As many of you know I have been staying home for the last 6 weeks and loving it. It has been a good reflecting period. I LOVE Love love to be home with my family. Although my house feels never clean it is fun to organize things and realize how I want my home to look and the feeling I want it to have. As I look back on all my working years and having done everything from working nights, full time, part time, on call, not working, doing day care, etc I realize that I can still be a good mom and nurse all at the same time. So now with Christmas looming and not working and having even less moneywise it is humbling to realize all that we do have. Our Christmas may not have all the things that others have but it allows us to focus on what it is really about. Our children are grateful for what they have and I can't think of really anything I could possibly want. Each year something has imterrupted our planned spending for Christmas or there just plain wasn't enough but this year I am not even stressed about it. The kids know they are getting one big thing and have only asked for one big thing. How easy is that? We are so much more able to spend our time at home at night warm by the fire reading Christmas stories instead of frantically shopping. I couldn't be more grateful for this feeling and maybe each year I can be this at peace. Maybe our children will learn that things just aren't that important and instead it is how you feel.