This is what my morning routine has looked like:

• Wake up sometime after 7 a.m.
• Lounge in bed with my iPhone, playing SimCity or watching TikTok’s or crap like that
• Get the kids ready for camp/school
• Feel depleted by the time I drop them off, nerves frayed
• Finally sit down and journal and ah, I feel better

Yesterday morning, I woke at 7 a.m. to my alarm and then squandered 25 minutes in bed, playing SimCity. By the time I got home from taking Pippa to school and had Julian set up with an ice pack for his sprained ankle, I was cranky and impatient. I sat down to journal and immediately felt calm. Journaling centers me, clears out the mental debris and prepares me for the day. As I journaled yesterday, I realized, Why am I playing SimCity in bed when I could be journaling?

So that’s what I did today – except my morning routine actually started last night. I’ve been bringing my iPhone to bed and playing more SimCity, also sometimes checking email and text messages, social media, etc. You know how it goes. I would usually finally put the iPhone away at 10 p.m. and then, wired and wide awake, read until I could fall asleep, sometime after 10:30 p.m. If I’m up until 10:30 or later, of course I need to sleep past 7!

But mama needs to wake up at 7, and mama wants to feel refreshed, so mama needs a new bedtime. (And ick, I will stop writing about myself in the third person now!)

Last night, instead of bringing my iPhone to bed, I left it in the kitchen. Nathan and I finished watching t.v. at 9:10 p.m., and I was reading in bed by 9:30. At 10, I put my book on the nightstand and fell asleep easily.

I was awake this morning before 7, but let myself doze until my alarm went off. But when the alarm finally chimed, I hopped out of bed, stretched for a moment, and then cozied up on the armchair in our bedroom with my journal. For twenty minutes, I journaled and hallelujah, it felt so good to start my morning this way. When I emerged from my bedroom, I had energy and patience and was delighted to engage with my children while scrambling eggs and making school lunches.

So this is my new routine:

• Finish up with my iPhone by 9 p.m. and banish it to the kitchen
• Be in bed by 9:30
• Set alarm for 7 a.m.
• Read
• Lights off at 10
• Out of bed and journaling by 7 a.m.
• Get the kids ready for school

Then, when I get home, I can exercise or jump into novel revisions instead of needing time to journal and clear my head.

Eventually, I’d like to get back to waking up at 6 a.m. Then, I can journal and do basic chores (unload the dishwasher, make beds, etc.) before I take the kids to school and when I get back from school drop-off, the day will truly be mine. But sleep is the foundation of my mental health, so I’m not going to be a hero. If my body needs to stay in bed until 7 a.m., that’s what I’ll do.

Full Disclosure: I’m drinking a Coke Zero as I write this post.

If I’m being honest with myself, yes, it is definitely time to break up caffeine and see what that change does for my health. But when it comes to caffeine, I’m not always honest with myself. Me and caffeine, well, we have a long history that goes back to high school when I first became obsessed with starting the school day with a cold can of Diet Pepsi from the soda machine.

I have broken up with caffeine many times, and each time, I vowed, This is it! I’m never going back to caffeine! And every time, I inevitably decided to have a sip of soda here, a can of soda there, and before long, I’d be back to a full-blown addiction. Because me and soda do not do restraint. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition. Either I abstain completely or I’m guzzling 100+ ounces of caffeinated diet soda a day.

Sidebar: I also want to wean myself off soda for a variety of health reasons. But baby steps, folks, baby steps.

There’s a voice inside me whispering, You don’t need to quit soda completely. You just need to monitor your intake so it doesn’t interfere with your sleep. If you quit entirely, then you’ll go crazy and end up right where you started, guzzling soda all day long.

That little voice sounds reasonable, but I know that’s just Resistance keeping me from making a profound change that would be good for my health. I’ve quit caffeine before and every time I do, I sleep better and have more energy – but I don’t think I’ve ever quit caffeine and refined sugar at the same time. Since I started my Refined Sugar Moratorium last month, I feel so much healthier. How much healthier will I feel if I eliminate caffeine as well?

Recently, I’ve been deepening my mind-body connection, and that connection is telling me it’s time to breakup with caffeine. So I am taking a deep breath and resolving to quit caffeine.

