"I know a place where the grass is really greener..."
I am not a huge Katy Perry fan, nor am I suggesting that I find any amount of musical significance to her song "California Girls", but I do work in a public high school and would have to be deaf not to have heard this song played on an errant ipod, a student sitting down to pluck out the melody composed of frighteningly few notes on my classroom's piano, or the clarinetist who insists if I can just find an arrangement of that song, all of his lifelong band dreams will come true.
Anyhow, I was in my kitchen this morning doing a final run with my 50 year old oven (YAY!). I had the radio on and was dancing with wild abandonment while making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. (Laugh if you want- but the dance like no one is watching philosophy is wonderfully freeing and fun. Try it. I dare you.) While I was dancing and mixing the cookie dough, this particular Katie Perry song came on and that first phrase stopped me in my tracks.
"I know a place where the grass is really greener"
Now, I have been struggling with a bit of discontentment in my present circumstances- working and being just so busy with a job that I used to love, but am now sensing that it's time to move on to a more full time motherhood-pretty low energy and constantly sick with this pregnancy but finding my schedule is go go go no chance to just stop and baby myself for a minute...
A friend made a comment to me the other day that "the grass is always greener" when she was saying how wonderful it was to be free from her kids for an hour during church nursery and I said that I had a hard time leaving Addison because I have to be gone from her for a lot of the week.
I've been thinking a lot about that concept lately (mostly because that friend is so wise, I felt like she was making a legit point).
While I have been pondering, I have randomly heard interesting things from some friends:
Friend A: stay at home mom desperately longing for a hobby or job of her own that would give her a purpose outside of her kids and homemaking
Friend B: newly pregnant- feeling great and wishing like anything that she would be sick so that she would "feel" pregnant and not worry so much about miscarriage. (I was in the middle of telling her how much I hated her for her "feeling great" when she finished her sentence.)
All my life, I was always convinced that the grass would be greener on the other side things: working a real job instead of being in school, finally being married to the man of my dreams, at long last being done with grad school, buying a house instead of living in tiny apartments, having a baby...
Each time, I found that yes there were wonderful new things to each new circumstance, but there were also new challenges to face as well.
So I have decided to learn from my meager 26 years of life experiences, go out on a limb here and declare that the grass is greener now...whatever the "now" might be. I am so confident of this fact, that I'm going to show you a picture of the "green" grass that I see when I stand on my front porch. Are you ready? It's going to make you really jealous, just warning you:
and yes, that is still snow in the distance...and yes it is almost April. (-:
I have decided that my "green" is pretty great- I am the only person in the whole world who is blessed enough to be Addison's mother. Because I am still working, we can afford to buy my new oven/stove microwave and countertops that my kitchen desperately needs (pictures to follow), Because I have been so sick, my pregnancy so far has been very healthy and normal. Being so busy is allowing time to fly and I'll be done with this school year before I even realize it. That brown stuff disguised as grass in my front yard will be blossoming into the most glorious of green within the next few months on which I will place a kiddy pool and spend hours out in full sunlight with Addison splashing delightedly in the water (playdate, anyone?)
I still hope to stay home with Addison and little sibling come September, but I'm not going to let myself wish this time away any more. Every day is a gift that I don't deserve and for sure haven't been appreciating like I should.
I recently found a really great website blog called Small Notebook that focuses on simplifying your life- not allowing your life to get cluttered up with the "extras". I have loved being inspired in this way. Simplifying my life of extra stuff or activities that are there just for the sake of stuff and activities and focus on what's really important- spending time with my husband, my beautiful daughter and taking care of them and my house in a simple way. Sitting around thinking that more things or new circumstances will make my grass greener...total waste of time.
So Katy Perry, you may know a place where the grass is really greener...but so do I...and I refuse to be held captive by the wishing and longing for other people's "green" another minute longer...here's to enjoying the here and now...
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go sample some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies that just came out of the oven...
Anyhow, I was in my kitchen this morning doing a final run with my 50 year old oven (YAY!). I had the radio on and was dancing with wild abandonment while making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. (Laugh if you want- but the dance like no one is watching philosophy is wonderfully freeing and fun. Try it. I dare you.) While I was dancing and mixing the cookie dough, this particular Katie Perry song came on and that first phrase stopped me in my tracks.
"I know a place where the grass is really greener"
Now, I have been struggling with a bit of discontentment in my present circumstances- working and being just so busy with a job that I used to love, but am now sensing that it's time to move on to a more full time motherhood-pretty low energy and constantly sick with this pregnancy but finding my schedule is go go go no chance to just stop and baby myself for a minute...
A friend made a comment to me the other day that "the grass is always greener" when she was saying how wonderful it was to be free from her kids for an hour during church nursery and I said that I had a hard time leaving Addison because I have to be gone from her for a lot of the week.
I've been thinking a lot about that concept lately (mostly because that friend is so wise, I felt like she was making a legit point).
While I have been pondering, I have randomly heard interesting things from some friends:
Friend A: stay at home mom desperately longing for a hobby or job of her own that would give her a purpose outside of her kids and homemaking
Friend B: newly pregnant- feeling great and wishing like anything that she would be sick so that she would "feel" pregnant and not worry so much about miscarriage. (I was in the middle of telling her how much I hated her for her "feeling great" when she finished her sentence.)
All my life, I was always convinced that the grass would be greener on the other side things: working a real job instead of being in school, finally being married to the man of my dreams, at long last being done with grad school, buying a house instead of living in tiny apartments, having a baby...
Each time, I found that yes there were wonderful new things to each new circumstance, but there were also new challenges to face as well.
So I have decided to learn from my meager 26 years of life experiences, go out on a limb here and declare that the grass is greener now...whatever the "now" might be. I am so confident of this fact, that I'm going to show you a picture of the "green" grass that I see when I stand on my front porch. Are you ready? It's going to make you really jealous, just warning you:
and yes, that is still snow in the distance...and yes it is almost April. (-:I have decided that my "green" is pretty great- I am the only person in the whole world who is blessed enough to be Addison's mother. Because I am still working, we can afford to buy my new oven/stove microwave and countertops that my kitchen desperately needs (pictures to follow), Because I have been so sick, my pregnancy so far has been very healthy and normal. Being so busy is allowing time to fly and I'll be done with this school year before I even realize it. That brown stuff disguised as grass in my front yard will be blossoming into the most glorious of green within the next few months on which I will place a kiddy pool and spend hours out in full sunlight with Addison splashing delightedly in the water (playdate, anyone?)
I still hope to stay home with Addison and little sibling come September, but I'm not going to let myself wish this time away any more. Every day is a gift that I don't deserve and for sure haven't been appreciating like I should.
I recently found a really great website blog called Small Notebook that focuses on simplifying your life- not allowing your life to get cluttered up with the "extras". I have loved being inspired in this way. Simplifying my life of extra stuff or activities that are there just for the sake of stuff and activities and focus on what's really important- spending time with my husband, my beautiful daughter and taking care of them and my house in a simple way. Sitting around thinking that more things or new circumstances will make my grass greener...total waste of time.
So Katy Perry, you may know a place where the grass is really greener...but so do I...and I refuse to be held captive by the wishing and longing for other people's "green" another minute longer...here's to enjoying the here and now...
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go sample some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies that just came out of the oven...