At Holiday's End

I love school holidays. I love having the kids home and having all day every day to spend together. There have been video games, shopping trips, play dates, late nights and lots of art and craft. But now its all coming to an end, and they're going back to school next week. As much as I don't want my long, lazy days with them to be over, I don't think I'll have too much time to miss them, as I'll be returning to study too. I enrolled in a Library Studies course which commences on the 22nd, and I'm really nervous!

Every other time I've tried to study, I've been working full time as well and ended up throwing in the towel because I couldn't balance work and study. This time I'm not going to be working, so I'm hoping I'll be able to manage. But I'm still very nervous and my past failures are kind of hanging about like a dark cloud over my head. I can be my own worst enemy sometimes and I find it hard to get over not meeting my own expectations. I am really looking forward to it though. Its only a short course, and to a certain extent I'm able to set my own pace. Basically I will just pick up new units as I complete old ones. I'm hoping to complete it in a year at most, but if I can manage to finish in 6 months that would be amazing. Having said all of this, I don't even know what my workload is going to be like yet so I'm not really certain how realistic either of those goals are, but they're a starting point I suppose.

One of the main reasons I bought my bike recently was so I could ride to uni once the semester starts. I still haven't been for a proper ride though! The few times I have gone out, I've had the kids with me and it makes the goings rather slow. I should really go out this weekend and ride by myself so I can get a feel for going fast again. Its been so long since I last rode properly! I just don't feel steady and comfortable on a bike anymore. I know I'll get used to it again, but for that to happen I need to get out there and start riding!

The other day I bought my kids each a craft set from Spotlight, and today my oldest daughter decided to do hers. She chose a felt set that came with everything needed to make a princess ragdoll. She needed quite a bit of assistance as she's never done any sewing before and parts were quite tricky. But she was very pleased with the end result. We drew a little mouth and put some blush on her cheeks to complete her pretty princess look. These dolls were so adorable, I would have bought the whole set if they'd had them for sale. Unfortunately they only had this one design left. I'm going to keep an eye out though to try and find more because they're really sweet and a great activity to keep my daughter occupied for the day.