It’s Time to Celebrate Inspiring Moms!

Today we are celebrating Danielle Smith from Extraordinary Mommy! When I first met Danielle at the 2009 Type-A Mom Conference, we talked about MomTV and she graciously offered her support when I mentioned that I wanted to explore vlogging (video blogging) and the concept of building my own life balance for moms MomTV show.

She is full of life, authentic, and passionate about life balance.

Danielle balances beings a wife, a mommy, a blogger, as well as hosting The Spin Cycle on MomTV.com – a show that keeps you current and helps you to balance your world as it spins around you. She also co-hosts Why Moms Matter on Blog Talk Radio and is the Inspiration Channel Editor for MomItForward.com

Listen to what Danielle has to say about life balance…

Click here if you can’t view the video.

This is Your Moment

What are you doing to stay afloat? What can you incorporate into your life to ensure that you will not sink?

Connect with Danielle

Follow Danielle on Twitter and continue to be inspired!

Read Danielle’s blog, Extraordinary Mommy.

Check out Danielle’s amazing videos (they inspire me every day).

Connect with Danielle on Facebook.

If You Think You Don’t Have Time for Me Time, Think Again.

I had the pleasure of meeting Kelby Carr at the Type-A Mom Conference a few weeks ago. She taught me the beauty of blogging kharma and gave me some tips on how to recharge my life.

Take a moment to hear how Kelby Carr from Type-A Mom finds time in her busy life to recharge.

Click here if you can’t view the video.

This is Your Moment

What can you do right now that will recharge you for weeks? For me, it’s getting a 60 minute massage. Thanks for Kelby’s video, I scheduled a playdate for my boys tomorrow afternoon and I’m heading to the spa for a long relaxing massage.

Thanks Kelby for your inspiring story! Follow Kelby on Twitter.

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In my last post, I wrote about the balancing act I am experiencing between letting my 5 year old son move into the bigger world on his own and wanting to hold him tight and protect him from the world.

After reading Masha Hamilton’s essay, Parenting the Nearly-Grown, I realized this balancing act only gets harder as my children continue to get older. Eventually I will grow out of being a mommy and I will be a mom of nearly-grown children. When I think about how I will possibly be able to let go of and protect nearly-grown children, it makes kindergarten look like a piece a cake.

I invite you to read the essay Parenting the Nearly-Grown by author Masha Hamilton. Her most recent book, 31 Hours was just released on 9/9/09.

Parenting the Nearly-Grown
by Masha Hamilton

“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents,
and everyone is writing a book.”
Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 B.C.

Not long after the second of my three children was born, I sat at the kitchen table late one evening talking to my dad about parental responsibility. It’s a big topic and we were covering lots of philosophical ground, but what I remember most is my pronouncement that my primary job could be boiled down quite simply and starkly: I had to keep safe these beings released into my charge. I needed to keep them alive.

These were the musings of a new parent, of course. The circumstances, too, should be considered; the first child had been born in Jerusalem during the intefadeh, and the second was born as I was reporting from Moscow during the collapse of Communism. In both situations, I repeatedly came face-to-face with life’s fragility.

But even in calmer times, even after the birth of my third child, I never lost the feeling that my main duty was to pass them on into adulthood as unscathed as possible, as healthy in every way as they could be.

It sounds pretty simple, on the face of it. We perform many jobs as parents: nurturers, playmates, cheerleaders, short-order cooks, nurses, disciplinarians, detectives, spiritual leaders. Keeping them safe should not be the hardest, not with the help of baby monitors, plastic devices to cover electrical outlets, pads for sharp corners, child-proof medicine bottles, the list goes on.

And in fact, we passed through well, with just the usual rounds of stitches, one violent dog attack, a rabies scare and a few months when my youngest fell so often and got so many bumps on his forehead that my husband and I joked someone was surely going to call child services on us.

Now, though, my youngest is 14, and as they’ve grown, I recognize my job has been transformed. It is to give them trust and space so they can develop confidence in their ability to make their own lives. And yet the two oldest, at ages 19 and 20, are in a period of time that seems almost like a parentheses in their lives. They are certainly not children, but nor are they quite adults. Meanwhile, I say and think all the usual things parents have been saying and thinking since—well, perhaps ever since Cicero, whose words I keep taped to my office wall: it’s rougher out there than it was in my time. More chaotic. More violent. More dangerous.

And everyone is writing a book.

