Wednesday, May 19th

Life is going by slowly these days.  The calendar is PACKED...which usually seems to make time fly.  And yet...it's crawling!  We are all tired.  The kids are tired.  The mom is tired.  Poor dad is always tired!  I am definitely ready for school to be OUT.  To know what the summer holds (as far as Max and whether or not he passes the 8th grade...he had a 52 average in his math class on the progress report that came home last week).  To know if I will be beachside with two kids...or three.  Mostly I am looking forward to sleeping past 6:20 a.m.  To waking up feeling rested and not stressing out if I don't have everyone tucked into bed by 9:30.  To just having NO agenda.  THAT is what I am craving the most right now.  A total lack of schedule.  Of course...there will be a little bit of a schedule.  Clara will still do gymnastics.  And Max is swimming with the swim team right now.  So we will be keeping that up.  But nothing else!!!!

Tomorrow we get to see the plans that a builder has done for us as far as putting in an outdoor kitchen area and outdoor fireplace and adding some stonework and landscaping to the house.  Chris and I are crazy excited to see what our possibilities might be and are READY to get started on transforming the outside living areas of our home.  I hope we like it!  More than that...I hope we can AFFORD it!

As for me...I'm working out SO regularly right now.  Yay me!  I have been faithful for the past three weeks with regular cardio workouts and lifting weights at least two days a week.  I have two friend who are coming with me and I have kind of assumed the role of "personal trainer".  Not that I am in any way, shape or form a trainer of any sort.  However...I am working out with two people who have NO experience in a gym and NO history of working out and am slowly, but surely, converting them to die hard workout junkies.  At first, it was rough going.  One friend in particular told me regularly that she hated me...spoken totally in love, of course.  The other just shot me constant nasty looks.  Three weeks into it, I find that the one friend, on average, only hates me once or twice in a workout and growls at me MUCH less often now.  And the other friend is less menacing with the dirty looks.  She simply seems to rise to the occasion more often than not.  Three weeks ago, walking on the treadmill for 30 minutes was tough.  Now, I have them running intervals and walking MAJOR hills for a half hour at a time!  THEN doing a kick butt weights workout.  I know they love me...even though that's not exactly the words they use mid workout!  And I know they see progress and improvement!  I know that I do!

In addition to the exercise, I have picked up my camera a bit here lately.  Here are some of my favorites from my last two sessions!

It has felt good to capture some beautiful moments.  But it's made me realize that I don't want to go full throttle with a photography business again either.  It's all evenings and weekends when I am working with families...and that is hard.  It comes at the cost of time with my own family.  These images are so sweet and beautiful.  I love them.  And I'm glad I had the chance to capture them.  But I don't want to put myself in a position where I am doing it ALL the time.  Life is too crazy when that happens.  I've been there, done that, and I don't like life when it feels like it's busy out of control and is being run by everyone else....but me!  If I could do this during the day...while the kids are at school....life would be grand.  But that's just not the way life goes, now is it?