So I’m a writer, right? And writers, to perfect their craft, have to read.  Actually, nine times out of ten, writers become writers just because of how much they love to read.  I find myself wanting to write the stories I haven’t read yet, creating the characters I haven’t met yet…and the like. 

So I’m a reader, too.  And I read a lot. Not as much as my sister, who devours entire novels in a day. Honestly, no one reads like her.  But compared to the average person, I eat books for breakfast.  Because of this, it makes me sad when I hear people say things like “I don’t have time to read!” or “I can’t get into any books right now!” and other stuff like that.  Reading is a dying past-time, from my perspective, and I can’t understand why, especially with e-books and Kindles and stuff.  I don’t have tons of time on my hands — what with writing novels, freelance writing, raising two kids, keeping the house (mostly) clean, taking care of the dogs, and working on the occasional community theater production, etc. — but I squeeze it in.  Even if it’s only a few pages a day –  when the kids are at school, just before bed. Whenever.

Years ago, I was one of those people who didn’t have time to read. Or so I thought.  The first New Year’s resolution I ever kept was to read more – one book a month, to be exact.  That was in 2004.  I’ve read at least one book a month for the past 13 years thanks to that resolution.  Now, I’m reading more like one and a half to two books a month.  Right now, it’s August and I’ve just started my tenth book of the year.

So why do I do it? It’s the one thing I enjoy that doesn’t take up tons of time or require that I go anywhere or wear something special.  I can read a little or a lot, whenever I have the chance. With two kids at early school age, writing sometimes requires more brain power than I can scrape together. Still, I can't stop loving literature just because I've had to take a pause in my writing career.
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I’m glad I’ve rediscovered my love of books and I won’t be giving it up any time soon. And between my packed shelf of “Books to Read” and those ebooks on my tablet, I’m gonna be busy for many months to come.  But just think of all the inspiration – and enjoyment – it will bring me.

Imperfect Perfection... an excerpt from My Life in Yoga Pants
 
I’m a perfectionist. For a long time, I thought this was a strength of mine, something to be proud of. In recent years, when perfection is even harder to achieve, I have changed my tune. Well, mostly. While I can now admit that striving for perfection can waste time and energy, create unnecessary stress, and should probably be viewed as more of a shortcoming than a strength, I can’t exactly switch it off like a light.
 
In fact, I’d say that my perfection is more likely wired to a dimmer switch. I can tone it down, set some mood lighting, but it’s never really off. I realize this means I will blow a lightbulb before that wild light of perfection ceases to shine.
 
Now, this isn’t to say that I’m perfect. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, I keep trying to get there, as if it’s possible for any human being to truly reach perfection. The corners of the bed must be tucked in at right angles. The lunches must be perfectly organized like a square of Tetris pieces. Every hair must be in place. Every shoe must be free of scuffs. Both dogs must have matching collars, leashes, ID tags.
 
It never ends. Really. Never.
 
I’m also not sure when it began, but I can clearly remember the first time I learned that perfection can actually be imperfect. It also has consequences.
 
I was in sixth grade, struggling to find my place as a new kid in a small class of 30 kids at a Catholic school, and going through a “chubby phase.” I was eternally self-conscious about my weight, my pimples, and my perm-fried hair. It was spring and I’d almost survived the school year. The weather was warming up, the flowers were blooming, and our front yard was lush and green once more. This meant we’d started spending weekends outside again, much to my dismay. I hated being outside in the wind and the sun, subject to the attacks of various bugs and especially spiders. I would have preferred to be inside reading any day.
 
On one particular day, I got it into my head to search a sprawling patch of clover that had sprung up in our front yard. I don’t know where the idea came from, but I knew they were lucky and I figured some luck certainly couldn’t hurt. So that day, I knelt down on the ground I so loathed for its mud and bugs and I searched for a four-leaf clover.
 
Three leaves. Three leaves. Three. Three. The search kept me occupied for a good long while. I don’t know how long I was there that day, but I wouldn’t give up until I had inspected every single clover. As I neared the edge of the patch, feeling hopeful but exhausted by the monotony, I saw one. I counted them again. One, two, three, four leaves. Four! I could barely believe my eyes.
 
It was beautiful, perfectly intact and vibrantly green. It was just what I needed on that windy spring day.
 
So I plucked it from the ground, gently, careful to preserve its four fine leaves. I needed to show this to someone, as if it could validate that I did, indeed, have the good fortune to discover one of nature’s rarities all by myself. I sprinted into the house and presented it proudly to my mom.
 
“I did it! I found one!”
 
