A few weeks ago I had a really deep conversation with an really awesome friend.  We were discussing weight loss and our past and present journeys and what may or may not be holding us back.  I believe deep down that one reason I ended up back sliding in my weight loss before was a fear of succeeding.  Believe it or not that is very common in the weight loss world.  But I don’t think that is what keeps holding me back from successfully restarting my journey.  Through this conversation I determined at this point in my life it wasn’t a fear of succeeding that was holding me back rather a fear of failing again.

So many things have changed in my life since I made that first journey.  I am a wife.  A mother.  A tech lead.  My responsibilities have grown exponentially but I can’t use that as an excuse to drop the responsibilities I owe to myself. To take care of and nurture my body so that it will take care of me in the long run.  I hope you will join me as I try to turn a new leaf and discover how to balance my life and figure out who I am in this new and amazing world I have created.

There seems to be a renewed motivation spreading across my interweb friends to get back to writing their blogs.  Most seem to be fueled by new goals like running a triathlon or training for a marathon.  When I think about what is weighing the most on my mind it isn’t a fitness goal, though I do have some of those coming up in the next few months.  For me the thing I feel like I need to express myself about the most is my next big chapter: motherhood.

No I am not pregnant, lol.  Thank goodness as life is complicated enough already.  But this Friday I start the role as a part time Mom to a 6 year old and a 10 year old.  So maybe step-motherhood would have been a more accurate term to use.  I use part time loosely here.  Steve and I will have the kids at least 5 days a week and they will spend time with their bio-mom on the weekends.  It isn’t that their Mom doesn’t want to have a bigger role, but rather that she is a full time student and needs the time to go to classes and study. 

I have been wanting to write out my thoughts on this new role of mine for a while, but it is tricky.  Because I don’t feel like it would be my life I was talking about but rather my role in their lives.  There are some privacy issues there that I don’t know the first thing about navigating.  Like by writing a blog to try to talk through my emotions, trials, and successes in this role would be violating their privacy. 

In the past year I convinced my office to let me work remotely from the state of Florida…got the house ready for sale…sold it after 4 days on the market…contracted to build a new house…packed most of my stuff into a trailer…moved into my parents condo and slept on an aerobed in the middle of their living room floor for 3 months…worked with a vet to resolve a chronic hepatitis in Tillie’s liver…packed the dog and the remainder of my stuff including two house plants into my Rav4 and drove it to Orlando in 14 1/2 hours…moved into my parents house in FL…

Now I sit in my parents house in Florida getting ready to log into work for the day as I try to wrap my head around the idea that this Friday everthing changes.  The kids and Steve will move in here while we anticipate the completion of our own home.  Closing is scheduled for August 30th.  Right around the corner.  Between now and then our 6 year old boy, G, starts soccer.  Our 10 year old girl, E, starts swim team.  Both of the kids start school.  And Steve and I start increasing our mileage in preparation for the WDW Marathon in 2013. 

To me the increasing of mileage is just a drop in the bucket.  Granted it is a realy big drop, but is sharing that bucket with lots of other big drops.  In the end I think my blog is going to end up being much like the rest of my life.  Trying to find the balance so that all these big drops don’t combine to make a really big splash that I can’t clean up.  I know a few small splashes are to be expected.  But if I can manage to make sure those splashes don’t cause irreperable damage to the little fish in my bucket, I will consider this all a success.