Category Archives: Motherhood

How to Create a Support System

Every now and then I am reminded how important it is to have a support system in place when raising young kids.

Sometimes this support system is in the form of family like grandparents, brothers or sisters.  Sometimes it’s in the form of a nanny or a daycare…but what do we do when we don’t have access to family maybe because grandparents have passed away.  Perhaps brothers or sisters live far away or your child is not enrolled in daycare.

Who do we rely on other than our spouses when an emergency strikes?

This week I am inspired to blog about how to create a support system when there is none.

Last week I had my third surgery on my ankle to get some serious hardware removed, along with cleaning bone spur and scar tissues.  As a result, mama is on crutches for the next 2 weeks.

That means zero weight on foot, ankle elevated above heart, no walking, no driving – just resting.

I am quickly reminded of all the things that still needs to be done, because the world doesn’t stop just because I am on crutches.

6:00 am breakfast still needs to be served, lunches still needs to be packed, Alex still needs to be dropped off and picked up from school, homework still needs to be done, Karate and Soccer practices are still in session, Amanda still needs to be taken care of full-time at home, dinners still need to be cooked, laundry still needs to be done – you get the point.

What sucks about this situation?

When you don’t have a support system in place to pitch in with the everyday chaos – everything falls on to your spouse’s shoulders.

Perhaps normally it wouldn’t be a big deal…but what if your spouse’s job doesn’t offer flexibility to be home with your little one full time, or take off at 2 pm to get your son from school or requires late dinner meetings and it happens to fall on the week you need help the most help.

Then what??? Who do you turn to?

Sometimes when we don’t have the luxury of family around, we are required to create a support system through using paid services that’s around us.

Today I am inspired to share with you some of the services you can tap into if you are in a bind and need some help.

1)  Grocery Shopping

Order online!!!  I cannot begin to tell you how may times this service has helped me. Now a days most grocery stores offer online delivery services you can take advantage of.  So simple!

Place your order online, pick your delivery date and time and you are DONE!

2)  Lunch services

Check to see if your school offers hot lunch services.  This is such a blessing to have.  Most services like Choice Lunch you can order online the day before.

Select your lunch of choice, it comes with a drink, main meal, fruit, veggies and a small snack.  What a sanity saver in the mornings to know your child’s lunch is covered and he/she will have a healthy meal offered without you or your spouse running around crazy in the morning on the weeks you need help.

So now, the focus can be on preparing breakfast and enjoying it with your family.

This service also comes in so handy when you are traveling for business and mornings are crazier than usual for the spouse holding down the fort.

3)  Daycare Services

Look for hourly drop off services near you.  There are places like Kids Park throughout U.S. that are fully licensed that allows you to drop your kids off without scheduling ahead of time.

They have qualified teachers on board who hold teaching sessions, offer reading time, free play time, homework room, movie room and plenty of other activities to keep the kids happy and involved.  They offer snacks, lunch or dinner.  Most of them stay open as late as 9 pm.  This service also comes in handy if you want to go on a date night with your spouse 😉

Great alternative for daycare services if your child is not actively enrolled in school or daycare.

4)  Dinner

There is always the option to eat frozen dinner – but let’s face it, I doubt a toddler or a four year old will be excited about frozen store bought dinner plate.

Consider services like Door Dash which allows you to order from your favorite restaurant and they deliver it straight to your home.  Dinner is served!

Sometimes we need to look at support differently.  Get creative and take advantage of the paid services that are available to us.

Sure it’s not the same as having family or a neighbor you trust to take care of business…but sometimes those options are not available to us.

So go ahead, get creative and create your own support system today!

See what services are available near you that you can take advantage of.

In fact, try them out now and test them out ahead of time.  So when you are in a bind – you’ve already had previous experience with them and know exactly what you are in for.

Hope this helped!

Now I’d love to hear from you.  How have you created a support system when you didn’t have one?  What services do you leverage when you are in a bind?

Important: please share your thoughts and ideas directly in the comments below.

Thank you in advance for reading, commenting and sharing.  You help my mission to create “Sisterhood for Mommies” come to life!

Share the knowledge…Share the love…

XOXO,

What does “daily happiness” mean to you? 

Here is how you can find YOUR daily happiness!

Motherhood is truly a gift!

A gift that brings abundance of joy as we guide our precious kids through life while we build a life we call our own.

