The Mom Struggles

We all do it - we over-schedule ourselves. We fill our days to the max, agreeing to do more than our share. The same is true for me - which has made blogging difficult recently. If only I could figure out how to blog from my phone!! :)

It's always a struggle to find time for myself. I think the same is true for ALL women, whether you're a stay-at-home mom, or a working mom, or a mom with grown kids, or a woman with no kids. We women seem to have a hard time making time for ourselves - we can rationalize away any of our "free" or "me" time by claiming that it's "for the kids" or "for our job" or whatever.

For the past month, I've been trying to reclaim some "me" time, at least four to five times a week. I've been trying to take 30 minutes a day for myself - whether it be a workout, a chance to read a chapter of my book, or a chance to blog, or heck, just a chance to shower without interruptions. Mike's schedule has been slightly more forgiving this month, which has helped us both reach our goals of working out and attaining "me" time. I'm hoping that we can keep it up over the next couple of months as his schedule gets crazy again.

At this point, I realize just how important that time is for me. I've been a much happier and much more fun mom the past month. Food is getting made from scratch again, instead of relying on store-bought. I'm healthier - down 19 pounds this morning! - both physically and mentally. I think I've become addicted to that "down"time, and I'm committing myself to finding a way to schedule it in to my days from here on out.

I think the benefits of this time vastly outweigh the downsides (slightly less sleep, less time to spend online, less time for things like shopping trips, etc). In my life, it has been, at least.

What are some of your tricks for "me" time? How do you spend that time? DO you spend that time?

Is getting "me" time a priority for you? Why or why not?