Head Space

Well, it has been a while again. I seem to have a hard time staying in the habit of regularly blogging. Perhaps this is why my head space has been so cramped as of late. Every time I write, I feel better to have cleared a little clutter out of the space that is my brain, yet I seem to have a difficult time maintaining that. It's like a vicious cycle. Brain gets full, I dump a little, feel better, then fail to let more out until it is crammed to overflowing again, and then I realize, oh, I need to tidy up a bit, and then start all over again.

Well, this week, I actually wrote down "blog" on my weekly goal list (yes, I am a nerd and I make myself a weekly goal list) along with other things I need to do, like my SP which has yet again taken a back seat to life.

So, here I am, a week shy of 3 months into this deployment. And let's see, what has happened since the last time I blogged? Lots of sickness, that's what. I think we've had 2 rounds of strep in one girly, a nasty sickness that turned into something like 2 weeks of misery for myself, another bug passed through the house, and one round of bronchitis for another girly. That was a fun one, trips to the ped. every other day for lung checks, and we are now the proud owners of a new nebulizer machine. Fun fun stuff.

I always say, "Mama's don't get sick." At least not in my ideal perfect world which I am obviously not living in. I am also discovering that mama can no longer do with just a few hours of sleep a night for an extended time. Perhaps that is my age getting to me, but the magic number used to be 4, then it used to be 6, and...well...I'll just say it has crept up there and I am finding myself learning to live in the state of perpetual exhaustion.

One positive thing about my sleep though, I am now sleeping in my own bed! It has been almost 3 weeks now that I have gone to sleep in my own bed and slept there the entire night. I may not be getting much quantity of sleep, but the quality has been much improved over my couch. It is a comfy couch, don't get me wrong, perfect for a nap, or the occasional fall asleep watching tv too lazy to move thing, but it was not designed for 2 months of solid sleep on it. My back had really begun to protest, and after a week long crick in the neck, something had to give.

Other than that, I have gotten back into a somewhat schedule (I use that term loosely) with the girls schooling. We are not quite unschoolers, but we do tend to be a bit liberal with our schedule. Today for instance, it was beautiful, and after a trip to get Juliette's new glasses re-adjusted to stop rubbing her little ears raw, we had a "Field Day" outside. Lots of fun, fresh air and sunshine to be had by all. Later we learned more about Egypt and talked about the Great Pyramid of Giza and the girls made a whole recreation pyramid out of legos, complete with a mummified and entombed playmobil guy. He was entombed with many treasures, and they even put the boat in the "sand" next to the pyramid. The outside scene was marked with palm tree foliage, a camel, and the devoted mourners bowing down outside the pyramid. These are the things that make me remember why I love home schooling them.

Back to my head space. I have been so incredibly busy that I am finding myself start to feel agitated and restless when I am idle. I have been flitting about from activity to activity, and am having a hard time wrapping my brain into choosing one and working on it. There are so many things I want to do with my time (not that I have a lot of it that is free). I want to delve into my Bible and really read it and not just scratch the surface, but let it speak to me. I want to crochet. I want to do some research on a subject that I am trying to learn a lot about. I want to sew some summer clothes for my girls. I want to work on some scrapbooking. I want to blog, take self-portraits, read some for fun. I want to play outside with my girls, and play games with them. So many things I want to do, yet I seem to have a time schedule to do them in that is shrinking.

I have been staying pretty busy. I would say insanely busy, but it probably wouldn't seem that way to most anyone else. But to me, who was used to sitting at home most of the day every week day because Nick had the van at work, it is insane to me. The thing is, I have enjoyed staying busy. I really have. I am doing great things with my time, spending time with great people, doing what I love, and learning about myself in the process (a lot of that going on). I just can't seem to "give up" anything. Instead, I want to add more to it.

So I am penciling in one thing each day, something fun that I want to do, and I am going to try my best to get it done, even if it's just something small. I am trying to get back into a comfortable, yet productive head space, but one where I am filling it up with things that I enjoy, rather than trying to make more room for the stuff I don't enjoy, and the stuff I don't need, while looking longingly at the things I'd like to do.

Sometimes I get confused, and I am not sure what exactly I am "supposed" to be doing. I see lots of things I want to do, lots of things I can do, but then I get cloudy on what I am meant to be doing. I think it is a learning process though, and the more I try to figure out, even though sometimes that means the more I am confused, I can definitely see myself learning more as I work my way along.

I am done with "fresh starts" and "starting over." I am done with the wasting of time that ensues from beginning again and again and again. From here out, I am just going to keep plugging away, re-working things where they need be re-worked and shaping and molding until I get the final product that fits and feels right for me.