The Heatwave Hustle: How I Balanced Chores and Creativity

“You shouldn’t lie till ten. There’s the very prime of the morning gone long before that time. A person who has not done one-half his day’s work by ten o’clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.”

― Emily Brontë

I suppose Emily Brontë would scowl at my morning and all my actions today. But was she ever a mother and a freelancer to boot? Did she do chores with passion, only to sigh and surrender to writing as a means of transporting my ideas to a higher level of existence?

I didn’t even have a chance to drink my coffee this morning. I started puttering around with cobwebs around my eyes. So I washed my face three times with super cold water.

There was no way I could have coffee, sadly. I needed milk and we had none. We had just come back from vacation, and our fridge was almost empty.

I finished puttering and moved on to tinkering. I actually did some gardening, as most of my plants were dried up in the horrific 40-degree Celsius heat we barely avoided during our Atlantic Coast road trip. The whole time during our holiday, we had 19–27 degree weather! I felt blessed.

Today I could barely breathe in the 34-degree summer. I tried not to complain, as summer is summer.

“If I don't make it to heaven, at least I know what hell feels like with this heat!”

― April Mae Monterrosa

Because we needed milk and food, I went shopping. Afterward, there was still fiddling, dawdling, and putzing around to do, which kept me busy until lunch! For lunch, we had a delicious combination of air-fried potato wedges with garlic, sunny side-ups, and tomato salad.

I finally got to lie down after putting our youngest down for a nap. The heat and all the chores exhausted me. I felt my skin melting slowly, my legs heavy and my eyelids hurting from the deep yellow sunlight. I craved the coolness of the ocean breeze and the chilled wine of the Loire Valley. I fell asleep, dreaming about a cold breeze and an endless summer of 25 degree celsius, without sweating profusely after only moving a muscle.

When most people were finishing their work, I was just getting started with my meandering thoughts in my own mind, wondering what to write and whom to connect with for the latest updates on X. I joined a space on X and that gave me the energy and motivation to get back to my own grand plan of things.

Vocal, Substack, and X. The trio of my connectivity and the fuel of my creativity. Or, so to say, where my thoughts can catch wings and also connect me with awesome people.

Now I am asking you a few questions and I hope to learn from you some new tips and tricks. In retrospect, my day today has been super productive, but it started slowly, and I needed to consciously take the reigns. At the same time, I also listened to my body when I needed to and I felt grateful for the respite.

• What makes you motivated to get back to your goals?
• Which communities help you thrive on your journey to success as freelancer or writer?
• Do you have super slow days, only to catch up with writing soon after?
• How do you balance all your chores if you are a parent or have extra responsibilities?

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I previously published this story on Medium and then I got carried over and added some extra paragraphs on Vocal.