Work/Life Balance

I’ve recently had a few conversations about the changes in our lives and the affect they’ve had on us as a family. Namely Evan has continued working in D.C., and we’ve fully transitioned to being a family of four. We are in the midst of selling our house in Maryland, have sold my car (that’s right, we’re a 1 car household!) and I started a business with my sister.

To a large degree, we’ve shaped our world around the lives we want to have. There is a distinction between the lives we want to have and “having it all”. Having it all, to me, would probably mean having more me time, collapsing onto the couch at the end of a long day and having a glass of wine without any interruptions. However, that glass of wine or relaxation cannot replace the immense satisfaction I get from creating, from owning and doing something that satisfies my creative hunger. So after the kids go to bed, I stay up a bit to knit, to blog, pull down and edit pictures and do whatever else needs to be done.

After all that, Evan and I either catch up on reading or watching TV or sometimes, frankly, collapse into bed wishing tomorrow was Friday. It isn’t easy, but then again, I haven’t seen many families with young kids who say that their lives are easy. No one’s life is perfect despite the stories the pictures on their blog, instagram or facebook tell.

That said, there is some magic to juggling a busy lifestyle gracefully and my tricks include taking the first ten minutes after returning home from work to myself. Those ten minutes are what I use to acclimate to the new environment. I change into my mom uniform (loungewear), wash my face and mentally organize everything that needs to be done that evening and when.

Now-a-days I also take another ten minutes during dinner to talk Sophia and ask her all about her day, what happened that was funny, what she did and what she wants to do tomorrow. And then, because good habits start early, Evan and I talk about our days and the kids listen.

It isn’t perfect; I don’t have time to clean the house from top to bottom in one sitting, and I haven’t been out on a proper dinner date with Evan in months, perhaps over a year, but our life works for us.