Not long ago I left a house I loved to move into a house I could, maybe one day, love. What a wrench that was! 14 months later and I still pine for the high ceilings of Jackson Street, the tidy rooms and cream walls, the fact that I had enough furniture to fill the house and it felt like home.

But we had outgrown it. Our home was starting to feel cramped. We had had our first child and were preparing for the second one’s arrival. It was our time to move on. Now, I live in a house in which every room is nearly finished. There is something left to be sealed, hung on the wall, painted or cleaned in every room. It’s actually driving me crazy. I often sit and wonder when will it feel finished? When will at least one room feel DONE? People always say it takes a long time to make a house a home – but how long? When will the building dust, and with it my mind, settle?

Anyone who has moved house into a bit of project will understand I’m sure. I’m trying to be careful not to see passed the mess and the random holes in the walls for fear that they will become ‘normal’. I’d hate to think that this state of ‘nearlyness’ could become permanent. Cunningly, (or at least I think so) I move the piles of mess now and then so that one of us trips up! This acts as a sort of kick up the backside for both me and my husband. It reminds us this stuff needs a place to live!

However, despite the frustrations and my impatience, there is of course always the issue of finance. One thing at a time because that’s all we can afford. This in itself is a killer for me because I’m not good at waiting for anything.

But, as I flick through the parish newsletter having ordered my husband to put another box in the loft before work; I notice the sunshine highlighting all of the dust on the kitchen surfaces (despite having wiped them once this morning already) and instead of feeling defeated, I feel positive that this village and this house will feel like home… Eventually!

When is it ok to delete a Facebook friend? I recently removed 3 people from my Facebook page because I was sick of receiving game invitations. Maybe I was harsh? But I did it. There. A few days later I had a conversation with a friend who wants to delete ME, because I blog. She hates blogs. So, when is it ok to delete a Facebook friend? What is the correct social media etiquette?

There seems to be an unspoken rule that once you’ve clicked that ‘accept’ button there’s no going back. Somehow, if you delete a Facebook friend, you are in some way, removing them in real life. It’s like living life as an adult but having a teenager control your mind whenever you’re on the Internet.

There are lots of people who post things I disagree with or things that irritate me… But I don’t delete them! The reason I don’t is because it’s a big ‘political’ statement and my 15 year old self seems to control me when I’m online! My friend who wants to delete me, hates blogs, she doesn’t hate me.

However, what happens if you do delete someone and then bump into them in the supermarket. Lots of people notice! Then you have to have THAT excruciating conversation. ‘I deleted you because you irritate me’. But that sentence in itself is problematic; I didn’t delete them because they irritate me. I deleted them because their posts irritate me.

Perhaps the way to do it is to warn them? The way you warn a child about the naughty step: ‘If you do that again…’. Or do it and hope they don’t notice? I’ve had my warning, it was a verbal one. So, I’ll be checking my friends list tomorrow to see if I have been deleted, after tagging my blog-hating friend in this post!

IainG, a teenage blogger,(http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/blogs/iaing) makes an interesting observation and one that my teenage self would never have thought of. He says ‘the answer to the question of deleting friends is quite simple. Friendships are not permanent. Very few relationships really are. Why, then, should Facebook “friendships” be permanent?’

So, how offended would you be if one of your Facebook friends removed you? And what is the correct social media etiquette?

Do you know a Mood Hoover? A person who sucks the life out of a room and the people in it. If you don’t know what I mean then you don’t know one; because if you did you’d always be aware of the Mood Hoover’s mood.

I’m writing this post for 2 reasons: to ask advice on how you deal with a Mood Hoover, and to try to give you some advice on how to handle yourself around one.

I have come across quite a few Mood Hoovers in my time. I have in the past tried to make them happy, walking on egg shells around them, trying desperately to get them to join in or even just to crack a smile. But let me tell you one thing I know about this type of person: they enjoy being miserable. They like to be on the outside looking in and they certainly don’t want to take part. So, don’t worry about them. Where you can, don’t invite them, if they’re near you, take a wide birth and if you must talk to them, for goodness sake don’t get sucked in!

