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You know those weeks where it feels like all you’ve done is either work or housework? The ones when your to-do list keeps growing rather than shrinking no matter how much work you’re doing?

Well this week is being one of those bad boys. Half the teaching staff at school are currently off sick, which has made things all the more manic for those of us still holding on!

It got to the point this evening that I had a little self-indulgent, stressed out cry and basically got a hold of myself.

Life is too short to let work stress get to me. I’ve not been too bad at putting on a positive front this week amidst the chaos but a mammoth staff meeting this evening tipped me over the edge.

I need to make more me time. Time to blog/vent/spend some time just writing the rubbish in my head/what’s going on in my life. I like my little patch of internet and it’s been sadly neglected of late.

I’ll post soon about my lovely and wonderful hen do, which was helped along by some very lovely and very wonderful friends!

Tonight, however, is not for work. It’s for abandoning the pile of marking in favour of gin. I’m consciously turning my rubbish Thursday night around into a great Thursday night. I’m putting my big girl pants on and refusing to let work get to me anymore. Even typing that feels like a weight being lifted!

Here’s to less work stress and more gin!

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Today is my 30th birthday. The first birthday that actually feels like a proper grown up age.

It’s also my last birthday as  a Carville. I like that I’ve had 3 whole decades with this name, it feels nice and rounded, here’s to many more with a new name!

I’ve been thinking about turning 30 a lot recently. As a child 30 seemed ancient, I was convinced that by this age I’d be married, have a couple of kids and be working my dream job . That’s not quite how things have worked out and, do you know what, I’m OK with that.

I’m really happy with where I am in my life at the moment. Turning 30 is only going to bring good things, getting married, a hen do, holidays in Edinburgh and Italy, and that’s just for starters!

For the first time in my life I think I’m finally starting to be accepting of how I look. I actually have days now where I look in the mirror and think that I don’t look too bad. I’ve accepted that I’m always going to be on the glow-in-the-dark side of pale, I’m always going to have a face full of freckles, my hair is always going to lean towards the frizzy and unruly, and my body is never going to look like that of a supermodel. And this is fine with me. I have a brilliant partner who loves me and my ghost legs, and 5 foot 7 isn’t anything to be sniffed at, even if my legs don’t go up to my armpits!

There’s a lovely sense of relief that has come with being less hard on myself and how I look. I think that’s definitely come alongside being more mature. Not making resolutions this year has helped this too, by putting less pressure on myself to do certain things or behave a certain way I’ve found I’m actually enjoying life more too.  This seems so glaringly obvious, that it’s a bit silly it’s taken me 30 years to get to this point!

Anyway, enough rambling. I’ve got a feeling 30 is going to be a good year. Happy birthday to me!

This Saturday marked my first time joining in with Louisa and Janey’s photo an hour challenge. It’s something I’d been meaning to do for a while, but never got around to. I really enjoyed having to make the effort to take a photo each hour and, in some instances, making what I was getting up to seem interesting/appear photogenic!

Here’s what I got up to:

9am: Still in bed reading. I’m currently reading The Book Thief, it’s the next book for my book club and I’m thoroughly enjoying it so far. (Although a friend has warned me it gets a bit emotional!)

10am: Finally dragged myself out of bed, trying to make myself look presentable ready to leave the house! I’m loving this Bobbi Brown Smokey Eyes mascara at the moment, it’s SO good.

11am: Went for a lovely little walk with Jonny down to the Crook of Lune and grabbed a bacon sandwich. They are great at the little cafe there and make mine using the gluten free bread I provide for them.

12pm: Needing to leave the house via car rather than on foot I found my little Fiat a tad icier than usual.

1pm: Made it  into Lancaster to do a couple of little jobs and pick up some bits and pieces. I was trying to be sensible and not splurge on myself but Lush lured me in. As usual. I left with a bath bomb, and a bubble bar. Oops.

2pm: Back home needing to get some school work done. I stuck on Sawdust by The Killers to give me some background noise whilst I planned for next week in school.

3pm: It started to snow! I’m an overgrown child and bloody love snow. This distracted me for a good 10 minutes. Although when I’m working it takes very little to distract me!

4pm: Re-fuelling with a brew in front of the fire trying to warm up a bit!

5pm: Trying on a couple of sale purchases from ASOS and Boohoo. These are for our minimoon in Edinburgh. I won’t be sporting bare legs in April, these are only as a result of taking my jeans off to try on the dress.

6pm: Blitz cleaning our bomb site of a kitchen so that I actually had worktop space to prepare dinner on! Cleaning on a Saturday night. I know how to rock and roll.

7pm: I made hazelnut ice cream. This sounds a LOT nicer than it was. I tried a Pinterest recipe using frozen bananas. It was rank. Jonny ate half a bowl (to be polite.) I ate a spoonful and gave up. Absolute Pinterest fail.

8pm: Playing Scrabble. This is by far my favourite board game.  Although it does make me horribly competitive. I blame my dad for this.

9pm: Still playing Scrabble (but almost finished by this point) now accompanied by a bottle of red.

10pm: We stuck the fire back on, put our feet up and settled down with a film. Jonny’s reading the Harry Potter books for the first time so we’re watching the relevant film each time he finishes one. This time it was The Order of the Phoenix.

I’m definitely going to join in next time, it was great fun, and I loved looking through what everyone else was up to on their Saturday. It’s the perfect activity for my inner nosy-parker!