It’s been a minute since I’ve written a blog post, let alone a life update. I’ve got a coffee in hand and a sleeping baby, so I’m diving in to recap life lately. I hope that if you’re reading this, you also have a minute to relax and a yummy coffee nearby.
I mentioned a few weeks back that I was going to take a step back from the blog for a month or two, just to try and put my focus in different areas and find some balance. Has it helped? Yes, I think so, but I still have a lot of kinks to work out in this whole work/life balance thing.
In an effort to make this easy to digest, I’m breaking it down into different sections of life lately. Let’s start with Mara…
Mara
She is seriously the best. Mars Bar is four months old now and she is so much fun. She loves to make noise and chat with us, standing is still her favourite thing and she’s rolled over a few times. She’s like a wild animal when she’s hungry, sleeps like an absolute champ (10-12 hours a night – how did I get so lucky?? I think my mom is pissed I’m not getting payback – lol) and she has no problem playing by herself. We have been loving movie cuddles, reading books to her and dancing in the kitchen to some Walker Hayes or Shania Twain.
I was not confident going into motherhood, at all. I’ve never been the person that is dying to hold a baby or volunteers to babysit, and I really didn’t think that I had that maternal instinct. It’s wild to me how quickly I’ve adjusted to this role and how confident I am now that I’m the best mom for Mara. I definitely don’t have everything figured out, but she has made it so easy to be her mom.
Fenn + Odie
Next up, the pups! We have had Miss Fenn for six whole months now and it honestly feels like she’s always been with us. It’s cheesy, but I look at her multiple times a day and wonder how we ended up with the most perfect addition to our family right before we welcomed a baby into our lives. I was terrified when we went to pick her up from the airport and fully prepared to find her another home in Canada if it didn’t work out. How did this leap of faith turn out so well? Fenn and Odie are completely obsessed with each other and watching them play or cuddle (which they do a lot) makes me so happy. Nanny Fenn is also in love with her baby sister and so good with her.
Odie has also been amazing with Mara. He mostly ignores her, which is what we trained him to do before her arrival, but every now and then he will walk past her and just give her hand or foot a quick kiss. I do feel like I haven’t given him enough individual attention and love since his sisters arrived, and that’s something that I want to focus on. He was my first baby and really the first piece of this family that I’ve created. If Odie hadn’t come around to liking Kirby, who knows where we’d be today!
Work
Okay, here’s where things get a little less than great, but let’s start with the positive. Kirby recently launched a new brand that we’re very excited about, Glory Days Athletics. There are big plans in the works for this brand and I can’t wait to see him bring them to life.
I, on the other hand, have really been struggling with work lately. I think that a lot of my identity pre-baby was in my work and now that there are many more facets to who I am and other responsibilities, I feel my career almost slipping away. It’s super frustrating and, full disclosure, I’ve had many meltdowns about it over the last few months.
With so much on my plate and high expectations of myself, my work has been sporadic, inconsistent, poor quality and not fulfilling in any way.
I love blogging and working with brands, and I have a vision for my brand that I’m passionate about, but it feels more and more like I need to take a real step back to evaluate how to make work fun again and create content that I actually like and that I’m proud of. I have a few commitments to fulfill before the holidays, but outside of that, I plan to take some time off and take a good look at what my business looks like in 2022.
You can still expect to see some blog posts and Instagram posts here and there, but I plan to only post content that I’m happy with, so it may not be very consistent. I will be sharing regularly on the LTK app – still gotta make some money, ya’know?
That’s life lately. A little chaotic, a little frustrating, a little exciting. I will say, I am so looking forward to the holidays with my little family. I can’t wait to see Mara and Fenn enjoy their first Christmas. Hopefully, this break offers the rejuvenation that I need for the new year.
