One Day at a Time

I've been thinking about how it is I'm managing to juggle everything in my life right now. All my goals at home and at work, doing the whole Airbnb hosting thing, being in two shows (and JUST added a third-I'll be playing Fiona in Shrek the Musical in August), and keeping my little family happy, healthy, and sane. Well, sanity is actually thrown out the window. We're a little crazy and that's ok. So, I'm feeling pretty good about things in general and while I'm behind on my reading goal this year...the other things are in place. How am I managing it? One day at a freaking time.

I wish I could say that I'm so super organized that Tuesdays are countertop/ surfaces days and Wednesdays I do floors, and Thursdays I do shopping errands. I'm not super organized but I have found myself doing some things on the regular that have helped me:

I dedicate time every day to just play with Patch. No distractions. Just toys/games/ a book/ exploring outside together. When I've gotten in that concentrated play time, I feel more at ease to pursue other tasks.

I do my makeup in the car most days and I've started timing myself. Not while I'm driving people. I just do it real quick in the parking lot or maybe at some red lights. I don't allow myself to take any longer than 10 minutes.

I take my phone in the shower with me to check in on our finances and bills while my shower warms up/ while I wake up. Patrick has come to accept the time I'm away from him in the shower and I try to not be on the phone in front of him so, these 3-5 minutes allow me to send off a quick bill or two/ check into my bank account.

I shop for groceries once a week. I'm toying around with using the Walmart app to have my groceries picked up for me so that I can just drive by and get on my way. Patrick does seem to enjoy sitting in the cart and people watching though. He especially loves Costco because we often get extra samples. Since we shop at about the same time every Friday, some of the sample ladies are starting to recognize him.

If I use the restroom at work, I look up recipes for dinner on my phone and don't allow myself to piddle around on Facebook. This forces me to spend some time planning for meals and thinking about what groceries to buy later in the week/ what foods to make with what we have on hand.

I get out in the garden with Patch at least 3 times a week to pull weeds. We're trying to stay on top of that as much as possible.

I put EVERYTHING in my calendar on my iPhone as soon as the appointment is set. I look at my calendar twice a day to make sure I'm not forgetting things. While I'm not perfect at this either, I'm improving and doing a much better job of not over scheduling myself.

I never leave a room empty handed. This is critical to keeping the house picked up for our Airbnb guests. Patrick has even started to learn about cleaning up messes. We've got a long way to go with him. hehe.

The fact of the matter is that I also got me an awesome husband. He works so hard to help balance our life and is the perfect man for the job. He's an amazing and involved dad. He's super handy around the house. He is an excellent chef. He's always engaging me in current events and conversations about politics. He's just absolutely wonderful.

I guess these are my tricks/ tips. We're making it happen and this is the life I've always imagined. It's every bit as crazy and fun as I'd hoped it would be.

Lately

If this were a travel blog I would talk about our trip to Miami.
If this were a beauty blog I would talk about how for the last two months I've done my makeup in the car Monday-Thursday.
If this were a gardening blog I would tell you about how I've enlisted the help of my parents and Scott's parents to weed the garden and finally get some starts planted.
If this were a family finance blog I would announce that we've reached a huge savings milestone and now have over 3 months of funds sitting in an account ready for a rainy day.
If I even knew what "kind" of blog this is, that would be cool.

Sometimes I post long lists of "we did this and then we did this and then we did this" which is a way for me to quickly document what my family is up to. Sometimes I write about something specific from one day or one afternoon.

Tonight I put Patch to sleep and then I got to tidying the house. We have another Airbnb guest coming in tomorrow and that is always motivation to keep the house clean. It's amazing how quickly we destroy cleanliness. I was busy with cleaning and dishes etc for about an hour before sneaking into Patrick's room to put some things away. Usually I just leave things at the top of the stairs but tonight, I walked in. He was resting along the front side of his crib; sleeping on his side. He's started to insist on having fuzzy blankets with him in bed. When I put him down, he pulls the corners of the blanket under his chest and usually breathes a deep sigh as he sinks into sleep. He's a sweet little thing.

Work is going well for me. I've got to stay focused so that I can hit my goal this quarter. I'm dangerously close and there is a chance that it will slip between my fingers. Eye. On. The. Prize. Say some prayers. Burn some sage. Hug a tree. Whatever it is you do, do that for me will ya?

Scott and I are both in rehearsals for more shows right now. He's playing Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid this summer. I'm doing a benefit show in Montana and I'll be playing Jane in Tarzan. It's a busy busy time but so far, things have worked out perfectly. I've only had to bring Patch to one rehearsal. We've had a surprising amount of time to be together in the evenings and on the weekends. So much so that our yard looks half way decent this year. We will be laying more sod though and arranging it so that maintenance is even easier :D

In March, we started welcoming guests into our home from Airbnb. My cousin was living with us temporarily and we got Patrick sleep trained in that time so we figured, having someone stay in the basement wasn't bad at all and now Patrick won't wake them, lets try it. We'd toyed around with the idea of Airbnb for a while and just never pulled the trigger but after having a little extra rent come through from my cousin living with us, we liked the idea!!! I believe that humanity is generally good and decided to give "strangers" a chance to prove me right (and try to make some extra money). We started off pretty slow. We had a guest who was in town for ComicCon with her mom and she gave us free passes for the event (SCORE). We got a few more requests and a few more reviews and now, we're booked pretty solidly through September.  It has been AWESOME. One girl stayed with us for 5 days and we even went country dancing one night. I'd HIGHLY recommend it. Unless of course you live down the street from me and will compete for my business. :)