Slowly. I quit refined sugar cold turkey. One day, I was obsessed with the sweet white powder, and the next, I could not stand the stuff. But as much as I want to nurture my body, I’m not interested in severe caffeine withdrawal. In the past, I weaned off caffeine ounce by ounce. This time, I’m going to use a two prong approach:

1. I’m enacting a Caffeine Curfew, after which time, I’m not allowed to imbibe the stuff until the next morning. Yesterday, I set the curfew at 2. Today, I’m lowering it to 1:45. I’ll keep lowering it by 15 minute increments, guided by my intuition.
2. And when I feel ready (but no later then next Monday), I’ll measure my caffeine. The first day, I’ll drink however much I want until the Caffeine Curfew and keep track of what I’m drinking. The next day, I’ll reduce the amount by 1-5 ounces, depending on how much I’m drinking when I start measuring. So, if I measure out 200 ounces on Day 1, then I’ll definitely knock off 5 ounces the next. But if I only measure 40 ounces, I’ll probably knock off 2 ounces, so I don’t lose my mind from withdrawal.

Stay tuned for more health updates and wish me luck!

Today is the first day of school, but Julian is at home, nursing a sprained ankle. He took a bad step yesterday on a bouncy castle at his cousin’s birthday party, and he was in so much pain, we ended up going to urgent care. X-rays confirmed it’s not broken (yay!), but the doctor assured me it’s a “gnarly sprain” and advised keeping Julian home for the first couple days of school.

Never a dull moment, eh?

When the urgent care doctor told me to keep Julian home, I was grateful for her advice because I was struggling to assess the extent of Julian’s injury. But after the gratitude, I got bitter and descended into a downward spiral of Woe is me! Can’t life be easy for awhile? I just want to go to hot yoga tomorrow! Now I’m trapped at home and how am I supposed to take care of myself if my kids get stupid injuries? It’s just one damn thing after another!

I woke up this morning pretty cranky, but once we got Pippa to school and I had Julian settled on the couch, I journaled. As I journaled, my sense of humor returned and I realized, Yes, it is one damn thing after another, but that’s life. That’s fine. At least life never gets boring.

Julian’s sprained ankle felt like AN ABOMINATION AND GRIEVOUS ASSAULT ON MY FREE TIME because I’m burnt out. I’ve spent the summer relaxing and chilling out, but I’m still a smoldering pile of ashes. The past few years have been a lot, from a pandemic and distance learning to my dad’s cancer and multiple brain surgeries, and I pushed myself too hard, for too long. That’s okay. This is my year to be a phoenix, and arise reborn from my charred remains!

But first, I have to be a pile of ash.

And as a pile of ash, I don’t have much in the way of perspective. Life feels relentless, like one damn thing after another, and every little thing bruises my battered self.

I’m not going to beat myself up for feeling this way. My feelings are good! They are letting me know that I am still depleted and need to take my time healing from some seriously profound burnout. My body is reminding me to go slowly and not volunteer for anything extra. My body is taking care of me. Feeling overwhelmed by little things is actually helping me heal.

Eventually, I will heal fullyl and be the phoenix. When that happens, I won’t feel destroyed when shit happens and one of the kids needs to stay home from school. I’ll have perspective about the ups and downs of life and embrace the unexpected adventures of living.

But for now, I feel like it’s one damn thing after another – and that’s okay.

Last night, we attended our elementary school’s Welcome Back Fair. The kids got their classroom assignments (both are separated from their best friend; both are happy with their teachers) and I DID NOT VOLUNTEER FOR ANYTHING.

For the past five years, I’ve been a room mom, and for the past two years, I’ve also been in charge of organizing and galvanizing the room parents. I am friends with the new room parent chair, so I promised to visit her booth during the fair and let her pick my brain about recruiting room parents. I was a little nervous about doing this. Would she beg me to be a room mom again? But by the time I visited her booth, both my kids’ classes had room parents!

I have been psyching myself up for this all summer, regularly writing in my journal, I will not be a room mom. I will not volunteer for anything else. I will not be a room mom. I will not feel guilty about this. But I did not realize I had been holding my breath on the room parent front until I saw the signup sheet with parent names in the slots for both kids’ classes.

IT’S DONE.

I won’t be guilted, begged, or blackmailed into being a room mom.

I won’t have to protect my boundaries and feel guilty about taking time to heal from some major, soul-shredding burnout.

