Monthly Archives: February 2021

The Day I Became a Single Mom

Have you ever had a feeling that something wasn’t quite right one day, but you just couldn’t put your finger on why? It’s not that anything is out of the ordinary that day, but you just know it’s a day that will be like no others.

My day was just like any other. Got up, got ready, took my younger son to my mom’s, took my older son to school, and off to work I went. At the end of my workday, I went to pick my older son up from school. I was no more than three minutes from the school when I got a phone call from my husband’s neighbor. I still remember the words, the feelings, my legs shaking, and my disbelief like it just happened yesterday. However, it was six and a half (almost to the day) years ago.

After I hung up with his neighbor, all the questions started flowing in my head…

Was it possible that it wasn’t true?
How do I tell the kids?
What does all this mean?
How did this happen?
Can I even drive?
What do I do now?

I remember calling my mom to see if she could watch the kids for me to go to see what was going on. I had to tell her the awful news in code since my older son was in the back seat. I dropped off my older son, spoke to my younger son, hugged them, and then left to go see what I could find out. As I was pulling out of her driveway, the police officer that was at my husband’s house called me to tell me the news that I already knew. I informed him the neighbors had already called to let me know and that I was en route to my husband’s house. They had asked me to meet them at the police station first to sign some papers since we weren’t currently living together. I barely remember this part and don’t remember what exactly I had to sign. I just remember going and signing some papers. From there, I drove to his house with the officer following me. When I arrived, the coroner was still examining the situation. When the coroner was finished, I had asked the police officers that were there if I could see my husband. I just felt like I had to see it to believe it. At first, they didn’t like the idea but agreed to let me.

After I walked out of his house, and I watched them take his body away, I had to go back to my mom’s house to get my kids. When I pulled into my mom’s driveway, I saw that my sister and brother-in-law came over to help me tell the boys. I don’t remember in which order all the next steps happened, but I know there were a lot of steps I didn’t want to have to make.

I was the one who had to tell my boys that they would no longer see their father.
I was the one who had to call my father-in-law to let him know his only son had passed away.
I was the one that had to call his closest friends to let them know the horrific news.
I was the one that had to post the information on Facebook so that all his other friends would know.

I have lost people in this world, people who were very close to me. With some, I knew it was going to happen, others were a huge surprise. Nothing has been as hard as losing my husband. The grief didn’t happen all at once. I was able to hold it together (for the most part) during the planning of the funeral, the actual ceremony, and around my kids, but when I was alone I was able to feel it all, and feel it all I did. Several months had passed by before I could talk about him without getting emotional.

I’m sure you’ve been wondering if he was my husband, and I’m calling him my husband, and he was the father of my kids, why were we not living together? We had been separated for a year. Not because we didn’t love each other, just because strangely enough that’s what was best for the kids. They were only five and one when we separated (six and two when he passed away), but I knew our relationship was too toxic to have the kids live in that every day. I didn’t want them to grow up to think that’s how a marriage should be. I was very much torn between not wanting to break my vows, not wanting to leave the man I had loved since I was a teenager (although we hadn’t consecutively been together that long), and wanting to not raise my children in an environment that was full of arguments. What we argued about isn’t important, but nevertheless, that was our life.

While there isn’t a day that goes by that I wonder if we had been living together, would I have been there to call the hospital and would he still be here. Then there’s that thought that if we were living together, the boys would have had to live in the house where their father passed away. It was bad enough to have to go in that house to organize and move his belongings out, I could not imagine how it would have been to go to that house every day to live.

Although I try my hardest, I know I’m not able to take the place of their father, no one can. However, one reason I’m so passionate about Scouts is the boys are surrounded by positive male role models. I try to put as many positive male role models (grandfathers, uncle, cousins, friends) in their paths.

Things I have learned

I have been following a few people on Facebook and listening to podcasts regarding time management and productivity. I’ve heard most of the ideas and suggestions they share before, but never really took heed to the suggestions. If I did, it didn’t last very long. A few months ago, I started to consciously put their suggestions into action. Although I still have a lot of work to do, and I am nowhere near a pro at any of this, I thought I would share what has helped me.

1. Plan… everything… even the unplannable

I keep everything on my phone calendar. All the doctor’s appointments, scout meetings and events, webinars I want to watch, outings with friends, birthdays, bills, and everything else goes on my phone calendar. Even if something is on another calendar, that calendar is synced to my phone calendar. Before we started homeschooling, I had the kids’ daily school schedule (what classes they were in and when) on my phone calendar. So when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. The problem is, I would rarely look at my calendar… unless I was adding an event to it. Everything I had to do would (almost always) stay in my head. I never looked at and planned my week every week. Why would I, I already knew what I had to do, right?

