemade-all-natural bath scouring paste on Pinterest and get right on with it...