accenting life: staying home

I spoke before of our current one-income household, and while I don't let the worry of money consume my every thought, it is there, looming behind the scene daily as I made the choice to skip my beloved Starbucks for bad office coffee, or when it hits me like a brick as I press pay on our mortgage monthly.

Over the course of this past year, we have learn to become mindful of our spending, choosing to put our entire substantial tax return into our saving accounts, split between our daughter's and ours, instead of spending it on a much needed vacation. I haven't had a real vacation since our honeymoon over two years ago, and we haven't really gotten away anywhere since the holidays 2009. I'm itching to get away, to see unexpected places through a tourist's eyes, to show our child and ourselves the wonder of this big world. Oh, how easy it would have been to justify a vacation right now - I have way too many reasons for needing a vacation.

If this past year and an addition to our family taught me nothing else, it did teach me to be more self-aware and to act more purposefully - of my action, of my time, in my speech, in my scribe. I am more intentional and I am more present in my own life. I enhanced the little time I have for family to be more qualitative. I spend more time outdoor, be it in our backyard or in the nearby park, I play more and clean less, we eat together more and watch less TV, we have more dinner parties at home and eat out less. I am more productive at the things I have to do, so that I can get back to the things I want to do.

There are so many things that I have to do and I know I can't put them off much further. But while the spring sun is out and the flowers bloom, I chose to to put them in the backseat for now, and jump into the backseat of our car with our daughter and head to the nearby park to enjoy some quality time and take some treasured pictures of her this weekend, and for that, I am renewed and recharged to take on the very large to do list this week.