I asked Carrie Norder to tell me about her WAHM life so we can share what it means to live your love but still feel a little crazy sometimes. Carrie gave me a wonderful daily diary depicting a family that works hard and sticks together.
Thank you Carrie for sharing with us.
Are you crazy?
This is a comment I hear all of the time! My answer is usually, “Well, yes some days I feel like I am! But God has blessed me with incredible patience!” I have four children (ages 3 to 9), run an in-home daycare and I am a director with Thirty One Gifts. Yes my house hold and life are incredibly crazy, but seriously I would not trade it for anything! I have learned how to manage things, and I am pretty strict on calendars and time management. I am not saying I have it all together! There are some days where I do not even get out of my yoga pants and supper is late!
As I sit here and work on this post, I am dealing with a husband who had to make a delivery 4 1/2 hours away. He took two of our kids, because the other two woke up this morning sick.
I have learned to work between and around things! This is abnormal, but normal all at the same time. I usually have some sort of craziness going on. I am really good during a normal weekday at working certain times. I do not hire a babysitter, unless I am doing a party. My husband works incredibly odd hours so we do rely on our amazing sitters for my parties and meetings. But during the day with normal office work, I rely on a schedule. I do a lot of work in the hours before my kids are awake. I make sure to wake up at least 1 to 2 hours before my children do. This is the time I answer emails, check my Stylish Organizing Facebook Page and look for any important updates from our company. I make/answer calls throughout the day, but I do have set office hours for my team members to call. During naptime is when I enter party order, get trainings set up and do any paper work I may have.
Home and Mobile Work Space
I have a specific area in my house where I store my work stuff. But I end up working where ever I am needed. Today for instance, I am writing this sitting on my living room floor so I can run to one of the sickies if needed. I have a mobile office in my truck so I am never shorthanded if someone asks for a catalog.
Strict Schedule
I have implemented 2 things I swear by and both have to deal with calendar time. I have one main calendar that EVERYTHING goes on. I bought sharpie markers in 8 different colors and everything and everyone gets a specific color. I write down everything, even if it seems minor. At the beginning of a 3 month period I mark off certain days that I will keep open for parties and meetings and I try hard not to divert from that. There are obviously situations that my schedule needs to be altered (like today).
The second part of this is that I make certain days for certain things: Mail Monday, Team Tuesday… I break up my tasks on certain days so I do not get overwhelmed and feel like I may have forgotten something.
Family First
I rely on my husband very heavily and now that he sees how well I am doing with Thirty One, he is all about helping. He has even taken catalogs and products to customers for me! My philosophy for working at home (and my company is right on board with this), is Family comes first. I have a huge premiere that I am co-hosting and my children’s Christmas program fall right on the same day. Well Thirty One is working with me so I can go the kids program and then afterwards scoot my hind end down to the premiere. It will be a crazy day; however, I am able to do it all!
You can check out my crazy life and see how I deal with certain things on my personal blog, Adventures in Norderland. I defiantly do not have it all together, but I am working to get there. I think everyone is a work in progress and you need to research and alter things to fit your life!