Balance

Top, Jacket, and Scarf: c/o Aventura Clothing (shop responsibly with their fair trade styles); Boots: c/o Jambu & Co (use code MOMMYINFLATSF19 for 20% off your order)

Balance in all things, especially shopping. Don’t let Black Friday influence you to overspend or buy things you don’t even want. I have often been a victim of not being able to pass up a sale and regret it when my house is bursting and my bank account is not.

If you must shop today, do so prudently and with brand awareness. I love these Cedar boots from Jambu.com and today you can shop their whole site for 30% off. If you need a good pair of winter shoes, check out their many weatherproof styles.

Thank you Jambu for the boots, as always all opinions and thoughts are my own! Happy Thanksgiving and I hope you’re able to find a little balance in your life!

Kids, husband, house, pets, bills, friends, hobbies, work, siblings, parents, in-laws, appointments, health, self care: LIFE. There are so many things that we are constantly carrying around on our shoulders every single day. Learning to balance it all can be quite the feat. I’ve found lately that I struggle to give each one of the kids the individual attention they want while also catering to their basic needs. For example I drive one to tutoring twice a week and also have to work for hours with her on school work. How do I also fit in fun time for her while carving out time for all her siblings?

Or friends. How do I make time to get in friend dates when I can’t even find a time to go on a date with my husband? And, then there are family commitments and doctors appointments and just real life stuff that’s not particularly fun but is necessary. When I have time to myself, I find that I want just that, time to myself. As an introvert, I need time to decompress and it’s hard to give up my alone time, sleep time, or workout time for socializing. Believe me, I miss you friends but after being with little people 24/7 for weeks on end, a bubble bath alone just sounds so darn good!

How do you balance it all? I hope you didn’t think I was going to tell you because I’m still over here just treading water and hoping we don’t all sink. But, I have found one thing that grounds me and keeps me going and that’s exercise. In particular, I really enjoy a good stretch to decompress. To be honest, I don’t make enough time for that practice (cardio and weights tend to be the go to for me) but there is nothing like a good deep yoga session to calm the breathing and clear the mind. I thought I’d talk about a few of my favorite poses for stretch, strength, and resetting mind and body.

Split Down Dog. This pose has been so good for strength and flexibility. You have to use a lot of core and upper body strength to hold steady while you basically do a bent over split.

Dancer Pose. Years ago I injured myself badly and had to have knee surgery. Ever since, I have been struggling to regain the stretch in my quadricep on that leg. This pose is an alternate way to really work on balance and stretch out the upper thigh at the same time.

Warrior Poses. I love all three of the warrior poses as they leave room to improve but are pretty uncomplicated and easy to move through. If I want to just turn my brain off and move this is definitely my go to.

Do you use exercise to decompress? What are your tips and tricks for finding balance in real life? I’d love to hear how you find peace amidst this rat race that we call the every day.