I finally got myself up and ready to cook (after getting sucked into the Great Teacher Onizuka manga I was reading - good stuff) so toddled off into the kitchen to start preparation for the chestnut and sage cobbler I'm making today - you know, the possibly-taking-as-my-veggie-Christmas one. WHY does every recipe start with cutting an onion! And every single time, My eyes get so sore and watery I have to leave the room!?! I swear the salesman that came to the door thought I was crying (worked well to get rid of him, though...).

Um, so yes, I had to come back in the lounge and of course to my coomputer. Isaac went to sleep at last, and I've been doing more weeding on flickr, some of it proper deleting of photos that I know aren't even on my hard drive (but...I have enough photographs, so will I ever miss them?) Strict decluttering!

Yesterday I didn't cook, but I did clear out the kitchen, so all was not lost. I want to sort some of the pile of death I have lingering by my computer - it mostly seems to be catalogues I'm keeping to see if I want to buy Christmas presents from them for people, but maybe I should just have a really good look NOW, working out who I need to buy for still. I always find it hard to shop for everyone like that - I'm better at buying for one person at a time - so for example looking through first for ideas for my mum, then again for ideas for Justin, then again for ideas for...you get the idea - and you probably see why I've not touched this pile, and why it is now know as the pile of death. Hopefully I'll have time to cook, tidy a bit, and still go through the pile, or at least begin to - with Isaac not sleeping for a while you feel like you have to be quiet to let him sleep and by the time you kow it, it's...uh...4.12 in the afternoon and you've not started cooking or tidying yet. Yeah, I'm pretty shit as a housewife. Just as well I'm a stay at home mum, right? I'm good at that! :D

I also want to (want may be too strong a word) change the cat litter, put some more washing on, hang some clothes up, see if I can pair any more of Justin's socks before he explodes one morning of pent up rage, sort out these three million piles of CDs & DVDs hanging obout into a serious collection of things we actually want to keep all on a few discs we can actually find. I need to make more Christmas Cards - and start deciding who I'm making them for, too. I have more presents to wrap, including some that have to be done when there's no one else here. I need to look up the garden plants & work out what needs frost protecting & how, as this garden gets frost (our last one was really sheltered, so I've never needed to know before). I need to finish clearing out the clothes piles in our room and get the suitcase away (it's still out from a wedding we went to last month). Isaac needs to tidy his room (which usually takes up more of my time than his, getting him to physically do it). I have a lot of stuff to get on Ebay but to get to that stage I need to have less crap & clutter down here as I'll have nowhere to put the ebaying stuff when I get it out. I need to sew up Isaac's sleeping bag, dye my hair red for Christmas again, compile all my torn out recipes into one recipe scrap-book I have set aside for this very task. I want to do the same with some of the cardmaking designs I've seen (as I've bought a few magazines for inspiration and I already have enough magazines scattered around the house - I'm obsessed, I tell you!). Oh yes and there's some books I'd like to read before they have to go back to the library - where did those new library books go? - and I have to go to the library tomorrow to take the Dvds back, one of which we finally saw last night (Walk the Line, at last - excellent) and one of which we may potentially watch tonight. We want to make friends with the library staff as they like the same things as us and are funny and interesting and have kids too and read the same books as us and are the same age as us and and and...

I think for too long our friends have been either moving to London for work / giggles, or have settled down to the degree that they never see any of 'us' any more (whatever did happen to Steve? Oh yeah he got married and had a baby...) - We are married and have a baby! surely that means you can talk to us! - OR are just those few years younger than us that makes a difference, or I guess aren't settled enough - still all about the clubs and pubs and bands and drinking. Not to say we don't like bands (we're seeing the Montain Goats next month, we saw Polysics and Guitar Wolf this year and they were fantastic) and certainly not to say we don't like drinking (though again, I have been reminded of that recent wedding...mm. Maybe I don't like drinking, after all). It's just - we did all that. We did it really, really well. We would have bought the t-shirt, except it wasn't low-cut or skintight enough, and was only available in the same boring colours as everyone else. I perseveered, I really tried, and did it for about 15 years...that's a really big part of my life there. Some of those days / nights I'll remember for years. (Some I can't even remember now). At least I can proudly hold my head high and say I did it, and scraped through, and am now a normalish human being - which none of us ever expected would happen.

The carrots are calling. *sigh*