The Exhaustion Cycle

Hey look, three more days before I post again.  Some days I'm not sure if this is a symptom of my busy life or if this just isn't a priority anymore.  This blog used to be about keeping a record of my life and I'm SO thankful that I can look back on when the kids were little.  But now that I have Instagram for so much of it and Facebook does the daily memories thing I get it in bits and pieces.  I do miss the depth though and those other platforms are just not as searchable.

Anyway, I caught a cold last week that I am just finally recovering from.  It's amazing how much you don't feel up to doing when you are even slightly run down.  I feel like I've been in the "slightly-run-down" phase for about 6 years now, ever since I was pregnant with the twins.  And now that I am totally out of the baby stage (Hallelujah!) it's different.  I can let them be unsupervised, but we have so many more activities to do now that I feel like I'm hardly ever home.  Which would be great if my house actually looked like we were never home... but it doesn't.

Then the cycle is, I stay up late because I crave alone time, I don't get enough sleep so I'm tired again, I don't get as much done without as much energy, and I stay up late again.  Even when I manage to break the cycle for a few days, I'm such a night owl that it creeps in on me again.  And don't even think about having motivation to exercise or eat healthier when you're tired because that requires more energy!

Something's going to have to give before I break though because we are getting up earlier and earlier (hello 7:10am strings practice!) and I have to be ready to go for the day when I take the girls to school.  I know some of you are going "boo hoo" because I have to leave my house at 8am, but this is not normal for me in the last 10 years, at least on a daily basis!

I'm slowly working on some changes.  We've started to shift our going to bed habits a little earlier.  I'm trying to gain some self control and not eat all.the.sugar whenever it's available.  It's crazy how much food, and especially treats, we have in our society.  I realized how much we revolve around food when we found Cory's gluten allergy.  Can you imagine a social gathering without some kind of food? It almost never happens!  I am seeing a slight shift in what's available now though, more fruits and at least not straight sugar usually.  (thanks church!)

Basically, I'm trying to learn to take care of me.  With all of my "free time" now that the girls are in school half days I've gotten an eye appointment

new glasses coming my way

And today I actually went to the doctor for myself.  I've been putting that off for awhile too, but after I got SO sick a year and a half ago and accidentally overdosed on Sudafed my heart likes to do this lovely slow beat thing.  So EKG's for everyone.

Little changes over time, hopefully they will add up to a healthier mom, with less stress, that makes for a happier and calmer family.  We'll see if we get calm though, my kids are wild.