Real Experiences
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12 Tips On How To Work From Home Without Going Crazy
I’ve been working from home for ten years now (on and off) as a self-employed translator, English teacher, and writer. As such, I know that working from home has certain benefits but also certain setbacks. The setbacks that I’ve experienced as a mum working from home are: distractions not seeing people not being able to switch off from work not exercising enough From my conversations with other people who also work from home, I realize these issues are pretty common. I don’t think these setbacks need to put people off from working from home, however. We just need to find ways to get around the setbacks and adopt certain strategies…
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3 Beautiful Children – 3 Interesting Stories
So some of you know that I have three children: Abby, who is seven, Priscila, who is five, and Daniel, who is four. As you can probably imagine I have many funny stories about them from when they were babies and toddlers. Like the time my eldest got a pip stuck in her nose right before we were about to go to a wedding. And the time my middle one was sick on her dress on the way to a wedding (what is it about weddings?). Or the time my husband took one of them to get medication for threadworms after going to the emergency services and saw the prime-minister…
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6 Fantastic Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting!
Ok, so I’ve been doing intermittent fasting consistently for about six months now, and I decided to write about it to share my experience. The reason why I’m writing about this is that I believe that our health as mothers has an impact on our parenting, and consequently on our children. So, if you’ve never heard of intermittent fasting, it’s basically a meal timing schedule that cycles between voluntary fasting and non-fasting over a period of time. In my case, I do a 24-hour schedule. The 16/8 Method Now when I first started intermittent fasting, I did the 16/8 method of intermittent fasting, i.e., my fasting window was 16 hours…
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My 7 Ways Of Dealing With Lockdown In Winter
In my last post, I wrote about my struggles with full lockdown this second time round. One of my struggles with lockdown this winter has been the terrible weather, which affects my motivation for outdoor exercise. My other struggle with lockdown is the constant state of connectedness that seems more real now that I’m at home all the time. Anyway, because I struggle with these two issues, I came up with some solutions. I don’t follow these all the time, but when I do, I cope better. 1. Exercise and nutrition I’m not a sporty person at all, but I do like certain types of exercise. Disclaimer: not weights or…
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Winter In Lockdown – A True Story
I was talking to some friends the other day about how January is usually a bleak month, what with the long nights, the cold weather, and the flu season. And then we started talking about how this year it’s an even harder month because of covid and the lockdown restrictions. Now for me personally, January has never been a tough month because I like the cold weather, going out for winter walks, and the contrast of the cosiness of home. Also, having three birthdays in my family keeps me motivated and busy. The reality of lockdown during Winter This year, though, has been different. I’m fine, and I feel at…
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5 New Year Resolutions – Unique Passions
My eldest is wearing a t-shirt today that says “do more of what makes you happy!” I actually only noticed it mid-morning and the funny thing was that I had just been thinking about New Year’s resolutions and I clicked! People should spend more time following their interests. I’m not talking about sinful interests here. I’m not saying that people who enjoy stealing things, should keep doing that. Or that you should keep lying if it’s something you actually like doing. What I’m talking about is following our in-built passions and pursuits, following our creation design. In a sense it’s going to a deeper level of ourselves and finding our…
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Great Expectations – A Mother’s Honest Experience
We were having a family afternoon together. The kids, my husband and I had just finished watching a film and were about to play some games, when I had an idea: we could all cook dinner together after the games! I then created an expectation in my mind that was what was going to happen: we would all have fun making something in the kitchen. Strange, considering I didn’t communicate this with anyone! All I said when the games were over was “come and help mummy make something.” No one came. The kids said they wanted to play a game on Echo. And that was that! My expectation crushed. It…
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Stop Looking So Closely! – A Young Mother’s Struggle
What do they think of me? My first memories of worrying about other people’s opinions were when I was a teenager, and I felt embarrassed when my English parents did very counter-cultural things in Portugal, where we live. I worried that people judged them as weird, and somehow that reflected on me. But i’s entirely one thing to feel your parents being judged for their actions, and feeling judged for your own. Judgementalism in Motherhood My first ever real awareness of this happened when I became a mother. It was then that I came to see just how much people’s opinions were important to me. And how I hated being…
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Imperfect, But Chosen – A Reason To Hope
I became a mum in January 2014 and ever since I have loved being a mother. The early days were tough, however. You see as a young mum, I used to feel I needed to be perfect at everything. That I was shortchanging my kids when I gave them nothing less than perfection. I used to compare myself to other mums who seemed to have it all together, and I would feel inadequate. But one day I realized that those mothers I used to compare myself to were like me. We all had our doubts and our failings. Our areas of strength and our areas of weakness. We all compared…
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Do I Need To Change? – A Young Mother’s Insecurity
Many years ago, I went through a stage of insecurity regarding my personality as a mother. I started believing that certain features of my personality needed to change because when I compared myself to other mothers; I felt inadequate. This got to the point where I wondered whether my children would eventually start liking other mothers more than me. After all, these mums seemed so much better than I. Now, there were several aspects of myself that I thought needed to change, and one of those was my introversion and quietness. I compared myself to all my mum friends and acquaintances who were unlike me. They were dynamic. They were…