One of the things I’ve learned this year is to take time for myself each day. Whether it be to make art or to exercise or to just sit quietly and journal. It doesn’t much matter which activity I chose, what matters is that I am choosing to respect myself enough to show myself that I deserve some of my time, too.
As a mom, it’s often hard to choose yourself over the others in your life. As a working mom, I pretty much have a full plate of people to answer to all day long. My sweet husband, my precious children, my kind boss, and my amazingly talented workmates. All of these people are in my life every single day (ok so the work people tend to be more so on the weekdays, but still…) And they are all truly people that I like having in my life. People I chose. People I admire, love, and cherish.
But they are all demanding in their own way. Some out of need, others out of their love for me, and some for our combined goals. And I want to give my time to all of them. Not to mention friends, other family and loved ones, etc. When it comes to these people, I think we often feel an obligation to put them first. We often feel like we can give them all of our “good” energy and then we can make do with what’s left.
The thing is: there isn’t much left on most days.
You come to the end of the day and the work is over (at least for that day), the kids are in bed, and your husband is sitting next to you quietly working. Now is the perfect time to sit and work on your personal projects. Everyone’s taken care of and quietly content. Now you can focus on you.
Except you’re spent. You’re so tired that you cannot focus on anything and even the idea of putting clothes on to exercise is enough to make you shudder. You can’t even be convinced to do something you love like scrapping or doing art. You simply feel exhausted so you veg out in front of the TV or internet and crawl into bed when you’re tired enough.
And there goes “your” time.
You tell yourself, tomorrow will be different.
But it isn’t.
You work yourself to the bone every day. That’s what we do. We give to the people we love. We give to the people we feel obligated to give to. We put ourselves last because it seems like we can do that “later.” But I say it’s time to change that. I am not talking about a drastic “everyone can go to you-know-where” kind of change. I am talking about two 15-minute slots in your day. I’m saying for 15 minutes tomorrow morning you do something for yourself.
Maybe you take a walk or you make a sketch or you go out and take some pictures. Journal. Start a layout. Whatever your heart desires. Just for fifteen minutes. But it has to be early in the day. Way before you’re tired. Don’t worry about the todo lists or all the other people waiting. 15 minutes is not a long time for them. They love you.They trust you. They will wait.
And after those 15 minutes you will feel so good. You will feel like you took a little bit of time to take care of yourself. Luxurious time. Time you don’t usually allow yourself to take. And this will make you so much kinder and more generous towards those other people who love you and depend on you.
You deserve to take a little bit of time each day to treat yourself like a star. Give yourself some of that love and care you give to others, to the house, to your family. I feel like taking care of myself is a gift I give to my kids, too. They see that I value myself and spending time doing things I love. It shows them it’s ok to take the time to do something that gives you joy. It’s ok to take time to take care of your health. It’s ok to put yourself first a little bit each day. It makes me more joyful. And when I am happy, they are happy, too.
Because they love me.
So my wish for you is that tomorrow you take 15 minutes for yourself, give yourself some of that star treatment, and focus it on whatever it is you love to do.
After a hectic Saturday, Sunday was quieter and had a lot more words:
David lost his second tooth in one week.
and Nathaniel spent a lot of time working on his poster for school:
the page in the book was just a page protector, so I made two digital pages and added a little sticker for the date.
And that’s it for day eleven.
This is the one of the layouts I made for My Mind’s Eye for November. My word for the month was family.
And the journaling says:
Each time I wonder if choosing to work at home and prioritizing that was a good choice, all I have to do is look at a picture of the three of you to remember that you are the greatest joy I’ve ever experienced and no job can ever take the place of the happiness you bring into my life. It’s tough to balance it all sometimes but you make it all worthwhile. I am so grateful for you.
Details:
And here we are for days nine and ten. Sorry for the delay.
Friday was mostly picture-less. I found a photo of the movie we went to see, added the tickets and a set of photo booth photos we took when there and that was page nine.
The next day had a lot of photos and pages. Short on words this time but that’s ok. I started with my favorite photo of the three boys and our trip’s name:
the next page was a photo so I just added some words.
here’s the spread to another view, this also has the right side page with tickets from the event, a photo of Nathaniel and a picture I took of the lunar eclipse that morning at 6am:
the back has more photos from the train.
and then I added my favorite photo of Nathaniel looking out the window:
and on the back my favorite of David looking out the window:
The next page was another photo so I added some more words.
and finally another photo I took this weekend that I just love love loved. A few words for this one and my Friday and Saturday pages were done. Still working on Sunday.
And that’s it for days nine an ten.
David says:
I gave this story five stars because I thought it was great that Nick got so wealthy off of his word.
I liked the part where Nick and his friends made a pact to use the word frindle every time. It was also funny that the whole school started using it even though it meant they had to stay after school. I liked the news reporter too and it was cool that she talked to Nick and published the story of the word. It was bad that the principal got involved but great that Nick’s parents were so supportive of him. I like that Nick kept acting on his good ideas and it meant the lunch in his school got so much better for everyone.
