Nuts in Nederland

So I've been a sucky blogger of late. I have no good excuse. I wasn't abducted by aliens, I wasn't lost at sea, and I wasn't trapped under heavy furniture. Nope, life just happened to me. And I didn't find or shall I say...MAKE the time to blog. Bloggie blog blog blog.

It's been a weird week this week. I switched days off with the nanny (because she needed to) and it has thrown my whole rhythm off. And since Sunday one of Ana's friends, Anke, has been staying with us while her mother is in Austria. It's just been weird. Weird enough that my mother-in-law actually said complimentary things to Jeroen. I somehow managed to do some family therapy this weekend and helped solve some problems with the in-laws and outlaws. Somehow I think all my years of "issues" have prepared me to help other people.

Now that I'm on my "crazy pills" as J likes to remind me, I feel very in control of my life and my OCD. What an amazing feeling. If I look back on my life and reflect on all the hours I spent organizing, re-organizing, and cleaning I see I spent my energy focusing on the WRONG and most un-important things. And my mind is finally at rest and I don't have that overwhelming feeling to say every last detail that runs through my head. I no longer have diarrhea of the mouth. There are people all across the world thankful for that! ;-)

My work continues to challenge me and I enjoy sharing my knowledge with my colleagues. I see how so much of what I have taught myself in the last year (with regards to EndNote, BibTex, and METIS....all involving reference management) enables me to help the researchers at the institute to be more efficient. I am looking forward to doing my own research in the future and working on obtaining my PhD. It feels so good to be putting on my education to use and to be back at a university. I love it!

Ana's 7th birthday is this Sunday, a long awaited date on the calendar, and I am excited to see my baby girl grow up. She is such a clever girl and she becomes more and more interesting as she ages. It's nice to be able to do more things with her and to see her becoming more independent.

When I look at Max, I just want him to stay small and young. I know he's our last child and I want to savor all these moments while he's little. He's just so darn cute that I want to eat him up! Sometimes I just want to freeze time and never age.

The days just fly by and my to-do lists continue to grow....somehow there's just never enough time to do all the things I want. I don't feel overwhelmed, stressed or worried...which is good. But I do enjoy the feeling of accomplishment and wish I could experience that feeling more instead pushing things to the next day because I ran out of time. I suppose that is every parents struggle. Never enough time.

That's why I'm up at 1:20 am finally blogging after a day at work, a PTA meeting, laundry, and tidying up the house. I guess I finally MADE the time to blog. ;-)


Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. ~ Ferris Bueller