Just say “no”

I’m a joiner. Always have been. Probably always will be. What that means is I have a hard time saying “no”.

Admittedly, when it comes to being part of something, I want to get involved. The problem is I don’t have that much time. (Know anyone who does? Maybe they can lend me some?)

The Power of Love

When I think I am alone, God sends me a reminder.

When I think I have done wrong or could do better, God lets me know that I’m doing my best; that as long as I keep my heart open and bring love to the table, I’m doing good.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Today, as I rushed through life, stressing about things that stress me out (pick from the pile; there are many things right now from which to choose), and fought with my husband over things that we shouldn’t be fighting about, and got annoyed with my kids for little things they did that slowed my frantic pace to the finish line, I looked for a reminder. I searched in the madness and the anger and the exhaustion for something that would tie up the loose ends of at least one part of my scattered self.

I found it here:

The Power of Love

Get organized!

Hello, my name is Nancy and I am disorganized.

There, I said it. They say that’s the first step: admitting you have a problem.

Let me take it one step further for you. I’m a procrastinator. I always usually put off whatever I could be doing now. My biggest issue? Putting stuff away.

So really, it’s actually not that I’m disorganized. It’s that I never put anything where it belongs, so it appears that I am disorganized. And it’s killing me. It was fine before I had kids. I could get away with a certain level of disorganization because I only had my own things to worry about. But now, with kids, it’s oh so much harder. Sometimes I feel like I might actually loose one of my kids in the clutter.

Sleepin’ in and morning quiet

Ever have a hard time waking your kids up in the morning? I don’t mean the kind of hard time where you try to wake them up and they roll over and ignore you (although that does happen to me on the mornings when we HAVE to get up and go).

I mean the kind of hard time where your children are sleeping peacefully and you’re busy working away or catching up on your blog reading or doing some other quiet activity that the kids always interrupt when they are awake.

Canadians too busy to enjoy holidays

MISISSAUGA, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – Dec. 18, 2012) – According to a new national survey from HP, Canadians are too busy preparing for the holidays to enjoy doing what they value most at this time of year – spending time with family and friends.

HP Canada and Ipsos Reid surveyed more than 1,000 Canadians and found that:

Cuba continued

From my notebook: Wednesday, September 26, 2012.

Two more days and we go home. The kids, hubby and I are all fantasizing about home; about the food we’ll eat, the friends we’ll see, the showers we’ll take.

Hubby and I both admitted to feeling trapped yesterday. We can’t do anything to make our kids happy. All they want is to go home. And yet, we’re stuck here.

Cuba Revisited

It was barely a month ago that my family and I traveled to Cuba for a vacation.

This is what that looked like:

Cuba – You always want what you can’t have

Standing at the kitchen sink, washing the dinner dishes, listening to my kids scream and fight with each other, I wish I was in Cuba. I long for the buffet meals with nothing to clean up, the lazy walks around the pool and down to the beach, the afternoon naps in the shade of a palm tree.

Up to my elbows in dish soap suds and dirty pots and pans, I let my mind drift to our recent family vacation in Varadero, Cuba.

When you’ve had enough

Missed deadlines at work. Late picking up your youngest at daycare. Late getting to the school to pick up your oldest. Construction on every road and highway you take. Rush hour traffic that behaves more like a shopping mall parking lot at Christmas. No time to stop at the grocery store for ingredients for dinner and no suitable food in the house with which to create at least a semi-healthy dinner for your family. Screaming kids in the backseat because they are hungry-thirsty-tired-bored-cranky-hot-cold, etc.

Sometimes, it really can be too much.

You just want to scream, I’VE HAD ENOUGH. I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Holidays and HatchedIt

The holidays are approaching. For my American friends, the first big one is Thanksgiving. We Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving as well (in fact, ours is this coming weekend), but not with nearly the same fanfare as the American Thanksgiving, which kicks off over a month of holiday season-ing.

So, what’s a busy mom—Canadian or American—to do when faced with an already busy schedule and several holidays piled on top?