My Ebenezer

Do you have them? Seriously, I’m not talking about the standard response “God, family, friends….etc….”. I mean, do you REALLY have priorities? I guess we all have them, it’s just that some of us would be surprised to find out what they are.

Today, I was offered a contract that would have resulted in a nice big chunk of money for 4 weeks of work. It would be full time for three weeks and have me traveling across Canada in the fourth. Tempting. Oh, the money is sooooo tempting. We talked about it, only briefly, and decided not to pursue it. We’re not set up for me to work full time, not even for a few weeks.

I have a HUGE respect for working moms; frankly, I don’t know how they have the energy to do it all. Our choice is to have me stay home with the kids and work part time from home with someone here to watch the kids.

Rewind a few years. Before you met me (ha ha ha), I was quite the jet-setter. I traveled about 35 weeks out of the year and loved it. I was usually only gone for two nights and two days at a time, but there were occasional week long jobs. Some people say that living out of a suitcase gets old, but I really enjoyed it. I loved being in new places and working with new people from week to week.

I got to visit Toronto several times and even took mom along and drove down to see Niagara Falls over a long weekend. (I took this picture from a helicopter!) San Francisco was another fun trip with mom and it was amazing to see this, though I was secretly terrified of an earthquake.) Another California trip took me to Santa Rosa, where I was able to drive a short distance to see the infamous Napa Valley. (photo isn’t that great, but it proves I was there!) New York City was my favorite place to travel to – I also visited, Indiana, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Phoenix, Boston, Washington D.C., Chicago, San Diego, New Jersey and various places in Texas. Whew. Told you I did a lot of traveling.

Anyway, I got a little off track. I miss traveling, but I don’t want to be away from my family that much. I’ll probably get to travel a little here and there, but for two nights at a time and only a few times a year. It’s having the opportunity right in front of me that reminds me how much I love it. Another opportunity today to travel to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It’s beautiful there – I’d love to do it. But we have to step back and look at our priorities.

As a mommy, I want to be right here with my sweet little ones. As a professional, I want to be where the action is and stay up to date on all the latest developments in my industry. I adore my children, but singing the theme song to “Wonder Pets” over and over again just isn’t intellectually stimulating.

In the end, our priorities will win. Partly because we’re committed and mostly because I’m too lazy to put much effort into working more often.

I’m finding priorities are very easy to make, but sometimes difficult to live by.