Were They Accomplished?

I had three goals this weekend: get out and ride my motorcycle, get the back deck set up so when I want to relax it’s available, and the third one was to get my blog post written for the week. Three simple goals. Three simple goals that were intermixed with three kids, three animals, work, and a hubby that took a motorcycle road trip for three days. The impossible, possible task was to not go insane trying to get my three goals met.

My hubby left Friday morning which is really no big deal, the kids and I had to be at work and school. The dogs and the cat are used to being home alone so their day was filled with barking and passerby’s (obviously the dogs only) and sleeping with the occasional walk to the water/food bowels. In all honesty I think Charlie and Lily (the youngest and oldest in the furry bunch) just wait to see what kind of trouble Jorj the middle furry child can get himself into. The boy loves to get stuck in my daughters room when he goes searching for the cat food. The kids get home before me, which usually means they have hours to sit, watch their screens and eat food. Probably not all in that order, and there is often a nap that splits up their activities. I am in no way calling my kids lazy, just unmotivated to do anything other than what’s in front of them at the time being.

I say all this because I realized that I have three humans that rely on me to do certain things with them or for them. Most of the time it is a give and take. I love the relationships that I have with my kids and will drop what I am doing if they ask me to help or do something with them. What I have to account for is the time that I give away is then subtracted from the time I set aside for myself. So Friday night after working all day, I had dinner and then spent an hour plus mowing our lawn so that Saturday would have more free time. I then proceed to do other household chores until sleep overtook me. What I convinced myself was this: If I got these chores done tonight I would have more time tomorrow.

You know what happened of course. Saturday was filled in with more things to do with the family and more chores to do around the house. Granted the back deck got done so I now have place to relax (when I set aside time to relax), but because I did not put limits on what I was doing, Saturday flew by and by 9:45pm that night I was forcing my eldest daughter to stop talking to me so that I could go to bed. Once alone though I opened a book and read, finally some time to just be.

Now I know the saying: they are only young once, enjoy it while you can. I counter with this, if you are so crazy tired from “enjoying every moment” are you really actually enjoying them? I am the kind of person that needs down time, alone time, time to regroup and get my head back in the game. I have a busy job, I have a loud family, and I have people and animals that count on me to be put together. So Sunday came down to this: my daughter and I already had the obligation to teach Sunday School, so that was set in place. The rest of the day wasn’t. So I rode my motorcycle to church so that I could leave afterwards for a trip around town. So two goals were met. After doing a couple of minor things with my kids, my downtime started. I did nothing. I sat on the couch, I read, and I practically fell asleep sitting up. It was awesome, no one needed me to do anything for them.

I know I chose to be a momma, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything, just as I chose to be married, have a job, and try side jobs along the way. I also know it’s my choice to let the activities and jobs that are going to be there anyway overtake what it is I really need to do for my self care. This whole weekend was a cluster of choices that I made knowing full well that I was going to be putting myself on the backburner for a bit. I am grateful I did that in some aspects because it was time with my loved ones, but in other ways I wish I had given myself more time to just be.

The work/school week starts again tomorrow. My hubby is home, the kids are gearing up for school, the chore lists have been assigned and the dogs have gotten their zoomies out g and are gearing up for a week of snoozing. What did I gain from the weekend? A mowed lawn, a deck ready for relaxing, kids who felt acknowledged, memories made and a hubby who came back from a good trip. What I wish I had gotten more of what “me time” and so I will strive this week to get that for myself. It’s a constant flow of trying to balance life, but in the end the balance does seem to come. Until next time:

Life is about balance. You don’t always need to be getting stuff done. Sometimes it’s perfectly okay, and absolutely necessary, to shut down, kick back and do nothing.

Lori Deschene

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