Oh the Pressure!

Oh the pressure! I’m creating my first ever blog post! I’m jumping into the blog-ocean and hoping I don’t become “krill” and get swallowed by the blog whales.

*interrupted by children for “More fishie crackers, please! More cra-ca’s mama, pease! More GEORGE!” I’m buying the children off with Curious George and fish crackers so I can write this while I still have the guts and brain cells to do so. Sue me. *

Yes – I’m one of “those”… a Mom. And now, maybe “Mommy blogger”. I’m a stay at home Mom of 2 wonderful, precocious, intelligent girls. For the last 14 years I’ve been married to a wonderful man whom I’ve had the honor of growing into adulthood with. (that’s fancy speak for “we married young”). I’m a waffler, a worrier, often a self nay-sayer, a thinker, a researcher and did I mention worrier? It takes me a long time to figure out where I need to be most of the time, but sometimes my hyperactive intuition kicks in and sends me into orbit with a weird twist which I KNOW in the pit of my stomach is the right thing to do.

So, why am I writing? Well, honestly, yesterday in a fit of premenstrual semi-organizational “figure out the universe and try to squeeze in a family Y membership into the budget” frenzy, I sat down and looked at our budget then realized – uh, what budget? I suck at budgeting. I suck at a lot of stuff. I’m good at stuff too – like, um, yeah, stuff. Anyway, peering carefully at the finances I realized that no, we cannot afford the Y membership this year and what can I do about it? I spent some time looking on the good ole’ Internet, reading through the “work from home scams” – of which there are many - trying to find a way to make some extra money which leads me to feeling moderately frustrated and depressed about my employable qualifications.

I know, this still doesn’t answer why I’m writing – stick with me though.

This morning, I fire up the laptop and start checking my email and catching up on some of my favorite blogs, all the while, still pondering the “What can I DO” question. I spend quite a bit of time READING blogs – some really excellent blogs written by some witty, creative, intelligent people. I’ve encouraged some wonderful friends to start blogs because I think they are brilliant and should share themselves’ with the world. After a cup of coffee, I start to think “hey! I should write a blog!” but quickly dismiss the thought by turning on my “you’re just ordinary – what could you write about?” internal dialogue. (This internal dialogue is prolific and LOUD – we battle daily). After my second cup of coffee, I think – "well, I’m not really plain ole’ ordinary, I’m kind of...left of ordinary. My life is generally ordinary, but sometimes extraordinary things happen – and I like to think that I think a little differently. Sort of middle ground with a twist. I’m kind of interesting, kind of funny, kind of – well, left of ordinary." Why left? I don’t know – maybe I was holding my coffee in my left hand at the time. I felt – leftish.

As the day progresses I'm thinking about all the things I "could" write about when it dawns on me that - HEY, maybe someone else thinks this too. Sometimes it helps to know you’re not the only one struggling upstream. Maybe THIS is something I could "DO".

So, where do I want this to go? I’m not sure yet. My internal struggle this past year in particular has been trying to find balance. Finding a balance between being a mom/wife and woman, finding a balance within our family, finding a balance financially – what to do we need and what helps us feel fulfilled, health & fitness and reasonable indulgence, paper or plastic, cloth or disposables, insanely tidy and disastrously messy, finding work and staying at home, public kindergarten or excellent cooperative kindergarten or homeschool. I struggle to find that elusive balance between that nagging worrier of an inner voice and trusting my gut feeling. I know I’m not the only person, especially Mom/parent/woman, who struggles with this. In my mind I know it’s time for me to be proactive about working on this balance and maybe having a place to think outloud (to speak figuratively), solicit help, advice and camaraderie might help me along. And maybe even help someone else along.

I'm generally not a risk taker, I'm certainly not a professional writer (but I want to play one on tv one day... ha), and despite my reservations about starting, this my gut (and my super supportive family) is telling me to take a chance and see where this leads.

My oldest just ran by to get some paper from the craft "pit"; sparkly Christmas dress swirling and princess heels clicking and on her way back to the kitchen table for the nightly pre-dinner craft-a-thon, she paused to give me a hug and a thumbs up sign. My youngest is squirming around on the floor like a worm growling and the hubster just walked in the door from work. Now to make dinner! Leftovers anyone? Ah yes, my life, just a little left of ordinary.