NO RESOLUTIONS...JUST CONTINUOUS CHANGE

Today is January 7, 2012.  We’ve officially made it through the first week of the new year.  This time last week, Lon and I were cleaning the house and getting ready to host our family in a New Year’s Evening under the stars. 

It was really nice.  Lon made a fire in our homemade fire pit. We set up a canopy/tent and lined the driveway with decorative candlelight bags. We sat around the fire and made s'mores.
Read more and see photos 

There was talk of resolutions but nothing serious.  The only resolution I made was to not make anymore resolutions.  They never last. I am, however, continuing to work on goals I set for myself last year in reference to my blog and some charity projects I plan to organize later this year.

Austin and King had fun roasting marshmallows and making s'mores.  The grown-up kids enjoyed it, too.  :-)

There is one huge change that is going to make my family’s life better.  Starting Monday, I will no longer be working my coveted 4-day work week.  While it was great having a day off during the week, it meant working longer hours that equated to many late dinners, incomplete homework and less reading time with Kingston.  And that little fella was getting a little out of control. So on Monday, I will be home by 5 p.m., and I can gain control of my house again.  Ahhhh…such a big relief and weight off my shoulders! 

It’s funny how something you think is going to be a good thing turns out to have such a negative impact in the end.  I thought having a day off during the week would help me get more done around the house.  I could send my family off with breakfast in the morning and be home when the kids got out of school.  I also saw opportunities to volunteer at their schools or schedule meeting with their teachers. 

I ended up running myself raggedy with errands, cleaning, babysitting, and anything else I could do for anyone who knew I was off work. I would be dead tired by the end of the day, especially because the night before I would stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning working on the blog.  I could barely get up for work Friday morning. Oh, and dinner would still be late on Thursday night.  OUT OF CONTROL!!

It wasn’t all bad, though.  Some really good things came out of my time off.  I spent many of those nights creating a blog I have become very proud to share. I published 66 of 74 posts that I wrote over the past 12 months.  Many of the meals I cooked and shared on the blog were cooked on Wednesday nights when I knew I would have time to take pictures and write about them all in the same night. 

In a year, the blog has had close to 2500 pageviews. It probably would have been more if we hadn’t had computer issues over the summer, but I’m happy with the results thus far.  I’ll keep plugging away, if you’ll keep coming back. 

Oh! Check out the food blog.  I’m still working on it, but there’s one post and recipe ready to try.