It was, in fact, into my latest novel, 31 Hours, that I channeled my fears. Among other things, the novel offered a chance to explore what it means to be the parent of someone on the cusp of adulthood but not yet there. The mother in 31 Hours, Carol, is strong and independent, free of empty nest syndrome, but her maternal intuition is strong and she’s concerned about her 21-year-old son’s growing emotional distance, the way he seems tense and depressed. Her fears are amorphous and hard to convey; nevertheless, as she lies awake in the dark, she decides to trust the hunch that something is wrong, and to spend the next day trying to track her son Jonas down and “mother him until he shrugs her off.”

There are many themes in the novel, but one question it asks—one pertinent to all parents and one I’m still trying to answer for myself—is this: after years of being vigilant and protecting our kids, what should we do—and what are we allowed to do—to keep them safe once they are nearly, but not quite, grown?

Enter to win a free copy of 31 HOURS at: http://mashahamilton.com/31_hours/contest.php

Check out Masha’s other books and more of her work at http://mashahamilton.com/

Photo Credit: Briana Orr

It’s Time Again to Celebrate Inspiring Moms!

Our next inspiring mom is Suzanne Sergis. Proud to have been born and raised in California, Suzanne is a woman who finds fulfillment in raising a family, engaging in 1.5 careers and being the creative mind behind 2 blogs. In addition to Taking Care Of You, where she inspires us all to grow our inner awareness and focus on taking care of ourselves, she can be found boosting motivation and providing encouragement over at 365 Days of Decluttering. You can follow her on Twitter at @TCOYou.

Click here to join the Inspiring Moms Club!

What Life Balance Means to Suzanne

I believe that balance is better used as a verb and not a noun.

I know a true definition of balance is the moment when all is working together and nothing is moving. However, I think of life balance as the small adjustments I make to keep the scales from leaning too far. I like the small seesaw motion I feel as I am balancing the opposites and much prefer that to a fear of moving anyway whatsoever, as it will upset that perfect balance.

Two very important items I always try to remember are 1) recognize the need for adjustment before the balance is too far gone and 2) only make adjustments when it is necessary.

And, even though I stress moving forward at Taking Care Of You, I do understand the importance of looking back and appreciating our past now and again. Although we can’t change the past and we don’t have control over the future, looking back does help keep the scale more evenly balanced so that we can appreciate the moment for the present that it is.

Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect

For myself, I try to keep that balance I spoke about above; not letting one part of me tilt too far out of balance so that I begin to struggle. A small change that made a huge perspective difference for me was to add “Me Time” at 9 p.m. every night on my Google Calendar.

It may not be the peak time for the completion of a variety of things but it has squelched my inner martyr a bit to see that there is time for taking care of me every single day. Generally, I keep a healthy perspective and am aware of not judging, either others or myself. I choose to believe that most of us are doing the best we can at the time.

For my family and home life, I try to keep my home clean but not to the point of creating unrest among its inhabitants. I am neat and organized but my husband and two children are not. So, majority rules, and I just do the best I can to be responsible for myself and my things, and to teach the idea of “If everyone does a little, then no one has to do a lot”.

As a mom, I am all about spending time with my children, who I absolutely adore, and being fully there with them. There’s no electronic devices, mentally creating to-do lists for after I’m done playing with them, etc. allowed.

For my jobs and/or creative pursuits, I try to give each role I perform time for itself. At my day job, I am a fully present, valuable and conscientious employee. As an Ind. Beauty Consultant for Mary Kay, I use what I know about skin care and cosmetics to aid my customers (those awesome ladies, whom I greatly appreciate) in taking care of themselves. As a blog writer, I try to respect that it, too, needs its time. It can’t be pushed aside just because it is fairly new and I’d like to believe that no one will notice a missing post or two.

I guess you can see that the theme is “I try”. I am not perfect and I haven’t figured it all out. Doing pretty well each moment of my life will equate to doing pretty well overall, and that’s good enough for me.

Life Is Sweeter When Shared With Friends

When I read “The ABCs of Friendship” by Jennifer M. Ryan at IChooseChange, I realized that somehow, over time, my ‘A’ friends and I had let time, distance and life’s circumstances get between us. As some of those relationships could not be resumed, I looked at my ‘B’ friend relationships and realized that some of these women could grow into awesome ‘A’ friends with more time and attention. I’ve greatly enjoyed getting that area of my life back into balance because it is very important for me, as it is for many women, to have that connection with other women.

I’ve also been coming out of my shell in order to develop more ‘B’ friend relationships from my ‘C’ group of friends. Having children who are now of school-age has made that endeavor much easier because the other moms and I can definitely relate. Overall, rebalancing my relationships with my friends, aka ‘my support system’, has had a positive effect in bringing my life back into balance.

Think Positive, Always

As you probably already know, there is just so much to balance; our needs, our family life, our roles in life, a greater connection to the world around us and much more. In just about everything I do, I try to focus on the positive. If something is not going according to plan, I stay more aware of what is positive than what is not.

