by Amy | Jul 8, 2019 | mama confessions, Mom on the Fringe, struggle
This past weekend marked two weeks of being back on U.S. soil in the comfort of our own home and routine and daily activities, but I have to tell you something: I’m still struggling.
What am I struggling with exactly?
Well, everything.
For one, I haven’t managed to get back into my daily workout routine (which I so desperately crave and need). I typically wake up early (like it or not) and go to my 5am HIIT class Monday thru Thursday, so I can get it over with and enjoy the rest of my day. Normally, that 4:30am wake-up call feels natural and although I may, at times, be tired and not quite ready for it, I’m eager to get up and move. But since I returned from our trip, all I want to do is lie there in bed contemplating getting up but not actually doing it. Most days, I sleep right through the alarm.
In addition to being off with my workout routine, I just miss our beloved Austria, and being back in Texas feels like a slap in the face. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for all we have here, yes, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t still ache and yearn for our country and all the people in it that we left behind. I feel like the kid who comes in from the cold outside and won’t take his coat off and allow himself to relax and stay a while. I just want to stay in that place…in those memories just a while longer, and a big part of me never wants to take my coat off and stay.
Truthfully, I didn’t really have a plan in mind for this post. What I did not plan to do was lament, vent and whine about the fact that I’m back home and don’t wanna be. All I know is that my head is spinning and I needed to write. But more importantly, I need to get back into my routines again.
What I’ve found out throughout my life, but also again this year, in a big way, was that we thrive within routines. And whether we like them or not, we need routines to stay our course and continue on the path that leads us where we inevitably need to go.
Last year, in 2018, my word for the year was “Discipline”. I’ve written and talked on my podcast about this before, but I always felt like I lacked discipline to do the things I knew I needed to do, and that was something I knew I needed to change. And so, there I was, fumbling around, trying to learn the art of discipline and create the habits that I knew would benefit me in the long run. Those habits are arbitrary for anyone but me to know, but I do know that I felt happy when I began to incorporate them into my life each and every day, regardless of how I felt about doing them.
That said, I want to commit this second week of July to getting back into routines that help me stay sane and think and feel at my best and help my family feel healthier and happier too. There comes a time that, while we may think we want to coast through the days and weeks of summer without a routine, we desperately need expectation and a schedule that gives us a framework for our days and weeks ahead.
I’ll be sitting down today mapping that out and seeing what that looks like for us. I’m happy to share it with those of you who would like some help getting your summer schedule in place as well.
In any case, thanks for reading! I appreciate you and value your time. If you’re struggling with having a working summer schedule, just know you’re not alone!
xo, Amy
by Amy | Jul 2, 2019 | Mom on the Fringe, struggle
Am I the only one who struggles to feel peace and contentment in my own home?
Please tell me I am, because I don’t want anyone else to go through this struggle — at least not alone.
I wish I could say that this feeling of restlessness and discontentment began when we returned from our 6-week vacation in Europe. After all, it’s normal to feel slightly edgy and uncomfortable after being away from our space for a while, but then, once you’ve settled in, you feel happy to be back, right? Or not?
One could also chalk up this feeling to having to be responsible again. After all, when you’re living in an Airbnb, it’s not YOUR house that needs to be cleaned and cared for, so it’s different than being in your own home where things have to be done. If the chores don’t get done in a vacation home, it’s not the end of the world, because, well, it’s vacation! Who cares?! But when you’re home, the chores have to be done and things have to eventually feel good so you can be at your best and be able to relax in your environment. At least that’s my take.
But I believe there’s more to it than that.
To be honest, I’ve felt this way off and on since my second son was born in 2012. With my first child, I felt like I had a pretty good handle on the house and all the things that needed to be done around it. I wasn’t necessarily “on top of things,” but I was keeping it under control and felt pretty happy about the state of things around me. But quite literally, as soon as I had a second child, it was as if I had absolutely NO control over how the house looked or felt anymore. I had no time to keep it up and nothing ever seemed to get done.