It’s not an easy job.  In fact, it’s one of the toughest job we will ever have.

When it comes to dealing with day to day chaos it can be so hard to remember to live in the moment and find daily happiness.

We simply get caught up in the web of chaos and drop in to survival mode.

Every phase of Motherhood comes with its own unique challenges and obstacles.  As our day to day demanding responsibilities grow, managing time becomes more and more challenging.

Let’s face it!  From day one, we get thrown in to it with no manual and no training.

It feels like overnight we are expected to develop habits that allows us to be experts in time management so we can be super moms managing the household, cooking, cleaning, managing our career, be the vixen in our relationship, make time for our health and fitness while somehow still have time left for our hobbies and desires.

As our kids get older our responsibilities as parents grow.  We require more time to help with homework, drive around town from one practice to another, find creative ways to prepare healthy meals that are quick, easy and nourishes their fast growing bodies and the list goes on and on.

We don’t scale back – we just do more.  As we continue to have more responsibilities we can start to compromise more and more.

Don’t get me wrong….  Life in general along with parenting is all about compromises.  It’s a necessity!

However, it’s critical that we maintain a healthy balance of compromise in all – the – right areas of our lives;  so that we are not compromising our own health and happiness.

Day after day as time becomes short in supply, it feels like one day we wake up to find that we lost ourselves in the process.

We realize we gave up our hobbies.  We neglected our health and fitness as we continue to hang on to the baby weight that makes us feel unsexy, and we simply lost energy to do anything.

My point is…we experience a lot of change all-at-once in a short period of time.

It’s critical that we understand the importance of nourishing ourselves as we nourish our families. Often times we forget to work on finding daily happiness.

We must make conscious effort finding daily happiness in everything we do so that we can find joy in it all – even doing the day to day chores!

When it comes to finding daily happiness, healthy balanced pleasure nurtures our growth.  This flow of desire is our creative energy, our passion for living.

If we deny or suppress our desires, we can become anxious, distant, depressed, emotionally uninvolved.

Here is a quick exercise that will help you find your daily happiness!

1.  List ways you might be denying or judging the natural flow of pleasure in your life and why?

Maybe Mother’s guilt is preventing you to take some time for yourself…

Maybe lack of time is preventing you to enjoy a hobby that brings you joy…

Maybe lack of money is holding you back in investing in yourself…

Maybe pregnancy weight is discouraging you to treat yourself to a new outfit…

On the other hand overindulgence in pleasure, whether it be sensory, food, drink etc., as a means of numbing or masking pain and fear, also leads to imbalance.

2.  Think of something you think you might be overindulging in, such as over eating or drinking or watching too much TV?

List 3 situations that can trigger you to have that behavior. Then, list a response to each of these to bring you back to balance.

3.  Now think about what calm happiness feels like in your body.

Do you laugh and smile more?

Are your muscles relaxed and your shoulders are down?

Do you feel relaxed?

How does your breathing sound?

Compare that to how the body feels when it’s is sad, anxious, stressed or worried. 

Write down your responses, note down your breathing pattern, ease and muscle tension.

4.  Now think of your day to day routine, ask yourself what can you change today to bring more happiness, joy and fun into your day to day tasks and responsibilities?

How can you make each experience an enjoyable one?  Even for something mundane like doing the dishes.

For me personally, I love to light up a candle while doing the dishes.  Smelling that beautiful candle in my kitchen brings me joy and make my dish washing experience a bit more enjoyable 😉

Find a way to do something every day that brings you JOY!  If you need help coming up some ideas, check out my previous blog on “80 Ways to Enjoy Mommy Me-Time”

Practice saying yes! to your happiness and desires!  Make a conscious decision to bring joy in your life with everything you do!

Hope this helped!

Now I’d love to hear from you.  How do you tap in to your daily happiness?  What do you do differently to make your day to day tasks more pleasurable?  Paint a picture for us below in the comments.

Remember, thousands of Mom’s come here each week looking for that golden nugget, inspiration and encouragement to make their Motherhood journey a bit smoother.  Your insight could be exactly what they need to hear right now that will make a difference.

Important: please share your thoughts and ideas directly in the comments below.

Thank you in advance for reading, commenting and sharing.  You help my mission to create “Sisterhood for Mommies” come to life!

