Put Down the Computer and No One Will Get Hurt...

A very long time ago, I remember my mother giving up books. Considering my own love and obsession with books, I really thought my mom had finally lost it. But over the summer, I suddenly had an "aha" moment. SHE PUT DOWN THE BOOKS TO CONCENTRATE ON THE DEMANDS OF HER LIFE!

We've had some major life changes over the past few months that have been changing the way we run our day-to-day life. My new job is much more demanding than any of my other previous jobs. For the first time EVER, I'm finding myself bringing work home with me to work on in the evenings and on the weekends. I'm checking my work email at 9:00 at night while the kids are sleeping. Then again, it's also the most fun I've ever had in a job, so I'm really not complaining. Just making a point.

On the other had, the kids are getting older and, as a result, busier. And when kids get busier, mom gets busier with them. Ann Catherine is now a Junior in Girl Scouts and moms are being asked to participate more. On top of that, this fall she started taking piano lessons from a wonderful mom in our Sunday School class (who also happens to be a music teacher and composer). So now we're taking her to lessons and helping her remember to practice daily. Finally, she's now a 4th grader and her homework is getting harder and taking longer.

Will, on the other hand, is...well...a handfull. As usual. But now he wants to do playdates with friends and he's being invited to birthday parties. And this spring, he'll start t-ball which will, I'm sure, progress on to other sports.

My calendar was so full that I was starting to feel like I was personally losing it. I couldn't keep track of what was next and I was missing appointments and forgetting to send stuff to daycare and school. To make matters worse, while my house has never been wonderfully clean, it was now getting REALLY BAD. My dust bunnies had not only mated - they were now great-grandparents and were holding frequent family reunions on my floors and furniture.

So I had to make a change. Unlike my mom, books are no longer my attention-getting and time-waster. My weakness is the computer. I play on Facebook, read the news sites, read emails, read the disboards, write on my blog, read 15 other blogs do my genealogy. If it was an evening or a weekend, I was on the computer. It was my retreat from the craziness of my world but, honestly, it was now my attention-getter and my time-waster. So I had to put the computer down and slowly back away from it.

I can't say that I never get on it now but it's nowhere near the amount of time I used to spend on it. And, as a result, my evenings are now spent helping my daughter with school and keeping my son out of trouble. My weekends are full of cleaning my house, staying on top of laundry, running errands, taking AC to piano lessons, doing church, and playing with my kids. I take them to the playground or we play games at the dinner table. I actually sit down and watch movies with them and snuggle with them on the couch.

So needless to say, my blog will probably continue to go frequently untouched and neglected. However, I can guarantee that when I infrequently post, it will be on a weekend (like today) where I'm fairly caught up on laundry and we only have one or two errands to run. And my other promise is that later today or tomorrow, I'll post another update that simply focuses on the kids and all the fun and exciting things going on in their lives (with lots of pictures).

It's not much and I'll never be the blogger that I once dreamed of becoming. But, in return, I'm becoming a better mom and wife. Even better, I'm maintaining my sanity.