As of 2019, we now have 3 children who are 10, 8 and 5. We are no longer in the baby phase of putting things up high and random swings and jumpers in the living room. We no longer need to have boxes of toys throughout the house or childproofed cabinets (actually, we never did the childproofing thing except for our outlets). But, somehow, my house still feels chaotic and unsettling to me, and I need to figure out why.
One major challenge we’ve had is that we’ve basically been living off of one income over the past 10 years, which has meant that we haven’t had the money to update the flooring or the kitchen counters or hire a landscaper to help us with our huge backyard. All the responsibility and DIY-ability has fallen on my husband and me, and we have underestimated, in many ways, our lack of time and resources to do those projects alone. While we’ve accomplished a lot, there’s still a huge to-do list that always looms in the back of our minds and feels like it weighs us down and keeps us from being able to be as mobile and free to do things as we would like to be.
While we were in Europe, however, the kids and I were staying in a one bedroom apartment a little outside the city center of Vienna. We had only our suitcases with clothes and backpacks with other necessities to get us by for the few weeks we were there. Other than those necessities, we didn’t have much space to store anything other than what we absolutely needed. Our space was so tight and limited that as soon as the kids forgot to put their shoes inside the shoe cabinet or I didn’t put away the dishes right after breakfast, the house started to feel unlivable and untidy, and it was obvious that we couldn’t move on to things we needed to do until that was taken care of. The good thing was, taking care of it was an easy and quick fix!
What I loved most about this was that those simple things like putting the shoes away or straightening up the towels in the bathroom or getting the dishes cleared away made all the difference in the way we felt in our surroundings and how I felt about the day ahead. I wasn’t bogged down with the feeling of, “I need to clean this place up before we can go anywhere,” because there wasn’t much to clean up.
At one point during our trip, I asked the kids if they missed any of our items we had left back home, and do you know what their answer was? Each and every one of my kids said they couldn’t think of anything they had left behind that they really missed — except for our dog! That’s right, Folks! They couldn’t think of ANYTHING! Not one thing!
Do you know what that means to me? All those years of me spending entire days going through their things and organizing their toys and books and memorabilia was just a big fat waste of time! You know why? Because none of it matters. You know what would have mattered MORE than me spending my time doing that? Yep, you guessed it…spending time WITH them! Or at the very least, spending time writing or singing or making art.
So, here I am…back home in the States in our spacious home in the suburbs of Austin, Texas. And do you know what I feel with all this stuff? Not only do I feel completely discontent, but I also feel completely overwhelmed. It plagues my mind…that idea of where it all should go and how I should organize it. I have this fantasy about someone coming in and just taking it all away so I don’t have to deal with it all, which may sound extreme, but I feel a little extreme right now. I’ve read Marie Kondo as well as other books and blogs on the topic of home organization and have worked long and hard both alone and with a good friend on trying to incorporate organizational strategies and ideas into my home. I’ve also seen my parents literally become buried alive in stuff that they are too overwhelmed to actually deal with, and have participated in a handful of rescue missions to try and absolve them of the task of dealing with it alone — all to little or no avail, might I add.
So you could say that this concept of living minimally runs deep. I absolutely LOVE stuff. Who doesn’t? And no, I’m not a big shopper who goes out to buy something every chance I get, but I do love walking into a room that is carefully and tastefully decorated to suit the people who live there. I love finding fun things to hang or display. I love it when my children bring home artwork and we try to find a nice place for it. I love having space to work and space to cook and space for my kids to roam freely. But do you know what I love more? I love freedom. I love the concept of never having to go through another drawer or closet or entire bedroom or garage again, because I don’t accumulate enough to have to do that. I love the idea of not being tied down to a home with a huge backyard to maintain so that I can travel and see the world and spend the time I want to spend with my family instead of lamenting about how chaotic my home feels.
I guess my question I asked at the beginning of this blog is still this: Am I the only one who struggles to feel peace and contentment in my own home? I used to think it was just my lack of organizational ability or I came by this defective gene of not being able to adequately organize my things or create *gemütlichkeit in my own home naturally. But now I whole-heartedly believe that it’s lifestyle related. I think I’m the type of person who just doesn’t do well with large spaces to organize, and no matter how much I might try to refute that and make lifestyle choices that suggest otherwise, I am happier with fewer things and more experiences.
