A balancing act

I have been struggling recently. Struggling to find balance in my life

I suppose I am looking for nirvana - that balance of being a worker, a mother, a housewife, and ME. And right at this moment in time, I feel like I am failing at all of them.

In my nirvana, I would be a stay-at-home-mum, with the Little Monster in daycare just two days a week to learn and practice his social skills, whilst I do housewifey things and even manage to get a pamper session in!

In my "slightly-more-realistic-but-still-nearly-ideal" world, I would be working three short days a week. On the two other days, I would have one day to myself to do housework or maybe even go to the movies on my own (bliss!), and the other day would be spent with playing the Little Monster, or meeting up with my Mum's group friends in a park somewhere and letting our kids run wild...

Here's my current reality:

Work:
I'm not putting the maximum effort in at work. I know this, I can feel it. It's not that I don't like my job, it's just that my focus is all off.
Because my attitude it all wrong at the moment, I am having to stay back late to get things finished. Which means that I miss out on time with the Little Monster.

Mothering:
I feel like I don't spend nearly enough time with the Little Monster during the week. I try to get home in time for dinner, but more often than not I am home just in time for bath-time and a little play before bed. Hardly what you would call quality time.

I do have two full days on the weekend with him, where we pack in a lot of mother/son bonding time. We wander around the shops and have a babycino, or go to a park. We have lots of giggles and lots of cuddles.

But I still feel like I am missing out on so much.

I am so thankful for our wonderful Family Daycare Lady. She loves the Little Monster almost as much as we do, and he loves her right back. She is awesome at telling us about the little things he gets up to, or the new skills he has learnt.

The fact that he is happy at daycare means the world to me, and lifts a small part of the guilt I feel leaving him there four days a week.

I am also very thankful for my Mum, who has the Little Monster one day a week. And for my Father-in-Law, who has him on the days when Mum can't - I love that he is building a close relationship with his grandparents!

Houswife:
For some unknown reason, I have it in my head that I should be able to be the perfect housewife/mother package as well as hold down a full-time job.

I don't know where the idea came from, but it's firmly in there.

And it's such bullshit, because I was was hardly the picture perfect housewife before we became parents - although I was much better than I am now!

I have signed up to a blog to help me get things under control, (thank you The Organised Housewife!) and I am slowly (ever so slowly!) but surely regaining control over my complete lack of interest in housework.

ME:
This is my biggest fail of all.

I can't remember the last time I did anything for ME (Husband's erratic work hours don't help with this). The most I do for ME, is exercising 2 or 3 times a week.

Sometimes I feel like the Universe is against me on this; nearly every single time I have told Husband about something I want to do for ME and we've set aside the time, he gets a phone call or an email offering work.
And because Husband is just making a firm start in a new career (not to mention the fact that we need the cash!) I don't feel like I can say "stuff the work, I told you about my ME plans first!"

I feel like I am juggling so much at the moment, and something has to give.

What am I saying, something already has - the time I allocate to ME

The first step, I guess, is to take a step back and reassess my priorities - maybe I'm being to hard on myself. I am usually harder on myself than others, so it is quite possible that all of this is a manifestation of my guilt, causing it to seem so much bigger than it is.

Maybe once I have done that, finding the balance will seem more achieveable - and I might get a snippet of ME time!

How do you balance your life? What are you strategies when things feel out of whack? Do you get regular "ME time"?

  

{image from here and here}

My {relaxing} day off

Firstly:

A big shout out to The Organised Housewife who is dedicating this month to Wardrobe Organisation – the inspiration behind my Day Off .  And to Toddler Tastes , for the dinner inspiration   J

NB – better give you all the heads up, this is a bit of a novel  J

My flat looks like a bomb site; the kitchen floor needs a damn good mop, the carpet hasn’t seen a vacuum cleaner in weeks and my wardrobe has spilled onto the floor.

The mess clutter was really starting to get me down, so I decided to take a day off from work to play at being a housewife.

