Turning Over a New Leaf

Today starts another chapter in my family's lives.  It wasn't all that long ago that I set out with all these goals, to live caffeine free, with a respect for the world around us, to recycle when possible, to be active and healthy, and to truly live our lives as an example to others.  More often than not, I'm finding I fail at these tasks.  No matter what I do, it seems there's always more work to be done, and I'm dropping something else I intend to do.  I'm really dropping the ball on everything because every time I move on to step two, I forget to keep going with step one, and so I have to start all over again.

However, today marks a very special day in my family.  Not only is it the last Friday before the insanity of official Christmas starts, but this is the first day of a new life for us.  We're not moving.  There's no additions or removals of family members.  There's nothing overly dramatic that's causing a major shift in our family.  We're not even facing something negative we need to cope with.  Instead, we've just taken one more step towards having a normal family, or as close to one as we'll ever get.

Today my wonderful partner started training for a new job.  He was formerly employed as a delivery driver.  He still plans to keep that job for part time work, but he no longer needs it as a primary source of income.  Instead, he's working a normal desk job, working regular hours with predictable days off, and better still, a steady forty hours every week.  That means we'll have regular and predictable paychecks coming in, something we never had with his previous job.  This means our family has just gained a huge sense of stability.

How is this causing our whole family to turn over a new leaf?  Doesn't that just mean we've got an easier schedule to work around and we no longer need to try so hard to make our routine work?  Isn't this just one small step for making our lives easier?  I wouldn't think any of that would warrant the beginning of something new in our lives, or something so dramatic as to be considered starting a new chapter in our lives, so how is it I'm qualifying this as such a dramatic change?  I guess it's just that our lives are about to become a whole lot better, and I mean that far beyond my partner's new job.

Just knowing that my partner will be working a more regular job has already changed my whole outlook on life.  I no longer have to worry about whether or not he's eaten at work or is even hungry when he gets home.  I'll know about when he has his lunch, and I'll know he'll be hungry when he gets home.  Most nights I can have dinner on the table by the time he walks in the door, even if it means I'll have to heat some up for myself when I get home from dance class.  I know the kids will have an easier time holding to their bed times because we won't be running such crazy and unpredictable hours since we'll all know when dinner time is and on most nights can sit down to it together, or as much as you can when you don't have enough chairs at your table.  From then, bed time and all of that can flow on schedule because everything else will be on time.  We'll be able to work our homeschooling schedule in the mornings again, and not have to worry about my partner interrupting because he wants to spend time with us all before he leaves for work.  I can even have his lunch packed and ready for him the night before.  If I get really good at this, perhaps we can even manage to have breakfasts together in the morning too!  I'll have access to our car during the day, so that means I can take the kids to the homeschool co-op, kick ball days, and everything else without having to worry about my partner's schedule.  I may even look into getting my daughter enrolled in soccer!  I think my older son is too young to register this year.  In other words, this one small change has caused a huge cascade of other changes in my family, so we're all going to see a lot of difference for the better!

Best of all, the biggest effect in this chain reaction is the food we're eating.  I know I've been in the bad habit of eating out a lot and all of that.  It's kind of been a standard in my life.  It's so much easier to eat out or grab a meal that comes in a box and only needs some love from the microwave to make it ready.  While these meals can be quite good, I mean that in the use I've heard "quite" means in Great Brittan, not America, "slightly better than mediocre."  They're decent, edible, tolerable, but certainly have nothing on a home cooked meal.  I miss making home cooked meals.  I miss going all out with an entree, a couple side dishes, and some bread or rolls to go with it.  I miss having serving plates full of stuff to choose from.  I miss that feeling when I'm done eating that I could easily just pop with how incredibly full I am, and then there's still leftovers for the next day!  I miss knowing my partner will never have to worry about what he's going to take with him for lunch in the morning because there's always something good.  On top of that, I'm sure the whole family will start feeling a whole lot healthier when we're eating not just enough, but enough food that's really good for us!

My partner sent me a message today saying he thinks this new job was definitely a good change for him.  What I don't think he sees yet is this job was definitely a good idea for all of us!  Our whole quality of life is already starting to change, and it really didn't take all that much.