Embrace 2020 50/365: invitations

How do you do juggling school vacation weeks? It's 1000% the case that it's easier for me to relax and detach from work when I'm not at home (and yes, I realize this is a problem since I also love the ability to work at home). Yesterday when I took the day off to say yes to Jon's ski invitation it was super easy for me to toss on my OOO autoresponder and disconnect. But being home today has been a challenge. I have needed to be a lot more intentional not to let the stress and pull of work get to me. This morning was a classic blurred work/home line scramble: My usual routine of starting work at 7am didn't happen because, well, we're totally off our usual routine. I realized at 9am that I should get a pot roast in the slow cooker since my in-laws are visiting today. The city started taking down a tree right outside my window right before my podcast recording time (cue flurry of relocating, relocation not working, then rescheduling). I'm still dealing with the fallout from my email breaking this past week. And so forth. Blergh.

After lunch I looked at my to-do list and felt completely scattered about what to tackle next and when. And then Violet invited me to play chess. I paused, took a deep breath, and said YES. It's really hard but I keep trying to remember that work will always be there, and while sometimes work does need to come first, if I can say yes to my kids, especially an invitation to play, it's probably a good idea. When Violet next invited Laurel to play chess I made a round of hot chocolates and worked alongside them. I'm glad Laurel said yes too.