Tales from the Home Front Balancing Work, Play, and Well-Being

Life has a way of reminding us that we're not invincible, and sometimes those reminders come hard and fast. Join me, Jenny, as I reveal how the whirlwind of work and family life, amplified by a sudden spate of illnesses and spring break madness, brought me face-to-face with my own limitations. This week, I'm taking you through a very personal journey—a candid exploration of self-care's undeniable value and the life-altering impact of losing a colleague too soon. As we navigate the messy, beautiful chaos of daily life, I'll share the shifts I've made to prioritize health checks and rest, and how these changes enrich my family interactions, even when the New Jersey rain keeps us indoors.

Summary
In this episode, Jenny discusses the challenges of spring break and the importance of rest and self-care. She shares a personal wake-up call about the need to prioritize health and take care of oneself. Jenny emphasizes the significance of self-care beyond surface-level activities and highlights the importance of maintaining good health for longevity. She also discusses the balance between work and personal health. Additionally, Jenny announces a format change for the podcast and shares her plans for the summer. She concludes by sharing activities to keep kids entertained during spring break, including arts and crafts and cooking challenges.

Takeaways

• Rest and self-care are essential for physical and mental well-being.
• Prioritizing health and addressing warning signs early can prevent serious health issues.
• Self-care goes beyond surface-level activities and includes taking care of one's health.
• Taking care of one's health early in life can lead to better long-term outcomes.
• Balancing work and personal health is crucial for overall well-being.
• Engaging activities like arts and crafts and cooking challenges can keep kids entertained during spring break.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction and Spring Break Challenges

02:26
The Importance of Rest and Self-Care

06:16
The Wake-Up Call: Taking Care of Your Health

08:10
Self-Care Beyond the Surface

10:33
Prioritizing Health for Longevity

11:02
Balancing Work and Personal Health

12:42
Format Change and Summer Plans

13:40
Keeping Kids Entertained During Spring Break

15:02
Arts and Crafts Activities

15:57
Cooking Challenges with Kids

16:26
Wrapping Up and Looking Forward

Transcript

Jenny Benitez: 0:02

Hello everybody, welcome to Steel Roses podcast. This podcast was created for women by women. Little unorthodox recording sessions happening this week. You are getting Jenny in the moment, raw and real, very unedited and unfiltered.

Jenny Benitez: 0:22

This week is spring break in my town and it's always a little bit complicated when the kids are out of school because I'm used to my routine being a certain way. I'm used to having flexibility during the daytime and quiet and getting a lot of things done during the day, and this week was just not going to be one of those weeks. Now, in preparation for this week, usually I would have front loaded, and by that I mean I would have last week pre-recorded, set everything up, had it all ready to go. Unfortunately, last week a stomach virus was making its way through my household. I was the second person to get it, which was pretty awful, and then my stomach virus actually turned into strep throat, which was actually a little odd because I didn't even know that that would be a thing. It was very frustrating for me because I had a lot on my mind last week. Last week was going to be a push week for me. As I mentioned, it was going to be one of those weeks where I was pushing for recordings for this week because I know my kids are going to be home so my schedule is going to be more chaotic. But outside of that, it was also a push week for me for launching the how to Podcast learning modules that I've been talking about with you guys and I'm like I'm like 95% of the way there. I have probably just a couple more buttons to push to actually launch it. But I just got I. I just started getting sick. Last Monday I started getting sick. I took a half day and then I wasn't able to return to work until Thursday, and even on Thursday I was still a little loopy. It took me the whole week to really bounce all the way back, including the weekend. So it was just a tough one.

Jenny Benitez: 2:18

Um, in those moments I used to get really frustrated and really overwhelmed and angry and just be kind of breaking down because I couldn't do everything that I would be wanting to do and I'd be snapping at everyone and pretty much just a bear the whole week. That's normally my normal reaction to being sick, because I hate being slowed down and I really, truly mean that I cannot stand being slowed down. It just irks me to my core, because it's just one of those things. You all know me well enough to know how I roll, basically, and slowing down is really not something that I love. I will say that in those moments now I do try to take those moments, especially when I'm sick, to say to myself like you know what your body needs to recover here. You can't push through this. This is not an instance anymore where you can just bear down and just get through it and power through it One. It's not good for you to do that, physically or mentally. Really, in order for your body to properly heal, you really do need to rest, and for many, many, many, many years I did not adhere to that. I would just plow on through.

Jenny Benitez: 3:32

I worked all the time. I was just one of those people and I took a lot of pride in that until a couple years ago, and that had changed for me pretty tremendously. Now, on one hand, it changed because of my children and my husband and I saw me and my obsession with constant work and constant doing things I started to see the flaw in it because I was missing time with them and I was missing out on literally just daily stuff. Because I was missing time with them and I was missing out on literally just daily stuff. But I was missing it and that's really what life is about is the daily day in and day out.

