I woke up this morning feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. I even tried to get an extra hour of z’s, but to no avail. I realize I really don’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders, just a small portion, and certainly no more than anyone else, and probably much less.
It’s Sunday morning, February 5, 2012. My husband and I turned on “The Road to the Super Bowl.” It got me thinking about my road to the Super Bowl.
At some point last year, I created a Facebook account and figured out how to link my website to it. It worked, but not the way I had expected it to work. The link just became lost at the bottom of the pile of other postings. How to use this social networking site has eluded me.
All this snow was so much fun until the power went out. Now it's cold and dark in the house. My oldest summed it up last night when she said, "Having the power out is depressing; it's cold, dark and cakeless."
Before we fall asleep at night my husband and I often have laugh sessions over things our daughters do or don’t do. The topic of conversation a few nights ago was over their bathroom trash.
I was looking forward to my kids going back to school so I could sit down and concentrate on some of my career goals. Contrary to popular belief, being a stay-at-home mom is not a career – it was a choice – but the hours are bad, the pay is low, and it has no career growth potential, so I really need a backup plan. It’s actually the kind of job you work yourself out of, although it never really ends.
I have decided my New Year’s resolution this year will be focused on my daughters. For their benefit I am resolving NOT to be the perfect wife and mother.
My teen daughters got cell phones for Christmas this year. I know that’s not a big deal to a lot of parents, but I’m not a big believer of cell phones for teens. My younger daughter got a cell phone last year because her school bus dropped her off in the middle of nowhere and I wanted her to be able to call someone if for some reason we weren’t there to pick her up. But it was Dad’s old, leftover cell phone.
We have many family Christmas traditions. When people ask my kids what their favorite Christmas tradition is, they’ll say seeing the Nutcracker on Whidbey Island with their grandparents, making Almond Roca for family, friends and teachers and making (and destroying) gingerbread houses the weekend after Thanksgiving to kick off the Christmas traditions.
I never claimed to be a good housekeeper. There are just some things in life I really hate to do and housekeeping is one of them. So consequently, I put off many household chores until they are screaming for attention and I can’t ignore them any longer.
I was never around children much when I was a teenager. We lived out in the country, so I didn’t have the opportunity to babysit or observe people with lots of children. Consequently, I really didn’t comprehend what children were capable of at what age.
Well, Thanksgiving is upon us. I don’t have a large family or extended family, so I only cook for my two teenage daughters, my husband, my mom and me. Every year I contemplate the value of cooking a big Thanksgiving meal for five people, four of whom I plan and cook for five days a week already.
Last Friday morning as my oldest daughter was leaving for school she told me she didn’t have any clean pants. She was wearing Capri pants and although I noticed, I didn’t think anything of it because of our recent balmy autumn days.
Most week nights we eat together at the table. It’s a time to decompress and connect as a family. In the summer our eating schedule gets off, but because my husband still has a work schedule, I try to cook dinner and gather the kids for the meal.
Kent-Meridian High School - it’s the “scary school at the top of the hill,” right? It certainly looks scary sitting there on Kent East Hill, surrounded by chain-link fence, with a city bus stop right outside and a McDonald’s located across the street in a low income, ethnically diverse neighborhood.
I have forgotten how to have fun. It’s rather pathetic, but I realized the other day I struggle to have fun in my every day life. I was contemplating my inability to have fun and thinking of all the times I’ve had fun: partying in my 20’s, dating, getting married, delighting in my little kids, watching them discover the world. It was somewhere in the “delighting in my little kids” when I think I stopped having fun.
