OHMYGOSH. When I met dear Melissa on Instagram, I instantly fell in love with her dreamy watercolor work. As time went on, I was captivated by the heart infused into everything she does. She is a total word wizard and posts the most thoughtful stories alongside her amazing art; I love the way she always wears her heart on her sleeve. Check out what a day looks like for this amazing artist, in April’s Day in the Life post!
Day in the Life: March 22, 2017
I don’t think I ever gave coffee the appreciation it deserved until June 7, 2015 – the day I became a mom.
Six weeks later I became a working mom, and the rest is history. I’m lucky to spend my days working for a company that I love, helping women build their dream businesses, while I spend my nights and weekends building my own dream business, Print Therapy – a stationery company that helps women connect with each other in the best, and worst, times. I do it all with my amazing husband any our sweet little babe by my side. And I do it all out of our 1302 square foot house, each and every day. Now … about that coffee.
I’m a mombie (that’s a mom zombie) from the moment I open my eyes to the minute that sweet, hot nectar touches my lips, but after a few sips I’m ready to start my day – even when it begins with a certain tiny someone waking up at 4:30am.
I’d love to tell you that we all eat a balanced breakfast around the table while we talk about our plans for the day, and I will tell you that we tried that for a few months, and it didn’t work for us. I’d also love to tell you that 6am one-year-old “I don’t want to eat breakfast at the table” tantrums are my favorite way to start my day, but I’d be lying. So now, more often than not, we make R a little makeshift table, and he snuggles in to eat breakfast while watching one of his favorite shows. Will that win me a mom of the year award? Not likely. But will it give me a few moments of a happy baby and a calm home? It sure does. Plus, hey! He’s eating fruit and drinking milk. That earns me some of those awesome-mom-points back, doesn’t it?
After breakfast, we always try to allow for a little playtime before the day officially begins and we go through the tasks of getting ready for the day.
I’m grateful that R is turning into quite the independent player, and secretly I love to watch him play when he’s not aware. You can almost see his imagination at work and it fills my momma heart with sincere joy to watch him solve his own problems and invent his own scenarios. Plus, he makes the cutest little fire truck noise you ever did hear.
Soon enough, it’s time for clothes to get put on (“Nooooo momma”) and for shoes to get put on (“one shoe, two shoe”), and to head out on our way. I used to stay home with R on Wednesdays as a part-time stay at home momma, but it was too much for me. Eventually it became impossible to work full time, and to grow our business, to be home a few days a week with R, to be present for my family, and to … keep my sanity. We have a wonderful day care center that we love that R attends part time, and that’s where we’re off to today. We’re off to school.
Every once in a while I feel regretful that I don’t spend all day every day with R. But here’s the truth. As much as I love him, I’m not cut out for it. His teachers do amazing things with him every single day they spend with him, and it’s a blessing that we have the opportunity to send him somewhere that we feel so sure about. He walks in happy. He leaves happy. It makes me happy the entire time that he’s gone knowing he’s in good hands, and it lets me focus entirely on the other things I love – work.
I drive by our gym on my way to and from daycare, and this week I decided to start a new tradition. I’ve decided to actually stop in. To visit it. To use my gym membership. Sort of radical, eh? My days are pretty full and even though I feel like I don’t have time to work out, I know my body – both physically and mentally – needs me to take care of it. It helps my anxiety. It helps my stress levels. And, yep, it helps my post-baby-belly too. I’m normally a weights girl, but today I started a Couch to 5K program, and I shocked myself by making it through without stopping. Yes, I am that terrible of a runner. And yes, I am that out of shape. Marathon, I’m coming for ya!
As soon as I get home it’s time for a quick shower, an even faster breakfast, and it’s time to get to work. I’ve learned it’s critical for me to take a moment before I dive in to remember my “why”. Cheesy? Sure. But it’s a tactic I use to stay focused and on task. I love to work, and very often I’ll work until I burn out. And as it turns out, burning out is not my “why”. I’m a former (former-ish?) workaholic attempting to refocus into a familyholic. This moment helps.
The majority of my daytime hours are spent working for my full-time job, and truth be told it’s work I really love. I work alongside three amazing women (yes, our company is only four people!) and we do work that makes my heart feel good. Three years ago I jumped off of the Corporate Ladder I was desperately scaling up as fast as I could, and I haven’t looked back since.
That being said, I do take a few moments as needed throughout the day to handle urgent Print Therapy matters.
