My husband had asked me a few days ago why I haven't blogged lately.  Stating it would be therapeutic and I need to start doing it again.  

Sadly I haven't had anything really stick with me a while lately to even consider blogging except something that has been bothering me about my personal life. So here it is. 

How to find the perfect balance in life.  Job, Family and Personal Time. 

I've been at my current job for seven years now.  It started out just being a job I got and needed at the time.  It's a good job considering the town i live in and for someone with out a college degree.  I have good benefits and some pretty great co-workers.  Yes granted it is not where I thought I would be in a job at this stage in my life. As any job there are the good days and the bad days.  Days you can't wait to get to work then days you dread even getting up to have to go in.  I get two weeks vacation every year, which most of it is gone before the year is even close to half up due to sick kids, because i can never accumulate sick leave, or sitters how aren't able to care for the kids that day or for my husband.  Out of seven years I have yet to take a vacation day for myself or even a sick day, I end up having to get docked for things. This year I've managed to hang on to 32 hours so far left of vacation and of course bare minimally sick leave.  Last week my girl was sick for two days.  I stayed home for a few hours with her the first day then decided to go ahead and go on into work so I could save my sick leave.  I went into work on the second day and worked all day.  The whole time I was home I just wanted to get to work because I knew I couldn't afford to take the time off.  Then at work I was beating myself up for not wanting to be at home with my little girl who was sick just so I wouldn't have to use vacation time.  What is wrong with me?  

My kids go to school every day from 9 am to 3 pm, which is difficult for me working 8 am to 5 pm.  So we have hired college girls in the past to help out.  So far since August of 2011 we are now on number 4 for child care giver.  Our current one is great, she picks them up every afternoon and takes them to her house and keeps them for me until I get off work.  Her family is moving so now I have until spring break to find a new one.  I find a great sitter and guess what now we are loosing her.  So just to finish out the last two and half months of the school year we have to find another sitter.  This will total number five for the whole school year.  So with that being said, how important is my job when I can't even seem to manage to keep child care for them just so I can go to work and make about 100 dollars more than what it cost to provide care for them.  To me it shouldn't be this hard to find help.  Not to mention the fact my kids get use to each of the girls and then wonder why they aren't around.  What is that doing to them. My daughter has pretty much had a new sitter every year since she was born, all due to issues out of my control. But I seem to hit a road block every time.  Sending our kids to the school is a sacrifice and a great one at that.  I do not bring in a whole lot of take home pay from my job.  But it does pay my car payment each month, the sitter for two weeks, and usually one to three utility bills.  So I feel horrible about even thinking of having to leave my job and the security and that little paycheck, because I know at least somethings could get paid. 

It seems to take me a lot of mental time to get out of what I call "mommy mode" to even focus on my marriage or myself.  What is that. To me I see myself as a mom so it's hard for me to see myself as a wife or just a person in general.  Which means in the long run our marriage does suffer some.  So how to find that balance of wife and mother.  The husband and myself have pretty much polar oppose schedules.  Trying to squeeze in time together is difficult without planning ahead, and in this house hold planning anything in advance is just a waste of time. 

When my husband was overseas I made myself take time to just de stress. I usually took a spa day and had a weekly girls night out to go eat and to a movie. I felt as if it worked. It's been a while since I've done that. In the past few months I've had a couple of nights out with my friend to go eat. Knowing I need to start taking more time for myself, but how to do it without feeling guilty. Guilty over the time away from the house, not being there when the kids go to bed every night but just the sheer cost now days for just one night out to eat and go to the movies much less a spa day.  I spend $20 bucks on myself and tend to punish myself for weeks because there is usually a bill that the $20 bucks could go towards.  Then there is the fact of when does my husband get to take time to himself. He works every weekend and usually every day during the week. If he doesn't work every day then he usually has one or two days off he spends doing jobs around the house that need to be done.  He is on a softball team and is coaching my daughters soccer team.  So being rational minded how can I take time for myself and feel right about it when he can't either. I spent a whooping $60 bucks on myself this year with my tax money and sat here all week regretting it because that would of covered the water bill.  

