My Time in Blogland Time-Out

I suppose a few of you have noticed I've been absent from blogland for a few weeks. Gosh, time flies when you're losing your mind. I knew I'd be back eventually, I was just taking a little time out.

I made some really big, much-needed changes in my life, but my life and all its commitments didn't get the memo. My life and all the commitments are still expecting the same results as before, which means I've been busy trying to get rid of the commitments so I can never make the mistake of volunteering for this or that ever again. You would think I was a well-heeled philanthropist without a job or kids the way I have been working for good causes. Frankly, it has to stop! I'm sick of being a do-gooder.

What was my big change? Well first, I got the message that I needed to spend a little more time around my house, you know, doing important things like taking care of my children. Let me tell you, that was a shocking message to receive and comprehend. And the reason I knew it was probably someone important like God implying that my children needed me more, was because I really didn't want to hear that message. I was busy. I had commitments and responsibilities. My kids were being expensively well-taken taken care of, but it wasn't by me. And that became a problem. I finally heard the message loud and clear one day when my friend Cristin relayed something Jamie told her in a conversation about somebody else: "Sometimes what's best for everybody else isn't always what's best for you." That one sentence was just part of a random conversation, but it resonated in my head like a bullhorn:


"Hey Sami !!!!! Yeah, you. What's best for your family might not be what you would dream up in fantasyland!! Yes, I'm talking about your kids and your home. Maybe even that neglected husband of yours."


So what I did was cut back on the work week by two days, Monday and Friday. That gives me four days in a row with the darlings and then every night and that's certainly enough for any 42-year-old basket case with 3-year-old twins and a beginning teenager. I got the message but let's not get carried away. I'm not quitting my job and becoming a home-schooler, even though that's very admirable if you are wired that way but I can assure you, I am not.

All three of them when Catherine and Caroline turned three

The new arrangement has forced me to cram a lot of work into naptime, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. One Thursday I worked from 9 a.m to 4:30 without taking a break because I didn't have the heart to postpone the renovation of a lovely powder room over the weekend and until the next Tuesday. I wasn't about to explain my freakish schedule to my client. This weekend I managed to work Saturday morning while my amazingly hands-on husband took the girls to visit his grandmother.

Catherine modeling her new pink tutu skirt. Caroline agreed to wear the new pink shoes



So far it's working. My kids don't cry and hang on my leg when I leave. They still fight and whine try to eat carbs and sugar for every meal, but I think that's normal. There seems to be a little more peace and love flowing through our air.

Barefooted and burning up at Gruene Hall a few years ago. You can tell because they have no hair.

I promise to get back to blogland soon to reveal all the fun stuff I've been working on. And, amazingly enough, I have pictures!!!