Mama Self-Care Archives - Page 2 of 7

Homeschool decision fatigue: Give it 6 weeks

I got a message today that was basically the nicest bucket of cold water dumped upon my head.

The person was writing to me about decision fatigue.

I’d made it clear that this week had been a sort of challenging one (please see photographic evidence here), and she was gently reminding me that this time of year is so packed with decisions – what curricula materials to buy and from where; trying to create a new routine; new outside activities; should I hire that Spanish tutor …

It’s enough that my husband’s recent request that I ask a neighbor about borrowing his Shop-Vac almost made me cry with frustration.

Is it just me that feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders, and I’m just one misworded text away from everything crumbling?

So it was a friendly water-dump (the message – not the literal one that required the Shop-Vac), because suddenly it made more sense why this all feels like it’s A LOT.

Because it is.

And I really struggle with decisions, even micro ones.

I think that’s why I’ve been eating so many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches lately.

I mean, yes, they are delicious, but I’ve had one every day this week.

Sometimes it’s been a quick lunch, but other times it’s been something fast and protein-ish to keep me from falling apart.

I estimate I’m about 30 percent ground peanuts and sticky jelly at this point. The sandwiches could be physically keeping me together as well as emotionally.

But the ease can’t be beat. I don’t even mix up jam flavors. No decisions = No stress.

And I’m again so grateful for my homeschool sister Cait, who reminded me that I need to give “back-to-school” 6 weeks. That’s the mantra in traditional schools for teachers, students and parents.

It takes time to set rhythm and routines, and in the meantime, there are lots of decisions, and for some of us, that’s hard and so we need toddler lunches to keep us from yelling or throwing our belongings.

Speaking of decisions, a few weeks ago I made some big choices about our bookshelves.

Interestingly, we bought this house for the library, and yet displaying all of our books at once was not working here.

It actually all comes back to jam, and you can read about here.

Signing off from one week into my 6 weeks,

Kara

P.S. If you struggle with making decisions too, this is my favorite book on the topic!

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That’s not your thing.

by Kara S. Anderson 45 Comments

This is probably not new information, but you are not your best friend.

You’re not your sister, your husband, your know-it-all cousin or that lady at co-op who told you that kids who don’t read by age 4 are usually dyslexic. 🙄

And so, you don’t have to be their things, either.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about how everyone has their “things” — the things they love, the things they hate, the things that control them and define them.

Let me share a few of mine:

I love books and tea and my big, comfy bed. I love growing tomatoes and playing fetch with my cat and meals I don’t have to cook. I love travel and crushed ice and reading to my kids. I love really old men in blacks socks who buy one pear at the grocery store, salted chocolate, paper letters, small acts of kindness, warm hugs from loved ones and the way my husband’s hand feels in mine after all these years.

I hate cased meats and when the doorbell rings unexpectedly and listening to music that I’m not in the mood for. I hate milk and that poofy thing they do at the eye doctor and confrontation and artificial sweeteners. I HATE the sound of folding paper. And I hate “project toys” that never work the way they said they would and frustrate me and my child.

I don’t trust mayonnaise. I BELIEVE in butter.

These are my things. They make me me.

Other People’s Things

But plenty of times, I have tried adopting other people’s things, because they were passionate or loud about those things, and through their passionate loudness, they seemed to make sense.

I tried giving up paper towels like a friend who is incredibly fiery about the environment. I beat myself up when I would buy a roll, but I also had panic attacks when a pet would explode.

I tried making all our bread products from scratch like another friend, and found us living on Amy’s enchiladas while I waited for dough to rise.

The Other Homeschool Mom

And I have tried being another kind of homeschool mom. I’ve tried doing what the fancy, organized lady on the Internet says. I’ve forced circle times and banned computer time and spent too much money on curriculum that made me, my kids, or both miserable.

I took other people’s things — what they loved or what they hated — and I tried to make them mine. And it didn’t work.

It rarely does. Because they are not me.

Planning This Year …

So this year, as you sit down to plan your school year, I beg of you –factor in your things.

Think about what makes you happy, what scares you, what makes you want to throw your shoes, what makes you feel soft and safe on the inside.

Think about the power you have to make the year ahead good and positive.

Don’t worry about what other people are doing. Who knows — maybe their thing is being miserable?

But yours doesn’t have to be.

You don’t have to worry about anyone else’s things anymore.

You have your things, and it’s time to start living more of the ones you love.

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A beautiful, imperfect heart (on clarity and accepting ourselves)

by Kara S. Anderson 2 Comments

My soul sister Kortney gave me a beautiful gift recently – a polished quartz heart.

I don’t know a lot about stones or crystals, but I can tell you about this one: It’s heavy in my hand. Heavier than I expected, I guess. It’s perfectly smooth, and a sort of cloudy white with little sparkles that catch the light, like an ice cube that’s been soaking in a drink on a hot summer day.

The card that came with it said that quartz helps us connect with our clarity and find our way; and truly, finding my way has been a struggle of late. I think there’s been too much time to ruminate.

And so sometimes, I pick up the little heart and just hold it and breathe.

I know that sounds a little new-agey, but stick with me.

Holding my heart

The other day I was holding my heart – the quartz one – and I started looking into its depths.

I have to tell you – it’s kind of a mess in there. Fissures all over – up and down and left to right. I could handle them better in one direction.

If you hold it up to a window, light shines through the top and the bottom, but the middle is a little murky.

One line stretches across the whole thing – if I was trying to break it open like a coconut, I’d start there with a sharp implement and a hammer. I bet it would take one tap for it to split almost cleanly in two.

