lately.

i've been thinking a lot lately.  there's been a lot going on.  justin lost his job at the beginning of june.  that has been a new challenge for us to face together.  it was unexpected, and i think his boss handled it very poorly, but it is what it is.  i hate thinking that people will always always disappoint you, but that's how this has made us feel.  it has been a lesson in learning to get past anger (a relatively useless emotion in these types of situations) and focus on what we can/should be doing.

we had a great holiday week with family in town and lots of swimming and home time.  ek varies day to day (or hour to hour) between being the sweetest person that i've ever met and quite the little challenge.  i never know how much of it to attribute to her being 2 and how much of it i have control over/should or could be doing something differently.

anyway.  i've been thinking about getting down to the basics and how on most days i miss executing on even the most basic of functions.  i find myself making a lot of lists in my head about things i want to be doing on a regular basis and what level of incremental happiness and life satisfaction those things will deliver.  they are things like putting on eye cream because i'm about to be 32 and let's face it i should have started that years ago.  shaving my legs more than once every ten days.  staying awake while nursing hollis before bed without using my cell phone as a distraction/stay awake device.  making my daily list each night before bed.  using my evenings for something other than collapsing on the couch to watch jeopardy and play candy crush.  wearing my hair in some style other than a messy bun meaning it's still wet 10 hours later when i take it down.  packing lunches for myself/justin.  meal planning.  figuring out a time to exercise, run the dogs, plant some flowers, organize my crafts, do one small project every day....all the things, really.

days are so short.  and i struggle with feeling like i am rushing through the motions - that daily life is a continuous cycle of loading the dishwasher, cooking the meals, folding the laundry - but i'm not relishing the joy in those everyday things.  it begs the question of what the heck the point is.  why am i working to make money to spend on more crap to deal with when i don't actually believe that most of the random crap is important at all?

justin and i have been talking for months now about our house.  we love our actual house - the structure we live in - but we don't love our neighborhood.  at all.  when we bought, it was with the idea that we'd be here 3-5 years and move somewhere else when it was time for the kidlets to start school.  we've been here two years now and i think we underestimated our yearning for a neighborhood community.  i have a lot of thoughts about community in general and the absence of it (in a general sense) in modern life.  i feel like there are some fundamentals that are just missing and seem so hard to create/find, at least for me.

i'm really just rambling.  i don't have any solutions right now.  i'm trying to feel like less of a shadow of a person - to be fully present in each moment, especially with the children.  because they are pure magic right now and they, at least, are a source of incomprehensible joy to me.  everything else that i worry about, stress about, think about should probably take a back seat.