Celebrating Small Victories

It is Day 82 of 2024, and only now do I finally feel like I have found a rhythm. Buckle up; this will (probably) be a long one.

I’ll need to go back a bit. I made a major life change in September 2023. For some reason, I thought everything would just instantly click, and life would be as I wanted it to be. For awhile, it kind of was. After a busy 2+ years, I knew to take it slow. I wanted to focus on the things that had fallen by the wayside. My focus was on getting my home back into order (which included being back to a schedule with cleaning, cooking, and continuing to declutter and take care of projects that had piled up), homeschooling my son, and taking care of tasks for my parents in a more prompt manner. My husband and I also agreed that the fall season would be one of saying no, or at least not taking on any new or long-term commitments.

September and October went well and even early November. I knew it would start getting busy in November, because that happens every year. We celebrate multiple family birthdays and anniversaries, plus Thanksgiving and all the associated events. In early December, I began prepping for a very DIY birthday party for my youngest. I spent many days shopping for and organizing supplies, and two days prior to the event purchasing food and then a long day of event cooking, setting up, and then cleaning up. I could feel myself beginning to get ill and I seriously thought I could fight it with mind over matter. I literally thought I could fight it off if I just decided I will NOT get sick, lol. In the midst of this my little was on and off ill. And finally in mid-December, I definitely was sick, and I did not know what awaited me.

Long story short (for this part), I spent the next 6 weeks the sickest I have ever been. It was miserable and spiritually draining especially, as I was unable to attend church or spend time with others (aside from my family). I truly think the only reason I even got better was because of a long-planned trip to the Caribbean. The sun and salt water helped to clear the cough and congestion I had been battling. Sadly for me, I caught a cold while on the trip—thankfully everything is outdoors and we weren’t near others because I was pretty miserable but did my best to have fun. When we came home, both my husband and I caught a stomach bug (flu?). In early February, I finally started to feel better only to throw out my back (happens every few years). I’m so thankful my husband was able to work from home. I spent two days completely unable to get out of the bed (except to limp my way to the bathroom) and the rest of the week walking hunched over, while I tried to move to loosen things up. I think in total it was around 9 weeks of ailments.

Very literally on March 1, I felt like a cloud lifted and that I could finally breathe—literally and figuratively. We had some bursts of warm weather. The sun shining helped immensely. I knew I had to get my act together. I knew that I needed to prioritize my health. (I will write about this again in the near future.)

I’m going to jump back to March 22nd for a minute though to say that the past few weeks, this past one especially, has bought a sense of consistency I have not experienced in many years. And that is worth celebrating (hence the blog title). So below I’m going to write some things that are currently working—and what I still desperately need to do better with.

Vitamins

I knew there would be no sense in trying to work on my health if I didn’t build up my immune system. I know what happened to me during the winter was happening to many, but I don’t think I should have been knocked down so hard. I began taking vitamins (I will not share what or which because that is so individualized and you should do your own research.) and have been diligent in taking AM and PM vitamins each day. (I actually began this in mid-February.) I’m researching a good multi-vitamin to not take so many and also being more intentional to get these nutrients from whole foods—more on that below.

Food and Hydration

You can know the basics, and it can still be so hard to implement it. I won’t dwell too much on this, but it is very simple. I am cutting down on outside food and Starbucks (a nemesis). Even when I go out, I often do the trick where you only eat half of your dish (because you’re given SO much food) and then I get another meal out of it (or bless my husband with the leftovers since he doesn’t get to go out as much as I do). I’m okay with just water at restaurants. I’ve increased the water I drink daily. I am making sure to throw some salt in it or drink water with electrolytes. More fiber (veggies and fruits), protein smoothies and more protein in general. Making sure my each plate I eat had a protein, fat, and fiber. Having carbs, but not a huge portion. All the things. Just back to the basics. And it really is so funny (not haha) to see how your taste buds and desires DO change. I don’t crave the outside food (which I was mostly eating out of convenience and not desire). I don’t care if I go weeks without SB (not that I never have it, just not as much). I feel full and satisfied with each meal. Small choices that will hopefully lead to big changes.

