Gimme a break, I sure deserve it…

Do you ever get that feeling in your throat? That feeling that says, “You’re getting sick. Now is your chance to do something about it if you want to.” You take vitamin C and push through because you have laundry, shopping, and lots of stuff to do. Then, Saturday night you say, “well, it’s all downhill from here” and wake up Sunday knowing you will not make it if you sit down so you don’t sit down. I managed to make Swedish meatballs for the week, cookies, prepping our camper for Easter weekend, and get everything prepped for the week laundry-wise before I sat down to watch the momentous win by Tiger. I did short, 30-minute workouts both days to make sure I got those in, but my move goals were definitely lackluster. I already gave myself a break on April, so I don’t feel terribly bad about it, and that brings me to my topic. Giving yourself a break.

My title to this post is stolen from the theme song to the show from the 80s that starred Nell Carter. I loved that show, and LOVED that theme song. It was such a powerful message that sometimes you earn a break and shouldn’t feel guilty taking one, yet at the same time taking total charge of the situation. I have a hard time with taking breaks…I feel like sitting on the couch for longer than an hour on a weekend is just downright unproductive. If you put me hiking in nature for that hour, I don’t feel it is unproductive, but sitting around just makes me fidgety. Even my daughter gets in on it and says to me, “Mommy, I feel like you could be crocheting an alpaca while you sit there” and then I feel guilty that I’m not. Then I remember this song, “Gimme a break I sure deserve it, it’s time I made it to the top. Gimme a break I’m looking forward, get behind me pull out every stop.”

I think the other thing is once you establish a pattern, people expect it and then you hear about it when you are taking a break. Don’t fall into that trap! Take your breaks. Get your massages. You earn them, and you need them. My body felt so much more rested this morning after lounging around all afternoon yesterday and getting a good night’s rest.

With that, I’m going to work a full day and go to bed early. I hope you are all finding time to give your bodies a break and take some time to be with yourselves. Sometimes fitting it all in means making sure you only take care of essentials. Almost everything can wait a day if it needs to.

The Magic Ends at 3 a.m.

Well, the vacation is over. I know it is over because we got up at 3 this morning and I am now sitting in the Orlando airport waiting for our flight at 7. Somehow we will manage to land at 9, but none of us are going to school or work. We spent the last 6 days at Disney and we are all tuckered out. In 5.5 days I alone walked over 145,000 steps. I worked out in the hotel gym, ran a 5k, and we went to every Disney park minus Blizzard Beach. Honestly, I wouldn’t have needed a workout at all if I just rode Splash Mountain over and over again. Once you feel yourself sitting in a pool of water, you learn to use your hamstrings, quads, and glutes to hold yourself above the seat entirely so you don’t just fester in weird, stale water. It is a testament to my actual workouts that I was even able to do it.

All that said, it was a great vacation. All three of us used electronics very sparingly – my husband is in charge of fast passes and I only took 65 pictures. My daughter was only allowed her iPad to listen to Audible at night to put her to sleep. It was wonderful! Now I am able to sit here at the airport and think about all the things we were able to fit in. No time was wasted, and all of it was earned. I hope the next time you go on vacation you wear pockets with a zipper so you can just zip your phone up and enjoy the moments because I can tell you it was a totally different kind of trip without one of us needing to document it all or checking work emails.

Now we get on a plane to go back to cold weather, pick up our presumably angry cat, and do mounds of laundry before we get back to the grind tomorrow. I hope everyone else had a wonderful spring break wherever you are!

Preparing for WWIII…otherwise known as VACATION.

I will start this post acknowledging I only have one child. I have been told adding a second equates to exponential differences and any additional children equate to minimal, incremental change. It’s that leap from one to two that is the big leap. That said, there is a special time when a family is preparing for vacation that begs for attention. The time when lists are made, spreadsheets are printed, bags are allocated, food is consumed, and the house is readied. Featured today: Spring Break.

When preparing for any family vacation, I rely on good ol’ Microsoft Excel. ME’s ability to allow me multiple columns and rows combined with color coding really does take my packing to an 11. I have used ME to prepare for vacations LONG before I had a family, so it made sense for me to indoctrinate my husband and child to this early-on. In the world of packing lists, there is nothing better than doing a total brain purge of everything you think you’ll need, having a column for who needs it, a column for how many, a column for which bag in which it will live, and printing enough copies for everyone to have one. After the brain purge, I sort alphabetically and send my family members on their way. Key things to note: I do not acquire any of the required items on behalf of my family (with a few key exceptions – namely passports or Disney magic bands). Mack is required to obtain her required underwear, socks, shirts, shorts, etc. Same goes for Josh. This is responsibility, and if someone forgets to pack something that is on them.

