Self Care

One of the bloggers I follow, Laura Kelly Fanucci of Mothering Spirit, shared a picture of an ice cream cone on her Instagram page (thismessygrace). Ice cream was dinner that evening for their family. She started out by saying, “Our family has been in survival mode for so long that I barely remember how to thrive.” That sentence hit the nail on the head for me with how our own family had been surviving for the last few years. Buying a home seemed to open a floodgate of surprises that kept us on our toes for a couple years. It seemed that buying this house had started something that doomed us to be in debt for what felt like forever! 

So Matt took an extra job when Savannah was a couple months old. Life felt topsy-turvy, and simple but necessary things that let me feel like I have control started to go by the wayside: yard work was rarely done with Matt working weekends; housework was at a bare minimum, which drove me bonkers; finding time to take care of myself was non-existent; and I felt that a normal sense of life might not come back for many years. 

Thankfully Matt has been able to quit his weekend job! We are about to enter our third weekend of togetherness during the weekend and even though it’s filled with Honey-Do items and long-neglected house projects, I’m thrilled that we can gain some sense of normalcy back!

I’ve been watching my friend Catherine write on her blog, The Life I Need, about her “Year of Me” the last few months and have been inspired…and like the true melancholic that I am, even though I’m inspired and really excited about taking care of myself, I still find excuses for not starting or making up lists for why it just wouldn’t work. So I'm going to work on those doubting thoughts and implement some self care. This will help me feel like I can thrive again and help our family thrive!
I made a list of what it would take for me to take care of myself in order to take better care of our marriage and daughters. The start of the school year might just be a good time to start a sort of New Year’s Resolutions, and I might actually stick with this one.

Here are my goals and what it will take to make them regular habits:

• Go to bed by 10:30pm on school nights
• It will take getting laundry started right away after I get home from work instead of waiting until the kids are all in bed. 
• Take my multivitamin daily
• Make time each morning to read the daily readings and mentally prepare for the day through prayer
• Get moving – incorporate some excursive into my daily routine
• Now that our almost-two-year old is sleeping through the night (Hallelujah!) when I start getting to bed at a decent time I should be able to drag myself out of bed in the morning earlier, right? Right? Well, I am going to shoot for this so I can start my day out with the daily readings and prayer and hop on the bike to get me moving.
• Play my piano at least twice a week
• I’ll choose two nights a week where I sit down to flex my piano muscles after the girls are in bed.
• Read for fun
• Eat more conscientiously
• This is going to take better prep work on my part for family meal planning and my work lunch planning 
• Primp regularly
• I will take time to do something as simple as putting lotion on after I shower. This might sound silly, but it’s something simple that helps me feel like I’m taking care of myself. I’m physically taking the time to stop and not rush into the next part of getting ready for work in the morning.
• I might even chop off my hair, which will mean I will be forced to take more "me" time in the morning.
• Meet a friend for a much needed chat
• I’ll reach out to my new and old friends and commit to getting together, even if for a short visit. Close friendship will help feed that part of me that wants to have kindred spirits in my life.  
• End the day with a daily examen
• Instead of scrolling through my Instagram feed to see the latest and cutest pics that all my friends are sharing, and instead of mindlessly looking at Facebook yet again, I will pick up one of my million books that are waiting for me and read each night. 
• Then after I’m done reading I will do a daily examen. What’s that you say? It’s a way to prayerfully reflect on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us. With an examen, we can see God’s hand at work in our whole experience. 

St. Ignatius practiced a five-step daily exam: 

1. Become aware of God’s presence.
2. Review the day with gratitude.
3. Pay attention to your emotions.
4. Choose one feature from the day and pray from it.
5. Look toward tomorrow.

What do you regularly do to take care of yourself, or do you need to start? Will you pray for me? Rest assured that I'm praying for you!