When my children are driving me insane, I think of a sweet or funny face they make so I can remind myself that they aren’t always crazy hooligans. Pretty much, when it comes down to it, keeping my focus on ‘thinking positive’ doesn’t allow the other thoughts to get a strong foothold in my mind. And, since the rest of my life is built upon and focuses on the positive, my life stays in balance.

This Is Your Moment

Thank you Suzanne for your honesty and insight.

After reading Suzanne’s guest post, use the comments section to let us know what life balance means to you. How do you incorporate Me Time into your daily life? What are you doing to connect with your friends? What’s your secret to focusing on the positive things in life? We want to know!

Click here to join the Inspiring Moms Club!

Jennifer Wood is the winner of our first inspiring moms club giveaway. She won a pair of delightful petite clothing hangers from JelliBee Baby.

Join the Inspiring Moms Club or Nominate a Mom!

The Inspiring Moms Club is a space to celebrate and learn from everyday moms.

Here are the questions I’d like for inspiring moms to think about. Answer them all or just the ones that speak to you.

1. What does the concept of balance or life balance mean to you?

2. How do you practice the art of life balance?

3. Look at the list below. If you do any of the following, can you explain how you find the time and what it is you do?

• I find time for a sense of solitude, silence, meditation, or stillness.
• I take action towards living my dreams.
• I connect with other women.
• I connect with my authentic self and my authentic voice.
• I pay it forward by giving and contributing to the world.
• I honor my body by moving and being active.
• I enjoy some time away from the daily grind.

4. How do you get energized?

5. Any lessons learned you want to share with other moms about balancing your personal needs/dreams/desires with the needs of all the other things that demanded your time, attention, and energy.

6. If selected, do you want to include a giveaway in your Inspiring Moms Club post? What would you like to giveaway?

7. Anything else you want to mention.

Feel free to be creative with your answers. You can write your answers as a post or you can use a Q&A format.

How To Join…

To join the inspiring moms club or to nominate an inspiring mom send an email to stacey [at] createabalance [dot] com.

Have fun and I look forward to hearing from you!

It’s Time to Celebrate Inspiring Moms!

It is my honor to introduce you to the Inspiring Moms Club. The Inspiring Moms Club is a space to celebrate and learn from amazing moms who are practicing the art of life balance. Click here to join the inspiring moms club or to nominate an inspiring mom.

Our first inspiring mom is Jane Elia Schwartz, who is the founder and creative director behind JelliBee Baby, a fresh line of sophisticated yet practical baby accessories. She believes every woman deserves to enjoy intricately beautiful and practical design, and is dedicated to infusing all she does with a healthy dollop of ‘aahhh!’ Jane lives in southern California with her husband and two children, and is tickled and humbled by the richness that is motherhood.

JelliBee Baby Giveaway

Jane is giving away a pair of delightful petite clothing hangers. These delicious hangers, fit for a prince or princess, are both beautiful and functional. They are so adorable, you’ll want them for yourself.

What You Win
(1) pair of petite hangers from JelliBee Baby

How to Enter
Share one quality of what makes an inspiring mom in the comments section below.

Extra Entries
1. Twitter about the inspiring moms club.
Copy and paste the text Check out the Inspiring Moms Club @CreateaBalance  http://bit.ly/W9hjI to Twitter.
Be sure to leave a link to your Twitter status in the comments section.

2. Blog about the Inspiring Moms Club and leave link in the comments section.

3. Subscribe to my Create a Balance for Moms Newsletter.

Other Details
- Winner will be contacted via email.
- If no response in 48 hours, another winner will be drawn.
- Contest ends on June 27, 2009 at 11:59 pm Central Time.

And Now a Word from Our Inspiring Mom – Jane Elia Schwartz from JelliBee Baby

Jane’s View of Life Balance – Like most women, I think we try to make it mean, how can I fit “doing it all” into 24 hours, 52 weeks a year?” But to be serious, for me, it means managing the ho-hum obligations of life while tackling all of the fun and rewarding goals my family and I want to accomplish over the course of our lifetime.

How Jane Practices the Art of Life Balance – I try to approach everything I do with a positive outlook and strong work ethic- both work and play, and my kids see that. I realized recently that by being a mompreneur, my kids are getting to see what ‘work’ looks like, up close and personal, and that’s a good thing.

This eye-witness account of life-lesson-learning is so different than my own memories of my father ‘going off to work’ for 9 hours a day somewhere, and then reappearing at dinner, for 20 years in a row. Work is not compartmentalized to me or to them. I think their observations of what grown up ‘work’ is, is so much more tangible, and I hope, in it being so real, they develop a healthy respect and appreciation for it, in its many forms. By approaching work and play with the same attitude, holding myself accountable, I think I am able to pull into balance both of these aspects of my life.

