Motherhood is bloody hard work. Most days, I feel pulled a million different directions. The hardest moments are when more than one of my children are in distress and I can't comfort them all at the same time. I need more limbs... and more hours in the day would be nice, too, instead of trying to cram more in after everyone else has gone to bed. Lately I wonder if I'm falling a bit out of love with blogging. In New Zealand it's gotten increasingly competitive - I can't imagine how horrendous it would be in bigger markets. While I've worked hard to constantly improve my blog, my photography and my 'voice' over the last five years, I've watched others employ shady tactics like the contentious follow/unfollow to leapfrog ahead. They get the attention, products and - this really stings - paid posts, off the back of falsely inflated statistics. We're told PR companies and brands are becoming wise to this ploy and recognising those that use these tactics, but honestly, I'm not seeing any evidence of that. I don't think of myself as an inherently jealous or competitive person, despite the above passage appearing to contradict that belief, so I try to tune it out as much as possible and just 'do me'. It's not always easy, though. And I can't really blame PR companies for increasingly ignoring me either when I feel so inconsistent.
Christmas is coming and I'm handmaking about 60% of the gifts on our 30 people + gift list this year. It's time-consuming and it pulls me further away from blogging, but I'm really enjoying it. I like doing things with my hands, the process of a project coming together. The side of guilt with every stitching session that I'm not working on the blog weighs on me though. The other big time suck at the moment (excluding the usual day to day business) is home renovation. We've started out small, we did Alexandra's room right before she was born at the beginning of the year and we've not long finished painting Noel and Patrick's shared room. Painting a room from start to finish with a baby on your hip or hurrying between naps is no mean feat, let me tell you! It took a lot longer than I anticipated and I'm still taking my time moving the boys' belongings back in (culling toys as I go because I am mean). We've got the wardrobe shelves to reinforce, paint and reinstall and I'm also restoring Patrick's drawers, which were a badly painted second hand find before Noel (age 6) was born - they've been on my to-do list that long! I stripped off the majority of the paint to uncover the wood, which looks like rimu, I'm no expert - but a beautiful wood, anyway. The nooks and crannies are proving difficult as you can see in the picture below but I love how the ombre drawers turned out, especially with the silver handles I added after taking this picture. It makes me so happy standing in the kids' rooms now, feeling we have started making this house our own.
I don't know. What do you think?
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Lani
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