Author: thegraduatewife

Balanced Life? · Children

What Does a Balanced Life Look Like? Part VII (your average day)

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The below question and responses were compiled by fellow graduate wife reader, Laura Lee.  She surveyed several women on the journey and is sharing with us their answers. You can see her original post here, where she outlines her journey towards discovering the answers of a ‘balanced’ life during this season of being a graduate wife and beyond. This is the last section of the ‘What does a balanced life look like?’ series.  Enjoy!


6) What is an average day like for you?  Do you wake up before the kids? How do you handle that “It’s 5pm and my child is hungry but I am cooking” time of day? What aspects of your days energize you and add fun to life? Do you do home-related things while your kids are awake or wait until naptime? When you need to distract your kids while you tackle something, what things work for you to do the distracting–playdough, kids DVDs, favorite toys? 

  • I do try to clean etc while our son is napping. It doesn’t always work out like that, but I’d rather be doing something fun while he’s awake, then have him be bored (he gets majorly destructive when he’s bored). Obviously, there are times when that cannot be avoided, so that’s when I let him watch Thomas the Train or Chuggington…which is a treat. Recently, I’ve also found that if I’m including him in with what I’m doing – moving groceries in from the pram, allowing him to help me cook – he’s much happier. Yes, it takes 3 times as long, but he’s learning in the process, so I think it’s a win-win for us all. On most days. :)
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  • Hmmm. . . average day. Usually, our daughter wakes at about 6 AM, and my husband gets her up and plays with her for the first hour or so of the day. He is also able to check email, make coffee and plan his day at this time. I get up and eat breakfast with them and our daughter then takes a morning nap, so I usually use this time to catch up on emails, plan/prepare the meal for that night (which is my greatest strategy for the whole ‘it’s 5 PM, and our daughter has had enough’ experience) and clean. When she gets up, we try to go do something (Monday Mums, open air market, flea market, go for a run, playground, etc.). Then, I get her back around 12 or so for lunch and a second nap. The timing of the second nap is good for phone calls to the US. And I can clean and organize while I talk. My mom is often asking, “What is that noise?” :) My daughter and I sometimes go out and do something after her second nap, which usually is just a walk or a run or something. Then, my husband comes home and plays with her while I either run or cook dinner. He tries to be home by around 5 or 5:30, which is sometimes pushed back due to various obligations (I am often annoyed with the meetings that are scheduled right at 5:30 or 6 – do people at the university have families?).
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  • A typical day for us usually looks like this…(i say ‘usually’ because things are always changing when you have a toddler and a husband in a demanding program).  My husband gets up with our son around 7/7:30am.  I stay in bed a little longer then get up and take a shower/get ready.  If it’s a work-out day I sleep longer and take a shower later in the day.  My husband leaves or starts working by 8/8:30 and I play with our son then get him dressed.  Then we go out for our morning errands, Mon. Mums, etc. by 9:30am.  He loves a change of scenery so he does pretty well in the stroller…but  I always make sure I have snacks!  We are home around 11:30/12:00.  We eat lunch and I try to clean up right away.  Luke goes down for a nap around 12:30 and sleeps until about 2:30/3:00.  During that time I workout, do laundry, catch up on emails, blog, listen to sermons, read, clean, try to relax for a bit, etc…When he wakes up from his nap I give him a snack, we play for a bit, then I get him ready to go outside (which takes a while, but it’s getting better).  I like to be out from about 3:30ish-5:00ish( again…depending on the weather).  We go to the park or play around our college…see the ducks in the pond, play at the playground, run on the grass, play in our courtyard.  We are back home around 5pm and I feed him dinner.  I usually feed him the left overs from the night before so I can get him started right away and start cooking for my husband and me.  If I have to prepare him something I usually start him on fruit or crackers to hold him over.  If he’s being really fussy I’ll put Sesame Street or a video on for him.  My husband usually gets home around 5:30, plays with our son, and starts him in his bath.  I try to finish up the meal, do the dishes, and meet them in the bathroom.  Our son loves his bath so it’s always a really fun time for our family.  We always have a lot of laughs so I don’t like to miss it!  Then we get his pj’s on and eat dinner in our living room so that Luke can play while we eat.  We play, give Luke his milk, read books, and sing songs.  Some evenings we Skype with family and friends around this time.  Our son goes to bed around 7:30pm.  My husban and I then spend from 7:30-9:30pm together.  Then I get ready for bed and read or go on the computer.  I try to be asleep by 10:30/11:00pm.
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  • I’ve been waking up before my daughter (7:00ish) but almost always stay in bed as long as she – or the day’s schedule – will allow.   We try to eat dinner around 5:30.  When my daughter gets hungry (as she inevitable will) I tell her that we are going to have dinner very soon but that if she is very very hungry she may have 3 (or whatever number) breadsticks or carrot sticks or grapes (or whatever) but only 3. Then I have her count them out.  (I used to do it for her – obviously.)  When she finishes them and asks for more I remind her of what I said before and say something like, “You already has some carrots.  Remember, you were very very hungry so I told you that you could have 3 carrots and then we counted them out, 1, 2, 3.  Remember?  Weren’t those yummy carrots?!  You ate them all up!  Good job!!  We’re going to have some dinner in just a little bit and then we can eat some more!”  It doesn’t mean she won’t still whine for snacks, but it’s important for her to know that A.) she can wait, that B.) I am a woman of my word, and that C.) the world does not revolve around her.  Plus I don’t want to spoil her appetite for dinner.  If left to her own devices she would eat nothing but pretzels for days!  Of course it helps if my husband is here and can be reading with her in the living room or can be outside with her or whatever, but that’s not always possible. Also, I try to do as much prep beforehand as possible (like during her nap or) even days before.  Like if I have 2 different chicken dishes that week, I might cook up all the chicken on one day so it’s ready to go the next time I need it.  Or grate enough cheese to last me all week or slice some of the veggies I’ll need for dinners that week on Sunday night and then just use them as I need them throughout the week.    I am currently loving gardening and am so glad to have a bit of a yard this year.  I am wanting to sew more.  I love taking our daughter to the library to pick out and discover new books together – we go to the Rhyme Time almost every week (Wednesday, 10:30 – 11am, central library) and then we go to the outdoor market to pick up fresh produce.  She really loves the library and I really love the market!  I’m also enjoying engaging with the very lonely old woman across the street… it takes so little to brighten her day and by extension to make mine feel a bit more significant. Do you do home-related things while your kids are awake or wait until naptime? Both, but no strong chemicals while my daughter is nearby.  She loves to help (I give her a clean cloth to wipe the sink while I’m cleaning the tub or a small hand broom and dustpan while I’m using the big broom.)  When you need to distract your kids while you tackle something, what things work for you–playdough, kids DVDs, favorite toys?  I just never know what’s going to grab her attention.  A video will almost always work but we don’t have many that will play on my computer so that doesn’t work while my husband is gone with his.  She’s always been a pretty independent player and so I usually wait until I see that she is already happily engaged in an activity and then I seize the moment to tackle something off my list.
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  • No, I don’t wake up before the kids and I am so over trying to make that happen! I absolutely love having the kids wake up at 7 (the boys have their own clocks now and aren’t allowed out of their rooms until 7) and then come pile in bed with us. It is one of my favorite times of the day. In fact, some days I do wake up and exercise early (usually Mondays and sometimes Wed) and I find that I really miss our snuggle time. What aspects of your days energize you and add fun to life?  Making my kids feel special, making our home a warm, friendly place, connecting with my husband, having a good conversation with a friend…all these things give me energy.  Do you do home-related things while your kids are awake or wait until naptime?  I’m a little old-school here, but I like for my kids to know that they are not the center of the universe and that I have lots of other things to do in addition to caring for and playing with them. I found (when the kids were young) that if I gave them 20-30 minutes of my undivided attention, then I could realistically ask for them to play on their own for at least that same amount of time. Playing on their own is a great skill for kids to learn. And they have to learn it the hard way….by doing it! My daughter is 3 now and can play on her own for an hour at time. And the boys can go for longer than that! So all that to say, I do house work and other responsibilities while the kids are awake and save their nap time as ‘my time’.

