Life Lately

Almost 2 months away and a lot has happened!

I put a pin in my Substack and social media posting almost two months ago. It just got to be too much. With work and balancing stress at home, I needed to prioritize real life over the internet. A month earlier I had started putting together these weekly meal plans, and while very exciting - nothing burned me out faster. And I felt bad about it. I charged subscription fees for the meal plans and people paid for them. And I felt like I needed to deliver, but at what cost? I was on the cusp of a major work deadline and life with 2 toddlers is no walk in the park. So I had to decide to pause subscriptions, promise people I would get them the May meal plans they paid for eventually, and hope I didn’t get any scathing DMs or emails. People have been kind and understanding. Thank you!

I wish I could say I spent that time away from social media indulging in reading, learning to cook new dishes, a vacation at the beach with my family, but… that was not the plan. I did read. But I mostly just spent a lot of time trying to get my shit together and go head down on a big work project. Thankfully, I’m finished with that project now and have time in my life for other things.

There are so many new things I would like to pursue, but I am taking it slow. I know it’s just my excited ADHD talking and if I take on too much too quickly I will get overwhelmed again and burn out. Yikes. So I’ve just been focusing on living in a way that makes me feel good and taking things slow.

Also, during this time, I found out I was pregnant again and ultimately knew it was most likely going to end in another loss. So that required a certain amount of personal care over my anxiety that comes with early pregnancy, tons of bloodwork that were not yielding good results, and other visits to my OBGYN where I was just waiting for bad news. The bad news came as expected and I’m a little over one week into my fifth miscarriage.

It’s been painful and sad. I did a lot to protect my heart this time around, and I’m so sad that I feel the need to do that. I could not allow myself to just enjoy being pregnant and hope for the best. I knew the impending loss would break me again if I did. I’m okay emotionally now, but I know that’s also because I know what I am dealing with right now. I know what the next few weeks hold for me in this area of my life. But once I’m cleared to try again, I’m not sure.

Because there have been so many big things happening, we’ve had to just simplify how we manage our home. Here are a few things we’ve done:

1. My husband made a big list of meals that we can choose from every week for our meal plan. For a while, we suspended meal planning altogether and that was helpful until it wasn’t. The big list helps us see what we can make and what is typically a hit at the dinner table, and that’s dinner. Nothing revolutionary but it is nice to have everything written down.

2. We stopped caring if the kids eat or not. It was becoming a fight and we dreaded cooking and having dinner. Our kids are entering their picky phases, respectively. They eat plenty. They might skip dinner, but they also eat lunch, breakfast, and multiple snacks a day. I had a real moment where I said “They’re not going to starve”. We started putting what we know they will eat on their plate and serving what we don’t know if they will eat family-style and they get to choose if they add it to their plate or not. Sometimes we prod a little and sometimes we don’t. It’s made mealtime less stressful even though it’s still frustrating when they don’t eat what we made, but at least it isn’t a fight anymore.

3. I changed how we did laundry. The first part is that I did the laundry. For a while it was just sitting in baskets in our laundry room, waiting to be put away. And it never got put away so we would just go dig through the basket and you didn’t know what was clean and what wasn’t. Laundry is my #1 most dreaded chore. I hate it with a passion. The part I hate about it is folding it and putting it away. So I’m not doing that. I wash everything together (everyone’s clothes go together in the wash… I don’t care) and then it gets sorted into four baskets - one for me, one for my husband, and one for each kid. Nothing is folded. Just sort it and then put it away. It’s done so there aren’t baskets all over the place and we know we have clean clothes. Done.

4. I’m still prioritizing daily walks. I’m not sure if I ever talked about this, but back in April something clicked and I got really into daily walks and prioritizing my health. Even during my short pregnancy and loss, I’m grasping onto those daily walks because they are so good for my mental health. I’m less on edge and less likely to get frustrated with everyone when I do them. Because it’s so hot, I have to do them first thing in the morning so I just block out time on my calendar. I let my husband take our daughter to school and I take my son in the stroller for the walk. He loves it. I love having a stroller to push so I can always bring all my little things like my water bottle, keys, etc. I listen to an audiobook, podcasts, or music. And we go from anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. It’s lovely.

5. Along with prioritizing my health, I’ve been making a point to eat more protein and vegetables. It’s completely changed how I feel about food. I have always had a huge sweet tooth and this change has seemingly gotten rid of it. I still indulge in sweets, but it’s not an everyday thing and I don’t feel like I need to. I also treated myself to a Starbucks brown sugar espresso last week and it was too sweet. I had to dilute it with water. I used to be able to pound that thing down like it was nothing, so I’m happy about this change.

That’s a quick little summary of what’s been going on around here for the past 2 months. I hope to get back into writing here again. I love it so much, but I’m not sure what it will look like yet. I know I say this every few months so I just need to find something sustainable for me. I hate changing everything up every few months. It makes me feel flaky, and I don’t like that. But it’s also fun and exciting… I just wish I could be more consistent. But more to come! I’m just happy to be here and I’m doing the best I can!