She was impressed, but immediately cautionary. “We should find a way to keep it so it won’t wilt and dry up. I’ve got an idea.” Mom always has handy ideas.
 
Together, we worked to preserve my good luck in its perfect, pristine beauty. After all, what good was any luck if you let it wilt, brown, and die?
 
Mom found an old photo sleeve, unused and discarded from a wallet at some point. I cut one sleeve carefully from the bunch and sized down a slip of paper to fit perfectly inside. With careful fingers and some pieces of Scotch tape, I affixed the clover to the paper, slipped it into the photo sleeve, and sealed up the open side. I smoothed the tape flat so it would look professional. Like I was a trained preservationist with a broad-ranging collection of botanical wonders pressed into photo sleeves.
It was beautiful. And it was perfect.
 
On Monday, I brought my four-leaf clover to school, tucked into a pocket of my Trapper Keeper like a secret treasure waiting to be revealed. My sixth-grade teacher always encouraged us to share stories, items, and inspirations with the class, kind of like a spontaneous Show-and-Tell open to anyone. That day, I tiptoed up to her with an ear-to-ear grin and shyly asked for my turn to share something wonderful with the class. Mrs. Thomas smiled too, even without any idea what I had with me that day. “After lunch,” she said to me, and so I waited patiently all morning and all of lunch without whispering a word to anyone. I was giddy and nervous and still so, so proud.
 
Finally, it was time. Mrs. Thomas announced that I had something to share. The butterflies exploded in my stomach. Getting up in front of the class was somewhat terrifying for a shy girl like me, but this was something that had to be shared. The imperative outweighed any nerves I felt that day. I stood up, slid the photo card from my folder, and walked to the front of the room.
 
“This weekend,” I began, my voice shaking with excitement. “I found a four-leaf clover in my yard and I wanted to bring it in to show everyone.” It didn’t seem silly at all to pass around my preserved clover. It was protected from their fingers as they handed it from one desk to another.
 
It was not, however, protected from their scrutiny.
 
“This isn’t real,” said Paul, when it finally made its way to the back of the second row. He always sat back there, making people laugh and attracting my sideways glances from time to time. He had been that boy to me for over a year by then and I wanted him to see my clover and be excited for me. I wanted him to be impressed. No such luck.
 
Mrs. Thomas asked him what he meant.
 
“Look at it,” he said, holding it up for the room to view. “It’s wrapped in plastic and sealed. You bought this somewhere, didn’t you?” His critical gaze cut through me. I was frozen in horror.
 
“No, I…” My entire brain went blank. “I made it myself.”
 
“You made a four-leaf clover?” One critical eyebrow raised in disapproval.
 
“Stephanie,” said Mrs. Thomas. “You can’t make a clover. If you bought it, you can’t pretend that you found it.”
 
“But I did find it!” My face was hot and undoubtedly red.
 
“Look, she’s embarrassed,” Paul laughed. “She did buy it.”
 
“No, I mean I put it in there after I found it! It was in my yard!” My voice sounded shrill, panicked.
 
“This is way too perfect, Steph. There’s no way you made this,” Paul handed it off to his neighbor and sometime partner-in-crime, Shawn. “See? Look at those edges!”
 
I rushed to the back of the room before I knew what I was doing. I snatched it out of Shawn’s hand and pointed to the tape on the edge. “Look right here! I taped it myself.”
 
“There’s no way you did that,” Paul shook his head. Shawn snorted. Mrs. Smith cleared her throat. “It’s way too perfect.”
 
I can’t remember what happened after that. My flushing face, the flood of hot tears, and the embarrassment of his accusation were too much to handle. I know that I somehow made it back from the bathroom cool and composed, my eyes red and raw, and sat back in my seat—second from the front of the class, just like always. I kept my eyes focused sharply on the board, offering not a smile or a nod for the teacher who’d hung me out to dry as she taught us grammar, geography, and science.
 
Not another word was ever spoken about that four-leaf clover again, at least not among my classmates. After crying over a few pages in my diary that night, I left the world’s most perfectly imperfect and utterly unlucky four-leaf clover tucked into the diary’s pages. Being perfect had gotten me into trouble and it had caused one of the most horrifying embarrassments of my entire life.
 
Such a stupid thing to pick a fight about and such a silly injustice to be angry over. But that’s how life is at 11 years old and there was no consoling me for days. Weeks, maybe.
 
Now that I’m adult, that story makes me laugh but there’s still a dull ache somewhere in my heart. Paul was so fun-loving and always so nice. Why was he threatened by something I had made, something that looked too perfect to be real? I never worked up the nerve to tell him how I felt and we parted ways after junior high graduation; he went to one school and I went to another. I never forgot that look of hatred in his eyes when he thought I was lying.
 
