What's Next?

It is the week after the holidays and I am sitting here thinking about what's next. I spent all summer getting ready for school to begin and preparing myself to let my 5 year old go to school full time. Then, when school began, I was in a whirl wind of activities, field trips, parties, Halloween. Then it was Thanksgiving, and then it was my favorite time of the year, Christmas. Along the way, we also started and completed a remodeling job in my bedroom, we painted the kids' bedrooms, and did Fall cleaning. I packed a lot of jobs into a short 3 month time slot.
Now, I am left feeling, now what? There are no more remodeling jobs, there is no fun activities or parties at school, there is no baking cookies, shopping for presents, and no decorating. It is too cold to do any outdoor activities and I am too broke from Christmas to go shopping. Should I find a part time job? Should I volunteer more at school? Should I sit on my ass and watch TV all day? I just don't know what is next for me. I know many moms (and dads) face the same dilemma when they have kids in school full time. This is also a rough time of the year because of the winter weather.

Part of the problem with taking a job is the fear that I will be taking a lot of sick days due to my kids getting sick. I don't want to make a commitment and break it all in the same week. And I have good reason to worry about that. Little One, my 5 year old, has been sick every other week since he began school. He has had 5 viral infections just since Thanksgiving and about 8 since September. And of those illnesses, he has had strep throat once, 2 ear infections, 2 cases of bronchitis, the flu, and some run of the mill cold viruses with fever.

I could volunteer more too because I dropped a few of the volunteer positions I've had the last couple of years. But. But, do I really want to put my entire heart and soul into something again to have ungrateful shit heads stamp all over it and ruin all the good that I did? My heart couldn't take it again. Or could it?

I could also start another project around here. But we don't have the money and the house projects that are left to do are huge and I would need help to start and complete.

So where does that lead me? Back to the beginning to figure out what is next. Maybe something will come to me or hit me over the head in the meantime...