how I do it

I do a lot of things.
I say that, but there's days (not infrequently) that I feel like I've accomplished nothing at the end of the day.
But every time I talk on social media about the things I'm working on, I inevitably get some version of this question.....

"BUT WHERE ARE THE KIDS?!"
Basically, you folks want to know how I do it and have two wild, needy, hungry, perfect, sweet, loud minions running around. And it's a good question that I would probably ask if I was outside my life looking in, too. So this is my attempt to answer it, because a simple phrase won't do the question justice. (Don't we all wish it was as simple as that.  Can I be Molly Weasley and have brooms picking up after my children all day.... ?? #simplefix but I digress)

First, I'm going to tell you a story about the moment my pain to stay still became bigger than my pain to start.

When Rory was three weeks old we moved into a foreclosure. I mean, it didn't have to be gutted.... but it was definitely a foreclosure. The yard was made of weeds our dog could get lost in, the walls had all been painted a hideous brown by the foreclosure company, the carpets reeked of urine, and there were egg stains on the front from some teenage kids. Cute. But Overwhelming. The only thing we hired out was the floor installation (after a huge debacle ripping the nasty carpet out which included baby Rory strapped to my chest and a very mean trespassing goose.... a story for another time). 

We were over the moon, regardless of the flaws. And Rory was colicky, and Jay was working long hours and exhausted every night, and I was totally overwhelmed with both my new situation and the enormity of the projects ahead. (As a side note, I was raised in a house with a dad who preferred to hire out all maintenance, so although I had the heart for it, whether I had the skill was tbd)

Rory didn't nap at all at first, so I spent a lot of time holding her through naptime and staring at the ugly brown walls (as I watched countless hours of Gilmore Girls) but then we got over that hurdle and I thought maybe I could do some things. But I didn't. EVERY, SINGLE wall and ceiling in this house needed to be painted... at a minimum. Not to mention the 137 nail holes in what must have been a poster-clad teenager's room upstairs. So I waited for Jay and I to find some magical hour where we weren't exhausted and didn't have more pressing projects that required a team. Months passed, and it just didn't happen. And I looked at those walls every day. And they were not quite sparking joy if you catch my drift.

But one day I had the realization that if I was intentional with the hour and a half that Rory napped each day, in one week I could have a room painted. And in 52 maybe I could actually do this myself. And I was tired of waiting. So I would prep before she fell asleep. Get my paint clothes on, get all the tools prepped and ready, and the moment she went down I would paint. I felt so empowered. Because I've been where you are, sitting and waiting for a time when I can do all these things I want to do. And I've been on the other side hustling with whatever time I have. Not scrolling, not waiting, not tidying, not delaying, just hustling. (There are still days... lots of them... when I don't hustle like I should. But I've worked on it and I have more days than not when I chase dreams in my downtime)

So if you aren't here for stories here's the four things that I think are the most crucial to understanding how I do the things I do.

1- Just use what you have.
I don't use fancy tools, and we've honestly never had much of a budget for these sort of things. I pay for the stuff I want to do with birthday giftcards and side hustle money selling used clothes. For painting the exterior of our house I literally started by using a roller because I just really wanted to start and if it took all summer I was going to do it (Luckily, a neighbor saw me and took pity on me and my gumption... and we learned how to use his sprayer as we went!) So learn on youtube, borrow tools when necessary, but mostly start where you are using what you have and go from there. In the words of Alison Robertson- DONE IS FUN!

2- Be ok with incremental progress
This is huge- because it's not going to feel like an HGTV makeover show. Immediate gratification is nice, but working your tail off doing things yourself is so much less glamorous. There is sawdust and unfinished projects taking up space, etc. etc. etc. Sometimes for months. depending on the project. (It's easy to think "oh my gosh! 8 posts ago she was starting and now she's done! But I started my closet in October so let that serve as a little reality check for us all) We have never had a nanny (although I just recently struck a trade deal for a couple hours a week with the girl down the street and I. AM. STOKED) or a housecleaner, and for the first four years of the process I didn't even have a car so just do what you can. I've learned to leverage mornings, naptimes, clothing resale apps, and amazon prime. You can do anything you set your mind to, but just set your expectations on incremental but consistent(ish) progress... at least at first.

