New Schedule, New Habits, New Mindset

Change is on my mind!

There are a LOT of changes going on in my life right now. Good changes.

For the last five years or so, our life has been pretty flexible. Since I am a salaried, work at home employee, I have been blessed to be able to get to work, pretty much when I get around to it (within limits, of course). It's been a nice ride. As a family we would wake up, snuggle for a bit, then get up and have breakfast together. I got the little one ready for day care, then pre-k (pretty much still day care with a little more structure), and the hubs dropped her off a little bit before 9:00.

I pretty much would put on my yoga pants and a tank top, put my hair in a pony tail, wash my face, brush my teeth, and sit down at my lap top and get to work. When I could tell I was getting stressed out, that's how I knew it was time for my work out. Sometimes I just stressed right through it. I may or may not take time for lunch. Sometimes I would just eat at my desk.

Depending on my work load, household chores may or may not get done. Loads of laundry might get changed over between conference calls, but may or may not get folded. If it DID miraculously get folded, it most likely did not get put away.

All this lead to feelings of inadequacy as a wife, mother, and a person. I mean, are there REALLY people who ACTUALLY get themselves up in the morning, bathe themselves, dress themselves and their children, feed the family, get everyone out the door, dropped off to school on time AND get themselves to a real life JOB on time? Seriously? These people exist? I mean I know I did that when I was SINGLE, but come on? PARENTS do that? HOW???? I just couldn't fathom it because of this horrible habit (ok more like a RUT) I had gotten myself into.

Then, along came Kindergarten. I knew it was going to be tricky when I read somewhere that the child had to be there by the ungodly hour of 7:45. I mean what on EARTH??? What kind of masochist came up with THAT plan? Sure enough, it was not easy wrangling the child into her clothes and out the door after the novelty wore off that first week.

As for my own personally habit, I found myself plopping down to my desk as soon as the child and hubs walked out the door, just as I had always done. Then it hit me:

WAIT a gosh darn MINUTE! You have like almost TWO HOURS! Sara, you have time to: 

• Work out
• Empty the dishwasher
• Have devotional time
• Fold and put away a load of laundry
• Take a SHOWER
• Get DRESSED (like, in real clothes)

So....that is my epiphany. That is my new routine. I'm still working on it. I still have to remind myself that I have all this extra time and I need to use it wisely and not get sucked into FaceBook or something. It takes discipline, but I CAN do it.

As the season changes (at least we're told it's supposed to, right?), I encourage you to take a step back and re-evaluate your schedule. What can you do to make your life less stressful and more efficient and effective? You don't have to overhaul anything major. Would making lunches the night before making your mornings run more smoothly? What about setting out clothes before bed? 

I realize these aren't earth shattering, life changing, new ideas. I'm just throwing out some brain storming to get the juices flowing.