7) What are the ways you inject humor into your life and get some good laughs? :)

  • My ridiculously entertaining 2 year old and youtube keep me smiling.
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  • I find that my son is always making me laugh.  I love acting silly with him and making him laugh.  It’s especially fun to see my husband be silly with him since he’s usually so shy and reserved with everyone else.  We love listening to music and dancing around our flat.  My husband and I love to watch comedy sit-coms.  Some of our favorites that always make us laugh are Modern Family, The Office, Better With You, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, and Parenthood(this one also makes me cry every time…it’s my favorite show!).  It’s fun to watch them together and most of them are only like 20 minutes since there are no commercials.
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  • When we really need a laugh, we watch WipeOut.  (Or look at our budget.  Ha!)
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  • My daugher! That child cracks me up. My husband and I also love joking about the English. We must laugh at least once a day about some way that they are so very different from us! They surprise us regularly! And I love them for it! :)
Expectations · Family · Inspiration · Sacrifice

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

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written by Lis – a current graduate wife

I really love when a new month starts on a Monday. In fact, I’d say it’s one of my absolute favorite things!

With August beginning in such a fantastic way, I just knew it was going to hold a lot of my favorite things.

Now, I admit that I am a girl who likes order and routine, so when I am out of that routine, I tend to get grumpy. That Monday’s morning routine was different: there wasn’t one.  And you know what? I couldn’t have been happier!

On that first August morning, Tim didn’t wake up and pack his red bag for school. Instead, he was still in bed at 10:00 a.m. He wasn’t sick, he wasn’t working at his desk, and he didn’t have his ear plugs in to help him focus on his studies: instead, the only thing he was studying was the little girl he was giving his undivided attention to. She was giggling, he was smiling, and I was counting my blessings.

We made it. We did it…again. One more semester behind us, and 29 days until we have to face the start of another one.

We spent the past week in Black Mountain, NC, and as I sat on top of that mountain and looked out to the tree-covered peaks in the distance (see attached pic), I was thankful. Even as I was resting on top of that mountain, I was already praying for the ones I know are yet to come. We have climbed three hard, long, and exhausting mountains: one for each semester of classes.  We have three times that many still to go, but the point is we have climbed and we have made it. And we can do it again.

The very thing I said was impossible, is proving to be possible.

We can do hard things.

I can.  He can.  She can too.

We are doing this together.  Together, we can get to each mountain top, rest, and get ready for the next mountain.

In my experience, graduate wives don’t realize the amount of stress and pressure that is on them until it’s gone. Until you are no longer living in the midst of the stress of tests, exams, projects, research papers, and finals, you don’t quite grasp how much it takes out of you. Often the graduate students themselves don’t recognize that they are being pulled in a hundred different directions and that while they fully intend to engage in everything they commit to, they really are not capable of giving any more than they already are; at least this is how it is in my home. When he spends time with us, Tim does his best to disengage from school and the pressures that medical school brings, but it’s still there. It’s still on his mind, it’s still a stress, it’s still a pressure or that nagging feeling of, “I should really be studying…”

But now that we have arrived at this mountaintop, the only question that has to be answered is “what do you want to do today?”  Sometimes the answer is, “nothing.”