Now, I am not known for being good at getting things done in a timely manner – especially housework! – so in order to at least try to combat my affliction, I wrote a list of everything I wanted to achieve, the things I needed to buy, and I set myself a schedule.

I was going great guns until 10.45am.

“I’ll just pop into Kmart to buy the few things I need for this endeavour. I know what I want, so it should be a quick stop. By the time I get this and the food shop I’ll only be about 10 minutes behind schedule.”

Famous last words.

By the time I had gotten everything I needed (and put back everything I didn’t!) and was on the road home, it was 12.30pm. I was an hour and a half behind schedule!!

Driving home, I quickly rescheduled my time – ok, no time for lunch now, I’ll just eat it whilst I’m hanging out the washing. Then I’ll quickly wash the dishes, clean the kitchen, mop the floor, and then head to the WARDROBE OF DOOOOOM for a good 2 hours before getting dinner prepped and then picking up the Little Monster and Husband.... PHEW!

I got home, unpacked the bags and made a sandwich. Whilst waiting for the kettle to boil I ran to the laundry and grabbed the washing. I wolfed down my sandwich and hung out the washing in record time. Then I hit my first stumbling block... my cup of tea.

I had been up since 5.45am with the Little Monster, and had been on the go proper since 7am. It was now 12.45pm, and I was starting to lag big time. That’s ok, I thought, I'll take five-minutes to have a lay down, enjoy my cuppa and to have a little rest – it will recharge me before I get stuck into the kitchen.

It was 15-minutes before I could drag my sorry ass off the sofa; I am now nearly two hours behind schedule and I STILL haven’t started anything that I wanted to get done.

I glance at my printed out timetable; I was supposed to be halfway through my wardrobe task and already have the kitchen done.

With a huge sigh I drag the vacuum into the kitchen at get to work, convinced that it will only take me 30-minutes to get some kind of cleanliness happening.

An HOUR later I stumble out of the kitchen and make my way to the WARDROBE OF DOOOOOM with garbage bags in tow. I now have just two hours to get my wardrobe into order. That’s ok, it should only take 90-minutes, I’ll be sweet.

My plan was simple:

1.       throw out the shoes that I no longer wear;

2.       separate all clothes into “chuck”, “charity” and “keep” piles;

3.       turn my coat hangers to see just how many of my clothes I wear;

4.       put together the recently purchased shoe racks, and fill them;

5.       wipe down the mirror;

6.       go get my Boys.

Yeah, nice plan.... but it kinda didn’t work out that way.

I managed to chuck more than a couple of shoes out (which I am very proud about!) but as I sat in a sea of shoes, I decided to put the shoe rack together and put the shoes away. That’s when I discovered that, although I can build and IKEA wardrobe, 10 bits of metal and eight screws make me a DIY idiot.

No joke, it took me THIRTY MINUTES to put the shoe rack together – but I got there.

Before I could even start on the clothes in the wardrobe, I had to tackle my ever growing floor-drobe. I was working quite quickly with the chuck, charity, keep mentality – it was mostly “chuck” or “put in the washing basket” – and was just about to start on the wardrobe proper, when I looked at the time.

HOLY CRAP! It was time to get my Boys! And dinner wasn’t prepped, and I hadn’t finished the wardrobe, and I hadn’t vacuumed the lounge and, and, and.....

I walked away from the wardrobe, put the two bags of crap I had chucked out into the rubbish bin and went to collect the Boys.

By the time the Little Monster went to bed, I had managed to cook dinner, vacuum the lounge, and push everything to the side of my bedroom so I at least had a clear path to bed.

As I ate dinner and savoured my glass of wine, I reflected on my day with Husband. Yes, I hadn’t achieved everything that I had set out to do (that hair dye will just have to wait until the weekend), but I had made a start. And that is so much better than just leaving things

And in all honesty, I am just glad that I had the intention to do something about the clutter... For the first time in a while, I was excited about making a positive change in my home – a change that I know will make me feel better about spending time there.

{images 1 2 and 3}