A few months ago, I was in an online time-management boot camp. The suggestion/challenge was to sit down every Sunday and plan the next week by using a paper calendar. First, start with the non-negotiable tasks, such as meetings or appointments. Then put down the tasks you need to accomplish. Lastly, put down any other tasks you want to accomplish, but know it’s not the end of the world if you can’t get to them. Maybe write those in pencil. Make sure you leave open space (aka white space) each day. In the beginning, I would suggest “plan” the open space. This would be planning for the unplannable. Leave some room for when that meeting goes longer than expected, or something else comes up and you have to rearrange your schedule. Also, you need some open space, or planned self-care space, to take care of yourself (more on this under number 7).

2. Brain dump

Does your head hurt from storing all the things you have to do and want to do in your head? Does it feel like your junk drawer (you know you have one) looks? Don’t try to keep all the things in your head. Write it down or put it in a note on your phone. When you think of a book you want to read, a project you want to complete, an item you want to buy, or something you want to accomplish in the “near future” write it down. Somehow, someway, get it out of your head. Then when you’re planning your week on Sunday, pull out all your brain-dumped tasks, and see which tasks can be put on your calendar to complete that week. This will also be a good time to see if you want to move any to your to-don’t list.

3. Keep everything in one place

While you’re getting all the tasks, thoughts, wants, needs out of your head, put them in ONE place. Whether it’s writing them down, or putting them in your notes on your phone, or finding an app to put them in, make sure they are all in one central place. Don’t have some tasks on a sticky note, some more on your phone, others in a notebook, and a few more in your head. Personally, I just use my reminders app on my phone. However, there are many apps out there specifically to help with this, or if you’re a paper person, grab a notebook.

4. It’s ok to say no (and you don’t have to give a reason)

Also, you don’t have to apologize for it. Scenario: your friend asks you to dinner, but it’s on the only night of the week that you had white space on your calendar. It is ok to simply say “I can’t make it tonight” and leave it at that. If it makes you feel bad to say no, but you really wanted that time to yourself, then say “I can’t make it tonight, but how about next [insert next available time here].” It is not selfish to protect your open calendar space. It does not mean you love your friends any less either. If you’re like me, friendships are just as important as my self-care. My friendships are literally the reason I am as sane as I am. However, there are just some times I have to tell myself it’s ok to miss out.

5. Time-block – if you wear all the hats at one mace, they will fall over.

What is time-blocking? Well, simply put, it’s blocking off times during the day to where you only have to wear one hat. How many hats do you wear on any given day? Personally, I count about five big hats that could easily be hiding another 20 hats under them. I am a mom, a bookkeeper, an administrative assistant, a direct sales consultant, and a blogger. However, underneath all those hats, I’m also (to name a few) a teacher, a nurse, a chef (well maybe more like a cafeteria worker), a chauffeur, a referee, a house cleaner, a clothes washer, a personal assistant, a marketer, a graphics designer, and more. There are days I have to wear all my hats, but there is no way I can wear them all at once (no matter how hard I try). When I’m planning my week on Sunday evenings, I try to time-block as much as possible. I block out times for my bookkeeping job, then for eating times, for homeschooling times, for blogging time, etc. Naturally, these time-blocks are “drawn” with a soft pencil, because life happens and things have to shift. However, I try really hard to not have my focus on multiple hats at once.

6. You’d be surprised how much you can accomplish in 25 minutes

Have you ever heard of the Pomodoro Technique? You may not have necessarily heard the name, but you probably are familiar with the technique. It’s where you set a timer for 25 minutes and work (on whatever) focused without any distractions. After 25 minutes, you take a 5 min break and then start the cycle over. There are so many apps out there that help you with the steps, but you can also just use a normal timer. When I do this, it seems like I get more done in those focused 25 minutes than I would in a normal hour. I set the timer, usually on my phone, and then turn my phone face down and stay focused until the alarm goes off. If I’m still focused on my task, and not quite finished, I’ll keep working until I finish the task. It’s the simplest yet most effective technique.

7. Fill your cup the right way for you.

What energizes you? What makes you feel better? It’s different for everyone. For some it’s running or exercise, for some being around a lot of people energizes them, for others it’s meditation, and then there some that need a lot of quiet time. There are personality tests out there for you to take to help you decide what type of person you are and what most likely fills your cup. According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I’m an ISFJ. ISFJ stands for Introvert, Sensing, Feeling, Judging. My cup is filled by being alone and quiet. Although I love to be around other people, I’m usually more tired afterward than I normally am.

It is important to know what fills your cup, what energizes you, what makes you feel better. It is also very important to make sure your cup is getting filled every day. It may even be a good idea to start the morning with something that’s for you. I’ve heard it’s better to serve yourself before you serve others. This may be why that morning cup of coffee is so important. I may not always get up early enough to serve myself before I serve others, but there is not a lot that gets done before that first sip of coffee.