Mood Hoovers are powerful! Not only can they change the ‘colour’ of a room with their mind (behaviour) they can also take over your thoughts. If you listen too carefully to their dribble, their moaning, their unhappiness, then you too may become a part of their world and let’s face it… It’s not a happy place to be.

This may sound a little harsh, it could be seen as a little dismissive. But, do you have time to be worrying about other people’s happiness? I don’t! So, I take care of my happiness and in doing so the people around me. A friend of mine once told me something his mother said to him: ‘if something is making you unhappy stop doing it. Find things that make you happy and spend more time doing them’. I think this can be applied to people too. Make an effort to spend time with those who make you happy and stay away from those who don’t!

However, what if you have to work closely with this type of person? Or have ended up with a Mood Hoover in your circle friends? How do you deal with them? This I have yet to learn.

Ps: if you’re one of my friends reading this and wondering if I’m talking about you… I’m not. I like my friends.

I watch the news and often have to turn over… I listen to the radio and often talk over it to my children until another report begins… I turn adverts over and avoid reading charity letters that come in the post… Why? Because I feel the sadness of a million mothers and hold the guilt of the western world on my shoulders!

At least some days that’s how I feel!

When I cuddle my children I want to squeeze them so tightly and never let them go. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with love especially when their tiny hands hold mine or stroke my face or clasp around my neck. Yet, this love is often tinged with guilt! Guilt that I can’t love all the children in the world. I feel a deep sadness that some children have nothing, no love, no support.

I look around at my children’s toys and feel guilty that they have so many things when some children really do have nothing. Nothing.

Why do I feel this sadness? What is it that has turned me into this woman? Yes I used to get upset and hated the horrible things that happen to children in the world; but recently those feelings have manifested themselves, in me, as a deep sadness combined with guilt!

What can I do to help the world and in doing so ease these feelings? I already donate to charity and sponsor a child over seas… Would moving abroad to build a school help? Should I adopt a baby from Africa? Would I be ‘making a difference’?

However, all these thoughts actually feel a bit self indulgent! It’s all to make ME feel better; and perhaps simultaneously help ‘save the world’. Surely, it would be selfish of me to uproot my family to another country just to satisfy what could be termed as my ‘middle class guilt’. It’s my problem right? And how can anyone really know they’re making a difference? Can one, ordinary person, ever cure poverty?

It’s horrible, heartbreaking to know that some mother somewhere in the world is watching her child die. She is helpless and so am I.

So I leave you with these questions as I still don’t have the answers… How do you get over western guilt and the sadness of a million mothers? Can anyone ever ‘make a difference’? Ultimately, does it all come down to fixing things so that we don’t feel so bad about our own materialistic, self indulgent lives?

From the start of this post I’ll be totally honest. Until I had children, I was very judgemental of people who chose to stay at home and be a full time mum. I thought they were ‘wasting’ themselves. I thought it was a lazy decision… The easy way out!

Now, at 32… A bit older, a bit fatter and a mother of two with a little more life experience. I respect and admire people for making a decision and sticking to it. For doing something they want to do and fundamentally knowing what they want. There’s no judgement here and the time has come (again) for me to decide whether or not to return to work.

I think, like most women, once I had children I had a shift in my state of mind. Not only did I become a bit forgetful, lose all knowledge of vocabulary and possibly, at times, a little over emotional… I also became more tolerant! More tolerant to other people’s lives, decisions and beliefs.
I don’t presume to know how all women think (I’ll leave that to the men of this world!) but I can’t be alone in these changes!

After I had my eldest daughter, Lexie, I returned to work full time; determined that having children wouldn’t change me or my career. But it already had! I changed the moment I was pregnant and was fighting a losing, internal, battle. However, I did return to work full time and experienced all of those emotions of being torn between my original ‘baby’ (my career) and my daughter.

