stretching my brain

[Alibongo33]

I have two dcs and I love being a mum but I would love to do something to exercise my brain. What do you do? I am a SAHM. Thank you.

Spider solitaire, sudoku, chess, I've had various mini addictions under the pretense of brain training but still none the wiser.

crossword puzzles, TED talks, LRB.

I read books I'd never otherwise have time to read. Picked up a new hobby - gardening - and learning how to do that well (quite technical). I'm also hoping to start a part-time diploma in counselling in September. And I'm compiling accounts of disabled parents for inclusion in a self-published book.

Anything to stop me writing endless letters of complaint to every municipal authority I can think of - too little parking, rioting in the park, vandalised swings, no biscuit in the kitkat - I need to be stopped !!

How old are the children? I.e. are they at nursery at all?

Could you volunteer at all? Charities are always after willing helpers.

For the sake of my sanity I used to put my then toddler daughter in nursery 3 days/week. I then became a trustee/Treasurer for our local CAB (was an accountant when I had a life I called my own). Obviously they need people to train to be advisors and administrators but we also love to get enquiries from people with a training/coaching/HR background/PR & Marketing/IT etc etc (either for one-off projects or for a regular number of days a week). There are so many cuts to funding that everybody is on the lookout for good volunteers.

How about evening classes? I really found it great to mix with adults of all ages from diverse backgrounds (not another new mum in sight).

When DD was a baby (and old enough to have steady bedtimes), I started evening classes. Portrait photography was great fun (I had a cute little model to hand for most of my assignments) and I ended up with some lovely inventive pictures of DD (rather than just snaps on my phone).

I tried Mandarin the following year. Lovely classmates, but we were pretty hopeless (apart from the primary school child who turned up from time to time when childcare failed).

From memory the prospectuses for adult education courses tend to appear over the summer.

Volunteering has saved my sanity. Luckily we can just about afford the childcare to enable me to do this a couple of days a week.

If you can get out of an evening, you could join a book group.