What about you? Do you feel comfortable in your own space? What ideas or concepts have you discovered that make you feel this way? What areas in your life do you think you need to change in order for the space around you to feel comfortable and peaceful?
I’d love to hear from you!
*Gemütlichkeit (German pronunciation: [ɡəˈmyːtlɪçkaɪt] is a German word used to convey the idea of a state or feeling of warmth, friendliness, and good cheer. Other qualities encompassed by the term include coziness, peace of mind, and a sense of belonging and well-being.
by Amy | May 25, 2019 | struggle, travel
We all do it. Without even thinking, we compare our lives to the lives of others around us, the life we used to have, the life we wish we had, the life of a stranger on Instagram or another friend’s family vacation album on Facebook.
No matter who we are, what we’re doing, how beautiful or how flawed our lives are, we have a tendency to wish for something different — completely different than the life we have. We wish for some thing that would make all the other things easier. Something that would suit our personalities more. Something that would make our hearts happier.
We long for a place to live with nicer weather, better scenery, more bike trails, better cafes, interesting people and a thriving culture and economy.
We may even long to look a more beautiful, be more fit, dress more stylishly or have our homes decorated in a way that makes us feel better in our surroundings.
Maybe we long for more meaningful relationships, closer community or a sense of belonging.
But if there’s anything I’ve discovered from traveling, it’s that there are positives and negatives to every place you live in, every family dynamic, every body type, every city, every group of friends and every career path.
There is no perfect situation. There are no perfect people. And there certainly is no perfect place to live.
But it’s easy to be dissatisfied with what we have when we look around us and see the lives of others. I have both felt envy for another’s life and been envied for the life I have. I have felt inadequacy and lack, and I have unknowingly made others feel like their lives lacked and were inadequate in comparison to mine.
As I sit in on my computer in my little one bedroom apartment in the heart of Vienna, Austria with my kids in the next room, I’m reminded of the hilight reel we all choose to show the world.
Right now, after a long day of running around and meeting people and doing things yesterday and the day before and the day before that, my kids and I are taking it easy and having a lazy, Saturday morning with nothing planned. No obligations. No commitments. No priorities except rest. Silence. Stillness.
After we got up this morning around 8:30am, I left them for a few minutes and ran downstairs to the local grocery store to buy some food for the weekend (most grocery stores are closed on Sundays).
When I got to the store, in a hurry so as not to leave my kids too long, I immediately walked in and felt that the people around me were rude and unfriendly — not at all like the warm and smiling folks at my local neighborhood HEB close to my home in Austin. What happened? Nothing traumatic. Nothing memorable. Just an overall feeling of discomfort and awkwardness as I navigated my way through the store trying to quickly pick up things we needed and get back home.
People cutting in front of me, getting irritated at me when they had to walk around me. My cart was in the way of an employee who was trying to put things away. I walked up to a perfectly open line to have someone tell me the line was closed. I went through a self check-out line only to have the cashier on duty have to come over and scan his card to help me at least 8 times in one transaction. In that instant, I was the foreigner. And I was apparently doing everything wrong.
When I was on my way back to the apartment with all my groceries (that I had to carry for a block), I remembered the days of living here in my twenties and wishing, during those harsh, cold Austrian moments, that I was back in the comfort of my hometown in Kansas City, Missouri where people actually smiled at me when I smiled at them and where I knew what ingredients I needed and how to weigh my fruit and vegetables. I longed for those brief seconds where I knew I could ask someone if I couldn’t find something, and I was offered help with a smile instead of irritation and disdain.
Those moments, like I had this morning, were the moments that literally defeated me as a single, young person in the middle of a foreign city. And those moments were attempting to defeat me again in my forties on my way back to my apartment full of hungry, screen-happy children.