My decision this time round is to go back to work part-time. 3 days a week. I thought it would have been an easy decision to make, especially as it is the second time round, but it wasn’t. Once again my career is going to have to take a back seat. That baby, my first baby, the first thing that I really, really cared about, that I nurtured and put everything into for years, is going to have to take second place to my real children. It’s a hard pill to swallow.

Don’t get me wrong I’m as conscientious, hard working and ambitious as I’ve always been. I’m also determined (once again) to return to work better, with more ideas, refreshed from my time away from the office and with new goals in mind. But, I now only have 3 days a week to fulfill those goals and my time out of the office is somewhat, shall we say… Unavailable.

It’s this ‘unavailability’ I’m not used to. Learning to draw a line between work and home and separate the two. For a journalist I don’t believe that ever really happens. My mind is always aware of what is going on around me, the good things and the negative things… But I have to accept that in order not to have to ‘share’ my beautiful children; I’m going to have to share my job!

There will be times when my show, my work, is in someone else’s hands. Two days every week someone else will be taking over something that is very dear to me. That is a decision I have made and have to adapt to. It’s also one I am confident I won’t regret. Especially, when I look back at these amazing years watching my little ones grow up. I don’t want to miss those first steps, or first words or the hilarious things toddlers say and do.

But like with children… Nothing lasts forever… Everything is temporary! The crying in the night, the dirty nappies, the nursery bills and the part-time working! I do believe we can have it all and I will. I just need my children to be a bit older first! (I think!)

In June 2013 I completed my biggest physical challenge. I did the UK’s Official Ironman 70.3. Since then I haven’t done anything.

I have lost all motivation. Lost it! I can’t find it anywhere. Not in my salad bowl, my pasta bowl, not in my gym bag and not in my head! Call it post Ironman blues or post race depression… Whatever it is I have it and it’s been going on now for around 18 months.

When is it ok to cry at some one else’s bad news?

If a stranger, an acquaintance, a colleague, a friend or family member tells you something sad… Is it ok for you to take ownership of that sadness and cry? Or is it selfish?

An acquaintance of mine is having a very tough time (that’s an understatement!) We get on well and over the next year or so we could become friends. When she told me the situation she is in, with 2 very small children, I started crying. I felt so deeply sad for her and so helpless. But I instantly felt selfish! It’s not for me to cry. It’s not my sadness.

So it got me thinking… Does crying at someone else’s bad news take something away from them? To trivialise it… Is it like wearing a white dress to a wedding? For want of a better phrase: are you ‘stealing their thunder’? What’s more, does it make the situation worse for them?

When I got home that night I couldn’t stop thinking about my acquaintance. How will she cope? How can I help? Is there anything I can do? Ultimately the answer to some of those questions is very little. She has close friends and family around her, supporting her and whom I’m sure are stronger than I am and don’t cry at her sad news.

But what is the correct reaction to someone else’s sad news that you feel touched by? Is it ok to cry or are you stealing their sadness?

At the moment, I’m on maternity leave and a lot of my day is taken up with cleaning dirty bums, washing the high chair, cleaning up spilled milk and the occasional cuddle!

After I’ve cleaned up a little pooey bum I never think ‘great job Mummy you did well!’ But, a few days ago I did something I’m SO proud of.

I figured out how to put a pop up tent back in its bag!!! (I think this warrants 3 exclamation marks).

I was going to say you have no idea how much of a thrill that was… But maybe you do? Happy doesn’t cover it. I couldn’t wipe the grin of my face. I have to say my husband was pretty impressed too. The happiness and pride I took from this somewhat small achievement has kept me going for about a week.

I often find there’s not a lot to feel particularly ‘clever’ about whilst on maternity leave. During the day-to-day grind of running the house and looking after the children there isn’t a lot of time for deep and meaningful thoughts; at times my day feels like it’s filled with domestic trivia. So, it’s the little things that remind you of your abilities.