Fitting It All In!!

Well I did it!  Or at least it feels like I did.  I find I usually set too many goals for one day, so even though I didn't get everything on my list done I feel like I did :D  I now have enough chicken stock to last me quite a while.  Now to the endless job of freezing it all in icecube trays :D  I made Chicken Lasagnia!  We had it for dinner tonight, oh sooooo yummy!!  I made a massive pot of Chicken Curry, I did a load of laundry and my kitchen and livingroom are clean :D  One of the highlights of my day however was naptime.  While Eli enjoyed sweet dreams I enjoyed a nice, long soak in a tub with a cup of tea and 2 timtams!!  Oh it was wonderful!  I got out so energized and ready to continue my cooking marathon!!  It is so nice to come to the end of my day and feel no guilt about sitting down and enjoying the evening.  I think when I go on maternity leave this time I will enjoy the free time even more than I did the first time.  I think I am finally starting to understand how to do this Stay At Home Mom thing and enjoy it.  Don't get me wrong, I love being home with my family, but I really missed being in the work environment and feeling like I was contributing to the greater good of the financial household.  But I think after nearly 5 years of marriage I am starting to love the Stay at home idea.  There are so many nice little things I can do for my family with the time I spend at home.  Working full time there simply isn't time (I find anyway) to make healthy, homemade stocks, bake cookies for my family, re-orgainze the linen closet... etc... you get my drift.  And I am finally beginning to realize how important those things are to me, my Hubby and family.  I can't count how many times in recent weeks Matt has come home and exclaimed on how clean the house is, or how nice dinner was, or the fact that I re-organized something.  I am starting to learn the sence of accomplishment that can come from these things.

  Now don't get me wrong, I do still love going to my job twice a week, and I love decorating cakes.  Decorating cakes will be a part of my life for a lot of years to come.  I am just happy to be able to finally be letting go of the security I needed from being out of the house to work.  I am happy that I am finally feeling like what I do at home matters just as much, or more than the money I can bring in by working.  To be able to not be insecure without a job.  Maybe to some of you this sounds silly, that I should have ever felt insecure without a job, but I used my work ethic to define a part of who I was.  Working hard and bringing in that pay cheque was one thing about myself that I was unappoligetically proud of and had been since I was 17 years old.  So when I went on Maternity leave for the first time I flowndered and felt like I had lost a part of myself.  I tried to fill that part of me with mommy things... But in time I realized it wasn't working... So I went back to work 2 days a week.  Ive been back to work nearly a year now and I'm happy to say that when I go on Maternity leave this time it will be with a sence of completion.  I don't need to go and work in an office to define that part of me anymore, I can work at home and enjoy that just as much.  I think it just wasn't the time yet and now I feel I'm done...