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Episode 300: Balancing Life Outside of School

2025/5/2
logo of podcast A Delectable Education Charlotte Mason Podcast

A Delectable Education Charlotte Mason Podcast

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Emily Kaiser
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Liz Gatrell
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Nicole Williams
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Emily Kaiser: 我认为在学业之外,生活需要平衡,我们不应被各种责任压垮,而应学会在生活中游刃有余。我们应该关注家庭内部关系的平衡,刻意创造独处时间,并将其作为优先事项。在婚姻关系中,需要重视夫妻关系的长期发展,避免长期忽视伴侣。平衡家务与教育,需要合理利用孩子们的劳动能力,并调整对家居清洁度的期望值。平衡家庭生活,需要适度地进行社交活动,避免因专注于教育而忽略社交。平衡工作与家庭生活,需要合理安排时间,将工作安排在固定的时间段内进行。平衡家庭生活,需要处理好与大家庭成员的关系,并根据情况调整安排。平衡生活,需要关注自身身心健康,避免因过度劳累而影响健康。平衡生活,需要保证每天的阅读时间,即使时间很短。平衡生活,需要重视精神生活,保证每天与上帝沟通的时间。 Liz Gatrell: 为了平衡夫妻关系,需要刻意安排二人独处时间,例如每天散步。将夫妻关系作为优先事项,这种行为会代代相传。为了平衡家庭关系,父母需要偶尔忽略孩子,以便维护夫妻关系,这也有利于孩子的安全感。为了平衡家庭关系,可以定期安排父母与孩子单独相处的时间。平衡家务,需要建立日常作息,并让孩子们参与家务。平衡生活,需要关注自身身心健康,并根据自身情况调整运动方式。平衡生活,需要在日常生活中预留一些时间用于个人成长,即使时间很短。平衡家庭生活与照顾年迈父母,需要根据情况调整,有时需要牺牲部分学习时间。平衡家庭生活与照顾年迈父母,需要为孩子维持正常的学习生活,并根据情况调整学习安排。 Nicole Williams: 为了平衡教会活动与家庭生活,需要根据自身情况调整参与程度,避免过度参与。平衡教会活动,需要避免过度参与,根据自身情况调整参与程度。平衡教会活动与家庭生活,需要根据自身情况调整参与程度,避免过度参与。平衡工作与家庭生活,需要合理安排时间,将工作安排在固定的时间段内进行。平衡生活,需要优先处理重要的事情,避免贪多嚼不烂。平衡生活,需要定期评估和调整,因为生活中的平衡会不断变化。

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This episode of A Delectable Education is brought to you by Charlotte Mason Simple Languages. Do you want your children to have meaningful conversations in a foreign language? Charlotte Mason Simple Languages can help you accomplish that goal, even if you don't speak the language yourself.

This program was inspired by all the recommendations Ms. Mason made for foreign language in her volumes and follows the PNEU's scope and sequence. During the first year of this program, you will learn a second language with the Bible, traditional children's songs, nature study, poetry, classic children's stories, family conversational sentences, and playful Gouin series.

Each unit includes a glossary with all the new words introduced in the unit, a teacher's guide with ideas and important notes, instructions for each activity, beautiful watercolor illustrations, as well as native speaker audios. For more information, visit www.cmsimplelanguages.com and use the code ADE15 for a 15% discount.

Before we get started today, I want to thank our season-long sponsor, Living Book Press, for their generous support of our podcast, Making the Season Possible. Anthony at Living Book Press

Book Press has done a fantastic job reprinting Charlotte Mason's own six-volume home education series that you can get them in paperback in two different styles. This is what I got for my husband when he was doing the Men's Idol Challenge because all of the other versions were pink or had flowers on them. And Anthony has some very innocuous or masculine-leaning versions

edition so there you can choose from different styles there are some that have flowers on them you can also get them in hardcover in your choice of color even and recently he commissioned a professional voice actress to record and she's British by the way record Charlotte Mason's entire series on audio and those are also available please visit livingbookpress.com slash delectable to receive 10% off your order

Welcome to A Delightful Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I'm Emily Kaiser and I'm here with Nicole Williams and Liz Gatrell. And today we are going to be having another episode about balancing life and particularly life itself.