When I got back a few minutes later, my kids were still in their pajamas watching shows on their tablets. I fixed them breakfast. They were grumpy. We ate. They made a mess. I cleaned up they messes they had made. I refereed fights they had between each other and refolded their clothes in their suitcases and had to sniff my way through to figure out what was clean and what was dirty. I organized the place a little and made sure breakfast food was put away and the toilet didn’t continue to smell like vomit from the night my son puked everywhere.
Our morning was definitely uninteresting. Unworthy of photos or captions. And in most of my tired thoughts and feelings today, I have felt homesick and wishing we were back in our comfy home in Austin where I could do laundry with ease and plan the evening’s meal with excitement. Where I didn’t have to wonder and worry about the strange feelings I have with my in-laws or make sure we’ve got all we need to last us through the weekend.
On the flip side of this same coin, we are having a wonderful time and making memories that I can’t even explain. It is a time I’ll always cherish and something I hope we can repeat again in the not so distant future.
But in saying all of this, I am instantly reminded of the grass is greener syndrome. A syndrome I often have and think about. There’s a lot I miss about Vienna. There are a lot of things I wish I could do and people I wish I could see more often. There’s a slower-paced lifestyle and philosophy of living that I wish we could adopt more of.
But the heart of the matter remains: Those of us who have had the opportunity and privilege of living in another city or country other than our own will forever feel a longing for that place again long after we’ve left. In addition, we will always have to fight off the feeling that the grass must be greener there than wherever we find ourselves right now. At the same time, we will always have to work hard to teach ourselves to love where we are right now and be present in that place even though we are reminded, even daily, that it is not our home. In essence, we no longer belong anywhere. The only true belonging we feel has to do with the close relationships we hold near and dear to our hearts.
by Amy | Jul 9, 2017 | mama work, struggle
I’m coming to the table today with nothin’. Nothin’ but commiseration, that is. Summer hit and my momentum went out the door along with spilled milk all over my already dirty floors, chaos and clutter to clean up EVERYWHERE, cutting up watermelon into the perfect, bite-sized cubes, making lemonade by the gallon, fighting off my children’s tendency toward t.v. and tablets in lieu of water guns, bubbles and bike rides…and of course, family trips to the beach. I’m trying to savor this time with my children since I love summer and I love having them home. Well, sort of. 🙂 No, I really do. And I keep thinking, “This is the reason why I’m doing all this, right? This is why I’m working my butt off and trying to make this work: For my family!” But finding time to work and think and create and build momentum in my business has quickly become a notion that has way too easily slipped out of my unmoisturized fingers and into the long-forgotten crevices behind my couch cushions. No matter how much I’ve tried to plan ahead and how much I’ve tried to prepare for this moment, I apparently just didn’t plan enough and prepare myself (and my children) for the fact that things have changed in our family, and Mommy is now a Working Mommy. It’s that simple. I didn’t plan for my work time. I’ve been so busy keeping my 3 children busy and out of trouble and tending to all their constant (and many) needs that I didn’t actively plan to have down time where someone else was taking care of them, and I was working and continuing to create and keep this business thing going. It’s OK. Lesson learned. There’s still time to recuperate and regain momentum and pick myself back up again (off the sandy beaches and sticky, milk-laden kitchen floors). But, note to self: This is hard to do once the momentum’s been lost!
I write this, not because it’s some epic post that lays out all the wisdom and all the steps to overcome obstacles and small business hurdles. But I write it out of a special empathetic place in my heart that wishes to relate to my readers who are also struggling to build and keep momentum in their businesses in the face of summer and crazy, chaotic households. They say the first year of any business is the hardest to get started and to keep going. The money isn’t really flowing in just yet. The creativity and drive are there, but the structure and honed skills and exact niche isn’t quite put together yet. That’s where I am. Right in the center of it. I don’t exactly have customers who are expecting my work to be done and paying me. Yet. So now is the time when I need to produce anyway — even when I feel that no one is noticing. Even when I don’t have the time I had while all the kids were in school. Now is the time to get my proverbial $h!t together and get ‘er done in the face of a loud house and a silent, rather inactive customer base. Now is the time to build the framework and foundation, despite the uncertainty that it will ever produce anything.
