The Leen

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So, obviously, I haven’t been around blog-land much lately, whether writing here or reading and commenting on other people’s blogs.

Honestly, I’ve been feeling kind of overwhelmed by life lately. Elanor’s birthday party was amazing and fun and wonderful, but it was like all the fondant-covered cake and homemade ice cream caused a sugar high of epic proportions, and then, of course, once everyone went home and I sat back and took a deep breath, it caused an equally epic sugar crash, when the weight of all the partying and prep work and baking and fondant cutting and new toys settled down on me and I realized I was tired. Really, really tired.

I had something of a minor meltdown last night and this morning, as I realized that Brett was going to be traveling again (he’s attending another barista competition this weekend). I was feeling very overwhelmed about him being gone, and about having to do a great many errands without a car and with a very heavy toddler who doesn’t like to be carried in the Ergo much anymore, and knowing that I have a lot of my at-home work to do this weekend and no Papa to come relieve me at the end of the day, etc, etc, etc. (Brett’s mom is, thankfully, here until Sunday, so I’m very glad to have her help. I think my meltdown would have been less minor and more ginormous if I didn’t have her here.)

Anyway, this afternoon Brett and I had a chance to talk post-meltdown, and I’m so glad we did. Out of the blue, while we were riding the bus, he turned to me and said, “So, what can we do this year to make 2009 the most stress-free, fun, enjoyable, easy year possible, since 2008 sucked so much?”

It was a great question, and helped us to talk about our goals and hopes for the year in a really positive way. So, we came up with a list of things we need to do or things that need to change this year. I’ll share part of it here, because yes, I did actually write it down in the red Moleskein I carry with me for moments just like that.

So, here it goes:

How to Make 2009 the Most Fun, Easy, Enjoyable Year Possible or How to Make 2009 Rock where 2008 Sucked

• Spend time together reading the Bible and praying
• Get a car (Gasp! I know! Bet you didn’t think you’d hear me say that. Or read that I wrote that. Whatever. But yes, we’ve decided it’s time. More about that in a minute.)
• Do yoga
• Have monthly date nights
• Go to the Oregon Coast, just the three of us, at least twice
• Eat really good food
• Become members at church
• Let up on pressuring ourselves about things like Brett’s artwork, my blogging/writing, and our social life

Let me expand on a couple of those, especially the car one and the no pressure one.

It’s just time for us to bite the bullet and get a car. I love not having one, in many ways. I’ve talked about that before. But it’s getting way too hard to manage life with Elanor while taking the bus. She doesn’t want to be contained for very long, for one thing, and for another, now that she doesn’t sleep when we’re out and about, so if we go somewhere on the bus (since it takes so freaking long to get anywhere) I either have to sacrifice her naptime or just not go places because it takes too long to get there and get home in time for a nap. And naptime is the only time I have to do my at-home work during the day, so naptime is precious in our house.

Speaking of my at-home work, either Brett or I has to go pick up materials for it every weekday, and while it’s not far from either where we live or where Brett works, given the way the buses run, you wind up having to walk about a half-mile each way from either the bus stop or Brett’s work. And that is a huge pain, especially while carrying a wiggly, heavy baby or when it’s raining or getting dark or whatever. If I take the bus, it takes about 1.5 hours round trip with the riding and the walking and then the waiting for the bus, whereas if I had a car it would take maybe 30 minutes, max.

And if Brett’s going to be traveling as much as he has the past several months, I have to be able to get out of the house while he’s gone, to do errands or at the least just have a change of scenery and some adult interaction, and, like I said, it’s just getting too hard to do if taking the bus is involved.

I know I’ve talked before about how after my heart thing, everyone told me to take it easy. People still do. And I feel like this is one area of my life that I can change so that I can take it easy. It’s within our control, and it is time to take that control and just do it.

I’m sure most of you are thinking I’m way overjustifying this decision. And, yeah, I probably am. I’ve always been a little defensive about not having a car, so I guess it makes sense that I’d feel like I have to overjustify our choice to change that.

This isn’t going to be something that happens overnight; we’ll be looking over our budget to see what we can afford, and hopefully we’ll be car owners once again before too many more months go by.

So, the second item I want to highlight is that whole not putting pressure on ourselves thing.

Sigh.