Once these required items have been obtained, each member brings them to our bedroom and I do the packing. This is for efficiency and so I can do any mental checks if there is something very blatant missing (re: in case they forget underwear).

On top of packing, there is the conundrum of clearing out food from the house. This time around I have planned it all so well we will have zero food expiring, rotting, wasting our money, etc. and I even have all the dishes washed! That said, we are going out to eat tonight to keep up this momentum, but no one has argued that fact (since they normally have to eat healthier when I cook).

There is another food situation not everyone discusses though, and that is food of a picky child. I am sure you all have children who eat what you want them to eat without complaint, and that is super awesome and enviable. My child, however, is not one of those. She’s not horrible…she’ll eat almost any fruit, drinks V8, and doesn’t crave sweets. BUT, she really just wants chicken nuggets/fingers, pbj, cheese pizza, or spaghetti – normal spaghetti. NO FUN SHAPES ALLOWED. This also means no mac and cheese to those of you thinking that is an easy option. So, to go on vacation means you pack lots of food as well. I have fruit cups, applesauce packages, homemade protein bars that actually contain almonds, cashews, chia seeds, flaxseed, and egg white protein (but are all blended so she just thinks it’s chocolate with rice krispies).

Beyond that, Josh has a spreadsheet created of all our fast passes, restaurant reservations, and general pace of each day, so he is in charge of all activities. Which is nice, since this is a vacation and I don’t need to be the only planner. Disney is his jam so he gets to be in charge of that greatness. I made sure I know where the gym is and when I can workout, so I’m all set.

If you have a big family, or you find packing a chore, I can’t recommend a good spreadsheet enough. It seems really simple, and maybe even a bit archaic, but it is SO DAMN EASY to check something off a printed list that is color coded rather than try to remember in the moment what you took last time or whether you need to bother with bug spray…

You play basketball at what time?

One of the most common questions I get is “when do you work out?”. I feel like I’ve answered this a lot, but maybe it bears mentioning as its own entry on the blog. The answer is before work and at lunch. My company is based in Central time so I have the luxury of getting up with Mack and working a bit while she eats breakfast. Then, I get her on the bus and do my Beachbody workout for the day. For those of you curious about Beachbody workouts, or whether they would work for you, leave me a comment and I’ll talk to you about it. I don’t have a gym membership, and do everything at (or near) home. That means, after Mack is on the bus I do 30-45 minutes of a workout, wear my workout clothes all day, run 3-5 miles at lunch, and then shower sometime in the early evening (or at lunch if I have time).

I must make it clear that I am not opposed to a gym membership. I’m just VERY lazy. You might not think that since I have a blog about making time for things, but I really can’t be bothered to leave my house to travel round-trip as long as it would take me to workout. All that said, when I worked in Dallas I did have a gym membership. The gym was a legit five minutes from the office and had a shower. It was a Planet Fitness which fit my budget, allowed me to run at lunch, and made it to where I wasn’t taking away from family time by working out. Now that I live in Ohio and the nearest gym is 20 minutes away, I just rely on my basement. I have plenty of weights (though there are so many workouts without weights that doesn’t really matter), and plenty of space. So, no gym for me, but I do it every morning – including weekends. Running at lunch is necessary because if I don’t walk away from my computer then I lose my mind and get cranky. Anyone who has interacted with me cranky understands this and appreciates that I take the time to run it off. I block the time on my calendar and get it done.

My husband takes a very different approach to working out and, frankly, it’s admirable. He is on a volleyball team AND a basketball team. Volleyball is Sunday night; basketball is Monday night. This morning he met to play basketball at 6 a.m. He ARRIVED to play at 6 a.m. That is incredible to me. That is a hard NO for me. I get up only: 1. to get Mack ready for school, 2. to travel, or 3. because there is an emergency. I will NOT get up early to workout unless I REALLY have to. When I travel I will get up early occasionally but it’s only because I know it won’t be normal and I can rationalize it. BUT, I find a way to work it in because maintenance is a better place to be than starting over. You don’t have to start over if you never stop, so my goal is not to stop. I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it – fit it in. Half an hour isn’t outrageous and in this world of available workout programs, you can find a half hour that challenges you without leaving your house.

Unless you are my husband and then you get up with a bit of crazy in your head and workout before the rest of the world has woken up.

