But one of the most important things that you need to do as a stay at home parent is have breaks from you kids.  Taking a break gives you the time to get rid of stress, “recharge” your patience, and appreciate your kids more.  I didn’t realize how important a break was to being a successful parent until recently.

In the past, I usually tried to get away from the kids for a day or two every two weeks or so.  For me, this was kind of the sweet spot and it allowed me to take a break before getting too worn down and frustrated with the kids.  But, it seemed that the timing wasn’t right over the past six weeks, and the usual opportunities that I normally would have had were taken away from me (thanks to being sick, and my wife’s business commitments).

Though I love my kids dearly, 42 days in a row with them was just a little too much.  These past few days, I found myself getting frustrated a lot easier and the little things got to me a lot more.  I think that even my wife noticed that I wasn’t doing so well and wasn’t “myself”.

But thankfully, I am sitting here writing this blog post sitting at my parents house with no kids in sight.  I am very thankful that they have the room for me and live reasonably close (an hour away), so that their home provides the perfect getaway without causing any kind of financial duress.

And how do I feel?

Great.  Relaxed.  And I am enjoying the quiet.  I know that coming to the city makes life a lot busier (since there are so many things to do), but it is a great way for me to recharge my batteries.  It has been long overdue.

• Well, the babysitting job that I started I managed to only last a month.  The kids I was babysitting were brats and were ganging up on my daughter, so that was the end of that.  You should always remember to put your family first before work – and it was a great example to learn from.
• Had a scare this past week with my wife.  She had chest pains and had to be rushed to the hospital.  Thankfully, it was only Costochondritis, and nothing serious, but scares like this are never fun.
• We have been fighting with our new bank and losing money in NSF charges at our old one due to a huge mess caused by transferring banks out to the town that is closer to where we live.  Didn’t help that the person that setup the transfer of our funds messed up and it has been nothing but a headache.
• Another new look for the site was added today as I decided that the old one kind of sucked.  Okay, it really sucked, and I hope that you all like this one better – tell me what you think in the comment section.

Otherwise, that is about it.  Have plenty of work that needs to be done, and I get to spend the weekend with just me and the kids as the wife has gone to the city to take a break – can’t wait until it is my turn

Anyway, this week is starting something new for us.  You see, a couple of weeks ago, a lady here in town called to ask if I would be able to watch her kids during the week while she is at work.  Since I work at home anyway, and my girls are here with me, I accepted because I didn’t mind to help.

So, today is the first day, and the first half hour has passed.  After a few shy moments, the three year old that I am watching has warmed up, and Courtney and her are watching Wonder Pets.

We’ll see how much work I can get done with more kids under my wing – I’ll write back later to let you all know how the day goes.

Wish me luck!

You see, we just bought a house here back in September of 2008, so this town is new to us.  Our home that we lived in before in Saskatoon was being moved to make way for new commercial buildings, so we were left with the choice of either finding a place in Saskatoon (where rental was going to be our only option as the housing market was overpriced), or buy a house somewhere else.  Since I worked at home, all I needed was a community that had high speed Internet – which most places in Saskatchewan have.

After a lot of house hunting, we ended up buying this house in Conquest.  It was a big change as I grew up in  the city and I was really worried that living in a small town wouldn’t work for me.  We moved from a city of about 300,000 people to a town of about 170 – big difference!

But what I didn’t realize was that it would grow on me.  Honestly, I was at the point in my life where I was getting tired of the rush of the city and I just needed to slow down my life – so in the end, I think it was a good choice.

There is just something magical about waking up to a beautiful sight each morning, going to sleep in the dark (unlike the city where it is always bright), and living in a place that is quiet (something I still can’t get over, though I really don’t miss the constant noise from the city).  I also love that the people are friendly out here and take the time to talk to you – something you will never see in the city.

I hope you all have a great day, wherever you are in the world, and I hope to see you back at my blog tomorrow – thanks for reading

So, I try to make sure to leave some room in my schedule to make sure that I have some free time – too much work and no play drives me nuts.

This past weekend, we had my son’s sixth birthday party on Friday, my brother and his wife over on Saturday, and my wife’s parents and brother’s family over on Sunday.  Though we did have a good time visiting, I find myself tired out with a bunch of work to do.

So, I have decided to take a break to get caught up.  Sure, I can’t really take a break from the kids, but cutting all my connections with the outside world including shutting off Skype and Twitter frees up a bunch of time.

In fact, sometimes I wish it could be this quiet all the time – I might actually get a lot of work done.

Anyway, I’ll be back online full force on Wednesday – so don’t worry, nothing is wrong: I just need a break.