Thanksgiving Thursday

This year I'm going to do my best to stick to my New Year's resolutions, recognizing that at times I may fall off the wagon and need to start over again.  One resolution is to write in my gratitude journal and to remind myself of all the blessings I have in life.  Since Mama's Little Chick does this every week for her Thanksgiving Thursday posts, I'm going to follow her example and express my gratitude on Thursdays too.

This week, I'm thankful for...

1) My family, friends, and blog friends.

2) My comfy, warm home.

3) A job/career that allows me to earn extra money for my family.

4)  Days off with my little guy.

5)  Guilty pleasures. 

If I may, I'd like to explain my last blessing.  You see...we are all hard working mamas.  Whether we stay-at-home, work full-time, or work part-time, we all have jobs that keep us overwhelmingly busy throughout the day without much time for us. 

If I'm working, a typical day for me would be to get my little boy's lunch ready, pack his diaper bag, make sure he eats breakfast, and head out to direct our school of evening and graduate programs (at a college I worked for before I had my baby boy).  At work, I'm answer emails, deal with student complaints and issues, meet with different college administrators, and in short, think of the best methods possible to increase our customer service, make our students happy, and recruit new students.  Since I have been offered my old full-time job back with part-time hours, I need to accomplish as much as possible while I'm on campus because anything that remains will need to be done from home.  Whew!  When I return home from work, it's time to think about dinner, bath time for my little boy, basic chores, and clean-up.  If my husband's home, he will help me quite a bit, but if it's his late night at work or teaching, I'm the "on-call" person.

If I'm at home with my little boy, my day starts with waking up early to blog and answer emails from work.  My little boy and I have breakfast together and then we're out to either do errands, go to the park, or to go on a play date.  (If we don't leave the house, then I'm usually trying to think of some entertaining activities or crafts we can do, while multi-tasking laundry and cleaning at the same time.)  Since my days at home are limited, I usually try to cram in as much "mommy and me time" as possible while still trying to "stay-up" on housework, groceries, laundry, etc.  Nighttime usually has the same routine except that I'm trying to answer more work emails that were sent to me throughout the day.

My days, although a little different from some moms, still have the same components--family, housework, laundry, chores, errands, bills, etc.  So, if I can reward myself with a piece of chocolate once or twice a day, sneak in a favorite TV show in between Little Bill and Blues Clues, or fit in an hour or so of blog time, then I'm happy.  Then I feel rewarded.  These are my guilty pleasures that I'm thankful for.  Oh sometimes I wish they were larger guilty pleasures...you know--having a day out at the spa, meeting up for a girls' night with an old friend, eating out at a lavish restaurant--but when these larger, guilty pleasures are not readily available, I'll be happy to settle for a Kit-Kat bar and an episode of Desperate Housewives to end the day right.