2 Months Left of 2025

 Hello everyone and welcome to Monday Musings with Kissa, where I share what the heck happened last week, what I have planned for this week, and a story time, not in that particular order. This is the audio companion to my Substack newsletter that I send out every Thursday. So if you’re not already subscribed, there’s a button somewhere here where you can do so, and content as of this recording is currently free.All right, y’all. Let’s talk about last week. On the business side, we had a lot of great things going on. We had wholesale deliveries to do. We had production for Amazon as we’re gearing up for Black Friday, cyber Monday, that whole season, and I am learning the rhythm. Of creating content on here. So it has been good and steady.And on the personal side, it’s been just as busy. I’ve been volunteering at Micah’s school. Uh, my daughter had parent teacher conferences and I am helping to plan as well as popping up at Micah’s Trun of Ween event at school.So needless to say, pretty busy, and we capped off the week with a trip to the pumpkin patch in church on Sunday. It was exactly what we needed considering how busy it’s been latelynow this week. What’s on the calendar? Well, for the business, my goal is to get ahead of production for the holidays. So as I mentioned, we’ve been working on production for Amazon. We’re continuing to do more for Amazon, as well as get our online store stocked and ready and also have enough stock for our wholesale clients for when they order as well. So raw materials have been ordered. They are starting to arrive and we’ll do more production at the end of the week. But we’re trying to do our best to just plan ahead because one of the things that I don’t want to feel is stress. And pressure about not having enough and missing out on sales.Now, on the personal side, my goal is to log in my food every single day. So the reason why I am actually logging my food because this is not something that I enjoy to do.But as an experiment, I wanted to kind of see how much I eat in a day, and I just input it into an app that asks you a few general questions that gives you, you know, a budget of how many calories and then breaks it down into protein, carbs, and fat that I should be eating on, on a daily basis, how much water I should be drinking and all of that.So I wanted to see, how much I’ve been eating. And turns out I have not been eating nearly enough. Oh my gosh. So, as a person that does not have a healthy relationship with food, this whole time I’ve been thinking that I’ve been overeating and my mindset has always been, you’re eating too much. You need to dial it back. You’re, you’re not putting good things in your body. Like everything that I was telling myself was basically negative self-talk. And so I wanted to put kind of my money where my mouth is and just kind of say, okay, well if I’m putting myself down and I’m trying to improve, I have good intentions here. I want to make a change. Let’s see where we’re at, and that’s why I started logging my food last week, but I wasn’t doing it consistently every day. So my goal this week is to do it regularly every day so I can see where I am as far as my caloric intake, how much protein I’m taking in, and all of that so that I don’t starve myself. Oh my goodness. I’m sorry. Body. I’m sorry. I’m doing this to you.Now for the bricks in my backpack. I think the main thing that’s weighing me down is my environment. Oh. So the goal is to chip away at tidying around the house for 20 minutes a day. So there’s different zones in the house that I’ve kind of like sectioned off.So there’s the playroom, the patio, our master bedroom, the kids’ rooms, the office. You know, all of that. And so I think the areas that I wanna focus on that I think will make the biggest impact as far as like changing, my environment into a positive one would be the playroom, the patio, and my vanity closet area.So I’m going to be working on that this week and just chipping away at it, not trying to like make a whole day out of it or anything, but just slowly. clean and tidy. maybe in passing I grab a piece of trash and just pick it up and throw it away, and then if I pass by again, pick up a toy that I think needs to be put away just so I can slowly get all those little things that are making the environment feel negative and make it turn into a positive.So let’s get into our story time. It’s not necessarily a story, but I wanna do some reflection with you guys and just talk about the remainder of this year, because October is usually around the time that I just start thinking about the past year. What we’ve accomplished, what I’ve accomplished, what still needs to be done, but also what has changed and what was a goal that not necessarily is a goal anymore. Because once November 1st hits, we officially have 60 days before the end of the year. And for me, when it comes to October, it’s kind of a 50/50. How do I feel about it? Do I either feel like I still have two months to rock 2025 and make it the best year that I can yet, or am I laying the foundation, planting the seeds for a great new year, a great 2026. I always feel like it’s one or the other because I’m either doing forward planning or I’m wrapping things up.I’ve been thinking about it because the month of October has been busy. Anniversaries, popups, farmer’s markets, orders, school events. Not only that, but we’re gearing up for the holidays and it’s always a busy season every year. But don’t get me wrong, I contribute to that busyness because usually I come from a place of scarcity, and I always have a fear of missing out.So I pack our calendar to try and do as many events as we can. I end up procrastinating and not managing my time wisely because I have so many things on my calendar. And fitting all of that in into a short two months just is not enough. So usually when January comes, we are all kinds of exhausted and it takes a really long time for us to recover and say, okay, we’ve finally gotten enough rest. We’re ready to go all in. And my question for myself is, do I want that? Because it’s not necessarily wrong. obviously I could do it better and there’s always room for improvement, but is that how I want the end of my year to pan out? Is that how I want to live? November and December every year. And I think before in the past, my answer would’ve been yes because part of me loves that adrenaline rush.Part of me loves to see all our vendor friends and our customers and meet new people, maximize opportunities. Part of me loves that stuff. I crave the adrenaline. And then there’s the other part of me that says, at what cost? I don’t get to see my kids as much. I don’t get to do the holiday crafts that I want to do with them on the weekends when they don’t have school.I don’t get to spend time with them during their winter break where we can all spend some quality time together. There’s always a cost, and with my kids at the age that they are. Uh, growing up and knowing that these moments are fleeting, there’s never gonna be another time like this, and so I want to enjoy it while my kids are at this age. I want to make memories. I want to participate and be part of their lives in these moments because these are the building blocks to the relationship that I’m going to have with my kids in the future. And so there’s that balance to it as well. And I’m asking myself, do I want to sacrifice the time that I have with my family to go hard and hustle and push and grind myself into the ground during this holiday season, and I think the answer for myself this time around is no, I don’t want that.It’s not something that aligns with my values at this point in my life. Maybe that’ll change. But in this season of life, I want to savor my family, make memories with them, and just be present and together on my favorite time of year.So that has been a question that has been running through my mind, and it’s just something that I’ve been thinking about as the days and weeks go by, because if I want that outcome of spending more time with my kids, like I said, something has got to give. And that means I can’t say yes to every single event that we get invited to. I’ve got to figure out what we want to say yes to and what we’re going to say not this time to, and that is a process because I’m still working on the abundance mindset versus the scarcity mindset, but we’ll get there.Thank you listeners so much for your time. If you enjoyed this audio edition, please share it with a friend and for the full Monday musings experience, please do subscribe to my Substack at justkissa.substack.com.Until next time, remember that you are a blessing and I’m so grateful you’re here. Bye friends. Get full access to Kissa - the Notion Mama at justkissa.substack.com/subscribe