Heather's Handmade Life

Five resolutions to make me a happier professional, mom, wife, person

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Heather Laura Clarke

I’ve told you which five New Year’s resolutions I do NOT plan to attempt, so how about the ones I *am* going to try?

Here they are, listed in the exact order in which I scribbled them out on a notepad on my desk leading up to the Christmas break …

1. Leave work at work.

I have always struggled with this, especially now because I work at home. My work is AT home, and sometimes in the exact same ROOM as I’m spending my NON-WORK time, and it gets … hard to turn my “work-self” off, you know?

My iPhone chimes with an email and BAM, I’m thinking about someone I need to contact. The phone rings and it’s someone wanting to set up an interview. But the thing about self-employment is that no one is paying me to think about work, ever. I only get paid for what I DO.

TLDR; Stop devoting any head-space to work when I’m not actively working.

2. Just DO it.

I’m not a procrasinator … or at least, I didn’t think so. It turns out, I am, a little bit. I put off annoying emails sometimes with the cool “snooze” feature in Inbox (sidebar: it’s seriously life-changing YOU HAVE TO GET INBOX). I put off the calls I don’t want to make. I put off the assignments I don’t want to write — not until the last minute, mind you, but enough to make them hang over me.

Gretchen Rubin says it best: Nothing Is More Exhausting Then the Task That’s Never Started.

Now? I’m trying to change. I’m plunging in and doing the yucky items first. I’m not letting the irritating email linger in my inbox because I don’t want to deal with it yet — I’m responding and archiving, baby!

3. Make art for art’s sake.

I pride myself on being an efficiency monster and cramming an inhuman amount of tasks and accomplishments into every day. I schedule work, I schedule the kids’ activities, I schedule Darling Husband’s work, I schedule household tasks and errands and bill payments and everything else that *needs* to be done.

Sure, I take time to create, but since I write a DIY column every single week and a kid-friendly version every month (plus do other crafty projects for the blog), it often feels like all of my creating is “work” creating.

When I think of a new project, it’s usually along the lines of “Which column is the best fit? My Handmade Home? This DIY House? Or the blog? Hmmm.” Sometimes I actually won’t attempt the project because it doesn’t fit into a specific column and I don’t have time to devote to a non-work project (sorry, blog).

TLDR; Find some time to create — paint, sew, draw, whatever — without a readership in mind.

4. Create bonding sessions.

Since I spend so much time tearing around the house with eighty-million things on the go (see above), I feel like I don’t spend as much time just … I don’t know, lying on the couch with the kids, cuddling and watching TV? Like so many people on social media are always posting about?

Yes, I love snuggling my babies, but it physically unnerves me to sit still on the couch for long, not doing anything except watching a screen. For ages this made me feel guilty because it seemed like so many people love doing that, but I’ve accepted that that’s just not me. As Gretchen says, What’s Fun for Other People May Not Be Fun for You.

We do Family Movie Night every Friday and all snuggle under the rainbow quilt I (lovingly, tediously) hand-sewed. But that’s it — that’s the only time we “bond” together on the couch unless we’re reading together. And that’s OK.

The other morning, the kids and I spent over an hour drawing together at the table — planning DIY projects we want to do around the house. D drew an elaborate treehouse-style bedroom with bunks and hidey-holes and ladders and flags, and it was totally awesome. We sew together. We paint together. We make paper-mache creations together. We bake together.

We DO things together, that’s our bonding. I even like taking them on errands with me and chatting in the car or as we walk through a store — that’s bonding, too, even if it looks different than snuggling on the couch for hours every day.

TLDR; Look for more of these “sessions” — even 20 minutes! — of solid quality time with the kids. Don’t compare it to anyone else’s idea of bonding.

5. Choose him.

No, the “h” is not capitalized because I’m not talking about Him (like, Jesus) — I’m talking about him, Darling Husband.

Choose him. Choose the handsome guy I married. Choose the sweet rugby player I fell for back in Grade 11 when we were babies and had no freaking idea what it meant to be adults or do anything more than hang out in the back of his half-ton truck in the McDonald’s parking lot in Bedford.

I’ve read a lot on the value of putting your husband before your kids, but I can’t say I’ve been doing that. I’ve been putting the kids first, and often — sadly — putting my career before him. He is often the afterthought, the last item on the list, and that’s not right.

Yes, we are in a busy season of life. Yes, we work opposite hours these days and go literally four days in a row without seeing each other for more than 20 minutes. But we have to make more of an effort to spend quality time together. Every time we hire a sitter and go out to dinner on a real date, we say “This is so nice! We need to do this more!” and then … we forget.

I want to stop forgetting.

TLDR; More board games instead of TV shows. More actual dates (without the kids).

***

So those are my big five resolutions for 2016. What do you think? Can I keep some of them? All of them?

I actually think I’m going to paint them on a canvas so I can look at them all of the time as a reminder — maybe even make it the background of my phone. I’ve never been a resolutions person, really, so I will need to see them regularly.

Here’s to a great year!

