I was a stay at home mom for a long time. I was blessed to be able to be at home with my kids while they were little, meet them at the bus when they got older, and volunteer at the school when they all were at school. I was busy. I remember the first day they were all at school. I called Brad and asked him what I was supposed to do?! He suggested the kitchen so, I started there. After that, I was fine.

I spent my days making bread, canning everything in sight, volunteering, teaching stamp classes, going to Pamper Chef parties, and cleaning up the mess left by everyone that had left the house for the day. I could spend days preparing for a Stampin convention or stamp camp. I was pretty caught up on my scrapbooking. I weighed the most in my lifetime.

When Brad died, everything changed. We moved across the country, I lost weight, I went back to school, I started a career, the kids started moving out and back in and out, and a new ‘norm’ was created. I was still pretty busy, but it was a good busy.

Then, Baby G joined us. Life suddenly took quite a swerve onto a new path. I had to slow down a bit and remember how to mother a toddler. This time I had a different kind of ‘help’ with all of that. My boys have been great. I had to get used to being a working mom; something that was never something I wanted to do.

Now, here we are. The newest ‘norm’ has once again been scrapped. Instead of working all day with 6th graders and coming home to be a preschool/teen mom, I’m teaching from home, teaching AT home, still doing all the other stuff, and basically losing my mind.

I feel like life has become a sort of 7-layer Jell-O or something. I get one layer solidified and then another one is poured on top of it. It looks pretty cool from the outside, looking in at all those layers, but each layer makes the one below it a bit thinner with the weight it has to bear.

Maybe this is what broke my back, literally. The figurative weight of my life caused that lowest layer, my L5, to break. That makes more sense than living a secret life as a gymnast…secret even to me.

I have to say, the biggest difference between then and now is technology. There are so many resources for me to use to homeschool and do all of this stuff. I could spend all day on Pinterest looking up awesome ideas for worksheets, games, activities, home decor, and all the awesome wooden playsets I want my dad to help me build.

That’s the problem though, isn’t it? I’m surrounded by rabbit holes. So many ways for my attention to get sucked into a vortex and lost from what I should be doing.

Most days, we do school work for a few hours, play an educational game, and go for a bike ride. Today…most of the day was outside or just lounging around. We all needed a brain break. Well, at least I did. Cause I said so.

Photo credit: House of Nash Eats