The stress is melting off.  We needed this break, both individually and as a family.  We needed no time frame, no agenda. We needed a week with no internet, little cell phone service, and a lot of playing on the floor, eating together, playing games, and catching up on the “oh, did I tell you that…?”

I don’t know where you are on this journey of being a graduate wife. If you are only beginning, hear me say this to you: “You CAN do this!” The valleys are hard, exhausting, and will make your makeup run, but the mountaintops are beautiful and well worth the climb. Get some really cute, comfortable shoes and set out hand in hand with the person of your dreams to accomplish the very thing that only the two of you can do.

If you are finishing, hear me say this: “You made it! Great work!” (And I am jealous!)  Thank you for your dedication to this journey that we all have set out on.  Our individual paths are different, yet somehow the same. You are an example to me and the ones coming behind you. We need to know others have gone before and lived to tell about it! 

My goal for this journey isn’t just to survive, but to thrive. Not just to make it, but to run as fast as I can to the finish line saying, “if we hadn’t done this, I wouldn’t have met, done, become, or grown the way I have,” and to say to my husband, “I hated you for making me do this, but now I am so glad you did.”

We can do this, we can survive, we can thrive, and we can eat a lot of chocolate along the way!!

The top of this mountain held other peaks waiting to be hiked, the laughs and screams that only white water rafting can bring, a baby asking to go and swing, and hundreds of lightning bugs that needed to be caught!

As you climb, don’t forget to count your blessings along the way–it is what will get you to the top and make the journey worth it–and when you do reach those vital mountaintops, don’t forget to share the joys you find there.

As a graduate wife, what mountains (classes, jobs, etc). are you currently climbing?

Balanced Life? · Children · Marriage

What Does a Balanced Life Look Like? Part VI (Fanning the flame)

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The below question and responses were compiled by fellow graduate wife reader, Laura Lee.  She surveyed several women on the journey and is sharing with us their answers. You can see her original post here, where she outlines her journey towards discovering the answers of a ‘balanced’ life during this season of being a graduate wife and beyond. This is part VI of the ‘What does a balanced life look like?’ series.  Enjoy!


5) Part of a balanced marriage means allowing for time alone with your spouse to connect and share experiences together.  How do you spend time with your husbands in the midst of their intense studying/working schedules?  What are some big and little ways you connect and keep the flame alive?

  • Spending time with husbands – I don’t know if anyone else can relate, but my husband is a massive perfectionist, and would work 12-16 hour days if I’d allow it. But, all that to say, we’re both fairly independent people, so most of the time, I don’t mind him working so much. However, sometimes, it does get to be a bit too much; but luckily, we’re both fairly astute at identifying it. We tend to spend most of the day on Sundays together, and once a week, we try to do something together like watch a movie, take a long walk, etc. Other than that, having dinner at night and fun emails and texts throughout the day is the way I feel connected to him. We try to do a date night once a month too, which I’ve found helps. When he does have a big deadline looming, I tend to give him his space, and let him do what he needs to do, so he’s not receiving any added pressure from me. I do find that during that time, it’s really difficult for me, because I often feel like a single parent. But, I also realize it’s only for a short season.
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  • My husband and I spend time each night after our daughter is in bed (usually around 7:30ish). However, there are times when he’ll have collections/tutorial essays to mark for the next morning or a lecture to prepare. And Saturdays are workdays for him, though they are ‘flexible’. He works from home, and we do something together as a family either in the morning or afternoon. Sundays are family days. Breakfasts and dinners are good times for us to connect, too.
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  • During the week my husband and I spend from about 7:30-9:30pm together.  We enjoy watching a show on our computer, talking, reading the bible, etc.  On days when he is going to be home after 6pm he tries to eat lunch at home so that he can see our son and we can have a little time together.  We are very blessed because he gets to eat lunch at home about three out of five days.  Saturdays he usually works part of the day and the other half we do something fun as a family.  Sundays he usually takes off most of the day.  There have been the dreaded weeks when he’s been working a ton and we don’t see each other as much.  Those weeks are hard usually because our toddler is a lot of work when you have him 24-7 on your own…I think all toddlers are!  But my husband will usually make it up to me by watching him one afternoon so I can have some “me” time.  What’s worked best for us is always talking about our needs and expectations, and compromising.
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  • Ever since my husband began graduate work (2006!) we have worked VERY hard at treating his studies as a job.  It’s 8:00am to 5:00pm Monday to Friday for him.  That way when he comes home he is a dad/husband and not a 24-hour student who is taking a short intermission to tuck his kid into bed. (That wouldn’t be fair to any of us.)  The truth is, once we leave school, life isn’t going to slow down and get easier.  There aren’t going to be less pressures on his/our time and energy.   The truth is, there is ALWAYS going to be more to read, research, study, write, DO. Everything isn’t going to magically become perfect once this grad school phase is over.  So for me, it’s important that we work hard to maintain a healthy (for us) work/school/job balance NOW and make it a habit.  And because of this, (I believe) he is more disciplined/focused during the days.  That’s not to say he doesn’t work some nights and weekends or that he doesn’t send emails in the evenings or cram in some more latin homework the night before class – he does.  Believe me, he does.  It’s just the exception and not the rule.  This commitment frees our nights/weekends up to play games, bake cookies, work in the garden, watch our favorite TV shows online, go punting, take our daughter on outings, do crosswords, etc.   Some nights we just sit next to each other on the couch reading and on those nights, while I’m reading some riveting novel, he will most often choose a book for school.  Which is fine – because we’re both reading.  But there’s not much of a worse feeling (to me) than when your husband has been away from you all day reading books at the library and then he comes home and he would rather keep reading those same books night after night after night than spend time with you.  I hate feeling like I have to either A.) Reluctantly DRAG him away from his books or B.) Live my life alone.  The truth is, I WANT him to like what he does.  I’m GLAD he loves his work.  I just want him to show that he likes me (and our family) more.  So his efforts to stick to an 8 to 5 schedule helps maintain my sanity and makes me much more gracious and supportive when working hours must be expanded (for whatever reason.)
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  • Well said above… things aren’t going to get easier once PhD is over and hubby has a job. If anything, from our experience, it is just the opposite! It only gets busier and more pressure packed once they have a job. My husband has been so good at setting boundaries for work. I am very thankful for this. There was a time during his first masters (in the States when there was tons of coursework) that I had day dreams of putting his computer in the bathtub and then just smashing it to bits! :) We’re in a much better place now, and it started when he was doing his PhD and we’ve carried that through. We connect by having dinner together as a family every night. He always does the dishes (I cook, he does the dishes) and then we put the kids to bed together. We’ve always said, our favorite time of the day is when the kids wake up in the morning and when they go to bed at night! We put them to bed early (usually by 7) and then enjoy our evening together. I love just chatting and hearing about his day. I feel important when he wants to tell me stuff or ask my opinion about something. He doesn’t enjoy watching tv so our evenings are tv-free. We talk, read, relax…enjoy our quiet house!
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How do you spend time with your husband during this graduate season?  How do you make time and what do you enjoy doing together to connect and get away from busy work schedules?
Academia Beyond Grad School · Children · Family · Finances

