That just happened.

Slammed

This downward spiral used to happen about once a month, but this is the first time it's happened so far in 2011. I get completely slammed with work but I try to maintain my normal work-life balance: quit at quitting time, not work on weekends, etc. . . . except during that evening and weekend family time, I am plagued with stress about how much I need to do or should be doing.

Time for bed comes and goes and everyone is asleep, yet I am still awake, trying to de-stress and zone out in front of the TV, because I haven't watched TV for days or even weeks. I think about sneaking to my computer to work, but when I sit down, my eyes begin to dart around and I realize I am too tired to do anything productive, let alone creative. Then I get through one more episode of Friends before I finally pack it in and go to sleep at 2 a.m. But my alarm still goes off at 6:45 to take my son to school, and I awaken immediately stressed about my growing to-do list. Once he's off to school, I start working right away, with just a double mug of coffee - no breakfast, no workout, not even changing out of my pajamas and slippers. This is a recipe for disaster.

This bad routine continues for days until I finally whittle down my to-do list enough to chill out or make myself sick. I occasionally have to actually stop working to get ready and look presentable for previously-booked meetings, so that's a blessing and a curse. My work to-do list is never really done, because even if I send out all of my proofs, by the time I'm done, I'm already getting changes back on some and by the time I finish those, I have changes back on the others, and when those are done, some jobs are ready to send to the printers and order envelopes for, and then when I get those, the others are ready to go, then I'll have a barrage of shipping to do or meetups to schedule to drop off invitations. I currently have close to 20 orders in different stages of this process, not to mention e-mail inquiries or phone calls to return to prospective brides and clients, as well as invitation consultation meetings. This is the job, this is my business, and I LOVE it. What I do not love is when I get overzealous, thinking I can do it all AND have a family, eat healthily at home, work out, and the glue that holds it all together: get plenty of sleep!

My priorities have been out of whack this week and I can see now in hindsight that in the past couple of weeks have been leading up to this stress-fest.

My number one priorities are my family, health and spirituality. Of course my business is a priority, but not a more important one than my family, health and faith. If those three pillars in my life are not straight, I'm not doing my best at my business or anything else. 

February's meal goal of using what we have basically threw me into a tailspin. I accept now that the best we've ever been about eating healthfully and at home was when we had that solid meal plan during January.  I have gotten creative in the kitchen a few times this month, but we've eaten out more than I'd like because it got too late and I didn't know what to make or have anything thawed, etc. Not good. I know now how good it can be and that in order to maintain that goal, I need to be accountable to a schedule and a plan... so I will start a new plan tomorrow for the next month.

When we're not eating well, we don't have the right kind of energy to be active and our sleep schedule gets all crazy too. Hubs and I have been staying up too late for a couple weeks now and we're both exhausted. So when we're not eating right, have no energy, we're not being active enough (and it feels like a beating when we work out) and we aren't getting enough sleep, we aren't performing at our best in our work or our family time either. So I'm putting a stop to this. I don't feel good right now. I feel guilty and tired and icky. Is it any surprise that during this time, I also stopped reading and blogging, two things I love doing in my down time? All of the things that enrich my life essentially stopped because I let my priorities get out of line. What have I been doing? I have had some really fun social times with friends in the last couple weeks, which is fantastic — it's my alone time/family time when I've been messing up. I'm going to get back to my routine this week and back to my healthy, happy family.

I feel like I should also mention the chaos in the world right now. I feel like global issues are escalating at an exponential pace and it is wigging me out, not to mention that the gas prices here are getting out of control again and people are starting to freak a little bit. I am hoping and praying we don't have another economic meltdown in this country, but it is unsettling to say the least. I can feel the tension rising in friends, family and even strangers. I think as a nation, we are a positive people, but that can sometimes lead to living in denial. Did we learn from our economic missteps or did we just go back to driving Suburbans and charging up variable-rate credit cards? Just sayin... make sure your ducks are in a row and your current lifestyle is sustainable. Be prepared. I'm going to take a breather this weekend and get my life back on-track, learn from my mistakes and make sure my priorities are in line. Sweet dreams!

Bad Lab

For the first few puppy years, living with our lab, Sam, was a lot like living in "Marley & Me." But now that he's five-and-a-half, he behaves well for months and then he'll just have an "off" week when he gets into trouble every day. Maybe he had cabin fever from the ice storm last week, but he has been quite mischievous over the last few days.

First, let's take a look at how lovable and docile he is most of the time:

        

What a sweet cuddlebug, right?

  

And I couldn't resist sharing this old photo of Sam helping V play Super Mario Bros. on the old Nintendo. (This was a very bad haircut she got just before moving here - lol.)

Well, we rarely get photos of the bad things he does, because they happen so suddenly and without warning. Like the time he jumped up on the counter and ate half of a loaf of fresh-baked bread. Or the time he jumped on the counter and ate TWO POUNDS of fajita meat. Or when, right in front of us, walked into the garden and began eating cucumbers straight off the plant. And we love it when we come in to find our clean and folded bras, socks and undies strewn from the laundry basket all around the house. Not to mention the countless pairs of shoes the kids sacrificed to the lab-gods before they learned never to leave them in the living room overnight. Sometimes Sam even jumps up onto the living room couch or recliner right in front of our faces (so you know he does it when we're gone) and just curls up in a ball and thinks he's going to nap there.

