Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Keeping It Real - Priorities and The Things I Stress About

Yesterday I wrote about priorities as a mom being subject to whatever comes your way. While my post yesterday was for the day, lately I’ve been struggling with my priorities overall. Right now I’m a stay at home mom – after being a ladder climbing career woman for almost 20 years. My oldest is 6 and attends 1st grade and my 3 year old is home with me. Some days I feel like Super Mom – I accomplish a lot of household tasks, I do fun and semi educational things with my son, I get dinner on the table and help my daughter with her homework. Other days I feel overwhelmed and certain that I am not focusing on the most important things.

Some of the things that I get stressed on are:

My son is 3 and doesn’t know his letters and can’t count past 3. Am I failing him as a mom? Does he need preschool or should I put together a homeschool curriculum for him? My oldest was in daycare and learned most of these things in that environment.

My daughter needs more focus on her homework – she is a good student but not overly ambitious. Do I push her harder? Do I make it her responsibility to do more than what is ‘just’ required? Is just dance lessons and Daisies enough or should she engage in more extra-curricular activities?   Can I handle more activities????

I am frugal on a lot of small things. I hang dry my clothes, shop sales with coupons, menu plan, keep my electronics on light strips that I shut off, stretch leftovers and pack lunches for my daughter and husband. I did just initiate a refinance on our mortgage - which is a big thing. But I know we need to close a financial gap and that the continuous slow tapping of my severance isn’t good. Do I need to work harder at saving? Do I need to suck it up and go back to work full-time? Is there more that I can do from home to make money?

I have holiday planning, vacation planning, winter survival planning, organizing the house and the kids, my husband, and myself and ahhhhh…..so many things running through my brain. On top of it I added this blog to my list of things to do. Honestly though this is the one thing I feel is for me. Selfish or narcissistic as it sounds, I find myself energized by writing this blog and receiving positive feedback on what I put out. I have so many creative ideas that I want to implement and I get so excited about them – I just don’t have the time to get to all of them quick enough. The excitement for a project that is all my own has been awesome for my brain and my self-worth.

I just needed a chance to vent and also to let my readers know what’s real. I read a lot of blogs about homemaking, frugal living, homeschooling, cooking, parenting, faith, etc and sometimes after reading these I feel incredibly inadequate. However since I’ve been writing myself, I know that a blog is often ‘life edited’ for readers. Yes mine is that quite often – but for the moment I wanted to keep it real.

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