Family Time

I know that when an individual takes on a day to day blog it's important to keep it up and alive, but there is something that is a lot more important. I didn't post this weekend, or on Monday, because I had my granddaughter with me all weekend and I didn't want to miss a minute of that precious time, and my other job had me running from place to place all day, lol. Something ​that had been forgotten in the rush and hurry world is the meaning of family time. I am currently reading a really good book about the beginning of the company I work for "The Pampered Chef" by Doris Christopher. One of the things that Doris buts great emphasis, when she decided it was time for her to reenter the workforce, was that she didn't want to lose her family time with her husband and her two girls. She and her husband decided that it might have been time for Doris to start her own business. Long story short she did and it is a HUGE success and she never had to sacrifice her time with her daughters or her husband and is excited to help others achieve their goals. What an inspiration!
Many women (and men) run into the very issue when deciding to go back to work after having children and I am no exception to this rule. I don't have a college education, I didn't attend a trade school, and the only thing my mom taught me was how to be a wife and homemaker. No offence to my Mom, she's great, the best cook in the world and I am blessed that she is still here with me on this earth. It's just that in today's times a person (woman) can't get a good paying job unless she is willing to NOT have a family or she makes sacrifices that she really doesn't want to make with her family such as lost time, lost memories, lost conversations, lost "I love you Mommy's".
So with all that being said, and having worked for "the man", I decided that it was time for me to do the same for myself. Stop working to pay the babysitter and work for myself. Now there is a lot more to my story than is here. My children are 22, 20, and 15. Yup they are grown. They often tell me that I am the best Mom ever and there are no regrets for them. They never felt deprived or neglected. My husband and I did work opposite shifts so one of us was always there for them, and there is the sacrifice. My husband and I didn't spend a lot of time together. We would frequently get into arguments because our child rearing ides were different as well as our housekeeping ideas. It wasn't until later in our lives, about 15 to 16 years ago that we really started to work together. The arguing stopped and life got real good. Money was always tight, it still is today, but that's ok. We learned that we really did love each other very much and that love continues to grow today.
The family time kinda gets lost as our lives go on. We worry about so many things when it comes to our children. We worry about their health, their quality of life, and we spend our time working so hard we forget to listen to them. We push them into sports, we push their academics, and we push the extracurricular activities, and the family is forgotten. Of course there is always the other end of the spectrum and we don't push at all and that, unfortunately, that ends up being the single parent or both parents are so driven they don't pay attention.
As humans I think we have a lot to fix in our lives and trying to find that balance is very, very difficult. But it can be done!

With God's love and happy cooking
Laura