Outside of school, because we do have a life outside of school, right? Can anyone say amen or no kidding as a response to the phrase, the abundant life? I mean, sometimes we feel we are not just juggling too many balls, but we're just rolling around in the midst of all of them and sliding on them. So many of us...

use the words overwhelmed, exhausted, out of control, life is just too much, and life with children is really full. We have talked all season about balancing and the constant need to evaluate and reevaluate and shift our expectations from, you know, what worked yesterday or last year to what's needed today. So we want to focus on

this episode on all the things outside of lessons besides planning and implementing them because there is a lot of life besides school, church, extracurricular activities. What about the relationships in our life outside of

inside and outside our families. So how can we be present and make the most of the time that we have? Because none of us are getting more as we all hopefully are learning more is not always best or even good. So we each want not just to stay afloat,

and avoid drowning, but we want to learn to navigate all of life that we have. Amen? So where should we dive in? Let's just try to get a balanced perspective in some of the outside of school things. Let's break it down a little bit because there is so much of it. What do you guys think about, first of all, within our own home?

first maybe regarding our relationships inside our family. How do we keep those things in balance? I mean, have you ever gone through

through a week and realized you haven't hardly said a word to your husband? We just have had a couple of weeks like that. And I'm like, we are truly ships. And then my husband works outside of the home one job. It's part-time. So it's just one portion of what he does. But he leaves very early in the morning. Most of the time I am still asleep or like within five minutes of me waking up. So we do not see each other. And then when he comes home, I'm in the middle of school lessons. And then when I'm done with school, I'm

He's teaching, you know, and so it's, and then depending on what's going on in the afternoon or evening, like we have weeks each month where it is, we hardly see each other. Yeah. And it is, neither of us like it, you know, I mean, just stuff happens and I'm like, okay, I've got five minutes and I have to get this off my chest or I need to, he helps me process, you know? Yeah. So, and I think I do the same for him, but.

It has to be a priority. And so the weeks that that's not the case, and we do try to safeguard, it just happens like pretty much once a quarter. There's one week where we have something every single night that is not, you know. It seems to me when I was doing homeschooling all the time that I either fell off on the one side of being a demanding mother, like, honey, I need your help. You've got to do this. We've got to do that. Or just ignoring the guy like he didn't live in the house with us.

I know what you mean because you get so used to doing things by yourself sometimes that you're like, this is just easier for me to just keep going forward. Yeah, I agree.

So I think part of finding balance in that is carving out deliberate time where it's just the two of you to connect. And for us, we still force our children to go to bed fairly early because we both wake up so early. We need to go to bed early and we need to have some time at the end of the day. But when we have evening commitments every single day, that doesn't happen. And then we do run ragged. We did a lot better when we decided to just take a walk every day, even if it was 10 minutes.

because that was the only way we could be alone sometimes, you know, just get out of the house or go sit on the porch steps and tell the kids. Well, even when my children were little, Emily will remember this, if they saw dad and I with coffee cups in our hand, they could not interrupt. They had to go back in the other room

Tell them about your grandparents, though. You don't always have to have date nights, but those are great, too. Yeah. You told us recently that your grandson saw your daughter and her husband having coffee. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They couldn't. Yeah, we came in and he said, you can't bother them. They're having coffee. I'm like, oh.

what goes around comes around. - Oh, and what a great example though that when we do establish those routines and make priorities of our relationship,

that that carries on. That is a generational thing when we make that priority. And I think that is the main key here is that as I think just people in general, but also homeschoolers, there's so many things are, you know, with regard to our churches and extracurriculars and field trips and,

We have to make it a priority that we spend time together, whatever that looks like. We must prioritize that. Yes, exactly. Be deliberate. And that that is an important lesson for our children and gives them security too. Yeah. You know, I do think that as a whole, and I'm speaking very generally here, I don't think our society has a problem with,

Again, healthy, you know, what we would typically call normal families, if whatever those are. We don't have a problem not eating.

with not attending to our children's needs, right? Especially as homeschooling moms, we're already spending, and probably in our minds, even if they don't perceive it, we know how much of our mental energy is going towards considering them, their needs, constantly evaluating their progress, that sort of thing. And our husband can get pushed out. And I think it is, if it's just 10, 20 minutes,

That we need to quote unquote ignore them, not to their unsafety or whatever. But that is an important thing for them to do too. Yeah. To learn that they are not the center of the universe. And also, but I do think that it has borne out that that is actually very comforting for children to know that their parents have that relationship. They take security from it. And this is why I constantly remind moms too, to get your school planning done early.

