I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy...

I'll admit it: for a while there, I was going through a fairly joyless period. Sleep deprivation, loneliness as a newly not-working-out-of-the-home mom, and my natural tendencies towards perfectionism (which don't mesh well with a baby!) were leaving me feeling pretty low.

In my pre-baby days, I pictured that having a child would be like adding something challenging but wonderful to my life. It turns out that having a child is like having a completely different life than the one you had before -- one where you are totally consumed by motherhood. I kept thinking back on life "before" and feeling sad that I hadn't soaked up all that I could when I could, since those days of complete freedom with my time and energy are over now.

One of the things that has really been picking up my spirits is maintaining this blog again. I've been posting pictures and baby updates on a blog mostly for family and close friends, but it feels good to write about myself and things that interest me so that my day isn't 100% baby (more like 99% at this point, but it's a start!). It's reinspired me to use my free time to read, to admire beautiful things, to break out the cooking supplies, and to try to enjoy even the not-so-good days with L.

But I have to work pretty hard to embrace the good parts about life now rather than to keep thinking back on how my life was before -- because I was more organized, more put-together, more free-spirited, more well-rested, more lots of things. So I try to think of this as a starting over, a something new, rather than something to be compared to a previous way of doing things. It's apples to pickup trucks (we're way past oranges here!), and it's not fair to judge them against each other.

Thanks to Jacin Fitzgerald over at Lovely Little Details for her beautiful image of an inspiring reminder (found it on Pinterest, of course -- have you clicked my "follow me" button over there on the right-hand side yet?).