Going back to my roots - Oh I am getting serious now

I made this when I was 9 in church craft lessons. It was the first thing I sewed and I have had it with me always. It was stood on MaxiMads bedside table and is now in the kitchen, as he wants one without yellow!! Oh fickle child.

The thing is that I loved sewing and crafting as a child, but then I grew up and got all serious with life. A career and fantastic holidays abroad. I got all consumptive and driven my consumerism and wants.

Life is different now, having children has awakened my need to make, to craft, to be and to love. I find that I no longer want things, but I do need things. I have grown up again in so many ways, but it feels like I have re-evaluated what is important to me (yes having a brush with death will do that to you). I want to make things that will bring recognition and a touch of nostalgia to my family. I want to hold the things I have made with love and infuse in them all the joy being with my family brings me.

I find that now I have children, I have a longing to provide, not a lifestyle, but a life, to bring them up to have the right values, to hold their family and friends dear to them close and to breath in…………………. the contentment of being with the people who you love and love you back.

The thing is all this cost money and that is something that we are lacking at the moment. I try hard to balance the books, but with being ill and MadDad having to take unpaid time off work to look after me and the mini’s, the car failing its MOT, school shoes and all the other things that you require just to get through the month like food getting more expensive, things are just not adding up.

This is heartbreakingly hard to deal with, I need to be at home to look after the mini’s, we don’t have the support of family to be childcare, therefore, any wage I earn would be eaten up by childcare costs (especially as minimad is only at preschool 2 hours per day). So we are in a pickle to say the least.

MadDad is going to try and do more overtime, but there is a huge payoff with that as the boys so miss their daddy and we moved back North so that he didn’t have to work all the hours God sent. Also I am going back into hospital in November, so he will again have to take unpaid time off to look after me and the children again. I am losing sleep over this at the moment, in fact I have just come home from a long walk and many tears over this. The thing is I can not see any way out of this, other than a mortgage holiday. I tried to give back my mobile phone today (I hardly ever use it), but I am still in contract.

So you lovely people out there, what do you do to make ends meet, what sacrifices have you made and what ideas do you have?

I know that I am lucky, I have just been up to watch my boys sleep, to see their chests rise and fall and to breath in their smell. We will manage, I am not saying it will be easy, but that’s what being an adult is all about. I want the minimads to be children for as long as possible, so will shed my tears in private and on my walks in the dark when MadDad gets home.