Update

I forgot I was paying to host this site! So I’m back, and the pressure is off. For anyone that reads my previous posts, I eventually dropped both of my contract positions and got a new job. It’s not perfect, but it’s better. Both of my contract positions were very flexible, but the pay wasn’t great, and even though I was able to fly to New York (ooh, la, la), I didn’t get the satisfaction I thought I would, and it was just extra on top of everything else. I was stressed all the time, verging on burnout, and when I sat back and thought about what I actually wanted, working more, and being away from my kids more was not the right thing to do. I realize that is a no brainer, but for some reason I didn’t see that in the beginning. Sometimes you really do have to go through something to understand, and that was definitely my experience with contract work. Obviously, it would have been much different if I didn’t have a full time job in addition to the contract work.

So here I am, in a new chapter of my life. Instead of little kids, I have tweens—how time flies! And instead of pursuing a contract business, so I can be in the classroom more and do more things after school, I have a new job with more flexibility, and Friday’s off. It’s not perfect, but it works well for the life stage I’m in now. We are at a point where we are looking toward focusing our money and efforts on retirement, and making memories with the kids while we have them. It’s wild to think that within the decade, our oldest will be in college, and we’ll only see her for holidays and maybe the summer. I can spiral down this trajectory and make myself feel terrible about it all, but I’m not going to. We all do the best we can while we’re in the moment, and that’s all we can do.

On a positive note, as the kids grow older, we’ve been able to travel with them more and it’s been a blast! I’m going to try to share some of those experiences here, along with the research I did for each trip, so perhaps it will help someone else. Let me know what you think!

If you have kids, tweens, and teens, what do you do to maximize your time with them? I’d love to hear about it in the comments. I’m always looking for ways to make our everyday memorable and make our trips something the kids will remember forever.