“Balance” is kind of a funny concept and one that can be annoyingly hard to find during the years as a working parent (or any parent, really). “Work/life balance” is the full phrase you hear a lot too.
(Apparently you’re not living while you’re working? 🤔I do hope that most people don’t despise their jobs so much that they feel un-alive while working….)
Yesterday felt pretty nicely balanced to me, for a weekend day. In pre-pandemic times, this would have been much harder to come by. “Balanced” for me yesterday= a mix between “want to do”, “have to do” and “should do”. Also, it felt like a nice balance between alone time + family time. Win.
Divided up….
Alone + Want to Do: Morning hours- blog post, journal
Alone + Have to Do: Finished up ~1.5 hours of work stuff (I had a self-imposed deadline I really wanted to meet and needed just a little extra time)
Family time + Want to Do: Took Asher to the pool to lap swim. He also met a teammate/ friend there and had a blast swimming with him (since actual practices are now cancelled). Gym lap swimming on our own is still ok.
Family time + Have to Do: Quick errand with Asher post-swim! Needed hamster food.
Alone + Should Do: (Finally) took down our indoor Halloween decorations!!! I know. It’s late. But just hadn’t gotten to it. Next up, Christmas tree.
Family time + Have to Do: Family cleaning extravaganza. Boys- rooms, Me- living/sunrooms, Ivan- kitchen
Alone + Should Do: Some basement organization/ straightening/ annoying tasks that had been looming
Alone + Want to Do: A looooong, solo hot tub soak right at dusk when the sky lighting was beautiful.
Family + Want to Do: After dinner we went to see Madison’s “Holiday Fantasy in Lights” drive through light show!
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for living in a very beautiful city. ❤
GRATEFUL KAE 
that’s a good concept of balance. Alone time vs. family time is so important to me. Also family time vs. social time is also something I try to protect more and more these days. Sunday is dedicated to family time without plans and without interruptions but to do what we feel like at the moment.
I used to finish to-dos on weekends and often time feels tired by Monday, so now I’ve switched up a bit and dedicate sunday to nothing, so I can feel more energised and centered by monday.
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The holiday light show looked so fun! I have been googling ideas of things for us to do in December. Our state fair ground is having a light exhibit so depending on the baby’s temperament, we might try to do that in December.
My husband had a really productive weekend as he assembled the desk and chair that I ordered from Wayfair. My company gave us $500 to purchase office furniture/supplies. Super nice of them! So he got that all set up in the guest room in the basement and moved all the baby stuff that I’d put in there up to the baby’s room which is still a total holding area for us. We won’t get the nursery set up until the baby is ready to sleep in there which will be around 3-4 months most likely. A lot of the stuff in the baby’s room will come down to our main floor but I hate clutter so will keep it up there until it’s needed. But it felt good to get things closer to where they are meant to be. I was zero help as I had painful flares but so goes it!
It can be really hard to find balance between want to do/should do/have to do. I used to take ‘shouldless days’ once a quarter – it was a day off where I only did things I wanted to do and nothing I felt like I should do. It was glorious. My last day off was kind of like that, though, as I wasn’t feeling well due to flares so I took it very very easy. My biggest struggle right now is that I WISH I could do more/help more but my body isn’t letting that happen. So I feel a lot of guilt over how much my husband has to help with but that is self-inflicted!
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I really like your delineation of “want to do” vs. “have to do”. It’s definitely different for me – no kids, live alone, etc. – and yet I struggle with working all the time and being so reluctant to take time *for myself*. I know I need to, but it’s hard to justify.
Is that light show at Olbrich? What a great idea!
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Not at Olbrich, but not far from there. It’s a drive through light show at Olin Park on John Nolan Drive. They do it every year and it’s very beautiful right along Lake Monona!
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