5 Tips To Recover After Travel

     Recently I attended the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference which involved five days away from the family.

     Before leaving was busy as I set up my husband to handle the kid’s activities, meals, and still work from home. I had a great week away working on the craft of writing and networking with great people. But it’s also a long week of job interviews and classes, and I came home tired. It got me thinking of our summer travel plans.
    

     Often I find myself frazzled after our summer fun. What are ways to make summer travel easier?
    
     Here’s 5 Tips to Recover After Travel (so you don’t die or kill your family)

1. Set up at least one dinner ahead of time for your return.

     I don’t know about you but the last thing I want to do when I get back from the beach or camping is cook dinner. Even if we get in late, well after the dinner hour, having a meal set up for the next day at home is a Godsend. The first full day back is usually spent unloading backpacks and suitcases, doing laundry and settling back into the home. And I’m usually exhausted.

     Why not cook something ahead of time?

     Meals I like to set up so I don’t have to do more than cook fresh rice or pasta are:

Chili - Chili can be frozen in quantity, I just stick mine into the freezer in a big plastic tub, and tastes great reheated. A simple set up of the rice cooker and 45 minutes later I have a hot meal ready to serve on a day I didn’t feel like cooking.

Soup - Whenever I make a soup I always make a double batch. My husband and I both work to keep at least one meal of chicken noodle for seven in the freezer for these occasions. And because mom-is-sick-of-cooking happens even on a regular day.

Goulash - American goulash is a kid friendly twist on spaghetti. Goulash like this one here: Goulash, can be made ahead of time, just withhold the noodles until reheating. After the sauce is thawed and reheated just add the noodles directly to the sauce to cook. My kids love this dish with our gluten-free brown rice macaroni noodles and sprinkled with shredded cheese.

2. Have a quiet activity prepped for the first day home

     One of the downsides of a return home is everyone is fatigued. And tired kids are kids who pick fights with each other.

     Knowing this is going to happen I prep a simple activity ahead of time. I’m not a mom good at all the Pinterest worthy kids crafts, so by simple I mean I go and get a pack of inexpensive sidewalk chalk, bubbles, or a set of spiral bound art paper and new colored pencils.

     Anything that engages kids for at least a half hour and which I can bring out when people start to get on each other’s nerves.


3. Enforce a mandatory nap time. For everyone. That means you too.

     Traveling is an energy drain so plan time for extra rest on your return. Even if your kids are too old for naps (or think they are) everyone could use more down time after a trip. Set at least an hour or two after lunch your first full day home. Older children can bring books, paper and drawing supplies or a favorite toy, but everyone must be on their bed for the time you set.

     For my kiddos with difficulty not talking and bugging their roommate-sibling I remind them their time doesn’t start until they stop talking.

     Even if reality with parenting five kids is I don’t get more than a power 15-20 minute nap, I can rest, or at least enjoy the temporary quiet and get up ready to take on the household again.


     What things do you do to recover after a trip?

What Does It Take To Win The Lottery?

Doesn’t it sound so easy? 

Just go out and buy a small paper ticket for three dollars, hardly enough to buy a gallon of gas these days, then poof! 

I too could be a millionaire.

Except we all live in the real world where adulting needs to happen and really winning the lottery looks like this:

Feel God is calling me to write a book

Get mad at God about the ridiculousness of that notion because I have five kids. Five! Where would I find the time?

What. The. Heck.

Get stubborn and decide to prove God wrong, that I can’t write a book, and start writing a book.

Realize after four months of writing for two hours once a week that I am in fact writing a book.

Freak out.

Finish writing a book in about nine months. How did this happen?

Sit for two weeks feeling like I am THE American Ninja Writing Warrior-mom for writing a book.

          Take a brief glance at what it takes to publish my awesomeness.

           Freak out.

Start editing book while I absorb the fact the average new writer writes five manuscripts before they ever publish even one.

Still editing.

How much time does it really take to edit?

Two months later ask friends to help me edit.

Start begging for friends to help me edit.

Join a local writer’s critique group.

Eight readers and six months later realize my manuscript will now be rejected in 15 seconds rather than 10.

Go to my first writer’s conference.

Fast forward one year. Still sneaking moments to write and realizing just how much work goes into a winning ticket.

We all wish people would throw money at us, that instant success we didn’t really earn. In order to win the writers-life lottery I have to give up another more sacred dream than my dream of being a published author.  

 

My real dream is this: 

  

Success doesn’t take work.

I’m about to head off to what will be my fourth writer’s conference, the Blue Ridge Christian Writer’s Conference, picking my way slowly toward my dream. By the law of averages I need to finish my two manuscripts-in-progress, and then start and finish another two manuscripts in the next four years before I maybe get that golden ticket: my first manuscript sale. The idea of the wait is daunting, but then so is the idea of the work involved.

These days with the shifting landscape of e-books, self-publishing, and print-on-demand writers can no longer afford to write the solitary novel while sitting in their introverted cave while dreaming up new universes.

These days being a writer means more than being a dreamer, it means being willing to work for a dream.

Being a writer means I have to go back to school, so to speak: The Writer’s Conference. Not just once. Nope. Again and again at $500-800 a pop.

Why? To learn to write better books. To learn how to edit my own work. To learn how to write 30 page reports on my books. To learn how sell myself. To learn how to turn my self and writing into a brand. To learn how to market. To learn…

To learn success isn’t instant and to decide if I am going to apply my stubborn strength to writing or give into my fears.