Skincare

I do not really need this to be its own section, but I don’t know where else to put it. Because I’m so task and project-oriented in the home, I often lack in self-care for myself. I won’t go too into this, but taking the few minutes to make sure I clean my face well and have a rhythm to when to wash my hair, etc. is not so much about caring about my appearance, but just doing my best to not just have a clean and tidy home but be a clean and tidy person.

Reading & Prayer Time

This one should have really been first, but it also feels light highlighting it at the end will be more memorable if you’re reading this. I’ve struggled with consistency in this area. And there are so many things you can do, so I kind of hop around and try to justify that I am okay in this area. I do not like to make this area a “checklist,” as if spending time with the Lord is just something to get done each day. But I did need a checklist because I needed to see the reality of how much or how often I was not doing at least the bare minimum of what I should have been doing. (And being honest with myself that I do have a lot more time to spend in this area.)

The past two weeks have been the most consistent—reading a chapter or passage of the Bible daily, listening to an episode of The Bible Recap (I listen to a variety of educational podcasts throughout the week as well.), having a time of prayer (I am using a book regarding praying for your spouse as well as a workbook on busyness that has prayer prompts in it.), and reading at least one chapter of a book each day. Right now I am reading a variety of books written by Christian authors, but it does not always have to be that. I just want to keep my mind sharp and if I can learn from other believers on how to grow closer to Christ, then that is a bonus. (On this note, I even try to do some NYT puzzles each day—again to work my brain and not just aimlessly scroll social media all the time.).

What I need to work on: working out. I want to be the person who does this diligently (and for a few years I was). I want to walk 10,000 steps a day. I do have the time, and I should feel grateful that I still have the capability. I am in a season of absolutely no, zero, nil motivation. I wake up everyday and say this is the day I’m going to do it. And I have sprinkled in a slow or short one here and there. But again, no desire. And I know, especially at my age, how important strength training is as I get older and beneficial cardio would be for heart health. So I am going to try to make that a focus, if not next week then for April.

But I will write, I am not beating myself over it. If I remember, I’ll write in my next blog post why my type of personality often hinders rather than helps me. This season of taking things slow and adding things in little by little has proven effective. It is not overwhelming.

I am really utilizing my planners and prioritizing the tasks I purpose to complete. I have made great progress in our home, which has lessened the time I need to spend cleaning. Homeschool is going so well—and has proven I made the right decision in the fall that this was meant to be the only “job” I should/need to have right now and when I can focus on it, we can have a fun and fulfilling educational experience.

And truthfully, I just can’t do everything daily. There will always be more I want to do as well. I’m also trying to prioritize spending time with people, which has pulled me out of my comfort zone to pursue and plan this but has been worthwhile. I have begun a teacher training at my church, to learn how to effectively teach the Bible. This will take a lot of time out of my schedule for a few weeks. Summer is coming, and we’ll want to be out a lot. We have multiple vacations planned. Time is moving quickly (see previous post). And, lastly, I just also want to…BE. We, as humans, should not think it is normal to fill every minute of every day.

I may have missed something. But in general this is what has been working. I hope it continues and that I can keep building on this momentum.

Time is flying.

I’ve spent the better part of the last couple of years, notably this past one, feeling a lump in my throat every night as I’m ready to go to bed. On the days my youngest sneaks into my bed and curls himself up in my arms, there are definite tears shed. I think back to the carefree days of childhood and when people told us that being an adult would be hard, it had more to do with paying bills, keeping a home, working, etc. No warnings were given about the internal struggles of aging and looking back and realizing how much time you wasted (which may in part be true, but not entirely) and how time is running out to accomplish the things you’d like to do (which also, no way of knowing if that’s actually true or not).

