Enjoying life as a firewife
Have you ever thought about how it would feel to be able to achieve anything you want during your lifetime?
Would you like to be able to travel wherever you want or get any qualification you put your mind to?
[Read more…] about 5 Tips For Rocking The Life You Want
Early in our marriage I was a firm believer in frequent date nights. I had been lead to believe that a sign of a healthy marriage was a weekly date night. As you can imagine, this caused a lot of undue stress.
It wasn’t long before I became extremely bitter watching my husband traipse off to his weekly fire meeting while I fought tooth and nail for my date nights. I felt betrayed by his enthusiasm and dedication to the fire department. I wish I could say we sat down and found a nice middle ground; we didn’t. In fact, it reached the point where I just gave up on date night all together.
A funny thing happened when I gave up on date nights. I didn’t miss them. I didn’t miss the mad house cleaning I did in preparation for a babysitter. I also didn’t miss the hour it took for us to drive to the nearest movie theater. Or the classic where do you want to eat at argument that accompanies almost every meal out.
I can happily say that slowly we worked on our marriage. I let go unreasonable expectations. My husband found a healthy balance between FireLife and FamilyLife. Together we found the following ways to spend time with each other.
We work together
If you have never had the chance to work with your husband then I suggest not doing it! No really. Without a doubt the steepest learning curve I have ever had in any relationship has been learning to clearly, efficiently and nicely communicate business needs and problems with my husband. It takes a new level of patience and understanding.
We Travel
This works perfectly for us. It doesn’t have to be too far off locals or even alone. Just last week we took the whole family on a quick road trip. Yes, we had the kids in the backseat but the majority of our time was spent talking just the two of us. A solid 5 hours each way of nothing but conversation.
Of course, a vacation alone with your spouse can also do wonders. I strongly encourage it whenever possible. Nothing can replace the time alone being just a spouse. Instead of a spouse, a parent, an employee, a softball coach, etc.
We Share Hobbies
A shared hobby is a win-win. You not only get to spend the time together doing the actual hobby. But you also have the time to talk about the hobby, dream about it, plan it and shop for it. I will throw in a warning here sharing a hobby also requires a bit of flexibility. One or both of you will need to be prepared to compromise so that you can both enjoy the hobby.
We Meetup in The Bedroom
Nothing can replace physical contact. For me, this had been one of the significant problems I had with letting go of date night. I connected date night with intimacy. You go on a date then you come home and get frisky while wearing all your sexy clothes.
Yeah, now I laugh at that whole idea. I have since found out sexy clothes and dates are not a must for a killer bedroom fun. All you need is a good attitude and lots of practice!
Today, we go on maybe a handful of bona fide dates a year. In the future I know this will change; marriages have seasons. I never see us a date night a week type of couple and I am okay with that. What’s important is we have found what works for US in OUR marriage!
Tell me what works in your marriage; Do you go on regular date nights or do you spend time together in other ways?
The countdown has started. My two big kids have less than three weeks until summer vacation. During the school year, my day time hours run smoothly. With just me and a toddler at home, it’s easier to keep the living areas clean and stay caught up on the laundry. Soon however, there will be two more bodies in the house all day long and that means more dishes, more clothes and more clutter.
I do not want to spend the summer cleaning up after everyone. I want to spend our days outside in the yard, at the park having picnics and making memories. Our oldest two children are both at an age where they can, and should, have more responsibilities around the house. One of my husband and I’s biggest lessons we try to teach them is we are all a team, and this house doesn’t function at it’s fullest without everyone’s participation.
To ensure that we have a smooth summer with plenty of time for fun, I’ve decided the big kids are going to be responsible for more than their normal pet chores and bedroom chores. I’m hoping that things will run more efficiently and the kids will learn to appreciate all the effort that I put in during the day.
My plan to “Save Mom’s Summer Sanity” is to:
These may seem like small changes to our routine, but they are a few small tasks that I can take off my list. I want to instill life skills and household responsibilities in my children. I want to make sure they know and fully appreciate what goes in to effectively running a household. Hopefully this helps our summer be a fun filled, stress free one.
Do you make any changes in your routine to keep the stress at bay when all your children are home on break?
We’ve been talking about it and it’s time to get serious. I need to find out how many are truly interested and able to attend a retreats, so I can find the right size house to rent. Please, also sign up to the waitlist if you are interested in a firewife conference. I have to know there is interest before putting the big bucks into live events.
In true retreat style the events will be all about you. We will have a few power sessions based on the needs of those attending. The tentative plan is to have a local retreat on the Washington coast and also one in Vegas.
There will be plenty of time to chat with old friends and make new ones in a household setting. No hotels to go hide out in, we’re family 😉 Meals will be included. Swag bags. Movies and late night laughing with other firewives. Just to name a little of what is in my dream of retreats for us.
