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Help! I’m Missing My Goals!

All of my life, I’ve had goals. I wanted kiddos, I wanted to help others, I wanted to be comfortable financially, I wanted to be a pro, I wanted to be healthy and skinny. So far I’ve managed to hit them all – although it’s been about 12 years on the skinny front, but I was there once.

In the last two or three years, however, life seems to have replaced my goals. To be honest, it’s mostly my fault. I had a goal of staying home after my second son, Brian, was born. I started myself an online business and made that happen – even if I’m still paying off the first few months of no teaching paycheck.

Now that I’m raising happy healthy children, seem to be scraping by in a healthy, if unique, marriage and have a nice home that will keep me busy for years updating, I’m not sure where to go next.

And I have to go somewhere, it’s my nature.

I think the biggest problem is I seem to be living two or three separate lives in my standard twenty-four hours. It’s too much to fit comfortable, but I can’t figure out what I want to do about it.

* I have a successful writing business that could easily consume my entire working day crammed into my evenings.

* I have a teaching job that is immensely rewarding, but rather draining that takes me away from my boys too often for my taste.

* I have a fantasy life of Wii, books, movies, sleep and exercise that used to be my existence before the boys and the writing showed up.

I can’t figure out where I want to go next.

- I want to be the mom that can whip up fifteen different healthy chicken recipes or use campfire breakfast recipes to wow the entire Boy Scout troop.

- I want to be the woman at the trade shows making connections with other self-sufficient, totally egotistical, definitely successful freelancers and webmasters.

- I want to work a handful of hours each day making a full-time income – during the day!

- I want to work with my junior high school students to try and help them overcome the obstacles they face.

- I want to work out for an hour a day again so I can enjoy the sensation of my clothes growing larger.

- I want evenings to mean relaxation, rest and preparation rather than more work while housework goes undone.

- I want to eat more chocolate and lay on the couch.

- I seem to want it all, but at the same time want nothing more than what I already have.

It’s just one more sign that I’m a knowledgeable woman, a dedicated mother, a terrible cook and strong enough to be willing to do what it takes to reach the goal.

Now I just have to figure out which goals I want to actually reach. At this moment, I’m leaning toward the chocolate one….

January 28th, 2009 Posted by Rebecca | Parenting - Freelance Style | one comment

I’m Going to Be THAT Mom

I’ve done it again. I was on the wagon for officially two days this time on the healthy eating front. The truth of it is: Eating badly is so much easier.

I have dreams of healthy eating.

Every time I go to Sam’s, which is often mind you, I have fantasies of buying food in bulk – not just diapers and toilet paper. In my dreams, I know exactly what to do with 25 pounds of chicken and how to serve up fifteen cartons of fresh asparagus. Okay, I’m lying about the asparagus – that stuff is too much even for me.

But in all seriousness, I really want to be THAT mom. You know, the mom that has it all together. She know all the best crock pot recipes so that she can dice and chop up healthy veggies to prepare a nutrient-filled supper for her family while she’s away at work rather than heating up noodles and opening a few cans on the nights she actually gets around to “cooking.” (She probably does that dicing and chopping in heels with make-up on, too. Just two other things that have eluded me thus far in motherhood.)

I want to be the mom that doesn’t rely on the cookie recipes on the back of the chocolate chips as the only way make anything that doesn’t just require slicing to bake. Although I like eating the dough out of the ends of the tube – you know you do it, too.

I really do want to feed my family well.

The trouble is, I can’t ever seem to get it together.

When I do buy things that might make a reasonable homegrown meal, they go bad in the fridge before I can muster the energy after my long days to use them. My schedule is so crazed that yummy foods hold much sway over me and yummy foods in my book aren’t the same ones making the cut for Betty Crocker Healthy Living. I know exactly how many calories are in five different kinds of candy bars, but I have no clue how to remove the innards from a frozen turkey.

I’m a mess.

However, as is the case with many things in my Long-Term Mommy Outlook, I fully realize that this is not the time for me to make drastic changes to my lifestyle or try to take on anything new. Between the writing, the teaching, the toddler, the preschooler and basic necessities of living, hot dogs and canned green beans will have to do for now – unless we order out, which is always a yummier option.

But, I make a solemn oath that I WILL be THAT mom, someday – probably when I can no longer afford to order out for two gigantic teenage boys.

January 25th, 2009 Posted by Rebecca | Parenting - Freelance Style | no comments