Disclaimer

Families are weird, aren't they?

I was always concerned about blogging about The Husband and The Money (or lack of both...) because I didn't want to be disloyal, and I was aware that you would only be reading my side of things. However, I felt safe in the knowledge that hardly anyone I knew read The Happy Housewife. Oh, how wrong was I?! Now people that don't read it are telling other people who don't read it not to read it because it is too personal, too intimate, too revealing....

Odd. The blogosphere provided a safe arena in which I could anonymously offload, and there is nothing that I have written which I would be ashamed about anyone else reading anyway - it is just that as a family we don't talk about stuff. It isn't done.

So - just for the record. My marriage is very wobbly - but it is far from over. In fact we go from strength to strength. My children are amazing. We have no money. That is it in a nutshell.

If you don't like reading the details of The Happy Housewife's life, you're in the wrong place. And far from being shockingly intimate, I think I have been remarkably restrained. This is the forum I have chosen to work through some of my issues. Gently, thoughtfully and with a sense of humour, I hope. I have chosen to confide in a community of women whom I have never met, but who provide advice, encouragement, love and support, because they are not afraid to talk... and they make no judgements. Life is Hard Work, but it is no different to anyone else's.

I love The Husband very much. Very much. He knows I write here as The Happy Housewife, and no, he doesn't read it often - he respects my need to get Things Off My Chest.

I am sorry if I have offended anyone I know, sorry if I have been Too Open and aired my Dirty Washing in public, but I write. Other people might paint or do drugs or have affairs. I write.

Christmas was exhausting and I ate too much, but I spent it with my family, surrounded by the people I love, and we all enjoyed it. Life goes on.

I don't know when I will write again as the Happy Housewife - and if I do, I don't know what it will be about. Probably the usual boring minutae of life as a mother of 4, doing her thing on a shoestring budget, and dealing with the ups and downs of married life to a man who is wonderful but utterly and totally frustrating to the point of distraction. It is no big deal. It is the same life as millions of other women all over the world. Except maybe I am a little pre-occupied with food - the preparation of it, the cooking of it, the eating of it, the taste of it...

This isn't a novel. It is a record of my thoughts and feelings about my everyday life. There are good days and bad days. Sometimes I am Jolly and sometimes I am not. That's life. You are opening the pages of a personal diary - albeit one liberally sprinkled with Culinary Adventures. Personally, I can't believe it merits any Great Discussion.

Who knows what 2007 will bring?