10 things I learnt this week

As the end of the week approaches and I prepare to take myself to the Big Smoke for lunch tomorrow, I thought it a good time to reflect on the lessons learnt this week. It's been a busy week in The Old Girl, with lots of decisions to be made - decisions about paint colours, decisions about shoes, decisions about the 13 pages of edits on my novel.

Exhausting.

So here's what I learnt this week:

1. I am terrible at making decisions. When there are too many decisions to be made, I make the decision to go to bed. Unfortunately, this decision cannot be followed by the appropriate action most of the time, so I am left dangling about the place.

2. My children delight me more than I ever expected. They are also a greater source of anxiety than I ever imagined. There's a balance in there somewhere, and sometimes we actually find it. This week the wins were big, and losses niggling and troublesome. But the school holidays are upon us and we're all more than ready for a break.

3.  It is possible to love a pair of red sneakers.

4. The days of the week are named after Norse gods. Thursday, for instance, is Thor's Day. I could also take you through the finer points of the Runic alphabet, but I suspect it takes a great deal of love to weather that particular storm and I will not subject you to it. Suffice to say that Mr8 can write his name in Runic. Which is bound to come in handy one day.

5. Reading the end of a book first is not always a good idea.

6. It is difficult to know exactly when to pull the flannelette sheets off the bed. I nearly peaked last week after one sultry night of 12 degrees Celsius, only to be very happy that I'd been feeling lazy that day when the temp topped out at 3 degrees Celsius the following night. Seriously. Is there a handy guide for this kind of stuff?

7. There are very few rooms that cannot be brightened significantly by the addition of a little bunting.

8. There is a very good chance that I do not need every single one of the 4444 items currently languishing in my email inbox.

9. I tend to overuse the word 'very'. I will take Mark Twain's advice and insert the word 'damn' instead. So point 7 now reads 'There are damn few rooms...' and point 8 reads 'There is a damn good chance...'. I think it makes me sound racier. What do you think?

10. Clearing space in one's head often comes down to clearing space in one's schedule. By saying no to several things this week I was able to stave off the whelm and make some good inroads into my novel edits. I am feeling much relieved. Thank you all for the good advice and support.

I have just one more thing to learn this week, and it's this:

Do you still have flannelette sheets on your bed?

[image: from here]