It’s Been a While

WOW! It has been such a long time since my last post, which was on February 28, 2021. That was 23 months ago. I knew it had been a while, but didn’t realize it had been that long. So much has happened, but yet not a lot has changed. Here is a quick rundown of the highlights from the past 23 months.

March 2021 started off with a family beach trip. It was technically too cold for the beach. I had a sweatshirt on the whole time, and never put on a swimsuit. However, it is always a good time to put your toes in the sand. I also registered for college to finish my Associate’s degree I had started twenty-two years prior.

April 2021 wasn’t very eventful. We just lived our normal lives and did our normal things.

May 2021 was the first month of going back to school for me. I tackled two classes even though I knew it was a shorter semester, and I was out of practice.

June 2021 was filled with more school for me and summer camp for my oldest.

July 2021 ended my first semester back as a college student. Two classes down and seven classes left.

August 2021 started with a summer camp trip for my youngest son that both my oldest son and myself attended as well. Then my fall semester of three classes started. Planning started for the scouting year. Homeschooling started back up as well.

September 2021 brought COVID. First to my mom, then my sons, and then me. Thankfully, it was a mild case for everyone.

October 2021 got us back to normal … well the “new normal.”

November 2021 and December 2021 were almost normal holiday months. We were all able to gather as a family to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas. December also brought on two new diagnoses for my older son… Pectus Excavatum AND Pectus Carinatum.

January 2022 started a new year and my final semester for my Associate’s Degree. It also brought on a Hashimoto’s diagnosis for me.

February 2022 didn’t bring anything exciting, but rather it was filled with should I’s. Should I start a Bachelor’s Degree when I finish my Associate’s Degree? Should my older son have surgery to fix his Pectus Excavatum? How should I manage my Hashimoto’s? Should my sons go back to physical school or continue to homeschool?

March 2022 answered my questions for February. I applied for a college for my Bachelor’s Degree. After a scan, we decided to monitor my son’s progression and wait on surgery for now. Also, I made changes to my diet and supplement intake to help with my thyroid. My older son decided to go back to p

April 2022 brought a treadmill stress test for my older son. This test was to see what kind of stress, if any, was being put on his heart and/or lungs by the Pectus Excavatum. This test showed that he had exercise-induced asthma.

May 2022 finished up my last semester at the community college, and it brought my diplomas for my Associate’s Degrees… two actually … one in Business Administration and the other in Accounting and Finance.

June 2022 started with us turning in paperwork for high school for my older son. Then we joined the rest of the family at the beach for a family vacation before my mom had back surgery. June ended with my mom’s back surgery and the family coming together to help her heal. At least healing was the plan…

July 2022 brought an infection to my mom’s surgical site. This was the most scared I have been, and the sickest I’ve ever seen my mom. We had to call the ambulance because of how bad she was. She ended up getting diagnosed with bacteria infection of the surgical site that went through her bloodstream, sepsis, and delirium. We had no idea the journey we were all about to take.

August 2022 had trips to the hospital several days a week to sit with mama for several hours at a time. She never remembered us being there even though she would talk to us for hours. The infection was gone, but the delirium was still very much prevalent. When I wasn’t at the hospital, I would spend countless hours reading her charts and doctor’s notes, and then going to Google to try to find out what could still be causing the delirium. Doing whatever I could to advocate for my mom and her. On a positive note, my older son started public high school. This was a big change going from homeschooling to attending a “real” public high school. He loved it, and fit right in with the flow of things.

September 2022 brought my mom home… finally. After a grand total of eighty days in a hospital, of which about fourteen days were spent in an inpatient rehab facility located inside the hospital, my mom’s delirium was slowly but surely subsiding and she was able to come home. She still was going to have a gigantic mountain of recovery to climb, but at least she was home.

October 2022 brought more challenges with my mom’s health. For every two steps she made towards getting better, she made at least one step back. Something kept happening, something kept coming up, but again, we were so glad she was home.

November 2022 brought even more doctor’s appointments for my mom, as well as, physical therapy appointments. It has been great seeing this strong woman prove to us that she can, and will, get better. We all got together at her and my stepdad’s house for Thanksgiving. My mom absolutely hated not being able to cook for us, but my sister and I were more than happy to cook for the family. The best thing was that we were able to spend another Thanksgiving with my mom when there was a time or two in the hospital we all questioned it.

December 2022 had to bring sickness to my older son. Thank you public school. He had to take a couple days off due to strep throat and pink eye, and then after going back to school for a few days, maybe a week, he brought COVID home. Thankfully, he kept all that to himself and didn’t share with his brother and me, and also glad he had very mild cases of everything and recovered quickly. I also learned that my older son can act. I’m not sure why it surprised me. Well, it didn’t surprise me that he could do it, just that he was so good and very natural at it. He had never taken drama until this year. He didn’t practice at home so I didn’t get to see glimpses until his performance night. I was blown away and so very proud. Then December ended with Christmas family gatherings that I always love.

That takes us to 2023. I can’t believe how fast time flies and how much can happen in such a quick amount of time. I’m sure I’ll elaborate on a few of these highlights in upcoming posts. I have a few things in the works for 2023 and can’t wait to see where it takes me.

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.