Hey there, Chaos Coordinators. I hope you’ll bear with me as I veer off from my normal planning and organization articles and instead share something a bit more personal. Today, I want to take you on a journey—a journey to the shoreline, where the crashing waves serenade the sand, and where, amidst the chaos, there …
Blended Family Life
What Work-Life Balance Looks Like For Me
Work-life balance feels like a joke most of the time. Truly, most of that is my own fault. Because of *all* the things that I do, I do have to make a conscious effort to improve my work-life balance. I juggle a lot of things – full time job, side hustle, supporting our food truck …
National Step Family Day 2019
Today is National Step Family Day! If you know DJ and me, you know that neither of us are proponents of divorce, despite the fact that we are both divorced. Being part of a step-family can be challenging, both as the parent and the child. Despite that more than 50% of US families these days …
Open Hearts
When I was in fourth grade, I experienced the loss of a relative for the first time (or at let the first one I remember). I was 9 years old. (Note: as I’m thinking about it…it might’ve been second grade…my memory from that far back has long-since faded with that level of detail.)My parents drove …
The Reality of Step-parent Adoption
We have waited for this day for years. Literally, years. Now that the day has come, it feels somewhat anti-climactic. At the end of June, we were able to finalize the legal process of step-parent adoption. We are now officially the Stones, Party of Eight. While I’m obviously happy (and relieved) to be at the end of …
Take Time to Listen
Those of you who know me personally know that I’m an introvert. I enjoy being social with small groups, but I find large crowds very draining. You can imagine how I feel when we have six boisterous children around the house. The volume level increases by several orders of magnitude when everyone is home. I …
Blended Families are Messy
I’m sure that you get this question multiple times a day: “How are you?” It’s often preceded by “Good morning,” or “Hello!” I know I say that to most of my coworkers when I pass them in the hallway. More often than not, you probably receive back a standard response of “Good morning; how are …
Though She Is Scared, She Is Brave
Since May is Food Allergy Awareness Month, I just want to talk about how brave my daughter is, even though she is scared. The back story If you’ve been around us much, you know that both of my children are allergic to peanuts and most tree nuts (we still avoid them all). Living with a …
You Got This
Three little words, said when passing by me as I struggled to breathe, struggled to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and wanted to quit. “You got this.” I seriously almost burst into tears. My friend had no idea, but I needed to hear those words. I’m sure you’ve had those moments …
Attack of the Space Invaders
We just finished up one week of spring break and are starting down the road of spring break number two, and I am ready for a vacation! I mean, I’m ready for a vacation from this vacation. Do you ever feel like that? I think much of it for me is largely because I’m an …