Do you ever have one of those days? Well I’m having one of those weeks!

I’ve come to the conclusion that teaching means living your life in blocks of 6-8 weeks. I find myself saying “oh I’ll do it in the next holidays”. This just can’t be right. There has to be a better way – a way that means being able to give 100% to my job but also have a life too … or maybe I just have high expectations of myself.

My car needs servicing, my roots need re-colouring, I have an insurance cheque from my hubbies car-crash twelve months ago that needs paying in the bank but I can’t get to the bank when it’s open. My house is a mess (ok I know that’s relative but for me it’s not as tidy as I’d like) – there are piles of textbooks “here, there and every flipping where” – there is a pile of paperwork that needs sorting out. I constantly have a pile of clothes waiting to be ironed or put away that my spare room resembles a laundry. I cut my garden back a couple of weeks ago and the cuttings are still in a pile in the middle of the patio (the green bin was full!)… I’ve got my mother in law around on the weekend and I can already hear her tutting as she looks behind my sofa checking to see if I’ve cleaned my skirting boards recently (ever!??!).

Sometimes people who have “real” jobs in the “real world” forget that I teach. I teach 20ish hours a week just like any other normal classroom teacher. I “happen” to blog a bit. I am not a professional blogger. I still find it amazing when I look at the number of hits that the blog gets, but then again is it because of this that it gets the traffic it does? The fact that I am a teacher – I understand the pressure that teachers are under and that is part of my reason for sharing. Across the country there are 100’s if not 1000’s of us doing the same thing and if I can save someone some time surely that’s a good thing? Right?

I remember the days when I worked in the real world too – my house was immaculate – minimalist but more importantly tidy! Thinking about it – I wasn’t home 2 or 3 nights a week so it would be tidy! I also had a lady that came in and “did for me” which may have helped. I also remember the reasons I gave it all up … I didn’t particularly like the person I was becoming: I was ruthless. Fecking ace at my job but so very shallow and harsh. There are times when I’ve seen glimpses of my former self recently and I don’t like myself when it happens.

As I wrote this I was reminded by my hubbie that it is all “self-inflicted” and if we hadn’t (using his words!) have “knobbed off on a jolly” to Hong Kong at half term I wouldn’t be stressing about the things I need to do – he also reminded me that I don’t “do stress” and just get on with it. He is right! He is always right!

I’m tired. I’m irritable and I haven’t eaten chocolate for a couple of days. Tomorrow will be “operation house tidy” and the first thing on my list is … chocolate!

PS: I wrote this last night and “slept on” whether to publish or not (and I never do that self-editing thing!) – the main reason being whether it was just me writing a load of twaddle and gumpfh (it is! but I don’t care!). The one thing I promised myself when I started blogging was that I would be true to myself the point is … we all have bad days …it really isn’t the end of the world! Today is a new day  … let’s do this!