“There is no one busy in this world, it’s always about priorities. You will always find time for the things you feel important.”
People always say to me they don’t know how I do it. 4 (busy active years) kids in hockey, soccer, scouts (I’m the leader), full time job, fire schedule, church, life group, women’s group, etc. Oh yeah, and all of this at firefighter wife. This quote is the best answer I’ve seen in a long time to describe my life. I don’t feel busy. I feel full and blessed. Like everything is in my life because I want it there.
Because so many are always perplexed at our schedules, here on a Sunday night when all the planning happens, I wanted to give you a glimpse of my answer to this.
Always prioritized at the top….
– Time with my husband. Conversations with him at moments I know we can both be home, and awake and present, plus date nights at least once a month
– Activities with my kids – going to watch all their sports events, leading scouts, doing things one on one, having them help me around the house
– Prayer time / bible study
– 3 times a week fitness
– my work responsibilities are never neglected
Here is what doesn’t happen
– overworking my job – work smarter, not more
– long, lengthy meal prep / cooking / clean up (not something I enjoy anyhow so this feels more like a chore than a hobby)
– deep cleaning on a regular basis (happens more seasonally but we live in a little clutter)
– gardening / landscaping – we chose to not put in landscaping because we didn’t want to be consumed by yard work
– shopping – I rarely go out to the stores except seasonally when I have a good coupon and buy it all at once
– hovering over my kids – we work a lot on independence – getting dressed themselves, helping with laundry, responsibility for homework. The 6 year old comes up with some really creative and unique outfits and I don’t get all freaked out if she isn’t matchy-matchy.
– high maintenance hair styles / beauty routines – I have a 20 minute bed to ready routine and twice a week I skip showers when I work from home
– oh yeah, the commute. We chose to live 5-10 minutes from my office on purpose. Although in a big city, I almost never get on the freeway.
– TV – rare that I watch it and when I do it’s for family / husband time. Those hours instead go to my bible studies or reading, etc.
– I don’t volunteer at school. Ever. it’s not my gift really and there are lots of other moms in our community who do so. When I do it feels painful and uncomfortable so I chose to not have that in my high priority list.
You get the idea.
I don’t want you to read this and think I’m all self-righteous and perfect because that’s so far from the truth. I want you to read this and think about YOUR PRIORITIES and where you spend YOUR TIME. Is there something more you are missing in your life? What can you remove to make room for it? That’s the lesson here.
If you feel called to do something in your life, you will find a way to make it happen. Whether its go back to school or change jobs or have a baby or start a side job or just fit in more family time.
And as a fire wife, when you stop trying to fit your life into the prescribed M-F mold of the rest of the world, you’ll find a lot more freedom to build a life that works for YOU and your fire family.
So there’s a Sunday night soapbox for you 🙂 Be encouraged. Make changes one at a time. And be gentle with yourself in the process.
#wifeonfire
Firefighter Wife
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