My room mom crown has been retired, folks, and my mental load is suddenly much, much lighter.

You can’t see me, but I’m doing a victory dance. Ok, I’m actually sitting on an armchair relaxing, but in my heart, I’m doing the jitterbug and flashing some serious jazz hands.

Last week, I blogged about my intention to volunteer less during the 2023-24 school year. What do I intend to do with my extra free time?

HEAL FROM BURNOUT.

I’m currently reading Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, and I am learning so much. I will blog more about that book soon, but today, I want to reflect on the practices that I think will help me heal from both the fake drama and real life stress of the 2022-23 school year.

What’s “fake drama”? I think of it as stress over things that don’t actually matter. Some of the fake drama I experienced last year: the PTA membership drive; managing volunteers for the school carnival; recruiting referees for my kids’ AYSO teams; and concern over who my son’s first grade teacher would be. All these things made me lose all my shits, and I had to do a lot of soul-searching to realize THEY DIDN’T ACTUALLY MATTER in the grand scheme of things. Yet the stress they generated was as real to my body as the stress created by a car accident or stampede of wooly mammoths in my neighborhood.

When my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer last September, I received an abrupt and necessary reminder of what actually matters. Recruiting a room parent for every class at school? Not actually a matter of life or death. My dad getting the right treatment for cancer? Pretty damn important.

Then in February, when the cancer was resolved and my dad needed emergency brain surgery for an unrelated health issue, I got an even bigger reminder of what matters: family; love; our health and wellbeing. Things that don’t matter? Running a book fair; recruiting PTA volunteers; reminding people to donate items to the school auction. Okay, I’m being a bit harsh – those things also matter. I care about education and school community! But they shouldn’t cause stress, and they certainly shouldn’t cause the sort of stress that leads to burnout.

I experienced way too much stress during the 2022-23 school year, so for me, the 2023-24 school year is all about HEALING. (Excuse me while I tattoo that on my forehead so I don’t forget.)

This is unexplored territory for me! But these are some things I think will help me heal:

• Intentional Rest and Relaxation: This does not include the inevitable collapse at day’s end to watch t.v. with Nathan – even if I’m knitting or doodling. This refers to the conscious decision to stop doing shit and just Chill the Fuck Out. On hot days, this means floating in the pool with a magazine. On less hot days, I like to sit on my favorite rocking chair on our front porch with a cup of tea and work on my latest cross stitch project. I can do this on the weekend, but bonus points if I do it while the kids are at school, when I’m dogged by that relentless feeling that I Should be Productive. (Another quest in progress: eliminating that relentless feeling to be productive all the time.)
• Hot Yoga: This is cardio, strength, and deep stretching for the entire body. It’s my ashram, my place to be quiet and get centered. I always leave feeling more grounded.
• Nature: Pasadena has gorgeous botanical gardens and hiking in the mountains. Forest bathing, anyone?
• Crafting: I really want to play with resin. Make shit with pompoms. Create something complicated with perler beads.
• Baking Bread: I might be on a refined sugar moratorium, but me and bread are still excellent friends.
• Sewing: I feel like my best self when I’m at the sewing machine. And yet, I don’t do this nearly often enough. Partly because for me, sewing comes second to writing. But also, because I’ve been too busy with PTA and AYSO shit. It’s time to prioritize my sewing machine over soul-crushing paperwork.
• Journaling: Sometime a download of all my thoughts. Other times, more like poetry. Or a conversation with the divine sublime. Affirmations and mantras. Verbal diarrhea. Dialogues with my inner child. My journaling practice is whatever I need it to be, changing day-by-day.
• Meditation: I downloaded the Calm App a few days ago. I forgot how much I enjoy the Daily Calm, a ten minute guided meditation. Yes, it costs money, but it’s my favorite program and I want to bring its lessons back into my life.
• Pampering Myself With Spa Treatments: Massages! Facials! Pedicures! Oh my! Also: I want to find the time to visit to my favorite women’s only spa in Korea Town, so I can get a scrub and reflexology and experience the bliss of unwinding. Note to self: let’s do that by the end of 2023. And then make it a quarterly practice.
• Swimming
• Tennis: I signed up for lessons and I’m excited to reconnect with this childhood joy.
• Art: making and appreciating. I renewed my membership to the Norton Simon and will also rejoin the Huntington soon so I can get my art on.
• Time with family and friends
• Laughter
• Decluttering: It feels so good to have space and not feel weighed down by unnecessary possessions. But I’m doing this slowly so I can revel in the catharsis and not turn “Decluttering the house” into another source of fake stress.
• Cleaning: Slowly. Zoning out with a good podcast or audiobook. The satisfaction of a clean floor feels good for my soul.
• Reading: Before dinner. I always read in the hours after dinner, solo and with the kids, but sometimes, I just want to sit and enjoy a delicious book during daylight hours.
• Gardening
• Attend a sound bath: I haven’t done this in years but the vibrations of a gong and Tibetan singing bowls make my body shiver in a profoundly good way.
• Play the Piano: I started playing again last week. It’s so calming. It connects me to my feelings deeply yet gently.
• Play: With the kids. With Nathan. Tossing a frisbee. Playing a boardgames. Being silly. For no point other than the joy of being human on this glorious planet.

