This is Me: Trying to Balance Home and Work

Reyna sick and being comforted our dog Arya.

Sometimes I tell myself that I fail miserably at balancing my life. I know I shouldn’t say that to myself, but it comes out. It does not always come to me in words that I say out loud; the majority of the time, it is just a feeling. Guilt, shame, and embarrassment are just a few of the feelings that I slide into when I think about all the things I should be doing or did not get to do. It's almost like the pile of junk in my clutter area is taunting me. I am sure that kind of negative self-talk is something that many can relate to.

I’m still newly wed and still new to motherhood. Travis and I are approaching 2 years of marriage and 3 years of living together. Although the time seems like it is flying by, I sometimes get the feeling that I should have some of this routine stuff down, but I don't. I still forget to restock his favorite snack, and there have been many mornings when Reyna has come to me because all her school uniforms are dirty –oops. 

I have said it before, and I will say it again, having a routine has been my life saver. And if I cannot manage to stick with the routine, then I genuinely try to not beat myself up about it. I have found that my life is a lot more peaceful when I accept what is and what is not, and move on. If I note that I have a current “failure,” I resolve to correct the issue, and I try to find ways to prevent it from happening again. I don’t allow myself to repeatedly bring up the issue in my inner dialogue, either. Coming up with a game plan to get back on track is the first step to stopping that broken record.

Now that I am married, I make it a point to get off work early and not allow myself more than 1 hour of overtime each day unless it has been previously planned out. I found in the past that, since my work hours were flexible and I am in a management position, I would stay late at work to finish projects and certain tasks. If you find that your work life is overflowing into your personal life and affecting your ability to spend quality time with friends or family, or it is chipping away at your personal downtime, then I suggest that you reach out to your supervisor to see what changes can be made to better suit your off-schedule time. If you are your own boss, or have a more flexible schedule like I do, then you will want to manage that on a daily basis on your own terms. You have to think about it from the employee point of view, and ask yourself “would I be a happy employee if my boss made me work like this?” If your answer is “no”, then you need to step back and be your own best advocate, you wouldn’t want to have burnt out employees, so don’t do that to yourself either.  

The main areas in my life that I struggle with now that my work balance is more in control are: house cleaning, meals, personal care time, positive connections with others and major projects that can be time consuming. 

These past couple of months for me have been very busy for me and my family. We have had several outings, including a canoe trip, a weekend long scrapbooking convention, Father’s Day, birthdays, illnesses, and two major employee functions at work to top it off. We had plans to go to a waterpark, too, but decided to postpone that. It seemed like there was no day off between any of the events, and I did not think I would survive if I spent an entire day at a waterpark in the sun. I might just crash from exhaustion. I need at least one day to myself.

I have an established routine, and these events disrupted my routine at every turn. Laundry got piled up and the house got a little messier. The fridge was suddenly empty (no coffee or milk, yikes), but there was no time for groceries, so then we ate out too much. The DVR was starting to erase my shows I had not watched because it was too full, and then before I knew it, I started to feel like my life was spiraling out of control. Did I try to do too much in too little time, you betcha! Would I do it all over again, you betcha! 

In order to get things back on track and feel like I had some sort of control over my life, I told my family to take 1 hour together and just start cleaning. This has to happen when everyone is at home at the same time and we do it as a team.  If there was something in the wrong place, pick it up, if the laundry was done, swap out a load. If you see trash throw it away. After about an hour, the house was looking so much nicer and a lot of stress was off my shoulders. Then I pulled out my day planner and started making a list of the other things that needed to be managed.

Sometimes you just have to go back to the drawing board, or in my case, the day planner. If you get off your routine, pick up at a sensible place, and start crossing things off the list. Do the small tasks first and break bigger tasks up into smaller ones. Getting small tasks out of the way gives you a boost of morale and that feeling of accomplishment and normalcy. Tidying up was a bunch of little wins! Just having the clutter put away was enough to get me back into a good mood, and it motivated me to work on some of the other challenging tasks. 

I do find that when I work from home, having some of these home tasks left incomplete can be a huge distraction for me. It was not so bad when I worked in the office, but I have noticed it now that I work from an in-home office space. If my work area is cluttered with sticky notes and pens are not put away in the cup, I can’t spread out on my desk and utilize my work space. My office is also my craft space, and if it is disorderly, even though it is behind me,  it distracts me while on zoom meetings. When I’m at work, and the laundry is calling my name, I find myself thinking about dirty clothes when I should be working. I found that if I can do a little bit of home care before I head off to my long commute down the hallway each work day, I can eliminate some of that head clutter. I will try to get a load of laundry started while I'm waiting for my coffee to brew, or I can clear out the fridge or tidy the bathroom. When I finish working for the day, I make sure to tidy up my work space and close up my projects.

If you want to know more about ways to organize yourself, you are in the right place. Modern Musings has several podcasts and blog posts on getting your life in alignment. If you are not listening to the podcast, you are missing out on the conversation, so be sure to click on the “Listen” tab up top to check out our upcoming podcasts posted every Wednesday. This week, we will be going into more detail about our struggles and tips to achieve the work and home life balance. Do you struggle with home, work, and family life balance? What areas of your life seem to get neglected when your attention is pulled elsewhere? Be sure to let me know in the comments.

