I see blogs all the time about moms who struggle with the balance between work and family.  But for us (and I imagine a lot of people!), it’s a struggle all around.  Josh works a full time job in addition to the video side of Fowler Studios.  Then of course I handle the photo and business side, take care of our daughters daily needs, and do most of the household shopping (clothes, food, toilet paper… all the glamorous stuff).

We quickly realized 2015 is going to be our busiest year yet.  And let me tell you, we have stayed busy every year in the past!  But 2015 is going to be out of control if we don’t reign it in early, so we decided to be proactive rather than reactive.

Reactive finds itself in the middle of July saying Oh man, we are so behind on everything.  I want to go to the beach with my daughter, but there just isn’t any time.

Proactive looks at the calendar in February and says Wow– we have 8 weeks straight of weddings April-June!  What can I do now to make sure I’m not suffocating by July?

Sure, it’s simple, but it’s been an absolute necessity for our everyday lives.  We run almost everything through that filter: Are we being proactive or reactive?  With raising a daughter, we definitely have to look towards the future and see what we want there in order to work backwards and be proactive.

But back to 2015.  Last week we took our daughter to her first movie.  Cinderella was released and there was a princess party at a local theater!  Josh had a tight deadline for a film, but he still took a few hours out to spend this time together as a family.  And it was amazing!  We weren’t stressed, and it was easy for Josh to take time away from our family once he knew that we’d already enjoyed quality time together.
Proactive looks towards the future and builds a plan accordingly.

Reactive looks back at the past with regret.Now, that doesn’t mean that every minute we spend together as a family is solely focused on each other.  Sometimes we take things that wouldn’t normally be togetherness, and make it work for us.  Perfect example?  The gym.  Josh started CrossFit nine months ago.  My biggest concern is that he would put it before our family.  He loves working out, and it’s much easier to go do something you love rather than go home and clean house.  So we knew that if this was going to work long term, it couldn’t cut into family time.The plan was for Josh to go early in the morning to regular workouts.  He’s a morning person anyway, and then it protects our evenings together.  I’d say 90% of the time it works out great!  The other 10% is called forgiveness and rolling with the punches.

Yesterday, Josh competed in the CrossFit Open competition.  Friday nights aren’t my favorite time to spend at the gym, but I was also there working, taking pictures, so I was happy.  🙂  And our daughter played with the other kids.  Afterwards she got to play on all the equipment, which is one of her favorite things!

Every week isn’t like this, but this one really worked out perfectly.  We’ve worked hard to make family a top priority, but to not let anything else fall behind.  It requires some late nights here and there, and lots of coffee, but the result is worth it!