Hello New Year! Am I Late?

I haven't posted for so long. Here is why:

1) I was running a preschool for 10 very small children. We made lots of stuff with glitter and put on a play called "The Gingerbread Baby" where they each got to choose what character they wanted to be when chasing the cookie. We had Spiderman, 2 Cinderellas, a spider, a cowboy, a horse, a wizard, and a couple of other things I can't remember. It was chaotic and hilarious.

2) I was trying to figure out how to organize 134 kids and 50 adults into a functioning primary. We had a "Teacher Breakfast", 2 musical numbers in the ward Christmas program, and a "Meet Your Teacher Breakfast" and in between we had to change things a million times and hold a million meetings and stay awake lots of nights stressing.

3) Christmas. Presents, cards, wrapping, cookies to the neighbors, decorating, out of town visitors, etc.

4) My husband's parents came home from their mission to New Zealand and 8 of the 9 siblings in my husband's family came in to town for the event. (They did NOT all stay here!)

5) Out of town visitors staying here (but not all of them).

6) A Christmas "Journey Around the World" class party for my son's kindergarten class (actually, both sessions of the kindergarten. Still not sure how I got roped into that...) And why did I volunteer to be in charge?

7) Lots of playing and frolicking with family and loved ones.

8) Strep throat (my son) and lots of congestion and colds.

9) An anxiety attack

10) A baby shower for a lady in the ward who just adopted 2 darling children after waiting years and years for kids. Invited the whole ward...nothing like putting your house under scrutiny at Christmas time. Worried the whole evening that there was a pair of poopy underwear somewhere or a soggy diaper under the couch!

My new year's goal to learn how to balance my life. There are SO many good, wonderful, magnificent opportunities out there waiting to be grasped but not all at the same time. If I hear of something wonderful, I grab it without stopping to assess where it will fit in to the grand scheme of my life and how it will affect those I love. There is the tricky part...you don't want to squeeze out the BEST part of your life with a bunch of little things that in the end don't add up. I dropped preschool. This is HUGE for me. I agonized over it for weeks but in the end it had to be about my family and me. And I have to admit that it has given me back a HUGE part of my life that I didn't realize had gone MIA. I'm sleeping more than 5 hours a night, I don't feel constant irritation and frustration, and I have more time to devote to the little people that really need me. I'm learning how to say "no". That isn't really true but I'm thinking about how to say "no".

I realize there is a time and season to all parts of life and part of being a grown up is recognizing that some great opportunities need to wait. That is hard for me but trying to do it all at once really messes things up. I feel like if I'm not running around like crazy being involved in every thing means I'm not making the contribution I could be making. And I like being involved. There are so many things I love and so many things that fascinate me and make me curious. But I don't want to wake up one day and realize the most interesting and precious things to me have grown up and moved away.

So 2007 will be the year to slow down and "delete". It will be the year to savor the minutes of every day...good and bad. It will be the year to blog more and stress less. I want to sit back on December 31, 2007 and instead of wondering if Valium could be administered in an IV every night while I sleep, think back on all the things I didn't miss because I chose to really be there...body and spirit.

Here is to hopes and wishes and good intentions! Cheers!