I chatted with an old friend earlier in the week. After catching up and talking about our in-the-here-and-now life, she said, "You both are so busy all the time. You need to take a break on the weekends. Go out for the day and do something fun. Binge watch Netflix. Eat dinner at a restaurant. Or, do absolutely nothing." I knew she meant well. It's not the first time someone has said this to us. It probably won't be the last.
It's difficult to explain our Dog Mom life to people especially when one Mom, me, is a Work at Home Dog Mom and the other, Lisa, works outside of the home. To most, the stuff we do on the weekends is considered work. For us, it's our "normal" and it's a different kind of busy.
To better explain this, let me give you a quick rundown of the difference between our weekdays and weekends.
During the weekdays...
I stay up during most of the overnight hours. Usually around 1 a.m. I try to nap. I get up at 3 a.m. Lisa typically gets up at 3:30 a.m. for work. By this time, the coffee is brewed, her lunch is made, and I'm putting the final touches on her breakfast.
Lisa takes the kids out, prepares their breakfast, and feeds them breakfast. Once that is done, I get into bed. Lisa sits on the bed and enjoys her breakfast and coffee. Her breakfast is always "pup friendly" so she can share.
When Lisa is done with her breakfast, she tucks us in, gets ready for work and leaves. When she gets to work, she sends a text letting me know she arrived safe and sound. Most of the time, I'm still awake when the text comes through.
I doze on and off for a couple of hours. My alarm goes off at 8 a.m. I get up, have my coffee, go through the myriad of notes on my desk, and begin my day.
Obviously, as a Work at Home Dog Mom, my day depends greatly on what's going on around me. If the day is quiet, I can get desk work done that requires minimal distractions. If not, I work on other stuff like DIY Dog Mom Projects, creating new, homemade dog treat recipes, social media, and other tasks where being distracted isn't an issue.
My "quiet" definitely ends when the neighborhood school kids arrive home. At this point, I tackle housework, dinner prep, and anything else that needs to be done.
Amid all of this, throughout my day, I take care of our kids and that includes an abundance of snuggle, play, and outdoor time (weather permitting). And, I make sure that all my client deadlines are met for the week.
When Lisa arrives home from work, and that timeframe has varied immensely since she got a promotion last Spring, she takes the kids out, fixes their dinner plates, feeds them dinner, changes into something comfy, and we sit down to enjoy our dinner.
Also, throughout the week, and all dependent on when Lisa gets out of work, she'll run a few errands and tackle grocery shopping if she's able to.
We end our evening with family snuggle time on the sofa and an episode of a show we're watching on Netflix.
During the week, there is very little wiggle room. Our only downtime is when we enjoy family snuggle time on the sofa.
On the weekends...
Lisa goes to bed a little later. I try to join her in the beautiful world of sleep a couple of hours later. We sleep in until about 7:30 - 8:30.
Once up, we enjoy our weekend coffee chats for about an hour. Maybe a tad bit longer.
By 10 a.m., all the kids are up, they've been taken out, breakfast has been served, and Lisa eats her breakfast in the living room while the kids sit at her feet for a nibble or two.
We take our time getting motivated. There is no rush. No schedules. No plans. There is nothing that needs to be done by a certain time.
We have a large dry erase board in the kitchen with a list of projects that we'd like to get done over the weekend. The stuff gets done but at our own pace.
We spend most of Saturday tackling these projects. Housework. Laundry. DIY Dog Mom Projects that Lisa needs to cut, sand, and put together in her woodshop. Errands and grocery shopping if they weren't able to be done during the week.
The operative words throughout all of this are "at our own pace."
For example, today, I wrote a few blog columns. Then, I worked on some DIY Dog Mom Projects that I want to have completed by the end of next week.
Lisa steam cleaned the bedroom carpet. We steam clean all of the carpets every 3 months.
We don't just do "Spring" cleaning. We do Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall cleaning. With 4 kids, that's how we roll.
However, after doing the bedroom carpet, it was obvious we desperately needed a new carpet cleaner. We've needed one for a while now but wanted to get full use out of the one we purchased a few years ago.
At that point, I stopped what I was doing and went to my desk to shop around. We also needed a new vacuum cleaner. I had a 30% off Kohl's cardholder coupon plus a little Kohl's cash.
Within a half hour, we purchased a new carpet cleaner and vacuum cleaner. We saved over $120 and got $40 in Kohl's cash.
Score!
After that, I continued to work on DIY Dog Mom Projects. Lisa ran a couple of errands. I prepped dinner. Made a couple of my scrumptious coffee cakes.
Overall, it was a typical yet fabulous Saturday.
Tomorrow, Lisa has plans to install both of the DIY Doggy Gates we made last month. And, we're mapping out the plans to make a DIY indoor dog house next weekend because that's what Lobo wants for his 3 Year Gotcha Day.
That's the difference between our weekday busy and our weekend busy. Both may appear to be equally as busy, but for us, there's a big difference.
Taking off for the entire day to have frivolous fun is not an option.
Binge watching Netflix all day and night is not an option.
Doing absolutely nothing is also not an option.
Eating dinner at a restaurant is, and we do on occasion, but not often.
This weekend will probably end the same way the majority of our weekends do. Family snuggle time on the sofa with our kids. Watching an episode of something on Netflix. I'll tuck Lisa and the kids in. We'll give each other a high five for getting everything done and taking pride in it being another productive weekend.
That's how we do things in our Dog Mom World.
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