Two Years
Hello friends! I can’t believe it’s been two years since we first started posting on this blog.
In that time, we’ve talked a lot about parenting, juggling life, doing all the things, work/life balance, travel with kids, entrepreneurship, gardening, our favorite recipes, some of our favorite books, and more!
This project has been so fun for me. I invited a few other moms to join me because I knew that we’re all busy. We all have kids and families and fulfilling lives, and while we want to share all of that and how we do it, life can get in the way sometimes. So, the seven of us manage to get a couple of posts out each week, and we have plans to do new things coming soon – whenever we manage it in between all the rest.
In the meantime, I am celebrating two years with all of you. I’ve so enjoyed sharing about our Adventures in Parenting, Working from home…with kids, and all of the things we did last year gearing up for our COVID Summer. Getting through last year was rough, for everyone. Most especially any parents who had to do remote schooling for any amount of time. Good job all! We did it!
Now that we are on the other side (hopefully), I’d like to put a bug in your ear about making sure that you’re happy in whatever you do from here on out. A few weeks ago, I talked about when to go Back to Work after having kids, and that the choice is completely individual and has to be the right fit for you and your family. Along with that, how many of us go back to work after the pandemic will look different. We see things differently now, we have different priorities, and maybe we want to find new ways to put our families first.
I talked last week about the idea of Mother’s Hours…which I should have called Parent Hours, honestly. Moms and dads both want to be home after school for their kids, and we should be pushing work schedules that work for everyone. I know that alternative work schedules do not work in every situation or for every job. For those of you who have found new and creative ways to get work done in the last two years, think about how you can propose to keep some of those things that worked going.
For those of you who may want to make a job or career change, and maybe try something new, I always say Take a Chance! Step out on that limb, bootstrap it if you can, and go out and live the American Dream. Running your own business, your own schedule and your life is so amazing. And scary…but really amazing. Whether you’re a sole-member LLC like me or if you have 20 employees, being a small business owner in America is the best thing out there.
Fundamentally, my biggest lesson from the last two years? Make life fun. For you, for your kids, for everyone around you.
Life with Kids can be a lot. I have been a Messy Mom, I have spent time Dropping the Ball on things, and None of Us are Perfect.
This last two years has been an adventure – which is pretty much my life motto. We never would have predicted a global pandemic, or how it would change everything about our daily lives for the better part of a year. I’ve reminisced on that quite a bit as we’ve slowly come out of it. I talked about the Longest Days. I talked about Hindsight. And my word of the year for 2021 was to Thrive. Because we all should!
Last year when I sat down to write the One Year post, we were in the midst of a lot of unrest around the country, and my biggest advice at the time was to be kind, and love one another. Isn’t that the number one message we try to teach our kids? Be good humans. Take care of our neighbors.
As I reflect on all the things we have still managed to do, I am thankful for Living in the Moment, and still making the time to Take a Vacation when we can. I am thankful for vaccines, and for all of you.
Thank you for reading Juggling Normal. Thank you for following our little blog. If you like what you see here, please follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and sign up for our biweekly (two Fridays a month) newsletter!
This last two years has been a blast – and we have so much more to share with you in the future. We will be adding content, with more Book Reviews, more Weekly Recipe Wins, and many more Team Juggling Normal Group Q&A topics. If you have ideas you’d like us to cover, feel free to share them with us and we will include in a future post!