The graduate life…through the eyes of a child

thegraduatewife2 Comments

Written by Kat – a former graduate wife’s daughter

I write, not as a graduate wife, but as the daughter of a graduate wife mom and a philosophy professor dad.   When MC asked me to write for the Graduate Wife Blog, I wasn’t quite sure what I could share.  But as I thought back over my life as a kid growing in academia (this is truly all I really knew until I got out of college and got a job in the business world), I realized how many wonderful memories of fun and sweet times I have! It wasn’t necessarily a glamorous existence for us by the world’s standards, but there was an abundance of joy that carried us through the tough times.  I’d love to share some of my memories with you.

Just a few of the ‘historical’ facts to start: My dad started studying philosophy at Oxford in 1979, he met my mom in Vienna over Christmas, and they married in June of 1980.  Two years later, I was born, and we moved back to the States when I was 3 months old. My dad taught for a year, and then he entered a PhD program, which he graduated from in 1987.  He couldn’t find a job, so we stayed an extra year while he did a post-doc, my brother was born, and then we moved to the east coast where my dad got a job (he was 35, my mom was 38) at a private, liberal-arts college…and my parents are still there today.

Some of my first memories are from the PhD years when we lived in the married student housing apartments.  At the time, we were basically broke, but my parents decided that it was more important for my mom to stay home with me, than to have more money, so she ended up running a small daycare of sorts out of our matchbox-sized apartment.  As legend has it (it’s probably reality too!), we ate mackerel casserole 3 times a week because it was cheap.  While I can’t claim to have developed a love for mackerel casserole, something that I surely felt as a child and can express now as an adult because it did make a lasting impression on me, was how my parents were willing to sacrifice luxuries and things they wanted in order to spend time together and save for the future.  As a child, I never noticed that we had nothing; I had my parents present with me, and I was happy as a lark!

Even years later, when I was a teenager (and therefore much more aware of our circumstances), I would regularly ask my mom and dad, “Are we poor or rich this month?”  We laugh at it now, but something I admire them for greatly is how disciplined they were to make sure they spent time with us—even if that meant sacrificing financially—and to not live above their means.

Speaking of spending time and discipline, my dad made some amazing choices when my brother and I were kids about when and where he worked.  As we know, grad students and new professors have just tons of freetime…yeah right, don’t we all wish.  I am sure that when I was an infant, my dad often brought work home to do in the evenings.  However, as I got older and was able to play more with daddy, and then especially when my brother was born and there were two kiddos at home, my dad made a point of trying to do his work in the office/library so that when he was home, he was HOME and fully present to us and to my mom.  That meant that when daddy showed up on the scene, he was ours!!! Sometimes he’d come home early and then go back late to do more work (so that he could see us); but we knew that when he was home, we didn’t have to worry that we’d be interrupting or distracting him, we could just play and hang all over him. Oh how we loved those times!

Life of course wasn’t always sunshine and happiness.  I do not have a clear recollection of this one particular evening, but there is a drawing of mine to commemorate what happened.  This was back when my dad was in his PhD program, and I was likely about 4 or 5 years old.  He came home in the evening, sat down at the table and started crying.  As my mom tells it, he was so worn out, we were (as usual) broke, and he had taken a number of hard hits that day from his advisor regarding his thesis. The Lord has gifted my mom with wells of great strength and resolution, my mom is my dad’s biggest fan, so I am sure she listened to him, put her arms around him and encouraged him to press on. In the meantime, I drew a picture: daddy was crying, and mommy and I were standing next to him holding his hands.  I gave it to him to make him feel better, but all it did was make sweet daddy cry again J  My mom says there were many tough and disheartening days when they wondered if they could go on. 

