Day 7 - Eat together

Sit down together and have at least one meal a day together.

I'll admit, we don't do this. We eat dinner in the living room in front of the tv. Yes, we have a kitchen table, but we surely don't eat at it. We should be eating dinner at the table every night!! Our schedules are crazy sure, but that is the one meal that is most consistent for us. On the nights that Rob has school, Lil and I should be sitting down together. The more I type this, the more I'm thinking about what we miss out on by not sitting down together for dinner. That would be a perfect time to hear about the happenings in each of our days, what's going on the next day, and to listen to one of Lil's crazy stories!

Do you sit down as a family for meals? If you don't, why not?

xoxo

Day 6 - Play Time

When we allow our "play time" to dwindle down to almost nothing, we may notice that our relationships begin to suffer! Take time out to play!

Read with your child, cuddle your baby, build with blocks, play board games, play tag, watch a favorite movie, go for a bike ride, take your teen to dinner and just chat. Just be there, be all there!!! Show your family with one on one time how important they are to you!!

I love this photo from last winter of Lily, Toby (the dog) and her Daddy playing!!

xoxo

Day 5 - Flexibility

To maintain your levels of happiness in your life, no matter what happens in your day, be flexible. Don't be a perfectionist and do try to be adaptable in your expectations of yourself and events around you.

Do you ever have those days when everything is going good, and one little (usually ridiculous) thing just sets you off and changes your whole day?? If you are like me, I have a mental photo of how things should be, and when they aren't or they don't measure up, I get annoyed!! Of course, most of those things are completely out of my control so why do I let them get me so worked up??

I'm usually pretty flexible, until it comes to my own life, or the things that REALLY matter to me. But I really need to work on being flexible ALL the time!! It's not even the big things I need to be more flexible about...it's the little things. I found this on the internet, and I love it:

When you have a flexible mind set you're able to deal with crises and problems much more easily because your not working against a preconceived notion of how things "should be". You're able to tap into your creative problem solving skills and move through challenges without all the drama and frustration. Be like the tree that bends with the breeze - and you're much less likely to break

I bet my life would be more Balanced if learned to be more flexible!! Here's to being like a tree!!

xoxo

(to check out all of the other 31 dayers, just click on my Finding Balance button on the right hand side)

Day 4 - Self Care

You can't take care of others if you don't take care of yourself - Mary Mazzer

I'm telling you, I should post this quote all over my house!! I think I NEED this to smack me in the face, everyday, all day!!! Of course, it all makes sense....get enough sleep, eat right, exercise, speak kindly to yourself. Why is it that I can't follow through with these things??

First off, my sleep habits are terrible. Here's what it looks like : Mon-Fri I go to bed somewhere between 11 and midnight or later (usually the midnight side of things), I'm up between 6 and 6:30. No wonder I'm tired all the time!!! I go to bed even later on the weekends and sleep in for as long as I can. Really....so not good!!!!

Eat right.....not so much, Exercise.....not so much!!!!

The only thing I'm decent about is speaking kindly to myself. I like who I am!! Of course on the outside, there is huge room for improvement, but I'm bound to get there too!!

So....I am going to make that quote pretty and print it out to place around my house! I WILL read it and be reminded!!!

Don't forget to take care of you!!!

xoxo

Day 3 of Finding Balance - Quiet Time

Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself - Jessye Norman

First things first....family night DID NOT happen here tonight. The princess was in her room cleaning it for 3 hours, then it was bedtime. She knows that she missed out a night of games, and her heart was broken!! She came out of her room crying and walks up to me and says, "I'm so sorry Mommy" I asked her why she was sorry, and through the tears and crying she said "for ruining our fun night." Oh lord, I really, and I mean really wanted to cave!!! I gave her a hug and said we will have to try again, and that maybe when Mommy says to clean up your room you should get it done, and not play for 3 hours!! Hopefully she learned a lesson, and we won't miss out again!!!

