Living in the moment

Yesterday I received the worst news of my life. (TOTALLY being over dramatic here)

Brian won't be graduating in December as I had hoped.

  I guess I was a little too quick to tell everyone that Brian graduates in December. A little too excited at the prospect of being able to quit my job and spend the whole day with my kiddos. Brian has been telling me for months that MAYBE he would graduate in December. I pretty much ignored the maybe for a long time. But he kept saying it. So Sunday night I asked him to go talk to an advisor so we can know for sure. He talked to an advisor Monday afternoon. Unfortunately the answer was not what I wanted to hear.

I cried a lot yesterday. Sat in my cubicle during work with puffy eyes and a red face. I whined to my sister and Brian that I can't handle living with family anymore; there's no room, my parents have different rules for their house than I would have for my house, etc. December felt like it was forever away and now a whole 5 months is going to be added to that. Blah, blah, blah. I guess I needed to vent but looking back I probably sounded like a big baby!

Late Monday I was looking through my news feed on facebook and a friend of mine posted a picture that said  "I may not be there yet, but I am closer than I was yesterday. One step can make all the difference." I needed to hear that. I need to quit thinking about how far away next spring is and focus on getting through one day at a time. There is a facebook page I am a part of that consists of several women I met on an online forum that has since closed. I vented to these women as well. They also told me how close I am, that they understand my difficulties. They reminded me to look at the big picture. 5 months is not that much longer.

So here I am making this list of things that I'm going to do when I'm a stay at home mom. I'm excited to stay home with my kids. But I could make the days that I'm working special. I don't have to wait until I'm not working any more to enjoy little moments with my kids. So while I'm still going to work on my list (I have to, I'm already at over 1,000 things!!!) it will no longer be a stay at home bucket list, but a list of things that I can do every day. I had a count down on my phone to ASU's winter graduation. There were 250 days. I know now that there is over a year until Brian will graduate, and that's still not that far away. My goal is to cross off as much of my list as possible BEFORE Brian graduates. I want to enjoy every single dang day. I'm still going to try for 2,190 things, but we'll see how far I get. And the list isn't going to be just about the kids. I'm going add things on the list for me as well. I will not wallow in sadness and imagine every day how much fun I'm going to have when I can stay home. I'm going to enjoy every minute at work (that will be a challenge! lol) and every second at home. I'm going to be all cliche and enjoy every day as if it's my last.

So I will not be complaining any more about how much longer I have to work. Or how I can't do fun things with my kids because I work during the day. I'm going to start making the fun memories now.