Summer is well and gone, and we’re deep into fall now. Despite no longer being a student or a teacher, September always brings with it a sense of a fresh start, and entering into a new year ready to get to work.
As both a small business owner and a mama, productivity is this weird thing where if you’re not productive enough, you feel like you’re wandering the desert confused by mirages and looming insolvency, but if you’re too productive, you wonder if your priorities are in the wrong spot and if you’re neglecting your children. Should they really be running around barefoot flinging Super’s tennis balls at each other? Exactly how dusty and hairy is it under that table where Caleb is hiding and reading his comic book? Shouldn’t he at least bring a book light with him so his eyes don’t go bad?
Jon and I run our shop “together” but for the most part it’s really him running it, and I chirp in with my opinion on the side, and then complain when things surprise me. Productivity, on my end, looks a lot like getting all the laundry done, making sure there are sufficient snacks in the snack drawer, and keeping up with the blog and social media, that never ending vortex of content creating. I sometimes pop in on an email or two, for projects that are spinning around in the ether. While I’m trying to enjoy and make the most of my time while the kids are young, especially with Naomi before she likely heads off to some sort of preschool next year, there is definitely still the other sort of hairiness that comes with a fluctuating income, and many of these projects are ones I’m tremendously excited and nervous about.
I always say there are seasons of life for which you should offer yourself grace: when your baby is an infant and you’re breastfeeding ceaselessly, when you’re adjusting to new routines for your kids (and therefore yourself), the holiday rush when everything is hairy and who can blame you if you don’t get a blog post up every week, the post-holiday-rush when you’re recovering. But during all these seasons, the bills still need to get paid.
My days usually consist of mornings with Naomi, house cleaning or reading books or grocery shopping (across the street), lunch, giving staff in the studio shop their break, Naomi’s nap time (during which I occasionally get a bit of work done), giving staff in the studio shop their lunch break, and then picking up Caleb from school. After school is general various forms of chaos, including after snack time, staff breaks, school activities, making dinner, watching the house completely deteriorate again from the morning clean-up.
It’s usually not until after I put the kids to bed that I spend some time clacking away aimlessly, hoping something sticks to the wall.
In any case, I’ve been a bit more productive lately, which perhaps isn’t saying much but I’m going to say it anyways. I had a hard time getting back into the swing of things coming back from the summer, with settling into new routines, but fall has brought with it many new and exciting stationery things, and projects are starting to materialize. Jon has been elbowing me back into the game, and I’ve been deluding myself about how important I am.
making wild rice 