The easy path would be to sit at home and bemoan the entire writing industry that doesn’t recognize my obvious creative genius. 

Or I can take the road less traveled in walking miles of humility.

How much money has my family sacrificed for me to go back to writer’s schools? Five kids; for us that’s not extra money just lying around waiting for a use. Am I worth it? I’m scared to death of this next writers conference. Even after attending three conferences the idea of having my work critiqued makes my stomach drop and my hands shake. Will I take the extra steps to put myself out there despite my fear?

How patient am I? I have another 15 months of plodding along in my writing until my youngest is in kindergarten. We can’t afford day care for him, which is fine; I can work at enjoying what will be the only fourth year of life he will ever get and writing in stolen moments. Having two teenagers I know how fast this time of snuggles and belly laughs and tantrums and stomping his feet flies. Wait. Oh yeah, still living that last part with the olders.

Someday this time in my life of wanting to write more and not having the time will slowly melt into having the time and facing the discipline of daily writing. I’m sure I will look back with nostalgia at this year and think I had it easy.

Am I willing to give up my grass-is-greener lottery ticket mentality in order to face my future with courage?

Pray for me. I’ll let you know which path I chose after Blue Ridge.

What steps can you take in the next week to work toward your dream?

Redefining Accomplishment

Several weeks into the new school year and I already feel like a failure.

As the summer ended the feelings crept in as I hadn’t accomplished what I’d hoped to at the start. My list originally went something like this:

• Sand and paint the kitchen ceiling.
• Sand and paint the master bathroom ceiling.
• Clean and organize the garage.
• Clean and organize the garage storage room.
• Mend every last item that I haven’t mended in the last five years.
• Find a publisher for my completed manuscript, “The Invisible Calling: the Art of Getting Lost and Being Found.”
• Start my new manuscript I’ve laughingly titled, “The Introverts Guide to Surviving Motherhood.”
• Write 10 chapters on my speculative fiction manuscript, “Faith’s Rising.”
• Weed the entirety front flower beds. Weekly. No, bi-weekly.
• Keep the lawn mowed.

Oh, and:

• Continue potty training my three year old son.
• Take the four older kids to daily swim practice for eight weeks. Entertain the toddler during the practices.
• Take the kids and work the weekly 4-5 hour swim meets.
• Feed my five kids three meals a day. 
• And second breakfast. 
• And brunch. 
• And snacks. 
• And just before dinner: I’m-gonna-die-in-the-next-three-minutes-if-you-don’t-feed-me-right-now appetizers.
• Laundry for seven people. Don’t forget the laundry.

I didn't get much of anything done on that first list. Just the second. Only, I don’t know about you, but that second list comes a distant second to the first list in my self-concept of accomplishment. Like my summer wasn’t worth anything because I spent my days keeping five kids alive doing laundry and playing puzzles and pushing my son in the swing and watching my daughters ride their bikes and…

I’ve been watching some of the leaves start their yearly decent into death that yields our glorious fall colors. But I feel like that one tree whose leaves just turn a drab mustard, then brown, then crumble. My death of self that comprises motherhood doesn’t feel dressed in beauty. I feel weak. Maybe other moms managed to get more done.

More and more lately I’ve been realizing I have impossible standards for my own strength. As I mother I tell myself it isn’t good enough to take care of my kids, I need to do it all. And my “all” is rather large. If I don’t get that “all” done, I must be worth less than other moms.

At the end of the day when I’ve done nothing more than what was necessary in my mom-life I can feel hollowed out and empty. Drained and restless.

But maybe there is another way.

Maybe there is a way for my self-sacrifice to be that kind of beautiful I dream of, only, it starts in my own mind and my own perception.

What if in my own mind I called all the little things I do around the house lovely? What if I went to get out food for the kids to make their lunches and I saw powerful hands reaching out to feed the hungry? What if I called beautiful those moments when I found the courage to read that book One. More. Time?

What if I saw my own life as brave? ‘Cause frankly who else but the courageous signs up to parent? If I don’t feel brave and strong in the moment then that’s okay because bravery is different bravado. Courage is found in the acknowledgement of a seemingly insurmountable task and signing up anyway. I seem to feel courage is only found in the absence of weakness.

The beauty of my life needs to start in my mind. Strength to live my day-to-day needs to come with a mental redefinition of strength. God defines Joy as strength, why don’t I? God defines service as strength, why don’t I? God defines loving others as strength, why don’t I define my life by these standards?

It’s past time for me to change my mind. To renew it, and to let it soak in a different standard than the worlds manic race to an unreachable finish line.

My plan for the fall:

Live in the moments I can never get back. 

Take a walk with my son and watch his chubby fingers explore the world. 

Stop at every stick and rock and downed leaf to experience the joy of the now.

Re-evaluate my self-talk. 

Chose to affirm my worth as a God’s daughter.

If I can’t sit with my son at the family room table and write while he plays Legos, bring a clip board. If I can’t write my stories on clip board being interrupted every 20 seconds to admire my son’s creations, then to let go. And build the best darn Lego house for his ninja-storm-trooper-Spiderman thing.

And then maybe at Christmas, when my older kids are on break from school, I will feel like I got something great accomplished this fall. 

Do you have a positive or negative self-talk? How do you define your accomplishments?