Fall weather is finally blowing into Las Vegas. (Literally blowing… the winds have been pretty strong the past couple days.) As the temperatures started to drop on the forecast, I had one thing on my mind: “FINALLY… now I can get some good runs in.”

I assumed the summer heat was dragging me down and causing me to have bad runs all summer long. And it very well could be part of the equation. But the other part of that is that I’m just wearing myself out. And my system finally timed out. I have a cold this week. It came on hard and fast, but I feel horrible.

I have been working a lot of hours; I start working around 6 AM, then pause for a moment around 7 (which is when I’m supposed to start working) to get Alex ready for school. Then it’s back to the grind around 7:15-7:30 until 4 PM. I start working so early so I feel like I have the flexibility to take a long lunch hour if I need to so I can go on a run. And I’ve taken advantage of that (nothing like taking your “lunch hour” at 8 AM just so you can run before it gets too overwhelmingly hot outside) a few times. But most days I end up fielding phone calls, IMs, emails, meetings all day long until it’s time to go pick up the baby from school. Then after she goes to bed at 8 PM, as I’m watching TV with my hubby I’ve been doing a little work on experimental things that I wanted to figure out at work, but I never had the chance to because I’m constantly talking with someone else! It’s like I’m too busy to DO stuff at work.

Then there is mommy time. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my baby girl. How could I not love this independent little girl?

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She’s amazing!

The best moments of every weekday are from 4:20 to 8 PM when I get to play with her, except that pesky dinner-making stuff gets in the way there.

But I do a lot of baby (toddler?) care. My husband went to Chicago a few weeks ago and while I missed him, I realized that there wasn’t a lot of extra care that burdened me during this time. I had to drive her to school myself and cut up some cheese for her lunch. But beyond that, I was doing everything that I always do. I realized that I don’t let my husband do much child rearing.

Let’s repeat that: I DON’T LET my husband do much child rearing.

Now, it’s not like he’s clamoring at the bit to take on any duties. “Hey, let me give the baby a bath!” or “You haven’t been out of the house in a week. Why don’t I take the baby while you go do something?” But I just do everything, including getting up with her at night every time she needs someone. (Which isn’t often, except this past week. She’s started to wake up crying and just needs someone to rub her back for a couple of minutes.)

A (female) friend told me that “Make sure to ask your hubby for help. Men can get comfortable. Don’t enable him.” And then a (male) friend told me this about men, “Although we should see the things that need to be done, we don’t.  And we should see how hard it is for you, but we don’t, but tell us what you need and we will do it! We are dumb as shit”

See, I need to learn how to ask for help and ask for what I need. And ask for what I want. Because although needs and wants are technically different, we are allowed to want things. Right now, some of the things I want:

• to run at least 3x a week, preferably 4
• pink and/or purple streaks in my hair
• time to edit the baby’s 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th month and 1st birthday videos.
• a pedicure

Things I need:

• to ask for help
• to figure out what I need help with! (perhaps I should reverse the order I listed these, huh?)
• to decide what is priority in my life (whole other post subject!)
• to not have a cold anymore!

I turned 35 last month. I can’t say that I “celebrated” my birthday because it was barely a blip on the radar. But I got to thinking, “Hey, I should do a list of 40 things to do before I turn 40! And then I can blog about all those things.” But… I can’t think of 40 things I want to do. And that’s kind of lame. It’s like I have no creative spark or vision for my life anymore, it’s just get through each day to wake up and do it all over again.

So help me reignite my spark… what are a couple of the things you want to accomplish in your life in the next few years?