My parents always put their relationship above my brother and me.  It’s so funny what you notice, but don’t quite understand when you’re a child…and then how when you’re older, the pieces start to fall into place.  A case study: the “Don’t bother us after 9:00” nights.  At least once or twice a week, my mom or my dad would say, “Tonight is a 9:00 night.”  Yup, we knew right away what this meant. Mommy and Daddy were NOT to be bothered: no knocking on the door, no hollering for them, no fighting so that they needed to be called—unless you were seriously injured, you had better keep away. What were they up to?  We didn’t know!  We thought: probably mommy and daddy talk, or maybe they were sleeping, or maybe they were playing UNO, but it was like a club and kids weren’t allowed.  Well, being now older and wiser, I’m doubtful that they were asleep…maybe they were playing, but it certainly wasn’t UNO.  What I now realize is that these evenings were some of the biggest blessings for my brother and me.  My parents made sure that, even though date nights financially weren’t possible, and despite all the busyness, the worry, the stress, the crazy kids, they took time to be alone with each other.  This allowed them time to pray, and to communicate and connect, which kept them on the same page made them hopeful and strong together.

Both my dad and my mom deeply love the Lord, and by His mercy and grace they made it through those years of grad school and the crazy years right out of grad school when he started teaching.  My mom was such a rock through everything and as a team they journeyed together.  Despite all the challenges, I have so so many wonderful memories of my childhood.  Looking back, I never noticed that we struggled financially, or how hard it was for my dad to continue and for my mom to keep encouraging him.  What I remember and still sticks with me is the love and the physical presence of my parents in my life and in one another’s lives.

 

On your graduate wife journey, do you have any fears about raising your children during this season?  Any advice?  Any encouragement?

Balanced Life?

What Does a Balanced Life Look Like? Part V (Keeping House)

thegraduatewife3 Comments

The below question and responses were compiled by fellow graduate wife reader, Laura Lee.  She surveyed several women on the journey and is sharing with us their answers. You can see her original post here, where she outlines her journey towards discovering the answers of a ‘balanced’ life during this season of being a graduate wife and beyond. This is part V of the ‘What does a balanced life look like?’ series.  Enjoy!

4) Part of a balanced life involves keeping your house in order.  How do you do it?  Do you keep a chore chart? A cleaning schedule? How do you maintain things from week to week and month to month? How do you take care of the very basic things like who washes up the dinner dishes each night?

  • Chore chart – When we were first married, the BEST advice we received on this was: find a chore that you and your spouse hate and switch! I hate to vaccuum, so my husband does that; he hates to grocery shop, so I do that. It has worked out well. We don’t have a set time in our house of when the vaccuuming will take place – as he knows it’s his job (although I do it on occasion) – and I refuse to nag him about it, as he is an adult. Usually, he’s pretty good about helping around the house.  I do try to follow a cleaning schedule (bathrooms on Friday, kitchen floor on Monday, laundry on Tue/Wed, etc) – so my cleaning is staggered and I have more time to spend with the family on weeknights.  We (my son and I) normally don’t arrive home until 6pm on the days that I work. I immediately feed him dinner (which requires planning ahead, as he usually doesn’t eat with us). While he’s eating, I start our dinner, pack lunches for the following day, and then start washing our dishes. I try to do it as I go along, as it cuts down on cleaning time after dinner. My husband is home by 615, and my son normally finishes dinner by 645. My husband plays with him for a bit, then gives him a bath – this allows me to finish dinner. We put our son down for bed at 8, and eat dinner then.
  • I clean continually rather than all at once. When I worked, I would blitz the cleaning on Saturday. Now, I do it when I have a second (i.e. daughter is in her highchair eating lunch, so I take the few moments to clean around her – do the dishes, wipe the counters, etc.). Bathrooms get done when she naps or goes to bed. I clean her room and our room while she plays on the bed with toys (granted, I have a baby who doesn’t crawl or walk and plays in one place!). I don’t keep a cleaning chart. I would imagine this will come in handy as our family expands, though! As for dinner dishes, my husband does those at the moment because our daughter still nurses once before bed. There are days when it’s really hard to get the cleaning done (or be motivated to get the cleaning done), though, so I look forward to hearing other thoughts.
  • I have a chore chart in my head and in my calendar but if something comes up I just move it to another day.  I do two loads of laundry (whites and darks) on Monday, two on Tuesday (colors and grays), and a load of towels on Thursday.  Wow!…How do we have so much laundry with just three of us?!!  Is this normal??  I clean the floors and vacuum on Wednesday when my son is napping.  Sometimes I vacuum when he is awake because he likes it.  I clean the bathrooms and vacuum on one weekend day, usually when my husband is watching our son.  I am constantly doing dishes and dream of having a dishwasher someday!  When I’m cooking I try to do the dishes as I go.  I also clean daily so when it comes time to do deep cleaning it’s not so horrible.
  • I’m a list maker.  I usually have my day’s to-do list and my week’s to-do list.  So my cleaning stuff goes on there.  My husband cleans as I ask him to and is usually very willing to help out.  After all, he uses all our stuff too! But if I wait for him to notice how dirty the bathroom is or the carpets are – he never will! My husband does the dishes 9.5 times out of 10 – because he knows I hate doing them and he is a wonderful husband like that. haha. He eats so fast and my daughter eats so slow that he can usually have most of them finished by the time she and I are done eating and since we eat in the kitchen most nights, we are all still able to interact while he’s working on them,
  • Oh my goodness, haha my husband would LOVE it if I had a chore chart (he loves charts and to-do lists!)! But it’s just not me. I keep the visible things tidy and I like the house to smell nice, but beyond that, my main motivation to clean is when we’re going to have guests! :) My husband is very organized and neat, so I try to have things tidy (with the kids help) when he comes home from work. It helps him to relax and is like a love letter from me (his love language is acts of service). This has been a big learning curve for me over the last 13 years and has been one of our big ‘issues’….how to balance my laid back attitude with his need/wish for things to be in order. It’s a work in progress on both our parts!
Shuga' Mommas

Shuga’ Mommas: Homemade Granola

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Doing the grocery shopping on a grad wife budget, do you ever find yourself drooling over the fancy pants granola and museli at the grocery?  I sure do.  I ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ at the pretty little packages and all the yummy granola mixes with every possible dried fruit known to man and loads upon loads of delicious nuts.

