How is it mid-August already?

July FLEW by in a whirlwind of work, travel for conferences, and my first sleeps away from my baby girl. Who is not so much of a baby anymore but is still feeding a little. Yes, at 27 months the monster troubles that I had starting feeding her have not dented my commitment to breastfeeding. I feel like a secret agent for change when I offer her "bee boo"...

in public and continue with my latte-sipping, cake eating, life-living and life-giving adventures.

TheHusband is working stupid hours, so the past month has been full.on! He is doing 14 hours away ish most days, 1 week out of 5, 6 days a week. That means I do the wake-up, the morning, the midday, the nap, the afternoon, the dinner and the nighttime parenting and he misses out on it. I joke that I saw him once in the daylight last week (Saturday) - when I told a girlfriend that she laughed and said she'd seen more of him as she'd spied him *twice* on Saturday!

Hats off to single parents the world over. It is *hard* to run a house, run a family, work some, study and parent and keep sane. What falls down the list is me-things though, so I'm glad I fill my cup in a few ways:

• Doing something for myself beforehand
• Taking things REALLY slowly and leaving whole days unplanned, unfilled and unscheduled
• Investing in a slow-cooker so I can put dinner on at 9am and ignore it for the day
• Eating said-slow cooked meals over the whole week

That "something beforehand" was that I went to a breastfeeding conference on one weekend, and then the weekend after - I went away! I was meant to go to Hobart via Melbourne. Literally as I was boarding the plane I was informed that my flights were changed. Ok fine, that happens but I was not entirely thrilled with the 4+ hour layover in my home state's airport. I did not really plan for that so insisted on vouchers to spend on food. I had a laksa then an indulgent chocolate cake and coffee, killing time slowly doing some study. I then discovered that I was now going via Canberra, instead of the way I thought I was, which wasn't the issue - the getting in to Hobart at 9pm was though! So I missed the important part of the conference that I had planned to be at. That made me cranky/sad and tired.

I did get to meet the delicious Serendipity in Chaos though!!!! We had a total mutual stalking/appreciation club going on. I also re-met Kestrel from Bowl of Stones, who rocks in so many ways. It was an amazing weekend discussing homebirth and women and babies and birth and stuff and things. I also got to meet Rachel Reed of Midwife Thinking, of whom I am the biggest fan and who has re-instilled in me a love of the Welsh accent.

House wise - we are making great progress on the front yard. We now have 8 trees in, 4 more holes dug for something to screen and edge the front of our property, plans for a new path, a herb spiral and more fruit trees! Currently planted we have:

• lemon
• satsuma plum
• blood plum
• japanese mandarin
• prune
• peach
• pear
• something else

and we're going to put something deciduous in the front to give us a clear edge to our property and something else to look at other than the back of the houses across the road. 

In the backyard, the peas are going great guns, the beetroot and spinach are going well, the plot where the parsley, coriander and rosemary are was in need of a weed on the weekend because it's such a great spot for growing, and the ash is leafing at the moment!

Bring on Spring 22 September!