March 28, 2024

Keeping life easy

Editor’s note: This column originally published July 29, 2015

I’m low-maintenance. As I was puttering around my house the other morning before work, I looked up, noticed the time — 7:43 a.m. — and still made it to the office by 8 a.m., I realized just how low-maintenance I’ve actually become.

Back in the day, I could spend hours on my morning ritual — the hair, the clothes, the make-up, the nails, the jewelry — not to mention getting three kids up, fed, dressed and ready for their day. Now, my morning routine looks more like coffee, a load of laundry, coffee, enjoying more coffee while sitting outside, playing a round of Frisbee with my ‘girls,’ tidying the kitchen, another cup of coffee, watering the flowers, packing my lunch and dressing for work.

Nothing against the people that go to great efforts dressing to the nines, nor to imply those folks are placing importance on the wrong things. I’m just saying for me, I’ve chosen a simpler ‘style.’

But, I don’t just mean my appearance. It may have taken me a few years, but I have made a sincere effort to put my whole existence in perspective.

Until just a couple of years ago, I was consumed with my mortality, almost to the point of panic attacks at times. Don’t get me wrong, I have no intention of going anywhere anytime soon.

I think a lot of it stemmed from the idea that my hubby wouldn’t be able to raise our kids the right way — MY way — without me. It’s probably the same thought every mom has. I just knew the kids would:

• be raised on Ramen noodles, fried bologna and Vienna sausages,

• never make their beds,

• always use the ceiling lights because no one would replace a burned out light bulb in a table lamp,

• have to eat from paper plates because no one would ever load or unload the dishwasher,

• live in a house that would smell mildewy from the piles of wet bath towels in their rooms,

• have chronic foot problems because each spring they’d hear, “how could you possibly need new shoes already? I just got you that pair at the beginning of the school year!”

Now that they’re grown, I’ve been made redundant from the day-to-day running of their lives and the obsessive fear of not being present for them has subsided. As of today, college-kid is no longer a teenager. (Happy birthday, Carson!) Oh, they still need my advice, and fortunately for them I’m a champ at offering it, but I’d been forced into mandatory retirement of my full-time mommy job and was, therefore, alleviated of numerous responsibilities.

So anyway…

I have since chosen to enjoy a simplified existence which includes puttering around my house in the morning, having a cup of coffee, watering my flowers… you get the idea.

Contact Dana King at 515-994-2349
or dking@shawmedia.com