Today's Reality

Someone (named Matt Shea) once told me that I had to learn to be content.  To stop always looking toward the next mountain to be climbed.  Sorry, love, but that's just not me.  I am, however, as content as I've ever been.  My daily life is pretty darn great.  This morning I:
Lillian eating Eve's lollipop.
Shhhh!  Don't tell!

  • woke up at 6 am to a crying baby (-1)
  • got some sweet baby snuggles (+1)
  • still wanted to go back to sleep but made a cup of coffee instead (+0)
  • accomplished the amazing feat of getting 3 children and myself ready early enough to not be stressed out by time (+1, although not in a warm fuzzy way, just in a hot damn that seemed impossible! way)
  • walked my children to school - 2.6 miles roundtrip! (+2 for fitness and good mommy moment)
  • remembered a snack for the baby that would inevitably start crying AND my bluetooth headset so I could enjoy Freakonomics podcast on the way back (+1)
  • TOTAL: +4 life points by 10 am
Then I sat at my computer, discovered a new blog to read, and got inspired to post.  After I get back to my house in the morning around 9:30, I usually do work till about 2:30 when I pick up the girls from school.  My work is a lot of nagging to do lists (pay people, get quotes, pick up stuff, go see houses, network, repeat) filled with the overall joy of making things pretty.  Every time I hear someone talk about a 4 hour workweek I want to punch them in the jugular, because that is just not what my life is like.  My (least) favorite days are ones where I get calls from the Homeowners Association saying that my crew left debris in the elevator door, it resulted in some old lady getting trapped, the fire department coming, and a bill that will be sent my way in the near future.  Love it!


And life is not all sunshine and lollipops, despite the picture above.  Last night I went over our finances and tried to figure out how we possibly put $4000 on our credit card in three months, when it feels like I was making pretty regular payments to it.  Turns out we've been overspending by about $350/week.  That's so huge it pains me to say it.  Unfortunately, I also put work expenses on my card and pay them off when a property sells - 0% interest and rewards, baby! - so that camouflaged the fact that we were being bad little spenders, and I feel like we've been trying hard not to be.  I had a moment staring at the numbers and being phenomenally stressed out.   Then I had a moment of being incredibly grateful that this is not the way we always live our lives.  This is fixable.  It still sucks. We'll just sit and think about our bad choices...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deliberate. The adjective, not the verb.

I'm getting so excited for our move.  SO EXCITED!  I'm going to finally spend adult time with my parents (which I'm sure will be infuriating and full of unintended consequences, but also awesome.)  They will be a daily (or maybe weekly) part of our lives for as long as we have them.  This is a deliberate choice, maybe a crazy choice, but one that I embrace with the little knowledge I have of the actuality of it.  I may miss the weather, but life is about people to me, not things. I'm going to live 0.4 miles away from my best friend, and 3.7 miles away from my sister.  I'm going to do real estate.  Matt is going to do a business adventure with his best friend.  This is a deliberate move.  This is a deliberate life.  This is a rebuttal to all the times people say, "I wish I could... but I can't."  Because the thing is, "There's enough time in  your life for everything important."  You are given only one life on this plane...
Read more

The Perfect Social Media Life

Watching a little Gary Vee this morning and his rant on caring about what other people think.  (Everything he does is a rant.  But an awesome rant.  I As intended, it caused me to reflect on my social media persona and think about why I post.  Honestly, I post because it's a bit of a yearbook for me.  I love documenting the great stuff, because my brain forgets (in about 0.2 seconds), and I especially love when Facebook reminds me of my memories.  I'm not trying to convince the world that I have the perfect life - I DO have the perfect life.  It's full of family and friends and experiences.  Shelter and safety and amazing food.  In fact, sometimes I DON'T post because I don't want people to compare their lives and feel lacking.  I just want to remember this amazingness for the days when it's not amazing.  Gary Vee posits that we post fantastic stuff because we crave other peoples' validation on our daily lives.  But I know eve...
Read more

All sorts of congratulations

Image
We'll start with family... The event of the season! Lisa and Tom's wedding was this past weekend and I'm exhausted, but in a good way. My family (God bless 'em) can be so tiring... :) The wedding itself though was a phenomenal success. We got everything set up in time, the key players all showed up for the ceremony (though my parents were almost late because Colby threw a massive temper tantrum about putting on his suit), and the weather was perfect. They did a tropical/bbq type theme at an old estate (Joanna Furnace) with an accordian playing DJ. He was actually pretty good :) Saturday morning we girls went to get our hair/makeup/lives done, and Shakes was nice enough to accompany us and take pictures. Link is on the top left :) We made it to the church about a half hour before the ceremony to change and hang out, only to realize that by putting our dresses in the dryer to de-wrinkle, they had been almost ruined by a wayward dryer sheet. Other women would have panicked...
Read more