Trying to slow it down

Could life be any busier? I often wonder that as Lydia gets bigger, moves around more and demands more of my energy.  Sometimes I look at my life and I wonder what I am actually accomplishing right now.  It seems like my house is perpetually a mess, dinner is never ready before 6:30, and I struggle to remember to contact my VT sisters from church, prepare sharing time, and work out what the choir is going to sing and when.  I've realized that I really just have to prioritize my life right now or the important things won't get done.  Of course, prioritizing without perspective is the same as going backwards.  The most important thing right now is my daughter, and sometimes it takes all my time and energy to feed, play with, clothe, diaper and keep her clean.  Despite this, I couldn't be happier, even though my dirty house nags at me and my guilt over missing other details can be difficult to manage.  I'm just so grateful to be a mom and to have the chance to nurture my beautiful daughter.

Ringing in 2011

I can't believe it's already a new year! One year ago I was just about to enter my final trimester of pregnancy, and now Lydia is getting so grown up.  I just love my little girl, even if she is currently refusing to sleep and trying to type on my keyboard ...

New Year's Eve this year was pretty quiet.  I was tired from keeping up with all the company and excitement we had over Christmas, so Ben and I enjoyed New Year's Eve at home, with Netflix.

Our biggest excitement so far this year has been the new shelves that Ben built (together with his dad) downstairs in our storage room.  I am so thrilled to finally have the extra storage.  When we bought the house there was one shelf already built.  We tore it down and built completely new shelves.

The old shelf

The new shelves!

Perhaps only slightly secondarily exciting is the huge snowstorm we had here in Atlanta on Sunday night.  The amount of snow we got, combined with freezing temperatures meant that the entire state has been shut down for the past two going on three days.  My mom said she heard on the news that there are something like 12 snowplows in the entire Atlanta area ... and, I've never seen one.  Why would you need one when it never snows?  You just shut everything down and wait for the snow to melt.  I finally got out to take some pictures today.  I think we got around 5 inches of snow here, and with stuff finally starting to melt, we still had 3 1/2 today.

The least thrilling part of this new year was coming down with a stomach bug.  Yuck!!!  I hope this doesn't become a tradition--I got a similar bug right after New Year's last year as well.  Thank goodness it runs its course and is done.  Lydia got it too, which was so sad!  I was so grateful that Ben was here to help because there were times when we were both getting sick at the exact same time.  That would have been impossible to manage by myself.  Everyone else in our playgroup got sick at the same time too.  Nasty thing!