I live in this tension and to be honest I do not handle it well because I do not know how to live in it. I don’t discuss it much because it seems so weird to but it is something I dwell on often. Especially as my youngest ages. Every night I feel the guilt of wondering if I did enough for him. Did I play enough? Did I even play at all? Because the busyness of most days and my task-driven personality coupled with his independent nature means I can theoretically go all day without a deep, meaningful connection. And I don’t want to look back one day and regret all the times I could have sat down with him to do a puzzle or play a video game or something that took me out of my comfort zone because my strength has never been in “playing.” I overly exaggerate via words and hugs how much I love my people. But stopping to really look at them, to see them, is not my strength. Could I have put aside a task to bake with him? Could I have been more gentle in a response that interrupted a work flow? The list goes and on and on and is hard to put on words on a screen, the internal battle I feel inside of not doing enough or feeling enough even though it feels like I never actually stop doing because there is always something to be done.

I know this is not the most difficult thing in life. I am thankful that right now this is the worst of my struggles. But we all approach things differently, and this is something I feel deeply. To the point where I sometimes wonder if I am struggling with depression or anxiety and at what point I may need accountability.

I often feel like I am failing. Like, doing the bare minimum is okay but not for me. There’s so much to do, to add, to desire, and I just…can’t. I don’t know if any of this makes sense.

I do not want regrets. But I do not know if it is possible to ever not feel them. I often wonder if we all share in these sentiments. There will always be more we could have done/could do. We are finite humans, limited in our capabilities and simply striving each day to put one foot forward and do the best we can in that given moment of time with the information and abilities we have.

But I also do not want to swing too far to the “just give yourself grace” side. I want to be wise and intentional with my time. I want to say yes to the things that matter and shelf the things that do not. I know that in light of eternity, a lot that I wish to accomplish actually does not matter. But it’s still a struggle. I wish I could just switch off when these feelings of overwhelm come.

I guess you get to an age where you know you statistically have less time than you once did. I want to make the most of it. I want to love my people well. I want to honor God. And I pray everyday I figure out the balance in doing that.

Today.

I cannot, but can, believe it has been over a year since I last updated. I knew it was unlikely I would keep up, but I am glad the few updates I made in 2022 helped process some things I was feeling. Blogging was always an outlet, and I wish it was something I had kept up with consistently. A lot has changed since the last update, but overall it is all good things. No complaints.

I made a brief story on IG last night that I wanted to expand upon here. A friend gave me a book study entitled “Breaking from Busyness” (I shouldn’t be lazy and just link it lol), which was extremely timely and this has been a week I’ve been discussing being busy with a number of people. Because of recent life changes, this question comes up a lot so it’s something I meditate on often. Anyways, my main point in discussing it is just to remind people we never know what is on someone’s plate. We live in a busy world. No one is exempt from that. In many ways my life is less busy than most (two-parent home, less children than many of my friends, apartment versus a house to care for) and it still feels like too much. Some of it is brought on by me—hobbies or activities that I personally want to tackle but are in no way mandatory; keeping my home a certain way because I’m convinced it’s what keeps me calm. And some really is being busier than others in different ways, like being an only child who feels it is my responsibility (a joyful one) to now help care for my parents as they get older.

So I was thinking about all there is to do on the never-ending task list, and what I ended up spending my morning on today. “Do people buffer in time for things like this?” is something I always wonder. Because I actually do try to and feel guilty when I’m sacrificing something else to do so.

This was a morning of tackling medical appointments for various family members. I help my parents with this, and I’m sure there are people who would be quick to say that’s something they could do on their own. True, but I can understand how the changing world we live in has made it more difficult for this older generation. Forty years ago, when my parents were my age, you called a doctor’s office and a receptionist picked up a phone. You made an appointment in probably less than three minutes. Now? Well, now I fear in an effort to improve and make the process “simpler,” we’ve only increasingly complicated what should be a simple task. You call and have options to select. They ask tons of questions, sometimes security ones to make sure you’re you. You get transferred. You get put on hold or disconnected. It’s frustrating. And, yes, now you can often make appointments online but you’re asking almost 80-year-old people how to learn to navigate web portals and click links for appointment requests. It’s not so simple for all. So I take care of it. Not only finding appointments that will work for both my parents to be seen on the same day and roughly the same time, but request their lab requisitions (I don’t even know that my parents would know how to ask for that!) and schedule separate bloodwork appointments because no longer can that be done at your appointment like it was years ago nor can you just walk in. I am so happy to help them, but it does take time.