There are things I want in life and want to be able to do and or see. Do I want to go back to school, maybe.  But the thought of paying so much money for a degree I'm not not crazy about. Just knowing any degree is better than nothing is what goes through my mind, but paying that much just to have one baffles me.  Taking the nights off to do that and of course there are some courses I would have to go to during the day, that wouldn't work with my job. 

So the never ending battle of what to do……  Stay at my job and make ten years so I get three weeks vacation, in the mean time having problems trying to find help with the kids.  With the job I can't be involved with the kids school and have the issue I have now with the sitters knowing more than I do.  Leave and find a part-time job to help out to make my car payment and hope the hours work around the kids school schedule easily.  Go back to school during the kids school schedule and waste more money on something I'm not sure I even want.  

Why is it that wanting to work makes me feel as if I'm a bad mother.  Then there are those that say I need my job and quitting would be the worse thing possible and I shouldn't even think about it, then those that are mad because I think to much about my work and not enough of about my kids and family. 

Why do I want to please everyone and not myself, granted I need to know what I want first.  That is a question that has never been answered. 

To all the women out there that are working wives and mothers,  how do you find time to balance it all? Time for your job, your marriage, your kids and for yourself. 

Having a flashback night.. Watching Girls just want to have fun from 1985' never seen it but it is driving the hubs bonkers.. He's sitting there with his headphones going, oh were you even born then.. Yes dear I was only 2! :) Ha..

Watching this movie made me think of the 80's and 90's when I was little and how things have changed from then to now.. Spending the summer days when I was younger at my grandparents.. Getting out there early in the morning and sleeping a bit or on the rare occasion watching cartoons, the good ones, before a breakfast of homemade biscuits with grape jelly.. My Nanny made the most awesome homemade biscuits..My Grandfather would always eat them with sorghum syrup or molasses when he was out of sorghum.. Sorghum syrup oh the most awful smelling stuff.. Then playing with toys (actual wooden toys) and watching price is right with my Nanny.. Then lunch followed by the afternoon nap, which was taken on an actual pallet made out of blankets in the living room, not on a nap mat.. I use to play in the dirt with pots and pans and wooden spoons making mud pies or anything I could imagine out of dirt.. I am pretty sure that on some occasions I ate some of the mud pies either my choosing or my older brother well being my older brother.. When weather would hold out we would go to the creek and go fishing.. My Grandfather finally got fed up with me loosing my rod in reels in the trees so I would have to sit on the banks with my Grandmother and use a cane pole.. Talk about slow.. I couldn't sit still for a minute and still can't.. But those were some of my  most prized memories.. Including my Grandmother's angel food cake with the most awesome strawberry frosting.. Just wish my kids could grow up like my brother and I did sometimes.. Not now days where it's all tv and movies or video games.. Sadly though this day in age it's hard to just slow down and do those simple pleasures with the kids.. I remember the days we use to roller blade all of my hometown during the summer with our friends and it was cool with the parents as long as we checked in with them and was home in time.  I would NEVER let me kids do that now even where we live now..Wow how times have changed even from when I was little. It makes me wonder about the quality of life that the kids now days are being given.. 

My nightly baffle.... 
How is it sometimes the most simple things just seem to stump me.. Going to go grocery shopping tomorrow and usually I make a generic list and then just walk up and down the aisle and get the same thing every time.. Well decided I would do a menu for this next week.. Planning a menu of foods we like to eat for a week, simple right, NOPE.. It has taken me almost two hours to figure out seven meals..  Good grief what is up with that.. 

Here's my lunch time food for thought.  This morning I read two different articles, both unsettling in their own ways.
1st was an article on msn news website about a father who was suspected in his wife's disappearance and had two young boys, 7 and 5.  When the social worker brought them to the house he supposedly had it rigged to exploded and catch fire, killing himself and his young sons.  I always tend to read this type of  disturbing articles I want to cringe the whole time, why I keep doing this to myself who knows maybe because they are in all of the news meida's these days.  As I'm reading it my usual anger/disgust of harm to and towards children took over.   Tons of questions: how, why all the usual questions.  But at the end nothing can be changed by what has happened, all I can do is say a prayer for the grieving family and for those two precious boys.  Who are with the one person who ultimately loves them in heaven. Lord I pray peace on the family of Braden and Charles, give them comfort and peace during this time of their lives.

