The Blue Room

It is delightful being back at work with the Childerbeasts but I am missing my little Shorty friend immensely and am very tired. Being at work is the least demanding time of the day. That and the few minutes alone in the Blue Room.

When I have finished picking people up and dropping them off and doing another couple of hours helping the new high schoolers with their homework, I like to sit in the sun room in the dark. I forget about it till I'm turning off the lights to go to bed. Then I notice the Christmas lights that never made it down, making the room all glowy and blue.

It is rather still and special to sit alone in the peace of the late evening, looking at the mountain and faint glow of the city beyond . I should go to bed but then it seems I will wake up almost immediately and start again. So I forfeit some sleep for the luxury of doing nothing, being wanted by nobody and not having to be anywhere by a certain time... in the blue room.

PS It seems women who work have always had this problem as explained here so succinctly by the marvellous Madeleine Kahn.

Smurfs and Bedding!

I reluctantly dragged myself to the Smurfs today. We were given free tickets and families of seven don't say no to free tickets, even if it is to the Smurfs. The whole Smurf thing never really made sense to me but I figured I could take off my glasses, squint and think Moomins. Motherhood is about sacrifice, right?It wasn't that bad but is worth viewing just for the superb crochet babette rug made by the smurfs for the movie living room. There are some good close ups. I found I lost track of the plot (not a big problem) as I started to count stitches and tried to recall colours. Whoever really created it should be up in the credits. Maybe they were and I was too busy shaking off popcorn and looking for my Birkis under the seat to notice. For the last hour I have been obsessively googling for the pattern as it is a spiral granny square not a normal one. Excuse the photo of a photo but I haven't worked out how to get my Pinterest thing onto the blog yet. See how the yellow centre spirals out? So smurfy, so chic.

Meanwhile this is what boys do with sleepovers when they have no big brothers for the night and the father is in bed early and the mother is obsessively googling Smurf bedding.

The daughter has a friend sleeping over too. It would never do to throw out the equilibrium of the house with less than five children. Look at those filthy feet or maybe don't.
The music stands that the school made us buy three of finally found a use as props for the tent.
Oh! He popped up like a little marmot to get a pillow.
There are two of them sleeping in there with the light on-maybe not quite sleeping.
Good night, boys. Don't talk to any strange girls with stomach problems.

I see bed, people.