I mentioned before that the kitchen is not my forte, and I can assure you that this super easy recipe comes out flawless every time!  No more wishing, follow these directions and make your own mouth watering granola at home!

I usually double the recipe so we can eat it for a while or I like to put the extra in a cute glass container and share some as a gift. p.s. it also makes a wonderful study snack to send to the library with your hubby.

You can add almost anything to this recipe to give the granola some extra flair.  Try chocolate chips (but only when cooling) or sunflower seeds or dried apricots.  Be creative with what you have you laying around the kitchen. Yumm!!

Ingredients:

5 cups of old fashion oats (not quick)

1.5 cups of oat bran

¾ canola oil

¾ honey

Raisins, nuts, etc.

salt, cinnamon, nutmeg or any other flavors desired!

 

Directions:

Spread the mixture evenly over a large rectangle baking sheet

+Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes

+Slide sheet out of the oven and try gently flipping it with a spatula

+Bake for another 6-8 minutes

+Take out and let it cool for 30 minutes before breaking up

=Deliciousness!

Academia Beyond Grad School · Children · Marriage

This is my Story: Part II

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The below is the conclusion to Carolyn’s post from Tuesday.  You can view her first post here. 

When our daughter turned two, we were excited to be trying for a second child.  The next several months were painful for me especially, since every new month brought no pregnancy and I was very discouraged.  Our first child had come without any planning, so why was I having trouble this time?  When once we sought help, our doctor discovered that my system was killing off the sperm that entered my body.  I struggled with this new information.  We had one wonderful child; we simply wanted another to join her.  Though it took a while, I came to be very grateful for the daughter we had been given, and accepted that I might never get pregnant again.  We discussed the possibility of adoption.

While dealing with this issue and taking care of children daily, I came down with bronchitis that led to pneumonia.  Care-giving stopped immediately; I could not even take care of our daughter because my fever was so persistent.  It was very lonely in our apartment as she left for more than a week with my mother-in-law, and it took 6-8 weeks for me to feel 100% again.

In Joe’s third year, a major philosopher came to campus for a series of Philosophy Department lectures that were well-attended.  At the end of the afternoon talk, he answered several questions, one in particular from a professor familiar with Joe’s work.  The specific purpose of the question was intended to signal the death-knell of Joe’s line of reasoning.  The philosopher responded, ‘I no longer hold to what I used to write in this area and I think [such-and-such] (Joe’s stance) is the correct way to go on this issue.’  The glance between my husband and his thesis advisor across the room was electric.  After seven years of work, both in England and the US, Joe’s philosophical ideas had finally been given an official seal of approval.

We received a very special gift from God at the end of Joe’s graduate career, while he was employed as an adjunct for a year at the university and applying for a teaching job — a son was born. We never found out medically what had happened, but we were extremely thankful!   Despite my confidence as a mother, my knowledge of the depression condition and a hopeful attitude, once again my PPD two-month-endless-tears blues returned.  A month before our son turned one (our daughter was six), we moved to the location of Joe’s college teaching job, which is where we are today.

My husband remains in academia, and we remain happily married.  I’m grateful that he never gave up his calling despite the stresses in our graduate career on both sides of the Atlantic.

Staying in academia has allowed us to:

  • 1) live near the college where my husband teaches and have access to all the facilities;
  • 2) spend a lot of time with the children, time that most (in our case) fathers might never have because of jobs that keep them away from home;
  • 3) travel to interesting places as a family because of academic opportunities that were made available to my husband;
  • 4) enjoy a lot of time together as husband and wife, because of my husband’s more flexible schedule;
  • 5) expose our children to the world of ideas, which helped them enter worlds of employment that they might not have entered otherwise.

Looking back, in our graduate career, money was always scarce and there was little recognition for Joe’s hard work.   

Was all the sacrifice worth it?

Absolutely.

 

Wherever you find yourself on your graduate wife journey…maybe it is somewhere in Carolyn’s story or somewhere deep inside your own, we hope you can find comfort and courage in knowing that this journey is for a season.  It is indeed going to be challenging, but also amazing. It’s our hope that through sharing our stories and supporting each other that we will become stronger and more beautiful women in the process. 

 

What part of Carolyn’s story spoke the most to you and why? 

Balanced Life?

What Does a Balanced Life Look Life? Part IV (Cooking)

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The below question and responses were compiled by fellow graduate wife reader, Laura Lee.  She surveyed several women on the journey and is sharing with us their answers. You can see her original post here, where she outlines her journey towards discovering the answers of a ‘balanced’ life during this season of being a graduate wife and beyond. This is part IV of the ‘What does a balanced life look like?’ series.  Enjoy!

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3) How do you plan your meals and shop weekly for your family? How do you make healthy choices?  Do you have favorite recipes books that help, a good website, a super easy vegetable prep method? Any ideas on meal planning you’d like to share?

  • Meals – I reserve one hour on Sunday nights to do meal planning for the week. This usually gives me enough time to peruse our family diary, determine how many meals I need to cook for the week, do my meal planning – looking for recipes,etc – and then ordering my groceries online. Since I’m not home 4 days of the week, it helps to plan ahead I just invested in a cookbook called “Less Meat, More Veg” I’ve been cooking out of it, and have found it has lowered our grocery bill a bit (I tend to buy mostly organic items). I also try to chop veggies up when I get them, and then put them in the freezer (if I’m not going to use them that week), as I find it cuts down on prep time as I’m trying to cook.