during school, right after school, in the afternoon if you have to. But when your husband is home and it's family night and, you know, even if you're running and doing things, don't always, you know, push him aside because you've got to get ready for the lessons. Yeah. Yeah. I always took very seriously when we were newly married, the idea that the amount of time our kids would be in our home would be

Right. And then, but we were still going to live together for many more years after that. I just had some young moms just like two days ago asking me about this very thing because we had children in the home for 42 years. And it's only been not even two and a half years since it's just been him and I. And I said, I am so glad we worked really hard because we still like each other and we have a good time. But 42 years is a long time to neglect somebody.

Yeah. No joke. And expect to have this flourishing relationship after the fact. Yeah. And then, you know, like what you were saying, Emily, about always being with our children. This can be a challenge, too, because I think especially when we're really wrapped up in homeschooling, we want a break from our kids. Yeah.

And we forget that they need us besides just to be their teacher. Right. They need us as mothers and fathers. Yeah. Yeah. In our home, we've done this for years, actually. It actually started in 2020. And when we were both in the home all the time, but we were still doing our jobs. And we also had a foster child at the time. And we realized how...

you know, the tyranny of the urgent was making us like not connect with it. When we saw the fruit of it was not good, not good fruit was coming out with our children. So we started doing, um, each of us takes one of our four kids out each month. So they, every other month they go out and they go with the opposite parents. So, um,

what is six times a year so three three times they go with mom and three times they go with dad or whatever um and that has been helpful usually it's sometimes it's I don't even have time for a date this month you're just coming with me to do these errands but we still get the time one-on-one with that child and we'll usually make it be some kind of treat so you get to pick out you know a mashbox car at the grocery store or whatever um so they look forward to it and they're like when am I going on

my date and they plan you know what they want to do and that has been helpful just for us to have a like some consistent rhythm that is not the only time we're connecting with our kids each month but it is just as we're intentional with our husbands to have date night we are with the kids too

And then there's that whole realm of all the chores and housekeeping and cooking and things that we have to keep up with. And that can really suffer when we're trying to do a good job as a teacher, don't you think? So we can go two ways here, too. We can either let the house go to pot or we can become super distressed and stay up all night just so we get things tidy, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I...

I don't know that I ever found a really good balance with this. I felt like I was always just ping-ponging back and forth between the two. But when I was newly homeschooling, just my one child, my oldest, there were days where I would not do school because the house was so messy and I would be pulled to clean up the house. And then I started homeschooling my siblings and now I had...

six or seven kids in the house every day. And I realized, no, this is actually going to work to my detriment. If I'm not doing school with them, they're going to be making messes. And it was the, honestly was the motivation I needed, the accountability I needed to get my act together and make that a priority that we were. And we actually like painted the walls in the basement and threw down carpet remnants and got some,

hand-me-down couches so that we could do it in a zone and then we all cleaned before we finished school every day and so that area was staying you know under control but I remember so many times saying you know if these kids just went to school every day I would be able to keep a clean house yeah but they're there and they keep eating food making messes I know but it is it is something that we've got to find the balance we have to do school we cannot put that off and

We have to feed them too. But we do need, but utilizing their help and teaching them how to do chores. Yes, I think that is so key. It cannot be on us. None of us has the capacity to be a wife, a mother, a teacher, a house cleaner, a laundress, a cook. Yeah.

A nurse. You know, like a personal assistant, you know, a taxi driver. We can't do all of those things, but we all do them, right? Right. But I think especially with the maintenance of our home, I would just say rhythms. Yeah, for sure. And getting your kids involved. And we do. We have. We still. It started when they were toddlers, but we still have things that we peg to mealtime, right? Right. Before breakfast, these things have to happen. After breakfast, these things have to happen before school starts.