I was never a liar. If anything, I just tried too damn hard to be liked.
 
Today, I’m writing this and even as I’m doing so, reliving a horrible memory, I am worried that the peanut butter stain on the back of the couch belies the cleanliness of my living room. This scratch here on my laptop screen is all I can see. The cold coffee in my mug could’ve tasted better. My son, just two-and-a-half at this moment, is playing happily by my side but he could really use a tissue.
 
Even though I still have to train myself to overlook life’s imperfections, I now understand how dangerous it really is to force perfection on anyone or anything, even yourself. I don’t have that four-leaf clover anymore, but I wish I had kept it. It wasn’t the clover that was the problem. It was me, the shy and nervous girl who wanted to make nature’s perfection look even more perfect for a silly school presentation.
 
The next time I find a four-leaf clover, I’ll just take a picture just the way it is. I won’t even retouch it.

My Life in Yoga Pants is available at Amazon and most online retailers.

In the world of a busy work-from-home parent, there’s always a priority list. I’ve been known to say the phrase, “I can only handle one thing at a time, kids” more than once in any given day. And I stick to that one-thing-at-a-time rule as much as I can, checking off items down the priority list. Usually it’s something like, #1 – feed children, #2 – drive children to school, #3 – fold the laundry, #4 – take the dog out… the list goes on.

It’s not a bad system since it does keep me organized and on task. The bad news is that sometimes the stuff closest to the bottom of that list is the stuff I like the most. Like writing.

Now I don’t have all the answers, and what works for me might not always work for you, but I’ve tried to make my writing more of a priority in my day-to-day life. Sometimes, you need to be creative. Sometimes, you need to be firm with yourself. And sometimes, you just need to give yourself a break.

Here are a few of the strategies I’ve been using to make sure I get enough time to work on my fiction:

• Don’t be afraid to write in short bursts. I used to think I had to clear off hours from my schedule to sit down and write, the “center” myself and get my head into my work. I don’t have that luxury, so I’ve trained myself to type out 500-1000 word bursts when I have a few minutes to myself.
  
• Embrace technology. Sometimes I can’t get to the laptop to sit down and write. When I learned I could download Dropbox-compatible writing programs on my smartphone and my tablet, I realized I could now add words from anywhere! There's nothing like drafting a paragraph from the doctor's office waiting room.
  
• Talk it out. Sometimes I think of good ideas when I can’t type, like when I’m washing dishes or driving my daughter to school. With talk-to-text software like Dragon, I can talk out loud without losing any of my ideas or brilliant snippets of dialogue.
• It’s how you look at it… I used to think writing was a chore, so when those pockets of free time came around, I didn’t want to do it. I’ve tried to shift my thinking so that writing is a treat for me, a perfect activity for my downtime. It’s working, and now I find myself looking forward to a good hour-long stretch at the keyboard.
• Take the time. I don’t always have to fold the laundry right away and I don’t always have to unload the dishwasher immediately. Those jobs will be waiting for me after I finish Chapter 4, so sometimes writing can get bumped up a little higher on that list. And I really like when that happens.
  

It IS possible to have a work-from-home career and take care of the kids, the pets, and the housework. It’s all about balance and finding what works for you. What strategies do you use to get reach your own writing goals every week?

I’m a freelance writer. In modern day America, that looks like this: every week, I write as many blogs/articles/content pieces as possible so I get paid. I work for a handful of online sites on a rolling basis, so the more I work, the more I get paid. Pretty sweet, or at least it would be, if I had enough time to really write to my full potential.Unfortunately, I don’t.
It’s great to work this way, because a really productive week means I’ll be earning some extra money. The problem, however, is that I sometimes become so focused on that dollar amount, that my brain starts to eat itself. I’ve discovered, during all the years I've been working from home, that every once in a while I’ve got to unplug.

I know the signs right away, too. I’m in the middle of writing or researching sometime and Boom! I’m surfing mindlessly, checking book sales, refreshing Facebook, scouring Twitter for something meaningful to retweet. I’m wasting time. I don’t really waste that much time when I’m really working. I’ve got my “internet rounds” that I make a few times a day, but then I get right down to business when they’re done. When it’s time for me to take a break, those rounds really do start to go round and round and round.
Eventually, I get dizzy.
Sometimes I can get a LOT of work done in a week before I hit that point. Other weeks, I’m fried by Tuesday. Bad news, right? Not always…
I write about this today, because it took me a little while to learn how to listen to that voice that’s telling me to quit. Once I figured it out, and learned that I needed to stand up and shut the laptop, then go do something else… well, my life got easier. I wasn’t fighting for every word, sentence, and paragraph. I got up and walked away. And when I was ready, I came back.
During those weeks that I burn out by Tuesday, I’m usually ready to hit the keys extra hard on Friday or Saturday. Sure, it’s a bummer to spend my weekend working, but the work is better quality, takes less time, and is often larger in quantity too.
The lesson here, and it is related to yoga, is that you have to listen to yourself. Your body and mind tell you what they can handle. If you’re listening, and you’re totally in tune with the message, the stress goes away. The less I stress, the more work I do. And the happier my mind is.

