I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my life. I didn’t plan to do it, at least not until it kept happening enough that I figured it might be worth paying attention. It hasn’t been so much a sit-down-and-get-it-done think as it has been a series of thinks that just pop up every day, those short moments where you get this completely clear understanding of, well, everything, and then it’s gone. But you know it was there, so you keep thinking about it. And you keep putting “sit down and think about this until you have a plan” on your to-do list every single day, but every single day it gets carried over to the next day… you only make time for the things you truly want to make time for, and this one seems a little too intimidating to make time for it. Projects I can’t be sure of completing perfectly have a hard time even getting off the ground around here. I should change that. I’m a shame on the world of perfectionists; I’m such an extremist that I can’t even bother to try…

I started blogging four years ago. Part of me wants to stop. Everybody else is just starting, and I’m done, which is silly. Part of me knows that stopping would be bad for me. I can’t handle letting a good idea go to waste, and sometimes those good ideas are not tangible things needing to be created but just words that need to be put out there. Without a blog, where would I put them? Not a journal; the two are completely different (and I really think the illusion that one can replace the other can cause a lot of regret down the road. Journals, blogs, and scrapbooks are all very different entities.) I need a blog. But the thing with blogging is that you have to have something really good to say, and you have to have the time to say it [at least almost] every day. Blogging is a very timely sport. Heaven knows I’ve got a lot in mind to say, but whether or not it’s the best use of my time to try to say it on time is another story. Shouldn’t I be living, instead of spending time writing about living? Too often my half-baked effort at devoting time to blogging turns posts into a bunch of nothingness that shouldn’t even have been published in the first place. Maybe I should stop making myself feel the responsibility to record things, because while they wait for the time to be done justice they are quickly stacking up in my mind and driving me over the edge. But writing about living is almost what makes living wonderful, because you can go back and live it again. Or in my case, actually experience it in full because you missed understanding it the first time.

While I recognize the impact of and have most certainly been a frequent part of the family blogging movement, and while I am glad for the place that it has in the blogosphere (helping people to keep in touch within their own social circles), I’ve always been a believer that the real purpose of the blog is to be a venue for material that is universally applicable. Not a “this is what I did today” log but something people can relate to and be inspired by, something that sparks blog posts of their own and is food for thought. That’s the kind of blog that I want. Those are the kind of posts flying around in my head, waiting for a spot to land. I want a 100% blog or no blog. This is not it. If I choose the 100% route, I’m starting anew.

But I’m still choosing. I’ve had these vague feelings of rebellion against the blogging world lately. Why? Why do I spend time with page after page of people I don’t even know and this web of materialism? So many blogs that I used to enjoy for their heart and soul have become nothing but perpetual wish lists. They connected me to Etsy - which I’m now also having a love-hate relationship with - and they gave me lots of good inspiration that I liked. But now I feel like I’m in these networks enough to see right through them, and I don’t like how they all just try to be each other. I’m kind of disenchanted with it all.

I think that I could walk away from all of that right now, and be leaving with all that I needed anyway: the opportunity to learn some things about myself and to do something about them; a jump-start. I’ve got that, and call it turning your back on the one that got you there, but now I want to be my own.

Which brings me back to my starting point, of how I’ve been thinking. About what I really want to be. Quarter-life crisis? I have this unreasonably strong need to not settle, unreasonable to the extent that it is keeping me from being anything at all. My mind is so ambitious but I just sit here. I feel like the lists of things to think and learn and write and say and do and be are literally eating me up on the inside, and Trevor thinks that is just me being dramatic but, since it’s been a pretty steady feeling for a few months, I beg to differ. I don’t want to start (start what? I don’t know. life?) unless it’s awesome, and by awesome I mean narrowed, defined and integrated into everything about who I am so that I can actually achieve it. I don’t feel like I’ve ever done that. There was only one time in my life where I was 100% deeply absorbed by a pursuit, and it wasn’t a good thing and I have never since been able to harness that type of motivation again. But I need to, but it needs to be in moderation. Sometimes you just can’t be awesome at everything. Choices, planning, focus are in order. I have to learn to focus. When I packed up and left for college, my ability to focus moved out too but to a separate destination; I need to go find it and bring it back. I need to decide what I’m going to do and then do it 100%. I’m not sure if blogging is a part of that. I’m thinking I’d rather live well than try to blog well about living mediocre. Cause then I have a mediocre life AND a mediocre blog. But maybe I can do both. I don’t know. I certainly might be even worse off without a blog.