I knew this would be hard. I knew there would be challenges. But I didn’t know that I would actually be the biggest challenge. My mind. My inner dialogue. My own lack of planning. My own uncertainty about what it is I’m trying to accomplish. My own self-defeat. My own self-doubt.
I had a conversation with one of my Mommy friends while our kids were playing alongside us at the pool the other day. She and I hadn’t seen each other or caught up in a while, and I was trying to explain to her what I have been doing after I quit my desk job at Apple. Usually, I make it a rule not to go into much detail about what I’m doing because I personally don’t handle other people’s uncertainty or genuine concern very well. I feel it’s better kept under wraps until I’m a little further along and producing something that is tangible in my business. But her comments, while innocent and supportive, really got to me. She said, “Wow. It sounds like you’re still in the phase of self-discovery and figuring this all out. That’s so awesome what you’re trying to do.” What she said was really sweet and from a good place. But how I took it threw me off. “Self discovery?” “What I’m trying to do???” Those phrases made me question everything! Funny how a 5 minute conversation can conger up so many insecurities. It was good. Don’t get me wrong. And in a way, she’s right. I’m not there yet. I am trying to do something. I’m doing the work. I’m learning. But I haven’t quite figured out what my exact niche is just yet here. I know it will come. But this questioning phase that I’m going through is real. It is hard. It is causing me to second guess everything. Is this the right path? Am I really passionate about this? So what if I spent a pretty good-sized portion of my life learning how to sing and teach voice lessons. Is this REALLY what I want to do? And bigger yet, is this something I can REALLY earn money doing online? Do I know enough? Am I known enough for people to want to learn from me? Who really cares what little ol’ me has to say? Who in the world will pay attention and actually buy my product? My service? My course? What if I spend countless hours and a great deal of money working on this and don’t get anywhere with it? What if no one shows up to buy?
And the answer to all these questions is simply: I’m not sure.
And you know why I’m most likely not sure? I haven’t been working on my business diligently for a few weeks. I’m not really in the game, so to speak. I haven’t been investing my heart, mind and soul in this and giving it my all. These circumstances haven’t been completely out of my hands, but somehow, I don’t feel like I can really control them. I mean, how do you justify hiring a babysitter to watch your kids while you work when you’re not really earning anything? This is their summer too. I need to be there for them, right?
So, sure I’m going to feel some amount of uncertainty! And sure I’m going to question myself and everything I’ve been working hard at doing prior to this summer whirlwind! It’s just not where my heart is right now.
Even while writing this post, I’ve had kids interrupting me asking me questions. I’ve had my 3-year-old little girl pushing buttons on my computer about to delete the whole post and I’ve tried to move her hand and caused her to cry and have a complete meltdown that I needed to calm her down from.
The list is long, but the time I truly have to knock it out is so short.
Exhaustion.
Frustration.
Defeat.
Those are all words that come to mind here lately when it comes to my business. And I’m just being honest.
Because, yes, I’d love to savor my children’s youth and play with them and do all the summer things and make memories. But I also need to create an income that I can do from my computer and a few pieces of purchased equipment so I can be home with them and do these things. I’ve felt the pain of working full time away from them. I don’t ever want to go back there again. But if I don’t get disciplined and figure this work from home thing out, I may soon have to. That’s a lot of pressure!
So, today I’m brushing off the blowing off. I’m coming out of vacation mode and getting serious again. I’m finding my groove and not just making time for this business — this newborn baby that needs to be fed, changed, held carefully and loved — but I’m fighting for it with all my gusto. And today…this post, is my new beginning. Clean slate. I’ve got to make this work. And if you’re still reading this, I have a feeling you do too!
I want to encourage you today, whether you’ve fallen off a bit or taken your vacation time a little too loosely: Don’t give up! Make time. Cultivate and create. Dream. Plan ahead. Create the space. And get back to work!
