thank you

Being an adult is so different than I thought it would be. Maybe I spent too much time as a child thinking about how things would be and what I would feel like and what I would think about, etc. As a teenager I thought that being adult would equal limitless freedom. LOL. Not so much. Looking back I think that being a teenager is probably the most free time in life. You are old enough to do everything on your own but you still get to live at home bill free and get money from mom and dad. As an adult I'm learning to accept my limitations. Whether it be financial limitations or parental limitations or just having the responsiblity of working full time, managing a house and a family I feel quite limited sometimes. I'm not complaining though. My life is a direct result of my decisions. If I could give any advice to my younger family members it would be to do college right the first time around. I didn't realize how much of an impact not finishing college would have on my daily adult life. I still hope to finish college, but it will be so much more difficult now with work and family to balance too. I'm not hopeless though.

Recently I recieved a phone call from one of my good friends who called to give me a compliment on my parenting. She was having a difficult time with her friend's mother. The mother didn't give my friend much respect because in that family they didn't view friends as something important. To them only family was important. It really upset my friend. Chris and I teach our children that friends are just as important as family. All of our friends know our children and spend time with them. Our friends love our kids. Our friends are a huge part of our lives and it seems only natural that our children share in that too. Anyway, my friend called me just to say that she really commended us on teaching our kids that friends are important and allow our kids to be a part of our friendships. It made me feel really good to get a compliment like that. In the recent few months I have had several aunts and uncles give me compliments on various things such as how we interact with our kids or just general parenting things. All of those compliments are so appreciated. With just about everything in life the negative is the most commonly thing pointed out to people. It's nice when someone mentions something positive or points out something that you've done well. It's especially nice to be complimented on something that is so important to me as parenting is. For those of you that have mentioned nice things to me lately I want to say thank you. Your kind words have meant more than you could know. Uncle Phil told me that I am so grown up now. I rarely feel like a real grown up so that one really meant alot. I like being able to share my thoughts and life with all of you. I enjoy that my family reads my little journal here. It's nice to put thoughts out into the world and know that others notice. Sometimes I find it hard to have a voice in life so I enjoy sharing my thoughts here. Thanks again for all of you that have gone out of your way to say nice things to me about what I write here or what I do with my children. It's encouraging. I think I should start giving out a few more compliments of my own!