There's No Place Like Home

The last time I posted, I mentioned that I was getting the hell out of here. While I continue to LOVE my job, I am discovering that the first few weeks of school are insanity. Last week I worked about six to eight hours more than I had to (no, I don't get overtime) and had the persistent feeling that I was drowning. Add to that a husband that has just changed shifts at work, leaving me feeling like I'm a single mom with a grumpy, unavailable roommate, and let's just say that things in our house have been stressful. Even Amelia seems to be impacted, as she has been starting some minor aggressive behavior-- towards Mommy only. Good. Times.

So clearly, life has been challenging lately. I know we will get past it and things will improve. My initial coping mechanism was to escape, so as I said, Amelia and I went on a little getaway a couple weeks ago. We went to a local waterpark/hotel with my friend, Anna, and her daughter, Bela. Amelia adores Bela, and will often follow in her footsteps (for better or worse-- let's just hope Bela doesn't rob a liquor store some day. I guarantee Amelia would be her co-conspirator.) I thought that if Bela enjoyed the water areas, Amelia surely would to.

Nope.

Amelia spent most of the time either sitting in my lap in the shallow end, uninterested in playing with any water toys, crying, or sitting next to Anna on the ledge of the pool. Much like an old lady. It was still fun in that we were able to spend time with good friends, but I wish that Amelia had enjoyed the main reason that we were there rather than having to work up courage to get within feet of the water.

Our lovely ladies, ready to head back home.

Last weekend, we packed up and attempted camping a second time. While it was fun overall and less anxiety producing for Amelia, the campground that we chose did not have nice boundaries like the first time we went camping. This led to a lot of me telling Amelia "No, don't go over there. No, don't get close to the road. Come back here, I can't see you when you are over there." Top that with some rain our first day, which made the majority of our site muddy (did I mention that we also have a large dog to watch and minimize the muddiness of?), and it just was not the grand picture of relaxation that I had painted in my head. As a result, we headed home after two days rather than staying the full three days that we had reserved.

Morning cartoons, camping style.

Molly enjoyed the camper-- please note that is MY bed, she was supposed to be sleeping on the lower section.

My little buckeye fan exploring a playground near the park.

This is not to say that I didn't enjoy the last two weekends, but I definitely have gained an appreciation for relaxing at home, where there are DVR'd cartoons for Amelia and boundaries that she is already familiar with. With working from home, I often think I need to physically get away to diffuse some stress, but clearly there are times where I am more at ease within the confines of our country home.

With that said, I have to say that this has been a nice weekend so far. We have enjoyed spending a lot of time at a local art festival, I made some treats for my husband's police department, and was able to make a nice dinner for him last night before his twelve hour shift. Apparently, all of this down time is making Amelia rather sleepy.

Zonked out at the art festival.

Here's hoping that all of my readers are having an equally relaxing weekend :)

Sunday Hodgepodge

My lovely little peanut has been so excited about the weekend that she's decided to wake up at the butt crack of dawn both days (that would be 5:15 a.m., folks). Perhaps I tempted the slumbering fates that be when I decided to stay up till midnight or later both nights. Either way, here I am, watching Sesame Street with her before the sun even rises.

Because I am barely awake enough to type, I thought I'd share a few links for your reading pleasure. The first is my guest post on The Random Blogette from Friday. I share the reasons that I started eating a plant strong diet (that would be mostly meat, egg, and dairy free), as well as some resources for those interested in eating more meatless meals.

I was also briefly featured in this SparkPeople article about the contents of one's fridge. Scroll down to the bottom, and that's me! I use SparkPeople to track my daily calories and fitness and sent in my fridge photo in an attempt to win a Kindle Fire. While I didn't win that, I did manage to win three free e-books on health and cooking. Yay!

Next, my dad is experiencing his own published fame today as he is featured in The Toledo Blade! He shares his marble collection and how he came to enjoy collecting his beautiful glass orbs. It truly is a sight to behold and holds a special place in my heart because we often go to many local art festivals together in the summer. Usually I even get to put my two cents in when he is trying to determine which marble to purchase. I also get to sit around and listen to his sarcastic banter with Larry and Bret, two of his favorite (and local!) artists from Hot House Glass.

Finally, something that I found so true and quite funny. It's a humorous piece about what stay at home moms actually do during the day. If you subtract the baby, and add a full time work from home job, this is what my day is often like. It tickled my funny bone so much that I made Jon listen to me read half of it out loud.

Are you linked out now? Good, because I'm ready for a nap! I suppose since we are up so early I will be making us banana pancakes and counting down the hours till we take an afternoon snooze. Lord knows I need it! Oh the joys of motherhood :)