" I hope I'm not taking you away from your day "

I was helping a fellow designer the other day and I saw this line in an email. I was sitting outside in  my sun chair with Papa Bear drinking lemonade and watching Baby Bear play.

Then it hit me!

Last summer I let work CONSUME me! I am so serious! Unless we had to leave the house I was working every moment that I could. I felt like I had to! I felt owed it to the people that had their names sitting on my waiting list.

Since then I have realized something completely different. I owe it to my daughter to make sure that she has the best day possible every day that I can, not just when Papa Bear is home. So if the sun is shining and it is warm outside, then we head outdoors. We will stay out there as much as we can until about 5:30 which is when we come in and cool off, eat dinner, take baths, and start relaxing for the evening. We have made it so that, other than music and having my phone on me, there is no technology being used during the day. I can not tell you what an impact this has made over the last week or so.

I will work in the mornings when I am drinking tea, and then at night when we are calming down or Baby Bear is in bed. If we hadn't started doing this then I would miss the little moments like these.

These were both taken within an hour of when the person I was helping told me that she hoped she wasn't taking me away from my day. I would occasionally answer an email from her, but nothing else. I told her that she was fine. I not longer let work keep me from my day. If I am too busy and it's not an appropriate moment I will ignore the emails and respond when I can. I have found a way to schedule it all in and I am so happy that I have. I may not be finishing a design a day, but looking at how happy my daughter is when we are outside I know that I am doing the right thing.

So, with that being said... I think I finally figured out how to balance working from home and being a stay at home mom. This way nobody suffers, and it only took me a year and a half to do it. lol