And then after lunch, no one can go out and play until the kitchen is all cleaned up. Right. At the end of school, even though we have a school room now, I still make them put away their school materials. We use that room for lots of other things and people are in and out of our home and I do not want to have, you know, lose things, you know, if all the books get stacked up and piled. And I had to learn to relax. You know, when you have school going on in a home environment,

I don't think chaos needs to reign and it doesn't need to be filthy pig pen, you know. But on the other hand, you need to lower your expectations that it's always going to be immaculate, you know, because that was my hang up when my kids were at home and

Yeah. I used to knock myself out from morning till night. Yeah. And I remember now all my kids are in school. So messes are not being made outside of the school room, you know, during school hours, but that has not, that's just been this year that that is not the case. And, you know,

You know, I did just what you were saying. I remember, you know, one crucial day where the kids had gotten out my little, you know, prepared lacing activity of stringing pony, plastic pony beads on shoelaces. I remember this picture. And they were all over the floor. And I could just feel my blood pressure getting higher. But I'm like, no.

We can finish school. It's okay. There is a broom. We can sweep this up. We clean up after school. And that all went fine until my three-year-old stuck one up her nose and derailed the plans. But many, many days there's been messes like that. And it's okay. We're going to clean this up before we have lunch. And then we move on. And before we move on, past the four walls. Yes.

Sometimes we also need to, for our own sanity and for our children's socialization, we need to have people in our home. And some of us love hospitality, and that's not a big deal. But other people, because they're homeschooling and trying to keep up with everything, never have anyone in to their home. And I think that's, you know, we can fall off out of balance either way. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, for us right now, hospitality is kind of in an overdrive season because we had our house on the market and we just basically didn't show any hospitality. We also now live much closer to people. So it is much easier to say, hey, you want to come over for dinner and you don't have to drive an hour to get there. So that's great. But so we're doing more than I would even feel comfortable at this time just to, you know, kind of catch up with people that have

fallen off. But we do limit it to one maximum too. And that's a very rare per weekend. And we do it on the weekends. Like this is not something I am doing during the week because I don't have the capacity for that. Yeah. And I was going to say that this is another really good reason for our breaks too. That, you know, if we, if we do take a month off,

or even just two or three weeks between terms, it gives us times to stack up some of that stuff and do a different thing. Maybe it's easier, maybe it's harder to keep the house clean when we're not doing school, but we have a little more time, maybe some margin to think about those kinds of things. And just know that this is a seasonal changing thing. That's what we've talked about through this whole balancing series.

is, you know, sometimes when you're children, you've got a lot of little ones and you're doing school, the most you can do is order a pizza out and have friends come over. I have a daughter who loves to make elaborate gourmet meals for her friends. This is how she shows love to them. But, you know, there were seasons where that just wasn't always possible. She would do homemade pizza instead. Yeah, yeah, that were just fabulous. But there...

there's a time. And so maybe you can only have somebody over once a month right now because of, but don't just completely stop. You know, I just think that's such a mistake. We need our friends. We need to talk to other people about other things besides handwriting and math. And, um,

And our kids need to see it. And it is a commandment to be hospitable. And also a lot of times we think we need to join a co-op or something like that because our kids need that socialization. Yeah, you can do this in your home. It's just a play. And so if you could have a mom over in the afternoon and the kids can play, it's really like not cutting into your school day.

And they're getting the socialization. And so are you because you're getting to sit and visit with somebody. Exactly. Has a lot of benefits. Yeah, I agree. And we get asked a lot about church and ministry opportunities outside the home. So how do we keep those kind of things in balance? Because that can take a big chunk of our life if we get involved in certain things. Yeah.

I think sometimes, you know, you guys probably all hear this at church. You know, there's this small percentage of people who do the big percentage of stuff. And so once you become part of that small percentage, your jobs keep growing. Right. And I've been in there, that situation. Yeah. Yeah. I've mentioned it here before that there was this one time I realized I needed to stop doing Awanas.

And I just couldn't come up with a reason why I needed to stop because I didn't have anything else going on that night of the week. And I just wasn't filling in that we're at the church every night of the week. You know, we, we've got to stop. We have to stay home sometimes. Yeah. And I've had seasons where I just, as much as I love to teach Sunday school or a women's study or be involved in the, um,

hospitality of the church or whatever, there have been times where the most I could contribute was signing up to work in the nursery on rotation or something. But do something because that is your Christian community and it

you know, just as in a family, we have jobs to do to keep things going. We, um, we need to do something to minister and maybe your thing is every single week that you are there, you're going to greet somebody and on purpose, have a little chat with someone before you leave. Maybe that's the most you can do. So just always evaluate. And I would say we're in a season of

Doing I wouldn't say too much at church, but we are heavily invested in various ways But what how we balance that is

is we don't have a lot of other outside the home activities that we're running. And your kids are very involved in a lot of the stuff you do too. Yes. And so, and I think you can't be heavily invested in both. Right. But also it's seasons like we've been talking about, you know, you had a season where you did not have that opportunity and now you do and you might, you know, find a different balance next year or something. Exactly. Exactly. And then we have moms who have to work outside the home.

