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| There's always time for a train ride! At least when the driver is this cute. |
In order to be able to tackle all this we have some basic principals we try to follow:
1. Take care of yourself and each other
When it feels like everything is falling apart listen to yourself and do what ever your body and mind needs in that exact moment. Go for a walk, play board game with boys, take a long run alone, take a nap, lay on the sofa... Don't mind about laundry or dishes or preparing dinner. Do only the things that are absolutely mandatory, others can wait. You need to rest. When one of us feels like crap the other one steps up and takes charge in the family so that first one gets to rest. If we notice from ourselves or each other that this point is approaching we are not afraid to say it out loud. And it is perfectly fine to be tired. Or need some "own" time. This is the most important thing to make things work in a long run.
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| Sisters from another misters |
2. Plan but be flexible
Every Sunday we sit down and go through next week's calendar. First we write down kids' hobbies, doctor's appointments, dogs' physiotherapy, seminars, competitions, work related things (if they are outside business hours) and other mandatory, pre-scheduled things. And family time for each day (if possible) for board games, playing outside, bike ride, jumping on a trampoline etc. Then we fill in our own agility training at the hall/outdoor ring and after that our own training (running, skiing, strength training, yoga etc.). We have a weekly plan for all our own training; what runs we are going to take, what kind of strength training we are going to do etc. but we normally try not to plan the training calendar on a daily basis as the type of the training also depends on how we feel on that day. Sometimes when our bodies feel tired we change strength training to gentle yoga session and interval training to longer baseline run. But on a weekly level we get all our runs and strength training done. In addition to these we try to do a little bit (or a little bit more) of home training with the dogs every other day.
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| When malinois needs her cuddles, malinois NEEDS her cuddles. |
In addition to all this we plan our dinners on a weekly basis, shopping lists and also when we are going to shop or are we placing an order online. This takes a lot off stress away from our (or actually my) every day life, saves money and helps us to make healthy choices.
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| My assistant cooks have their own, hairy assistants |
3. Bear in mind that this is a lifestyle we have chosen
We have chosen this lifestyle ourselves and it comes with a certain cost, as there is only 24 hours in our days too. For us the main thing is to remember that we have chosen this lifestyle ourselves. I choose out many things that I would LOVE to do but under these circumstances I just don't have time for those. I don't have time to play piano almost at all, we don't go on weekly dates just the two of us or go to theater to see that new play. I don't have time to follow the latest interior trends, read books or bake buns every weekend. When I feel annoyed or disappointed of missing out something I try to remember what I get instead. I can't compare my life to someone else's as they probably have made different choices in their life. The fact that this is a choice brings along the possibility to choose again or adjust our choices. Just for one day or in a longer run. Until now the one-day adjustments have been enough.
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| And I have two pairs of high heels. Two. |
4. Have fun!
We don't want any of our training to be too serious. We love to goof around and have fun together as a family. Yesterday evening our strength training session changed into improvised acrobatic lesson. We had so much fun training the handstand and yoga poses all together! Boys love to join our runs with their bikes as they are always competing against us in Tour de Talma and they ALWAYS manage to win in the end. Darn.
We are both very competitive and really goal orientated in our training but that can't make training too serious. Most important thing for us is to love what we do and the way we live our life.
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| Trained bordercollie is a happy bordercollie |
...and of course we don't always manage to follow our own principals. Sometimes we go for a run even if we are both dead tired, argue about the most ridiculous things and end up running in opposite directions. Sometimes I realize on Wednesday evening that we don't have anything planned for dinner (luckily we have a big freezer) AND we have run out of milk. And sometimes finding the joy of training running contacts can be a bit... challenging. You know the feeling? But the truth is that dogs, agility and training are the things that keep me (and Thomas) going. They are our ways to clean our heads and get our thoughts back together. They are our passion and we would feel much worse without them. And that's the reason we take the dogs to the training room also tonight after the boys have gone to bed and train a little bit.