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  • I plan for a week’s worth of meals, and we use Tesco.com with great admiration and joy. And I LOVE the Martha Stewart recipe finder at the moment and am rarely disappointed with the outcome of cooking one of her meals. She has an ‘everyday food’ series, and they are simple and healthy meals. I have organized my favorite recipes under my ‘bookmarks’, so I will often scroll through those when planning for the week and pull out faithfuls (Butternut Squash Baked Risotto and Moroccan Chicken Stew are two really good ones – just noticed they’re pretty wintry, but oh well). I also feel I should share this little gem, a no-knead bread, tweaked by a friend from St. Andrews but originating from Mark Bittman. It is shamefully easy, and we have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner lately. All this being said, frozen pizza, Peppers Burgers and The Mission happen in this household!

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  • I plan meals a week in advance.  I usually plan it out and do online shopping on the weekend.  I also get an organic fruit box delivery from Able & Cole once every two weeks.  I don’t like to order much produce online because I’ve been disappointed with the quality, so I found that this fruit box lasts us almost two weeks.  I’ll go to Tesco, Co-Op, or M & S for other things I need throughout the week…usually produce.  I’ve found out which stores have the cheapest prices for things we like to eat and then I hop around to all the stores.  I’m probably crazy, but It’s saving us a bit of money.  Some of our usual meals are greek chicken salad, baked ziti, chicken and veggie casserole, chicken/bean burritos, salmon and veggies, and “jazzed-up” frozen pizza(I usually get a frozen margarita pizza and we put chicken, mushrooms, olives, etc. on it…it’s cheap and yummy!)  The baked ziti and chicken/veg casserole are great as left overs!  I also like to do the frozen pizza on Fridays when I’m usually burned out from cooking.

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  • We plan a week of meals at a time usually on Sat or Sun.  We don’t always assign each meal to a particular day at the start of the week because then I can wake up on Monday and I still have options.  (Is it a fish and rice day or a lasagna day?)  Usually we plan about 5 meals (assuming 2 of them are bigger meals and will provide another day’s worth of leftovers.)  We try to mix in some easy/quick ones and some more involved ones depending on the look of the week’s schedule.  We look at the weather forecast (warmer days mean lighter dishes, cold rainy days means more roasts or soups.)  We always have at least one vegetarian meal (usually 2 or 3) as we have committed ourselves to ‘Meatless Mondays’.   I make sure there are meals that my husband is happy to make on his own for those days when he takes on dinner.  I try to throw in a brand new recipe every few weeks to keep us trying new things too.  And we try to mix up what type of protein we are eating each night (meaning we try not to eat chicken 5 nights a week.  Then I make a list and do the weekly shop at the local grocery shops to buy whatever ingredients we’ll need as well as stuff for packing lunches for my husband and breakfast stuff too.  I do a big online order once every 4-5 weeks to stock up on non-perishable and heavier items like juice, canned beans, pasta, canned tomatoes, toilet paper, etc.As for healthy choices my rule of thumb is… if you don’t think you should be eating it (or not very often) then don’t bring it in your house (or not very often).  It’s ALWAYS easier/faster to throw in a frozen pizza or snack on a cookie.  But, if there is no pizza in your freezer or cookies on your counter, you’re forced to find a healthier option – like making your own, much healthier pizza or eating some yogurt.  One way we do this is by buying lots of fresh veg (carrots, bell peppers, snap peas, baby corn, celery, cucumber, etc).  Ideally twice a week I’ll cut up a few carrots, cucumbers, peppers, etc. and throw them in a big tupperware.  I’ll do this with thick slices of cheese too.  Then, when we’re in a hurry or need to grab a quick snack for the stroller or are just feeling peckish at home, it’s super easy to grab some veg and cheese (and hummus?) rather than a cookie.  Of course a handful of grapes or an apple or banana (which don’t need cut) works just as well – but not with the hummus… eww.I like to do the same thing with a big old bag of trail mix.  Just mix lots of almonds, sultanas, dried apricots, pretzels, peanuts, cashews, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows etc.  Quick to grab and pick at when you just want to munch on something salty or sweet.  Good to send with husbands to sneak into libraries too!

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  • I shop online at Sainsbury’s and get a delivery once a week (on Wed). I also get an Abel and Cole box of fruit and veg that comes on Tues. I’ve loved being forced out of my comfort zone and learning to cook these really weird British root vegetables! I plan a weeks’ worth of meals and shop online in about 30 minutes! I don’t mess around. Get ‘r’ done! We buy lots of fresh spinach (2-3 big bags a week!), bell peppers, cucumbers and organic carrots and just have them out at dinner. The boys eat a couple of handfuls of spinach and probably half a bell pepper every night at dinner. Very rarely do I cook a veg to go with dinner. I make a main dish and stick the fresh veggies out. And the kids just go for it….no need for Ranch dressing either (unheard of when I was a kid!)! They just love the taste of the veg. When the kids were little I would never have imagined this day would come! Miracles never cease!

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Academia Beyond Grad School · Children · Marriage

This is my Story: Part I

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Written by Carolyn – a former graduate wife

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The below story is shared with us from a former graduate wife.  Her story has been challenging, encouraging and intriguing for us to read, as we have realized just how powerful and difficult it would be to try and capture our own graduate wife stories in words. Clearly her entire story couldn’t be written out…or that have taken weeks to share, but she has summarized her graduate wife journey below as best she could.  We hope her testimony and chronological journey speaks hope and courage as you look to your future (as it did to us) as many pages lay before each of us yet unwritten…

NOTE:  I fell in love with my husband because he hung around libraries, loved laughing and had a heart for God.  Our story could be filled with all the wonderful and zany times we had during our graduate life, but the below focuses on other issues.