So in doing some reading on balancing your life, one of the things I continue to read is to find some time for yourself- quiet time. We tend to give so much of ourselves, wearing so many hats, we forget about us! I do get me time, but I would not call it quiet time. I have time to hang out with my girlfriends, with my mom and sister, and time with the hubby and our friends too. I guess I wouldn't call it quiet time. I really don't have any excuses now, Lily is in school all day and I have two days a week off of work. I WILL have quiet time, a day for me to read, scrap, stamp, anything that is just for me!!

Here's to wishing us all a little quiet time!!!

xoxo

Day 2 of Finding Balance

(bad photo from my phone this am before we headed off to cheer)

And there is my reason for needing to find BALANCE. If I can find BALANCE in this crazy life of mine, I'm sure to be a better Mommy! I'll have more quality time to spend with the princess and her Daddy. Not that we don't spend time together now, but is it really quality time?? That is the big question. I am a firm believer that it doesn't take money or big plans or expensive things to have quality time together.

So the big question is where do I begin on this journey of finding BALANCE??

I think the first step to finding BALANCE in my life is going to be to set aside a family night. A night with no tv, no video games...just "us" time. A night that we can play games, go for a walk, go for a bike ride,read together...something that will get us to slow down and just be together, enjoying each other.

I really believe that it's the little things that make the best memories! I know when I was a child, it was the hanging out together with my parents and my sister that we still talk about, that we still remember!! We remember hanging out at the beach, playing baseball in the street, just hoping in the car to go for a drive.... Those are the things that I want Lily to remember, those are the things I want us to be talking about 30 years from now!

Somehow my parents always made it look so easy...I know now, as an adult, that it wasn't easy!! Those are the memories that I want Lily to have, I want her to think we made it look easy!!! If we keep going at the pace we are now...I honestly don't know if that will happen.....hence......FINDING BALANCE.

So...day 2 of finding BALANCE is starting family night, once a week. Our family night will be Sunday evenings from dinner until Lily's bedtime at 8pm. I'm actually really excited about this!!

Do you all have a family night?? What are some things that you do on family nights?

Don't forget to check out all of the other 31 dayers over at Nesting Place!

xoxo

Finding Balance.....

Well...here I am on the beginning of this 31 day journey of finding BALANCE in this crazy life!! (Be sure to check out The Nesting Place for all of the details of the 31 Day journey) I know I am no different than any other working, living, loving Mom out there, but sometimes I just feel like I fall short in so many areas. I guess we all feel that way at certain times, right?? It's not that I think I'm a bad Mommy...I think that I'm a pretty good Mom. Sure I make mistakes everyday, but I do my best and my baby girl NEVER has a doubt how much she is loved!!! It's not that I think I'm a bad wife, I think I'm OK at that too...I'm sure I need even more improvement at being a wife, than being a Mommy. (yes, Lily probably gets the best of me and the hubby gets what's left over, not a good BALANCE!!)

See...this whole BALANCE thing seems to revolve around Lily Rene'. I waited soooo long for our little princess, once she was finally ours, everything changed...she is the center of my everything!!! Everything I went through, all the pain, all the hell, all of the heartache...I would do it all again...knowing what I know now...knowing that she would be the reason for all of that!! I truly believe that GOD knew all along what he was doing, he knew this beautiful little baby girl was going to need us. He knew that we needed her. I believe that he chose her for us, long before she was even thought about, before we even had a plan for Foster Care or Adoption. He just knew!! (a little history here: I was diagnosed with stage 4 Uterine cancer at 27 years old, and had to have a hysterectomy ASAP, followed by chemo and radiation. We had no children, and struggled as a married couple with our options. We finally agreed on Foster Care to possibly adopt. We had some wonderful foster children, had some struggles, had some children we thought would be ours...but that wasn't the plan, had some bittersweet endings, met some really wonderful people who now have some amazing forever children and some really happy endings through foster care...of course the happiest ending of all was adopting Lily Rene')

So through it all BALANCE is what I need to work on!!! Now that Lil has started Kindergarten, and is gone all day, I really need to find a good BALANCE of time with her, BALANCE of quality time with the hubby who works full time and goes to school at night, BALANCE of me time, BALANCE and quality time to be a better daughter, sister and friend. BALANCE of time in general!!! I just need BALANCE and some motivation on the side would help too!!! LOL!!! I will spend the next 31 days finding ways to BALANCE my time and energy into being a better all around me, which in turn will make for a better Mommy, Wife, Daughter, Sister and Friend!

