How Do I Manage It All?

Housekeeping and Raising a Family

I’m grateful to have found FLYLady over twenty years ago after I moved in with my husband and became an instant stepmom.

FLYLady helped me overcome the CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome) in my home and realize that taking care of it all was a demonstration of Finally Loving Yourself.

While I have gleaned a lot of great things from my exposure to FLYLady’s philosophy & customizable routines, I have not always been very consistent in my efforts to stay on top of keeping house while raising a family over the years.

That’s because I took on more than just managing a house & household. I’ve been managing an ever-evolving new way of life ever since I moved here in 2004.

Managing a New Way of Life

When we moved to the country, I had quit my day job and became a Work-At-Home-Mom. I had to learn how to juggle keeping house, raising children and working from home.

Add to the Mix: Building an Online Home-based Business

Oftentimes, the working from home aspect took the biggest chunk of my time, attention & energy because we needed to make money to pay for everything, and there was a large learning curve in trying to build an online business.

I left an accounting career and learned to design websites from scratch, developed & implemented marketing strategies, created info-products & value-added products, managed inventory, filled orders & handled customer service on a daily basis.

This, on top of having babies, breastfeeding, changing diapers and trying to keep our house in order, kept me occupied 24/7. Thankfully, I had some online coaching and local family to lean on, as well as church support during those infant & toddler stages.

Then Add: Homeschooling

As the kids reached school-age, I didn’t want to send them away to school, so I kept them home & taught them how to read, write & do math (by myself) with the help of a few homeschooling curriculums.

All the while, I was still running our own online business, handling all the bookkeeping, paying all of our bills, cooking three meals a day, being a hands-on mom, staying on top of laundry & attempting to keep the house in order.

And Homesteading

When the oldest was about five, we started acquiring animals (goats, chicks & eventually, cows), and my husband started experimenting with gardening.

I was still running our business & teaching the kids at home, actively engaged in our local church and even engaging in politics.

Then Take Away: Trust in the Government, Political Process & MSM

After some sobering political experiences & a personal exploration into the events that took place on 9/11 around the year 2008/2009, I lost faith in the entirety of government and the whole political process from top to bottom, and I began to mistrust the mainstream media.

And Take Away: Faith in Loved Ones, Religion & the Church

When I started expressing my doubt of the official story concerning 9/11 and began to share my questions & findings related to that subject, I was shocked by the reactions of those around me. Instead of interest in my investigation into the truth of the matter, I was met with disdain and ridicule by my friends & family.

Soon after, I started questioning some of the things I had been taught all my life, particularly as it related to the Bible. That led me down a path of unlearning & learning anew. Unfortunately, openly questioning the mainstream religious dogma put us at odds with the leadership at our small church.

Subtract: Community Support

When I refused to be silent with my questions and what I was learning, my husband & I eventually became no longer welcome at our local church.

Half of the family I was born into sided with the church and refused to support my pursuit for Biblical truth.

(My father was open to discussing matters with me while he could, but he quickly became incapacitated, diagnosed with brain cancer that year. A series of cancer treatments sadly led to his death in early 2012.)

And Minus: Local Family Support

When my husband & I chose to follow our personal convictions over certain family traditions, namely the celebration of Christmas, and with my father no longer around to hold the family together, we were essentially cut off from the rest of my family in the area.

And Then Minus: Faith in Education

As our homestead continued to develop, and I began to pick up a few relavant skills/habits, I continued to question everything I had ever been taught, particularly in the areas of science & history. (I mean, since I was teaching my kids these things, I wanted to make sure of what I was teaching them.)

What I learned was shocking and that put me at odds with the whole education system, which I came to believe was really an indoctrination system.

And Add In: A Whole New Body of Knowledge to Learn

This part of my life’s journey involved a whole lot of personal research, study and trial & error, while simultaneously holding down the business & continuing to prepare three meals a day, caring for the kids, trying not to neglect my husband, and keeping house the best I could.

I continued to teach the kids whatever I knew (& came to know in time), while continually being faced with dealing with growing numbers of livestock & having to learn how to handle all the food that was growing outside and not having much help through most of that time.

Equals: WiggleCulture

This is where I am today, in a very unique world that we have created for ourselves.

Managing it all along the way was hard — very hard, but I did it.

I was often mad & frustrated — mad at the System I was raised in and mad that I was ill-equipped to live outside of it. And I was frustrated that there wasn’t anyone I knew who was willing to come out of it with me or who could help me in my unique situation. We were all on our own.

At any time I could have hit the Easy button. I could have kept my mouth shut & found another church to join. I could have enrolled my kids in school and got them involved in a host of school activities. I could have gone back to using a microwave, buying processed foods & dining out more. Life would have been a whole lot easier.

But I couldn’t have lived with myself if I had done any of that. This is the path I chose. And no matter how hard it is, or how hard it gets, I still have to manage it.

So, how do I manage it all?

FLYLady and continually assessing what’s most important & striving to maintain a healthy balance. It’s a juggling act, for sure, but I’m getting better at it, I think — I hope.