This post is part of a weekly column I’m starting on my Substack. To get these straight to your email inbox, subscribe to my Substack here! You can also receive email updates by subscribing directly to this blog. Thank you for your support!
This is only my second time writing this weekly update, so I appreciate those of you who are bearing with me while I figure this out! Let’s get a few housekeeping things out of the way first.
If you’re new here, let me catch you up.
I started my first blog back in 2017, right before I moved to Hawaii for college. I wanted a space to share my adventures around the islands as well as my reflections on growing up. I didn’t write on there super consistently, however, and then for several years, I didn’t write at all.
By 2024, my life looked very different than it did in 2017. I was a mother, I had gone through a divorce, I was starting law school, and I was in the beginning stages of navigating blended family life. I needed an outlet for all of my thoughts and insights and stories, and so I turned to blogging once more.
I clicked the “Forgot Password?” button on WordPress, updated the name and design of my old blog, and voila! Step by Step Parenting was born.
Now… a confession.
For someone who loves social media, I am not great with technology. Is it necessary to have both a WordPress blog and a Substack blog? I don’t know. Are they the same thing? Maybe? Maybe not? Until I figure that out, here’s where we’re at:
- The WordPress blog existed first and I feel attached to it in the same way I am to my fourth grade journal that I refuse to get rid of, so it’s not going anywhere. You are welcome to subscribe to that blog if that’s your jam! Just keep in mind that…
- The WordPress blog and Substack will have the exact same content for now, so unless you really, really love me and want to support me in every single conceivable way possible (which I’m here for!), you probably don’t need to subscribe to both.
- For now, the only difference will be that some posts get “soft-launched” on Substack before having an official home on WordPress. Eventually, depending on how Substack goes, there will be exclusive content on here. But given that I only just reached double-digit subscribers this week, we’re starting slow!
All that being said, you are welcome anywhere you land. I’m just excited you’re here and to be writing again. Writing has been the one constant in my life for as long as I can remember, so I cling to it like a life raft and it has kept me sane for over two decades. Now that all of that is out of the way, let’s get into Self-Care Sunday #2!
On Spaceships & Sacrifice
Throughout my time in law school, I have been asked how I “make it work” countless times, with “it” often referring to lots of things. I commute from nearly an hour away, I have three kids at home (who are on a 50/50 custody schedule to keep things nice and chaotic), I got married and adopted a puppy towards the end of my first year, and I have spent the entirety of my second year pregnant with twins. I normally just laugh and say something along the lines of, “Oh, I’m just winging it!” but the truth is a little more complicated than that.
Getting through law school as a mom requires one thousand little sacrifices — ones you anticipate, and ones you don’t. And these aren’t just sacrifices that you make. A commitment like this requires sacrifices from your spouse, your support system, and even your children.
For example, my schedule this semester is lighter than previous semesters. I only have a single two-hour lecture, Mondays through Thursday. The problem? Class is at 8am. And my kindergartner’s drop-off time is at 7:30am… forty-five minutes away. Since my husband has to take the two other kids to a different school in the opposite direction, the only option I had if I wanted to make it to my class on time was to sign up my daughter for before-school care. This means waking my sweet little five-year-old up at 5:45am, before her siblings, so that we can be leaving by 6:30am every day.
I felt so guilty the first day that I cried during drop-off. It was pitch black outside as I walked back to my car. I watched the sunrise during my commute through blurry, tearful eyes and I couldn’t help but wonder if I was making a mistake. At what point was I just being selfish?
But when I picked her up that afternoon, all my daughter did was gush about how much she loved before-school care, and wanted to go every day, even on Fridays when she didn’t technically have to. When we left the house the next morning, again in the dark, she told me that she decided to pretend our car was a spaceship, and that every morning we were traveling from Pluto, through space, and to Earth. I never got a great explanation as to why our house was Pluto and school was Earth, but her imagination healed a small part of me that day.
The price of achieving dreams involves sacrifice, and sometimes those sacrifices impact our loved ones in ways we never saw coming. I find solace in the fact that children are far more adaptable and forgiving than we give them credit for. While it is true that I am pursuing a career in the legal field so that I can better take care of my family, it is also true that during this journey, they have taken care of me. And maybe that’s what family is all about: choosing not to keep score, and working towards a better tomorrow, together.
Week #2 Favorites & Highlights
In the past nine years, I’ve moved twelve times. Those weren’t little moves, either — some spanned thousands of miles, most involved lots of trips with a U-Haul, and several Chick-fil-a fry boxes were put to good use. Throughout all of this moving, I’ve become more of a minimalist. I have what most apparently consider a very small wardrobe, my makeup and skincare products are gifts from my mom, and almost all of my jewelry I’ve had for several years. I would also say I’m a pretty cheap person. I tend to use things until they break, stick with old or well-worn furniture for longer than I should, and I love a good budget-friendly meal that also feeds my family of five.
