NYR: stress

So as mentioned earlier, our new years resolution is to shrink down or in the more modern and increasingly popular way to phrase it:  minimize.  Yes sir, the studers are going minimalist.  But this does not mean that our house is going to be white-walled with one piece of furniture and a vase of long stemmed calla lillies in it.  Um, have you not seen pictures of a my horse of a dog?  But we are taking the ideals behind minimalist living and pushing that throughout all aspects of our life. 

From here on out, this will be called "NYR"  as in, New Years Resolution.  Please don't expect me to type that entire paragraph everytime I talk about our minimalistic efforts.  hah, minimalistic. 

So, first business of order in the NYR is to minimize stress...mainly mine.  I may look like a totally put together human (can you hear my sisters and husband laughing hysterically right now?) but I have been a little maniacal for the past few months.  Let's step back a moment, My name is Tabitha and I'm a give-aholic.  Not like I'm bragging about being generous, I seriously have a  problem here.  I can't tell when enough giving is enough.  I was entirely capable of giving time/energy/love/interest/effort to myself AND my husband not so long ago.  But now that we have added to this family, the myself part has fallen out of the equation at an exponentially growing rate and with my over-giving issue, I just stood on the sidelines and watched myself disappear...So after multiple breakdowns over the past nine months, my hubs and I finally saw the light on how to fix this situation so that I can get a little balance in my life.  Clearly, the only thing that this give-aholic loves more than giving is a list.  Well, a schedule actually.  And we've put it into place this week. 

We've discussed what kind of a magic each of the nights might hold:

For now game night consists of B and I playing scrabble or the wii since Grey is too little to appreciate anything that requires not throwing or biting things.  (This week, we didn't remember about the game night until we were already in bed, so we had a rock, paper, scissors battle royalle...i lost). 

Mum's night off could be mean reading, writing (more to come about that), or meeting up with mom friends for some cocktails (how satc of me!) 

Dad's night off will allow B some uninterrupted tinkering in the garage, espn zombie time, or some wings&brews with our cousins. 

Date night doesn't mean actually going on a date always (who can afford a babysitter every thursday of the year?!) but maybe some wine with dinner but mostly just an attempt to put some romance back into our lives (I think this includes me making an attempt at having washed hair and perfume...that'll be nice for a change). 

And on Friday; having an evening set aside that we both are committed to cleaning up the place - ahhmazing.

And maybe I'm a total loser, but on the first ever Mumma's night off, I had the best time running errands all by myself. You'll hear more about my trip to the bookstore in an upcoming post, but I also made a stop at Target and the grocery store. While I was on my way back to the house, I called B just to say, "I love Tuesdays." Until you have a child, you have no idea that freedom is going to the grocery store alone.