Second Wind

I almost forgot to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my amazing mom. I wish I could be in Minnesota to celebrate, and because I want to move back.

I've started looking up real estate in Minnesota. I'm open to suggestions for where to look. Ian is set on St. Paul while I am mostly interested in good schools and large-ish lots, meaning no city streets with matchbox backyards. Perhaps I was spoiled growing up in the "burbs" of Minneapolis but I need trees, water, and a bike path dammit!

I'm concerned about the real estate market for numerous reasons, one of which is where it will leave us in 2+ years when we're looking to buy something. Is it wrong to secretly hope that the market won't improve TOO much so we can afford something nice?

I found three places in my search online. Ian says this isn't healthy to look so far in advance but it helps ease the homesickness to stay focused on the future.

The two in St. Paul were beautiful and older. One was literally spitting distance from the Minneapolis VA, where Ian hopes to work someday. The third is in Edina and it's beautiful (pictured here). I can't help but fantasize about living in a house. Our own backyard, garden, clean basement, no smokers with loud TV's living downstairs. I know it could be so much worse. But it could be better too.

When I was little I could spend hours playing with dolls, pretending that I was this alpha mom who had all the answers, and the ability to save my brood from the evil neighbor boy by hiding out in the tree house with hoards of clothes and plastic food. I realize now how important that imaginary play is, and how in some ways, it never stops. I no longer play house (unless you count the occasional relapse into SIMS world) but I do imagine my life ahead. I even find myself imagining life now and how it could be different, improved. Some people may see it as a flaw to never be completely satisfied with life. I see it as motivation, to spur on change and improve oneself.

I watched my fair share of Oprah this winter and spring and I have to say I agree that there is something to this "best life" campaign she has going on. While I am beyond tired of hearing about her battle with weight (stop eating cookies or shut up about the extra pounds) I am fascinated by the idea that every person has the ability to be something, someone great, in whatever capacity your life allows you to be.

I think that is perhaps what I am struggling with the most now. Who is my best self? My whole life I had imagined her as a mother, a wife. But where I am in that title? And I am NOT the best wife and mother, as both Ian and Ainsley would attest to. So where does that leave me? For now I strive to find my best self in little things. A successfully executed new recipe, a perfect batch of cookies, completing a whole pilates video and folding a load of laundry during one short Ainsley nap, finishing a novel in less than a week, going for a run when all I want to do is curl up and sleep, being on my A game for Ainsley all day. Perhaps these things seem trivial, and in truth they are, but they are small successes that on a daily basis remind me that I am capable and worthwhile.

Whew. I see how this blog thing can get addicting. I'm sure there'll be more soon. There always is.