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"Yesterday, I celebrated my &amp;quot;Blogiversary&amp;quot;, and in keeping with that theme of nostalgia, I&amp;#039;d like to share what I&amp;#039;ve learned from all of you, my readers. I&amp;#039;ve gotten a lot of incredible advice, taken my knocks occasionally, and had a world of support from all of you. I read each and every comment, and so much of it has been taken to heart. Here&amp;#039;s a bit of what&amp;#039;s helped me most through this process.  Pick your battles. Your ex and you have very different ideas about things sometimes \u2013 hell, that&amp;#039;s part of why it didn&amp;#039;t work out, isn&amp;#039;t it? If your ex doesn&amp;#039;t have the same standards that you do about something, then you have to decide when you need to make a stand, and when it&amp;#039;s not going to make a bit of difference insisting that he keep to the standards that he clearly doesn&amp;#039;t share with you. You need to take care of yourself. The sad truth is that no one else is going to do it for you. Your kids need you healthy, and you need you healthy. If that means eating better, getting more sleep, taking a walk, signing up for yoga or calling a therapist, then do it. Do whatever you need to do to get your mind and body to a healthy place. It makes such a difference, it really does. Find a hobby. I had all kinds of grand plans early on for my kid-free weekends and the occasional kid-free weeknight. Problem is, I don&amp;#039;t have the money for all the road trips I&amp;#039;d love to take, and my weekends have devolved into endless household chores and maintenance of the yard. Its nothing but drudgery, and that weighs on you. Then I discovered Netflix (it streams through the Wii!), I made a list of my top 100 movies, and I watch a minimum of one a week. I also started going through all those old photos and putting them in the scrapbooks I bought forever ago and have never used. Now my weekends are a good mix of productivity and fun, and it doesn&amp;#039;t cost much at all. Don&amp;#039;t change too many of the rules. One big difference between Peter and me are our parenting styles. He&amp;#039;s much more rigid and regimented, and I&amp;#039;m the creative, anything-goes type. Over the months after he moved out, a lot changed. Bedtimes got pushed back as we played long games of monopoly or Wii, or had impromptu movie nights. We started eating dinner in front of the TV, and I found myself cooking three separate meals to keep the kids happy. I didn&amp;#039;t make them clean up after themselves so much because I reasoned that I could clean it all, and faster, on the night they were at their Dad&amp;#039;s. BAD IDEA. We need some structure, and as soon as I started enforcing bedtimes, eating at the table, and making the kids take responsibility for keeping the house clean, life got a whole lot easier for everyone. While we&amp;#039;re definitely more relaxed overall and about certain other things, some rules needed to remain and I&amp;#039;m glad they did. Surprisingly, Anna told me just the other day that she&amp;#039;s glad we&amp;#039;re back to eating at the table. She missed it, and missed having time to &amp;quot;catch up&amp;quot; with me. Listen to the advice of others \u2013 then decide what works for you. I&amp;#039;ve heard all kinds of advice from my family, my friends, my coworkers and all of you. A lot of it has been pure gold, but sometimes, it all boils down to what&amp;#039;s going to work for us. The bottom line is that you know what makes you tick, you know your children (and probably your ex) better than anyone on earth. Sometimes, the best intended advice is just going to fall flat for your circumstances and situation. That doesn&amp;#039;t make it bad advice. It just doesn&amp;#039;t work for you right now, and that&amp;#039;s OK.  This is just a short list \u2013 I could never put into words all the amazing things I&amp;#039;ve learned from you, my readers. I&amp;#039;ve felt your hand on my shoulder and your foot on my butt plenty of times, and I needed them both whenever you did it. I owe you all a debt I can never repay. Thank you again for reading, and commenting, and being there as I walk this road. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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