Climbing the Pyramid

When I was a senior in high school, I went on a once in lifetime trip to Mexico to study Spanish.  There, a group of students and myself, each lived with a family there in Mexico.  We went to school everyday to learn Spanish.  To add to it, we traveled ALL OVER Mexico to learn about the culture.  It was an amazing experience.

Hannah came home from school and told me that her class was learning a Mexican dance for a dance competition for school.  I suddenly had the urge to dig through our basement and find my buried treasures of Mexico.

Among them, was my journal I had kept while on this extended trip.  I starting reading the entries and all those fun memories came back.  I then read a journal entry that was amazing and the adrenaline of the experience came to life inside me once again.

One of the things we did when we were there was go to the pyramids.  There were two large pyramids there and rows and rows of smaller ones.  The two large pyramids are called the "Piramide del Sol," (Pyramid of the Sun) and the "Piramide del luna" (Pyramid of the moon).  Our group decided to climb the Pyramid of the Sun, the larger of the pyramids.  What a crazy, amazing experience this was.  There are about 250 stairs to climb to the top that are about a foot each.  I remember standing at the bottom of the pyramid thinking, How in the world am I going to climb this?  My friends and I were some of the last ones up.  We were with a trackstar, who ran his way up.  Ridicilously fast.  When I read my journal entry about the experience, I really couldn't believe what I wrote:

"One step at a time.  That is my motto for how I live my life and when I climbed that pyramid and reached the top, it reminded me a lot about life.  When I first started climbing, it was easy.  Then step by step, my legs started to hurt and I felt the burn, but when I reached the top, I felt a sense of accomplishment and I knew if I could climb a pyramid, I can conquer any problem that comes my way.  It was fun sitting at the top and looking down.  I was on top of the world."

I kinda was taken back by this entry.  That was 12 years ago and I think of all the "steps"  I have overcome. Some were easy.  My choice to marry my husband, one of the easy steps ever.  My choice to quit my career at T-mobile, not so easy.  Some steps can be named "Life goes on," "Take deep breaths" or "Get over it,"  as those are the ones where I get stupid anxiety and I need to tell myself those things.  Yet, when we get to the top of our trials or have an experience where we are "on top of the world", we look down at the "world" and think of how we got there and feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment or relief.

When I climbed that pyramid, we stayed up there for a good hour or so.  We took it all in.  You could see for miles and miles of this beautiful ancient land.  Then we ended back down.  Going down was a ton easier, then going up.  When we got to the bottom, it was a different view then when we first stood at the bottom.  I looked back up and thought I climbed that.

Each of us have pyramids in our lives that we have to face.  It can seem very overwhelming when we are looking from the bottom up, before we start to climb.  Yet when we get to the top, what a wonderful feeling it is that we survived that trial, we made it through.  Sometimes we are a trackstar and recover from it quickly.  Other times, it can take a lot longer as we mourn and grieve.  Most importantly, we can't let ourselves get stuck on one step or we will never make it to the top.

Eventually, if we let ourselves, life CAN go on and we can reach the top and look down and say "Ha world, take that!"

How to Survive...

It's been awhile since I have written.  I have been busy taking on new "projects" but I have been approached by 4 different women lately about being a working Mom outside the home and "how did I do it?"

Here is the deal...millions of Moms do it every day.  As women, especially in this economy, we have to "step up to the plate" and help support our families.  Sometimes, women are left single and don't have a choice.  In fact, there are more moms working outside the home than not.  Many, many people thought I was crazy for leaving my very well paying job to stay home, "especially in this economy."  For my family, it was the right choice.  And just to be clear, I still work...I just do it from home.

Everyone is different.  There were days when I was happy to be at work instead of dealing with the whining and fighting.  Other days, when my child was sick or would cry for me, it was hard to drop them off.

The main thing was for me to be as organized as I possibly could.  I was in no means perfect, but it helped if I was organized and I cheated.

Here is the break down of "how I did it":

Step One:  Split the duties.  Joe was very supportive in breaking up the "duties" around the house.  If I cooked, he did dishes, etc.  (In fact, it is still like that.)  Let's be honest though, most nights we went out. :)  If I worked later, I would try and put something in the CrockPot before work.  If you don't have someone to split duties with, I champion you and am your BIGGEST FAN!

Step Two:  I cheated.  I hired a "cleaning lady."  She just happened to be my sister-in-law and she would come every two weeks to get the heavy cleaning done.

Step Three:  I did a load of laundry every night.  After dinner, Joe would take the girls down to his "mad scientist" basement and I would fold laundry.  I would also try and "straighten up" one room every other night.

Step Four:  Joe and I would put the girls to bed at 8.  This consisted of a bed-time story and family prayer.  Then was downtime.

Step Five:  Rest and Go grocery shopping on my days off.

That is Tina's formula.  Just to be clear.  I was in survival mode.  I did what I could to get through the day and every day was different.

Every single woman is different and has different situations.  I fully support and praise women living in today's society.  It is not easy...but it is worth it.