My favorite part of the book is when Nick got to see his word in the dictionary (and his name was on there too!!) It was nice that Mrs. Granger was actually rooting for Nick this whole time.
Reading a book a week with my six-year-old son David is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
jake
As the holidays approach, things are quieting down for all of us, including Jake. Though he’s been working, trading and having meetings all week, he’s still working a lot and systematically. I love watching him work and seeing how into it he is. It’s a gift to get to be with someone who loves what they do as much as Jake does. And what a great example for our kids.
karen
This week was slightly more hectic than I would have liked but it was still calmer than usual. On Friday, I went to volunteer in David’s math class and that was really fun but for some reason my day got out of sync and then I haven’t been able to catch up since. I’ve been feeling very tired. More like exhausted. This next week promises to be a challenging one at work so it won’t come with downtime but the week after should be better hopefully and I plan to get a lot of rest during the holidays.
david
David’s been having a good time at school. Making new friends even now. Preparing for the Winter Event at his school with all the other first graders, and writing stories to share with us. He’s also reading so much and I love watching him read. I love that he’s interested in reading and loves reading the same book again and again. When I was his age, my favorite thing in the world was to read so I am hoping he will embrace the gift of reading, too.
nathaniel
Nathaniel’s week was relatively uneventful. He’s now learning letters as well and loves saying them out loud. He also loves all the Christmas lights everywhere. Tonight we went to ride a Christmas train and on the way there he said, “Choo choo train, Nei Nei happy.” It made us all feel so good. So wonderful to see his joy.
Here are some of my favorite captured moments from this very week. I apologize in advance as there are several repeats between these and my december daily posts of course:
nathaniel shooting david:
and then me:
nathaniel down!
david down!
both up and shooting each other:
and finally quietly reading to appease mommy.
Nathaniel looking through catalogs and telling me what he wants while I work.
David. I love him so so much.
Nathaniel playing again while I work:
He loves this truck:
Can’t you almost hear him making truck sounds?
he went to the fire station this week and loves this hat.
showing off his drawing:
Thursday night we drove around the neighborhood to see all the lights:
My boys!!
I told you he loves the hat!
I woke up at 5 am this morning because I wanted to see the lunar eclipse. Even though I couldn’t get a good photo, it was absolutely magical to watch.
then we took family photos.
And night time was a holiday train:
Nathaniel was so looking forward to it, kept saying choo choo all day and even said “happy” on the way there. He felt so happy. And so did David!
He looked out the window a lot.
The sun was just setting.
and David looked out too, enjoying himself and the chocolate chip cookies!
And here’s our train car:
And those are some of the moments from our week. Grateful and full!
Us Right Now is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
And here we are for day eight.
The next page was just a small baseball card holder page. So I just slipped some photos from the day and a little felt star. Kept it super simple. This page has the presents my neighbor left on our doorstep and the drawing Nathaniel’s showing off:
and the back has David smiling and a photo I took of one of the houses in our neighborhood:
And that’s it for day eight. Still keeping it simple.
This week was uneventful it seems. I gained a tiny bit of weight but I am not going to worry about it because it’s too insignificant to matter. To be honest, I am not eating well. Having one cup of latte every day and eating way more chocolate than someone should. And peanuts. And then not much else. Overall, a very unbalanced, terrible diet. I keep wanting to change it but feeling like I lack the strength, energy, or time. Which is, of course, total crap. Alas, here we are.
The exercise is going ok. I am running 2.2 miles every day. It’s hard, I am tired and feel like I can’t do it every day. But still I get up and actually do it every single day. I will admit that I still don’t look forward to it and I am still bummed I have to do and I am frustrated at having to wake up at 5:30am to do it. And it’s still hard. And tiring and definitely not the “rush” people claim it to be. Despite all that, I still keep going. Because I can tell it works. And I am not stopping it. Not ever.
The dress above is my most recent purchase. I haven’t bought anything in months so I was ok spending a little more than usual on it. And I was so so grateful to see how truly wonderful it felt to wear it.
and here’s this week’s card:
Healthy for Life is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
Welcome to the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop!
I wanted to welcome all visitors from May Flaum’s blog. If you’ve made it this far, you’re awesome because I know I’m the last stop on the hop!! Since I am last, I assume you’ve already read all about the class so I will go right to my story:
For my little tidbit, I want to share with you the story of our Christmas tree. I grew up in Istanbul, Turkey where most of the population is Muslim (however I am Jewish.) All my childhood, we had Christmas trees and so did every other household. In Turkey, we call them New Year’s trees and we decorate them and put presents under them just like they do in the United States. The only difference is that we open our presents on New Year’s Day and not Christmas. I’ve always loved the trees. So much so that when I moved to the United States for college, on my first winter break back home, my parents set up the tree in advance just to surprise me.
My first holiday season in the States, I was told by several other Jewish friends that because I was Jewish, I wasn’t allowed to have a Christmas tree. Jews didn’t celebrate Christmas after all. This made me incredibly sad. I was not willing to give up my beloved tree just because traditions are different in this country.
