This week.

This week was supposed to be "it"

The week where it was all going to start.

After two awful weeks of Meaty being ill, the emotions of finishing up with childminding and the sheer effort it was taking just to get through the challenges of each day, it was finally the first week of my "new life"

I guess it did start and it was technically the first week of my new life.

But mostly??

This week sucked.

Big time.

So as I type it all out, let it go, send it out into the great void, I am going to show you lots and lots of pictures.
 I haven't edited them.
They aren't even in order.
They have nothing whatsoever to do with this post.
But each and every one of them made me smile :-)
And I needed that tonight. I needed it this week.

On Monday with a head full of to do lists, a heart full of love and some words full of optimism I was heading into the first week of my new life.

We were out shopping with Granny Mary, getting some last minute school supplies.

After a busy old day I was packing the car and I turned to Mum with a smile.

"I just need to get home, get the wee one in bed  and I've done it. I've made it."

I had no feelings of anxiety, no pit of dread in my stomach. It's been a long time since I felt calm right to my core. This whole summer has been a physical and emotional slog but I was about to run across the finish line.

Then, on the way home, I filled up my DIESEL car with PETROL.

After a few shudders and rumblings we had to stop the car.

In rush hour traffic.

Fraser and I had to push the car off of a very busy roundabout.

I was convinced I had expensively and irrevocably wrecked the engine in my new car.

(thenew car that I had insisted on getting to save us money and ease us into the "new chapter" in our lives)

And then I fell apart. Spectacularly. In front of my poor bewildered children.

I cried for an hour solid as we waited for the recovery guy to arrive.

I soaked my seat with tears and threw up at the side of the road.

It was like my finish line had been snatched from my grasp and my hard earned optimism and hard work had all been undone.

All of the anxiety and pent up emotions that I had been trying hard to conceal and work through, for months,  just came tumbling out.

I had done all of this.

Me.

My fault.

The guilt was all consuming.

We finally got home and got K to bed over 2 hours later than her usual bedtime.

Which in turn made her sleep in until almost 8 o clock the next morning.

 On the first day of school.

 But we rushed and we were driving to school with 8 minutes to spare.

As we were walking along the front of the building her grip began to tighten, why was it so quiet?

As we approached the gates people were spilling out, without their children!

The bell had rung early.

We were now late. On the first day of school.

I managed not to punch any of the smug faced super mums, who all made faces as they walked past announcing

"ooh, late on the first day of school!!"

Not one took note of my poor sensitive girl who was fretting and just about disappearing into herself.

I almost lost it in the school office watching my worried girl naviagte her way through the older children, alone, to get to her classroom. She turned back only once and seemed a tiny bit reassured by my big thumbs up and "you can do it" smile.

The guilt was awful and my fragile emotional state became even more precarious.

When Fraser and I finally got home I realised the small marks we had found on the kitchen ceiling the night before had got worse.

Something was leaking and water was just about to start pouring through our kitchen ceiling. Our Jimmy Brand ceiling.

And to make matters worse it seemed to be coming from the toilet.

I was FREAKING OUT.

What if it was the waste pipe that was leaking?? The thought of poop and wee pouring into my kitchen was more than I could handle.

Another SOS call was made to my Mum and Dad.

They came round in the evening and Dad checked it out for us.

It was the cistern that was leaking. Clean water.

It was fine, it was a quick fix.

I was so grateful.

I was even more pleased when 5 mins after they left Dad called to say my car was ready to be collected.

I was in shock, we had dodged a bullet. I had managed to turn the engine off before it was damaged.

Dad's friend and all round miracle worker had drained it and filled it up with diesel and we were good to go.  He had also found another problem wth the front tyre which was potentially dangerous and bordering on illegal!

I cried again.

But I smiled more.

Wednesday was our boys day. He was starting 3rd year.

It was also the first time K would have to be collected from school by someone else, because I was working.

It went off without a hitch, thankfully.

Frase had a lovely day.

Work was manic and I seemed to have caught some very strange instant cold which made me feel awful!

I ended up having to stay behind at work and was late home.

The rest of the night was a blur of vicks vaporub and hot drinks.

But we had made it past the hump day! Surely we were on the home straight to the weekend................. right??

On Thursday morning Dad and I set off to get the tyre fixed. It didn't go as smoothly as we'd hoped but we got there in the end. We ended up having a lovely morning and it was great to spend time with my Dad. I haven't seen as much of him recently, as I had done in recent months, and I miss him.

So it was nice to spend the day with him.

On Thursday evening Beebs was cooking dinner, Lor was joining us. Our first fully attended Thursday night dinner in forever. It was going to be just what I needed after a hard week.

But sadly it was not to be.

When Murray went out to feed Lulu and tuck her in for the night, he found that she had passed away.

Our beautiful, friendly, healthy and happy girl had left us to join Bee Bee , to eat giant dandelion leaves in the great big garden in the sky.

My heart is aching. I wasn't ready to say good bye :-(

So tonight I am spent. I still feel unwell and tired and so ready for it to be Friday.

I got wet feet and a broken umberella on my way to work this morning.

I didn't mind the torrential rain though, it matched my mood perfectly.

I was happy with myself as I managed not to go absolutely "red Ross" at the old lady who rammed me with her trolley

and cut infront of me in the queue in Aldi.

She didn't know  that I was stretched so thin I was almost transparent.

When I am old, I vow to remember what it was like being a tired, busy , working Mum with a young family. I will look kindly at the lady standing in front of me in line whose eyes are glazed and red rimmed, shoulders hunched over and a hodge podge of items in her trolley that she probably forgot on her previous visit. 

I will remember this day and ask if she would like to go first, I will have no where  to rush to. Maybe she is tired and hungry and needs to be cut a little slack. Maybe she just wants to get home, eat some lunch and cuddle her babies.

When the sun came out and I picked my girly I was happy. Helped along by a cuddle and a cuppa with Lor Lor.

But even in the sunshine it was so sad to go out and hang the washing without my  furry little friend there, weeping away in her hutch, asking for grass and her grateful weep weep weeping when she received it.

The pain was raw.

But today is Friday.

Signalling the end of the first week of my new life.

I have been stretched and tested and I failed once or twice, but tomorrow I will get up. I will drink tea with my gorgeous hubby. I will wash my sweet girls hair and lay out her "birthday dress"all ready for her friend's party.

I will go to work, at my new job which I love.

I will come home with a clear head and look forward to an evening spent with my boys (and anyone else who fancies some nest time ;-) )

It will be a new day, a new start and I'm feeling optimistic!

But maybe I will play my cards a little closer to my chest this week, lest the universe hear me and send me some more little blips ...............