Another blessing: family unit restored!

I can't decide if this week feels as though it went by quickly or painfully slow. Regardless, it's the weekend, and Glen came home tonight! There was much rejoicing, and I had a rare opportunity to pick up Glen at the airport all by myself, as David and Elizabeth were keeping company with a wonderful woman from Claremont whom we've gotten to know through Elizabeth's pre-school.

Of particular note to the end of this week is that that the Lenten season (or it's impending conclusion) has prompted me to be reflective and meditative on my many blessings. I'll be the first to admit that this week had a bumpy start, complete with feelings of personal and professional inadequacy, exhaustion, and impatience. I recall vividly that, when speaking to Glen on Tuesday evening, when he asked, "how were the kids today?" I replied, "not great, but I was much worse."

Maybe it's the fact that I took today off from work, given that both David and Elizabeth's schools were closed for the Good Friday holiday; or, perhaps, it's because the kids and I attended our very first Good Friday services at our church in Sierra Madre. Post-church lunch with friends also always provides a wonderful diversion. Of course, it could also be the fact that I had dinner alone at a sushi restaurant, quietly keeping company with two magazines and tucked into a corner booth. Regardless, I welcome the sudden sense of peace and calm that washed over me by the end of today. While driving around town this evening, tending to random and non-urgent errands and biding  my time before heading to Ontario Airport to get my sweetie, I somehow felt mentally and emotionally capable of refocusing my mental energies on thinking about and being grateful for so many blessings. Let me name of few:

1. My kids are extraordinarily healthy. They are safe, they are home with me and tucked into their warm beds in their beautiful rooms, and are fast asleep, enjoying what I hope are wonderful dreams.

2. I have tons of friends. Our neighbors are amazing; I can take David and Elizabeth over to their house and park them in front of their television/Wii console/assorted Lego sets pretty much any time I need, just so that I can make a quick trip to Target. For this, Jeff, Karin and Della rock. Elizabeth's god family, who also lives in Claremont, bends over backwards to provide back up when needed, especially on the rare evenings when I have an evening commitment at work or at one of the kid's schools. And remember the Claremont lady I mentioned at the start of this post? She approached me last week and, having heard of our commuter situation, announced to me, "I want to take care of your kids once a week. Let's arrange a schedule." Out of nowhere, this lovely woman stepped up to the plate and offered her heart. How often does that happen?

3. I am married to a rock star who, despite the geographic distance between us during the work week, never passes up an opportunity to remind me just how much he loves me. I've gushed about Glen before, and I'll do it again: marrying Glen was the best decision I ever made.

4. While our crazy schedule has required me to pair down the number of volunteer obligations that I can commit to, those that I remain actively involved with are incredible fun. How can you not love a chance to serve first-graders a lunch of mac and cheese, pizza, and chicken strips to celebrate their class play, and watch them fall all over each other to help you blow up balloons, decorate tables, and be just all-around adorable?

5. I have a beautiful home. I love this house. I love hearing David refer to our house as "fancy." I don't know if it's truly fancy, but it's ours, and it's perfect just the way it is.

6. It's not that I HAVE to pick up the kids' toys, do their laundry, cook their meals, and manage their baths and oral hygiene each day ... rather, I GET to do this. The more I remind myself of this, the more I realize what a privilege and a gift it is to have these two perfectly beautiful little creatures in my life. Even if they do turn up their noses at broccoli.

7. In general, I am so damned lucky, it's not even funny.

In my quest to identify what it is that I am the most passionate about, what gets me up in the morning, and what rocks my world (in a good way), I always go back to motherhood. Recently I've done a number of searches for blogs and discussion boards geared toward couples and families who have at least one member (an adult, presumably) that lives away from home for a good portion of the week. I was surprised to find that very few exist. One that I found was nothing but a mother's rant about how much she "f-ing" hates her home situation. Immediately sensing a negative vibe, I moved on from that one.

So, here's my plan: www.commutermarriage.com. I am going to start another blog that I hope will incorporate resources, information, and just a larger sense of community to families such as ours: one parent who lives away from home for several days at a time, one who has primary care of the little ones, and all who are in the frame of mind to keep positive and remain steadfast at making such a funky domestic situation work in only the best possible way. I'm not sure where to start, but I did register the domain name. Baby steps, I know.

This blog, of course, will continue to be recount my own deep, insightful, and witty observations on David, Elizabeth and me as we plug along Monday through Friday, and cherish/relish our weekends with Glen.

May your spring holidays - ones that, in their own ways, celebrate miracles - be wonderful and blessed!

Deep thoughts at 1:00 a.m.

Looking over my blog history, I see that I have not posted anything - ANYTHING - for three weeks now. It's not that copious stories, anecdotes, and funny happenings worth sharing have not happened; it's just that finding or setting aside the time to record them in this blog has been difficult.

Thus inspiring the topic for this evening's blog post: "If I had an extra hour in every day, I would ..."

I am quite certain that our domestic situation here on Lordsburg Court has not created any additional challenges to my personal time management habits. To the contrary, I seem to lately be in the habit of creating more work for myself during the weeknights when it's just the kids and me at home. Rather than going to bed at a decent hour, I plop myself in front of my cute red laptop and start, as I call it, "farting around" on the web. What am I searching for? New opportunities for a part-time, home-based business.

These late-night explorations for that "perfect" opportunity have provided me with quite an education. I've quickly learned that any advertisements for "copy-and-paste" or "instant wealth in five clicks of the mouse" are pretty much bogus. I've learned that it's easy to create a website, but difficult to get it ranked highly in most search engines. I've learned new terminology, such as "search engine optimization (SEO)," "Clickbank," "affiliate marketing," and "back links." I've discovered that in my quest to establish some sort of cottage industry, the one niche - the one issue or topic about which I am truly passionate - is motherhood.

As most of my fellow mommies will attest, motherhood is not really a money-making industry, and I tend to think that it shouldn't be. But there must be information, resources, ideas, inspirations, and assistance for which moms, like me, are in the hunt.

The mere fact that I am even searching for new opportunities to expand both my professional and economic foundation bring up a whole host of issues that my fellow mommies and I deal with on a daily basis: work-life balance; finding happiness in the small things; valuing quality over quantity; celebrating childhood; being okay with "good enough;" paying the mortgage/credit card bills; perspective  ... the list goes on.

So, I will keep up my late-night searches, with a mind open to new ideas and ears always listening for the soft, sweet voices of David and Elizabeth who may require my late-night assistance or cuddle. And, when this happens, I'll once again be reminded that the most important cottage industry I could ever invest in, and the one that I am currently THE BEST at, is being David and Elizabeth's mommy.

I promise that the next blog post will capture more silliness and mayhem. Remind me to tell you about the running list of "Elizabethan Quotes" and "BUGZ."