A time to reflect

Ben has officially started working nights and my goal is to finally do more blogging. It's always been something I think about doing but don't because I'm too busy or don't have the energy or desire, but I'm going that now that most of my nights will be solo, I'll find the motivation and take time to reflect.

I love the idea of being a blogger. Of writing things that are witty and touching. I don't really care if anyone reads them but hope to be able to look back one day and have a glimpse of our life. I feel like I've become so dependent on Facebook for that. I put little tidbits of my day, quotes from the kids, a cute picture, a funny story, whatever, there out of was and convenience but those things get buried amidst the other crap I like and share. I want to be able to put my thoughts here. I want to find a way to step back and really breathe in my life and maybe writing about it will help, or will at least help me figure out a way to call with some of the daily struggles of being a working mom and wife.

I feel like I've had a lot on my mind lately. I want to be someone who lives without regret, but my own awareness of that almost feeds the fear of having regrets. Does that make sense? For example, this past weekend was Noah's 6th birthday party. He loved it. We had it at Grounds for Hope in Lisle. He and a few friends enjoyed playing in the treehouse and then we went to the party room for games, cupcake and gifts. I like throwing parties for the kids. I like coming up with cute ideas, like pin the birthday hat on Noah and my diy obstacle course. But with hosting parties, you have to be on and entertaining. There's no time to stop to take pictures or to just pause and watch my boy having fun with his friends... I mean there is time, but in the chaos of the moment, I almost always forget to take those breaths. And them afterward, i do feel a weird variety of regret that I didn't enjoy the moment more....

But that's just one example. I worry about missing the little moments in general. I feel so stressed and ragged so much of the time. Today I worked all day and came home in time for Ben to leave, and then I did dinner, bathed Emily and bedtime, which was done around 9pm. I want to take care of myself. I want to start going to a chiropractor and getting massages. I want to be able to get my nails done or go shopping without feeling like I need to hurry home. But there's no spare time. And on the very rare day when there is free time, I choose to spend it with my family. It's a double edged sword.

And then there is money. I am incredibly frugal. I'm starting to think to a fault. I feel guilty about spending money on myself and often buy several things and and up returning most of them. I don't like the idea of spending money on myself when in the back of my mind, I have dreams of traveling with my family when the kids are a little but older and I wish we could create a slush fund for vacations but we can't because add people with debt, putting money aside for a trip seems irresponsible.

And then I hate that part is me that does get jealous of people who can buy or travel without second thought. So they realize how lucky they are and how I wish I could take my kids to Disney every year too? (I'm not a Disney person, and while I do want to take my kids there sooner than later, I would totally target spend money mixing it up... But that's me.)

I'm at a weird time in my life. I want to just fully wrap myself up in my children and shut everything else out but I need so much to lean on others, even though I have zero free time and much of my human interaction (besides when I'm at work) is done through the computer. But even that has become tiresome. People who make and share their every bad decision and women who can't agree on a girls weekend because it doesn't meet the needs if the entire group... I digress.

I think this is a bit of a vent. Needed to put it to the universe and get it off my chest. So now tomorrow is a new day and I will make every effort to breathe it's sweetness in deeply and take breaks to observe and enjoy the fleeting moments.

Xo, Mindy