I had scaffolding and plans in place to set myself up to succeed this time. At motherhood and working and life in general. Maybe succeed isn’t the right word. I was just trying not to flail again. Linnie would go to childcare out of the house, and Hallie would be at school and then day camp over the summer. I would work when I was working and be a mom when I wasn’t working instead of trying to do it all, like I did when Hal was a baby. Like I did before I knew myself well enough to know that I don’t work well (or at all) with distractions or multitasking or tiny chunks of broken time. But this time, this time things would be different. (Scroll to the bottom for easy links to the pretty new Noted by Post-it® collection.)

And things were different. On top of taking care of Linnie and “working,” I homeschooled Hal (or facilitated at-home school) and pumped because nursing just didn’t work for us this go around. And in between holding Linnie and holding Linnie, I held Linnie because Kev herniated a disc in his back two months into Linnie’s life while teaching Hallie to ride her bike. He had one of those middle-of-the-night-parent-panics that Hal would be 20-years-old and not know how to ride a bike. Sleep deprived and concerned, he taught Hal to ride a bike and she did! And then he couldn’t. (7 months later, he’s slowly crawling back towards normalcy and able to bear the weight of little Linnie. Someone knock on real wood.) I’ll save the story about the cut finger and the ER visit and deciding to end pumping for another day.

I think we all had our form of herniated disks and best laid plans last year that ended in spinning one too many plates. Even in a good year, I’m not a great multi-plate spinner. I try really hard to understand my capacity and stay within those limits, focusing on the have-tos and eliminating can’t-dos, and creating space for the want-tos. I even cut my commitments way down before Linnie arrived in preparation for a capacity shift. Like sourdough starter gone wild, pandemic life left my mason jar spilling over, and I just let it spill and spill. I forgot to do a lot of important things like cleaning the house and getting the document notarized to get a birth certificate for Linnie and other really important adult things. And then, I saw the new Noted by Post-it® collection at Target. A bright glimmer of hope, full of checklists and pretty pens, to get my life back in order. 

I went a little maximalist on this beautifully designed collection. I’m closing the chapter titled Little Piles Everywhere and starting a new one titled Little Notes Everywhere thanks to the new Noted by Post-it® collection. There’s pretty Green Lined Square Notes with a checklist for blog recipes to test and Grey Tab Notes for the cabin design list. Remember the cabin?! And a light grey Monthly Calendar Pad to get a bird’s eye view of everything and a bright Yellow Habit Tracker Note to remind me to move my body with nowhere to go and a baby on my hip. But it’s the Peach Daily Planner Pad that helps me schedule in tiny chunks of interrupted work time, you know, my favorite kind, because it’s the best I’ve got right now. 

Maybe it’s just my office walls, but this year is looking brighter and my floors are looking shinier (I mopped!) and Kev is starting to feel like his old self again. Me too. 

Noted by Post-it® Collection (pictured)

• Perpetual Calendar with Planner Dots
• Yellow Habit Tracker Notes
• Green Lined Square Notes
• Felt Tip Green Pens or Pink
• Acrylic Pen Acrylic Tray
• Grey Tab Notes
• Pink Round Notes
• Pink For Today Notes
• Orange Textured Notebook