I realize that it has been ages since I’ve done a recap, goals, or more personal post on the blog, and honestly, I’ve missed sharing these things with you.
The heart behind these kinds of posts is two-fold: as much as I hope you find posts with a more personal bend interesting, insightful, and even helpful, it is good for me to slow down and write about life and happenings around here. Ebbs and flows. Both the pipe dream goals and the goals right around the corner—and the projects necessary to move them forward.
So this is for my own sake as much as yours. <3
A summer recap
Wisconsin summers always go by so quickly.
This is especially true when your husband dusts off his carpenter skill set and begins, with the help of several amazing family members and friends, the mountainous job of adding on to our small house. In the end, we will almost double the square footage of our home and add several bedrooms, a second bath, and—my decided favorite—a four-season porch to the overall layout.
House-building progress as of August 30, 2017.
I am so excited for this space. Currently our boys share a tiny bedroom, and Baby B is still in our room, so this space means more room for living, hospitality, and our expanding belongings (five people come with a lot of stuff—no matter how much I try to minimize!)
We’ll also add a garage and remodel the interior of our current living space eventually, so summer has meant much work and very little play.
But it is just a season.
And we are committed to this season for whatever duration it may last. Plus, I’m so thankful for my hard-working man.
June and July were busy client months for Verity, and I also ran the pilot round of the copywriting & content course that will officially launch later this fall. Yay! Everything packed into July as I tried my best to prepare for my second annual business sabbatical, scheduled for August.
My business sabbatical
When B was born last August, I took about a month off and called it maternity leave. I really pulled back from business to enjoy the fleeting newborn days, and it was a good month of slow, quiet, and rest. So as we moved toward summer 2017, I didn’t have a new baby to take time off for, but the break was so lovely that I decided that I wanted to repeat the time off and call it a business sabbatical or staycation.
I chose August because there was a good chance my ‘little’ brother stationed in Italy would have the opportunity to take leave and come home for two weeks. So that was a good reason in and of itself to slow my schedule and give myself margin.
Soldier-brother. I like him a lot.
I also wanted the space to rest and pray through Verity. To really dig deep internally and prayerfully evaluate how things were going and where I wanted to head as a business. If you’re a small business owner, I’m sure you can relate: we get so caught up in the daily working of our business, especially those of us who work directly with clients, that we often neglect to take the time to work on our business.
But as things typically go, I didn’t button up my business for real time away until the second week of August, and even then, I popped on my email almost daily to be sure there weren’t things that needed immediate attending. This feels like a confession. 🙂 In a way, it is. I didn’t force myself to stay away (and I putzed on a few friend-client projects during the month), but the breathing room was really good for me.
I still consider my sabbatical a success because I did take the month off from full client work and worked internally on Verity: processes & systems, my own website & offerings, thought through what the future might look like, and daydreamed about possibilities. I worked on my course. I had time to work on and record my very first summit video (shout out to the amazing Creative Brand Summit!). The weather didn’t cooperate for as many beach and ice cream days as I had hoped, but such is life.
I wonder: can you consider something a smashing success when you want to make it an annual occasion? I say yes. From here on out, I plan to make a month off from client work a consistent part of my summer—the particular month (June, July, or August) may vary from year to year, but this is definitely something I’m sold on implementing in my business.
There’s something to be said for time and space to slow down and think.
September goals
And now, September signifies the start of a brand new season for our family. This Tuesday will be the start of homeschooling my kids—my two boys will be in kindergarten and 4K. Baby B just had her first birthday, so she’ll be the cute cheerleader and official troublemaker as her brothers try to do their work each day, I’m quite sure.
My world, 4th of July 2017
We prayerfully considered this, as well, and feel like it is the best decision for our family right now. Both Matt and I were homeschooled ourselves, and it feels like a natural extension of our growing up years. We are both excited to have the ability, opportunity, and freedom to teach our kids from home. To cater to their unique, individual learning styles. To make learning really fun. To have the additional time with them.
Not going to lie to you, though: this is going to be a huge challenge for me. I’ve recognized this for a few years now, and I’ve been planning for it as best as I can.
Being mom, business owner, and now my kids’ teacher calls for better time management, better household management, and better business management.
And grace upon grace upon grace.
In a way, this new season of homeschooling feels like a bigger change and a better time for new routines than even the start of a new year does for me. (New Year’s Day, you’ve got nothing on this).
Other September goals of mine include:
- Wrap up video content for my new course. I promise more info is coming on this sooooon. There is just so much more amazing goodness that needs to be done before it’s ready to announce. 😉
- Work on the 1:1 web design clients I have for September.
- Help my husband on the house construction as much as possible.
- Revamp how I do household management: I’m not sure how this will look, but I have in mind honing in and refining how I clean, meal plan, manage our daytime, and create a smoother home life as we ease into homeschooling. If you have any tried-and-true methods for any of these areas of home management, I’m all ears!
In all honestly, I’m not sure how this season is going to look for us. I feel a little intimidated and a lot unqualified. But this season is what my family is called to do.
Some of you may have a life that mirrors this, and you do it and you thrive and you succeed. I want to be like you.
Some of you may read all of this and wonder how on earth I will be able to do it. I’m not sure either.
All I can say is:
I do what is mine to do.
I do the things that have been placed on my plate to do, because they are mine. Nothing more, nothing less. I do what has been given to me to do.
This is true of all of us, isn’t is.
My old self wants to all the things with grandeur and ease. I realize now that I can only do things as excellently as possible, and with the grace of Jesus in my heart every single day. Homeschooling, Verity, raising kids, being a good wife, keeping house, following Jesus.
The same is true with my business.
This business is mine because it’s been given for me to do. I believe that wholeheartedly. And I’m going to do my best in this season while it is mine to do it.