Or, you know, are working on a continuing education for a degree for what they're going to need next in their life to do. So what are some ways we can keep that in balance if we must work or we are in school? Well, I've worked the whole time. Same. Of having children. And I think I've done a better job lately. Yeah.

at being balanced, you know, I like to get, just throw myself into projects. And so when I was living remotely far away from everything and my kids were really little, I was not bopping around in the park cause that was, you know, a two hour extra thing just to get there and back, um, and load everyone in the car and, you know, sunscreen and all the things. So, you know, they're playing around home and I was doing a lot of work. Um, and I could do

really immerse myself in those projects. Now that can't be my priority is I still have responsibility. Obviously we still produce the podcast, you know, that requires a lot. Um, but it has to fit into the times that I have allotted for it. I think that's the key right there. Um, and I think that's how I've made it work all these years is

is that there were certain blocks of time in my day where it could fit, and then I didn't do it outside of that because school was a priority. So I wasn't working during school. And then there's a time in the evening when it's dinner and chores and afternoon occupations and things like that.

It can't happen during those times. So it kind of kept it in its box. The one thing I did wrong that I would warn anybody who's doing this is that for a long time, I stayed up late at night because that was the quiet time. And I realized that just got me off to the wrong start in the morning. And I had to completely switch to being the morning person, which I wasn't. But I'm there. I did that. It wasn't a long switch, but I realized...

I needed to get up and do my work in the morning so that I could be underway and be cheerful and up and alert when the kids got up. And not have it hanging over you, like what she does, cast a pall upon the whole day. Right. I needed a quiet time, but it makes a difference to have it be the morning time rather than the evening time. When it was the evening time, the kids were waking me up in the morning. And that wasn't the right way to start a productive day. And as they get older.

it's not quiet in the evenings. They're staying up longer and that's when they want to talk to you. And so you're not getting any work done. But I have also lived with the tension of thinking, oh, my kids are reading really quietly right now. I'll just do this little bit for work.

And that's a mistake usually always. You know, it's like saying, I'm just going to run downstairs and change the laundry or go just start dinner. And the next thing you know, school is derailed. So we do have to kind of work on those kind of outside things. And you know, another thing that

think so many moms have in their life is just our extended family who sometimes has needs especially you know when you get to have school-aged children you may have parents who are aging that get sick and need care and taught your time and that can really be a huge pull one way or the other

Yeah. You've had a little bit of that with your grandmother and your mom. Yeah. And we had a school year where the whole first term was my mom in hospice in our home. Yeah. You know? And so everything that we keep saying, I'm kind of choking up here, but everything we keep saying, school has to be the priority. And I'd say this is the one area where I would say, yeah,

You do not know how much longer you have with this person. Right. And,

sometimes school has to be maybe a little spotty. Maybe it's that school happens in the morning, but afternoon occupations have to be a little bit more independent. Um, but I know those times it's hard. You feel stretched thin, um, going in both directions, being up in the night. You know, we, I was closest down the road from my grandma and we, so I got the phone calls in the middle of the night when she had fallen and stuff like that. And, um,

So not necessarily getting a good night's sleep and everything, but oh my goodness, I would not take back any one of those moments to be there for her in those last years. - It's kind of the other end from when you have newborns and you're sleep deprived. - Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. And you know, I think a lot of families with multiple children and babies, at the same time, yes, you have a terminal diagnosis or a hospice season,

You kind of do, you never know how much time you have, but I think you do need to evaluate, like, is this ongoing or is this an intense season of, no, we are just finishing our term and this is all in on this. And I do think we need to even find balance in that, but I totally agree with you. Yeah, I hear you. But I think also if we do the same thing when we have newborns and toddlers, we literally are graduating children. Right.

If we were to have that same mindset in those times. Because it can be an ongoing season for 12 years. Yes, because I have a father who's very incapacitated. And he does...

Not a ton, but there are demands where we suddenly have to drop things and go, you know. And so you can't control that kind of thing. But children can be strapped to your back and go outside for the walk, right? I mean, it's not quite the same. But I just...

