balance

Leave a comment September 29, 2015 drworobec

messyhair

I don’t make my kids make their beds.

There, I’ve said it. It’s like admitting a dirty little secret. So I’m airing my dirty laundry, and there you have it: I don’t make my kids make their beds.

I grew up being expected to make my bed daily, and I am actually quite a neat-freak, so this fact is a bit out of character for me. But truth be told, I don’t make my own bed either (unless tossing a duvet across it counts….. and even that only gets done half the time). The reality is, it’s just not that important to me. Life is very full and very busy and I am having too much fun going to the park or heading to work or reading with my kids to be worried about unmade beds.

It took me awhile to become comfortable with this fact. I often get stricken with the ‘I-shoulds’, and being okay with unmade beds seemed to go against what parenting books would advise. But as life got busier, one child turned into two, and my caring-what-other-people-think declined, I came to peace with my choice. I do have some stipulations with this decision; I have taught my children how to make their beds, and I will quickly pull up the covers on a disheveled mess before company comes over. But the reality is, in my day-to-day normalcy, unmade beds are a staple.

And I’m okay with that.

This sign hung in my laundry room for many years, and sums up my parenting philosophy quite nicely…

Leave a comment September 15, 2015 drworobec

There’s something about a day of puttering around home that really makes my heart sing. Sunday was a day of exactly that, and now I feel like my world is back to spinning on its proper axis.

Life has changed a lot for me in the past couple of weeks, mostly centered around the move that I’ve been blabbering on about. Add to that the back-to-school chaos that we’ve all experienced, and I’ve felt very out of balance lately; I seemingly haven’t been able to catch my breath. But there were several things that helped me catch it this weekend. The first of those things being friends.

I competed in a CrossFit competition on Saturday afternoon. It was an all-female event comprised of teams of three, and there were more than one hundred women involved; nearly half of that hundred were members of my gym. The event raised money for Love the Snatch, a cervical cancer foundation started by someone gone far too soon. I spent the afternoon cheering, chatting, laughing, and sweating. And when I left, my heart was full and smiling. Can hearts smile? Yep. They can, and they do.

And then there’s my Sunday. Some IKEA assembly for my work-with-my-hands side, some country music for my feels-like-home side, some coffee for my I-love-coffee side, and heaps upon heaps of family time for my this-is-what-life-is-about side.

And so, my friends, the world continues to turn, doesn’t it? Even when change is happening fast and furious. Even when we can’t catch our breath. And when balance is restored and my breath has been caught, these guys are always there to go for a walk or read books or help me make dinner, and make me feel right back to normal.

I love these guys.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
~ Maya Angelou