Quick and Easy Dinners

This week we're talking about quick and easy dinners, which means something a little different in my house. I've been collecting favorite family recipes in a binder (more on that below) which I thought would be a quick weekend activity for our home binder. I am collecting all the recipes for family favorites that we return to often. Originally, I thought it would be a quick weekend activity, however, I have found that it is a more daunting task that I have had to put a lot of work into.

To be honest, I do not use a recipe very often, and when I do, I find myself veering from the directions; I am a free spirit in the kitchen. I have a good palate, comprehend food pairings well, and have enough knowledge of various cooking methods that I can easily create my own recipes from what I have on hand. I am open to learning new skills and techniques, and have great interest in how to make an ethnic dish that I have tried at a restaurant, but I particularly enjoy cooking creations from my head. It is hard to believe, but before I married Travis, I had been feeding myself delicious meals with very little use of recipes for almost 15 years! I had started an extensive collection of recipes, but still found that experimenting was more enjoyable.

Unfortunately, since I don’t get the opportunity to cook dinner as much as I would like these days, I sometimes have to show Travis how to cook something that I am craving. But if I only know how to make it off the top of my head, it can be a real challenge when I am not physically there to show him how to do it. Travis, by comparison, is my exact opposite when it comes to cooking - he needs a recipe for guidance and he sticks to it. He is still learning and honing his skills as the family cook. If I just rattle off instructions to him, he will make something completely different than I was expecting.

As part of my Cultivate What Matters goal in 2022 of creating a Home Binder, I am transcribing the recipes and how-to’s into our home binder so that Travis will have access to them easily. I am also still collecting my mother’s recipes that I loved growing up. I want to share some of the ones that she does not cook as often with Travis and Reyna. They have not experienced her Tuna Casserole, Western Corn and Beef Pie, or Hoppin’ John, all three of which were probably my all time favorites when I was growing up.

There are also new favorites that I want to incorporate. I went to a gathering with craft friends about a year ago, and one of my friends brought in this fresh vegetable and tortellini salad. It was a cold salad that she served with Italian salad dressing on the side. It was so delicious that I decided to go home and replicate it. I have been tinkering with the ingredients ever since, and I love it because it is such a flexible salad where any of the ingredients can be swapped, doubled, reduced, etc. You can get a free download of the recipe card here. 

I wanted to share my update on the Home Binder and thought that also sharing a recipe that I just added to it seemed fitting. Please be sure to check out the Podcast on Wednesday when we talk all about our favorite quick meals. Let me know if you try out my recipe in the comments.

A Simple Cleaning Checklist for Anyone

Hi there, it’s Christen - Happy Monday! It is springtime, which always makes me feel perky and motivated. This year, I set a goal to manage my household more efficiently. Effective communication with my husband, Travis, has been a challenge due to our schedules. I wanted to find a way to make it easier for both of us to access important household information without having to call each other during work hours. I also wanted Travis to have the knowledge at his fingertips to effectively manage the household without me guiding or micro-managing him. I decided that a “Home Binder” was necessary, and set a goal to create one as part of my Cultivate What Matters tending lists and 2022 goals. I may have mentioned my home binder and some of its contents on the podcast a few times and hope to provide an update on my progress here on the blog soon. Be on the look out for that!

Among the sections that provide helpful information in the binder is one for household maintenance. By maintenance, I mean cleaning, seasonal care, repairs and services. This time of year, I have many of these processes in mind, especially the routine and seasonal cleaning. As a newly married couple, we have learned what each other’s strengths are and where we can give each other support. Although my husband knows how to clean up after himself, he does not know all the ins and outs of sanitizing and deep cleaning. I wanted to give him an idea of when each of these tasks should be completed, and with what chemicals and tools. 

Getting married and some drastic changes in my work schedule has changed most of my routines. I simply can’t count on using one of my days off to do all the laundry, cleaning and meal prepping and still make it to bed at a decent hour. I went back and forth trying to set up a new routine and struggled with sticking with it. Thankfully, my husband and daughter are willing to help around the house, and the chores do not all fall on me. 

In order to ensure that all the necessary tasks are completed in a timely manner, I decided to compile a master cleaning list. Since my brain has been conditioned to think in monthly, weekly, and daily tasks thanks to my Cultivate What Matters tending list, I decided to drop my previous weekly cleaning schedule and opt for a more flexible checklist. 

In the free download, you will find a cleaning checklist broken down into the three groups outlined below:

• Daily - Action items that should be completed every single day, like washing your dishes, taking the garbage out, making your bed, and tidying up.

• Weekly - Action items that need to be performed once per week and can either be done on a specific day or any time during the week. For example, the garbage can needs to be rolled out to the curb every week on the same day, and you will be sorry if you missed it. Vacuuming however can probably happen only once per week and you can often live with going one day longer if needed.

• Monthly - Action items that only have to be completed once per month, usually around the same time each month. For example, it's a good idea to dust the ceiling fans, but no one is going to suffer if you don’t do it exactly on the “first Friday of the month.”

My cleaning schedule might not be frequent enough for you, or might even be more than you want to commit to, but it should at least give you some ideas on how to create your own schedule. As I mentioned above, I’ve linked a free one to download for your own use - I encourage you to make it your own! I saved it as a WORD .doc so that you can edit it to your liking. Is there something that I left off? I would love to know what you think! Please don’t forget to come over to our Facebook chat group, and be sure to listen to the podcast on Wednesday when we’ll continue the conversation.