Live life instead of writing about it

Well, there have been several topics and happenings that I meant to write about in the past few weeks, but life has kept me busy. I remember my mom once reciting a quote by Jacqueline Kennedy - "I was always too busy living my life to write about it." My mom, who always jotted things down in journals said it with a tinge of longing, envy and admiration for Jackie Kennedy. I'm sure there were a lot of things my mom has always wanted to do that she never got around to. I guess that's true for all of us.

I always have things in my mind that I mean to write down and I'm often hard on myself - plagued with guilt that I've haven kept up with writing every milestone in baby books. I come back to that quote when I'm beating myself up and remind myself that I'd rather be living my life with my kids than writing about them while they are just an arm's length away. And just an odd coincidence - my oldest one was born on the day of Jackie Kennedy's death.

So, the past few weeks have been filled with summer activity. Lots of days at the pool, visits to the parks, trips for ice cream and barbecues in the back yard. We took another family vacation and school has started. I got to a concert with a former co-worker that I really enjoyed (Martina McBride, Jack Ingram and Chris Young.) This past weekend we visited friends at Bass Lake and I tried tubing for the first time, which was a blast, but left me quite sore. Today, I met a friend for breakfast and a round of tennis. I was hilariously horrible. I told my friend I hadn't used a tennis racket since I was 10 years old. She was very patient and tried to humor me by complimenting me on the serves that actually went where they were supposed to go.

The past two weeks since school has began, I've had the first opportunity in over 14 years where I've actually had a little span of time completely to myself. My oldest four are now in school all day and my youngest is in preschool three mornings a week. So, today I made good use of that two hours to see a friend and get a little exercise. Then I blew those few burned calories with biscuits and gravy. It is strangely quiet on those few mornings I've been at home alone, but there's always work to be done. I'm not quite sure how I'll take it in a couple more years when my baby is also gone all day. Maybe then I'll have more time to slow down and write about it ~ or try to improve my tennis game. :)