stop worrying so much and just get on with it

Given that it’s been over four months since I last checked in, I think I can say I’ve been getting on with stuff. I have been at my new job since October, and am loving it. We moved house, my husband got off night shift, and life got much easier.

I’ve pretty much given up on 43 things, except for the regular reminders for checking for lumps and stuff like that. Today is Isabelle’s third birthday. She’s been so excited about it. She opened a present this morning, and she’ll get another one tonight. I made Thomas the Tank Engine cupcakes for her to take to child care today and they will throw a party. I start my new job in under a month, and she only has two weeks left at her current child care. She has made some good friends, and she doesn’t realy understand that she is leaving. It will be a bit sad. We’re just getting on with stuff.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, so I haven’t had much time to keep things up to date. Since making the decision to quit my current job, the job I want has been advertised. I have started writing the application although it doesn’t close for three weeks. We have started looking for a place to live closer to work, and we visited a couple of child-care places in that area too.
I did log on last week and clean up my goal list, because I can’t seriously work on that many things at once.
With less time to worry, I have been much happier. Last might my husband said he knew I had made the right decision, because since making it, I have been excited and energised. I’m even getting more work done in my current job, which I guess I had better get back to :)

I was just reading an entry by Balut (sorry – I don’t know how to do those fancy links) about what you get done in your life, and there were some suggestions to read a book, which I then browsed, and the first line of the book is a quote by W.H. Auden, which I thought was excellent:
If we really want to live,
we’d better start at once to try;
If we don’t, it doesn’t matter,
but we’d better start to die.
I just need to remind myself every now and then. Today I’m not having a lot of fun. Boss isn’t happy. I’m wondering if I should really be here. I have to do something about it, because I can’t have too many of these days in a row before I find something else to do with my life.

... looking over my shoulder a lot. There was an incident at my Uni yesterday, and we all assumed it was a relationship gone bad or something like that. Details were released today that it was a random attack, and suddenly I don’t feel as safe. Crazy, but I can’t help it. I’ve been looking at fellow-students suspiciously today. I don’t like it. I like smiling at people. I can’t seem to shrug it off.

We had one of those weekends when you just take things as they come and realise that this is what you’re doing it for. Our daughter has been asking to go on a bouncy castle, and there was a fair at a local school, so she got her wish. She was so tired after the fair and swimming class that she slept for four hours on Saturday afternoon. At first I thought I should do some laundry, mop the floor, but then I calmed down and just enjoyed having a quiet house and a husband. And on Sunday we intended to spend the day in town after breakfast with friends, but we got home before 1 and spent the afternoon in the back yard. Izzy played in the sand pit, and we had a bottle of bubbly and a fire in the brazier and talked and looked at clouds.
The house is still a bit of a mess, but we had a great weekend.

I’ve been really angry for the last week or so. I’m not quite sure how to get over it. I’m not even sure what is making me angry. I just know I get short tempered. It achieves nothing and I get even less done and get more annoyed. It’s got something to do with wanting to get too much done. I work, am doing my PhD (supposedly full time snort), have a gorgeous two-year-old who needs lots of stories and cuddles, and a husband who I really do like and want to spend time with.
I should be really happy, but when I am working, I think I should be with my daughter. When I’m studying, I think I should be working. When I’m cleaning the kitchen, I think I should be studying. I need to just stop all the criticism and enjoy whatever job I’m doing at the time. I’d get more done and feel better about it.

I go through stages, but the last couple of years have been pretty good. There are some patches in life where you are working too hard and you think, I’ve just got to get through this and then I can get on with life, but if it goes on for too long, well, ... that IS life. So I’ve been making an effort to enjoy where we are right now, and I think it has made me happier.
Stop and smell the roses, and take enough time to actually enjoy it.