What were you doing ten years ago?

I like these threads where we get to know each other more and chat. What was your situation ten years ago and how much has changed or not changed?

Nothing much has changed apart from I am now 43 and DS is 21. He has just started at secondary school this time 10 years ago. It was just after the 9/11. Will was in the same job we havent moved or anything. We were probably seeing more of the family then than we are now. Ds two little siblings from his dads new marriage had yet to be born.

Financially slighter better off now than then but who knows anything can change?

Your Turn.

10 years ago we were not married, childless, completely oblivious to MSE ways I was working full time in the accounts department of a regional firm of solicitors, had lots of variety in my job. Just a shame a few short years later they merged and I ended up in a job where my most important job was getting the cheques signed

Wow 10 years ago i had 4 kids aged 2,2,6 and 10 and my house was even more busy, messy and chaotic than it is now. OH was still working onshore so money was a lot tighter than it is now. He was also paid weekly so budgetting for food, fuel etc was easier but monthly bills were harder.
I was working full time as a carer and we hardly saw each other he came home at 5 and i started work at 6 till 10 and worked 12 hour shifts at the weekend when he was off.
i was still a not very good cook and hadnt discovered my passion for baking yet, so was quite a bit thinner
It was also around this time my mum was diagnosed with leukemia and it seemed like the whole world stopped and fell to pieces at the same time. she became very ill very fast and was in ICU unconsious for 6 weeks and in hospital for 6 months, when she came out she was in a wheelchair and could hardly move. I gave up my job to become her carer as my dad still had to work (he worked away a lot)and she couldnt be left alone
Thinking back i dont actually know now how i got through that time it was madness but we all made it through in one piece

10 years ago... I was 18, a goth, stupid, had no real life skills bu was living on my own, had no idea about money, could barely cook, drank way too much and was basically on a self destructive downward spiral which culmonated in a nervous breakdown about a year later. I'd not even met the man who'd become my husband yet; but I was living in a uni halls flat/house thing with the man who introduced us, and who eventually became my brother in law lol. and living next door to the woman who is now my common law sister in law.

and i never could have imagined that in 10 years time I'd be a married mother an housewife, it was soooo different from "me" at the time!

me now (in a skirt I made)



me then

I had been living with Dan for 4 months, having met in April of that year. We shared a house with another couple (one of my university friends and her bf), I was working in a guesthouse in York. That was it really, no responsibility just socialising, working and that was that!

Gawd this makes me feel old! 10 years ago the children were aged 9, 7 and 3 and I was a full time stay at home Mum. DH was working and money was tight but the children's needs were less than they are now that they're older. We were still in this house but the garden was an overgrown jungle (it was landscaped for my 40th birthday by Dad & DH). My life was a constant rush round with school runs, brownies, beavers, swimming lessons, play groups and the like. I remember being happy though and realise what my Nana used to mean when she said that the times when the children are little are the happiest. I used to think she was mad but now that they're all older I know what she means! Not many problems in those days couldn't be fixed by a hug & a drink of juice.

On the flip side now there's only the boys at home, my time is my own a bit more, I can go to the loo and bathe alone and enjoy their company. It's fab to see DD come to visit and give her lots of advice re washing clothes, cooking and cleaning. She actually told me yesterday that she thought I had it easy until she had to do it all on her own - bless!

My daughter was 13. I was living at another address. Nothing much has changed.