Weekends are weird

Weekends are the time of the week where we’re super excited not to have work, but we have to choose between two formats: 1. a productive weekend or, 2. a relaxing weekend. It’s rare people say they had a “productive, yet relaxing weekend”. Josh and I have very eclectic hobbies, which means we are typically having to engage equipment or concerted time towards whatever we’re doing. For Josh, that typically means he has to vacate the garage of our cars and pull out a lot of machinery. For me, that means less concerted effort, but a lot of time. This weekend, we had all of that since Mack and her best friend decided to go all-in on their time together.

Saturday, I was able to get a massage (which I do monthly – as should you all), workout, prepare food for the week, do laundry, run, glaze mugs for an etsy order, and Josh and I went to a late dinner when Mack went to spend the night at her BFF’s. Sunday I was able to crochet alpaca legs (and most of an alpaca body), dehydrate some food, workout, run, and basically just do whatever was needed. Josh was able to practice forging, reorganize the garage and shed, play volleyball, and generally relax. So, we had a productive and relaxing weekend.

Knowing I had created this blog and that I would most likely comment on our weekends, I tried to be cognizant of what I was doing and whether I felt rushed, pressured, or otherwise inconvenienced by my activities. I can officially say that I did not. I crocheted alpaca legs on our drive to REI. I had the television on while crocheting and while making food in the kitchen. I listened to some hilarious podcasts on both my runs…in general I felt like my time was well-spent.

If you feel lethargic, or like you’ve been watching tv for a while, why don’t you try standing up and stretching? I REGULARLY do jumping jacks or a ten-minute ab workout while watching tv. Why not? What else am I doing? We can all do it if we stand up and do it. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Making the decision to do something is often WAY more time consuming than actually doing something.

You pull your weight, I’ll pull mine.

Last night my friend asked me if I had any other “methods” like the “laundry method”. I texted him back with some things I do, but in reality the biggest thing my husband and I do at our house is split evening responsibilities. You’ll note I didn’t say “household”, “kid”, or “chores”. EVENING responsibilities. What this means is that one of us is the responsible parent for the evening and that parent is the one that guides our crazy ship into dock that night. When I say “split”, I mean we alternate nights. We have been married for 12.5 years and have practiced this for about nine of them. Our daughter happens to be a little over nine years old…this is not a coincidence.

My husband and I are very different individuals when it comes to interpersonal styles, strategy (or strategic thinking, if you’d prefer), and food preferences. That said, we are both very logical and realistic. As such, we have a very, very good ability to create lists of things in our heads and keep track of things – things like who did the last load of dishes, who changed the last three diapers, etc. When Mack was an infant we realized VERY quickly that if we were going to survive an infant AND stay happily married then we needed to introduce some diplomacy to the mix. So, I created a system whereby every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday one of us would be responsible for all things after work (which, admittedly, was mostly baby related since that was our whole world at the time). The other person got Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, with Saturday being a free-for-all. The point-person would make dinner, take care of Mack, bathe her, put her to bed, etc. The other person was free to schedule book club, volleyball, golf, whatever. The person not on-point for the evening was responsible for dishes and had zero veto power on what was watched on television after Mack went to bed.

Nine years later, and we still adhere to this method. Sure, we don’t actually have to bathe Mack anymore, and she has to clean up after herself at meals, but we still have the responsible party for all major decisions (like how late Mack can stay up), homework assistance, and reading books before bedtime. We still allow the responsible party to choose what we watch after Mack is in bed, and the really great part is that Mack is so used to this she simply knows “whose night it is” so she doesn’t even bother to attempt to pit us against each other. In all these nine years of this “method of fairness and equality” I can honestly say we have never argued about any of this stuff. Never. Not once have we thrown a fit at the other for not pulling their own weight. It is the most serene existence, and it still allows us to do what we want to do. Josh still plays on a volleyball league as well as a basketball league. I make pottery and do crafts, and we both occasionally go out with friends to see movies. Not once do we ever have to remind the other person they have “been out a lot this week”, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The cool part of it is that we both occasionally travel for work so we pay it forward with our responsibilities. So, if I’m going to be gone two nights one week, I front-load the week prior so Josh can take care of any hobby stuff, lounging, etc. that he wants to do, and vice versa.

The really genius part of all of this is that we’re not excluding anyone. If I don’t have pottery to make or plans to go somewhere then I’m eating with my family and hanging out playing board games just like normal. But if I want to go take a bath and read a book during Mack’s bedtime, I don’t have to feel guilty because the routine is already set. Having a systematic plan (which seems very confining) is actually the most freeing thing in the world! It frees you up to make that loaf of bread, crochet that baby blanket while watching football, or to go play nine holes without any feelings of guilt. No one feels abandoned, no one feels put-upon, and we are all the happier for it.

