Life These Days:

 What I Feel Compelled to Do Every Day For My Sanity:

1. make my bed (which is so odd, since for most of my life this hasn't been a priority. Guess I finally grew up? Sad.)

2. Pick up living room clutter.

3. Put throw pillows back on the couch

4. try to keep dirty dishes contained in stacks

5. Keep the dining room table clear of extra STUFF.

6. Wipe countertops. 

7. Get out of my pajamas. (Kids out of pajamas, too.)

8. do my eyebrows and wear mascara.

What I Have to Let Go Of, Even Though It Makes Me Stabby If I Let Myself Think About It Too Long: 

1. The toy bins that REALLY need a sort and purge and rotation. 

2. My kids' unmade beds and untidy corners in their room.

3. Unfolded laundry, usually. 

4. The kitchen countertop clutter nest. 

5. The two messy corners of the living room- one housing baby stuff, one housing the unfolded laundry.

6. Toothpaste stalagmites around the sink. 

7. Regular showering.

8. Feet and hair in need of a professional pampering. 

9. Piles and boxes of outgrown clothing needing sorting/purging/storing

10. My whole disaster of a bedroom, really. Except the made bed. ha. The room is too big, and therefore a catchall for all the piles of "to do". 

11. School paper sorting and purging. 

What I Happily Let Go Of These Days:

1. Looking stylish. 

2. Being embarrassed about my poochy tummy. 

3. Watching my carbs. 

4. Feeling guilty about buying myself a fountain Diet Coke a few times a week. 

5. Long-term projects that take monumental effort even when there isn't a new baby around. (Like family photo books, business bookkeeping, scanning kid artwork for books, etc.)

6. Guilt-trips from anyone else. I make enough of my own guilt to last four lifetimes. 

7. Screentime limitations. 

8. Keeping up appearances. 

9. Pretending this is a walk in the park. 

10. Wondering why it isn't "how I expected it to be"

What I Want: 

(Oh this is a Pandora's Box..... )

1. A haircut and color. 

2. To have more patience for the moments when all of my kids are clamoring at me at the same time in varying tones of need. 

3. For autumn to STOP BEING 80 DEGREES. 

4. But for Winter (40 degrees and lower)(brown and bare trees) to not come any sooner than usual. 

5. To sing harmony with someone. 

6. To stop needing peanut butter cups to cope with stress. 

7. ZERO CLUTTER. (This will never happen.)

8. To edit the rest of Larkin's newborn photos and share them, print some. 

9. More money. Working less on my end hurts us in the "fun spending" dept. And I want to spend fun money on prints, on Christmas gifts, on new shoes for the kids, on that haircut/color I mentioned above.

10. Quality one-on-one time with Quinn, and with Lucy, and with Noah, and especially with Joe. 

11. A massage. This baby-carrying is killing my back! 

12. To stop caring about STUFF enough that it sticks around in my life. Or to have more storage space for said STUFF. (Can you tell I'm home too much and seeing all this STUFF all the time right now? SO sick of stacks of papers, of unused office supplies, of puzzles and art supplies, of things I "should" keep for work, for posterity, for "someday". Etc. Etc. Etc.)

13. To shake off the blues when they come, or to be able to really dig in and WALLOW in them instead.... but neither option is possible. 

14. To have Larkin's good days coincide with my good days so we can ROCK those days. 

15. To not wish this away too fast. 

*

(the photo is one of several my friend Katie took while she was in town three weeks ago... Someday I'll have more ready to share. Maybe?)