So what do I want to be? I’ve been keeping a mental list. I need to write it all down; I’ve tried but haven’t finished, and I think it will be pages of paragraphs long. But I need to know what I’m going to work for. One thing I’ve come to realize (with some help from the hubby) is that I love change, I thrive on it. I had no idea, I never would have guessed, but it’s true. Who would have thought? I crave change. I feel like I can make decisions better now that I know. Husbands have this way of discovering yourself for you, and then you feel all liberated and ready to rock and roll.

Anyway, I’m still deciding. I’m sorry that I always change my plans and change my blog. But it’s kind of exciting, don’t you think? Maybe I should change my hair too.

I have discovered the secret to running. Basically it involves pride and stealing.

(Former) roadblocks to running:

1. I don’t pace myself.
2. I hate the feeling of not being a regular.
3. I quit easily.
4. My feet hurt.
5. I lack a strong motivation.

Trick to triumph:

1. Borrow your mother’s 2006 Hartford Half-Marathon shirt, and don’t give it back, and then wear it when you run.

This is working for me. I’m aware that I did not run a half-marathon, but I am happy to let the people that I pass in the park think that I did. Those words on “my” shirt allow me to run at my own speed, for my own distance and in the location of my choice (now that I have a long-sleeves option). I can think to myself about how the people I’m passing just might think that I’m training for my next marathon when really I’m only training for my first mile. While long past the insecurities of high school, I am still quite capable of utilizing the judgments of others to the advantage of my own motivations: I realize that not a soul in Memorial Park except for me is noticing or caring about my run, but it’s a pride thing; I’m more likely to just keep running a little further if I tell myself that the people around me are expecting me to keep running a lot further. I like to comply with positive expectations. Also, running on a gravel trail is so. much. easier. than running on concrete. It felt like heaven to my feet. With my shirt, I feel like I belong on that 2.5 mile gravel trail instead of on the 1/4 mile concrete loop in front of our house. I’ve been on my own version of runner’s high ever since and I’m excited to go back tonight, excited to push myself a little harder and break through and on to my second mile, and on to my thirteenth.

Because really, the whole reason for running is so that I can tell Trevor I need another plane ticket for next October. I’d never ever stick with training if it were for any other marathon… but Hartford? Here I come.

My shop is coming along well. Promos will start in November (if all goes as planned) and I am just bursting at the seams to be ready faster. I feel like this one home video we have of Caleb “playing” the piano when he is probably two years old and he keeps wiggling so much on the bench that he looked like he really did have ants in his pants. And that is how antsy I feel. Be excited.

With that feeling is coming the timeless battle between my selfish me and my selfless me. My family will always win; I’m certainly 100% set on that issue. I think I just didn’t ever expect this choice to be hard; mom-ing full-time was always the plan and I liked it that way. I am therefore now entirely unprepared for the fact that it is, in fact, hard. I didn’t think there was a close second. There were career possibilities I would have enjoyed pursuing but they didn’t hold a candle to being at home for my children. They still don’t. But this? It’s a tempting pursuit that’s very… here. It’s with me, at home, constantly on my mind and constantly evolving. I’m going nuts wanting more time for this. New ideas just give me these explosions of energy that have nowhere to go, and so they stay trapped and demanding to get out while all I get to do is sit on the floor and build another block tower with my wonderful perfect son who deserves full attention and instead gets me - a mother mentally absent 40% of the time. I doubt I am the only mom whose mind has a hard time staying on the task at hand, but sometimes it feels like I must be - am I? - and I should do better.

I want both parts of my life, and I know that both are possible if I were just better at making it all fit. (Like, say, if I didn’t ever need to sleep. I resent sleeping.) I need to become as successful at compartmentalizing my time and focus as I am at compartmentalizing tangible objects, and words on a list, and food (I’m not sure how I compartmentalize my food but I’m pretty sure I could probably do it). Reasons I need both include:

One, I dig a crazy life when it’s due to something I love. Having these beautiful ideas not-so-patiently waiting for their turn is much preferable to having those maddeningly slow days of repetitive-block-tower-building (which, let’s face it, are an inevitable part of parenting regardless of what else I do) that would and did used to come anyway with nothing super swell to look forward to at the end of the day. Long sentence.

Two, everybody knows you’re a better parent when you get your personal time. Max is still new enough that three hours to myself is enough to make me miss him. I want to be careful to not use the rejuvenation reason to unfair advantage though. I think the moms of the generation before me gave up lots more than I’ll ever have to give up, and I feel slightly like a wimp. They didn’t get to be constantly connected to the rest of the world all day long (no power certainly taught me about that one!) and didn’t have as many opportunities to mix home and work. My mother chose me over a college degree and has never taken a day for herself since then, it seems, and never complains about it either. I am not that selfless of a person. Life with children will help me along in that direction I’m sure, by brute force if necessary. At some point my kids will take up enough of my time that there won’t be enough left for me to have a side business. If I’m ever going to try it, now’s the time. I enjoy it so much that it’s got to be here, even if only in little amounts.

