It's Time to Get Real

HELLO!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, how I have missed blogging! I am so happy to be back, but this time with a new site. My last blog, A Novel Suggestion, was all about my first love: BOOKS. I am a bibliophile at heart and reading is one of my main passions. My obsession goes wide and deep, but my extra special loves are Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, and my boyfriend, Bill Shakespeare. However, What A Novel Suggestion was missing was ME. It was not sustainable for me to write about books and how I felt about them without discussing my life and why that particular novel spoke to me at that particular time in my life. I could not write freely without sharing my life and my struggles and my happiness. I was hiding behind a blog and a photo of my sweet Jane Austen. So, I have put on my big girl 2017 pants. It is time for me to take a deep breath and leap into this technological world of sharing.

So, here I am in all my glory.

Hi, my name is Liz.

I am first and foremost a mom of two boys, ages three and five. I am a mom who tries very hard to be the amazing mom that I have always been in my head, but can’t always quite seem to get it together. I am ALWAYS the last mom to send in the field trip forms. I am ALWAYS the last mom to pick up in carline, when I can actually make it to carline myself, which is a rarity. Sometimes, and I hate to admit this but I have to because it is true, I yell at my sons and I am not 100% sure they deserved it. Ugh. There it is.

I am a wife. My husband is the total best. He is funny and smart and a hard worker. He is a great dad. He snow blows the driveway and doesn’t even ask me to come out to shovel. But. sometimes I feel like we don’t have enough time together to talk about the stuff that we care about as adults. Sometimes I feel like our lives are spent pouring milk into Lego cups, figuring out the easiest way to make a dinner that all four of us will actually eat, and trying to have just one single conversation without being interrupted.

I am a homeowner. Actually, to be clear, I am home project obsessed. I LOVE A GOOD DIY PROJECT. We bought our house from my husband’s parents. And although they made lots of improvements to the house, we still had a lot to do after we moved in. But, the next month I found out I was pregnant with our first born, and so projects were put on the back burner. Hence why we are still working on it six years later. Plus, like everyone else I have an affinity for HGTV and Pinterest. Enough said about THAT. For now.

I am an English teacher. I have heard more than once that many people think this might be the worst career choice on earth, but for me - it’s perfection. I love teaching. It is an innate need I have and although not every day is Nirvana, it is pretty close. I have loved to read since I learned how, and since I don’t have as much time in my life to read for pleasure anymore, teaching literature fills that void for me. The only downside of teaching for me is that my school is twenty miles away, and recently, with both boys in school, this has become a massive obstacle for me to overcome. Especially on days like last Monday when the school nurse called me to tell that my three year old had just thrown up in his hat. Yes, you read that right. Directly into his super cute winter hat.

I am an exerciser. I can’t believe I just wrote that because this is a major milestone in my life. All my life I wanted to be someone who cared about working out, and...now I do! And it only took 37.5 years!

So, this blog, my newest adventure, is going to include all aspects of my life, hoping that I resonate with and hear from people who accept and get what I’m saying. And I PROMISE to keep talking about what I am reading. Reading is one of the pieces of my life that makes me - ME. I have to talk about books. If I don’t get it out during the day, at school, or in this blog, I will shout about it in my sleep, annoying my family who really needs a good night’s rest. This blog is about trying to fit it all in, about creating time in my life to do all the “stuff”, but still enjoying my life. My hero, Charlotte Bronte, once wrote: "I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward."

Hence the title of this very new blog: Looking Upward