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!