Can you believe I'm already posting again?

We had planned to go to Ala Arch again for a nice long hike, but heard it might be closed. So we walked around 'till we found a nice park to put up the slack line.

Greg, in my opinion, is so good at slack lining. I'm so impressed. Everyone was looking at us and hanging around as Greg was setting it up, wondering what the heck he was doing. And then after he was walking it awhile, a couple local girls came over to try it. It was fun.

I was pretty impressed how much I let Brighton roll around in the leaves and grass. I could not have handled this even 3 months ago. However, when Scarlet woke up and ventured out into everything, I got a little tense inside. But I've been forcing myself, bit by bit, to get over my fear of ticks (and any other thing that might have been in there).

Without fail, every time I go out, I end up matching one of my kids without realizing it. Usually it's Scarlet though. We're both in green or purple or whatever shirt it is. We seriously always match.

On the way home we stopped at my honey place.

You walk in and it's this little store with bins of honey to sample.

Then I say "adine", which means 1, and motion "really big" with my hands.

Then she weighs it, I pay her 10 bucks and take it home.

 Everyone weighs the food like this at the markets. I never know which number is the weight and which is the price.

We walk on this street a lot. It's nearby our house.

There are a lot of little stores around that have food in crates outside.

I walk to this little place whenever Pavel is off, to get produce. I don't know if you can tell, but it is really small inside. It's like the size of a big closet.

I feel like we finally "broke in" our house last night because we had a family over for dinner! Yea! This is seriously our favorite thing to do. We made great mexican food and the kids ran around downstairs in the playroom. Scarlet had an absolute BLAST with their daughter, who is the same age. I think she may have found her new best bud. They are the ONLY family I know of, not putting their kids in school yet, so they're actually available to play with Scarlet during the week- YES! And their Nanny is really nice, though she only speaks so much english. And now that they had such a good time, I'm seeing a future of weekly playdates, which will make me so happy. I've been needing this and so has Scarlet. 

It was so nice to just kick back with friends. We haven't really done that yet! And it's been 3 months! Too long! We often feel kinda like oddballs around here, for this reason or that and we don't feel like that around these people. We seem to have more common ground with them. Anyway, even if it was just once, it was really nice.

I'm feeling pretty pumped about this week, we'll see how it goes. When I was crying and lonely the other day Greg was saying how finding friends takes time and I just need to keep reaching out. So I went for it and invited a new friend from the women's club playgroup over. She has a son Scarlet's age, and they're coming Monday at a really ideal time. It is so hard to find people that like to meet up at the same times! And most women I know live in the city and don't have a car, so that makes it tricky to get out to my house. Anyway, I'm hopeful.

I pretty much decided I need to forget about "making things work" and just do what makes me happy. I've been bending over backwards trying to find friends, but the truth is- meeting up with people that can only meet me at awkward times is just pointless and ruins my day, along with the kids so why am I trying to make it work? Until recently, everyone likes to meet in the morning. This means, I miss my workout and B misses his nap. These are both really important to me and really effect the rest of the day. We come home exhausted and B ends up really grumpy and we're basically all grumpy for a lot of the day. I just don't like it! So I decided I'm just going to stop. I guess I kept doing it, because I couldn't seem to find any other options. It was that or no social calls at all. Also, all the people I've been getting together with have babies- which isn't doing it for Scarlet. She needs kids who want to run around with her and bake in her play kitchen. 

Anyway, back to the making my life easier. I know people are always so surprised about how much I stay in, but I like it that way. I don't like to be out too much. It stresses me out. It doesn't so much STRESS ME OUT as it DRAINS ME. That's more the correct term. I come home SOOOO wiped out if I'm gone too long and then I don't want to do anything (like make dinner) and then we all starve and I end up yelling at the kids as I'm trying to rush the cooking last minute. But if I wake up, hang with the kids because there's nowhere to go- I actually play with them and feel like a good mom. Then B goes down for a nap and I work out and shower and then my happiness notch goes up again because I worked out! And I got to be ALONE while I worked out. Then we have lunch when B wakes up and we go somewhere for 1 1/2 hours. 1 1/2 hours seems to be my limit. I feel the switch, when we go past. We'll be at the park, having a great time- or at a friend's, and I think "We're having so much fun! Maybe we'll just stay for hours!" And then it seems 15 minutes pass and suddenly I'm just done and not having fun anymore. And then instead of coming home feeling refreshed and like I had a really good time, I feel like it got ruined and I'm so tired and need to veg in front of the tv and I waste time and the rest of the day just seems to go sour after that.

But if I just stick to my short outing time, I come home feeling great that we went out and did something and B goes down for another nap and I might take 30 minutes for myself and then I make dinner. Making dinner when I'm feeling GOOD, makes my happiness notch go up again. I LOVE making dinner. I love making nutritious meals for my family. I like being ALONE while making dinner. Or if I'm not RUSHED, I like when Scarlet helps me. It's really sweet. But we can't do that if I put it off 'cause I'm all drained. 

Then when I finish dinner B wakes up and we hang out, then eat and hang out some more. When things go this way, LIFE IS SO MUCH BETTER. I'm not overwhelmed or stressed out. Everything seems balanced. I'm not going crazy or needing more time to myself. And then I don't yell at my kids because I've over extended myself.

ANYWAYS. My point is, I know this about myself. I've KNOWN this about myself, but haven't been doing it for weeks, because I've been on this desperate search for finding someone for us to hang out with. I'm done. I'm just gonna do what I know is best for me because that's best for my family.

So I'm pumped for next week. We'll see how it goes.