Give yourself a break

So a couple weeks ago, I had one of those moments. I honestly don’t remember what got me so upset, but my husband had been out of town for days, I had forgotten something for the Bub’s school, I had overextended myself blog-wise and I was just feeling like a bad mom and wife in general. Just one of those days.

I was talking to myself (I do that a lot) and lamenting all the things I had done wrong that day and really just beating myself up about it. And then I started crying (just great), which is not something I do often.

So I’m standing in the middle of the bedroom, crying, and I it just hit me – I told myself (yes…out loud) to just give myself a break.

My husband was gone and during the fall that was a common occurrence (he’s retired from teaching music but as busy as ever with other stuff) and you know what – like always, I was handling things by myself and doing a decent job of it. I needed to give myself a break.

This blog is now my “job” and I love it so dang much, but there are times that it gets stressful. And then I beat myself up for even thinking that this perfectly perfect job is stressful sometimes. Like that means I’m not grateful for it. But I need to give myself a break. Every job has stress.

And although I don’t feel like a bad mom often, I do hate when I don’t stay on top of things for my son. But in the end, he’s an incredibly happy, well adjusted kid. And that night he went to bed content and without a care in the world, and that is all that matters to me at the end of the day.

I thought about all of us women – I believe the men in our lives stress just as much (you may not realize it but they do), but I think we expect every aspect of what we do to be pretty darn perfect, and our men take it a little easier on themselves.

So, as we roll into the holiday season I wanted to remind you all to GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK.

The past two years I’ve not had time to write out and send Christmas cards:

It is STUPID how bad that makes me feel. Like I failed at Christmas.

I didn’t. Santa still came. Joy was had. My friends still know we exist. :)

I always like to hand write my cards – but this year maybe I’ll print out address labels and do the photo card. Or not. Either way, life will go on.

I LOVE holiday traditions but they can get out of hand. There’s only so much time in the day people! So our Elf doesn’t get into crazy antics (although I enjoy seeing what he does at other houses):

And sometimes…sometimes, he stays in the same spot two (three!) nights in a row. Mama has stuff to do. I may not be able to pull that off this year though, the boy is getting older and smarter. (Last year was stretching it.)

I always have grand plans for baking and cooking and trying new recipes and entertaining like a BOSS…but then the day of the party comes and I end up throwing together my cheater cookies that are just as yummy and festive:

And the elaborate recipe I was going to try out ends up being frozen meatballs in the slow cooker.

But you know what? Who cares?? People are fed and it’s good. Give yourself a break.

This is just a friendly reminder – think of me as the tiny voice in your head this holiday season. Take care of yourself. Try to take it easy. Cut yourself some slack. It will be wonderful, even if the Elf on the Shelf actually stays on the shelf. ;)