I feel like this is part of our training and their education is the way we respect and care for our parents who are, because they're going to be doing that for us. So let's give an example of how to do this happily and cheerfully and stuff like that. But I, and on the other end of it though, I will say that I realized after a little bit with my mom there and, you know, just having to watch this, the schedule for her meds and just the demands that she made, um,

My children actually needed some normal routine going on. So I just like moved the school room to an area that was far enough away from her that it was quiet, but they, they still had to do their reading and their math and things like that because that helped them have some sense of stability in a very up and down life. I think one way to look at it might be to prepare for school and be prepared

willing to let go when the interruptions come yes versus knowing well an interruption could come so we're just not going to do school today you know it's a mental shift right and you make a great point because you know for a long time we just kept harping on this idea of being prepared for your term yeah when you're prepared sometimes the kids like when i was dealing with my grandma the kids were old enough for me to be able to say this is what you're gonna do today i have to run off

And they could follow that routine and they've done the routine for so many years that that wasn't unusual. And I think that could be even the case when you have a baby, if you have children who are older. But you make a good point in this balanced conversation that if you have a baby and you have another baby, and then you have these ones too. I actually heard somebody speak on this when I had just one school-age kid and

where their whole theme was you can wait. There isn't anything that needs to be done before 10 years old. And I don't think that was good advice at all, at all. And so we do need to have some rhythm and keep doing things. Hopefully these critical, like Liz says, it's not just like, yeah, they're ailing forever. I get the phone calls. No, no.

When things get dropped, it's because somebody has fallen. Yes. Somebody has to go to the doctor or we're in the middle of those last hospice days. Yeah. Yeah. And I've taken children along with me to take grandma to the doctor and we sat in the lobby waiting for her appointment and they did their handwriting or something, you know, or we read.

So it's not going to be the full feast every day, but it's something. And you said, you know, babies can be strapped to you. You can't go out for that. But I'm thinking more like the mom who is super sick, you know, and just like can't get out of bed. Or like, you know, I have a colicky baby who doesn't sleep at night. And I, you know, I mean, those prolonged seasons, I think we need to evaluate how we're managing the rest of life, you know, and taking on. And you know someone who talks really deeply.

Well about this or I think has a lot of good things to say is Melissa Peterman She did a teacher training video that we have on our website about managing with severe chronic illness You know and like all of the ways she's continued to do school with her children, you know Even though someday she is literally too sick to get out of bed, right? And the balance comes when you you just realize you have to let go of some things. It's not always school I mean it might be that for a season

we're having more prepared foods that we buy instead of having a homemade dinner every single night. Maybe for a time you actually hire in some help to help you keep things somewhat under control. I know we had a season where we had some friends with nine children that lost their mother suddenly, tragically. And we had lots of days where we were going to help that family. And eventually I had to kind of set some things in place to keep

the home scene going smoother too. So, you know, it's definitely just always, you know, like Emily's making this great point about what is the long range possibility here? So then make the decisions based on, is this a one week situation or a one year situation and then make the changes that you need to. I'm over here giggling because I'm thinking of you saying that how our kids will learn how to take care of us. And I,

I'm thinking of the night I got a phone call that grandma had fallen and I and I saw my youngest daughter walk through the room and I said do you want to go with me grandma's fallen and I was thinking I probably couldn't get her up by myself and she said yes and then when I went to leave I couldn't find her and my son went with me and when we got over there they were she was already there oh and she had grandma up and in her chair and I had it I was like late to the scene

Oh, wow. But yes, they do learn from us sometimes during these times, don't they? Yeah. Whenever life is out of balance, you know, we can teach our kids a lot by getting it more in balance too. So you actually asked for help and that was helpful. Yeah. And our demeanor about it. Yes. Yeah. How we handle it. For sure. So last but not least,

maybe the most important person in the family for us ourselves at least is ourselves. So how do we keep personally in balance when we're have so many demands inside and outside the home besides school? This is where we can tend to get like we're just grabbing fast food all the time or you know our health can suffer. We're cutting corners on the sleep like you said and

some of those things so what are some ways we fall out of balance in caring for our own body and mind i don't even think we need to talk about i think everyone listening to this is probably going yep it's out of balance or i've had to work really hard to keep it back yeah i think that's the big thing is is what is balance

