Tags
harlequin author, heartwarming author, i need a new mattress, love inspired author, western romance author, work life balance
I work from home, so that work-life balance can be a challenge. There is no office driving distance from my home to contain my work hours, so when ideas occur to me, it’s so easy to just do the work right then before I lose the idea.
The last two months have been summer break around here, so my 9-year-old son has been at home with me. It’s been great–mostly. I love having him around, but he’s almost impossible to work around. And I didn’t schedule in any slowing down this summer. Well–that’s not entirely true. I HAD scheduled in pretty much nothing for the whole summer break, but then I realized that it was a full 2 month gap, and that I could squeeze a novel in there…
Now, I thought was doing pretty well balancing it all. And in my defense, I was… until recently. We have an old mattress that is soon to be replaced, and I’ve been sleeping terribly on it. (Mr. Johns sleeps fine. Grr.) And after writing a full novel this summer and starting work on my next contracted book, I kinda… crashed.
And true to my driven personality, I was going to push through it when Mr. Johns said,
“Honey, take a break.”
Me: I’m okay. I’m kind of grumpy, but I just need to–
Mr. Johns: Honey. Take the break. You’re frustrated, and that’s frustrating me. Take. The. Break.
And if Mr. Johns was getting firm with me, then I was probably driving him nuts. So it was time to take the break. I love my job, but I love my husband more, you know? 😉
And now? I feel so refreshed! Amazing how that works! A break does wonders.
But the new mattress will work miracles. I’m serious. That old mattress has to go!
It’s hard to juggle it all sometimes. Luckily I didn’t get seriously into writing until my boys were older so not quite as hard but now the grandchildren are coming along and with two elderly mothers to be concerned about there’s always another pull. And those ideas keep coming somehow 🙂
There’s always a demand on your time, isn’t there? 🙂
I relate to this so much! I don’t know how to take a break, and we don’t have kids yet, so there’s no reason to take a break besides the fact that I need it. And since I often don’t think that’s a good enough reason to actually take a break, I get close to crashing too many times. Such a good reminder, thanks!
I find that my writing really benefits when I take that break. As does everything else, but I’m like you–I’m a bit of a workaholic. It’s gotten me this far, but I do try to balance it a little bit! 🙂