Then there’s the flecks. Close to the surface there are little brown speckles, almost like something got trapped in there.

Silicon + oxygen + spatulas

I tried reading a little about how quartz is made, and that’s just a hot mess.

Wikipedia says quartz is a combination of silicon and oxygen atoms, but literally, so is a lot of cookware, so that gets me nowhere.

I wanted to know if quartz was igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic because that’s what I remember from classifying rocks and gems, but it turns out quartz can be any of the three.

I wish I could ask my professor from college – a warm and caring man who wore plaid shirts and jeans to class each day, but what I remember is that after taking two classes with him, he retired to a cabin in Wisconsin, and I cried that he wasn’t going to be around anymore.

(That’s actually not all I remember. I remember confessing to him my non-traditional path through college, and him looking into my eyes and telling me it didn’t matter. I remember he made me feel safe; accepted.)

Both/And

And so I’m back to what I can see and feel – an absolutely perfect heart filled with imperfections.

How can it be both?

How can we be both?

I guess I’ll start with the fact that we’re not little babies, and so we’ve had time here and the world has beat us up a little.

Plus, we make mistakes. Every one of us. No matter how well intentioned we are. No matter how good our parents were or were not to us. No matter how hard we try.

And most of us, the moms I know – we try incredibly hard.

And then there’s that whole knowing what’s right and wrong thing.

Sometimes, it’s very simple, but lately – things feel messy and nebulous.

Clarity + imperfection

But I will say that this morning, my quartz heart is doing its job. It’s bringing me some clarity, and this is what I’ve come up with:

You can have a beautiful, but imperfect heart.

Things happen. They leave battle scars. In the case of my quartz heart – there’s that line – something could have broken it once, but it didn’t.

In fact, I’m convinced, if I threw this heart at my wall right now, it would be fine. I can’t say the same for the walls of this little 1926 Craftsman.

It reminds me of Mary Oliver, and the start of one of my favorite poems, Wild Geese:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

We try. Lord, how we try.

And meanwhile our hearts wait for us to stop, and listen.

SOME RESOURCES FOR CONNECTING WITH YOUR HEART:

Brené Brown’s Podcast

When Things Fall Apart

The Gifts of Imperfection

Mary Oliver: New and Selected Poems

Tara Brach: Sheltering in Love series

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Living in the what-if

by Kara S. Anderson 7 Comments

I recently listened to an author talk about how all fiction books begin with the idea of what if …

Oh! I thought. I should be writing fiction! Because I am really good at what if.

The problem is my what if is ruled by my anxious brain, and currently, that brain is in overdrive, asking constantly, What the hell do we do now?

Because I don’t know about you, but to me, everything feels shaky and unclear, and now we’ve seen that something that we really only thought Michael Crichton could dream up can happen.

It’s still happening.

Cue the dinosaurs.

Groundless

No one really knows how to deal with it, but for a while, there were stricter rules. I really liked that, actually. I knew exactly what I was supposed to do.

I am a recovering good girl. And I’ll tell you, almost nothing has been as hard as getting over disappointing people, but this is all right up there.

The minute restrictions lifted, I felt like there was no ground anymore.

I stayed inside more. My anxiety became worse.

Decision fatigue

It was the stress of a million little decisions. Can we go to a restaurant? Should we eat outside? Inside? Should we wear masks? Should I hug my mom when I see her after three months, even though she works as a nurse in an assisted living facility and her residents are at high risk?

According to Emily P. Freeman, it’s estimated that adults make 35,000 decisions a day.

And that’s not factoring in the health of the whole planet.

So one lunch, and my back was so tight on the way home, I could barely breathe.

But what about a plan?

But as the world opens up, I also feel like I’m supposed to move forward – that I need a plan. The summer is slipping away …

Usually, summers are a lovely time here. We go to the pool a lot; read a lot; and get ice cream a lot.

The pool is closed, the library is closed, and Dear God, please someone tell me exactly how to feel about a teenager scooping ice cream for my kids.

I need a guidebook, or at least a list.

JOB DESCRIPTION: Covid Mountain Guide

Looking to hire responsible, knowledgeable guide for outside activities during worldwide pandemic. Must be non-smoker.

Too much

It all feels a little like my yard.

Let me explain.

Recently, a neighbor came over and shouted across the sidewalk to my husband. He was friendly – it’s just social distancing …

He told us that we live in what the neighborhood used to call The Manson House.

(Googles: “Bulk sage.” Googles: “Priest for hire.” Googles: “How to sell a house during a pandemic.”)

Apparently, a creepy dude lived here for many years. No one knows what happened to him.

And then the “Chicago Folks” moved in. I can only imagine they were two Enneagram 7s, completely unchecked by realism or their wings.

So our yard is a little bananas.

Last summer, I mentioned to another neighbor that I felt like along the fence, the “Chicago Folks” took one of those bulk bags of wildflower seeds and just dumped the whole thing.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly what happened. I saw it.”

Our whole yard is like that. It’s overgrown and intimidating. I have no idea where to start.

I keep wanting to ask someone to come here with the right tools, to do a reset. I guess that would be a landscaper? A gardener?

JOB DESCRIPTION: Mental gardener

Looking to hire responsible, knowledgeable gardener to prune my anxious mind. Must have access to proper tools to reset the hot mess in there. End result must be smooth, manicured brain. Flexible hours.

I guess what I’m saying is that I feel terribly unsure, and terribly responsible at the same time.

I think I need to be a little more patient.

And I probably need to dump some heavy expectations.

You too?

P.S. I was on my friend Celeste’s podcast this week talking about When It All Feels To Heavy. We chat pandemic stress, Covid-schooling, mental health and my book.

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