Fitting it in means equality in responsibility and enjoyment of the freedom of procedure.

Average doesn’t mean mediocre.

Growing up, I didn’t really have a sense of wanting to be the “best” at something. Sure, I always wanted to be good at what I did, but I didn’t have an overwhelming sense of needing to be the BEST. I played clarinet and was happy to be in the top band, but didn’t need to be first chair. I ran track but was perfectly fine with a top-three finish. I made excellent grades, but I wasn’t a top graduate. Do not confuse this with being apathetic or not being competitive. I am extremely competitive IF there is a chance I can do well (if it’s something where I stink then I truly don’t care). But competitiveness means I want to do well; it does NOT mean I have to actually win everything.

The funny thing is, once I got to college it seemed like it was a weakness that I didn’t WANT to be the absolute best. Everything is about winning. Winning a game, an argument, a challenge, whatever. And obviously, in a world where winning is the key, that means there are a LOT of losers – which is a totally ridiculous outlook. In any given scientific analysis there is a bell curve. If winning is the top of that curve, and losing is the bottom, then the vast majority of people are in the middle – the average. For a very long time in college and beyond I observed a lot of people being unhappy with average or feeling like average is a bad thing, and I subscribed to that too. No one ever brags about their “average” kid or their “average” waistline. People brag about the things they do BETTER than average in life. And I find this silly. Average is not mediocre; mediocrity means something isn’t very good. Average means it actually IS GOOD.

The thing that made me think about this was my lunchtime run. I understand many of you work in an office and say, “Lindsay, I can’t run at lunch, this is a silly discussion”, but I ran at lunch when I went to the office every day. The difference was that I showered after my run when I worked in an office. Nowadays I just sit in my sweat and enjoy the fact no one can smell it. In Dallas I joined a gym near my office, ran three miles, showered, and went back to the office. Then I ate my lunch at my desk – which is what a lot of people do anyway, they are simply working THROUGH lunch. I refuse to do that. I have worked at the same company for over ten years and I STILL block an hour on my calendar for lunch every day. Sure, some days it moves or I only get half an hour, but I take that time for myself and I typically choose to run.

Today’s run was super windy, but the temperature was amazing and the sun actually came out, so it was a win. I ran about 3.25 miles because I got a late start from a meeting going long, but it was a good 3.25 miles. I finished and said, “man, I wish I had run five” and took a pause to congratulate myself. Congratulations on running ANY miles, instead of feeling like I hadn’t run enough miles. Typically I run about an 8:30 mile (shorter if it’s not windy, longer if it’s a bomb cyclone), so I understand that I can probably fit in more miles than someone else on their lunch break (and have time to cool down before the next meeting). But when people ask how I fit in running without it eating into my family life, the answer is I do it at lunch. If you can’t run, go do some stairs, walk around the office building, pace the hallways of your school. ANY miles are better than no miles, and anything that takes you out of the workday for some YOU time is time well spent.

I worked for a software company in undergrad and we had a lot of smokers. They would all go take smoke breaks about once an hour and I got fed up that they got all these perceived “breaks” when those of us NOT giving ourselves cancer had to tough it out inside. So, I instituted “non-smoking smoke breaks”. Every time the smokers went out, I grabbed a Frisbee and brought the non-smokers with me. We had many a rousing game of Frisbee before the last cigarette was extinguished, got some sun, got some exercise, and had fun.

These are easy moments you can create if you just do it. The time it takes you to contemplate doing things like this can take way longer than actually picking up the Frisbee and tossing it at your coworker’s head.

Don’t mind me; go on with what you were saying.

Working from home affords me some luxuries you don’t get when you work in an office. While I do change out of pajamas every day, I am only changing into workout clothes so it’s very rare my team sees me wearing sleeves. We do share webcams on all our calls, but we don’t adhere to any kind of dress code for them. Every other Wednesday my team has a “Webcam Wednesday” meeting where the whole team works from their respective houses and we all share our webcams for the team meeting. Everyone has seen tank tops, robes, towels, costumes, kids…it’s kind of a free-for-all but very effective when building a team culture.

Dress code aside, my team also gets to see me eat really weird stuff. Because I follow timed-nutrition with Beachbody, I’m eating every 2-3 hours and those aren’t what some people would find to be normal meals. People have seen me eating green beans at 10:00 in the morning (I would eat green beans at any time of day), raw mushrooms paired with hummus, and lots of egg sandwiches. It allows me to get the nutrition I need when I need it, and my team is very used to this activity. I do eat this way when I go into the the office as well, but I really feel the look is pulled off much nicer when I’m eating mushrooms wearing a tank top.

