I work every morning from about 8am until lunch time, from then on I am on, what i like to call “Mama Duty”, where I am not allowed to touch email, blogs, computers, nothing again until the munchkins are asleep. This wasn’t always the rule or the case in my home but ever since I stopped my virtual assistant business and focused on writing things have become more peaceful and fun in the house!

You see, I really only “need” a few hours a week to do all of my writing and in turn make enough money to support the family but getting my words of wisdom to the world are important to me and as with any self employed type of job, you have to take time to market yourself so that you in turn make money.

The four hours a day I spend online sometimes turn into me having 7 tabs open in FireFox with my brain on overdrive. You see, I want to write, stumble posts, digg posts and interact on Twitter as well as Facebook but instead of taking each task as one at a time, I try to do it all at once. Maybe it’s my multi-tasking personality or maybe I have Blog ADD, whatever it is, I can not seem to focus on one task at a time.

Every morning I swear this morning will be different, I will open only two tabs; email and one blog, but it never fails, before I know it I have 7 tabs open and although I get a ton done, I never leave the computer feeling fully “complete” in my tasks.

Guest post of the week by Brittany Booker

I love to travel, but unfortunately I don’t have much of a budget for it right now. I got a pay cut at work last year, so there went my yearly vacation. I’ve been trying to find ways to go on vacation and spend less money, and one of the ways to do that is to find a friend who lives somewhere interesting and go visit. It saves on hotel and food costs, which are a big chunk of every vacation. My roommate from college moved to Nashville last year, so I called her to see if there was a good time for me to come out. We set a date, and I planned all the things we were going to do. I don’t mean to be judgmental, but when I got there, I wash shocked at how horrible her neighborhood was. I was worried about her, so I suggested she research Alarm Systems Nashville to see if a home alarm system would be right for her. I feel bad because I think she was really offended, and that was not my intention. We had a great time while I was there, and I hope my comment didn’t ruin our relationship. Hopefully she will stay safe and everything will work out for her.

When times get rough for me I don’t keep moving forward, but I also try not to sink into a major state of depression. I pride myself in being very aware of my body, emotions and am in tune with what is going on inside of my head for the most part. The past couple of weeks have been very difficult for me, let’s just say some major financial changes have left me working longer than normal hours, which I actually enjoy, and trying to make sure to make ends meat so that I can stay afloat.

Decisions have been made to cut any extras from my budget, although there were few extras I cut the few that I could cut. For instance I can’t cut the electric as we need that to live in a home, I can’t cut the Internet as I need that for my income and I can’t cut rent for I need a roof over my children’s heads.

I took two days and didn’t talk much, stared up into the sky often and simply worked on finding my inner peace. That place inside of me that allows me to be balanced and positive. I found a pull towards faith and questioning of religion; something I have very little education about. I found myself wondering what decisions need to be made in my life to allow my children to flourish and to allow me to be the person I need to be in order to succeed in life.

After spending two days in a daze and crashing so hard for two days I found that something needed to be done. I couldn’t be falling asleep so hard that no one could wake me and this happened twice in one week. My father mentioned me being low on iron which wouldn’t surprise me but without health insurance I can’t just go rush to the doctors every time I feel like something is “off”. So I just assume that too much has been placed in my hands and I have let go of things/situations I have no control over.

It is extremely difficult to just “let go” but if you find that certain situations in life are getting you down yet you can truly have no control over them then just let t hem go. It does you and your family no good to let what you can’t control burden you. I have let go and when I finally decided to let go of those things I can not control, I found an inner peace, a smile came upon my face and I no longer feel so tired I could crash.

I am at a better place because I am now able to let go of those situations I can not control and have put my faith in positive thinking with the idea of moving forward in a new direction in life, one that allows me to be more confident in my feelings; to not just say what’s on my  mind but have meaning and actions behind it. You only live once, make sure it’s the best life possible for you!

Boxes surround a mother, a father and three children. All items have been organized in a way that we can now enjoy the extra space we have as a family.  The third night in our new home our son figured out that there is a bathroom upstairs for the kids and this boy is happy to pee very five minutes as a way to procrastinate bedtime. Prior to moving our things into this house we thought about utilizing the extra room off of our master bedroom for one of the boys, however, since neither of them consistently sleeps thru the night time hours we felt it would be silly to separate them.

The man of the house and I now have our own master bedroom, master bathroom {which actually is everyone’s bathroom during daytime hours} and a private office off of the master bedroom. I am so excited that we can fit the man’s corner desk into the office space as well as my desk with extra room to spare for cabinets, printer, and whatever else we decide to place in that office space. There is a door on the office which means if I want to get up and work without the boys seeing that Mama is home, I can simply roll out of bed and go into the office to work … but wait … that would mean no coffee, guess we need a small one cup coffee maker for the office. What is an office without a coffee maker anyways?!

We are happily in our new home, boxes everywhere but our beds, clothing and televisions are all set up along with our Wii. Now once I can get a new darn remote for the Wii I will happily start my exercise routine. I plan to purchase the man and myself our own Wii remotes because AJ has thrown our current remotes so often that they barely work anymore.

Loving the new house, new yard, new space and fresh start for our family! Can’t wait to get completely settled in and unpacked but we took a break on the last night of the man’s vacation to enjoy a movie night together. Our backs hurt and our shoulders are ready to be massaged!

All moved into a new place and it was 11 o’clock at night, no way were we going to attempt to get the upstairs ready for children to sleep. The first night was spent sharing a queen size bed and a full size bed between the five of us. Kids were exhausted, couldn’t believe that my youngest fell asleep before them all. I lost my four year old’s new meds in one of the million boxes we packed.

We had a plan, well I did at least, we would successfully pack every room up one at a time and label the boxes. When the boxes went into the new house I would then place each labeled box in the appropriate room. What was I thinking with that plan?! Needless to say the plan didn’t work out, we ended up having four adults shoving random shit into boxes and then piling it high in the u-haul. Moving is actually kind of fun for me, I mean the lack of internet connection certainly sucked but it’s the price you pay when you move to a location we have moved to.

Satellite internet will be our only option out here and we picked a pretty decent plan. The cost is slightly more than what I was paying with my Comcast high speed but will suffice. I am happy to have more space and I am happy to see the first day my children were running, playing and enjoying the new place. Our family needed a fresh start, after the divorce things were awesome for me, I felt happy the kids were happy and well apparently we just weren’t two people meant to raise our family apart because something brought us back together.

This is a new place, a new beginning for another chapter in our lives as a family. I am excited, nervous and happy all at once. Emotions have run wild and as soon as all of the boxes are unpacked and I find all my things I will add settled to the emotions I am feeling.