Have you noticed how quickly Family Friendly Frugality has been growing lately? Honestly, since the start of 2011…it’s kind of exploded! If you hadn’t noticed, then maybe that means you haven’t been noticing how I’ve been dropping the ball all over the place lately!

When was the last time you saw a Giveaway Winner post? (I promise, winners are still being contacted and connected with their prizes, I just haven’t had time to update the blog with the winners names!)

I’ve also slacked a bit on Make a Change Monday and Tot Tuesday posts!

I love posting deals, so I think I’ve stayed on top of those pretty well, but it’s always been my desire that Family Friendly Frugality be about so much more then deals and coupons! Between deal posting, back end moderation and keeping up with email…I’m swamped. I love it, don’t get me wrong. However, if I am going to keep the site up to my incredibly high standards AND devote the time necessary to nurture, grow and love on my family AND take care of my own needs…I need help.

Enter Katie!

Katie has been a dear friend of mine for  years. We became friends either before or during my pregnancy with my son…I honestly can’t recall! I feel like I’ve known her my whole life though. So when it came time to get some help, I went running to her. Since the I made my VERY FIRST post on Family Friendly Frugality she has been right there alongside me. When even my husband wasn’t reading, Katie was reading. Her support (especially in the beginning) kept me going and helped build this site into what it is today (whether she is aware of that or not!).

Katie is a 26 year old Christian, wife, and Registered Nurse turned stay at home mom to 2 living in rural south Georgia. She enjoys reading, blogging, running, spending time with her family, and of course, saving money!

She has her own blog called Baby Babbles, and you might have seen her on some blog hops in the past.

Since Katie lives in Georgia (we’ve actually never met face to face!), she will be working with me “virtually” hence the title Virtual Assistant.

I thought it was important to introduce her to all of you because many of you will have contact with her via email and around the site. She will be handling a lot of the work for the giveaways (including contacting winners AND making the winner posts!) and the blog hops here at Family Friendly Frugality.

I hope you’ll make her feel welcome and I hope with the addition of a new team member, Family Friendly Frugality can continue to grow and flourish!

Thank you all!

photo © 2005 Joe Anderson | more info (via: Wylio)

Things have been stressful around the FFF household lately. Let me give you the highlight reel of the past week and a half or so:

• Our AC went out (we live in TX…this is a BIG deal)
• Our toilet stopped working and overflowed
• Our washing machine broke mid-load
• I got a flat tire
• Our house payment got lost in the mail
• My parents abruptly moved to South Carolina to help my baby sister with a health issue/job issue (pretty major)
• I had two major disruptions to my day to day blogging (not bad things, but still even good news can add stress) that could have potentially conflicted with each other
• Our vacuum broke

Lots of other small petty things happened as well. You know those small things that normally don’t matter, but when piled on top of everything else it just feels like the final straw?

However, aside from a few moments of anguish and asking my husband to please PLEASE give me something ANYTHING else to think about…I’ve been relatively calm through it all. Taking it as it comes and being proactive where I can while letting the rest lay.

This peace and calm never would have happened a few years ago. Maybe it’s age, but I also think it’s been a choice.

I made the choice that I was going to have faith.

Faith that God doesn’t put things in my path that I can’t handle.

Faith that as long as my family is healthy and alive, it’s all okay.

Faith that there are bigger plans at work then my own and I just need to have a little faith that He knows what is best for me.

I admit, it’s been difficult at times. I’ve dropped to my knees in this past week more then I probably have in months. However, I think those drop to the knees moments are what have made everything else easier.

It’s amazing what a little faith can do.

I’m a Christian, I’ve never hidden that and I proudly stand by it. If you aren’t a Christian, of course I’d like you to explore Christianity…but if not that’s your choice. Peace comes differently to different people in different ways. So I encourage you to have a little faith the next time something comes up that seems insurmountable. Faith in your God, faith in yourself, faith in the universe. Just trust that it will all work out. Does it always? Of course not, but you know what?

You have two choices:

1. You remain miserable and feel stuck in your predicament
2. You have a little faith and just be as proactive as you can

So this week, just have a little faith. Oh, and sometimes…when things get this out of control? You just have to laugh about it. That’s helps too

Note: I’ve had some really horrible things happen in my life. Huge losses and horrible life changing moments, so I know it’s not always *that* easy. In no way would I ever try and trivialize life’s biggest disasters. However, in our day to day lives when things go awry and pile up…I think it’s okay to just laugh and have a bit of faith. It’s certainly easier then the alternatives.

As a mom, it’s easy to let time get away from me. I once read a quote that really resounded with me:

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” H. Jackson Brown

All these amazing, successful people were able to accomplish incredible feats within the same 24 hour days that sometimes left my head spinning (and I hadn’t even gotten out of my pajamas yet!).

I’m not going to lie, this blog consumes a TON of my time. I enjoy it immensely, but it’s also incredibly easy to get sucked in and realize that I have done nothing other then change diapers, feed children and blog all day long. While I don’t dislike any of those duties, it doesn’t make me a very well rounded person.

Time To Make Time For Me!

Recently I made the decision that I needed to pick back up some of the hobbies that make me, ME.

My first thought was that I simply didn’t have the time. I’m trying to build up a business here, good business people don’t take time to read! Unless it’s, you know, educational or at least in some way relevant to my work.

I also knew that I couldn’t take time away from my children to pursue my hobbies. As a working mom, even a stay at home working mom, my time with them is precious and far to valuable to push aside.

That meant I needed to deplete the time from my work. When I looked over my duties and my schedule, I realized a lot of my time was spent doing things that weren’t really making a huge impact. I focused on Twitter entirely too much, despite it really not doing much for me in the way of traffic. I constantly brainstormed new and exciting ways to engage my readers, while ignoring the things they already seemed to enjoy and come back for.

Getting Organized

Finally I sat down with an editorial calendar and decided that I needed to get more organized so I could make better use of my time. It is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself, and I’ve noticed my readers seem to enjoy the predictability of my new, streamlined posting schedule.

In addition,  now that I’m indulging in my hobbies, I find that I’m becoming a more creative blogger. A more exciting mother, and even a better wife (Speaking of, I’m brainstorming a really exciting present for him for his upcoming 30th birthday. I’d love any ideas of potential Gifts for him as long as it’s not a Hot Air Balloon Melbourne excursion LOL) ! Taking this time for myself to do the things I love makes me a better person. I still have exactly the same number of hours in every single day. I’m just filling them with more meaningful things and I’m organizing my time better.

Here are some of MY hobbies:

What are some of your hobbies? Have you let things go and let other “important” things take their place? I encourage you to pick up an old hobby this week! You might think it will make you less productive, but I guarantee it will have the opposite effect!

Disclosure: My disclosure policy is in effect for this post.