And maybe convincing ourselves of what is a proper balance. Because I know when I hear just the word self-care. Oh, gosh. Please don't say that word. I sometimes cringe. Yeah, because I think...

well that's just selfish like that's where i go that's immediately where i go however if you fall apart who's going to keep life going exactly and i also think to myself recently this is probably too much information but i realized i needed to go to the restroom and i had been holding it for hours and i realized what is your problem this is self-care

And so I think that's... You sound like a toddler when you have to stop and say, would you go to the bathroom? I'm frustrated. I know. So it was kind of funny. So I think there is... We do have to find a balance there. And maybe we're not like running off and, you know, every other weekend we're doing something of our own with our friends or something like that. Obviously, there's a commitment to our family that comes first at this time in our life. But we do have to find...

what that looks like in our life to take care of ourselves. And it's not entirely selfish because we want our children to see us making time for things that are truly priorities, right? Like our health is a priority. Our intellectual health is a priority. So feeding our minds and rest, you know, all of those things are crucial lessons too. So we need to know that we're being watched and really the things that we're

the patterns in our life, I think, are usually going to show up generationally or react extremely the opposite of them. And you might not have the time or the ability to get to the gym every day for an hour, but

Very likely not. But there are things you can do. I mean, I remember having, you know, a workout video that I did every day with my kids and they would get in the act. My daughter loves to do that. Particularly in this season, I just felt like my margin...

has gone down for some of those things. And I used to walk up and down the driveway, but if it was raining or, um, I, I didn't leave, I didn't finish my work in the morning, you know, with so much time to do it. I couldn't because then the kids would be descending and needing all the things in the morning. So one thing that I did last year is I got a walking pad and I walk while I work on consults in the morning. Um, and so it

You know, sometimes I'll actually find myself saving things that I can do at the computer or work that needs to be done. And I save it for the morning where I might be tempted to do it in the afternoon. But I'm like, well, I'm not going to do that while I'm sitting down and I don't want to, you know, get all sweaty in the middle of my afternoon. So that has also helped me balance things.

keeping the work to its time. But I have really striven to put in rhythms and routines, you know, of time in our days that does allow me every afternoon to sit down,

maybe for the first time since the morning and read or knit or, you know, often I'm listening to an audio book while I'm knitting or whatever. For the years that we live far out, I fed my mind by listening to audio books every time I drove. And it was great. I was, you know, read hundreds of audio books, um,

because I had at least an hour drive places. So I guess I'm saying I kind of multitask my self-care, but if it isn't for that, it doesn't happen. Yeah. I think it's also really interesting to me to see my young adult children. Part of it is how if you're caring for yourself, you're going to have a better attitude, basically. You're not going to be just run rag and stuff. Sometimes I see that

kind of good attitude in them even though they're at a hard time in their life young adult where you're trying to get everything started and two of them are starting businesses or have started them and um but I'm seeing them seem to handle it pretty well and I sometimes I tweak my head and think where did you learn that stuff right yeah but I do think that they saw me trying to implement some of these things trying to eat well you know um

just making that a habit in our home, trying to do a walk each day, things like that, whether they went with me or not. My youngest son was always fond of saying, what are you doing? Because you look like you're not doing anything. I'd be like, I'm reading a book. You ever heard of those? You know, kind of thing. We would joke around. And he goes, why do you do that? I'm like, because I want to know things, you know. So and, you know, moms feel like they don't have time to read.

The average person between 30 and 45 right now spends two and a half hours a day on their phone. I think you have time to read. If you read 10 minutes a day for a month, you will get through a 300 page book. You can. It's just a priority. You know, this is the non-negotiable of my day is I always spend time in the word first thing. And, you know, if I don't finish that.

I mean, I just have hard cut off times where I don't get work done. Right. So, but that happens if I sleep late, that's still what happens. I don't skip it and go. And so for a time I realized I had so many, I was reading audio books, but I had so many in print books that were not available on audio that I was not getting through and I wanted to. And so I would just set an alarm literally on my phone and alarm for 15 minutes. And I read for 15 minutes before I started work. And I got through so many books in just 15 minutes a day consistently. Yeah.

