I'm baaaack!

 Wow!  It's been a lot longer than I thought since I last updated here.  Life has been busy, hectic, chaotic, exciting, stressful and wonderful.  Mostly, it's been full of change.  I find myself caught somewhere between adapting and struggling to find my footing.  Some changes, were brought on by the normal cycles of life, while others were purposeful, even if a tad insane.  

In the four plus years since I last posted here (and maybe even a little before then), I've had one boy earn his Associate Degree and complete HVAC training.  Brandon and I decided that tattooed wedding bands were the way to go after making it through 23 years of marriage.  The other graduated high school and took off on a grand adventure in the military.  He and I went and got tattoos together as well.  I may have a new addiction, despite getting my very first tattoo 27 years ago.  I got another tattoo after loosing 35 pounds - that was my gift to myself.  I started a scrapbooking FB group with one of my closest friends, too! After J left home, Brandon and I decided that we wanted to be country people.  We went looking and oddly enough fell in love with the first place we looked at.  It wasn't and isn't perfect yet, but it will be.  We have plans, but for now we love our little house on 28 acres in the middle of nowhere. 

So, what brought me back here?  I'm not sure.  Maybe I needed a place to brain dump everything swirling around in my mind.  I am definitely at loose ends right now. I find myself super stressed thanks to looming layoffs and the fact that we haven't sold our old house yet.  I'm also in this weird stage in life and it is making me a bit of a train wreck.  My marriage is the strongest it has ever been.  Brandon and I have gotten so much closer in the last few years.  We've had more time to connect and remember what it was like when it was just the two of us. On the flip side, I am also going through a terrible and LONG mourning period.  I miss my little boys.  I miss being needed in a way that only boy moms understand.  Ugh!  It's so cliche to say that it only seems like yesterday that their little hands were on my cheeks or their little arms were wrapped around my neck, but it's so true.  It went by so fast.  I've been slightly obsessed with this song that seems to reflect my mood at the moment: The Things I'd Wished I'd Done

All that being said, I am trying to get my shit together and get out of my head so much.  It's a good time to set some goals and prioritize them.  I mean, I do this every year and even memorialize them in my scrapbooks.  LOL!  This year, I would like to mark of more than a couple. I really don't beat myself up over not accomplishing everything every year, but I think I want to make a more conscious effort this year.  

Step 1: Accept what I can control and what I can't.  Like selling the house or keeping my job.

I did share this on The Scrappy Square, but I'll share it here too for accountability.  I have these pages framed and hanging on my wall as a reminder of what I am working towards.