So as the years passed and I graduated college and got married and had a family of my own, I contemplated this “tree problem.” I finally decided since my kids were already going to be a mix of Turkish and American and Jewish and Christian (my husband is American and only half Jewish), we could create our own versions of any holiday we wanted. This is how we came to have what we call our “Jewish Christmas Tree”:
It’s pretty simple: basically all the ornaments and lights on our tree are blue or white. But, to me, it’s special. It’s my way of remembering my childhood and nationality (the tree) and integrating my religion into it and making a mixture of all of who I am and who my husband is and creating the perfect combination. (Which is what my kids are – a perfect combination of the two of us!)
Making it work for us.
That’s what the holidays are all about for me. Do you have any of your “combination” holiday traditions?
If the holidays are as special to you as they are to me, I hope you’ll join me and the 11 other amazing teachers in celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas!
You can sign up either by clicking the link above or by clicking here. I very much look forward to seeing you in class.
And just in case you came here out of order, here are the others on today’s hop:
1. Nic Howard
2. Georgana Hall
3. Stacy Julian
4. Tami Morrison
5. Wendy Smedley
6. Lisa Day
7. Kelly Purkey
8. Elizabeth Dillow
9. May Flaum
10. Karen Grunberg – you’re here!
Last year, David and I read a book a week. This year, we plan to continue reading but in a different style (more on this later this month) and I decided I wanted to add another project for some David and Mommy time.
One of the things David loves to do is go through my scrapbooks and look at his past memories. He loves reliving the moments, remembering the good things and feeling the happiness all over again.
So we bought a Moleskine Sketchbook for him and started collecting some of the items that have good memories associated with them.
So his project is similar to The Savor Project I’m doing with a few differences:
- He’s not tied to a calendar timeframe. If he finds something from two years ago that makes him happy, he gets to put it in his book. The pages are not in any time-order. Just a collection of things that make him happy.
- We don’t prep pages ahead of time and mostly use the sketchbook page as a background.
- He can put several unrelated memories per page if he likes.
- The only thing he has to do on every page is write a few words on why that item/photo is special to him.
We plan to use this book to save special items he brings home from school as well as milestones in his life, photos I take that he loves, etc.
We haven’t decorated the cover yet so there’s nothing to see there but here are a few pages we’ve already done just to give you an idea of what we’re doing:
This is the first page. On the left side is his name, a pocket that holds a fortuneteller a friend gave him at school and a few words on why he likes it. On the right side is a ribbon from the local swim school of when he leveled up from one to two. (He is on level 3 now but we couldn’t find that ribbon. More reason to do this project!)
And here’s the next page. On the left is a photo of a card he made for Jake’s birthday two years ago and a photo of Jake, David, and Jake’s mom opening presents on Jake’s birthday. Below that is a pocket that holds a lego card he likes and a few words on why he likes it. On the right side is a photo I took during the Polar Express train ride we took last year. Since the photo was really large, we put it sideways and created a pocket on the right side which is where he put the card that has his words on it.
And there you go.
We use a lot of the scraps I have accumulated and anything that makes him happy. As you can see, the pages are simple and putting two together takes us about an hour or so each week.
Our goal is to do 1-2 spreads a week and fill the book up throughout the year. I will be posting photos from his page every other week. (I have a project with Nathaniel this year, too, and he will get the alternate weeks.)
And here we are for day seven.
Today was two small stories.
The first was about a photo I saw in the Anthropologie catalog that made me instantly want to go to the store and buy the dress. Since I hate shopping and never ever feel such an instinct, I listened to it. And since the store here had it in stock, I took it as a sign. And then the XS fit me perfectly and I was just suddenly proud of all the hard work I’ve done in the last year. I felt deeply grateful. I had spent all day chasing after a lost package so this was just the perfect way to end my crappy day.
The second page is about how Nathaniel visited the fire station yesterday. He went with his class so I didn’t have any photos but when we got home he put on the gift form the fire station and we took some photos. A little journaling and we were done.
And that’s it for day seven. I love the variety of stories in one little book.
So here’s the next set of Fabriano pages:
The full text reads: We may not all be beautiful, smart, or talented, but we can all be kind.
this page uses acrylics and the quote comes from a movie trailer I watched. It moved me deeply and made me think for a long time. Here it is.
And here’s the next page:
The full text reads: The best medicine for a rough day is laughter.
I used acrylics and pan pastels on this page.
And here’s the next page:
The full text reads: Embrace imperfection. it’s a sign that you’re not afraid to try new things.
I used pan pastels and acrylics on this one.
And here’s the next page:
The full text reads: It is ok to be afraid, but do it anyway. Yes, you can.
I’ve been wanting to use this stencil for a while, too and wanted to make it look like the person was praying.
Well here we go. That’s the four for this week. More coming next week.
I am creating multiple art journaling pages a week for now. You can read more about it and the book I am using for these pages at the top of this blog post.
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projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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