The Lost Week

I have not posted a blog in a week. I didn't get home till about 9:00 pm every night last week and I was too tired to write anything (or exercise or do anything else to work towards my goals). The week culminated in Commencement Ceremony on Friday. This is probably one of the best days of the year. I find it personally rewarding to watch other people accomplish their goals and although it may be a cliche it is as much as a beginning as it is an end. It also signals the beginning of summer. Technically summer begins on June 21st but on the academic calendar it begins the Monday after Commencement. So as I do with every Monday, every first day of the month etc. I intend to renew my efforts at weight loss. Not forgetting my overarching goal of being the best 50 year old I can be... I feel it necessary not to define myself by my weight alone. I will be honest, if not for my weight I like myself and I like my life. I keep letting the routine of the life that I like get in the way of the very best life I could have. I was not at work late every night this week because anyone was making me stay there or I had demanding deadlines that I had to meet. I just found things that I wanted to get done.

In retrospect I am not the ideal candidate for writing this blog because I am not coming from the depths of hell and climbing out. I have a great job at a wonderful university. I'm happily married. I have a great husband and I have two great kids. This isn't by chance. I didn't just get lucky. I had to make trade offs. For example, I am not either of my daughters' best friend. I chose to be their mother, an authoritarian figure in their life. I decided (and regretted from time to time) to never read someone's book on how to raise my kid. I figured that they were probably writing it to please their mother and had to fill up the pages with something to say (with all due respect to the fields of child development and psychology). If I was ever anything but myself, I think that would have been dishonest and manipulative. I vividly remember being derided in hushed tones by one of the other mother's at the infant care center of my youngest daughter. It seems I was too harsh with my older child, my four year old that I was hurrying along out of the rain. "Come on, move, move, move. Let's go. We are going to be late," I said. How horrible.

The last time I saw this woman, her kid was throwing a tantrum and spewing up on himself because she was leaving town for a few days. I remember she sat on the floor next to him at the day care center cooing, "Mommy's o.k., your o.k., we are both o.k." I'm sorry, but I don't think so. You are not ok when you are vomiting on yourself. I think if I could find this kid now, he's probably a disturbed young man.

I was going to blog today about what I need to improve in my life but when I started writing the good stuff just cannot be ignored. What I wanted to write about is the need to save for retirement. I don't do enough of that mainly because my kids needs are more important to me. I figure I have about 20 good years of work life left to make up for it. Here is an article from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that explains this. Pay attention to the life cycle theory on saving

http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/cm20050114ar01p1.htm