Resolutions and Project{365}

I'm not sure I really have a "resolution" for this year... but more of a shift in priorities and trying to find the willpower to stick with this shift. My main shift in priorities is family... and the second is friends.

I know it sounds crazy... but with the kids being 10 and 9, as a good friend in Texas once pointed out, our time with them at home is halfway over (assuming they go off to college or out into the world at 18). Our time with them is too short to be booked 24/7, with no time for family outings and vacations. Alex loves acting and has had decent success at it... and I got an email yesterday asking if he would audition for an upcoming musical. Our first instinct was to answer "yes... of course!".... but we sat down last night and looked over the rehearsal and performance schedule. It would mean giving up and/or limiting the skiing weekends we had planned, it would mean shows three nights a week and a matinee AND it would mean giving up the trip we had planned over spring break. We had to ask ourselves, was this project worth it? And the answer was "no". There would have been a time, before I really thought about my priorities, that we would have gone for it.... we would have canceled trips, been running in different directions and compromised our family time. Does this mean that he's done acting? No... it just means that we're going to think more seriously about what we're committing to BEFORE we get into it. There will be times that it will be worth it and we'll rearrange everything... but it can't be for every thing that comes along.

The second part of my shift for the new year is friends. I fell into the trap of being overbooked last year and I hated it. I hated always having to say "no" or "can we change the time/day" every time when one of the kids' friends asked for a playdate. Now is the time to have friends and play... real play... and not be cooped up in classes all of the time. With the registration for a new session of classes starting, we have worked hard to find the balance between letting the kids pursue their interests and still allowing them to have plenty of free time for family and friends. We've sat down with the kids and whittled the classes down to their top priorities and now have a manageable schedule that basically keeps our weekends free. We've also figured out ways to sneak friend time into our day... while Clara is in dance, we have plans to go ice skating with friends and some of the siblings from the class at a rink near her class. It's a win-win... Clara's in a class she loves with her friends and Alex is skating with friends at the same time!

I guess the third component, which I didn't list before, but keeps popping up in my head as I type, is commitment. Through all of this, we are making it a priority to fully commit to those things we sign up for. Last year, when we were overbooked, I found that we were skipping classes in order to go do other things that came up. That was so wrong! If we couldn't commit to the class, we shouldn't have signed up. If it was a bigger priority for Clara to go skating with her friends on a Saturday... why in the world did I sign her up for a Saturday afternoon class? Alex was invited to be part of a local theater group's young ensemble program this fall, yet we kept having to leave early for the first few weeks because he was double booked. Our excuse was that we had no idea he would be invited into this group and these were prior commitments. But, again... I hated having to call up each time and tell them that he would miss or have to leave early. I felt like I was telling them that they were second rate.. and these other things were much more important. I know they understand that we had prior commitments... but it compromised Alex's experience with this really cool program. He missed the first three weeks of work on their fall project and because of this... it compromised his involvement in the piece, and the relationships with both the other kids and the instructors since they had had three more weeks to get to know each other. From now on, when we commit to something.... we commit to it as fully as we possibly can. I'm not going into things knowing we'll have to miss several classes.... if that's the case, we won't sign up. I had been thinking about this a lot lately while trying to figure out if we might be able to juggle a few things.... then yesterday I read the following on a friend's facebook status and it really drove it home...

"When you overbook yourself, you screw over other people a lot more than you screw over yourself."

I don't want to be "that person"... I tend to think of it from just my view. So what... we can miss whatever it is.... the kids can catch up when we get back, they won't miss us just this once, we're just out the money I paid for that class and I'm okay with that this time, etc.... but this quote really made me think about the other side, and how "they" may be viewing us.

So, with all of this in mind, we are yet again making an attempt at project{365} (the photo a day thing)... however, along with my "shifts in priorities", we are making this more of a family effort. Most of the photos will be taken by me, but they also may be taken by Alex, Clara, Jeff or someone else who was with us at the time. This year's project is a focus on us as a family and the time we spent together and with friends!

With that out of the way.... let's begin!

day one...
The cinnamon raisin bread the kids and I made together... sliced and ready to be made into some really yummy french toast!

day two...
Alex's last exit from the stage at Miracle.

day three...
Alex at the Michigan State game at Northwestern. He went with Jeff and some of Jeff's coworkers... he loves hanging out with the guys (taken by Jeff).

Okay... so that was a long and wordy post! I just feel like, at times, in order to commit to something I have to put it out there so I feel like people are holding me accountable for what I said. :-)