First, some pictures illustrating the reason for my quest...
So, I was encouraged to reply to the comments on my “Finding balance – the age old motherly quest” post, but have been reluctant because I don't feel like I've come any further in my understanding than the first time I posted. Of course it's great to hear that I'm not the only one going through this challenge - mother or not! On a conscious level I don't really believe that I'm the only parent out there trying to balance life, family, work, etc. But on a subconscious level it is somewhat reassuring to wallow in my own misery and pretend to be a martyr :)
After reading the two comments to this post, I did two things. I cleaned house and I made a list. While cleaning house made me feel better, it didn't really improve the situation. The list has been sitting on the counter since I made it a month ago and nothing is crossed off. In fact, I'm afraid to look at it because of the guilt I know I'll feel that nothing has been done. I thought more than once about mapping out my week, and almost tried to start one day. But I never got as far as pencil meeting paper and decided that it wasn't something I thought would be valuable, otherwise I would have already done it.
The idea of finding balance has been on my mind a lot, though. Every Friday I try to convince myself that this will be the weekend that I accomplish a super human amount of work: I'll catch up with my masters, clean the house, spend time with family, exercise and complete lesson plans for the whole week before Monday! Surprise, surprise, it never happens.
As I mentioned in the original post, I have realized that my teaching job takes up the majority of my time. Two weekends ago I spent the ENTIRE weekend mapping out what I plan to teach in my classes until spring break, hunting down great websites to share with the kids and writing detailed lesson plans for the coming week. It was great! I felt ready for Monday! But, I didn't spend one iota of time on my master’s class and felt guilty about it all week knowing that my mentor would be calling soon to check in. And I would have the same old song and dance to tell her "Gee, I just couldn't get to that assignment again! You know, work is so busy. Life happens. I'll get to it this week - I promise!" Wow. I might as well say the dog ate my computer.
Last weekend I didn't worry about school other than grading some tests. I decided instead to focus on that master’s class and get an assignment turned in. Amazingly, I was able to finish that assignment! It felt great! Then I just had to get over the guilt of not doing any lesson plans. But it felt so good not to do work at home that I reminded myself again that I shouldn't have to bring it home in the first place! After all, I'm not getting paid overtime.
So I put a plan together for this week to see how it goes. 1) I will go into work an hour early since I don't have to drop the kids at the bus stop this week (they have spring break). 2) I'll stay up to an hour after school (which I normally do anyway). 3) I WILL NOT bring work home with me at night so that I can enjoy the family, some relaxing tv time, and maybe do a little work on my masters class.
Yesterday I got there an hour early and was able to get some work done. But I decided not to stay late and instead broke my third rule and packed up my stuff to bring it home. My computer, some tests that needed correcting and various textbooks went on a field trip to my house where they sat untouched in the kitchen all evening.
Today I got to school just on time (thanks to snow packed roads), had a meeting after school and left promptly after that - sans the work! Man, was it hard to leave the computer and textbooks at school! I did bring a couple tests home to grade but haven't gotten to them yet. I can say that not having that computer bag mocking me from the kitchen tonight felt pretty good!
So, obviously, I'm still looking for balance. But I like the direction I'm going. New rule: keep the work at work. It will be hard for me to get used to this, but I think it is doable and may make me work harder to get things done when I'm at work, rather than just relying on bringing it home to finish up.
Thanks for the encouragement! I'll keep you posted on the quest! By the way, this is the view that greeted us this morning after an overnight snowfall. Hard to believe I have trouble finding balance in this beautiful place, huh? And these pics are from our bedroom deck!!
