In the last 8 weeks (or however long we’ve been doing this… feels more like 2934 weeks, right?), I’ve gone through the stages of “grief” just as you have (and probably still are) over the loss of what my life used to look like and how it’s changed since the Shelter-In-Place orders and new country-wide regulations and social expectations.
Within those grief stages, we’ve had to do things like:
- reorganize our schedules,
- reset our expectations,
- rearrange the ways our home functions,
- apologize to the people we love for responding in less-than-perfect ways (times a million),
- find new ways to feel accomplished since it’s seemingly impossible to meet the old expectations of accomplishment with everyone home and added responsibilities like homeschooling and snacking/meals all day long… 🙂
- and so on and so on…
I’ve also recently recognized that I look forward to weekends so much these days because weekends mean “no homeschooling responsibilities” and that AP (my husband) is available to help share the parenting responsibilities unlike weekdays while he’s working full time in the office.
Feel free to shout “AMEN” to that – LOL!
Part of what I realize I’ve been doing (unplanned) on the weekends is tackling projects.
For several weeks now, every weekend I’ve seemed to tackle a different project (like cleaning out kid closets/drawers, cleaning out my closet, cleaning out 3 other storage closets), and I’ve realized that I’ve been doing this because I’ve NEEDED some “small wins” because I’ve been feeling so unaccomplished in my weekdays.
Do you maybe feel similar in this season of life?
As I reflect on things that have made me feel “productive” or “useful” or “accomplished” over the last two months of this COVID-19 season of life, I thought I’d share some of them with you. Maybe one of the things on my list could be your “small win” this week to help pull you out of a funk or just move the needle a bit for you.
Progress is progress – big or small. Take every win you can, friend.
RECENT “SMALL WINS” THAT HAVE ENCOURAGED MORE PRODUCTIVITY AND MOTIVATION IN MYSELF:
- 3 Closet Makeovers (you can see my before/after photos here).
- I started a sourdough starter + bread making (SOURDOUGH BREAD RECIPE that we’ve been using for sandwich bread and toast lately).
- Removing “too small” and “out of season” clothes from the kids’ wardrobes (laundry loads are so much smaller and we now have enough hangers again! HA).
- Removing imperfect markers and broken crayons from our collections (and putting them all in ONE spot).
- Setting up a functional and sustainable Homeschool System for the last few weeks of homeschool. View this blog post for details as well as a free video tutorial! wohoo!
- Borrowed a power washer from a friend, and spent 3 days power washing our front walkway and flowerbed stones… (yes, I was sore for DAYS! HA).
- I downloaded the Couch to 5K app (March 26), and started jogging every other day! I’ve worked my way up to TWENTY MINUTES or jogging without stopping! I know that might be “nothing” to a lot of people, but it’s a HUGH accomplishment to me! Ordering this bad boy to make this new hobby even better!
- Prepped the 12 Chicken Freezer Meals from my e-cookbook, so we’ve had more EASY home-cooked meals the last few weeks thanks to slow/pressure cooking and me taking the one hour to prep them (and I’ve had SO MANY leftovers! LOVE THAT)!
- Sorted through all of the kids’ school supplies/papers/notebooks that came home from the school (threw away any trash right away, set aside “saving” papers/projects/pictures, and established a spot in our art supply closet to keep “school supplies” for next school year).
- Organized all of the kids’ “saved/keepsake” papers/projects/pictures/name tags/photos/etc. from the past three years (eventually I’ll put them in the 3″ ringed binders with sheet protectors, too, but organizing them and recycling all of the papers that weren’t “keepsake” worthy was a big step toward this). Putting them into the binders will be another weekend project, for sure!
Have you found any #WeekendWins (“quick wins”) that I might add to my weekend project list?? I’d honestly love to hear any ideas you might have for me!
Having these tangible, visual representations of my own productivity has lifted my spirits so much lately, I definitely want to keep it up.
How are you hanging in there, friend??
