Time is whizzing by...

Tap, tap, tap...

Hello?

Is this this still on? Can you hear me out there...?

Sorry I have been so silent around here.

What can I say? Life has been a tad BUSY.

Unoriginal? Yes.

The honest truth? Absolutely.

My "part-time" job often feels like a job and a half...perhaps because motherhood does constitute a full-time job and therefore I really AM doing a job and a half. Makes sense to me.

It makes me wonder where the happy medium exists. When I was home with the girls I felt, in a way, 'busy' - but a lot of it was just busy work (laundry, errands, preschool pickup/dropoff, etc...) and I did not feel like I was using even a small fraction of my brain most days. It was mundane and predictable and I had quite a bit of time in which to do all that mundane stuff. I could procrastinate on chores because after all, "tomorrow is another day."

Now, however, my brain is on overdrive as I learn all the new things I need to know for my job, I am rushing through my days and feeling like I don't have enough time in the day to do it all, and the faster I run the behinder I seem to get...not to mention the big behind that I AM getting because I have no time to actually "run" (or walk). I miss my morning walks with Lauri. We used to walk from 6-7am. I now leave for work by 7:15 three days a week and the other two days are jammed packed with all the things I used to spread out over the course of a whole week.

I honestly do not know how any mom with young children can work full time and still manage to stay sane. Each and every one of them deserve an award - one that includes lots of cash and yearly allowances of chocolate and wine!

So, what exactly has been going on in the Elastic Waistland? Let's see...

We had a lovely Christmas here at home. Rick's brother and nephew visited from Virginia and were here for about 5 days. Santa was very good to the girls and they loved their gifts. Eldest girl loved her crystal growing kit, her snake and manatee webkinz, and her new books. Middle girl's favorites were her new dollhouse (taller than she is), the seal webkinz, and her vet kit. And youngest girl seemed pleased with just about everything, but especially her Little Pet Shop virutal pet. Santa gave her that because she had been asking for a Tamagotchi for a while but this virtual pet seemed more age-appropriate (I'm just guessing as to Santa's rationale for not getting her the real thing, of course - what do I know?).

Just after Christmas I decided to get back on track with my exercise and try to get my weight back under control and did a treadmill workout. I figured I would be fine with an interval workout that included some hills. Boy, was I wrong. I ended up wrenching my back but good and was flat out for three days in bed and literally could not move without excruciating pain. I iced it, took plenty of Advil, and have been to my chiropractor three times in the last week. It is definitely getting better but it's still not quite right.

I'm now officially afraid to exercise. The pain was that bad. Being afraid to exercise is not good if I hope to get the weight off. Not good at all. I am going to wait for another while before I try to get on the treadmill again and I will NOT be doing any hills. Nice and flat and slow to begin. My back problems are making me feel old. Old, I tell ya!

During the week or so that I was incapacitated Rick took care of everything. He is amazing and I'm so blessed to call him mine! The poor guy was probably happy to head back to work after the New Year's holiday. Work probably seemed relaxing after the week he had at home taking care of everything.

Now that the holidays are over and it's the start of a New Year (how the heck did that happen?) we have already begun to look ahead to vacation planning. It's that time of year, after all. Time to think about summer vacation destinations and what we may be able to afford. I have been bringing in a good amount of money this year but, fortunately or unfortunately, most of it is paying for a new roof. Sexy, huh? Just what I always wanted to spend thousands of dollars on. A new roof! Yee. Haw. I am thankful that we will be able to just pay for it outright and not deal with a bank loan but it's just not all that gratifying to get a new roof, ya know? I mean, if it were leaking and causing problems already it would be a relief to have a new roof and it might make spending that kind of cash somewhat more palatable. But of course I don't want to wait for that to happen. It is much more sensible to plan ahead and take care of things before they become an issue. Sensible is never very exciting, is it?

So, vacation planning thus far is limited in my mind to an April vacation visit to Virginia to stay with Rick's brother and nephew for a few days and perhaps a long weekend or two to the Cape to stay with my parents. The Cape is nice enough, don't get me wrong, but when you grow up there it sort of loses it's "vacation" appeal. In fact, we prefer to visit there on the off-season when it's more peaceful and serene and the beaches are nearly empty.

Other than that - there is not a whole lot going on around here. Rick and I are both busy with work. My MIL is being a saint about taking the girls when we need her to based on my somewhat crazy schedule. In fact, she even offered to feed them dinner last night and put them to bed so Rick and I could go out on a long overdue date night. We happily took her up on the offer and went out to see Gran Torino (I would recommend it) and went out to a favorite local restaurant for dinner. It was lovely - a much needed break.

The girls are doing well all around. Eldest and Middle girl are doing well at school. Eldest has been making strides in her ability to talk in class. She did a book report recently where she had to present a poster she had made about the book and she also had to present some information with a classmate about Native American Pottery. Both presentations went very well according to Eldest girl. I was relieved to hear that she has been making such huge strides in this area! Middle girl is learning to read and for Christmas I bought her some My Little Pony beginning reader books. She is doing so well and impressed grandma last night by reading one of them to her before bed. Youngest girl is finally getting used to going to her godmother's daycare. It took most of the fall before she really started to feel comfortable and I was worried about going back after the break. Thankfully, she adjusted again very quickly to the old routine.

Due to Youngest girl's long adjustment period to daycare and my work schedule, we have opted not to send her off to our beloved little preschool next year. She is going to continue to go to daycare for at least one more year. I'm very sad about it but cannot fathom working out a sane schedule when I work three full days (Tu, Th, and Fr) and the preschool is only four half days (Monday through Thursday). It would be difficult and I am only hoping that we can manage to deal with it for a year so that she will have the experience of going to that same school that the older two attended. Time will tell.

Ok, I think I've babbled long enough and probably many of you tuned out long before this last paragraph. I will try to post more often so that I don't ramble like this again in the near future!