No dear reader, it isn’t my birthday quite yet, but rather the start of another #Blogtober18 – a blogging challenge of a post per day for 31 days either following prompts or choosing your own theme.

In last year’s opening post – On (not) keeping it simple – I wrote about the pitfalls of trying to stuff too much into life.  Clearly, as I start another #Blogtober 12 months on, I haven’t learnt my lesson but the pre-mum me wrote a lot and the current me misses that so I welcome any helpful nudge to remind me to fit a bit more of Karen as well as mum in my life.

I think the bit where I might be a bit wiser though is that I’m slightly more realistic about not completing it – after all I’ve still got June’s #30DaysWild posts to finish…

Last year I had a really good reason to truncate my efforts as Faith’s heart surgery was unexpectedly and suddenly brought forward – Putting the heart into Halloween.

This year I am praying not only that I won’t have such a justification but also to accept that I don’t need one anyway – surely a husband, three kids aged 6, 3 and 1 and two jobs is enough in itself to make anything else come at least seventh on the list?  Simply doing the admin required by school and nursery seems to be a full time occupation and then there’s the large amount of time I seem to dedicate to picking things up off the floor…

Last year I did manage to fit in a day’s papermaking course and a half-day lino printing Christmas card workshop, both of which I really enjoyed.  The return of #Blogtober reminded me of this and I have now booked myself into an evening’s beginners pyrography event to restart my aim to regularly try out a new craft.  Once or twice a year might not be frequent but it’s regular right?

Do you manage to fit in some “All About Me” time?  How?  A

nd what do you choose to do with it when you can?  Let us know in the comments below…

#Blogtober18