When Real Life is Better

I feel like I took a short blogging/social media hiatus this past week. I barely checked in on Twitter, scheduled my posts for the end of the week, and haven’t responded to comments or (most of my) emails.

And it’s been great.

Little Man’s birthday was on Thursday, so we spent the better part of the week getting ready for his party. Thursday evening I discussed the power and importance of Social Media with a group of fantastic photographers at a workshop I attended last week. Then, spent all day Friday shooting Studio and Outdoor Portraits for a beautiful group of little models; and spent Saturday learning and practicing my Photoshop Techniques. Sunday was the birthday party and then Trick-or-Treating was yesterday, so every bit of blog, work, social media and email has been placed on the back burner for a few days.

I’ve loved every minute of it.

Loved not having to worry about how many comments I was getting or what my traffic flow looked like.

Loved not feeling the need to check my Twitter stream every few minutes for updates; afraid that I’d miss something.

My Klout score fell by several points (surprise surprise) but I didn’t even care.

Because instead of being sucked into my computer, I was spending time actually living my life rather than writing about it.

I rocked my baby boy to sleep several times, actually went to bed when my husband went to bed for the first time in almost a month, and sat at the table to enjoy a meal with my two best guys.

Working from home, writing a blog, taking care of a toddler, being married and still finding time to take a shower every day is exhausting. It’s taxing. It’s chaotic.

And I’ve enjoyed not having to be everything and do everything these last two weeks.

Just being able to be with my family and spend some time with our friends has been enough.

Being away from here for a couple of days really made me realize how much time I was spending online. Not just with work, but with this blog and social networking and everything else.

And I think it’s time to make some adjustments. I reach this point every so many months where I feel like it starts to be too much and that I need to back off some.

So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go with my gut and step back to reanalyze.

I’m not leaving or going to quit blogging or working or any of that.

I just need to figure out a better time management system. Set some limitations. Because as I’m sure a lot of you know, 15 minutes online can quickly turn into three hours if you aren’t careful. And we’re wanting to start doing some PreSchooling with Noah here at home, so I’ve got to revamp how I spend my time.

Not to mention my house could use a little more upkeep than I’ve been giving it.

That being said, I’m going to cut my posts down to three time per week: Monday, Wednesday and a Feature Friday Blogger on Friday’s. I’m cutting back Spotlight Saturday to every other week and limiting how many Guest Posts I will contribute per month. If you’ve already contacted me for a post, don’t worry. I’m still going to get it to you, but as of now, I’m limiting those posts every month. It takes me time to write them and submit them and right now I just don’t have that kind of time.

Because being with my husband and my son, is just more important to me than that. And I don’t feel like I’ve been giving them the best that I can.

And I hope all of you can understand that.

Amy in all of her fabulousness took photos for me at Noah’s birthday party this weekend. I’ll share them here once I get them. They are SO great!