2nd was an article in the local paper of a person sentenced to 35 years for a drug charge. In the interview it was stated that they had realized what they had done and was grateful for the second chance even if behind bars  That he/she would have the chance to get a GED and take some college courses. I'm all for people getting a higher education. My thoughts were here this person is going to be in prison for years and while there can get a GED and work on some college courses.  Here I am never having altercations with the law, employed full time, mother and wife.  Wishing I could afford to go back to school and get my college degree, but sadly enough if I do that then my kids would go without. This idea just baffles me.  But all in all it's not too me or others, this may be the exactly where God wants this person.

Okay so that is enough of my thoughts on the issues in the news today.

Well today is Monday and as Monday's go it's not too bad but the usual did not want to get up early and go into work. Took a few hours to get going.  But getting my lunch time refueling and then back to the grind to finish out the day.  Good Monday afternoon everyone.

Got up and decided that the kids and I should actually go to church for the first time in a very long time.. Meet up with my brother and his group for what turned out to be a relatively good church service..Granted I'm not against church just have not been other than the occasional visit to the parental's church.. I am one that if I can convince myself of a relatively reasonable excuse I will end up talking myself out of everything, including church.. Considering I have two awesome kids who I love more than life itself I figured I better actually start showing them what mommy tells them.. Sending them to Christian school alone doesn't make it all work out.. So here we go trying to get back into a church..See how this works out..I am a believer in God, in my own way, have a big issue with the whole letting go of the control.. Defiantly in prayer..My mom is my own best prayer worrier with a whole army of prayer worriers at her finger tips.. I don't think there is hardly a day that goes by I don't talk or in this day of age text with her, which that in itself is very weird, but she is one of the most awesome women I know..

The scripture was over 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 1.. About how the Thessalonian people stood up for their belief and faith in the Lord against all odds (or what I retained from the pastor in between football analogies and topics).. During the sermon the thoughts going through my head were yes I know God loves me, and my kids. But sadly utter fear also rang out.  As the pastor was talking about if we were prepared for the rapture all I could think was my kids.. What would happen to my kids..Total mommy mode for me..But then I remember also thinking back that God wants us all to believe as kids do pure innocent and completely.. So then I realized my kids are probably way better off than I am today.. If that alone doesn't help kick start my rear end back into this, then I'm in pretty sad shape.. Feeling as if a spotlight had been lit on me the whole sermon and everyone around was staring right at me and saying "yep she is so lost".. I have always said I believed that everything happens for a reason and my reasonable brain knows that I can do all I want but no matter how I try to fight things are just way beyond my understanding..

Where I stand today, am I 100% proud of all that has happened?  NOPE.. I never will be either..But hopefully I can find a way to make my future, my kids future better..  To say that the past few months well shoot years there has been something missing.. Maybe this is it (okay okay I am sure this is it) that since of feeling you get from a great group of church family members and just that since of release you get after a good church service and a sermon that cuts so deep to you it hurts..
I have felt as if I am a hamster on a wheel.. Not getting any where just in a stalling pattern and running my legs ragged.. Maybe now I can seem to get a since of direction..Knowing this will always be a an uphill battle but to something greater than I can even ever possibly imagine..I want that since of peace and awe and total humility.. I want my kids to look at me and say, my mom she rocked.  Going back to what the pastor said.. If it was the rapture right now I'd probably hide under by bed of fear of the unknown and just shame and embarrassment for what and how my life has been up to this point.. Sad isn't it.. Some that know me maybe shaking their fingers at me knowing I have my fair share of second changes in life, better yet most of them know I have been given a second chance on life..Sad to report that to this date other than my two kids I haven't amounted to much.. 

New year, try to keep a positive upbeat look at the daily life I have and the great things I do have already.. Instead of dreading and fearing what tomorrow brings or may hold..Just enjoying today and my family..Maybe I can start to feel some accomplishment however small with that as the first stepping stone..