DUDE.

My life is in major overdrive. Suddenly I have plans and goals, which is really disorienting because I can’t remember the last time I had plans or goals that reached past getting through the day at present.

I am accustomed to being in constant survival mode, because almost the entire time I’ve been a stay-at-home mom Robbie was working at a car dealership. Car dealerships can suck it. I hate them all. He pretty much lived at work while I was keeping our kids alive, all the time, and this went on for almost three full years. I don’t know how we’re still married, and I REALLY don’t know how I managed to function. I seem to have already blocked it from memory.

Now that he has a different job (working for my family — ahem) and very normal business hours, a whole new world has opened up to us. Our budget may be tighter, but we don’t miss an LSU game. We can have a social life again … well, first we have to find some friends … but once we do, we can totally hang out with them all weekend.

He took Maverick on a camping trip. They build Lego creations together and got up at 5 a.m. in the middle of the week to see the blood moon. We go on family walks and bike rides. We eat dinner together every night. I could go on and on listing the ways that our family life has improved, and it’s not all rainbows and roses over here, but it’s just really, really … nice.

It’s about damn time.

It took over a month for us to realize that we can slow down and enjoy our simple life at whatever pace we want to FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. Of course we wish we had more money to slow down and enjoy it with, but when we do things like make a campfire in our backyard and show the older kids the constellations it reminds me of why I quit my job in the first place.

At the end of the day, when we’re all together looking up at the sky and I am screaming “STAY AWAY FROM THE FIRE!!!” at my 3-year-old and “LEAVE THAT FROG ALONE!” at my 6-year-old, none of it matters. I just want to be with these people as much as I can until I’m sick of them and need to escape to Target for a few hours.

But don’t worry, I always come back.