At the beginning of this year I resolved to be more organised in all areas of my life to try and reclaim some more moments of calm and normality. I also knew I needed more than organisation to get a proper grip on my schedule. I needed to make some changes so that I wasn’t constantly saying, “I don’t have time.” I actually became bored of hearing myself say it. All of a sudden I was so busy that I found myself without time to do and appreciate normal things in life and the smallest inconvenience would piss me off much more than warranted…having to put petrol in my car, having to stop at our local health store to get the kids’ bread, having to read school correspondence, but I really knew something had to change when I came to be inconvenienced by my social life. How can I have fun when I have so much to do!!! This, people, is NOT healthy or a normal train of thought. It was time to reclaim some normal.
Now, we aren’t Kate and Wills so we don’t have help to do the menial, everyday tasks and that aside, many of those menial tasks involve the kids and if I engaged help with the kids then I was only lessening the amount of time I would spend with them.
While it was suggested I put an interior consultant on the books to take some of my load, I knew that hiring someone would mean I would also have to manage them and I know myself well enough to know that I don’t much love managing people.
I was in the fortunate position of having options but having too many options was getting me into strife. My solution, in hindsight, was simple enough. I had to decide what I love doing and what I don’t love doing, and work out what was lucrative and what was not and what was sucking up too much precious time, and go from there.
I worked out I needed 1) a bookkeeper (I’m very right brained, which is not really actually a thing but for the sake of the argument let’s say all left brained tasks like invoicing and bookeeping would get sidelined for much longer than acceptable; 2) a cleaner (trying to upkeep the monster that is our house was taking me away from paid work and the kids so a professional fortnightly clean was warranted); and 3) longer working days (my friend and I have worked out a mutually beneficial school pick up schedule that gives me extra working hours at the end of the day).
I have now officially reclaimed some normal and to cement this, last weekend we visited to our local farmer’s market (instead of ordering our fruit and veg online with our grocery order) because that’s what people do on their weekends.
And we strolled… well, we strolled when we weren’t running from tent to tent to dodge the rain but the idea was there.
The kids and I ate gluten free donuts (I’m gluten intolerant and these are the only gluten free donuts worth eating. Just like the real deal).
Michael ate himself a late, hearty breakfast…
…..and carnivore, Stella, made sure she snagged the bacon.
The kids half drank slushy freshly squeezed orange juice. I rarely let them drink juice so of course they always think they really want it but then when they have it they realise that it’s just juiced fruit. Ice cream on the other hand…..
Then we went home and dealt with newly discovered head lice. That’s another story for another day but probably never.
Carlene xx