Share the knowledge…Share the love…

XOXO,

For a busy Mom Meal Planning is a MUST!

Meal Planning will save you time, money not to mention your sanity!

Here is a Step-by-Step Plan to help you jump start your Meal Planning journey while taking the stress out of healthy cooking and putting joy back in the kitchen.

#1.  Meal Planning requires a System!

In order to start meal planning, you must first have a system in place.  Your meal planning system should be custom to what works for you and your family’s needs.

Don’t let this process overwhelm or stress you!

It might seem like a lot of work in the beginning but once you get your Meal Planning System in place you will be able to rinse and repeat it.  You will develop your own rhythm and meal planning will soon become a breeze!

Your system should include a weekly meal planner, shopping list and recipes.

Start by setting aside some time to plan.

#2.  Create a Binder for your Recipes

Consider keeping a meal journal. (Especially when you are trying out new recipes)

Document the following…

• How long did it take you to prepare the meal?
• Was it kid friendly?
• Was it fast and easy?

This step will help you identify which recipes to plug into our weekly meal planning each day of the week and which recipes to stay away from based on your schedule for the day / week.

#3.  Maintain a “Master Shopping List” to use for your weekly Meal Planning and Grocery Shopping

Instead of making a shopping list to use for each time you go grocery shopping, consider keeping a “Master Shopping List”.  This will save you so much time.

Include everything you will need veggies, snacks, fish, meat, dairy, fruit, drinks, cooking oils – everything!

As you build your recipe binder, this step will become easier and easier.  You can keep adding the ingredients you most use from your weekly meal planning in to your “Master Shopping List”.

#4.  Take ACTION!  It’s time to start Meal Planning

Using a calendar start your meal planning by writing down what you plan on having for Breakfast, Snack, Lunch and Dinner.

Be specific!  Include a main dish and side dishes.

When choosing your recipes consider what you have going on the week you are doing your meal planning for, so you can strategically slot in recipes based on time and complexity.

For example, my family and I have a sit down breakfast every morning.  While we have time to for eggs and toast during the weekdays – We don’t have time for pancakes, waffle or bacon as they take a while to cook.

So for my family, we save pancakes, waffles and bacon for the weekend 😉

HOT Tip:  Choose recipes based on time, complexity and with similar ingredients.  Don’t forget to plan for leftovers too!

#5.  Choose a shopping day

Now that you have your meal planning done for the week.  It’s time to pick a day to do your grocery shopping.  This is where your “Master Shopping List” comes in handy.

HOT Tip:  Place your master shopping list in a plastic sheet protector and keep it on your fridge.  As you use up your ingredients mark it off on your list using an eraser marker.  This will ensure your “to buy list” is always up to date.  When you are ready to go grocery shopping, snap a picture with your phone and you are good to go!

#6.  Prep your food

Once you get home from grocery shopping, prep your food.

Chop up your onions, veggies, dry your lettuce and wash your fruits.  This will help you save a ton of time when it’s time to cook your meals.  You can just toss and cook!  Makes cooking a breeze and gets rid of extra prep time.

#7.  Cook in batch

Consider cooking in batch or double your recipes.  You can freeze the extra meal for next week or for an emergency meal.

HOT Tip:  Keep a frozen cheese pizza in your freezer for an emergency meal.  You can jazz it up by putting your own delicious toppings (kale, sun dried tomatoes, bell peppers, onions – whatever you’d like.

We all have days where things get off track / schedule and we fall behind in grocery shopping or meal planning.  That frozen pizza will save the day and will buy you an extra day to squeeze in that meal planning and grocery shopping. 😉

#8.  Have FUN with your Meal Planning!

Get your kids involved and have fun with this process!

Ask them what their favorite meal is and what days should you make it.

Get them to help you with grocery shopping.  We call it “Treasure Hunting” as we look for ingredients going isle by isle.  It makes the time go by fast and we end up having fun in the process.

Once you have your first week’s meal planning done, start working on another weeks meal planning.  You can switch up the days, side dishes and come up with themes like Taco Tuesday, Soup Sundays, Pasta Night etc. and just mix it up.

Soon you will have library of weekly meal planning you can choose from.  Keep adding new recipes and use your meal planning journaling to add new meals in the mix.

Hope that helped!

Now I’d love to hear from you.  What does your meal planning process look like?  Paint a picture for us below in the comments