Today I took a moment to package up an order for one of my favorite, yet one of my most heartbreaking cards. Don’t get me wrong – every time someone likes our company enough to spend their hard earned dollars with us, I literally jump for joy. I do a mean happy dance – you should see it. But I also know that, for many of our customers, a purchase also means that someone they love is going through a hard time. It hurts to know that, but it’s an honor that they’re letting us play a tiny part in sharing their emotions and support. It’s really a gift to me, and I feel it with each and every order.
Suddenly, it’s time for my favorite part of the day – lunch! I always eat lunch at home (part of the curse of remote working I guess) and I’m sort of stuck in this place of trying to eat healthy but also not letting any food go to waste and eating whatever leftover happens to be in the fridge. Today was the best of both worlds – my favorite lunch: avocado chicken salad (thanks, leftover chicken!) with almonds and the purple grapes my son refused to eat, served over lettuce and tomatoes with some olive oil and balsamic and red wine vinegar. Yes, I eat a huge lunch. We’re in a jjudgment-freezone, right?
I always work through lunch, but I also take a few minutes to check in to my personal social media accounts.
Lunch time almost always coincides with nap time at day care, which is when R’s teachers post photos from throughout the day. Today I got these gems … momma heart, commence melting.
It’s back to work for the afternoon, and although I keep stealing longing glances at my paints, they’ll have to wait until the weekend. I do my very best to segment my time and to work as if I was in an actual office. My brain is always trying to focus on three things at a time, so I have to be diligent about not multi-tasking and only working on the task at hand. See you soon, my gorgeous friends.
Every hour or so I try to get up and stretch my legs and walk around the house (even if it’s just to keep my Fitbit happy), and I always stop by to see my favorite co-workers. They tend to keep to themselves, but they’re always up for some water cooler gossip. That’s Jack and Claire the cats (Maine Coon brothers, and yes one is named Claire. He was supposed to be a girl kitten), and Sawyer our sweet rescue lab. One of them is always sleeping on the job. I’ll let you decide which one.
I’m normally a one coffee type of gal, but two glasses of wine at Book Club last night and a 4:15am wake up call necessitates cup two of the good stuff today so that I can power through the afternoon. There is forever too much work to do and never enough time to do it. Caffeine, don’t fail me now. (PS This is one of my favorite mugs and it’s by one of my favorite small business mommas, Page 261.
My husband N and I have a pretty even split when it comes to domestic and parenting duties; because he’s on the road all day, he tends to do the majority of drop offs / pick ups for R, and because I’m home, I tend to cook a lot of our dinners so that they’re ready shortly after R gets home from daycare – it’s the only way we have any semblance of a chance for a calm dinner. Tonight I made stuffed peppers (a recipe leftover from our Whole30 days), and R gobbled them up. I’d say 4 out of 7 dinners he walks away from the table having barely taken one bite, so this felt like a HUGE mom-win for me. My kid is eating. And he’s eating vegetables. Praise be.
After dinner I get the kitchen cleaned up (that’s my job – N handles the dishwasher emptying and filling), while R spends time playing. He still goes to bed pretty early – by 6:45pm – and so our time together is compressed at the end of the day. We get him into his pajamas and let him watch a few minutes of his favorite show before bed. He has this amazing sense of empathy towards the characters, and it’s incredible to see (check out that “oh no” face). A few sips of milk and kisses goodnight later, it’s off to night-night for our sweet babe.
No rest for the weary! After R goes down to bed both N and I get to work on Print Therapy. We have a pop-up event this weekend at Madewell, and we have to get our inventory and supplies ready. That’s N’s area of expertise and I do my best to let him handle it without getting involved. What an I say – Type A dies hard, you know?
Once N finishes up his work, I snuggle in to answer emails, work on blog posts, update our catalog, create new products … you know. ALL THE THINGS. Sometimes I work out of the office. Other times on the couch. Currently I’m typing this at 10:23pm under the covers in bed.
So long as the work gets done, and it always gets done. Actually .. that’s not true. Sometimes the work doesn’t get done. Because sometimes DVR and ice cream are just more important. It’s all about balance, right?
I try to sneak away a few minutes each night to do something that’s just for me- be it a face mask or reading a few pages in my book or journaling. I’ve learned it’s important to me to feel like I’m not working my day away every single day. It’s the end of the day and my brain is telling me that it’s all about to start again in 7 or so hours, so it’s time to get some sleep.
But that just means that I’m 7.5 hours away from being reunited with my BFF coffee. I can’t wait.
Isn’t Melissa just the sweetest soul (and her last shot has Chip and Joanna in it which made me love her a bit extra!)?! Check out her amazing shop and I guarantee you’ll find some cards that you can’t help feeling all “I SO need to send that to so-and-so”. Check out her website, hit her up on Facebook, and get to know her on Instagram!
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