having. it. all.

We know women are supposed to be able to 'have it all' and alongside that for everyone to gasp 'I don't know how she does it'. Well, I am not going to review the book or film. This is a review of one person trying to reach that mythical place where you sit with a glass of wine in hand and go 'everything is done, achieved and I feel no guilt'. However, a bit like unicorns, this seems to be something you wish so hard would exist and yet, well, disnae.

I started this blog with the best of intentions. I set myself a goal [what doesn't get measured doesn't get done and all that management speak milarkey] of at least two posts a week. I thought this was very achievable. After all, daily there are many things to comment on re politics and the wimminz. Supply outstripping demand is usually a good thing. But my demand of myself outstrips my supply of time and brainspace to damn well blog.

There are things of course that I must do - go to work, wear clean clothes, cook dinner, sleep. If I don't do these then the basics of life get a bit awkward. Then there are things I feel I should do to be a rounded individual. Read the Sunday papers, go to the gym, do a spot of shopping, watch Newsnight, have some music on my ipod beyond the heady days of 90's grunge. See family, friends and spend quality time with that guy I sometimes bump into who I married.

Then there are the things that I don't need to do to survive, or to pass as a reasonably functioning human, but are supposed to be the rewards of achieving the first two steps. Watching Jason Statham movies. Learn to knit. Blog.

When did all three of those steps become 'must have'? That on top of all that I must also do a PhD, learn a couple of languages, travel extensively, bag several Munro's and pop out a family of kids who can do all these things too? And if you don't you must cultivate a constantly present low level state of guilt that every so often, just as you think you can relax, will engulf you and thereby reduce your relxation time to around 30 seconds.

I am not bothered about blog hits or bagging some kind of 'book deal about how I became famous through my blog' [not knocking it - it just isn't my goal]. So how ironic is it that a blog with a feminist slant becomes part of my 'having it all' - or, more accurately, 'doing it all even though the world won't stop turning if you don't' burden?

So - as the washing machine beeps to tell me the cycle is done, the timer on the cooker counts down to dinner being ready, and the guy I married because, you know, I like him, pours a glass wine and tries to talk to me I have decided. I like blogging but it has to be on my own terms - that means some weeks it will be a flurry of stuff - others there will be zilch. And if I need a Sunday snooze on the sofa a blog that purports to be in support of women will not stop me.