Last week on Monday night, I came home from taking V to volleyball practice and half of the items from the recycling bin were torn up around the house, along with a large cardboard box torn to pieces. We picked up the pieces, told him that was a "leave it!" and went on about our evening. 

Throughout the chilly week, Sam enjoyed watching the fireplace and sleeping close by. But by Friday afternoon, Sam was ready to get out of the house! He had a blast playing in the snow (LOVES snow) and I guess he was having so much fun outside he forgot to take care of business. With no whimper, bark or whine to let us know, he took matters into his own hands... looked straight at Hubs in the eye, lifted his leg, and oh yes, he did. For about 30 seconds he did. Even while Hubs exclaimed "Sam! NOOOOOOOO!" There he stood, leg up, just going. It was unstoppable. We all stared in horror until Sam was finished and Hubs promptly threw him out in the backyard while we cleaned the carpet. Hubs then marched Sam back inside and straight into his kennel. Later in the day, after they were ready to apologize to each other, Sam was let back out into the general population... and he seemed so content to be back in Daddy's good graces. Look at that ridiculous pig-nose!

But then Saturday morning, Hubs made bacon in a cast iron skillet with breakfast. I know this is gross, but bear with me, he left the bacon grease in the skillet all day so it would be easier to clean (everyone does this, right?). Saturday night, Hubs returns to the kitchen to find...

Well we all know what happened – Sam lapped up half a pan of bacon grease! Eeeeeew! Bad dog!

Let's hope "Sam the Man" has a better week this week. :)

Recipe: Almond-Crusted Chicken with Spinach

Hubs made this all by himself this week and did a fantastic job. Squeeze the lemon wedge over both the chicken and the spinach, you won't be disappointed.

Directions:

1. Make a coarse paste of 1/2 cup roasted, unsalted almonds, 1 garlic clove, 1/2 teaspoon of coarse salt, and 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil in a food processor.
2. Rub onto 2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves.
3. Roast in 425-degree oven until cooked through, 15-18 minutes. Slice and serve on baby spinach with lemon wedges.

This is a detox-friendly recipe is from Whole Living magazine.

The Grounded Family

Grounded. Punished. Reprimanded. Penalized. Any kid will tell you that being grounded sucks. It's just awful. No friends, no fun, feeling anger toward your family because they're the ones that grounded you (of course, kids should really be upset with themselves for breaking a rule in the first place, and probably are, but you're easier to take it out on). There's even a wikiHow page called How to Cope with Being Grounded — the first option is "Get out of it." No worries though, steps 2-7 are actually helpful. Step 5 on the wikiHow is my favorite, "Find something else to do!" which is exactly what our teenage daughter is forced to do when grounded, and if it's possible, I think she actually loves it!

I know I love it when my daughter is grounded. When she flubs up (which is far less often than it used to be), she gets grounded from facebook and her cell phone, in this case for a week. It actually worked out great since this week will include her "finals time" so she has no phone calls or texts from her boyfriend or instant messaging with friends on fb to look forward to while studying — she just takes her time, and *gasp* — studies.

Don't get me wrong, she very much misses her social media and cell and all, but she's at an age where she no longer fights it (finally, thank God). She moves from anger to acceptance in a flash and just gets over it and moves on. There is no sense in putting all your energy into being pissed off about things you can't change (a great life lesson for us all).

But the weekend is a whole other story. When she used to get grounded, it was like the whole family was on house-arrest for the weekend. We didn't want to go do anything super fun because we didn't want her to have fun, so we'd spend the whole weekend cooped up in the house, with her mad at us and us irritated with her. But now, these "grounded weekends" make for a lot of family time and that's been great (plus, the weather's perfect for staying home anyway: rainy, cold and with possible snow and ice).

We've been eating at home more than ever before, the kids are involved in meal-planning and I'm trying to be less of a kitchen Nazi and let them help more often. Also, we found a new favorite cartoon the other night, it's called The Regular Show — have you ever seen it? It's pretty amazing. Definitely my favorite modern cartoon by far.

In addition to the fantastic new cartoon find, the family has played cards together (Hubs taught the kids how to play real gin rummy); I went to the movies with my mom (we saw The King's Speech - greatness!) and Hubs took the kids to see Tron in IMAX 3D; my daughter and I swung by a Premier jewelry party yesterday afternoon and each picked out something pretty; my son and I made peanut butter cookies; we had an hours-long campfire in our backyard fire pit last night where we chatted, told jokes and held a "Pants Retirement Ceremony" for my daughter's very worn out first pair of skinny jeans (we video recorded this and I'll post it on fb later); we played Wii Fit as a family and did yoga and balance exercises together; and today I have high hopes of just vegging out, reading (and finishing, finally) my book, and later, enjoying the preparation of the warm cream of broccoli soup with rosemary I'll be making from scratch. Not having to worry about keeping up with the kids' social engagements, I've managed to finally get the entire kitchen and bathroom clean (I'm talking tub, shower, blinds, counters, stove top, everything) and as a parental unit we've tackled the ridiculous amounts of laundry that come with being at the ranch for a week right up until New Year's Eve.

So yes, if being grounded gives her an excuse to spend time with us without wishing she were somewhere else or pulling her cell out of her pocket to text-reply "K" every 2 minutes, then that's awesome. Maybe we should all ground ourselves once a month or so. No friends?... Who loves your more than your family? No fun?... Well then I don't know what all these smiles and laughs have been about all weekend...

Groundation: highly recommended.