Now, I’m not trying to ostracize anyone here, but I’m going to make a bold statement: Being a work-at-home parent is a tough gig. You've got all the perks and all the drawbacks of being a stay-at-home parent AND a working parent. It's tough to remember to come up for air sometimes. Here's the way I see it...

• Stay-at-home parents have it tough. They’re up to their eyeballs in kid stuff all day, forced to watch PBS and know all the theme songs, and operate a small-scale taxi service for their kids… Finding little time to breathe, relax, and paint their fingernails like they used to do, you know, just for fun.
  
• Working parents also have it tough. They’re part-time moms or dads, part-time workers because no matter where they are, their brains are wherever they aren’t. There’s also some guilt involved, about being away from the kiddos and sending them to stay with someone else for the day. It’s tough to say goodbye every morning, but exhausting to come home at night and be “on” as a parent.
  
• Work-at-home parents… Well. This is the one I know only too well. In fact, I've never been any other kind of parent. And frankly, it's sometimes like getting punched in the face. Because, well, you’ve got the stress that comes with being at home all day plus the stress of working (and the guilt). On top of that, your entire work schedule must fit AROUND all your kids’ schedules. When I joke that I’m a writer by nap-time, I’m not kidding.
  

It doesn't matter what your work life looks like, though, because any kind of parenting has plenty of stress attached to it. There’s nothing easy about it at all. Despite all the exhausting challenges, though, I don’t think I’d have it any other way. My work-at-home lifestyle is best for me for many different reasons, but it does come with a price: incredible amounts of stress. Plus, related stress headaches, stress-induced binge eating, long nights and early mornings with little sleep, and the like. It ain’t pretty.

But for moms like me, who have to work for extra income but still can’t afford daycare, how can it all be done? I’m still working out the details myself, but here are some of the little tips I’ve picked up along the way in my nearly 8 years of writing and momming at the same time.

#1 – Schedule Your Time
Admittedly, I can’t always stick to my plans but I make them anyway and then I try my damnedest to make them happen. When you know that you are going to work from 1-3 pm today, you can spend the morning focused on your kids, running your errands, or taking care of odds and ends around the house. Plus, when that scheduled time rolls around, and you’ve trained yourself to respect it, you can flip modes easily and get right into your work.

#2 – Take Some Time
As tempting as it is for me to start power-writing as soon as the kids’ heads hit their pillows, I have to take some time off once in a while. Everyone else gets downtime; so why would work-at-home parents deserve any less? I like to make Tuesday my “Sunday” as my husband says. It’s a day without deadlines that I can relax and recoup; it’s the perfect way to get ready to start off a new week of work.

#3 – Have Family Time
You can’t live your life in black and white: when the kids are awake and when they aren’t. When your kids are awake, it’s not just “other task” time, it should be an opportunity to enjoy your growing family and get down on the floor to color, play blocks, or make the noises for the train. I can’t do it every week, but I also try to go out on one of my husband’s kid adventures with the whole family. And what’s even better more important is that I won’t allow myself to think about work while I'm there.

#4 – Take Time to Organize
Back in the day, I just wrote until my hands hurt and sometimes I forgot to pay bills or send emails or other important things. Now, I have a sacred bullet journal that holds all my secrets… my calendar and to-do list and more. I write everything in organized little lists and keep a section devoted to each week’s workload. As I take care of things or complete writing assignments, I cross them off. It’s a simple idea but one that pays huge dividends when you’re juggling so many things.

#5 – Find Meditation Time
If you want real stress relief (not just stress minimization), the key is meditation. Keeping yourself centered through mindful meditation practices of at least 5 minutes each day can do much for your brain and body. Stress is reduced, clarity can be reached, and everything gets reset mentally. It’s like getting a fresh look at your day to day life through a sharper, cleaner lens. Don’t procrastinate this; start making time now and you won’t regret it.

What other tactics do you enjoy to help you minimize or eliminate stress from your busy life? All parents can benefit from the techniques mentioned above and I’m sure you can help me come up with more that I haven’t thought of yet!