Lessons Learned – and the Room of Gloom

It’s time for this week’s lessons and a recap.

Never underestimate the pride and emotion of getting ALL THREE KIDS to school. That day has finally arrived in our house, and here is the evidence to prove it.


One week on, everyone is still happy, and no-one has lost any belongings or got themselves lost (yet!).

Never underestimate the love of a cheese sandwich. My son declared his love for his new teacher, saying he loved her lots…..as much as a cheese sandwich! (Praise indeed).

Despite the fact that is happens EVERY YEAR I never seem to be prepared with sufficent appropriate wrapping paper to cover the exercise books sent home to be covered after the first day of school. Do kids (in reality it’s the Mum’s) do this in other countries? Here are a few of my middle daughter’s books.


Meeting up in real life with a bloggy friend was great. Jen was over from America on a belated honeymoon, and she met me on her birthday for lunch in Avoca Cafe in Belfast. It was lovely to chat, although at times seemed a bit surreal! We were both relieved to find neither was odd or creepy (!) despite some of her recent experiences of Irish hospitality. You can look forward to reading about her trip on her blog, but let’s just say she stayed in some memorable places!

Does everyone else have a calendar for September as busy and scary as ours? No matter how much you try to avoid it, so much is packed into these 4 weeks. Fortunately things slacken off a bit during October, then from mid-November right up to Christmas it is full-on again.

Finally starting to look at our options for our bathroom means I will finally share a “before” picture of our bathroom (aka the Room of Gloom). For a south facing room with 2 windows it has always appeared dull due to the black and grey/gray tiling of the early 90’s. In fact although the bathroom suite is white, we were sure it was actually that trendy colour of 1990 known as “whisper grey/gray”. We are having some plans drawn up, and I will keep you updated on the progress.

So those are my lessons from this past week. What about you, learned anything? Please share.

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16 Comments

  1. I love reading your posts. They are so fun and always make me think. You have a good balance going.

    My kids won’t be heading out the door until college. Rather a scary thought! Several more years ahead before I get to sit and read a book straight through again. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

    Are you in N. Ireland? I know a girl who works over there and met her man over there. They get married next weekend. It would be fun to see you both sometime. 🙂

  2. Sounds like the school year got off to a great start. It’s always nice when your child loves his kindergarten teacher as much as a cheese sandwich!

    I love the title “The Room of Gloom.” I’m sure you will be very happy to remove the gloomy gray, though.

  3. We have a busy month too!

    Your bathroom sink and tub look gorgeous! So, there’s a good start! We totally redid our bathroom when we bought our home and it was an ordeal…but worth it!

  4. We used to have to cover our school books as well. I always used brown paper grocery bags, that way I could decorate them however I wanted. It also gave me somewhere to doodle when I wasn’t paying attention in class!

  5. lots of lessons learned this week- some I rather would not have learned – there are reasons why things happen, and although we don’t understand why – there’s a reason. I don’t like waiting to find out the reason though.
    I’ve learned that sometimes -no answers to a prayer – are indeed the “answer”
    My cat turns her back on me whenever I point the camera to her –
    My husband is much better at grilling burgers than I am.
    Glad you enjoyed your lunch w/ Jen – I hope to be able to lunch at Avoca with you too.
    Have a great week –
    the kids are sooo adorable.

  6. That’s great everyone’s in school & loving it! We wrap books here too in the USA…as a kid I did it with paperbags from the market (and then would doodle all over them), but now the kids use cloth ones.

  7. yes we do cover books and notebooks here too!! but back in the philippines, we buy rolls of plastic cover, here they have ready made covers!! a bit more expensive though but they are ready for you to use. when i was younger, i would first cover my stuff with nice paper (like what you did) and then cover it again with plastic.
    oh!! goodluck with the bathroom renovation!! i am excited to see what will happen next…hehehe

  8. I love, love, love your scrapbook page for back to school, it’s adorable! Stopping by from SITS this morning, happy Wednesday to you!

  9. We have cloth book covers here. They’re really stretchy and are supposed to fit any size book – with the exception of the mammoth book your kid brings home with explicit instructions to have it covered by the next day. Then the thing never fits.

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