Letting Go Of Balance

(Craft Street Design)

If you remember back in my pregnancy announcement, I mentioned that after the twins are born am I planning on quitting my part time job. It's a decision that I made quickly but it definitely was not made lightly. It is a pretty big deal to me.  I love working. I really truly do. I love getting to put into practice the stuff that I learned in school. I love problem solving. I love the intricacies of small businesses. I enjoy spending non-work time learning about work related topics. I listen to podcasts about leadership. I read articles about market trends. I love doing what I do. Even with all that, I knew that I couldn't continue working with three small children.
One thing that I know about myself is that I am not satisfied unless I am giving 110% to something. The problem with this type of personality is it is impossible to really and truly give all of your energy to everything. It makes prioritizing things hard. I should be able to everything and do it all well, right? Wrong. Something has to give. In the case, it is my job.
I really don't believe in work-life balance. The whole concept of trying to "balance" all the different items in our lives immediately sets us up for failure. The reality is, some things are more important or vital and therefore should receive more of our time and attention. I had a professor in school talk about shifting the discussion away from work-life balance to work-life blend. The idea being, those important or vital things are going to require more time and energy and they should be given the time and energy they need. We don't need to assume that all activities should be treated equally or given the same amount of consideration. This type of thinking was so liberating for me. It helps me limit my focus and prioritize what is important. In this case and this time in my life, the most important things is taking care of my family. If I decided to continue working, it would be to the detriment of my children. This is not a statement against working moms. I have the highest respect and admiration for women in the workforce. I just know myself really well and I know that if I continued to work after the twins were born, I would put myself in a position where I could not care for them correctly. Since, it is about blending my time and my energy, I am not going to fret about balancing out my efforts. While they are small and require so much, I really want to be able to give them the majority of my time and energy.
I like to think of it as a pie chart. Can you tell I am business nerd? The amount of time in the chart is finite because let's face it, I have to sleep. Taking care of the three little ones is going to take up a lot more time than anything else. So if I taking care of my family and everything that it entails is my main priority, that is going to severely limit the amount of time I have to spend on other things. I have to be conscientious to not add more things that I can reasonably handle. That automatically means that some things are not going to make the cut. It forces to prioritize and really come to grips with the fact that I can't do it all. I am looking forward to what this new season will teach me. Plus, it's just that, a season. This is not forever. Seasons change. I am going to make the most of this one and learn as much as I can.

Keep Calm

I'm not going to lie, this week was rough. I had a two day migraine. Work is busy. Life is busy and if I see one more political post on Facebook, I may lose my faith in humanity. I want to blow this print up as big as the wall and plaster it across my bedroom. In a day and age where it is really easy to voice an opinion, staying calm and silent is a lot harder. I've tried to be really calm and measured during this election cycle, but today I seem to be failing at it. I honestly really don't care that much about the election or the drama around it. It just makes me sad to see so many people whipped up into a frenzy. I told a friend the other day that I wish we could take a do-over. Let's just skip this election cycle. We won't pick a president and then we will all reconvene in four years. I think a lot of people just need a chance to sleep off all of their emotions. In college, I used to say that if it was past 11 o'clock at night, I didn't need to be discussing anything important or philosophical because I was too tired to be rational. It's past 11 o'clock, America. Go to bed.

Nursery Inspiration

(1/ 2/ 3)

Being pregnant has allowed me to indulge myself a little more on Pinterest. I love looking at nursery inspiration even if my final product doesn't look the same way. I really didn't decorate the last nursery. I started late and ran out of steam before he arrived and it just fell really low on the to do list. I am hoping to do a little more this time. I love decorating and finding items that represent our family. I like baby rooms that don’t feel overly baby-like. I like the idea of the decor aging well with the child.

These three layouts are all from Lay Lay Baby. She creates the most amazing style boards. I love how eclectic and put together each one is. We don’t know the gender of the twins yet, but for some reason everyone keeps saying that they will be boy/girl. I kind of played off that with these three layouts. I used some of the design themes that we already want to incorporate in our house to guide the selection process. Our home has traditional architecture so I wanted to stay away from overly modern styles.  Plus, I am huge sucker for plaid so that one was definitely going to make the cut. While the style boards are much more masculine than many people would choose for a girl's room, I think with a little tweaking, each one could be adjusted to make it more feminine. I guess that I means I get to do more inspiration browsing. Oh, darn.

