Goodbye Kindergarten Hello first grade!!!

My baby girl will soon be promoting from kindergarten. I've noticed that every day while she sleeps I want to look at her longer, trying to imprint in my mind her little face hugging her favorite " lammy" bear my mom gave her. I'm trying to take in her exhausted and thankful for rest look, her princess Pj's  ( that don't fit her but she insists on wearing them). I'm trying to take in her smell of Johnson and Johnson baby lotion and her little pig tails. soon she will be a first grader.

I think of the day I won't be able to sing her lullabies and scare the monsters from her room away and it saddens me. I'm happy to be giving her many of the things I never got as a child.. my own bed, a mother and a father that were consistently there and attention on the good things that she does, discipline, a prayer life and strength. All the while I tell myself.. I hope were raising her right

This year has been spilling over with activities.. field trips to go ice skating, academy of science museum with us, birthday parties, visits to dad and moms jobs, (sadly this also includes the death of my grandma, her great grandmother whom she loved to visit and thinks and prays about her often) trips with dad to the park, Halloween costume day at school, bowling field trips and even a trip to my old University where she insisted on taking a pic in front of my old sorority house.

Walking around the campus was great and special. From where i come from College is too expensive, takes to much time and is more of a burden than an experience of a lifetime. My family has held the idea that you should not do soemthing until you knew how to do it perfect and would not fail.. thus my life was always filled with fear of never being able to carry out a project or a job to its fullest because i had not done it before. Once at the sorority house my daughter said" Mommy, take a picture of me here" I busted out my phone eager to snap a shot and tears came to my eyes... My little girl.. MY LITTLE GIRL was standing in front of a university's sorority house with plans on coming to college and living there. At 5 years old her sense of self is far greater than mine was at her age... she knows she has a future and that possibilities surround her. I think were doing pretty good so far =)

Here's to the end of a year full of unforgettable memories and the beginning of new ones...

Overspent...

Here we are a month later and I still have not written a new post. Shame on me! part of me is still trying to figure out what I want to talk about, what my “ voice” is going/should be and HOW I want to organize my thoughts.

I read other blogs and I come out from reading them with more knowledge, sympathy, a new take on things or ideas. The problem is that on all those “ other” blogs they tend to talk around one thing and how it relates to something else. Well…. lets just say my blog still has training wheels LOL =).

At some point, I’m hoping to take them off so bare with me with you see a lot of choppy stuff.. ( I gotta start somewhere right?)

Overspent. If I could describe how I feel right now that would be the word of choice. There are several areas of my life where I’m always trying to catch up; cleaning, crafting, organizing, shredding paper ( yes.. I know a little thing but it weighs on me so much!) bath time, reading, budgeting, planning, etc. no matter how much I do there is always more so I usually end up feeling bad that I don’t hold myself accountable for more stuff and that I don’t have a good of a grip on things as I imagine.

Bills are paid, we all have something to wear manana, lunch is in the fridge, baths and showers are done and now it’s time to relax..or is it?

By this time I’m already exhausted! Usually at this time hence me feeling that I’ve given more time to things that I didn’t have= feeling overspent.

Growing up in both my childhood home as well as the home my mom and dad later bought was always stressful. Never enough time, money, resources, food, some little thing would always send someone over the edge and make them start yelling… a misplaced napkin, one of my friends calling on the phone for me, a bill that needed to be paid- ugh.. it was awful. And  we were never “relaxed”  Now , In my home even after the important things are done I’m drained and don’t really have much time for more, nor do I care to do more. But “ it is what it is” just doesn’t sit well with me either…

Does everyone feel like this? Is it just me? Where do people find the time to bake cookies and comparison shop for food? , when and how do you spend quality time with your kids when you get home at 6pm and the phone is ringing, you haven’t ate and the living room is a mess? I’m thinking maybe I just never learned how to balance stuff the way others do.