Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Defeat and Margin

Girls, I am having a week

And it's Tuesday.

TUESDAY.

The good news is, I'm not a stress eater. The bad news is, I am a stress drinker, and three nights in the past week my dinner consisted of wine and chocolate chips. 

So, there's that. 

I am just feeling plain overwhelmed. A feeling not foreign to working moms, or probably any moms for that matter. But honestly, I just feel like working moms get the worst of it. 

The constant juggling. Constant feeling like you aren't doing enough at home/at work/with your kids/for yourself/for your husband/etc etc etc. Constant cleaning yet still never feeling like the house is clean. Never having enough time for anything (or so it feels). It feels like trying to squeeze 48 hours of activity into a 24 hour day every.single.day. 

And this week, I broke. I hit my threshold. It's mostly my own fault, and I realize that, so I've decided to make some changes. I'm simplifying. My kids are going to be this little for like six seconds in the scheme of our life, and I absolutely refuse to be stressed and stretched anymore. 

I'm creating some margin and taking some of the pressure off of myself. As a self-professed control freak, type A perfectionist, you can understand this does not come easy. But when mama's happy, everyone's happy, right? RIGHT?!

  • For starters, I'm giving myself a break from this self-imposed pressure to cook fresh, healthy, balanced, instagram-worth meals every single night of the week. I'm sick of rushing to get dinner ready, doing dishes every night, all of it. So, the two days of the week I'm in the office I'm going to pick up a ready-to-heat meal from Whole Foods on my way home. I'm also going to commit to one crock pot meal a week. The rest, I'll deal with as it comes. And ya'll, I'm buying paper plates (as the hippie in me shudders with disdain). 
  • And two, I'm re-instating the monthly house cleaner and strongly considering asking them to come every two weeks. I put them on "hold" this month knowing we had some extra expenses in the hopper (don't we always) but spent a good part of our home time this past weekend cleaning, which meant I wasn't playing with the kids, reading to them, practicing soccer with Madelyn, hanging with Matt, you get the picture. I'm over it. 

If the worst thing my kids eat all week is an organic rotisserie chicken or Applegate nuggets, and I have to shell out more money so I can have more time with them, so be it. I can't be freakin Ina Garten in the 20 minutes I have to get dinner ready each day. I just can't. 

Everything comes with a price, or a compromise rather. I love to work, but it does affect my ability to be the "homemaker" and mother I see myself as. It just does. I love my job and I think the benefits to our family outweigh the negative aspects, but I also have to admit I can't do it all. None of us can. 

And with that, I'm off to pour myself another glass of stress wine. Cheers, ladies. Here's to a new day and a fresh perspective. And maybe even a little more time and a little less crazy. 

1 comment:

Heidi said...

Oh my word, YES! I am getting ready to start teaching full-time again and I'm a little anxious about getting it all done. Not like I was really getting it all done teaching part-time, so don't be fooled by that. I'm hoping that the increase in income will allow for the hiring of a cleaning person. And I always take it easy on myself for dinner, so I'm afraid if I make it any easier, we'll just eat saltines (and yes, I'll definitely drink!) every night. That's probably borderline neglect ;) Love this post and your next one about birthday parties. We had an at-home party outside for Molly and I had apple sauce and yogurt squeezers for kid snacks and we picked up Krispy Kreme doughnuts for the sweet. Easy peasy.

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