With healing on my mind, I’m sure other ideas will bubble to the surface. Yoga with baby goats, anyone?

A lot of people will think I’m crazy, but I had the chance to go to Taylor Swift’s concert in Los Angeles this past Saturday, AND I DECLINED THE FREE TICKET. Repeatedly. And with zero regrets.

To be clear: these were excellent seats with people I love (my nieces, sister, sister-in-law and mom). I just didn’t want to go.

Every time my mom offered me the extra ticket, my insides squirmed and said, No thanks, so I declined, nicely but firmly. I like Taylor Swift, but I don’t LOVE her and I just don’t relate to all the social media posts of ecstatic sobbing fans. The thought of going to a crowded venue with annoying parking to attend a concert that lasted waaaaay past my bedtime was just not appealing. I’m sure it was epic, inspiring and an amazing experience.

It just wasn’t an amazing experience that I wanted.

Saturday night, as Swifties descended upon the So-Fi stadium, I was so happy to be at home, in my pajamas, doodling and watching the season finale of Too Hot to Handle with Nathan. (Side note: if you are in the market for a truly trashy reality dating show, then we both recommend the Too Hot to Handle franchise. It makes every episode of every Bachelor show seem classy by comparison.) I was exactly where I wanted to be, embracing the principles of JOMO.

JOMO is the antidote to FOMO. While FOMO is the anxiety that something better is happening elsewhere, JOMO is The Joy Of Missing Out. JOMO is the acceptance that we can’t do all the things all the time, and that we do not need to live a life that looks good on social media. Instead, we consciously choose to miss things so that we can experience the calming joy of embracing our essentials.

For me, JOMO meant declining the free ticket to see Taylor and having ZERO regrets about it. The photos and videos on social media look AMAZING — and that’s enough of the experience for me. Big stadium concerts have never been my jam, anyway. I’m more of a Broadway musical/classical concert kind of girl, and my kids are obsessed with Imagine Dragons.

If my kids liked Taylor as much as my nieces, I would have braved the crowds and logistics to bring them to So-Fi stadium. But since their musical passions lie in other directions, I’m happy to choose JOMO and save my energy for the next time Imagine Dragons come to town.

I took my first tennis lesson in this second grade and loved the game, but I stopped playing in high school. Then I took classes and played in college, but again, I stopped playing during law school. As a young lawyer, I joined the YMCA and started playing for the third time in my life, but that phase only lasted about six months before I stopped.

Here’s the reason I haven’t play tennis consistently: I love the sport, but tennis requires another player. I don’t mind losing! Not at all. But damn, I hated scheduling games with people.

I realize that tennis fanatics work around this. They join a league. There’s tons of resources online to find players of similar skill level. But I was a socially anxious tennis enthusiast.

My parents got me my own phone line when I was in the seventh grade, and I remember thinking, Damn, now I have to make phone calls or they’ll be disappointed. I despised dialing a phone number, always convinced that social rejection was waiting for me on the other end of the line. It used to take all my social energy to ask a friend if they wanted to hang out. I didn’t have any leftover energy for scheduling tennis games.

