My life should be a beach

Spring break for us has always been a bit pathetic. We've taken trips to Chicago, where there was a massive blizzard, had "stay-cations" (in Minnesota, where spring comes about 6 weeks after spring break), and "divided and conquered" to try and have a pseudo-vaction, but nothing like this year. This year, Spring Break sprung in a most marvelous fashion .

It just so happened that Jared had "meetings" in Hilton Head, SC the few days prior to spring break, so we arranged for our children to get sick (miss school) so we could head up and meet him, and carry into the weekend. I must say, staying on the beach for free melted quite a bit of my resentment for those hard earned Marriott points.

Simply put, I now realize if there is one serious flaw with my life thus far, it is that far too little of it has been spent at the beach. (Something I have every intention of remedying in the future)

The beach at Hilton head was full of sunshine, friendly people, soft sand, and not too cold water. (It was free from stinky seaweed, scary riptides, skulking panhandlers, freezing water, and drug needles.)

Basically, it was perfect. I told Jared he needs to get a job on the island and we'll call it home forever. We'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, here are more photos of my bliss.

(It would be keen of you to observe that napping babies are placed immediately after the word "bliss")

Sea Shells

Surf

Sand

(As a humorous post script: Jared observed how relaxed I was on vacation, and had the nerve to ask why I wasn't like that at home.)

hahahahaha

Bizee with a capital Bee

(The blessed sources of all this busyness)

(busy dancing girls)

Welcome! You must be a devoted friend if you still bother to check for new posts on my blog. Either that, or you are seriously spending too much time on the internet.

You see, things have been busy around here. For a long time. Like, warp speed. And I don't know what to do about it.

I used to really hate when people would say to me, "Ugh, I'm just so busy!", as if it was a badge of superiority. Surely, someone so busy must be very important indeed. Or have an identity dependent upon living in crisis. While I wasn't wondering what I could fill my week with, I didn't feel that busy.

Seriously. Sure, I had one, two, five children, but we had a pretty simple life. Our sports/music lessons/karate club involvement was pretty close to non-existent. My house was (is) not perfectly kept. I don't make (have) time for hobbies, so really, we just did our thing. As the number of children increased, so did the length of my "to-do" list, but not overwhelmingly so.

Until about last May. I'm not quite sure what happened, but we crossed some invisible threshold.

We were suddenly moving. The one year old was walking, the three year old wouldn't stop talking. The teenagers were balking, and the middles were stalking. (me, that is. "M-ahmmm, can I _________?" "Ma-hhhhm....")

My husband disappeared into his new job. My dream house disappeared along with all our equity. My mom was sick. The kind of sick that would make her disappear too. My finally organized household needed to be reshuffled completely, along with finding new schools, new dentists, new doctors, new dance studios, new grocery stores, new utility companies, new banks, new friends. We've got toddlers to teenagers, whose hours are not compatible with my physical need for sleep.

Now I find myself saying, "I'm just so busy!" like all those other people. Which I really hate, because it's like saying, "I just don't have time for you."

Which is why I haven't blogged most of this. Because I'm so busy. But I haven't been able to bring myself to pull the plug, because I really feel like there is so much I want to share, and say, and be. All this busyness has got to get under control.

Hasn't it?