So you know when I say something is one of my favorites, it’s really good. That’s why I thought it would be fun to have a little “favorites” section every week, where I share a current recipe, product, habit, or splurge that helped make my life a little sweeter and my days run a little smoother during the week! It’s like a gratitude journal that can also help you!
- This crockpot meatball recipe. You might be thinking this is an odd favorite to start with, but as someone who only recently realized (and mourned) the fact that I have to decide what I’m going to eat every day until I die, AND feed my family while I’m at it, a meal that’s (1) simple, (2), tasty, (3) cheap, and (4) approved by at least 2/3 kids is GOLD.
- Liquid IV. My body is all over the place as I near the end of this twin pregnancy, and I can tell that these babies are sucking up every nutrient they can find! Unfortunately, I’ve had an aversion to plain water almost this whole pregnancy, which is less than ideal when you’re trying to grow two humans from scratch. Liquid IV has helped add enough flavor to my water to make it acceptable to my pregnancy palate, while still keeping me hydrated!
- These highlighters. As a full-time law student, I burn through highlighters. And since I’m a minimalist, I don’t want to have separate highlighters for school and for my scriptures and for day-to-day life. These highlighters are perfect for everything. They don’t bleed through the pages of my scriptures, they’re vibrant enough in my textbook that I can easily see what I’ve marked, and they’re a little more pastel so they’re not as obnoxious to look at. You might be thinking it’s odd that I’m giving a shoutout to highlighters, but really, it’s the simple things in life, y’all. If you can’t find small things to appreciate, you won’t appreciate the big things, either.
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Screen Time Check-In: Social Media is Like a Toxic Ex That I Keep Going Back To
I was a little shocked and embarrassed that my screen time for week one averaged nearly seven hours, so I was determined to lower that number significantly this week.
For me, it’s as if social media is the toxic ex I just keep going back to. I know it’s not good for me, I know it’s a dead end, I know it won’t make me feel better about myself, and yet that mindless scroll is forever alluring. And just like one does with a toxic ex, I’ve done a great job of coming up with excuses for why I continue to cling to Instagram and Facebook.
“I just want to keep in touch with friends and family!” or
“It’s how I document my life!” or
“ I just lOvE tO cReAtE!”
A part of me worries that my real reasons are more like,
“I’m addicted to comparing myself to others in order to feel like what I’m doing is never enough!” or
“I’m a little egotistical and everyones NEEDS to see what I’m up to!” or
“I’d rather numb my feelings by doom scrolling instead of putting my phone down and facing my real life struggles and joys!”
In reality, I’m sure the truth is somewhere in the middle. I don’t think anyone can deny that there is some good that comes from social media. But at the end of the day, I do NOT need to be racking up hours and hours of screen time every day. I have three kids, attend law school full-time, juggle arguably too many hobbies, and am one of the lucky ones who is fortunate enough to be married to their best friend. There is so. much. life. to. enjoy! I want to feel fulfilled at the end of the day — even if I am drained, tired, frustrated, or burnt out — but I don’t want to feel like I didn’t even spend my day immersed in real life.
Since I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that there needs to be some serious change surrounding my social media habits, I’ve decided to make a “screen time confessional” a part of the weekly newsletter, because I think almost everyone can relate. We could all benefit from any efforts to become more present and engaged in our day-to-day lives.
So I’m happy to report that to help this effort in Week 2, I deleted Facebook off of my phone, tried to not get on my phone first thing in the morning, and kept my phone plugged in and out of sight when home if possible, and I got my weekly average screen time down to….
Ok, not that much lower than last week, but progress is progress!
Self-Care Tip of the Week: Keep Your Scriptures In Your Car
The older I get, the more I realize that developing a testimony and building a relationship with God and Jesus Christ is a lifelong journey, not a finally destination you reach. I still have so much to learn and countless ways to grow, and one of the ways in which I love to pursue spiritual growth is through reading the scriptures.
But between the never-ending hustle and bustle of life, finding time to read can be hard. My parents gifted me new scriptures last year, but for months, I postponed cracking them open. I annotate everything I read, from law school cases to self-help books, so scriptures are no exception. Before reading, I first wanted to come up with a good color coding system, personalize my scriptures, and be able to journal during my reading. Honestly, I was intimidated by how new and fresh all of the pages were! I was thinking about this one day while driving, justifying why I had put off reading my scriptures yet another day, when a little voice in my head said,
“God cares a lot less about what your scriptures look like, and more just that you read them at all.”
Suddenly, I felt almost silly. Duh! Of course it doesn’t matter what highlighters I use or inserts I add between the pages. Reading the scriptures at all is what really matters. So instead of trying to carve out thirty-minute study sessions, I decided to just keep my scriptures in my car. That way, when I arrived early to class, was stuck in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, or was parked in the elementary school pick-up line, I could read even just a few verses. It’s such a small and simple change, but one that helped me feel a little more grounded and calm throughout the week.
Well that’s all for this week, friends! If you read this far, then from the bottom of my heart, thank you! I will see you all next week! Remember to subscribe to the newsletter in order to receive these straight to your inbox, every Sunday ❤
Step by Step Parenting 