If your home is an extension of you, then your mental and emotional health will inevitably affect your home. It affects how you care for it, view it and whether or not you share it.
I found this to be true in myself over the past few years. Stick with me here because I’m going to be vulnerable for a sec. Growing a business over the last 7 years led to a little bit of burn-out. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job and my clients!! But it’s inevitable that 7 years of working 6-7 days a week and 12-16 hour days takes a toll on even the healthiest person, even when you are passionate about what you are doing. It’s not sustainable. The more tired I was, the less I invited people over. The less I invited friends over, the more lonely I felt. The more lonely I felt, the more I isolated myself. The more I isolated myself, the more I let my home go. The more I let my home go the less I invited people over. On and on. Can you relate?
So last year, I focused on finding more time for rest. True rest, not the sleeping in kind. Although that helps and I did a bit of that too. I’m talking about mental, emotional and spiritual renewal rest.
This year, 2017, one of my biggest goals is to work towards living a more balanced life. A life focused on love and fellowship. The great news is that since you affect your home, the inverse is true too: Your home affects you. I found that when I invited people over, I took more care of my home. The more I took care of my home, the better I started to feel. And the better I started to feel, the more I wanted to see friends… On and on. The cycle reversing itself.
After finding the courage to be honest and open about my burnout and loneliness, I started having friends, colleagues and clients open up about feeling the same way. Balance seems to allude all of us. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a mom, have a career, or maybe all 3.
So with Valentine’s day right around the corner (and that in itself is a day for spending time with loved ones), I am taking my own advice. My two favorite ladies (@thebooktruck and @well_ellie )and I decided it would be fun to get together to celebrate our friendship. I didn’t get to make a gingerbread house during the Christmas season, so my good friend and chef extraordinaire Eleanor from @well_ellie suggested we make a “Sugar Shack.” It was so much fun for us just to hang out and talk and do a craft…it was like we were in college again. I have only focused on work for so long that I had forgotten what I even liked to do. Feast your eyes on the results!!
I cannot take any credit for the house structure! That was all Eleanor!
You might be thinking why all the fancy dishes to hold the candy? BECAUSE it makes me happy and it was just as easy to put them in my fun dishes as it would have been to put them in dumb paper bowls. Although you could get super fun paper plates if you wanted easy easy clean up. Like this orthis.
I did use a fun paper table runner. It actually made clean up pretty easy! Similar option here.
Notice the sugar glass windows! Eleanor…she’s just too damn good.
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