Vacation and need a fill

I'm having my morning coffee and typing this today. I'm on vacation this week with my family. We got back yesterday from an overnight trip to a theme park. My son feels like its a real vacation if we stay in a hotel and since we decided to drive 3 hours, we thought it would be fun to do that. So this week we're going to kayak, go south to Hatteras and go fishing, and do whatever else we feel like sounds good. I'm trying to spend less money like everyone else and so we're doing the 'staycation' deal.

Its kind of nice, I keep wondering what it would be like to stay home for a year or so if I get laid off. I wouldn't stay home for good, I know that - but it would be nice to stay home for a year or so and play Martha Stewart. I wonder if I would lose weight faster/easier if I didn't work. I'm not sure. Being so busy keeps me from eating all day, but I do have a very high stress job. On the other hand, I've recognized that I eat a lot to get that cozy, home-y, secure feeling. I constantly cook and try to feed my family. It always astounds me that they just leave it behind when they're full but I keep eating. I have this need to be 'home' and create this 'home' feeling for my family, but I also know the only one who really needs this is me! I'm trying to give myself that cozy, warm, family environment that I grew up with and I feel a lot of guilt that I'm not giving that to my family b/c I'm rarely home in time for dinner due to my job. Eating dinner together every night is so important to me b/c I always had that growing up. I want to give my kids what I had growing up, my mom cooked amazing southern foods every night growing up (she stayed at home) I remember big cozy chairs, the fire was always going and it was so wonderful. I know to make myself feel better, I need to re-create that in my home, maybe just on Sat and Sundays! I do that now, but my kitchen/house set up isn't 'cozy' to me yet - its not finished. I need a couple of beautiful cozy chairs by the fireplace, I need to complete my bedroom makeover, and I need to finish decorating my living room and my daughter's bedroom. I've worked so much for so many years that I've neglected doing what I love - which includes decorating my home.

I'm also going to do something that probably sounds really selfish and lazy to some - I'm going to hire someone to regularly clean my house. I get about 3 hours home each evening, and then I have Saturdays and Sundays at home. It takes me about 4 hours to clean my house on the weekend and that's not including washing clothes, grocery shopping, etc. That leaves me hardly any time for kid events, playing with the kids and enjoying my spouse. I just feel like it would be money well spent b/c it would buy my back more time with my family. I always feel stressed when my house is messy and cluttered and it would be great to be left with the surface cleaning and not the deep cleaning. Well see how that search goes....

In the meantime, I've started with bringing my home together and 'finishing' it decor-wise. Here's 2 lamps I bought at Pier 1 Imports yesterday: