It's a Constant Balancing Act

I am not sure where to start. I have been working so hard, or at least I feel like I am working hard to improve things around the house, my body, our family business and homeschool the kids. It is truly a balancing act every single day between not over working myself, burning out completely and being cranky because of it or forgetting the key task that have to get done or just tossing in the towel on the day completely. The worst part is that most days I skate right where I should be, yet I am having to force myself to be happy about the day I had since my house is only half cleaned or a complete mess. Sometimes, I feel like I should rename this blog, Recovering Paralyzed Procrastinator or It’s a Constant Balancing Act. 

I was doing really good with the challenges that I had set for myself and started but it lasted only 4 days. It was Thursday the 4th day when my little one got a fever and insisted on sleeping on me most of the day. The following day, Friday, my neck and shoulders were super kinked and I couldn’t move. On Saturday morning I could feel an improvement and this is an ALL hands with the family to tackle the house and other project that need to get handled, and this Saturday we chose to handle the backyard and porch. I chose to sweep and handle cobwebs. Before we even got to lunch, I could barely move. Luckily, I had a Chiropractor appointment later that day. 

We are currently sitting at Wednesday and I am still recovering. My neck and shoulders are better and yes I can move but I am doing my best to take it easy, no heavy lifting and when I do need to pick up something I really make sure that I am in the right position to lift. 

This is just a time period in my life. I remember going through it with all my kids when they were young. It is hard to be a mom, especially when they are under 5. Your body isn’t yours, you are constantly interrupted and you are mentally taxed each and every single day. Yet, I crave and miss the snuggles, kisses and being needed, which is probably why I keep having them the way I do. 

Some of the ways I combated this was I got out of the house and focused on other things and tasks, and get my father to babysit or play with them while I got work done. This was super helpful. While I do have Grandpa to help me a few days a week, Reddington, is a bit more needy then the others. He is not a great eater, and so chooses to nurse most of the day. Ugh, I hate even writing this because I am mostly likely going to get unsolicited advice on how I can handle my son to be a better eater or if I stopped nursing at night then you would get better sleep or whatever. But, I am not writing this so I can get help, I am writing this because it is just true in my life and I want you to know that things in life are hard sometimes. That’s it. 

I believe, I know what is best for my kids and part of that is to try, error and/or try something new.  I look at the child in front of me and I see what is needed of me. And sometimes it’s hard work to put things aside for them, but in the end I feel that its worth it. I don’t want to parent another way. I want to learn and try things that I feel might work, but I don’t want to try something I know in my gut feels wrong. I overheard some parents talking once about a method of parenting that I whole heartedly would not want to ever do with my children. I am not saying what it is because, I am not interested in making a mother wrong if they in fact do it, which is totally fine by the way, you do you, it also has nothing to do with my point… or does it, I don’t know. Look, I have adult children, I have passed through the crazy and come out the other side. And I am here to tell you that what you do in the early years effects them for life. They might not “hate” you at the time of your actions because they are too little to fight you and win but there comes a day when they are big enough and they think they can do this life without you and your help. 

They will either grow up trusting, communicating, and looking to you for advice or they will self soothe as they say or find someone other than you. You want your teenagers and young adults to come to you for advice and not their stupid friends.  You don’t get there just cause you have the title of mom, they may not hate you but they might not trust you. I love my kids unconditionally and they know it, and just cause they know it today doesn’t mean I won’t have to prove it tomorrow. This does not mean, let them walk all over you, set no boundaries and self sacrifice to your children. It means listen to what your child is saying, talk to them, let them know what is going on. It means making sure they are well fed, and rested. It means put down your phone, snuggle and play with them. It means teaching them manors and treating others with kindness by modeling it when you talk to them. Your kids need to know what is ok and what isn’t ok, but most of the time they know. They might not know how you prefer the dishwasher to get loaded until you show them, but they do know they shouldn’t dump their water all over the floor. It is ok to say, “Not cool, here is a towel, clean it up.” But, don’t waste your breath and energy lecturing them about it. 

It’s a balancing act! The best guild I have, is to treat my kids how I would want to be treated. I do my best to look at things through their eyes. 

This helped me. It was a good reminder. This time come and goes. Got to love on myself, so I can love on my babes. Brain dump on the page as my outlet and here I am loving my job as a mother again! 

I love the saying, “The days are long but the years are short!” It is so true, when they are little it feels long, and then when they just pop in for a short visit as adults you think, “how did you grow up so fast?” 

Love, Becca the Bad

Grateful

Oh my gosh, is it just me or is there always work to do? Yeah, I thought so, we are all busy but is it productive? I will say that I am doing pretty good since Monday, so good in fact that I have very little time to write as I am getting “all the things,” done. I really feel the pull that this is not what I should be doing, but I made a promise to myself that I would write every day. Everyday is not happening but this is a huge improvement to what was happening before. I would think about writing everyday and then the days, weeks, months and even years would pass and I will still never sit down and write. Of course, this is not what I pictured I would be writing about. I think this is one of the reason’s I never got started, I was waiting for amazing inspiration that would strike me, or  I would have all this time waiting for me so I could just take my time, edit and really process something I thought would be worth a read. I have decided to throw out the idea perfect. I finally realized that just like there is never a perfect time to have a baby, neither will there be a perfect time to write. 

Last time I sat down to write, I stated that I started a couple of challenges. Boy, am I a competitive person. This was just the right amount of accountability to kick my butt into gear. To add to the fuel, my kids and husband decided to join me! This is a huge success for me and the whole family! Since Monday, we  have all gone hiking each night after dinner. Another bonus is, Sean is not eating out for lunch, and he has been totally agreeable about this! If you know my husband you will know he is quite stubborn in his ways and he loves eating out. If he could eat out every meal he would. This is not only a big waste of money it is also terrible for the body. When we first starting dating this was one of the only things we disagreed about, and he would complain when I would insist I pack a lunch for him and then would still eat out and waste the lunch I made for him. It drove me bananas and after a while I just gave up, as the fights weren’t worth it. We have been married for 17 years now and I guess the investment of educating him on the numbers and health draw backs are finally paying off. 

Speaking of 17 years married, I want to say this, marriage is hard!! We are polar opposites. We were brought up so differently. He loves things like football which I despise. When we started dating he liked to eat cheese that came out of a can. Yuck! He teases me about being a tree hugging hippy, and I would make fun of him for being a white trash, redneck jock. I am telling you, polar opposites! And yet, we are a perfect pair. The things that really matter keep us going. We love being parents, we love building a future together. Surprisingly, enough we love the same design of homes and for the most part agree on politics. We both love the outdoors and nature. We both get the same good and bad vibes from people. We love to people watch or plan what we would do if we won the lottery on date nights. Our core values are the same. We have plenty of moments, when it comes to movies, music and food where we disagree. We get tired and overwhelmed by all the things it takes to keep a business and household running. We get snippy and naggy with each other but still we are solid. 

It is wonderful to look back on our time together and see how far we have come. Things haven’t been easy. We have had no place to live, no money for food, and no car to drive. We went from crashing at other peoples houses, to getting a one room apartment, to a one bedroom apartment, to a 3 bedroom house. We have moved cross country to have to turn around and move back. We went from paycheck to paycheck as employees, to building a successful business and actually being able to pay our bills and being able to save. The bumps in the road have been insane and I was sure at times we would not survive. We lost our house to foreclosure in the 2008 recession. We lost our home to a fire which could have killed us if we hadn’t been woken by the smoke detector. We have been so far in debt that we couldn’t see straight or breath, and yet here we are still standing. The idea of doing any of those things by myself is truly a scary proposition. Thank goodness, I am married to a strong and capable person. He is such a great partner. We have been dealt crap hands, we have had to work for everything we have and yet we are still pushing towards a better life. We want to get better everyday. We want the best for our children, and we have worked as a team to make that happen. I love the family we are, even if I also freak out that we aren’t perfect. This is something I am working on, since I know perfection is unattainable, I still want it. 

Well, this was a good exercise. I needed to write this, for me, my husband and my marriage. We are tough, life kicks back and I am happy I have someone to share the hard times and the good times with. We have had plenty of both and I look forward to many more years of kicking ass and taking names! Sending you all lots of love for the hard times, keep at it, it will pass until the next hard time! ; )

Love, Becca the Bad 

Getting My Shit Together!

Please, tell me that I am not the only one overwhelmed by the never ending lists of things to do. I feel a constant pull towards getting all the things done so I have “time” to garden, bake, decorate, and get organized. There are things that I need to do daily, and then there are things I need to do once a week, or monthly and oh my gosh, keeping them all straight. I fantasize about establishing the perfect routine so that I can put my life on autopilot. I read books and listen to podcasts on organization, decluttering, doing less, doing more, procrastination and bullet journaling so that I can finally feel like I have it all together. I go in and out of being totally motivated and happy with my progress to feeling that I am not even close to getting to where I want to be. 

I am writing this for myself, to work through some of my frustrations. I want to have a clean and organized home. I want to have systems in place so that I can easily find the things I need. I want to be so organized that it will take me minutes to get out of the house. I want systems for our businesses, so that it takes me very little time to handle all the administration, legal and financials of the companies.  What I really want is OCD, no, not really but I would love to have a natural inclination to be put together in such a way that I walk smoothly through the day, not feeling frazzled or forgetting the really important tasks. 

I love lists. I write them all the time. I love checking off tasks and feeling a sense of accomplishment. I know that I have a problem with celebrating my achievements. I know I have a problem with slipping into over indulging on Social Media. I can mindlessly lose much of my day by not having made a list. I also, have a problem with writing a list in one place and then starting another list somewhere else. I have too many work spaces because I share a working computer with my husband and then I have another desk at the other end of the house. I know, I am not set up for production. Although, the other problem entirely is that I can’t neglect the daily things to tackle the large tasks to get things running more smoothly. I am making progress but I am having a hard time measuring it, or tracking it. I keep talking about it and writing about it and then occasionally doing something about it but the speed is slow and this is frustrating. The other big issue is priority. How do I decide? It all seems important.

In order to get a handle on things, I am going to take sometime to process all the things getting in my way of production. This is part of it. I am writing this, knowing I am posting it. I am going to use this as accountability. I know not having a “boss” is preventing me from working at the level I am capable of. This has always been a sore spot for me. I tell myself I am gonna do xyz and then I get distracted and waste time. I love saying yes and being helpful to others but it is a perfect way to not get done what I need to. If I had a boss expecting me to do something, I would have no problem with buckling down, saying no to other things and just getting it done. This is me, telling you, I am going to take the small daily steps to getting all the things in a proper order, while at the same time coping with the everyday derailments that will occur even with the best intentions. 

I am currently dealing with having a very needed toddler. I am still in transition mode since we moved recently, and in such a hurry, that nothing was properly gone through beforehand. I have so many different hats that it is hard to handle them all with the love and care I would like, plus I have other itches, such as writing that I need to make time for otherwise in the years to come I will kick myself for not just doing it. I don’t want to miss quality time with my kids, they really do grow so fast! I want to stop neglecting my marriage, while we are solid as a rock, I know that this is one of the most important areas of my life and he always gets the crumbs. I can’t stand that. Sean is the best partner around and I am so very lucky to have him but he gets the worst of me, which brings out the worst in him and that is not fair to either of us. And if that were not enough, we have back taxes and IRS things to deal with, a new business, and a new dog, correction, puppy that needs to be trained. Ugh, I am overwhelmed just writing this. 

Balance, it is all about balance, taking it one day at a time, one project at a time, and doing what I am doing while I am doing it. I know these are all true statements, even though, I want to do it all, have it all and be it all perfectly and simultaneously. I know I can get a bunch done when I focus on the task ahead of me. I also know that if I take the time to get organized and set timers I can move myself and my family into the direction we want it to go. I will celebrate my dones, but first I have to put all my lists together in one place. I will write the daily check lists. I will write my weekly tasks as well as monthly. I will post them where I can see them in the areas that I need them. I will write my leaving the house checklist. Once that is done, I will get to work, and only do what is on the list. If I think of something I won’t just go do it, I will add it to my list and finish what I am working on. I will make sure my daily checklists include, walks with my family and dog, reading out loud to my children, writing and all the little things that make me happy so as to reward my progress. 

You heard it here first! I am getting organized and less overwhelmed! Who’s with me? I am going to prepare for a highly productive week and I will be sure to let you know how I did. I really love a challenge, so I joined two, which start Monday. One is called 75HARD and another one is a productivity challenge with Jordan Page of Fun, Cheap or Free, if anyone is interested in doing them with me to help you with your own “get your shit together” journey, please, let me know! 

Much love, Becca The Bad