Getting Ready!!

Scenario: The family has eaten dinner, the kids are bathed and in bed. The house is quiet.

This is the time where I find myself faced with many options. Do I watch television? Do I go to bed? Phone a friend? Read a book? Pray? Get started on that night time love fest with my husband? What to do?

When someone text me or calls me after 8 and ask "what are you doing?" I usually reply "getting ready for bed".

I laugh at this even as I write because "getting ready for bed" usually means I am going to put that last load in the dryer, wipe down the counter, sweep the floor, check facebook, take a shower, tell my husband about the 50 million things I read on facebook, and then actually go to bed. Finally I get in the bed and I am still making mental list of what needs to happen the next day, what we will eat for breakfast, and who I need to call until I drift off to sleep.

This my friends is going to stop. I am going to start being very serious about my getting ready to go to bed. I will include maybe a hot a bath, some nice soothing quiet time, and definitely that love fest with my husband. I am going to stop treating my list of things to do at night as things I need to do in order to go to bed and actually enjoy the quiet stillness of night time. The time where the kids are down and I can enjoy the house.

What does your "getting ready for bed" look like and how can you make it more peaceful if it is not already?

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I saw this today and immediately laughed. Let me start off by saying that I did not start this year off with any great anticipation of anything exciting happening or with some big party, honestly I was sleep by nine and woke up the next morning forgetting to even say Happy New Year. You see every since September of 2012 life has kind of been a world wind and a blur. My oldest started school, I sort of do a little home school with my middle son, and the baby well it's a constant day of sleep, breastfeed, diaper and that is my life every day. The weekends do present a little relief as my husband is home and can be a second set of hands  and really hilarious adult conversation and fun but usually aside from a family outing the day is the same. So the new year for me kind of just follow the same ole pattern.

I have read so many facebook pages with so many big plans and dreams for the new year and I have thought that is so nice, or wow, or man one day, and then I saw this picture on someones page and I thought not only is today the first blank page but everyday is a new blank page. When I wake up every morning it is a different day. As a stay at home mom it is very hard to remember this because there is no work agenda, big meeting, or daily email that reminds you today is different from yesterday. It all seems like it runs together. Wake up, wash face, breakfast, take kids to school, feed baby, lunch, feed baby, dinner, feed baby, read story, bed...wake up and repeat..lol. But it is a different day, a day to call a friend, send a card, write my husband a love letter, play a game that my kids have not played., do a new workout, try a new recipe. There are so many different things that I could do everyday.

So even as I sit here writing I did not do anything extradordinary today, but I am going to purpose in my heart to do a little something special every day this year because everyday is new and presents a new opportunity for me to add to the story of my life, my families life, and a friends' life. What will you write on your page today?