Part of why I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately is that I feel like all I do is wake up, take care of Elanor until she naps (while trying to do things around the house), do my at-home work while she naps, take care of her again when she wakes up (while trying to do things around the house), make dinner, eat dinner, put Elanor to bed, maybe clean up some of the kitchen, maybe throw in a load of laundry (and those two are big maybes), and stay up until 9 or 10 or 11 doing the rest of my at-home work.

I feel like there’s no time for me to do what I want to do anymore, and at the top of that list are maintaining friendships and maintaining this blog.

And I think, partly, that’s just the phase of life we’re in. We have a young child, Brett has a busy career, I am busy trying to maintain a semblance of order in our home, take care of our baby, and hopefully make a little extra money in the meantime. That’s enough to fill anyone’s plate; it’s natural that a lot is going to fall by the wayside.

But that’s where the change needs to happen: we need to accept that that is how it is, that things are going to fall by the wayside, and not beat ourselves up about it.

I’ve been feeling so guilty lately for not maintaining this blog or my friendships better. There are SO MANY PEOPLE I want to see and spend time with and get to know better, so many couples and families I want to have over for dinner (the Pearsons, all three of the Barrans families, the Packs, the Jarens, Patrick & Tim, etc), so many ladies I’d love to meet for lunch or coffee or a walk (Merilee, Amber, Isabel, Nicole, Julia, etc), so many fellow moms with whom I want to go to the park (Katie, Leah M., Marianne, Joy, Gala, Heidi), and so many more friends who live far away with whom I want to email more often or call more often (Carolyn, Marci, Daisy, Annie, Carmen, Becca, Kris, Stacey, Karen, etc). And all of those names represent just a selection…there are many more that I’m sure I could think of if I sat here for a few minutes.

But it just doesn’t happen. Partly, having to do my work at home makes it really hard to go out and see people because I do count on naptime to do my work, and if I don’t get at least some done then, I’m up until midnight or 1 a.m. finishing it on time. And I cannot do that. I just can’t.

The same is true for my blog. Writing this post right now is going to mean that the next couple of days are pretty pressure-filled and hellish for me work-wise.

I’ve been trying in the past few months to make this blog be more than it is, and it’s time to stop. I’ve kind of come to realize that I’m not going to be the next Amalah, or the next Pioneer Woman, or even the next Isabel or Frema. It’s not going to happen, as much as I would love it. I can’t force it to happen. And the things I need to do to even put myself in that league are not things that I have the energy to do these days: daily or, jeez, even twice-weekly posts, weekly features (yeah, don’t you love how the meal plan lasted one week? gah. *slaps self*), commenting on and linking to other blogs to drive traffic here, etc, etc, etc.

I just need to let that pressure go. I need to stop thinking, “Oh my gosh, I have to go post on my blog, I haven’t posted in a week, I’m going to lose readers, aaaaaahhhh.”Because seriously? Probably about 90% of my readers, as far as I know are my friends. And you’ll keep reading anyway. So I really just need to take it down a notch, and, well, take it easy.

And that means that I’ll post when I can. It’s not going to be as often as I’d like, of course, because I seriously wish I could post every day. I know there’s enough swimming around in my head that I could come up with something every day. But I’m going to stop pressuring myself to post. I’ll try to use free time to blog instead of just randomly stalk people clicking around on Facebook, yes, but at the same time, if I feel like stalking people wasting time on Facebook instead of writing? Then Facebook it will be, and I won’t feel guilty about it.

So, if you are one of those friends I mentioned above, or if you and I talked about getting together and I’ve just never followed through, or if you wrote me an email, like, a month ago and I haven’t replied: I’m sorry. Really, I am. It’s not you, it’s me. I like you. I want to hang out with you. I want to be friends. But right now? I just have to let it go, and if it works out that we can get together, then great, and if it doesn’t then it doesn’t, and maybe it will someday.

All that brings me back to my heart stuff. Having that experience has taught me that life is too short to worry about all of this. I want to enjoy my life, and as part of that, I want to enjoy what I write here and the fact that I even have this site. I don’t want to feel pressure about it, and that was what it was turning into, just one more obligation.

With all of that said, finally, I’m going to blow off working for the evening (which is going to make tomorrow suck, but oh well) and call it a night. I’m tired. It’s been a long, stressful, overwhelming day, but at least it’s ending with a new sense of clarity and direction and purpose for Brett and me.

I’ll be back with another post someday: maybe in a week, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a month. But please, do keep checking in, because I will definitely be back.