Stacked; Not Scattered
life fully stacked is living, even among the moving blocks.
Hello Dear Reader, welcome to these pages of Minutes and Moments. This is the weekend edition - where thoughts run a little deep about things that matters. I’ve slowed slightly here, and well, it’s ok, still here, writing and weighing up all that is about living in the messy margins. If it was all neat, precise with exact numbers, then it wouldn’t be about the minutes and moments. - Happy April!
“Do you need the Xero code?” Luke calls out … again.
“Ummm, sure, send it through” I respond .. *sigh* and open up my accounting tab.
This is his kind and persistent reminder that I need to finalise March invoices for my clients.. because I need to be paid. It’s on my to-do, but it’s the task I procrastinate about most - the mental block I own.
In our household we have roles, mine are very clearly not mathematically based. It’s not that I can’t do the sums or equations. I can- well to a certain point, it’s just not my strong suit, and I am ok to admit that to you. In year 13, I choose statistics rather than calculus - give me language based math any day and I’ll give you how many apples Johnny had after Elsie collected and sold 1/4 of the ones they gathered.
It takes too much of my mental energy - because it doesn't sit naturally with me. Yes, I have a system, but I drag my invoices out. Again. It is the one part of my business Luke took care of in Sydney, billing 100 clients a week, and I left him to it.
Currently I have fewer than 10 and I still cannot deal with the math admin.
So I make him a deal.
“Hey, when I get more than 10 clients, can you do the billing again for me?” I call out, because it’s Friday, so I treat our shared WFH day like a colleague situation. That’s fair, seen as he gets the bedroom office and I’m at the kitchen table.
“Sure”. That’s it. He seals the deal with sure.
I cross invoicing off the list for March - and deal with the other stacked blocks in my tower.
To quiet the backwards list in my head is an all-the-time thing. Sometimes I would like a little less knowledge about planning, timelines, and feel the freedom to miss deadlines - although that is a whole different kind of stress. Life is stacked1. Seriously stacked in 3 x 3 neat rows in a Jenga-like tower, each block carefully placed to the next one, and the next one until each set of three forms one layer after another.
The rows of blocks lined up in threes are the norms this year of housework, school pick up, drop offs, meal planning, shopping, the dentist, the post shop, work, university study, scheduling open homes, then very simple daily tasks like trying to manage drying wet washing after two days of rain and no dryer, oh and writing - yes.. some time for that please and a 5km run in between would be good😐 really.
Stacked. /stakt/
adjective
(of a number of things) put or arranged in a stack or stacks.
I understand - it is 100% all by choice - *except the rain on my washing.
We all have “a number of things”
This week the stack started shifting. Up until now it felt like each week was another layer without moving pieces around. It only takes one sick kid out of childcare for the W.H.O.L.E week. to trigger a sudden movement of blocks, one out, one in.
Conclusion: the colder months of sickness have begun.🫠
All week the blocks have moved with messages flung between, “Hi Mum, Sorry change of plan!……”
to “Sorry Florie still not well enough, maybe she’ll be back tomorrow”..
to “Hi Ladies, Florie won’t be in today either, see you Monday.. hopefully”.
One pulled block from the stack after another.
All I can say is, those grommets Florie had in when she was 11 months old are working over time this week - the gooey gunk from her ears tells me so (gross - I know but also - thank the Lord she has grommets (!!).
And for all purposes of transparency, I need a minute to tell you I had a minute, maybe a few, of second guessing the load. The choices of all that is stacked. My preference in all honesty, would be not asking for help, or perhaps cancelling a session or avoiding the conversation with Luke to tag team. I’m a happy avoider of these conversations even though I do love to be on the receiving end of help. Yes, obviously a core love language of mine is acts of service 🙋♀️.
The days have been stacked—5am alarms in a row, Bluey on in the background while I take a client call, and a thousand-piece puzzle sprawled across the floor when I walk in the door to swap shifts with Luke. The shuffle is real—blocks pulled from one layer, pressed into another, over and over again.
There’s no tidy way around it. And yet, despite the awkward transitions, it’s a sure sign that life is actually moving—not just sitting still.
I’ve realised I’d rather be sifting through a stack—making space, adjusting, finding a rhythm—than trying to manage life from a scattered pile. You know the one: blocks in every direction, nothing aligned, no pattern to hold onto.
There’s something grounding about arranging life into patterns. Even in the chaos—among invoices and unexpected block towers—there’s a kind of order.
What I’m getting at it: stacked is better than scattered.
Even if it means shifting, swapping, or dropping a few along the way. If life feels stacked right now, take it as a sign—you’re in the thick of living.
I am not highlighting that mine is stacked more so than say, yours, but for point of reference I can refer to … only mine.