Then I’m dealing with an issue with another family member’s doctor. The staff at this office always left much to be desired, but the doctor is good and that’s what matters. I wouldn’t say it was ever easy to make an appointment. Again, you cannot just call the office. You have to submit a request online and wait for them to call you back. But for over a year I’d typically get a call back within a few hours or the next day. Now it takes them days or weeks to get back to me. By the time they do, if I do not pick up the phone the whole process begins again. So I have been trying since September to make an appointment. Frustrating. The issue also is that the doctor moved locations, from a private office to a hospital setting. This already turned me off. I finally called the hospital directly to see if that got me somewhere. Of course they bounced me around and the call got…disconnected. I did not try again. In the words of Anna Delvey, “I don’t have time for this, I don’t have time for you.” I also did something I was trying to avoid, and I used the patient portal to send a message to the doctor directly. I asked for someone to call me TODAY, but seeing as how it is 4:07pm, who knows if I will get a response. I kept my ringer on and phone by me just in case, but that’s not how I live anymore. I don’t want to be tied to my phone. So I began researching new offices—not part of my agenda for the day—and submitting inquiries to see if we could get an appointment elsewhere. I was going to at least try going once to our current doctor’s new location (I did not want to just assume it would be bad without at least trying—my husband admired my maturity haha), but if it’s been this difficult to schedule our first appointment in this new location, I wonder if it will improve or just get worse in the future. With how careful I am with managing my time, I do not want to wait to find out.

I know I sound whiny. Like, the expectation that when I’m ready to make an appointment people just need to be ready to help me. But it does not seem that far-fetched of an idea. I worked in medical offices for over 10 years total. So much has changed in 20 years. Again, I do not think for the better. I do not like these multi-practice sites or how many steps it takes to get in contact with the right department. I don’t think it’s wrong to know how much we pay for health insurance and to think that we all as consumers and patients deserve better.

I also recognize how much worse others have it. Every time I have a day like this, I remember to be thankful that I am home and *have* the time to spend on issues like this. I do not know how people who work do it. How you could possibly be on the phone for hours if you had an issue to rectify or needed to research doctors, etc.

Anyways, I have done a lot of reading and listening on the topic of time management for over a year now. I think it’s important, not only to help myself but offer counsel to others. My biggest advice is to create “white space” when looking a birds-eye view your schedule. We need buffer time. (“Buffer time is the extra time you add to your schedule to account for unforeseen delays, interruptions, or emergencies. It can help you reduce stress, avoid missed deadlines, and handle unexpected situations more effectively.“ Link to a helpful article: https://www.linkedin.com/advice/1/what-benefits-challenges-using-buffer-time-your#:~:text=Buffer%20time%20is%20the%20extra,handle%20unexpected%20situations%20more%20effectively.)

This goes against what our current “hustle” culture teaches us, but I’m always be an advocate for a slower-paced, less-filled life. I can always add events in, but it’s much harder to pull back.

So that’s that. A day-in-the-life issue that we don’t think about being on people’s plates. We assume people have the same time we do. Yes, we can counsel others to use their time better or more wisely if it’s warranted, but I think a lot of times we just don’t know what people are going through and if we did we’d approach others with a lot more grace and compassion. We wouldn’t be so frustrated as to why others do not have the same capacity as us. I do believe most are just trying their best.

It’s been awhile.

I posted a meme this week on Instagram stories that when someone hears “It’s been awhile…” an image of the Staind singer holding a guitar comes to mind. Perhaps, I should just post the meme to make life easier, but here we are. Just take my word for it or sing along if you know what I’m talking about.

As suspected, I did not keep up with writing in this space. I think I needed to process some things and goal accomplished. But I like writing here rather than the short blurbs on Insta.

