Wide Awake!

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are!" -author unknown This is a bit of an odd post, I'll admit. In fact, it is very strange for me to want to post about our personal lives. I try to keep my family sacred from the public internet world. However, in celebration of being caught up with all editing, I am going to share a little of the happiness our home has found of late. Maybe some of you can relate. When I first started taking pictures I had a personal, family blog. I loved posting pictures and journaling about our every day events. It wasn't long before I realized I could not keep up with a personal blog and a photography blog so I let the personal blog go. Well not completely. It is still out there in cyber space, but it hasn't seen a post for several years. I pulled it up the other day out of curiosity and the need for a little nostalgia. I read through every single post and studied each picture as if it were a hidden treasure that had been discovered. I was sad that I had let it go. I was sad that the stories had ended. Every now and again I post pictures of my kiddos on THIS blog but they are not the same. They are not personal and most of the details are left sacred, as I mentioned. Well things have been changing around here and I think it was no coincidence that I opened that old blog. Almost a year ago I told my sister that I had been feeling numb, that life had become mundane. I was going through motions and not really cherishing each and every day for what it was.... A TREASURE! I made the statement to her that I wanted to feel "AWAKE" again. You may have caught that that conversation happened a year ago. Is all I can say is that I must have really been in a deep slumber because it has taken me a year to open my eyes. But it is coming and there is nothing like being "wide awake"! My children will tell you that mom is reading a book about "families and how to make kids do better". I am! They despise the book a little and even cringe when they see me reading. My daughter asked if we could leave the book alone for a few days. Reform has been the hardest on her you see. My kiddos are not bad and our household is not a complete loss. In fact, we have been doing okay for ourselves. Most of the time we are happy and most of the time we are enjoying life. But something inside has been telling me that we can do better, we can be better. I started reading about successful homes and families. I have taken an interest in my families health (a real interest). It is not that I didn't care before, but it was sort of an "if it happens, great, and if it doesn't at least we tried" attitude. We are exercising, making attempts to choose activity instead of tv, and caring about the food (fuel) that is going into our bodies. We are even drinking GREEN SMOOTHIES,and my children are slowly admitting that they are not toxic and that they will not die from them. I DID NOT say that we have arrived or that we have it all figured out. Quite the contrary! We are, however, AWAKE and TRYING! We are doing better and finding happiness from it all. I kind of like the new us (and I liked the old us too, so that is really saying something). :) I even plan to fire up the old family blog. I plan to tell our stories again and photograph our lives. It is great to be "Wide Awake"! As part of our reform we are making beds EVERY DAY and keeping clutter out of our lives. Notice I did not photograph my daughters bed. :) She is a bit of a free spirit and her bed does not necessarily look "made" by anyones standards but her own. We are working on it. :)