finding balance (spoiler alert: apparently it's as easy as rearranging furniture)

i love being a mom!  i hoped (and dare i say, knew) that i would.  it has surprised me though how easily it has all come to me.  how the smell of poop, or the middle of the night feedings really don't phase me at all.  i somehow thought that i wouldn't quite latch onto it with the fervor that i have.

what has surprised me, though, is how hard it has been for me to find balance between being mom, wife, homemaker, fun-haver, and just simply an enjoyable to be around person.  before baby this was one area that i thought was pretty straight forward - work hard, play hard.  adding another person to the mix surely couldn't throw it off that much right?

perhaps because of the internet and all of the incredible "do-it-all" mothers out there (not to mention the example of my own amazing mother) i somehow have talked myself into a "you should/can be doing more" depression.  needless to say this has left me with feelings of guilt for the moments that i am not 100% focused on hazel, and has left me running around like a crazy person two minutes before bed time trying to finish up the ten things still remaining on my teux-deux list.

oi.  somethings gotta give.

when we bought  this house back in october we wound up putting all miscellaneous items in one of two places, our bedroom and the coat closet underneath the stairs.  our bedroom just so happens to be the largest single room in our house which is both incredible and incredibly hard to keep it from accumulating the greater majority of the "i don't know where to put this" items.  enter my desk, the mecca of all "you should probably do something with this but don't know what" junk.  every night i would climb into bed with what a thought was a clear head, roll onto my left side and then get hit with an overwhelming sense of "something has to be done with all of that stuff, and it has to be done right now or else the sun will not come out tomorrow!"  yep, that is my 10 o'clock at night logic talking (and don't even try to tell my that your logic doesn't do a 180 in the worst kind of way after 9:30pm).

last week we moved the desk downstairs and i am kicking myself now for having not done it earlier.  not only am i now able to walk into a bedroom that is free of clutter, but my work space has a clear separation from my personal space.  (that and i now have a window to look out of when budgeting - dollars just make more sense when fresh air is involved.)  oh, and as a bonus, because the desk is now the first thing that you see when you walk in our front door, i have an extra incentive to not let things literally and figuratively "pile-up."

my work space still has a ways to go before it feels like that pristine picture in my mind (or rather on my pinterest board) but its a start.

so there you have it.  three cheers for finding balance and a peaceful night's sleep.