But I have changed since I stopped playing tennis twenty years ago. Since my last proper match, I’ve had children, conquered postpartum depression, and worked with a cognitive behavioral therapist to be a happier, calmer person. I still prefer email and texting, but I can make a phone call without exhausting a week’s worth of social energy. More importantly, I ask friends to meet up for coffee, a walk, lunch, dinner, etc. ALL THE TIME.

I recently read Apples Never Fall, a novel about a tennis-obsessed family, and I kept thinking, Oh, I miss tennis.I finished the novel, but the longing to play tennis kept popping up, day after day. Today, the tennis center where Pippa took lessons during Covid announced that fall registrations are open. That old social anxiety about finding tennis friends popped up, but ugh, I’m 44 years old and too old for this shit. I just want to have fun and play tennis.

So that’s what I’m going to do! I signed up for a beginner’s class that starts in a couple of weeks and I can’t wait to bring my serve back from the dead.

Summer vacation is too short. Ugh, I wish my kids got twelve weeks like I did and didn’t go back to school until Labor Day. Ten weeks is just too short for a proper summer vacation. And returning in mid-August seems downright cruel.

At least we have one final week of freedom! Next week, I’m packing in mega fun. On Monday, I’m planning to take the kids to Raging Waters, and on Wednesday, we’re heading back to Universal Studios for the first time since June. Then on Friday we are going to the beach with cousins.

Tuesday and Thursday will be more low-key days, but the kids are super excited to go back-to-school shopping. That means pencils and shit at Target, soccer cleats at the sporting goods store, and sneakers at the mall. All prayers are welcome – I loathe shoe shopping with my kids.

I’m sure we’ll also cavort in our pool. And of course, even once they return to school, we can swim on weekends and late weekday afternoons. Soccer does not start for several weeks, so we still have some freedom.

But as much as I lament the end of summer vacation, we’ve had a bitching nine weeks. Nebraska! Vegas! Beach days! Cousins! We’ve gone to the movies, swam in our pool, visited with the grandparents (both sets), and reveled in slower mornings and homework-free evenings.

And the next season will be good in its own way.

I’m in the waiting room of a tire shop, because one of my tires had a nail and was leaking air. I have my laptop, but these are not ideal circumstances for revising a novel.

Instead, I’m going through the backlog of ideas, reminders, and random thoughts on my Notes App. I had over 450 notes! Most of the notes are easy deletes (do I need an old grocery shopping list?), but a Note from July 30, 2020 struck me as helpful enough to warrant a blog post. These are the things that helped me stay calm during the dark days of Summer 2020. Worth remembering for future use!

I could have actually used these reminders earlier this year, when my dad was in the ICU after brain surgery and everything about his health seemed impossibly uncertain. But hey, better late than never. I’m burnt out and could use some calm as the new school year revs up.

Courtney’s July 2020 List Of Ideas For Staying Calm

• The Calm power: I still take a half teaspoon of this mixed with a few tablespoons of hot water every night before bed.
• The Calm app: I stopped using this but I should strongly consider renewing my subscription when life gets stressful.
• Tibetan singing bowls: oh, yes. Now I want to go home and use mine.
• Deep breaths
• Hand lotion with a nice scent
• Lavender
• ASMR
• Knitting
• Staying off caffeine: Truth. And my caffeine intake has been off the charts lately. I am making a point to not drink any caffeine after 2 p.m. Perhaps I can lower that time, by fifteen minute increments.
• Limiting refined sugar: I’ve been off refined sugar the past couple of weeks and definitely notice a difference.
• Tea, especially the ritual of making a cup.
• Stretching
• Color and doodle: I doodled last night and it was enormously calming.
• Disconnect from social media: Can I get an Amen?
• Snuggle
• Watch fish
• Garden
• Nature and fresh air
• Watch the clouds
• Shower
• Walk
• Exercise
• Journal
• Squeeze ball
• Watch those toys with the colored oil
• Read
• Paint
• Blow bubbles
• Do a puzzle
• Affirmations
• Collage
• Move in fun ways: When my dad was in the ICU, I’d do little dances and karate chops in the bathroom, and this actually helped enormously.

I’m glad I reminded myself of these strategies, but shit, now I need to break up with caffeine. It’s like July 2020 Courtney is shouting at 2023 Courtney, CAFFEINE MAKES YOU BAT SHIT CRAZY! And as a forty-four year old woman with tender hormones, do I really need to imbibe a substance that increases my stress?

I think not.