A month ago I did a Facebook live with my friend Claudette – The Stepmom Coach to talk about her “Becoming A More Confident Stepmom” ecourse that was included in a bundle we were both participating in. I know many of you FireWives are stepmoms and could use the confidence course and every bit of resources you can find on the topic. I’ve embedded the video here for you to watch and get to know Claudette and her self-study program a bit.
For Black Friday she’s running a sale on everything and I want to make sure you don’t miss out. The sale runs from November 22nd-30th. When you check out use the coupon code: BLACKFRIDAY2018 for 50% off. I’m going to give you a little info on each of the programs.
I know it’s the holidays and we don’t generally think of buying ourselves things. But, consider how using one of her programs could improve your happiness in 2019. You could even ask your FF or a family member to purchase it for your Christmas present. Just send them the link to this page and they can choose what to get you.
Imagine what your life would be like if you had no fear of failure as a stepmom…if you knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt that you could be happy within your stepfamily. Imagine what your life would be like with complete confidence at being a good stepmom.
If you want to bring an end to your struggles and start living a life of fulfillment and accomplishment…the life you were born to live…then this online self-study program is for you.
This is the course we discussed in the video above. Click for more info.
Stepfamily dynamics are often stressful, and that stress can have a negative impact on our 
relationships with our spouse, our stepkids and our health. It’s important to find ways to eliminate as much stress as we can from our lives, in order to create a more fulfilling stepfamily.
Find out more info about this self-study course.
Understanding how emotions work gives you the advantage of knowing how to deal with people and their emotions, becoming aware of your thoughts and feelings and ways to manage your own emotions in all situations.
As a stepparent, you are impacting and influencing your stepkids, whether they live with you full time, part time or not at all. Whatever you do or say is being recorded by those around you.
The question is, are you having the impact you want to have, or are you getting less-than-desirable results?
Click for more info on how you can be more empowered as a stepparent.
Conflict is part of our lives but it doesn’t have to ruin it. This program will help you as a stepparent to constructively and effectively deal with conflict in your stepfamily before it gets out of hand.
Having tools at your disposal will help you weather the storm more effectively and with far less hurt feelings. Grab the tools now.
A new way to create success as you explore the definition of success, learn how to harness your internal & external strengths to achieve your goals, & turn your new discoveries into tangible results.
If you take one of Claudette’s courses, I’d love to hear your feedback on how it’s improved communication around your house. Blended families are always difficult, but adding in the firelife and them being gone a lot puts a whole new spin on things.
Don’t forget, the sale is only until November 30th and use coupon code: BLACKFRIDAY2018 for your 50% off.
Happiness is a choice. Live with no regrets.
You have the perfect plan in place and the house is full of healthy foods. You are READY to rock this new fitness and weight loss. You get after it. Week one is hard, but you do it.
Week two? The kids have practice every day this week. There are two basketball games. Saturday is a tournament. There’s a giant project due at work. You are tired. Legit tired.
Missing out on Monday’s workout is ok. You have the whole rest of the week and will go tomorrow.
Tuesday you just can’t get up early and do it, you’ll do it in the evening after work. Crap, today was basketball night and the darn kid forgot to bring their uniform. You need to rush and drop it off and get dinner done and eaten so the rest of you can get to the school to watch.
Workout…not even a thought until bedtime and then the guilt hits because you didn’t do it and it’s two days now. Then you figure why bother you were never going to hit your goals anyways. Next Monday you’ll start again. Next week is MUCH less busy and it will be easy.
Any of this story sound familiar?
I bet it does. It’s super common for us to run through this over and over and over. Keeping this cycle of not working out and not putting our health as a priority is easy. We are legitimately busy and it’s hard to find the time.
But, that’s the thing. There is never going to be this magic free time for you to do it. You have to make the time and make it a priority.
That’s why mindset is so important when working on weight loss. It’s just about everything.
Every day you have to make the choice of what will be your priority for that day. Feed the twerps and make sure they get to school is obviously important. I guess if you have to go to work so you can buy the damn food, that could be important too.
But, after that you generally have choices about where you fit in. There are a lot of reasons why you should be making YOU the choice.
Is that last one dramatic? Nope, not even a single bit. Your choice is to take care of yourself now or sit in waiting rooms. It really is that important. As FireWives we know the calls our spouses go on and how many of them are preventable diseases. WE KNOW!
Is it always easy? No, but is it always important? Every day, all day.
Want to hear me yak at you about mindset & motivation? Join me on Wednesday for the webinar. If you can’t make it live, I will have a replay ready for you soon after. Just go sign up for more information. Fitness Mindset & Motivation Webinar
Happiness is a choice and so is your health. Live with no regrets,
