Left a good job in the City...

Working for the man every night and day
But I never lost a minute of sleep
Wondering 'bout the way things might have been...

Yes, it's true, after much deliberation, I have decided to leave my job of nine years and venture into full-time motherhood and wifehood. I have never really been happy since I went back to work in October; I always felt like I was missing out on too much. I kept working because it just seemed like too much of a commitment to quit. Leaving the security and the benefits of the City for the unknown was like jumping off a cliff.

But something kept tearing at me. The longer I stayed at work, the more often I thought about quitting. It got to where it was non-stop. Then I went to visit my family in Cincinnati with Eli over the past weekend. Over a long drive to Raleigh and then lots of conversations with my mom's and my wonderful friends, I decided it was time.

Since my mom passed, I have become keenly aware of how short life is and that I want to make the most of mine. I keep telling myself and everyone else who will listen that I can work any time, but I can never get these years back. I am so excited to start to live again, and to get to be Eli's one and only all day every day.

I know there will be times when I will get bored or tired of the stay-at-home-mom thing, but I expect there to be many more days and moments of love and fun. I might try to work part-time, but first I am going to just enjoy the summer; get Eli in swim lessons, travel more, go to the beach, and go for walks. My last day is June 17. Wish me luck!

Cousins

Last weekend, Eli met his cousin Holt (who is the son of Chris' cousin Derik and his wife Bree). Holt is one year old, and he and Eli enjoyed playing together. I wish we lived closer to some of our cousins so we could do this more often! It was fun!

Life's a Beach

Eli took his grandpa to the beach today. He showed grandpa how to play in the surf and sand and stroll along the strand.

Pushin Stuff!

Here's Eli pushing a laundry basket around, which is actually the best toy on the market currently.

I wish every day could be like today (Sunday)

Chris, Eli, and I went for a stroll at Hugh McRae Park and we pushed Eli in a swing! Eli was in a great mood today. I think he's happy to be over the funk we all had and he enjoyed the spring weather as much as we did! Here are some photos from the day.

We all had a very rough week, as we all came down with a stomach virus. But we made it through and we're (mostly) recovered.

Eli's crawling!

This video was taken a couple of weeks ago, when Eli first started crawling on hands and knees. He's a crawling machine now, but at this time he made it a little ways before resorting to the army crawl. We have to really watch him closely now, but it's fun to see him getting around on his own.

Kidney Cancer video

I made this video for a contest to promote awareness of kidney cancer and to keep my mom's memory alive. The more times the video is viewed, the better chance I have of winning the contest and spreading the word about my mom even further. So view it as often as you please and forward it to your friends and family. Thanks!