overwhelmed

Most days I feel like I have it together. Most days I feel fortunate because I am able to balance work life and home life pretty well. I am so lucky that we have an amazing nanny and that I know that Kenzie & Lexi are well taken care of (& enjoying their days with Sara) while I am at work. And I am lucky to have such a great boss, who is also a working mom, who helps me balance things and keep my priorities straight. I don't worry about the girls while I am at work because of Sara and am therefore able to focus on work while I am in the office. On the flip side, when I am at home and the girls are awake I am 100% focused on them! Nomatter how tired I may be when I get home from work I give them 100% of my energy. I make dinner and then we attempt to do some sort of fun activity together every evening. Sure it is hard to work full time and to be a mom to 15 month old twin girls, and there are many days where I wish that I could spend all day with them. But most days I feel like I am doing exactly what I should be doing ... and I feel proud that I am able to be a great mom to K&L while also being successful professionally.

This past week was not one of those weeks... this past week I have felt overwhelmed. Between late night video-conference calls with Asia, hosting book club, preparing for meetings with out-of-town bosses, spending 13 1/2 hours at the office on my birthday, preparing to host out-of-town guests, yucky-rainy weather & somewhat cranky girls ... I have felt overwhelmed. I have felt like I need to be in 2 places at once ... I have felt guilty for being at the office when I should have been with my girls and have felt guilty for not being at the office when I knew everyone on my team was still there working. I felt like a bad friend/hostess when I had to forego my grand plans to make a Spanish themed homemade dinner menu (for which I had already purchased all of the ingredients) for book club, and instead had Randall pick up Dewey's salads & pizza on his way home. And I felt like a bad aunt & sister-in-law as I was not able to take time off work when they were in town. Sorry for the long vent ... sometimes writing things down makes me feel a bit better.

At the end of the day, I guess these feelings are normal and I need to realize that sometimes it is going to be impossible to do it all. I went to a women's network event at work a couple of months ago where the keynote speaker talked about work-life balance and her key message was "you can have it all, but not all at the same time." I need to remind myself of this when I am feeling overwhelmed. My family will always be my number one priority and at the end of each week I hope that they know this through my actions and words.

It is always nice, that nomatter how tough the week has been, that we always have the weekend to spend together as a family. I love those 2 days each week where I get to be with them all day. We always find fun ways to fill our time together and this weekend was no different .. more to come in another post.

And if there is anyone out there that knows the secret to making it all work, all the time please let me know :)



Our fun activity of the night ... a trip to Lunken Field for a family run followed by fun at the playground.