A Life Update

I made a promise to check in with just a plain old, uninteresting (to me anyway) "hello" post here once a month in 2017. I know I don't post a lot of personal stuff here, but aside from an amazing part time assistant and some fantastic occasional contributors, it's just me here, unglamorously typing away from my home office (which is currently a corner of my kids' room while we feverishly continue in our search for a larger home), and it's important to me to keep things real and authentic. So hi. Here I am!

This month has been pretty exhausting, because it's smack dab in the middle of Robbie's busiest time of year with the band, and aside from this week, he's been gone constantly except for a quick 48 hour stop in once a week. That means it's just been me here with the kids day and night, trying to meet work deadlines in between Essley's preschool and activities and a raging double ear infection for Emmett, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't really hard. Emmett isn't a good sleeper as it is, and when he's sick he wants to nurse all night. It's just a lot. I could go easily on and on about how sleepy and stressed I am, or how guilty I feel for putting my kids in front of Sesame Street or Moana on repeat while I'm frantically trying to return work emails, but the truth is that even though our situation is unique in terms of our work schedules, this is just part of being a working parent to little kids and it's not going to be this way forever. I love being a mama and I adore my kids, and when I do have five minutes of down time to myself, I appreciate it profoundly. So it's hard not to be grateful, even when I can't keep my eyes open..

Aside from that, things are...

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Aside from that, things are good. We've still been house hunting, and while that too has been discouraging, we are trying to manifest something awesome appearing very soon. A great lesson I was taught through Emmett's illness and how he has so miraculously come out of it (he is literally running now, saying all kinds of words, and just being a normal - whatever that word really means - 14 month old little boy) is the power of positive thinking. So even when I feel overwhelmed or negative, I make the effort to try to be grateful for what I have and have faith that things will work out.

In a week it will be two months since my stepdad passed away, and we're all just doing out best to remember the things we loved about him and keep his memory alive. My mom is selling their home and moving to the town where we live, and I know it would have made him so happy to know that she'll be so close to the grandkids, whom he adored so greatly. We've also made plans to go on the annual trip huge family he took for decades to Door Country Wisconsin in the summer, and can't wait to celebrate him there.

And speaking of trips, the four of us are headed to Arizona in a couple of weeks for five glorious days in the sunshine. We're all really looking forward to getting away for a few days and spending some time together as a family.

Today is Robbie's birthday, so while I'm taking the time to actually write out a personal, life update style post, I'm also going to give him a little birthday shout out here. Happy Birthday babe! Thank you for being such a hardworking, kind, loving husband and dad. We adore you, dude.

Are you still reading? I can't even think of the last time I've given such a long personal update here, but it felt good. I'm thankful beyond words for the fact that I'm able to come to this space everyday for my job, and to actually earn income for my family by being creative, but sometimes I really miss the old days when blogging was just an informal diary. Maybe we need to start a movement where bloggers and influencers spend one a day a month just checking in, old school style. I'll think about that one and get back to you.

Oh, and the photos scattered throughout this post are just a few random favorites from the last six-ish months, in no particular order. They've made me realize though that we haven't taken any family - or  even partially family - photos in quite a while. I'm going to make sure we get on that on our vacation. Thanks for letting me share, guys!

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