Hope you all enjoy the ride with me!!!
xoxo

Here I Go.....

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I CAN DO THIS!!!! (I must keep telling myself this) I'm joining in over at Nesting Place on their 31 days of change!! (Geez, this starts tomorrow, I better get busy) Thanks to my lovely friend Luz for leading me to the Nesting Place and to join her on this journey!! We've got this girl!!

You are all invited to join in! Here's the deal: You commit to blogging on a topic of your choice for 31 days. (I CAN DO THIS....have I mentioned I haven't blogged since Feb., and have NEVER blogged 31 days in a row....oh boy...)

I'm going to be blogging about Balance. The balance of life with a 5 year old who is now in Kindergarten, married life, work, mommy time, time for the two most important people in the world, and how in the world I don't screw it up!! This could get serious ya'll!!!

Enough for now...I must go figure out all of the other things I need to do!!!

xoxo

Happy Birthday to my Baby Sister!!!

A Big Happy Birthday to my Baby Sister today!!! Gone are the days when she would wait by the door with those LONG pigtails, waiting for me to get home from school, and yelling "SSSSIIISSSYY" with a big hug. Gone are the days when she drove me crazy (well, most of the time), but not gone are all of the wonderful memories of ALL of the crazy things we've done and shared!!!! Sometimes we took each other for granted and we've had our spats, our all out wars....but through it all, we always knew we had each others backs (sometimes we just forgot for a minute or two). I can't imagine not having my CRAZY, LOUD, IN YOUR FACE, TELL IT LIKE IT IS, BE THERE FOR YOU NO MATTER WHAT, Sister!!! I LOVE YOU ROBYNN ELLEN, and I'm so proud you are my baby sister!!!!

The photo above was taken by my BFF Jodie in October of 2010. Robynn and I had a mini photo shoot so we could make a collage of photos for our Mom and Dad for Christmas. Now I can actually share some of those photos.

Here is my Week 5 Photo for Project 52. This photo is the after effects of our "Blizzard 2011" Yes, we got that much snow pretty much overnight!! I've been back here for almost 14 years, and I still love the snow!!!

Lil and I have been spending my days off at Grammy's house getting crafty. Lil would move in with Grammy and Papa if we would let her. I just keep telling her it's way more fun to visit, cause they aren't as much fun when you live with them!!! LOL!!!

Hopefully you are all ready for the Super Bowl tomorrow??!! We are hanging out at Grammy and Papa's for the day (imagine that). Looking forward to a good game!!!
LETS GO PACKERS!!!!!

xoxo

I Got Crafty!!!

I had the day off yesterday and Lil and I went to Grammy's and got crafty! I worked on Valentine's Day cards for the daycare kiddos. I haven't made cards in sooooooo long, it was good to do it again!! Lil and I are going back to Grammy's on Friday to do it again!!

Here is my week 4, 52 Week photo. I took a different one, but for some damn reason that photo will not come off of my memory card, so I took another last night. Here I am will ALL of my gray hair!!! I am WAY to young to have so much gray, not to mention that my hair grows so fast!! I don't get my hair done until the 12th, I'm thinking I better not wait so long next time, cause this is NOT GOOD!!! I have to wear my hair up everyday, just to try and hide this crap!!!

This photo is also for the 52 week project, it is a white space challenge. I used a scrapbooking transparency, and took a photo of my favorite socks!!

Not much else going on here, snow day today. Nobody's working, and I have no daycare kiddos at the moment either. The snow is beautiful, we've got 15 inches outside my front door, with some crazy drifts. I'll try to get those photos up later.

I still need to get some of Lil's B-day photos up too!!!

Hope you are all warm and safe!!

xoxo