*she typed before passing out at her desk because … work? After two weeks of gluttony and barely working? Ugh.*

Five New Year’s resolutions this mom is NOT making

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Heather Laura Clarke

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A new year means parents are often inspired to “start fresh” and implement new healthy habits — or drop some of the bad ones.

But just because there’s a new calendar on the wall doesn’t mean you’re not already doing a great job raising your kids … even if you did forget to pack their water bottle last month and they’re still reminding you about it.

Here are five New Year’s resolutions I certainly don’t plan to keep — or even make:

1. I’m not going to pretend I’ll stop using the iPad as a babysitter

At around $9 a month for our Netflix account, it’s the cheapest childcare I’m ever going to find — and the fact that they can navigate it entirely on their own is priceless. If they argue over choosing a show, I simply take it away, so they’re learning how to negotiate (quietly). It’s, like, a life skill electronic.

Instead, I’m going to try implementing screen-free days where we all hide the devices and go back to the basics — board games, crafts, forts. Mostly, though, fully-present parents who aren’t trampling them to reach iPhones when they hear a text or Facebook notification.

2. I’m not going to vow to serve nothing but healthy meals

I’m not a very good cook and that means I take shortcuts sometimes (a lot of the time). I balk at the price of organic produce most of the time, and I’m a sucker for comfort-y junk foods like fish sticks and Lipton Sidekicks and those creamy mashed potatoes (and brownies!) that come in the old-school TV dinners.

Instead, I’m going to keep slowly building up my repertoire of healthy-but-fairly easy-to-prepare meals and stop putting pressure on myself to choose the yucky-tasting brown rice. Of course I know white rice isn’t nutritious, but it complements my mother-in-law’s meatball recipe so nicely and it tastes like fluffy white clouds.

3. I’m not going to resolve stop eating in restaurants.

When I think about how frequently my husband and I ate out before we had kids, I’m amazed we were able to afford basic shelter at all. These days, it feels like a luxury to hit up the Big Stop on Kids Eat Free night. And yes, we let them order Sprite or 7Up in restaurants — it’s a treat. (Never orange pop, of course, because we’re not insane enough to give them caffeine.)

Instead of restricting our rare nights of eating out, we’re going to embrace them even further. We’re going to plan them in advance and maybe even get a little dressed up! (I felt my husband just cringe and shake his head.) We’re going to take turns choosing the restaurant. We’re going to make it into a full-fledged family date night!

4. I’m not going to enforce that we eat every single meal together at the table as a family.

That’s just not real life — at least not our life, with parents who do shift-work. There are mornings when the kids eat waffles in front of the TV and I’m happy to eat alone at the table scrolling through Pinterest. There are lunchtimes (and dinner-times, occasionally, if I’m being honest) when I need 20 minutes of peace and I’ll hand them the iPad along with their sandwiches (see Resolution No. 1).

Instead, I’m going to stop feeling ashamed on those rare occasions when the neighbours walk by at 5 p.m. and see the TV blaring while I hide in the dining room eating alone with my book. I’m an introvert and if I need that time to prevent myself from having a Mom-tantrum, I’m going to take it.

5. I’m not going to vow to clean less.

I won’t be guilted by that “There will be years for cleaning and cooking, but children grow up when you’re not looking” poem that’s always floating around Facebook. When the house is a wreck, I get cranky — and nobody wants Mean Mom rolling into 2016. I tidy mostly for my own sanity, and I’m not going to let a sappy quote make me feel badly about that.

Instead, I’m going to make extra efforts to do fun activities with the kids this year. They’re at such fun ages where we can really go out and do things without dragging diaper bags and sippy cups and worrying about naps or tantrums. I’m going to embrace the things I need to do for myself — like taking time alone and managing the clutter — but also plan more special things for us all to do together.

Wishing all of my readers a happy, healthy 2016! Let’s DO this thing!

The Christmas I Kind of Gave Up

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Heather Laura Clarke

It was one of the nicest Christmases in recent memory, so I think I need to start “giving up” more often.

The gold and white cleaning wall

Posted on December 27, 2015 by Heather Laura Clarke

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Sometimes I’ll tackle a DIY project because I think it looks fun or would be pretty in our home, but other times it’s strictly to fix a disastrous area that makes me cringe.

The top of our basement stairs? Total wreck, all of the time. I’d hung a set of hooks in an attempt to organize it, but it just allowed us to pile more junk onto them. Plastic bags, the broom, the dustpan, aprons, cans to be recycled, papers that needed to be filed, dishcloths to be washed — it was depressing to walk past the stairwell.

It needed to be completely redone. I removed the hooks, patched the holes, and painted the wall with white untinted paint leftover from another project. I hadn’t decided exactly what I was going to do, but I knew it needed to be bright and pretty — the opposite of what it had always been!

I went out to buy hooks and also bought wooden letters on a whim because wooden letters are always a good idea. A plan was taking shape, and it involved pops of warm gold against all of that white. I took everything out to the shed and sprayed the pieces with a champagne-y gold shade (Krylon Metallic in “Gold”).

As is always the case with spray-painting, I wanted to keep going.

Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …