2017 has been a tough year. This year has challenged me more than I ever expected. I’ve learnt many, many lessons during this year.
I’d love to be doing a positive post about how awesome 2017 was, and it was in many, many ways but it was also one of the toughest years that I’ve been through since I started NHM. I thought 2016 was really tough but it was NOTHING compared to this year.
There is so much that I want to say about 2017 but it’s too personal to share. I’m still processing a lot of things that have happened this year and it feels like this is going to take a while longer.
But, I’m still here, so are you and so is NorthHantsMum and I’m very, very grateful for that.
2017 on NHM
January
“Joyful January”. I’d love to try this again in January, so if you are interested, please let me know!
I was asked to be a sponsor again for Basingstoke Track Party, I finally got around to putting together an FAQ for the site, and this heartbreaking post was sent to me by a local Mum.
February
Miss NHM and I were verbally attacked by another parent on school property. It wasn’t a very nice experience but I’m very proud of myself for not swearing at her. Miss NHM was very shaken up after this for a long while after. I wanted to blog about this but we had too much going on at home.
March
With everything going on in my personal life it was a struggle to publish every week day. I am incredibly grateful to the AWESOME NHM Support Ladies who have really come into their own this year and helped me out immensely on NorthHantsMum.
April
I dealt with a Domestic Abuse situation via NorthHantsMum. This was waaaay beyond what I ever expected to be covering on NHM and I found it a very stressful situation, even when it wasn’t happening to me.
May
Miss NHM was diagnosed with a lifelong autoimmune disease. The floor fell out from under our family.
June
NorthHantsMum turned 6 years old.
Mr NHM was the best man at his best friends wedding and we had an awesome day!
July
We discovered that Miss NHM was being subject to abuse by one of her Teaching Assistants. The schools behaviour in response to this, particularly the Head teachers, was despicable.
My friend Sue took Miss NHM and I to see our first #SittingwithJane bench.
The school holidays started. NEVER have I needed the school holidays to start than I did this year.
August
Miss NHM started to heal and wasn’t quite as anxious or stressed as she had been, mainly because she wasn’t at school.
I came up with the inspired idea of keeping a #SittingwithJane bench in Basingstoke. The irony is, this was one of my goals at the start of 2016, to have a bench in a public place that Mum’s and their children could use to meet at.
Unfortunately, with everything going on in my personal life, I dropped the ball in 2016, so when it fell into my lap in August 2017 it just seemed so perfect.
The whole bloody project nearly broke me.
Next time I decide to take on a project of this size, with a seriously sick child, a full time job in part time hours and the summer holidays – will someone slap me please?
September
In the first week of September. we removed Miss NHM from her school as it was clear they weren’t going to listen to us or the medical profession, my Mother had what they now think was a mini-stroke, we moved Miss NHM to another local school, the washing machine, boiler and my car all broke and on the Friday I had the #SittingwithJane auction, which the Teaching Assistant who had been subjecting my daughter to abuse was also at.
It was a very, very, very stressful week.
But we got the bench. YAY! Congrats again to those winners of the competition.
Huge thanks again to everyone who donated. I’m still waiting for the Basingstoke Discovery Centre to put up the plaque…
October
I sent out the first NHM Survey in over a year and had some AMAZING feedback from you all. Thank you!
It meant even more after everything that’s happened in the past two years, to know that my time isn’t being wasted.
I started the “Inspirational Mum’s” programme.
November
Myself and a couple of the NHM Awesome Support Team were very kindly invited to review Absolutely Karting. Which reminds me, I really need to write that post up! Opps!
December
I FINALLY sorted out the “subscribe” option on the NorthHantsMum.co.uk website. I’m not technical so this was a huge step forward, to work it all out and get it all sorted. So you can now receive all of the posts published in your emails. Double YAY!
I published a post about Y2 Autumn Term.
Final Thoughts
Normally I’m so upbeat and positive on NHM but I’m not very well today which isn’t helping and it has been a really, really, really tough year.
But I’m very grateful and thankful that as a family we are coming out of it and that you are all still here supporting NorthHantsMum.
I have no idea what 2018 will bring for any of us, but I do wish you all an AWESOME 2018.
For those of you celebrating tonight, have a great one! For those of us who will be in bed long before midnight, sweet dreams :-D.
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