A Busy Woman’s Guide to Practical Living

Are you busy? Do you feel like you just can’t get a handle on things? Yeah, me too! I definitely don’t feel like I have “everything” together. Life has a way of dumping things in your lap that don’t fit it to “the schedule” or “the plan”. That’s just life! Over the years I’ve found resources & my own ways to deal with everyday life. I decided to lump them up into a “Busy Woman’s Guide to Practical Living”. This post is from my perspective – I am the busy woman in the title after all. I’m no life guru, but maybe y’all will find some useful information to help you through the day!

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I’ve been through many different things in my life & I find that my needs change with every stage of my life. When my son was young, I worked full time to make sure he had everything he needed. About five years ago, I went through thyroid cancer & the loss of a job I’d had for 13 years. Now, I’m blogging, working part time as an adjunct instructor, & my son is in college 3 hours away. Life is always changing, so you have to find ways to adjust to the changes, but keep yourself grounded. My number one tip is to utilized the resources around you – don’t try to do it all by yourself! You also should accept that change is a part of life & sometimes you have to adjust to those changes to function.

Self Care

This is number one on my list because if you don’t take care of yourself you can’t take care of others. Period. Constantly giving your time & energy to others is very taxing on the body & mind. You cannot be everything for everyone no matter how much you might want to. Take time for yourself & take time to love yourself. It’s not selfish to take time for yourself! Here’s some things I’m doing for myself:

• I have loved reading & words since I can remember! You may have seen my new series on the blog, Watch, Listen, Read which includes my spring reading list. This was more for me than y’all! It’s my way of getting back to my love of reading. Sometimes we have to assign ourselves things to do so we can incorporate self care into our routine! I’ve also signed up for Merriam Webster’s Word of the Day email. I get to learn or learn more about a new word every day, which is something I love! They also have great word games to help build up your vocabulary.
• Giving myself a spa day. This does not happen weekly, more like maybe once or twice a month. I’m not going to a spa, just refreshing & renewing my beauty routine at home. Sometimes, all I do is a pedicure & sometimes I do things for my whole body. It just depends on how I feel that day!
• Taking time to make & craft everyday. I need to do something creative everyday or I can get very cranky! Monday’s post was all about me having the crafting mulligrubs! Part of that is because I need to rework my schedule to accommodate making time. I’ll talk more about that in the schedule section!
• Getting out of the house for something other than work! Yep, I’m a homebody & for the most part I like it that way. I also realized that most of the interactions I have during the day are with students! This evening, I’m taking a painting class with my mother. It’s a move towards doing things with adults & I plan on doing something like this at least once a month.

Find what you love to do & make time for it, even if it’s only 5 or 10 minutes a day. You will be happier for it & that will spread to those around you!

Routines

Let me first say, routines are boring to me! That being said, I have found that having certain routines in place make things go a little smoother in life. Routines for the things I like to do the least are the most important because I might not do them otherwise! ; ) Here are the things I do to find routines I can stick to more easily:

• Make a schedule. I have an agenda that I try to fill in weekly & I also fill in the new month at the end of the the old month. The first things I fill in are things that the most certain – my teaching schedule, blog schedule, & any appointments/meetings coming up. Once I have those things filled it, it’s easier to see where things may be interfering with each other & where I might have extra time. This makes it easier for me to find a routine that fits my schedule.
• Make a cleaning routine. I like to organize things & rearrange things but I don’t like cleaning things. I’m talking about dishes, laundry, vacuuming, dusting, mopping, cleaning bathrooms, etc. Those things tend to get pushed to the side until I have to have a major cleaning day to get caught up. Cleaning all day is not how I want to spend my day! This year I signed up for Motivated Moms daily & weekly chore lists. It really makes a difference for me because everything is planned out for the week already. I can add or cross off anything that’s different for me. It works for me even though I don’t have small children any more & it was only $9 for the whole year!
• Make a meal plan. This is something I’ve gotten out of the habit of doing! For the past 3 years I only worked outside the home a few hours a day, so I had more time to plan out & think about what I was cooking. Now, I’m working more hours & kinda winging it! Some things I’ve used in the past are Jessica Fischer’s meal plans & Once a Month Meals. It takes some of the thinking out of the planning for me!

Hope these things help! Happy Friday y’all!

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