For a variety of reasons my headspace has not been at its best lately. One of the best things to do in a case like that is to take your head and move it somewhere else. Today would have been a good time to head to the beach or even Point Pleasant Park just to see the ocean but it wasn’t in the cards so I did the next best thing and got the kids, some of their toys, and we headed to the park for an hour.

It was a little above freezing, technically, but when you factored in the wind chill it was a little, er, brisk out there (-2C or 28F). Still, it just seemed like we hadn’t been spending enough time outside and even the kids had been stuck indoors for recess at school a fair amount because of rain. An hour was all I could handle but it was good enough to give the three of us some fresh air, a little sunshine, and some exercise.

I took my camera and two lenses with the full intention of taking pictures and then spending some time this evening editing them while watching the SAG awards, but when we arrived I discovered that thing that annoys me to no end – I turned my camera on and got the dreaded “no card” message. I HATE when I forget that my memory card is sitting in my laptop’s card reader. Boo! Luckily cell phones have some pretty decent cameras these days so I captured some photos anyway, courtesy of my wee HTC phone.

They brought their doll strollers with them. I love that Hayley is 9 and still loves dolls. Too many kids her age grow up way too fast.

It was cold but it was fun and it was exactly what we all needed. Too bad the fresh air didn’t completely help since it’s now almost 10 pm and yet they haven’t fallen asleep yet. Sigh. Tomorrow should be fun when it’s time to drag them out of bed for school.

As for me, I have high hopes for this week. I came down with the flu back on January 20th and even stayed home that day, even though I hate calling in sick on Friday or Monday (because I worry people will assume I’m just stretching out my weekend). I just felt completely run down and unable to function. By the time I went back to work on Monday I was mostly fine but I had a very annoying cough. On Friday I all but completely lost by voice and by the end of the day I was pretty much just squeaking at everyone. Not my idea of fun, that’s for sure.

Luckily my voice seems to have returned and so I’m hoping the week will go well for all of us.

I hope you had a great weekend! Stay tuned – tomorrow I’m going to post a recipe for my favourite thing to take for lunch before my shift starts!

I enjoy my job. I do. I’ve mentioned it many times. This week I’ve been working on some development things and it’s made me enjoy it even more.

That doesn’t mean that going from working as a freelance writer to a full time out-of-the-house employee has been all easy. There have been adjustments galore and one of my hardest moments came today.

Breanna had a terrible stomach ache and after she cried that she couldn’t go to school, we decided to have her stay home since George was able to be home with her. Breanna loves school like nobody’s business and looks forward to it constantly so I knew that if she didn’t want to go she wasn’t kidding about not feeling well. I remembered Hayley having a bad stomach ache before Christmas, staying home, and then throwing up and how relieved I was that we had kept her home, so I thought we’d err on the side of caution. Luckily it didn’t end up going that far but Breanna was in pain and I was glad she could stay home.

I got myself ready for work, snuggled her on the couch for a bit, and then left for work. As is my usual habit, once I got downtown and reached my building I called George to tell him I had arrived and also to check on Breanna. He said she was okay but wanted to say hi to me.

When she got on the phone, she burst into tears. “I want you to come back and stay at home with me,” she wailed. I took a deep breath, told her I had a meeting today and couldn’t stay home but that Daddy was there and that the next time she was sick I would take a turn staying home with her. I told her I loved her and would talk to her later, and asked her to pass the phone back to George. After saying she loved me too, she passed the phone off and George came back on the line.

Well. It’s a ton of fun being in the middle of a very busy area with people bustling back and forth, blubbering into a phone, crying because I wanted to be immediately transported à la Star Trek back to my home so I could take care of Breanna. I knew George was more than capable – she was in good hands with her father, not a random babysitter, so she was fine. But I just really wished in that moment that I could be there.

That’s the hard part. Loving where I work and missing what’s at home all at the same time.

Once I got up to my own office I saw one of my co-workers, a great girl who is also a mother and I told her what had just happened, tears filling up in my eyes yet again. She smiled with understanding, having been there herself too, and she joked, “what were you thinking? You never call home! Never EVER call home, then they can’t break your heart!”

I told her I’ve only been doing this whole working out of the home thing since July and I just haven’t gotten used to this yet. She smiled again and said, “I don’t think you ever do. I haven’t.”

I probably never will. I’ll keep reaching for that balance and most of the time it works, but as I’ve learned from doing yoga for two years, sometimes you balance topples and you’ll never ever control that 100%.

I guess I’ll just have to get used to THAT instead.