I’m a proponent of learning new skills. I believe the sense of accomplishment are worth the frustration and time invested. Doing things that are difficult can, eventually, make you happier. But, I’m also starting to learn that paying someone to do hard stuff for me can make me pretty darn happy as well.

After seven years of running my own blog, I recently received an email from my web host letting me know that my site was no longer eligible for a shared server. It was “using too many resources”, an explanation that still doesn’t make sense to me, and I was to be “upgraded” to a virtual server that would cost five times my current monthly rate. I logged into my admin panel, took a look at graph bars that purported to be monitoring my resources, and promptly realized I was in over my head.
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I start my days as a mother. The drill is a familiar one to most mothers: make wake up call, encourage teeth and hair brushing, check children’s clothes for obvious stains or tears, check backpack for homework and papers that should have been signed the night before, slobber kids with hugs and kisses as they run out the door. My goal is to help my kids begin their day on the right foot, well loved and appropriately dressed. What happens next determines how prepared I’ll be for my own day.
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Successful people often talk or write about the power of their routines. They meditate in the morning or begin their day with a workout. They make time for self care and know precisely when they are most creative and productive. While I see the wisdom in these bits of advice, I can’t help but wonder when these superhumans were able to willfully craft a schedule.
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I believe that mindfulness can help us be happier people, better parents, and more productive in our careers. And yet, this post was partially written in my head while I scarfed down a bowl of cereal and scanned my to-do list. I’ve switched to another tab on my computer twice while writing this paragraph. Multi-tasking is the opposite of mindfulness, but it’s a habit I struggle to avoid when life gets extra busy.

It’s an easy trap to fall into. The busier I get - or more specifically, the more things that have to be done in the foreseeable future - the more likely I am to buy into the myth that moving quickly and doing many things at once equals efficiency. Efficiency, obviously, is the key to not falling behind, to getting it all done in the appropriate time frame. I forget that multi-tasking often means every task takes longer.
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I intended for Friday, December 14, 2012 to be all about celebrating my child becoming a teenager. Instead, it was the day that 20 first graders were killed in a small Connecticut town. In the days since, there has been a lot of talk about why this tragedy happened and how we might prevent it from happening again. This space is largely unsuited for most of those discussions. However, there has been one topic, something President Obama even mentioned during his speech in Newtown Sunday night , about which I can write: how to get help raising your kids.

We all need help.
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For me, winning as a working parent means finding the balance between paying the bills and enjoying time with my loved ones. It’s also having a relationship with my kids, my spouse, my extended family, my friends, my community and myself. That said, it often seems like the purpose of the game itself is to somehow find enough time and money to make all of that happen within one lifetime. For an average player like me, there’s simply no way to survive - let alone win - without using a few cheat codes now and then.
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I am in a constant struggle to squeeze more productivity out of my day. More accurately, I am in a constant struggle to not be angry with or disappointed in myself for not being able to do as much as I think I should. Long time readers here will not be surprised by this - or to know that I have once again decided to try and do something about it - but whenever I mention my attempts to increase productivity, I am met with a bit of push-back from trusted friends who ask, “what’s so great about productivity?”
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I confess that I’d put it off for far too long; I had a feeling the news would not be good once we went. Finally, just a few weeks after moving into our new home, I took both of my kids to the dentist. I got the news I’d been avoiding: my 12-year-old son needs braces.

Hearing the dentist say the words “orthodontist” and “as soon as possible” in the same sentence put a damper on my day. Having the receptionist request more than double what I’d budgeted for the visit (no, we don’t have dental insurance) solidified my bad mood and sent me into a momentary panic.
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I like to think of myself as a bit of an adventurer. I roam the country with no permanent address, working here, there and everywhere to provide my family with organic food and changing vistas. We fancy ourselves minimalists. It all sounds very romantic to me - right up until the point that I have to convince another adult that I’m a dependable grown up.

Last week I had the arduous job of finding my family a home to rent in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. More specifically, it was my responsibility to talk a landlord into letting me pay them to live in their property.
It turned out to be a lot more difficult than I had anticipated.
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It’s not uncommon to blame children for a couple’s inability to have nice things. My husband and I, however, have no one but ourselves to blame.

A year ago, my husband and I sold just about everything we owned - including our beautiful home and my beloved shoe collection - so that we could move into an RV and travel for a year with our kids. That year of travel has come to an end and we now have room to put stuff again, but we’re not running out to replace all of our stuff. Why? Because we don’t want to go back to real jobs.

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