You can do it, and so can I!
xoxo,
Your Fellow Unleasher
What are some ways you personally feel like you’ve fallen off and lost momentum?
Let me know in the comments below…
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by Amy | Mar 8, 2017 | struggle
Hi Friends! I have to admit to you today that I am down-trodden x 10 today! I knew it was going to come this week. After all, I have never had Premenstrual Syndrome, but rather…POST-menstrual Syndrome. Is that TMI? Well, sorry if it is, but it’s true. I don’t get down and depressed during the days leading up to it but rather during the days following. And here I am. My energy level is low. I’m feeling blah. And I just can’t seem to get any traction with the IMPORTANT things I need to do for my business. Does this sound familiar to you?
I guess I need to give myself a break. After all, I am just human. But I feel like I’ve been operating in superhuman mode over the past few weeks and trying like a mad woman to get websites and social media set up so that I can just plunk information into them. I’m also in the process of creating courses, which is the main goal for my online business…but there is just so much work involved. It’s also not easy to do the bulk of the work unless you have a dedicated, rather large chunk of time to dedicate to do just that. I have also kept my energy flow pretty high over the past few weeks, so it is totally normal and actually pretty predictable that they would plummet right now. But still…
I’m also just struggling in general with creating the community that I am going to need for these courses to be successful. I have a Facebook page. I have a blog. I want to start a podcast. And there’s the courses I want to sell (my ultimate goal)…but WHERE oh WHERE are the people?? Today, on my way home from the cafe where I was working early this morning, I was just feeling so down. I don’t take it personally when people don’t engage with my posts. I’m past that. I just want to know WHAT to post to make them engage. And no, I don’t want to download any more plugins or pay anymore money to ensure that that happens. Isn’t there another way? How can I engage people and get information from them to help me build my courses in the process? I know there are people out there who want to learn how to sing. Why? Because I’ve taught many of them and literally everywhere I go, people are telling me they’ve always wanted to learn how to sing. Why then, is it so hard to get people to respond to my posts about singing?
My only conclusion is that I need to have content and notoriety before I can have the respect and following I need to have. But how do I get that??? How do you get your foot in the door and get people’s respect so that they will spread your name like wildfire and shout it from the mountains that everyone interested in what you teach should come to you???
And when? How long will this take? weeks? months?? years????
So what will I do? Well, my tendency is to plow right through it all. I know I will probably stay with that tendency. But in the meantime, I just don’t feel like I have time to lose. I quit my job to invest all my would-be-working time to get my business off the ground, but some days I just don’t feel like I’m getting there quick enough. On top of that, I have Mommy guilt. And I don’t even know if I would call it that really. I feel less guilty and more…just sad about having to put my 3-year-old daughter in preK 4 days a week so I can figure all this out. After all, she’ll only be little once, right? And I feel like I’m missing out on being with her in order to figure all this out and try to (at SOME point) generate some income through all this.
Anyway…I don’t necessarily share this post to vent with you. I do have bouncing boards and people I can go to for things like this. But I do want to let you know, if you are struggling, that STRUGGLE IS REAL and it’s all part of the process when you are trying to create the business of your dreams. And I am. I want to figure this out. I am DETERMINED to figure this out. But the groundwork laying part is hard. All the setting up and days you feel like time is just flying by and working against you are hard. And have I mentioned HOW MUCH INFORMATION there is to learn???
I’m literally taking 2 pretty big courses simultaneously. Yep…that’s right. 2!! I don’t know if I’m ambitious or insane or both. But I just feel like I need to learn and this is the quickest way to get there.
YOU: What 2 courses are you taking, Amy?
ME: Well, glad you asked. I’m taking “Courses that Convert” by Amy Porterfield and “LIGHTS, CAMERA, BRANDING” by Tiffany Lee Bymaster. Both ladies are fabulous and the content is incredibly rich. So it’s inspiring me. There’s just not enough time in the day.
Speaking of which…gotta go listen to another lesson and GET ON IT!
Have a great day!
…and thanks for listening.
P.S. – Please feel free to comment below on some of the areas you are struggling in with your business.
xoxo
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