April Showers Bring

Not Spring Flowers!

April has proven to be a crazy, stressful, busy month!

I went back to work after my year off for maternity leave. I had to start looking for a new day home for Jaden for the fall. I tried to reach a new goal for Passion Parties and of course tried to keep my house from falling apart!

The Upside to this chaos is I'm loving being back at work!

The down side... I still have guilt! It was a very hard transition for Mr. J. It broke my heart when I went to pick him up after my first few days and you can see he'd been crying all day and hear it in his voice. I felt like the worst mother in the world. I was enjoying myself. My ego was also enjoying going back to work!

I was hearing things like "WOW, You look amazing", "O.M.G we are so happy you are back", "Great Job" and of course my favourite was when a new employee said this "You're Erin? WOW you are so young and skinny! I was expecting an older, bigger person coming back from mat leave!" Bahahaha Seriously?

So along with the guilt, I have being tired. I'm drained! I had 9 parties booked in April! 9! I held 4! My emotions were getting the best of me! Trying to juggle work, sports, dinner, cleaning, sleep and passion was taking the best of me! I'm sure Steve hates who he's living with right now! I've just been feeling like I'm doing this all myself! But really I'm not! We are both exhausted! We also all got the flu bad this month as well! That took us all for a ride! Having someone come in once a month to just clean isn't what I need. I need someone to come in once a week and tidy up too!

My mom told me not to worry so much about the shape of the house. "So what if it's messy! It's not like it's dirty and if people don't like how messy your house it then they can come for a visit and clean it for you!" LOL Thanks mom but when I walk through the door after working all day I can feel the stress on my body the minute I walk into the kitchen to get dinner ready! I can't make dinner with no clean dishes! If I cook then he can help clean! It's only fair! Everything has to be split 50/50! We both have two jobs! We both have lots of our plate! We need to team together to get this house in shape so it's not bringing me down which in turn brings the entire family down! That's not right!

But looking back at this month it wasn't all that bad! I cried, I laughed, I yelled and I have yet to find my sanity! But it's working out! I'm no longer stressing over a new day home for Mr. J and can now actually be a good friend and support them in their new adventure and move! I'm going to work on finding a new system this month for all of us to make it through a day much more easier! With Soccer on Monday and Wednesday Nights we will be out of the house more. My parents are helping out a lot on the weekends. Which is something I never thought I would ever happen! I haven't booked as many parties as I would like but I think it's best not to over do it! When I'm happy it all flows together like it should and I end up being on fire and loving every minute of it!

I haven't been able to blog at all this month either! I want to write about the amazing medal my son received in school and of course about my baby turning ONE! It's hard enough sitting down right now and writing this now that Jaden is up from his nap!

Here's to another adventurous month ahead! Bring it on May! :)

Happy Easter!

For me Easter is about chocolate and the Easter bunny! I never really cared about making it into anything big. No big family dinners and I don't celebrate for any religious reasons.

This year is different! I am cooking a Ham for the first time. Well not really. I've made small ones before but I mean for a family gathering! And I've somewhat invited the family over! I still really didn't make a big deal about it! My conclusion to cooking a ham happened along the lines of this around Wednesday:

Me: Should we do anything for Easter dinner?
Steve: Sure, why not?
Me: Well do you want a ham or do you care?
Steve: Whatever...
Me: Ok, well do you want the whole meal deal? Scallop potatoes and such?
Steve: Sure, why not?
Me: Ok then that's what we will do! Ham dinner!

I even tried asking Steve if that sounded about right and we had another similar conversation that ended in laughing and him stating he's not going to admit not listening or put his foot in his mouth! 

So I sent my brother in law a text. Not actually sure if they are coming or not. I assumed both my parents would come but I guess I was too late with my dad. He's going to his brothers. Fine... Whatever! LOL And my cousin assumed I was making something and said they'd be over with her girls! Well to me that was a given! Feast or not, the kids need to be together for Easter fun! I'm sure we would have figured out the whole dinner thing eventually!

So after somewhat planning this I sat down being very thankful for my family! No it's not the. Sigh I'm really not to sure how to put my family in words. We don't do family reunions on my mom's side. I'm not close with my dad's side and that's that! We all sort of do our own thing! I want to change that. I have always had this vision of my house being "THE" house! The place everyone migrates too! The open door for my boys friends, family dinners and gathering and all! The perfect sitcom or evening drama type life! You know what I'm talking about! Actually "Brothers & Sisters" is what I kind of dreamed for! Drama and all! It's the big family gatherings that I long for! And since buying a house with the space to do it I'm working on creating it! And now that my family is slowing migrating to YYC... It's starting to happen! I can't wait to eventually buy a house with an actual dinning room! Don't worry Steve... That's on my 10 year plan list! Love you!

I am very thankful!

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you have a family crazed, chocolate wasted, ham or turkey filled weekend!

Back to Work

I started back at work yesterday! It was really good! I am very happy to be back. It feels so strange actually. Almost as if I hadn't left on Mat leave. I went in and started my day like I did a year ago. It's taking me a little bit to remember how to do it all again and where to even look for a few things. I'm very thankful I have a few people to lean on for my duh questions. I didn't get to talk to anyone who was doing my job for me for any information that might be important for me to know. The only thing I got from the one person was an email stating that credit card information I might need is in the Urgent box. That was it! No Hi, welcome back! While you were away this, this and this happened. Nope! Nothing like that. I was alone on my first day in the office! Oh well, I am figuring it out! I have a boss who knows what she's doing and great all around support!

Today was a good day too! I felt really good when a client remembered me and told me how thankful and happy she was that I was back! WOW! Really? You missed me? YES was her response! Loved that! I'm feeling special already!

Day two at work for me and day one for day home for Jaden! That however did not turn out so good. He cried most of the day! Just seeing him upset when I got there made my heart sink. I feel bad for being happy I'm back at work. While I'm cramming my brain with relearning and enjoying adult time, he's crying and not enjoying his time. I know he's going to be fine... Until I have to find someone new! Then I have to deal with this guilt all over again. It's this feeling that makes me want to want to stay home! I can do it by booking 5 or more parties to replace my income like I did last month! But it's not guaranteed. And well I'm still not sure it's what I fully want! I like having that extra money on the side with a salary coming in! It makes budgeting and saving so much easier! I also wish maybe I could find someone to come to our house to watch him. Even ask my Dad. But then he wouldn't have the social aspect of a day home. I believe he needs that interaction with others that I didn't fully provide him with during my leave. I sort of avoided play dates and meeting new moms. I didn't want to have to go through that drama again. I hate "mom" drama! It's almost worst then high school!

I have a million things going through my head right now! I have my Passion to do list I haven't gotten to, my new work to do list that consists of things to do and then things to look into and going through files and seeing what "they" did while I was away! I'm happy my co-worker will be there tomorrow. At lease she will be able to help me and fill me in so I don't bug the Front Desk Manager a million times! LOL That's Okay tho, I know she loves me! I'm sure I'll get my pay back next October!

There you have it! Two days in and I'm doing good! Yes my brain feels like it wants to jump out of my head and it hurts so much I want to cry but I expected this feeling. It's the same feeling I got when I first moved to accounting to begin with! Like I said, I'm happy! I just wish my baby was too...