Saying Goodbye, Again

(from a fellow Witt chick's blog)

Today was a sad week for me. Another one of my childhood homes is no more. It's still standing there but it is no longer open. This was Wittlingen, my dorm during high school. I've mentioned it before but I had a rather untraditional high school experience. I attended Black Forest Academy, a Christian boarding school in Germany. This building was my home during those four years. It was the best. It was a very old building. I think the oldest parts dated back to the 1800s, maybe even farther back. It was a tangled maze from all of the additions. We had special names for all of the different sections. There was the West Wing, The Tower, The Closet which later was Davy Jones' Locker. There was the senior floor the South Tower and the main floor of the building which somehow escaped a unique descriptor. It was originally a guesthouse but became a dorm for the school in 1992. Some of the best memories of my life happened in that building. It was my home.
The building, sadly, was getting too old and run down to pass health inspection. Even when I lived there, we were always concerned that it would shut down. I am really thankful that is was only just now closed. I don't think I could have handled it if it happened even just a couple of years ago. It was always comforting to know that I could go back and visit it. Seeing the Facebook statuses and pictures of the cleaning out process brought back a ton of emotions. It was like saying goodbye all over again. I am so thankful that I have so many happy memories of Wittlingen. It may no longer house students but it will always be my dorm in my heart.

Two Surprises

This is turning in a season of change for a our little family. We found out that we are expecting twins! Needless to say, we are shocked and excited but mostly excited. This whole pregnancy was a big surprise but throwing multiples into the mix has made it extra crazy.
I am so thankful that I am past the first trimester. I can get pretty nauseated and drained during those first thirteen weeks. Around week 10 I start wondering if the nausea will ever end or if my motivation will ever come back. Pretty dramatic, I know, but I blame it on the hormones. Thankfully, it doesn't fail that around week fourteen the symptoms start to subside. I am so happy to be able to eat well again even if it means I am eating non-stop every waking hour. Being ravenously hungry is much better than being hungry but wanting to throw up at the same time.
The biggest change on the horizon, other than the expansion of our family, is that I will quitting my part time job. This is a pretty big deal for me and definitely will be the subject of a later post. As some one who loves working and loves learning, this is was a big decision but it wasn't hard to make. I know that my most ambitious self could not pull off working part time and taking care of 3 under 2 (yes, our other baby won't even be two years old when they are born. Pray for me.) I think it was God's way of taking the decision out of my hands. I am very at peace with it, but like I said, I will get further into the discussion at a later date. Right now, I am just enjoying the process and spending too much time on Pinterest looking at nursery inspiration.

Have a great weekend!

Hooray!

(Waiting On Martha)

This was one of the longest weeks ever. Monday felt long. Tuesday seemed to drag. Thursday felt like it would never end. To say, I am happy that it is Friday is the understatement of the year. I am hoping to go into the weekend with a renewed sense of productivity. Sometimes knocking out a few little things on Saturday and Sunday motivate me to get stuff during the week. A little jolt of hard work may be just what I need to hit the ground running on Monday.

So to round off this sluggish week, I thought I would leave you with a quick list of a few things that are brightening my days even when I feel like a sloth.

1. This made me feel pretty special.

2. Rebecca is super cool and this article might have alleviated some of my hesitation about doing something more dramatic with my hair.

3. The new J.Crew catalog. It's always gorgeous plus, this month they were in Amsterdam!

4. I nearly died laughing listening to Chris Loves Julia this week. Julia was talking about her childhood love affair with cleaning is radio/podcast gold.

Have a great weekend!

Room Makeovers

I like to take a slow approach to decorating. You could almost describe it as a glacial pace. Like, we've lived in this house for 5 years and I am just now getting around to painting. Earlier in August, Scott and I ripped up the carpet in the guest room and old office and it replaced with cork floors. This week, my in-laws and I painted the rooms a lovely shade of white. The white may not be everyone's cup of tea but I am excited. These rooms look so much better. Before, there were drab and dingy and now they are light and airy.
Even though it has taken me forever to get around to redoing these rooms, I am really ok with that. I don't think I would have done as good of a job if I had tried to do it all at once as soon as I moved in. I didn't really know what I liked or how these rooms would be used. I firmly believe that when it comes to decorating you should only buy what you love. That may make the process slower but I think the end result will be much better. As you can see in the above photos, our guest room is still pretty bare. I have visions of some new artwork and maybe a cool, funky mirror. I'll get to it one day. For now, you can find staring at the walls admiring the paint job.