3- Your house won't be clean.
It just won't, and from watching/knowing other women doing things like this (and not like this)  I just can assure you that if you spend every spare moment in a week working on something that takes you away from your daily routine and chores, YOUR HOUSE WILL BE WRECKED. And unless you have a house cleaner, that's just a price you have to pay. Somebody said to me yesterday, "But your house is probably always clean" and I laughed out loud. They obviously don't know me well enough yet, because it's just not. really. ever.

4- Sometimes the kids will watch TV and eat less than ideal snacks
This is self explanatory, but I always think of my kids playing in the dirt (oh, you thought we had a backyard!? Wrong you were!) wearing their pajamas at 3pm while we painted the house exterior..... and I think they ate cheese sticks and cereal for dinner. You can't have it all. The illusion of a perfectly clean house, perfectly groomed children, and sh*t getting done all at the same time is just that... an illusion.

So there it is. I work slowly, with what I have, sometimes with help but a lot by myself. Some days my kids are a little wilder and the work halts or progresses more slowly. But I've learned to manage expectations and be pleased by progress. Both my time and my budget are small, but my impact can be big if I just give it time. I'll be over here working if you need me.

And now a couple before and afters, because what's more satisfying than that?!
*and a blurred out bra because there aint no going back to take new 'Before' pictures now!*

The one college lecture I remember

There was a specific lecture in college in which I both decided on my major,
and also learned a principle I've never forgotten and one that has changed my life for the better.

Let me start by emphasizing that I believe we are all born to create. We are creative beings.
But I think too often we get caught up in the term "creative" as right brained or left brained or artsy or crafty or deep or borderline genius when really, I think it's much more simple than that.
We create every single day. We create in our relationships: we create trust, we create understanding, we create experiences. We create in our jobs, we create in our homes, we create in our social media presence.

Now back to the point. There I was in my intro to marketing class, and the professor asked us to think up a really cool, creative clock: one that's unlike anything we had ever seen before. So I sat, and my mind raced, and I came up with exactly.... nothing. Then he suggested we turn to our partner and create a new, creative clock that was an owl. So many cool ideas started to sprout- it could have wings that spread when it chimed or feathers that shimmered and glowed at the strike of the hour, or any number of cool things.

Then he revealed this simple principle that has changed my life: "Creativity loves constraint". It seems simple enough, but the more I thought about it the more true it became. You see, this principle changed my life because it changed the way I see constraints.

Every time I have a new constraint show up in my life, I try to figure out how that's going to stretch my creativity. How I'm going to make things work within that constraint. Jay and I have only had one car for over two years now, so I started going to the gym at 5am last year to make my schedule work. My schedule got more creative (and hard, but I really really loved that time) to work within the constraint. When Jay and I moved to Utah, we had a budget to buy a house with. Because of that budget, we bought a foreclosure to get a house we really truly loved. We would never have bought the house we did if we could have afforded a nice, new house just like it. I had to be creative to decorate our house on a  budget. I had to walk into DI and look at everything with a creative eye. I have had to learn new skills and new talents and make curtains and shop clearance sales and make old pieces work instead of buying new pieces. If a person wants to stop using foul language (constraint), they have to be creative and find new ways to say things! The list of examples could go on forever.

The moral of the story is we all have constraints. We have time constraints and budget constraints and constraints within our relationships. And it's really easy to look at those as negatives, but this principle taught me that it doesn't have to be that way.

And for good measure, here's Rory and I in our matching unicorn outfits that I made from things I already had on hand plus less than ten dollars in supplies because... can you guess? Constraints. 

So I want to hear what other constraints have forced you to be creative and learn new skills or create something in a different way than you otherwise would have!