Priorities

I'm not the most social person in the world, so it took me a while to make some mom friends after the birth of my first son. We had just moved back from Puerto Rico and all of my high school & college friends had moved away, so I pretty much had no social life whatsoever.
Luckily, I lived in an apartment complex with many parents and one reached out and before I knew it I had a little solid group of mom friends. We'd call or text each other when we were going to the playground or pool,  or hang out at each other's homes, etc. But little by little some of the moms moved away ... and then I moved (we bought a house YAY!), so it became a little harder to keep seeing the couple mom friends I had left. I felt a hole in my life and I needed it filled, but being a person with shitty social skills I didn't reach out to my new neighbors.
Due to an unfortunate circumstance with my son's preschool I decided the best course of action was to remove him from that school. Because it was so close to the end of the school year I decided to keep him home with me, and since I wasn't sure if he'd get into the charter school I applied him to for Kindergarten (he has seen been accepted!) I started looking for homeschooling resources and came across Meetup.com.
During my search I discovered several Mommy groups, which I also joined. So far I have met some great people, the kids have made some great friends, we've been to places we've never been to before, and it's been an all around great experience and I look forward to consolidating these friendships I've made. And because these play dates (and much needed Moms-Night-Out) have been so great I've reached out to my old mom friends and new neighbors and am making the time to see them more often. I think it's so easy to get caught up in your routine, and make excuses like "I have to clean the house" that unless you carve out the time, you'll never have a social life. Mind you, I work from home so I have to manage my time more carefully to make sure I'm not falling behind on my work. Some days I find that between play dates and work I sometimes fall behind on cleaning the house, but it is so worth it. I'm not the most social person, so putting myself out there, making the effort to have conversations with people and form friendships is good for my well-being, and that is more important than having clean dishes. I can always clean up later (like when the kids are asleep), but if I don't make the time and effort to have a social life, days, months, years will fly by, the kids will grow up, move out, and I'll look back and wonder what I did with my time (other than raise some great young men). Do I want to look back and realize I spent all my time working and cleaning? Hell no! I want to look back and remember all the great outings I had with my kids and great people I've met.