How She Does It
Quarantine Edition
PAIGE MEJIA
Mom of 2 Teens
Business Owner
Networking Guru
Paige is a busy working mom of two teenagers, a business owner (of a pyrotechnics company!), a chapter leader of Meeting Planners International, and a networking guru. When Paige is not marketing and selling fireworks shows, she is caring for her family of four and her many fur-babies. What we love about Paige is how she seems to juggle a whole lot of competing priorities without breaking a sweat.
But as with most parents, the outbreak of Covid-19 and the shelter-in-place orders have changed almost everything about Paige’s daily life. Her once constant on-the-go lifestyle has slowed way down and her daily challenge now centers around keeping everyone entertained and productive when her whole family is sharing the same space.
How do you typically spend your time on an average day, before quarantine?
Most of my day is spent marketing my company, either with venue or planner meetings or attending networking events. My down time is spent carpooling my children to their extracurricular activities.
How has that changed since quarantine?
Quarantine has definitely made life a lot more boring! My teenage children attend a University Curriculum school, so transitioning to complete home school was not a huge challenge for them. My husband and I always worked from home, so the biggest change has been my being home all the time and not constantly out at sales appointments or networking events.
What has proven most challenging to you during these past few months? How have you tried to address those challenges?
Our biggest challenge is keeping everyone in the house entertained. We have attempted to alleviate boredom by taking walks to nearby parks, playing games, and participating in virtual trivia and BINGO games.
What does your daily and weekly quarantine routine look like?
The routine was a little more established when my children had online classes, but their school is now out for the summer, so they make their own schedule now. My husband and I are both early risers, so we are able to get work completed in the morning and my “schedule” now mainly includes Zoom calls.
How would you describe your typical approach to time management and planning?
I am truthfully the worst time manager. Time management has always been my Achilles heel! Right now, I kind of roll with the punches and my ever-changing daily schedule drives my time.
“Don’t stress if your house isn’t the cleanest or your kids are having too much screen time or everyone is eating a balanced diet of organic produce; take it as a win if everyone is still alive at the end of the day!”
How has your approach to time management and planning changed during quarantine?
We definitely have more time during quarantine, so meal times are our largest improvement because we have plenty of time to cook a healthy breakfast in the morning and prepare and enjoy dinner together where real life meant a lot of pizza and to-go meals with me running to events, mainly in the evenings.
How do you split responsibilities with your partner and your tribe? How has your support system changed since quarantine?
For the last 8 years, my children attended a school that was 30 minutes from our house, so I relied on my aunt to pick up the children and take them to extracurricular activities when I had events in the afternoon or evening. This year, we changed to a school in our neighborhood which has given us so much time back as well as allow my husband to assist in transporting the children when needed. My aunt’s house has still served as a welcome break for my children this year, but with quarantine, we are afraid we may spread the virus/germs to her so they have not been able to stay at her house and can only visit from the front porch.
This is a difficult time for everyone but especially for moms. What do you do to take care of yourself? How are you coping?
I have never been a huge self-care person, but binge watching is my relaxation time. With the children being home and monopolizing the televisions for cartoons and video games, my me-time is mainly in the mornings before they wake up or at night when they go to bed.
If you could offer words of support to moms who may be struggling to manage quarantine life day to day, what would you share with them
I would advise moms who are struggling to remember the positives in their world and to take time to plan out a schedule that works best with their family. If you work from home, work is a priority to ensure you have a job still when life returns to normal, so you and your partner need to work together to share parenting and teaching duties. Don’t stress if your house isn’t the cleanest or your kids are having too much screen time or everyone is eating a balanced diet of organic produce; take it as a win if everyone is still alive at the end of the day!
We want to look at the glass half full so what about this current reality is something you have come to appreciate, enjoy, or wish would continue after all of this is over?
I appreciate the available technology we have in these times. We often take technology for granted, but if quarantine happened even 25 years ago, we would not have had the privilege of working from home since internet, email, virtual meeting platforms, etc. were not available. The best part of the quarantine has been the opportunity to reconnect with my family and to appreciate our health, having a roof over our heads, and the ability to feed our families.
Paige’s Quarantine Routine in Liveli Planner
When asked how Liveli Planner could help Paige manage her quarantine routine, she shared, “I love how the tool combines all calendars and the user friendliness of the program. I think the to-do lists will help [families] cope during quarantine so that you can make a house schedule that partners with the work schedule.”
You can draw inspiration from Paige’s quarantine routine for families with teens by checking out the template below.
And you can get your own Liveli Planner by clicking here.
Paige has a blast at work! Check out her pyrotechnics company, Pyrotex.
You can learn more about Paige’s company, Pyrotex, on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.
You can also find them on the web at www.pyrotex.com
How She Does It is brought to you by Liveli Planner. At Liveli Planner, we value the women who do epic sh!t in their communities, homes, and workplaces. These ordinary women do the incredible every day but we don’t always hear their stories. Liveli Planner wants to change that. We believe that by sharing the stories we don’t always hear about, we’ll learn from each other’s wins and struggles and hopefully realize we are pretty extraordinary too.