How Jane Takes Action Towards Living Her Dreams – I am an extremely optimistic person who believes that through hard work, anything is possible. The word ‘dream’ is a little intimidating to me- it sounds out of reach, existing only in our wildest fantasies. I prefer ‘goal:’ sounds so much more grounded and attainable, doesn’t it? Working towards a goal, one with milestones, anything is possible. And realizing that the journey in attainment of that goal, with its nuts and bolts elements, although not as glamorous as we imagined, is true to life. As a society, we only hear about the overnight successes, the plucked-from-obscurity-success-stories; reality is that hard work and years of sacrifice make dreams come true. Setting your sights on a goal is the first active step in living your dream. I try to have one ‘reach’ goal a year; in 2008 my goal was to sell my designs, and I met it, when I launched JelliBee Baby in November of last year.

Jane’s View On…

The Importance of Connecting with Other Women. With everyone rushing around, everyone so busy, I miss the sense of community that used to just happen when life was a little less hectic; these days, I make it happen, by connecting with people, strangers, even, that I come in contact with, throughout my day. It is nice to acknowledge (out loud) that we are not alone on this journey! I’ve met some of my best friends just by starting with hello, when we both found ourselves in new situations.

The Importance of Connecting with Your Authentic Self and Authentic Voice – For me this means shunning time-sucking obligations when and where I can. Do my young kids really need to attend so and so’s 2^nd birthday party all day Saturday? Do we need to watch TV 2 hours every night to ‘relax’? It sounds dramatic, but our time is limited on this earth; make sure you are spending it with those you love, doing what matters to you and them. And I don’t mean that you skip all birthday parties or cancel cable (although we did), just figure out what is authentic and meaningful to you and your family, then actively spend your time and attention there. 

Honoring Your Body by Moving and Being Active – I grew up with very physically active parents- not athletes, but regular exercisers who ate healthfully, so it is just part of how we live now. I have a very supportive husband in this regard, too- he is an avid cyclist; I understand that his time spent riding is time for him to get away, challenge himself, and set goals. He watches the kids while I go to ballet classes at least 2-3 times a week. His reward is a fit, refreshed, wife. We also do activities outdoors with the kids. The idea is to get moving and have fun while clearing your head.

Getting Energized – Something my father always says: ‘success breeds interest.’ My husband and I are in the habit of spending our free time, our down time, pursuing activities we love. I hope I don’t sound like a broken record, but reviewing our accomplishments, as well as looking forward to future goals (“within 5 years I want to have done X”) is exciting to us. Then we talk about what we need to do to make those things happen, both in work and play. That is energizing.

Jane’s Advice on Balancing Personal Needs and Dreams with the Needs of All the Other Things that Demand Our Time, Attention, and Energy.

1. Allow yourself to admit when you need help. I know it is hard for overachievers! After my second child was born, my husband asked repeatedly if I was overwhelmed. I kept saying no, thinking saying yes meant I was admitting failure. Guess what? I couldn’t do it all. Once I admitted I needed help, and I allowed others to help me, I loosened up on myself and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.

2. Accept that you might want to be more than the Mother of your Children (if you do). And that that is ok. I still wrestle with this one as a hybrid stay at home mom and entrepreneur- as much as I want to remain the center of my kids and my husbands’ universe, sometimes I just want to chuck my Hello-my-name-is Mommy-badge and get on a jet plane as Just Jane and fly far, far away where the baby monitor/cell phone/PTA can’t find me. Acknowledge these feelings. They are normal. And then go find an outlet- cooking, dancing, yoga, scrap-booking, whatever- to do just for yourself, at least once a week.

Final Words from Jane -  One more thing, make it a habit to borrow from others’ life lessons. If there is something you want, talk to those who have it, or those who have done it. Research it. Join groups who do it. If there is something you like already out there, see if you can find out who did it, and how they did it. Ask questions. Take note of the lessons that those you admire have already learned. You’ll still make mistakes, but you might avoid a few.

And Don’t Forget to Register for Jane’s Giveaway

1. Share one quality of what makes an inspiring mom in the comments section below.

2. Twitter about the inspiring moms club.
Copy and paste the text Check out the Inspiring Moms Club @CreateaBalance http://bit.ly/W9hjI to Twitter. Be sure to leave a link to your Twitter status in the comments section.

3. Blog about the Inspiring Moms Club and leave link in the comments section.

4. Subscribe to my Create a Balance for Moms Newsletter.