Life did slow down a bit, and for that I’m grateful. Even in the slowing down, there still seems to be too much to do and it seems to be the same for everyone I talk to. Life picked back up these past couple of weeks, thus it is no surprise I’d feel the pull to process here once again.

I think a lot about how I, we, do it to ourselves. I take a look around my home at all the products I have purchased that have only given me more work to do even if they were purchased with the intent of making life “easier” or somehow more worthwhile–dry erase calendar on our main door, meal calendar in our kitchen, journals for my boys that taunt me from the bookshelf, and the list goes on. There are (a) myriad of projects and piles started clamoring for my attention and I have no one to blame for myself. I am not thankful for the pandemic, but I am thankful that it showed me how to redeem my time. I’m thankful for the amount I’ve purged from our home that makes it a little more tolerable to keep up with. Still, the to do list grows, even if we’re not even looking at the side projects. Life is just…a lot. I have spoken often on Insta how technology was meant to make our lives easier, and it has in so many ways. But no one ever talks about how much you’ll have to troubleshoot that technology. You wouldn’t believe the number of hours I’ve spent in recent weeks on various issues–copier at work, credit card refunds not processed, websites not working. On one hand, we know to do all things unto the Lord. But sometimes it’s like, really?

Anyways, a final word for today. After listening to a few podcasts on digital minimalism, I realized that my email and online storage really causes me stress. I’ve written before about my desire to tackle email, but the more I delete the more that comes. I finally had to think hard about where I wanted not only my time but energy to go to. As much as I love reading other people’s words, and know I’ll be missing out on something that could be very good and helpful, it became too much. Everyone has a newsletter; every influencer/business/store is just vying for your attention. For now, I’m content with giving my attention to social media, in brief spurts throughout the day. Sitting down to read long emails was not productive in this season of life. There’s also constant links and temptations to shop to buy allll the products everyone loves, which is contrary to my desire to reduce clutter. So I made the decision to unsubscribe from newsletters, trusting I’ll probably see some sort of repetition of it on Instagram, as well as to declare a form of email bankruptcy with certain senders. If it wasn’t important for me to read when it came–or months later–I have to let it go. I cannot feel chained, responsible, or guilty for setting a limit such as this. There were things I did not follow up/through with that are too late to now. There are other things which I need to profusely apologize to the person that I rudely ignored by allowing such things to fester. I am well on my way to inbox zero and thanks to the productivity podcasts I’ve listened to, I’ll know moving forward how to better deal with incoming email. Once email is done, I’ll do a quick scan of online storage only because I’m constantly nearing the limit of storage on my Gmail account.

Again, I always chuckle when I think about these problems I have. I’m sure there are lots of people who could only dream of having to deal with such trivial matters. But it all adds up. All this time and attention we spend on the trivial that takes away from the meaningful.

Anyways, just some processing for today. 🙂

A fresh start.

On September 1st, I began getting all these calendar pop-ups for activities to do. I was so confused. Then I realized I had set those up the week prior in an effort to begin time blocking. Fail! By the time I woke up, I was already several blocks behind lol. It’s good in theory, but not necessarily for my life.

I used to get annoyed sometimes by people I followed online who were constantly changing how they did things. I get it now. Sometimes I set out on a way to accomplish tasks/goals and by the next day I need to employ a new method. Same for our home—constantly shifting to work for the season we are in. I recognize this is just a lot of busy work. But whatever changes I have made even just in the past week have been working. So I’m glad for that.

September 1st, no time blocking aside, ended up being very productive. Felt like a sweet way to usher in not only a new month, but a new season and the start of our countdown to the end of the year. I accomplished every item on my task list (always monumental). This gave me time yesterday to be able to go outdoors and just enjoy sitting in the sun and start on a new book (The Prayer of the Lord by R.C. Sproul). My home is clean, I have a four-month plan to accomplish four major home projects before 2023, I am reducing my workload, I made great headway on homeschool planning for the year…allow me to not count my chickens before they hatch, but I’m feeling good about the upcoming year. But check back with me then. 🙂