Three, I’ve found that having this constant choice of how to use my time has actually made me a better mom by nature of the fact that I’m more focused on remembering my priorities. When I’m aware that all I really want to be doing is working with paper, I’m also aware that unless it’s those designated hours a week for paper, those little hands grabbing at my hair and clawing my neck and begging for my breakfast spoon are more important. And so I treat them more importantly. Being in first place doesn’t mean anything different from being in last place unless there’s something in second place. I’m learning that I need there to be something in second place - a lesser of two good things to push the better thing forward. So far I’ve felt like it is helping my days pull in favor of my son. I think that once I get in a groove, it will work out well.

If you read only one thing today, it should be this. Especially the end; it is perfect and just what I think I needed to know, and I wouldn’t have paid attention if it weren’t written in that way that just pulls you in and makes you wish on the whole world that you could say it like that…

I’ve been focusing too much on wishing that I had all day every day to just create. But now it seems so obvious that the inspiration for creation comes from my every day, when I am about my regular life. Now I wake up anticipating what good ideas I will find from my day, and I appreciate the feeling of waiting to create. It’s like Christmas!

This was our best baby purchase. Of all!

Almost every time I go out with Max in this, I get asked by at least one expecting momma or a grandma or even once a 14-year-old boy in the grocery store who said his family was looking for a baby shower gift - “What brand is that? Oh I’ve heard it’s so good but I can’t find it anywhere! Is it really as good as they say?” So I am here to answer that question for you. Yes!

I tried two different slings before this and they were okay while Max was a newborn but not after the first month or so. I did a LOT of research and after declining to buy any carrier I had found in any store, I came across this recommendation in an online review for another brand. When it came in the mail I put it on, slid Max in and when we looked in the mirror we looked just like the people in all the advertisement pictures - they don’t lie; we really were both smiling and comfortable and ready to go conquer the wherever we were going!

If you are or plan to ever be in the market for a carrier, even if your baby is older already, here’s the answer! You can go to the site and read all the positives they say about it for yourself; they’re true. When we go on vacation I don’t even bother lugging a stroller along because I have this. It has allowed me to navigate things like crowded stores and airports and hiking so easily and in an emergency it would be the second thing I would grab on my way out the door (second only to the food backpack!). I’ve carried him in it for 3 hours at a time just fine even though he is getting so big. It is worth every penny.

It is not that the guy’s got so many gold medals he probably finds them lost between his couch cushions or accidentally run through the washing machine. It is not that he’s got so much muscle he could probably sit down on a couch today, not get up for the next 80 years, and still have more muscle left on that day than I have at this moment. It is not that he has little teenage girls all over the country plastering his photo on their desktop and his name in their facebook status.

No. The number one reason to want to be Michael Phelps happens at breakfast, lunch and dinner and every time in between.

The other evening during his race I told Trevor I bet he gets to eat like at least 8,000 calories a day. And then today we find out it’s not eight, but TEN. Or twelve. Seriously?? The guy could eat like a whole box of donuts for breakfast and not even blink an eye.

That is definitely and certainly by far the best motivation I have ever had for becoming that thing people call “active”…

I bought these today. They’re fun and fabulously comfortable, and I don’t have to wear a belt. Yay. After reading the online reviews I expect they will fall apart after the first washing… which is disappointing… but I’m not letting that ruin my enjoyment of them this evening.

But I have to stop going to Target. Every time I set foot in the door I spend at least 4X the money I’d planned, and I’m talking benjamins here. They get our whole paycheck. It’s always for stuff we “need” (planned purchases, I guess) but I go there at least three times a week, because it’s one of very few places I feel comfortable going by myself in this city, and what else is a one-baby-mom supposed to do to stay sane during the day? It’s the cheapest of the pleasant shopping experiences, but that mindset means I just buy and buy, and when I go with Trevor he lets me get a treat which means it’s one of my favorite things to do with him (I am so three years old), and there exists in my mind a perpetual list of things to buy for grand project ideas I get while I’m there, which means there’s always a reason to go back again. And I think he should ban us from ever shopping again because somebody needs to ban us and it certainly can’t be me.

Strategic spending for eating better, cheaper.

Found this , thanks to a friend, and just thought I’d share if anyone is interested.

I am seriously so tired right now that I almost might cry, and that makes me a wimp because I only even have one child… (long day)… but this just made my day feel a little better. Congratulations, moms! It’s always nice to hear the numbers prove what you knew all along :)