After Christmas and before New Year's 2021

 

Tomorrow my baby with be one year old. It is insane and amazing. I’m excited, proud, and sad. This means that the magical year of being together is over. It means the tiny newborn who needed me with him constantly will soon have to go to nursery and not know where I am. I honestly don’t even know how I’m going to cope being away from him.

Luckily, my work has allowed me to return part time on a trial basis, so I have three days in the library office abs four days at home. Steve is working from home anyway, so he can work a staggered schedule while Jack is down the street playing and painting and making friends. (At least, this is what I tell myself.)

I did not finish a book this year. Most days I barely had time to take a shower or even find time to eat. I did some things that I consider progress because I found a niche for my book series and started working on it. However, I’m not even half way through the first draft of the first of four books. But that’s just how it is and at least I have focus and a goal which is a lot better than where I was before. In 2019 I was pregnant and too exhausted to do anything and I didn’t even know what I was going to write when I had this whole year off.

I didn’t finish reading a book either. I have loads of books that need reading and/or reviewing but that is way down on my list of priorities.

So what am I looking forward to in 2021? What can we look forward to, really? I can hope that lockdown eases up a bit, so Jack and I can go play together. I hope that Florida gets its act together so we can visit my parents.

I have planned on a mummy blog and a podcast for the future, so that’s something to focus on. Aside from my family, there’s nothing really meaningful or mentally distracting to get involved with in 2021.

An Update for December 2020

It's 10 days until Christmas Eve. It will be Jack's first Christmas, followed by his first birthday. This week we have plans to see Santa, attend a Christmas "party," and listen to Christmas stories. I'm hoping all of it is as traditional as possible because right now, it feels weird celebrating the season when we've been at home all year anyway. But no matter, it will be fun because it will be Jack's first, so we'll enjoy that part. As of this week, I'm not longer on maternity leave but am on annual leave until February. It seems quite surreal as well because I've not been home for a year and I have a little boy moreso than a little baby. (Insert crying emoji.) I got to about 15K words for NaNoWriMo this year, so it wasn't a complete bust. I was going to cut my losses and make the book a novella since it's the first in a new series, but I've decided to aim for at least 45K or so. It's been really hard with mummying 24/7 but I think any writing I've done (and the planning for the series) is a win. The year has been productive as far as my personal writing hobby is concerned. I've also been toying with making a Mummy blog because the world doesn't have enough of them. Seriously, it makes sense when you're focusing on being a mother all day, your instinct is to write about your experiences. I'd started posting on Medium, but I think I'll go all in and make a site all of my own. For my bullet journal, I've watched so many great videos but by the time I sat down to work on a weekly spread, I was totally zapped of ideas. Today, I started working on this week's layout and decided to just make it how I wanted and not worry as much about perfection because it's my journal and no one else is going to see it (except my family). Other than that, it's just all Pick all the time over here. We're hanging in there as the rest of us are and just taking each day as it comes.