8. I feel better and get more accomplished when I have an overly busy schedule

When the pandemic first hit and everything came to such a screeching halt, I didn’t feel like doing anything. My once busily scheduled life had turned into the most boring life. I worked a few hours during the day, but I literally played games on my phone all night. Very little housework got done and so many other things got put off. I wasn’t doing much of anything, and that made me want to do even less which led to me being depressed and unmotivated. As soon as things started picking back up at work, and I started this blog, got back to working my direct sales business, started planning a few scout activities, I started feeling so much better and more housework got done. When I don’t have time to do anything, so much gets done, but when I have all the time in the world, nothing gets done.

9. Busy is not productive

Have you ever had those days where you are exhausted because you’ve been busy all day, but you don’t feel like you accomplished anything? Those are horrible days. It’s like looking at your checking account and saying “where did all my money go?” but instead you’re saying “where did all my time go?” it is just as easy to spend time as it is money and have nothing to show for it. This is why it’s so important to plan. I like to make a list, whether it be handwritten or electronic, and mark tasks complete. That’s one reason I’ve started loving the planning process. When all my tasks were being stored in my head, I didn’t realize I was completing anything. Now, I get to check off completed tasks, and see how productive (and not just busy) I was all day. Being productive is such a good feeling.

10. Stop getting distracted with shiny new things

This is a hard one for me to not do. I love trying out new apps, or apps/software that someone has suggested is “the best for organization” or “the best for time management” even if my current way of doing things has been working just fine. I still have to try it though. 90% of the time, I spend hours trying to get all my tasks transferred over and set up just right, and then realized I like my old way better. I am smart enough though to not delete every item off my old system until I know for sure. For instance, I just found a web and phone app I love and was perfect for planning out my blog and direct sales side of my life. I thought it would be a good idea to have my daily personal/family checklist on there as well (refer back to number 3). However, this software, even though there’s a phone app for it, didn’t send me push notifications when something was due. This is a very important thing for my daily checklist, but not so important for my weekly blogging and direct sales planning.

As you can imagine, I have tried several apps to help with the things I’ve learned. If you would like my honest opinion/review of some time management and/or productivity apps, feel free to ask.

I Want to Travel

When I chose our homeschool curriculum, I had 4 Social Studies topics from which to choose. I chose Geography & Cultures. Over the past month we’ve been homeschooling, we have reviewed the continents and oceans, and then went to Europe. We discussed the continent as a whole, located all the countries on a map, and have studied deeper about the bigger countries. We have about one more week to spend in Europe, and then we will move on to Africa. My traveling dream has really sparked seeing all the breathtaking pictures and videos about these beautiful countries. The kids are definitely not as fascinated as I am though.

As a kid, I didn’t care that much about traveling. We took our vacations to the beach every year and occasionally went to the mountains. We weren’t that family that just flew or drove anywhere and everywhere. 95% of our traveling was no more than 4 hours from our house, and that was fine by me. Even though I loved our vacations, and the traveling to and from the destination didn’t bother me since I slept the entire trip, I was (and still am) a big homebody.

The older I got, the more I wanted to travel, but still wanted to stay “close to home.” I still had no desire to “cross the pond,” I just wanted to see the contiguous United States. I’ve often thought about purchasing an RV so I would be able to accomplish this dream. That way I would be able to be at home without being at home.

There are basically three types of dreams: realistic dreams, dreams that aren’t outrageous but still probably unobtainable, and knowingly unobtainable dreams. These types of dreams are different for everyone. For me, an example is a realistic traveling dream would be the kids and I vacationing at the beach this summer. An example of the second kind of dream would be me purchasing an RV and visiting 48 of the 50 states. The third type would be me traveling the world. Sure there is a chance they could all come true, and there is a chance none of them could come true.

I am too much of a realist to put too much thought into unobtainable dreams. However, it doesn’t hurt to fantasize. I will continue to look at pictures, and will probably add more countries to my fantasy list as we learn more about other countries. Currently, my top two places are England and Finland. I may even search how much it would cost. I just don’t see this dream becoming a reality.

I have already looked at the prices of RVs, and also learned how difficult it is to maintain them, which is why this is a dream that isn’t necessarily outrageous, but it probably is unobtainable for me. However, this would be a dream for which I would start saving money. It would be more like an “after the kids go to college” type of dream.

The plans for the beach vacation are already in the works, thanks to a nice little nudge from my sister. It will be nice to put my toes in the sand and stay in my happy place for a few days.

What are some of your dreams, realistic or other? I would love to hear about them!