On some days, the team gets to see Mack. Other days, they just hear her. Like today. Once a month Mack’s school has early dismissal. Why do kids need to get out of school one hour early one day a month? Because the school district says so, that’s why. Today, she came inside (after reading her instructional white board in the garage, which tells her when I’m on a call), placed her backpack on our kitchen island chairs (barstools?), and the chair somehow fell on her while also twisting her leg into the chair leg. While on webcam, I bolt out of my chair, tell the team I have to mute, and proceed to get an ice pack for Mack and soothe her injured pride. MEANWHILE, back at the ranch, the team decides to start telling jokes to pass the time until I get back. I was both trying not to laugh at their jokes (since I can hear them on my earpiece), and was impressed they were all clean jokes. I jumped back on the call, explained what happened, applauded their ability to riff while I took care of my emergency, and we proceeded.

It’s because I have such an understanding and awesome team that scenarios work out like that without issue. The world has changed from the typical 9-5 job where women were expected to wear pantyhose to work and not care about work-life balance. It’s great to live in a time when we CAN actually fit it all in – even if it’s not graceful.

Side note: Once Mack was allowed to use her iPad her leg healed itself and angels sang.

Laundry doesn’t do itself, but that doesn’t mean I do it either.

This morning started per usual: I got up at 6:55, Mack got up at 7, I packed her lunch while she ate breakfast wearing a Godzilla snuggie, I made a Shakeology for myself, and we both went upstairs to change into our respective clothing. While we were upstairs, Mack shouted, “Mommy, come here. I have something for you.” Usually this means she has a surprise hug or kiss waiting for me, so I went down the hall to find out she had pulled out her laundry hamper for me.

To say that we have rules in our house would be misleading. Rules give an indication that there are negative repercussions for things or there are really strict guidelines. Other than not saying the words “stupid” or “hate”, we tend to follow recommendations of what to do (and what not to do). Where we lack in rules, we definitely make up for in recommendations. One of those recommendations is that if you are able-bodied enough to drag your hamper to the hallway, you are able-bodied enough to do your own laundry. As such, everyone in my household does their OWN laundry. People ask how I have time to do things – well, sometimes it’s because I’m only responsible for my own laundry.

My husband is 43. In theory, this means he has three years more experience in laundry than I do, but we all know that isn’t necessarily the case. Nonetheless, I do not do his laundry. He has his own hamper, and when he’s out of clothes he has to do them. That might mean we have a pile of clean laundry on our bedroom floor for a while until he puts them away, but I’m willing to live with that since 1) I am not often giving tours of our bedroom and, 2) I had to do zero work to accomplish this task for him. If he needs the clothes to be wrinkle-free, he knows how to put them away right after they come out of the dryer.

Mack is treated with the same respect. She is nine, she knows how to use the washer and dryer, and she knows how to put all her clothes away neatly. This is borne out of a need for her to learn responsibility and also out of my need to NOT do other people’s laundry. Mack does hers once a week, I do mine every 10-14 days, and Josh is a mystery that is totally dependent upon which shirts he needs clean.

Now, back to this morning. While Mack understands her laundry is her responsibility, she tends to be more pitiful in the mornings and tries to take advantage of that. Meanwhile, I loathe mornings as much as she does so I rarely cave to any level of pitifulness. I informed her I was thankful she had prepared her laundry so efficiently and instructed her that when she takes it downstairs and starts the washer, I might be so inclined to move them to the dryer for her during the day so she can put them away when she gets home. Begrudgingly, she thanked me and did so. Now I get to look forward to the time SAVED by not putting her laundry away later. Maybe I’ll do some pottery at that time. Maybe I’ll crochet an alpaca. The point is, I’m not doing it and she understands what a time suck it is and will be more gracious with me the next time I do endeavor to help her with something. It’s a win-win.

Also, you might be asking how I get away with NOT doing my husband’s laundry. The answer is I never started that. I have found doing those things randomly leads to expectations, and that’s not anything I need to set for myself or others. The only times we do laundry for one another is when we lose a bet, and even then the bet is usually something like, “you have to put your laundry away as soon as you take it out of the dryer…for a month.” You’d be amazed how few bets your spouse takes when you make bets like that.

Laundry doesn’t do itself, but that doesn’t mean I do it either.