Progress. . .

After my last post, I cleaned and thought over my dilemma.  Then I talked to my husband.  He had some sound advice.  It was really novel, actually.  He said. . . work during work hours, say 8 - 4 (while the kids are at school), then DON'T work after 4pm.  Be "home" after 4 and do "home" things.  

GENIUS!  

As simple as that sounds, I have been letting my business take over my life.  I have worked and worked and stopped to make dinner and gone back to working to finish something up that I had started.  Something I might have finished during the day had I not gotten distracted and stopped to clean the kitchen or do some laundry.  

That's the hard part of working but still being home.  My to-do list gets all mixed together and when I wake up I think of ALL the things I have to do in a day--work, house, kids, whatever else--and I get overwhelmed.  Then I spend the day with my head ready to explode while I flit from one "to-do" item to the next and back.  Often I get so indecisive about what to do I don't get much of anything done--OR I get little portions of lots of things done, but have nothing to show for my time.

It's discouraging, to say the least.

But magical things happen when you spend your work day working and ignoring your house, then spend your home time ignoring your work--yesterday that involved three almost done sewing projects that I would have gone back to work on after dinner--and doing "home" things. But instead, I told myself, "Jenni, you left work.  Those things will wait for tomorrow" (well, Thursday actually, because we don't work every other Wednesday).  And it worked! My mind quit stressing about the work to-do list and shifted to the home to-do list.  So I spent the evening doing "home" things. . .

Like cleaning my kitchen.

And helping my girls do their homework and practice piano. . .

And making a batch of homemade bread.  

For months Rob has been making us homemade bread.  But this week he didn't have time, so he said "Why don't you make it?" Strange, huh?  I cook and bake a lot, but bread making has been his thing, so I never make it.  But why wait around for someone else to do something you can do yourself.

Especially when the outcome tastes so good!

I think this system is working for me.  Plus it means I may not have to cut out much.  Apparently, when you organize and compartmentalize your life more stuff gets done.  Sort of like packing.  

Who knew?!

Either that, or having a clean kitchen and a belly full of warm, buttered, fresh-from-the-oven, homemade bread just makes it seem as though all is right in the world.