Week of Labor Day: It's been a trying week, the first time in a while that I've been this drained. The biggest challenge has been that both my hubby and the baby have had health battles all week long. We had two big events planned for our holiday weekend. We had to cancel one and I took the kids to the other. It was our first "family event" for just our little family that my husband had to miss out on due to complications with his arthritis. I think this was the first time that I have sincerely been frustrated and angry about this illness that continues to interfere with our lives.
For him, I know it is a daily struggle to balance caring for his physical struggles and still participating how he can at home. For me, it is a complicated balancing act with all the hats I wear. There isn't a true solution that solves our struggles. Our struggles are caused by health issues. Issues that will never go away and will only get worse. Solutions for this kind of struggle are finding ways to work with the problems and through them.
In the hard times, like this past week, my husband is unable to do much more than put a smile on his face for the children and spend the day coping with pain and attempting to recover enough to participate in a "normal" appearing life. I care for everything else in the day-to-day living in our home. At times I feel alone. He feels alone. At times I feel overwhelmed. It can be exhausting, and it is hard to take care of myself, to pay attention to our marriage relationship, to be there emotionally for our children, care for the daily household needs, etc. I am a strong woman, I can handle a lot. I am capable of doing many things on my own and carrying this load for a while...but sometimes it gets to me.
Solutions / Ways to Cope: The biggest help is to be aware of the root cause(s) of the little frustrations that mount up and pray about them. Knowing is half the battle...there's a GI JOE jingle in there somewhere. :0)
Time is another biggie. Allow time to explore where your emotions are and why they are. I know that when I feel the most depressed in hard times is at night when I am tired. Simply sending myself to bed early makes a huge difference. 100% of the time I wake up feeling so much more positive than I felt the night before.
The next biggest help is to keep communication lines open. This can be tricky because emotions and patience can be stretched thin already. We both work at speaking to each other in loving ways and avoid any outbursts of negative emotion...those must be spoken in a sensitive way with understanding of how they may come across to the other person. My husband's arthritis isn't his fault. He has little to no control over when it flares up or how bad it gets. So when I express frustration with it, I am conscientious of not using words that may cast blame on him as a person.
Then it comes down to being flexible to change plans and simplify life as needed to accommodate the changes necessary for dealing with it.
Lastly, there are always preventative actions to take. Knowing our plans may change at any time, we are careful how we present them to our children and my hubby is careful on how he cares for his body in the days leading up to our plans. He'll often schedule his masseuse appointments for the following day or two after a big trip. We plan out medication timelines and bring heating pads on our road trips. And so on...
Monday, September 18, 2017
Friday, September 1, 2017
Meal Planning and French Lessons
Nothing particularly exciting is going on in our lives as of late, and I'm enjoying the day to day living for once. The biggest excitement for me is that we've reached the beginning of a new month and I get to start fresh with my monthly grocery budget...a consistent source of challenges.
If we could get by with buying generic, processed foods, groceries would be cheap. But with my honey's low-carb diet and my son's intolerances, that just isn't doable. I read a post recently on the unlikely homeschool blog about large family menu planning and budgeting. My family isn't nearly as large, but some of the tips helped! I started by copying another mom's rotating two-week menu plan that she uses to stay cheap on food. Most of it fit our family's eating habits, but she used so much of the same foods that I know my family would revolt after a couple rotations.
After brainstorming with my honey, I adjusted it to fit our needs/wants better and made it into a rotating 4-week menu plan. This is our first week using it, and I'm so far pleased with the cost for my first week's plan. It takes a lot of the stress off my shoulders having a plan already written so I can just buy the food for the meals on our list rather than coming up with something new every week. It will also help with budgeting to see how much each week will cost us and how much we spend on "extras"...having that more streamlined and tangible will help when my hubby and I discuss our spending habits in the future. It makes me feel good to have organized another chaotic area of life!
School days are going well, I'm very thankful that the Lord led me to be less specific in my planning. I made plans for routines and goals, but I didn't try to restrict our lives as much I usually do when I get lost in the romanticized world of organizing. We've made several small tweaks already that would have messed up any specific plans I might have made.
A perk of homeschooling is that I can adjust lessons and lesson plans to fit my kids' needs. However, it also requires me to be flexible and find ways to adjust to those changes too.
For example, the girls want to learn French this year. Through our Options program, I was able to check out a CD and Workbook curriculum. My oldest loves this method and is enjoying the process. My youngest gets bored just listening and following along so she doesn't pay attention. She's not learning much or enjoying it, so today, I downloaded the DuoLingo app on my phone for her to try and she loves it. Not only is it a 'screen' that she can see and touch, but it's "Mommy's Phone" -something she rarely gets to use! She is very excited about this new way to learn French.
I'm thankful to have found a free way to help her to enjoy learning and participate in French, but now I have to figure out the best way to incorporate the two different learning methods into our day...and I have to learn French both ways too because they aren't teaching the same words at the same time!
If we could get by with buying generic, processed foods, groceries would be cheap. But with my honey's low-carb diet and my son's intolerances, that just isn't doable. I read a post recently on the unlikely homeschool blog about large family menu planning and budgeting. My family isn't nearly as large, but some of the tips helped! I started by copying another mom's rotating two-week menu plan that she uses to stay cheap on food. Most of it fit our family's eating habits, but she used so much of the same foods that I know my family would revolt after a couple rotations.
After brainstorming with my honey, I adjusted it to fit our needs/wants better and made it into a rotating 4-week menu plan. This is our first week using it, and I'm so far pleased with the cost for my first week's plan. It takes a lot of the stress off my shoulders having a plan already written so I can just buy the food for the meals on our list rather than coming up with something new every week. It will also help with budgeting to see how much each week will cost us and how much we spend on "extras"...having that more streamlined and tangible will help when my hubby and I discuss our spending habits in the future. It makes me feel good to have organized another chaotic area of life!
School days are going well, I'm very thankful that the Lord led me to be less specific in my planning. I made plans for routines and goals, but I didn't try to restrict our lives as much I usually do when I get lost in the romanticized world of organizing. We've made several small tweaks already that would have messed up any specific plans I might have made.
A perk of homeschooling is that I can adjust lessons and lesson plans to fit my kids' needs. However, it also requires me to be flexible and find ways to adjust to those changes too.
For example, the girls want to learn French this year. Through our Options program, I was able to check out a CD and Workbook curriculum. My oldest loves this method and is enjoying the process. My youngest gets bored just listening and following along so she doesn't pay attention. She's not learning much or enjoying it, so today, I downloaded the DuoLingo app on my phone for her to try and she loves it. Not only is it a 'screen' that she can see and touch, but it's "Mommy's Phone" -something she rarely gets to use! She is very excited about this new way to learn French.
I'm thankful to have found a free way to help her to enjoy learning and participate in French, but now I have to figure out the best way to incorporate the two different learning methods into our day...and I have to learn French both ways too because they aren't teaching the same words at the same time!
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