9 Ways to Survive as a Stay at Home Mom

1)    Get up before your child(ren)

a.    Even 5 minutes!

b.    30 minutes changes my world

c.    I am NOT a morning person… and therefore waking up earlier helps me – Momma needs a minute

2)    Do something productive every morning

a.    Even if it is just making scrambled eggs for breakfast

b.    Throw something in the washing machine

c.    Work out to a DVD

d.    Make your grocery list

3)    Get out of the house every day

a.    Grocery store – I buy our groceries in small amounts purposely so I have a reason to get out of the house more.

b.    Target – just go walk around and look at things!

4)    Put on real clothes

a.    Even if it is yoga pants and a t shirt, change from what you normally sleep in

b.    And change into “sleep clothes” before you go to bed

c.    Wear make-up – even if it’s just mascara

d.    Do your hair – a messy bun counts!

5)    Listen to music

a.    I like to play things I used to listen to in high school or college – it makes me feel young and upbeat!

b.    Listen to current popular music – stay up with the trends

c.    Listen to some classical music – it enhances learning, and it will widen your children’s appreciation for music (and maybe yours, too!)

d.    It gives you a grove to move to!

e.    Your kids will give you priceless looks as you dance to your old favorites J

6)    Shut off the TV

a.    Now, maybe TV is for you what music is for me – to each her own.  However, I find that TV typically distracts me to the point of unproductiveness.

b.    Spend time talking to and noticing your kids – that’s why you have this job!

c.    Kids need to move around and explore, not watch the TV – let ‘em move!

7)    Keep up with the news and current events

a.    I end up getting sucked into TV because I want to watch the morning news, but I’m working on other ways to stay current

b.    The Skimm – This is a great company that emails you a skimmed version of the news every morning.  They include links to articles if you want to read more on a particular topic.  If you want to sign up you can use my link here: theskimm.com/?r=cc84a92e

c.    Radio or public radio

d.    Social media

e.    Newspapers -  We get one every once and a while; I like to read some interesting local news and let my baby play with the rest of it.

8)     Invest in community

a.    Find your PEOPLE! Honestly, this is how we survive without going insane!

b.    I have a theory that when women only took care of the home and children (back in the day) they were not isolated in big houses far away from their friends.  I think they all lived close by and helped each other out.  You know the saying it takes a village? I think it’s because it probably did!

c.    So, you don’t live in a close-knit village? Find places to make friends

                                               i.     Church

                                             ii.     Library story time

                                            iii.     Play dates (are for mom’s too)

                                           iv.     Mom/ girl nights out (yes, leave the kids!)

                                             v.     Book club/ book swap

                                           vi.     Volunteer

                                          vii.     MOPS or a similar mom’s group

9)    Make time for your marriage

a.    You got into this baby making business with him in the first place!  Don’t forget him!

b.    Love will keep you alive (cheesy, but true)

c.    He’s the other adult you live with – have adult conversations, watch adult TV (not that kind of adult TV! Just things kids can’t watch: Game of Thrones, Jimmy Fallon, etc), tell him about the news you learned today

d.    Have sex

e.    Talk to each other

f.     Help each other out

g.     Go on dates

Do you do anything on this list?  What other secrets do you have for surviving as a stay at home mom?

Hannah

How I lost 20 pounds (and how you can too!)

         It was kind of an accident.

Whaaaaat?!?

No, don’t starting hating me yet – I didn’t start out with a goal of losing 20 pounds, but tiny changes led to a snowball effect and had me there without my whole life depended on it.

         It all started with my husband’s New Year’s Resolution to give up soda.  He had unlimited access to a fountain drink machine at work, and he had been chugging down the calories.  After he stopped ordering a Dr. Pepper at restaurants, I felt like I shouldn’t order sweet tea every time.  Mind you, I didn’t plan on giving up sweet tea altogether (I mean what is barbeque without it??), but I stopped drinking it every day.

         And if we were to stop right there both of us would have lost weight, but like I said, a snowball started.

         When we would order fast food, or go through a drive through, it didn’t make sense to order two meals without drinks, so we started ordering one with fries and a water bottle, and the other person just got the hamburger (or taco, or nuggets, or whatever it was!)  But then, we started thinking, what good is fast food without Dr. Pepper or sweet tea?  So, we just stopped going to fast food joints!

         And when we stopped going to fast food joints, the options became eat at a nice restaurant, or eat at home.  Since we’re not made of money, we opted for eating at home most nights. 

         When we were dating (and I was in my first year of teaching – yikes!) We ate a lot of frozen, easy to prepare meals.  You know the kind – you take it from the freezer, dump it in the pan, and 10 minutes later you have a meal.  Well, at this point in our lives we lived RIGHT next to a Trader Joe’s.  Which made me think, ya know, it’s not so hard to go grocery shopping!  I would swing by the store on my way home from work, grab a meat and a few veggies, and basically roast all of it in the oven for thirty minutes after smothering it with olive oil and salt and pepper.  Not the most glamourous cooking, but it tasted pretty good!

         THAT had to be the biggest change that started the pounds dropping left and right.  I started noticing my clothes fitting looser (and I could wear that favorite pair of shorts from college again!).  I weighed myself and I had lost 15 pounds in around 6-7 months! 

We could just stop here.  HUGE lifestyle change already.  And it was working!  But something else happened to add to the snowball.

We found our dream work out situations.  “Work out” to me sounds like sweating at the gym, and I tried to get into that lifestyle, but I would always end up paying for a gym membership that I wouldn’t use.  That is, until I found Pure Barre.  I had done ballet from elementary up through half of high school, and I loved it!  Pure Barre was hard, but it was the type of “working out” that I enjoyed, and because of that I actually went to class.  In December, I was going 5 to 6 times a week!  Which is where the last five pounds went. And – bonus – it toned up all the flab that was hanging on from losing the weight.

So, here’s what I’ve learned from this accidental weight loss journey:

1.     Don’t drink your calories

2.    Cooking at home is easier than you think

3.     MOVE your body in a way that you love – don’t let other people’s notions of the gym scare you

I also think it helped that we were committed to these accidental truths we stumbled upon without being so obsessed about a new diet or exercise program.  By slowly building up over several months we were actually able to change our lifestyle.