Joe and I met in Vienna, Austria, where I worked, and married in Massachusetts, where I grew up.  Then we moved to Oxford, England, where Joe’s graduate career was already in progress.  England and Oxford were beautiful and we enjoyed taking walks around the city, visiting small villages where cream teas were heavenly and soaking up the atmosphere and architecture.

Joe’s adjustment to marriage in his already established routine seemed minimal; mealtimes definitely were upgraded from a regular bowl of tomato soup to meat, vegetables and dessert.  My adjustment took longer, understandable in part to having been an independent woman until I was 30+.  ( In the first few months, I took some walks by myself and wondered where I could stay for a night…)

Joe’s area of interest was philosophy and while we were courting in Vienna, he had talked of his academic desires and struggles, which stemmed from having been persuaded by one of his tutors that the topic that he originally had chosen to pursue was not really worthwhile.  He moved on to another area and soon discovered that he held views radically at odds with positions espoused by the academic establishment.  It was a time of extreme loneliness intellectually and yet incredibly stimulating mentally.

While this was happening in Joe’s academic life, I unexpectedly became pregnant.  I had a great job at a company that produced risk-assessment studies for multi-national corporations and my paycheck was the sole income for our existence.  Joe quickly realized that he would have to finish earlier than expected, and it put tremendous pressure on him.

We were blessed with many friends and well-supplied older mothers with all kinds of baby clothes and equipment, all of which we borrowed.  Our wonderful baby girl was born at the end of February, and we looked forward to Joe’s defense of his thesis for a degree at the end of the academic year and to returning to the United States soon after.

On two fronts, things quickly fell apart.  Blissfully happy to be pregnant, I hadn’t read the literature carefully about postpartum depression (PPD), which took up residence in my life.  Tears were ever-present for two long months while my hormones seesawed back to normal.

At the same time, Joe’s thesis draft was extensively marked up by his advisor and Joe had to race to revise the manuscript in time for the defense date.  While requiring an inordinate amount of work in the short term, this critique proved to be the beginning of a sharper, simpler writing style.  Joe received his M. Litt. degree and we prepared to leave England with a beautiful baby girl.

In mid-June when our worldly goods were packed into tea crates, we said goodbye to Oxford and friends and flew to Boston, MA.  My parents housed us for one month to enjoy their grand-daughter while we waited for the tea crates to arrive.  We expected to move on to Joe’s parents’ city to look for work later in the summer.  One day, my mother received a telephone call, and the man calling asked to speak with Joe.  As they talked, my mother realized that her son-in-law would have a teaching job at a small liberal-arts college.

Joe was offered a one-year adjunct teaching job of two philosophy courses per semester.  To say we were grateful to God is an understatement.  Through friends in that area, we found a free semi-furnished place to stay ninety minutes away from the college and moved our small amount of worldly goods there.  We unpacked the tea crates, threw them away and settled in.  Within three weeks, the owner of the property decided to sell the place and asked us to move out, effective immediately.  We moved to within ten minutes of the college, but had no furniture until my parents and others locally donated a generous amount of necessary items – double bed, dining room table and chairs, a couch, extra chairs, etc. (We had baby furniture already provided.)  In order to survive, Joe worked 2 other jobs (cleaning services in the evenings) while I stayed home with our daughter.  I don’t remember eating out at a restaurant during this time, and buying a pizza for $5.00 one night was quite a treat.

It took me six months to adjust to being back in the US; I was so homesick for England and the familiarity of friends and shops.  In that time, Joe applied and was accepted for Ph.D. work at a university in another state.  Again we moved – I was an expert by now with packing!   Thank God for married student housing.  One can live under the government poverty level and still have a life.  After working in the university library for a few months and two weeks in a State Farm office, I settled on being a care-giver for our daughter and other people’s children and enjoyed being a second mother to many children.

Joe was looking forward to the rigor of full academic study again, but without the adversarial environment that he had experienced at Oxford.  However, he was greatly disappointed when he was unable to find anyone among fellow grad students and faculty members who were sympathetic with his views.  After being at the university for two years and hearing how another grad student had been recognized in some way for his work, we came home from campus and Joe broke down at lunchtime, sobbing.  It frightened our daughter and she immediately drew a picture for Daddy to cheer him up.  When recognition doesn’t come, after hours spent diligently reading, studying, thinking, writing, discussing, showing up for department events and spending time on endless department requirements, where does one find the will to go on?

Celebrate!

Celebrate. IV

thegraduatewife1 Comment

Written by Nicole – a current graduate wife

I Got a Job!

In my last post for The Graduate Wife, I was really floundering with who I was and how to shoulder the weight of financial responsibility for our family despite the fact that I could. not. find. a. job. I filled out hundreds of applications and made innumerable phone calls and waited and cried and freaked out and felt, in general, very stressed. I thought the seemingly endless cycle of hope and disappointment with each rejection was going to be the death of me. How could I “fund the dream” without a job?

It has been, I feel, such a long road to this post, and I am so glad to share an encouraging part of my journey with you. When we moved to England last autumn, I was ready for a break from teaching. In fact, I didn’t think I would be able to apply for teaching jobs at all, seeing as how it takes so long to jump through all of the appropriate hoops. It turns out that I really needed nine whole months to get every last annoying, bureaucratic paper, stamp, and signature to work at this new school. And after a whole school year of wringing my hands and lamenting the ills of supply (substitute) teaching, I am ready to be in a place I can call my own.

You can read the details of how this came together perfectly on our blog here. Forgive me if toward the end I get a little “I’d like to thank the Academy…” on you. After scoring this job, I really did feel like I had won an Oscar.