New Year's Eve

Today's 100 words:

New Year's Eve will be the same as it's been for the past several years, I'm sure. Hubby and I will rent a movie or two, then after we put the kids to bed, we'll sit down in front of the television with our "treat": bags of chips, bowls of dip, and a bottle or two of wine to toast in 2012. I sometimes miss the New Year's Eves we spent before kids arrived--the leisurely dinners, the fancy clothes, being out with other excited, half-drunk people... But NYE now is nice, too. It's homey, comfortable. It's about family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I didn't think I would have time to post an entry before we left for our trip, but I do. Happy Thanksgiving to all! Here are today's 100 words:

 

When I was a kid, my parents, sister, and I would go "over the river" to grandma's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Well, there wasn't a river, but we did drive six miles into town to celebrate with Grandma, my two uncles, and sometimes my cousin. I could count on certain things every Thanksgiving: my uncle Joe would always sneak olives off the tray before dinner and grab the turkey legs for himself; my dad would always carve the bird; the cranberry sauce would always be homemade; and the Packer game would always be droning on in the background.

In the game again

It's true what they say about vacations: you need one to recuperate from the one you just took. Ever since we arrived home late Saturday night, I've been unpacking, doing laundry, cleaning, and taking the kids to appointments and storytime. Yesterday I even managed to catch up on some of my writing. (Yay!) I've been busy.

And I am exhausted.

Returning home from vacation is always difficult for me. If I could, I would move back to Michigan, back to my small town with its small-town way of life. I don't dislike living in a large city--I certainly appreciate all of the opportunities living here presents to me and my family--but I miss the atmosphere of a smaller town and the sense of community and belonging that usually goes along with it.

And then there's my family. We've always been close, and it's hard to be away from them, especially when I know I can see them only once a year. I wrote a 100-words entry about this shortly after arriving back home:

I've been back in New York for only two days, yet I'm already homesick. Although I can think of many good things about living in a large city, I still miss the small town I grew up in. Mostly, though, I miss my family. Neither my husband nor I have relatives close by, and that's really a lonely feeling. I'm not the type of person who has a large circle of friends, and even though I've made one close friend since moving here--a friend I would miss so much if she weren't in my life--the loneliness doesn't subside.

But enough of the sad stuff. What I'm happy about is being back here, blogging and interacting with my online friends! It was hard to be away for so long, and I'm very glad to be back to the world of writing.

So what's up next for me and my blog? More writing and more writing about writing--just more of doing what I love.

And I can't wait.

Pressure

"But you will come to a place where the only thing you feel are loaded guns in your face, and you'll have to deal with pressure." ~"Pressure" by Billy Joel

Pressure. I've been feeling it a lot lately: a tug-of-war between following my dream and caring for my family. I've wanted to be a published writer since I was very young. In some ways I've succeeded--I was a journalist and have a portfolio of published articles--but my ultimate dream has always been to publish a book--to be able to walk into a bookstore and find my humble words on the shelf beside those of so many others. I've been working toward this goal for years, writing and rewriting the rough drafts of various books and working on other pieces as well, all with my eyes toward achieving my goal.

For the past several weeks, however, I've felt as if my dream is just that--a dream. I don't know if I'll ever achieve it. I've written before about the pressure I feel to be a good mother and the pressure I feel to work toward my writing dreams: those two things compete, leaving me feeling guilty about the amount of time I spend with my children versus the amount of time I spend writing. Pressure and guilt. Some days I feel like I'm missing my children's childhoods as I sit and type at the computer. Other days I feel like my writing dreams are slipping away while I take my kids to storytime or bring them to playdates featuring perpetual games of Candy Land. I can't seem to find a balance. And the pressure to do so--to somehow come to grips with the guilt--has gotten to be too much.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Maybe I need to take a break from my larger projects--but only my larger ones. I could never stop writing completely; I would never want to. I need to write. I know that. Maybe I should just focus on my short stories, on my 100-word pieces, and on this blog. Right now, I don't know if I can keep working on my books, following that dream. I know there will come a point when my children won't need me so much--a point that I dread because it already makes me feel so sad. But maybe then it will be time to follow my dream. Or maybe that time is now, and if I don't do it right this second, I never will. I really don't know. I wish I did.

Pressure.

Is she or isn't she?

A conversation my husband and I had today:

Me: I'm so hungry. I feel like I'm starving.
Him: (Reading Facebook on his cell phone) Uh-huh.
Me:  I'm serious. (Laughing) I know I'm not pregnant, but I feel just like I did when I was. You remember that? I would eat my food and yours too, most days.
Him: (Whipping around in his chair to face me, a strange look--panic?--on his face) Wait. How do you know you're not pregnant? Remember when you were ovulating...
Me: That was this cycle? I thought it was the cycle before. (Pausing to think and trying to ignore look of exasperation on husband's face) You're right. Huh.
Him: (Slumping in his chair) Huh.

So...this is weird. My husband and I aren't trying to have another baby. We have our two, and my husband, who's thirteen years older than I am, has two sons from his first marriage, both in their twenties. Although I love being pregnant and wouldn't mind having one more, my husband and I talked it over after our daughter was born, and we agreed that we already have our perfect family.

But, as my husband reminded me, a couple of weeks ago we did kind of ignore the fact that I was ovulating and didn't take the right precautions, so although I would say the chances are very slim, I suppose I could be pregnant.

Huh. We'll be happy if I am, of course, but it will definitely be a shock. I guess we'll need to see what the next few days bring.

Not enough hours in the day...

I've been riding on a bit of a high these past few days because of the small writing successes I've had. (I had another feature today at SMITH Magazine!) However, today I've also been bogged down by all that I need to do and never seem to have time for: the Christmas decorations that still need to be put in storage, the boxes of books I need to sort through, the papers that need to be filed, the closets that need to be cleaned...  The list goes on (and on). I'm sure I'm not the only mom out there whose to-do list seems to stretch out to infinity.

However--and this is a pep talk not only for me but for all moms--the fact of the matter is that there simply aren't enough hours in the day to do everything. We have to choose. We can care for our kids, cook dinner, do laundry, run errands, and clean the kitchen, or we can care for our kids, cook dinner, vacuum, wash clothes, and mop the bathroom floor. But the point is we can't do everything in one day, and I think the best thing we can do when we feel burdened and even paralyzed by all the tasks before us is to remind ourselves of what's really important--family. After all, what matters most, spending time with our loved ones or having a spotless floor? I find that if I take care of my family first, I somehow find the time to do the things that need to be done each day. And all those other things, those tasks that I never seem to have time for, the ones that hang over my head? Well, I've decided that they'll get done when they get done, and I need to stop stressing about things that I can't do immediately. They'll wait.

So tonight I'm going to spend time with my family instead of sorting papers. I'm going to take a little time to write and recharge once the kids are in bed. And I'm going to stop worrying about the things in life that really don't matter all that much. Who cares if the boxes of Christmas ornaments are still piled on our bedroom floor? They'll get put away eventually. But those little children that helped me put those ornaments on the tree? They need me now--and they have me.