And you need to. You cannot just let your mind become a machine that gets through the days and takes care of all the chores and does your exercise and stuff. Our mind is as important as our body. They're very related. They depend upon each other. So we got to keep that part in balance. And you just brought up, you know, probably the most important thing is

The most personal thing is that time that we really need to spend every day alone with our Father in heaven, with our Maker. And so I would say I would put this last because it is the most important thing. And even if it's two minutes, you need to have a pause every day to remember who you are and why you're here. It got in this habit of...

listening to the Bible and doing my prayers in bed with all the lights out. That would put me to sleep. No, I didn't go to sleep, but nobody knew I was awake. And it was my walk.

you're sneaking around you do feel kind of like you're in a conspiracy with the family right like that prayer closet thing might be a real thing i gotta go hide i know but again this is a season thing you know you find what works at this time there was times where i got it before the kids then there was times where i realized oh they kind of need to see me doing this so i drug it out so you know kind of shifted it back so that they would come down when i was doing it and just

I think that may be the big thing to understanding balance in this area is that it's going to change all the time. All these areas do. Exactly. Yeah. And you just have to...

I, it's hard for me to restart routines. I literally have to write them down and follow, like have alarms and timers and stuff to get myself restarted in a, some different routine. But I was very diligent about that because otherwise it wouldn't happen. You know, um, I just remember that reminds me one last comment, um, on your large family panel.

Yes. I think this kind of goes to a lot of these. At the conference this past year, so ADE 2025, ADE at home 2025, one mom shared that she just keeps a placeholder in her routine. So because seasons, you know, I can't spend 20, 30 minutes reading my Bible, but I can spend two.

Right. I can't do a full exercise video, but I could do, I can move my body for, you know, 10 minutes or five, you know, or three minutes, you know, whatever. And just keeping the placeholder. And I thought that was brilliant because then you do not have to restart the routine. It's there. It's just diminished. It is. And I mean, I think we can apply that to lots of areas like school when we talk about, oh, you know, we're caring for a parent and we can't do the full thing, but maybe we can do all the subjects, but shorter. Really quick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's one of the things we always say with the schedule cards is don't leave it out because you don't know what you're doing. Keep it in. Otherwise, you won't look at it again for the next year. So doing that same kind of thing for your own self. Well, you know, to kind of wrap up here, I think we have covered a massive amount of territory in our lives. But every single one of us has 24 hours. And a third of that should be at least in bed, if not asleep, right? Right.

When you think about all of this, it is kind of overwhelming and exhausting to think about all the myriad responsibilities we have and what we need to do with the day outside of school lessons. Not to diminish the time we spend planning for them, but if you could even take 10 minutes a day or a week

and just think through these areas, like right sometime in the next week. Take 10 minutes and think about what your life demands right now, what is necessary,

You know, I try to think of it as that jar that you have to put lots of rocks into. And they always talk about putting in the big ones first because you can fill in. But the answer which most of us gravitate toward, which gets us out of balance, is that we just think we need a bigger jar so we can put more rocks in it. You know, oh, I have this extra hour this week. What can I fill it with? Don't do that. You know, we take time out to actually think about that.

how am I keeping my husband a priority? How am I, how could I make the chores more efficient? Do you know what I'm saying? And even if you have to set a note on your calendar for once a month, I'm gonna sit down and reevaluate. What has gone well this month? What do I still need to tweak and put in balance?

You're not going to come up with any kind of routine that is going to stick for the whole 20 or 30 years that you have children in your house. It's going to constantly change. So you have to always reevaluate because...

We just have a tendency to get out of balance and just don't forget to put in their time to just breathe and relax and just find joy in life, you know, to sit quietly outside, to take that little stroll around the block. You know, if you can get someone to watch your children for 10 minutes, an older child or your husband or whatever, you know,

You need to have that peace in your life. So a school will be better for it if your life outside of school is in balance too. I remember the Lord's not wrong.

He wasn't wrong when he said today will be 24 hours. Yeah. And he didn't mean for us to run around with our hair on fire. So and when we trust him, we've got to make make it appropriate, make it work. And one Hebrew idea about time, you know, in the Bible, there was evening and there was morning the first day.

and their days start at dinner, you know, as it's getting dark. And then what do you do? You go to sleep. And what does that tell you? Rest is first. The rest is important, but also you do not need to do anything for the Lord to delight in you. You are his. Yeah, and I think that's just a really profound and reassuring thought to have as we try to come up with some balance. Thank you all, and have fun balancing your life.

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