On Saturday evening we flew back home to Phoenix after a week in my hometown of Austin. As usual, I had a knot in my stomach at the airport as I anticipated leaving. It's always hard to say goodbye to my parents and sister, the house and wooded yard where I grew up, friends, and that funky city of Austin that I love so much. 

Even as I felt sad to leave Austin and all that I love there I started to think of the routines of home and how I thrive on them. Getting out of my routines is the perfect thing to remind me how much I love our routines and the life we have in the desert. I feel so thankful that our "normal life" is something I actually look forward to and miss when we're away.

As we packed our bags on Saturday I started feeling a little bit excited to return to our daily activities with Dashiell, cooking healthy meals at home, regular exercise, and even work(!). I'm only one week in to my new position at work and it'll be fun to get settled in to my new team and projects. While we were away, I was also pleasantly surprised at how much I missed the daily work of maintaining this blog, developing my e-course, and keeping up a podcast. I'll admit that sometimes I wonder why I've taken on all this extra (non-paying) work during an already demanding time in my life. A week off reminded me that these projects, while time consuming, bring so much to my life and I'm so grateful to be able to pursue them and to create, even if it does mean very full days and evenings.

Happy Monday, friends!