Let Me Explain: My Work/Life Balance, My Blog, And How My Brain Works

I’ve been blogging for 17 years now, and for most of those years, I’ve been blogging about my DIY projects. My DIY journey started when we were living in our tiny little condo located by Baylor University in Waco. During those first years in the condo, I also had an interior decorating business and was decorating for clients. That was my full-time job, and like most people who have full-time jobs, my own DIY home projects were done on evenings and weekends. And then Matt’s health started to decline to the point that I could no longer keep scheduled meetings with clients, or I would get a frantic phone call from him in the middle of an installation in a client’s home, and I would have to rush home to help Matt. Life was stressful then.

So I eventually stopped working for clients altogether, and I turned my DIY projects and my blog into my full-time work. It was convenient since it allowed me to stay home, and I loved the work I was doing, but that was my life. My entire life was working on projects and helping Matt. That was it. I had no life outside of our condo.

I don’t know how many of you were around back then, but at some point, I took on a major DIY project for a couple who wanted to hire me as a decorator, but I explained to them that I was no longer doing that. So instead, they basically handed over their house to me (a house that they were not living in) and they let me DIY the heck out of their house. I loved that project so much. It was fun and challenging, and because it was a non-standard decorating project, with them living out of town, I had free reign in that house. I could work when I could (when Matt’s health allowed it). I could come and go as I pleased. I could work as long as I needed to, even into the evenings. And I could drop everything and go home at any moment if Matt needed me. It was kind of a dream job getting to DIY on my own schedule with free reign and with other people’s money.

But again, that was my life. All my life consisted of was working on that house and taking care of Matt. And because the toll of Matt’s MS on his health was all new to us back then, it was stressful. But because his MS wasn’t as advanced as it is now, I could spend long stretches of time away from him. So I was working about 10-13 hours a day. Like I said, it was my life.

I remember during that time, I challenged myself at one point. I had a “one project a day” goal. In other words, my challenge to myself was to start and finish one project every single day. During that time, I cranked out the projects. And they weren’t small projects, either. For example, I built a coffee table in one day, start to finish. So during that time, as I was cranking out the projects, I was also cranking out the blog posts, with one brand new DIY project after another.

That was really a great time for my blog. All of those projects in such quick succession really helped to build my blog, build my audience, and get my blog “on the map”, virtually speaking. But it was absolutely exhausting. And I cannot even stress this enough. It was my life. I had nothing outside of work and Matt. Living that way was very isolating. I had Matt, and I had my work. That was it.

When we bought this house, I continued with that schedule for a long time. And it became even more challenging and more isolating as Matt’s health and his ability to do things on his own continued to decline. Instead of working on someone else’s home for long stretches each day, I was working on our house for 10-13 hours a day. And again, that’s all my life consisted of. So once again, I was able to get projects done relatively quickly. I did a full down-to-the studs demolition and rebuild of a kitchen almost completely by myself in five months, including moving/widening doorways, removing a wall, etc. And I followed that with a complete down-to-the-studs-and-floor-joists demolition and remodel of a bathroom almost completely by myself in about the same amount of time, including moving and widening a doorway and doing all of the drywall myself. It was my life. Matt and work. Work and Matt. That’s it.

Today, things are very different. There’s no way I could have gone on like that forever. The blog was doing great. Building my audience was great. The income was great. But the work was exhausting, and the isolation was sucking the very life out of me.

In 2020, the world changed. The isolation became even more pronounced, and I determined to make a change. I realized that there had to be more to life than work. My life needed an outward focus. I needed to find my people. My community. So I made it my determination to do exactly that.

And in the last few years, my life has changed drastically. My focus has gone from work and Matt to Matt and other people. That’s not to say that my work isn’t important. I still spend a lot of time working. But things take longer now, and I don’t crank out those finished projects as fast as I used to. Today, if I’m in the middle of a project, covered head to toe in dust and caulk, and I have a goal of what I want to finish by the end of the day so that I can blog about it the next day, but then a friend calls and invites me to dinner, I’m going to choose dinner with a friend over finishing the project just so that I can have progress to share in a blog post the next day. Time with a friend comes first. Sharing progress on my project can wait another day.

And that is my life these days. My projects don’t get done as fast, and I’m okay with that. In place of working 10-13 hours a day, I try to get a few hours in each day and prioritize time with people. I have friends I love dearly. I have my family who I prioritize two days a week. And as always, Matt is my top priority each and every day. I still try to get as much done on projects as fast as I can, but I’m just one person, and I can only do so much. And people will always take priority in my life over projects.

But back to 2020. During that year, like millions of other people, I really struggled. Not only did I struggle to get things done, but I struggled with my blog as well. I struggled to show up on the blog regularly. And then I got an email that really shook me out of my self-focused mindset. I don’t remember what it said exactly, but the person basically said, “Kristi, where are you? We need you! We need your blog posts right now!”

And in that moment, I realized that yes, people need a little bit of time out of their hectic lives and the craziness of this world to focus on something fun and maybe even frivolous. So that’s what I’ve determined to provide — just a few minutes in your lives each day where you can put the craziness of the world and your hectic lives out of your mind for a bit and read about a fun project or a fun (or crazy) idea I have. I look at my blog these days as not only educational (I hope) when have a project to share, but also as a few minutes of entertainment in your lives where you can get a glimpse into my brain where I always have about a thousand ideas swirling around in there.

So I won’t always have projects to share. I won’t always have progress to share. Feeling like I can only ever share progress on my current project is pressure I refuse to take on anymore. I can’t live that way. But on those days when I really don’t have any progress to share, I always have ideas or thoughts I can share about a future project or some other random idea I have swirling around in my brain. That’s what I can provide, along with a few moments out of your day to get your mind off of your hectic life and be entertained by the projects or thoughts or plans of a crazy DIYer in little Waco, Texas.

But for those of you who only want to see progress on my current project, here it is. I got the island top painted white and ready to marble…

And I got most of the drawer slides attached to the drawer boxes…