I feel like I've been pretty careful in the last few years to not take on too much at any given time. But this fall I got a little carried away. I took a graduate class toward my administrator's license and I signed on to two heavy-duty committees in my school district. These duties on top of my already busy full-time job and roles of wife and mother. Add to this, the Wise and Bearded One's new job in an architecture firm--a new job in which he has increased responsibilities and has been averaging fifty-plus hour weeks.
And it was all too much. Some of my favorite parts of life fell by the wayside. I did almost no reading for pleasure, almost no crafting, and (obviously) no blogging.
I struggle with being an ambitious career woman while valuing a creative life, a nurturing home, and spiritual/emotional balance. I've searched for blogs by women who work fulltime outside the home and are involved mothers. I haven't found one yet. They probably just don't have the time to blog. If you find one, let me know.
I take comfort from conversations with many of my female friends who are in the same place I am---trying to find balance and figuring out when to say "no" and when to say "yes". I also really appreciated the Atlantic article by Anne-Marie Slaughter that made the rounds of the internet this summer. If you haven't read Why Women Still Can't Have It All, I recommend it.
What's Really Important:
Things that Happened This Fall that Did Not Get Blogged About:
--Our housemates moved out. We love them and are happy they can finally get their own space and we are glad to stretch out across our whole house again.
--The Sprout got her own room--we repainted and are in the process of making one of the upstairs bedrooms her special place.
--The Wise and Bearded One renovated half of our basement into a work/studio space and play space. It's almost done. Happy Dance! I can't wait to have a space to sew that is somewhere other than the dining room table!
--We now have a guest room/office too. So, out-of-town friends, come and visit!
--I read several thousand pages about using data for educational decision making, common core curriculum, formative and summative assessment, and evaluation systems for teachers and administrators. I am not any smarter than when I started.
--We watched four seasons of Sons of Anarchy in quick succession in the evenings after the Sprout went to bed.
What Will Be Different Next Semester:
--The Wise and Bearded One and I have a deal: Only one of us is allowed to be stressed at a time. Since his job promises to continue to be extremely busy for the next few months, I will scale back my extra duties
.
--Hopefully, that means I will have time to read, to create, to blog. But I'm not promising anything since I have definitively proven that I am not Superwoman.
Deb
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