Well at least I hope so. Despite the five of us being overwhelmed by the flu, it looks like our situation – especially our financial one – is beginning to look a bit more positive.

From tomorrow, The Beef will be starting a full weeks work experience, with a builder’s merchants in Exeter. If all goes well, there may be a full-time job there for him come Friday. It’s a really big ask, he’ll be gone before we’re up in the morning and home well after the children have gone to bed, but I’ve constantly been reminding myself that this is the price we all have to pay, in order to make a living, especially when you have such a large gap in your work history.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It poses the problem however, of how I’m going to cope on my own. I’ll be honest with you, I’m no-where near the road of recovery – it’s somewhere far in the distance, beyond the horizon and every time I feel like I’m getting closer, I seem to be teleported right back to where I started. Even now my head is whirling with the potential situations I might face, analysing and planning every detail. But every mother does this right? Every stay-at-home mum has to face coping on her own sometimes, so why am I any different? Why am I still terrified at the prospect?

I’ve come to the conclusion that if I’m going to do this – which I have to, I have no choice if I want my children to have a better life than I did – then I need to throw myself into it completely. That means no blogging, no twitter, no popping onto the laptop to check my e-mails every five minutes. It means that from tomorrow, for at least the first week, all of my attention will be on my children, filling in the gaps where usually The Beef would be there to step in. Breaking the twins up when they’re fighting, finding interesting things for them to play with, and to actually get down on the floor and play, instead of leaving them to amuse themselves, while I stress over little details that really aren’t important.

If I have this distraction at the back of my mind, then I know that I will fall apart again, that I won’t be able to cope again. I’ll destroy The Beef’s chances of getting a job, yet again, simply because I can’t push myself past a barrier that exists only in my head.

Wish me luck dear readers, because it’s silence from here on out.

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