What? My rat race is my own fault?

He said it this morning, "I'm just tired." I say it all the time, "I'm just tired." We look at the clutter around our home, mostly the breadcrumbs left by our offspring, and we think, "We are literally drowning." It's depressing, sometimes, how I just throw up my hands, proclaim, "I'm getting in the car," walk out and wait...and wait...and wait, only to be late for work again.

But I have to be honest with myself here. There are some critical steps I could take to lessen the load of the rat race. I don't have to be in a rat race.

For instance, I had an opportunity to take it easy last night or catch up on some things that needed to be done. I could have gone with the cancellation of my girls' night and been okay with having an empty evening... but that just wouldn't have been very much fun. So I scheduled something in its place...well I just re-added girls' night sans one girl and adding a boy named J. so my kids wouldn't be too bored. And I loved every minute of it.

And there are other things as well, believe it or not. They are things of which most of us are guilty- Facebook, Blogger, Pinterest, T.V., the couch.

My bedside table, loaded with books and devotionals remain in my periphery. The Yale lecture series on autism on my iPad are waiting patiently for me. My husband, The Dude, that man who loves me, also is in the mix for attention. Oh and those little people who are walking around the house, leaving breadcrumbs...let's not forget them. And then I'm also thinking of taking on a second job to help pay the bills and buy my Dansko shoes... It seems as though there are a million things tugging at my attention span.

But ahhhh...

...The Dude and I spent this Friday evening at home, just us and our little breadcrumb-dropping progeny. There were steaks and deepfried tater chips and wine...and Rudy (the movie, not the dog) and lots of laughter. We really needed this time. Amazingly, there were no random 'Alert-now' calls from my school or telemarketers. Together we rang up an old Colorado pal with whom we hadn't spoken in ages. What an evening and for a little while...no feeling of being in a rat race. I have the feeling the whole weekend is going to be relaxing this way and I'm so thankful for this couple of days of chill. This weekend, I pledge to do NO people-pleasing. I shall, after completing this entry of course, spend less time farting around on the computer and more time in the real world. I may even work out...at some point. My rat race will cease until Monday. I'm giddy at the thought of it!