Whew, life has been full for Jimmy and I lately. Between training Mavis, tackling house projects, taking on some extra responsibilities at church, working, and Jimmy taking violin lessons, we have both found our selves completely worn out.
I pretty much look like this at the end of every day lately!
We talked about how we’ve been feeling busy, so busy we don’t have breathing room in our days and weeks. When we have an obligation every single night for weeks straight, something has to give, you know? We’re both introverts and just don’t thrive off of constant socializing.
We realized we needed to make some adjustments, decide what is truly important, and which obligations we aren’t willing to give up. So, here’s where we’re at now.
- Jimmy isn’t going to take violin lessons anymore. This was expensive and took a decent chunk of time each week. He put a lot of pressure on himself to be ready for each lesson. Now he can practice at his leisure and truly enjoy it.
- Mavis is done with training! She passed Adult Level II, which was the highest level class we could do at the pet store we went to. We are so burnt out on training and have been going to classes once a week since August. We are all ready for a break and the opportunity to train on our own time at home.
- We won’t give up the new church responsibilities, because our focus in life is Christ and living for Him. Serving God means serving our local church (among many other things!), and we wouldn’t want to give that up in a million years.
- We are trying to cut back on any extra obligations that pop up. We are both pretty bad at saying no to people, but we’re working on it 😉
This week is our first week without violin lessons or Mavis’ training and we feel like we have room to breathe. That is a wonderful feeling!
Living My Full Life 
aw, so proud of you guys! Margins… very important in life!
Love you both.
Madre
Thanks, Mom! Love you!
Nice job sweetie!
Dad
🙂
Thanks, Dad! Love you!!
I’m so glad you are making some room in life to breathe! We have definitely been in the midst of the busy-ness of life where we had obligations every single night of the week every single week for years. It has been a constant learning process for us to pick and choose which things to say yes to and which things to say no to. It has gotten much easier since Little Bit arrived. We find ourselves naturally wanting to circle the wagons and have more evenings at home. These days with her are so short and we don’t want to miss out on time with her because we are so go-go-go all the time. Anyway, it’s so wise to take a step back and look at the things that are most important to you and let some of the extras go. I’m happy for you guys! Enjoy this breathing space!
I’m sure having Little Bit here with you and Christopher has certainly made things more clear in terms of what you do/don’t want to commit to!! You’re so right that it’s a constant learning process!
I think it’s great that Jimmy decided to take a break from lessons. If it stressed him out then it’s not worth it to take them! You definitely need to figure out what is important in life when you get too busy. Saying no is hard but it’s amazing once you stop feeling bad!! I hope you guys can get to that point soon. Granted I don’t say no to everything but once you find the things that you can’t do or won’t have fun doing then it’s freeing.
That is exactly what I was thinking! He was a ball of nerves over those lessons and I got him the violin as something to enjoy, haha!
I used to be the same way, and still struggle with this at times, but my body tells me otherwise when I don’t listen. So I’ve gotten quite good at saying no.
It’s definitely a learning process. It’s like our brains say one thing and our bodies say another. I need to be in sync with both! I’m glad you’ve become good at saying no!!
When you call it “busy”, that’s a sign you need to reevaluate for a bit. I’m glad you and Jimmy have some time to recharge this week and your busy season is over. I have the same problem saying no sometimes. So now, I tell my boss (who is also a dear friend) to just tell me it’s a bad idea and tell me no, whenever I get an opportunity that I don’t have time for. It works quite well actually!
Truth! I am so glad that busy season has come to a close! I love that you can tell your boss to tell you when something is a bad idea. That is awesome that you guys have such a great relationship!
This is such a great idea! it’s so important to realize when things are getting too busy or too much and sometimes that’s hard for me to do. I’m glad y’all were able to find ways to make everything a bit less busy!
Thank you, Olivia! It’s definitely hard to say no sometimes, but so worth it when we have some time to ourselves!
Good job setting those boundaries! So, so important.
Thank you, Amy!! Agreed 🙂