Jenny Benitez: 4:13

And then the other thing that happened in the last couple of years was that I found out that a colleague, a former colleague of mine, that I had worked with probably about eight or nine years ago, had passed away, and she was not that much older than me. I think I found out about it when I was about 38-ish or 39. She was only maybe in her early 40s like 42, 43, really not that far off from me and she was walking out of her house with her fiance and she had a massive coronary event and she died on her front lawn. And I found out about it by chance. We hadn't stayed in touch during the years, and after I left the agency that we were working together at, we didn't stay in touch with each other and I happened to actually see this update come across on LinkedIn and that she had passed away.

Jenny Benitez: 5:12

And when I found out what happened, that also layered on top of me being like I need to put a stop to this rat race mentality that I had in my head. In a nutshell, she was a workaholic. Job always came first. She constantly was just not going to the doctor, not taking care of herself and she, with something simple that started as an infection, um got into her bloodstream because she um just didn't never took care of herself and it um, she went into septic shock, she had a heart attack. She was very unwell by the end and she lost her life. She lost her whole life and her family lost her um. I reflect on it especially when I'm not feeling well, because that was like one of those eye-opening key moments for me, hearing this information, because, well, it's not that I was that far off.

Jenny Benitez: 6:22

I mean, for three years after my daughters were born, I didn't go to the doctor. For three years I did not go to the doctor. I didn't go to an OBGYN. I didn't go to the doctor. For three years I did not go to the doctor. I didn't go to an OBGYN, I didn't go to a primary care specialist. I didn't go to anybody for three years because I just could not figure out the time to go. I was able to, in those three years, work until 3 am if I needed to. I was able to be up and down all night with my children. If they needed me, I was able to be there. For my husband if he needed me, I was able to be there. For everybody else, but I wasn't there for myself, and I want to make sure that I'm highlighting here the importance of taking care of yourself.

Jenny Benitez: 7:07

Now, the big buzzword out there these days is self-care right, but when people tout self-care on social media, they usually make it seem like it's just this oh, clean up your space, put some plants out, do some yoga which I mean that is part of it but sit in quiet, read a book yes, yeah, yes, yes, yes. Prioritizing some quiet time for yourself, absolutely A hundred percent self-care. Getting your hair done, nails done, all that stuff, anything that makes you feel good about yourself yes, of course, that's self-care. I'm talking about the self-care that needs to happen in regards to your health, your health care, because that is a big deal. If you are not taking care of your health and you're ignoring warning signs for things and just brushing it to the side, you're just, you're coping with all this and you're not actually getting help for anything, and something that could be very small in the beginning will balloon if you don't take care of it and you don't address it properly will balloon if you don't take care of it and you don't address it properly. This goes for any disease that you have, like anything that could be bothering you, any ailment that you have, and this is definitely like a pot calling the kettle black situation.

Jenny Benitez: 8:32

Like I am the worst at this. I am so bad at this I only recently have started to take better care of myself. My husband quite often has said to me you have to take care of yourself because basically I'm the mother ship and if the ship goes down, the whole family goes down. And he's right. Everyone depends on me. So if I'm not prioritizing myself, if I'm not taking those important moments to go and get blood work done, get a physical, go to the OBGYN, get yourself checked out, make sure everything's all set, good and ready to go, go to the chiropractor. In my instance, in my case, I have to go to the chiropractor once a week and I'm severely slacking on that, severely slacking on that. It's those kinds of things that is going to allow you to age well and people don't really realize that I'm planning on being around close to my hundreds. That's my goal. I want to get up there. My grandmother's 95. I want to be up there with her Grandma Rose, 95.

Jenny Benitez: 9:38

It's important to maintain yourself, not just the look on the outside appearance, but also internally. It's just incredibly important. I only recently in the past year had started taking vitamins again things like that but it was at the recommendation of my doctor and the prompting of my doctor, because I was explaining about all these symptoms that I was having. And you know they said Well, I'll just take this supplement, this supplement that's. It'll probably help you and it did tremendously. It tremendously helped me. So it's incredibly important to make sure that you're putting that practice into effect and I strongly recommend it. If you're hearing this and you're in your 30s and you're still not taking care of yourself, get on it now, because the sooner that you do it and the sooner that you're putting yourself in a better physical state, you will be so much more grateful for it later on. There's so much to it that is going to benefit you for the rest of your life if you take good care of your health earlier and earlier.

Jenny Benitez: 10:32

So I just wanted to plug that, because I was so sick last week and I was so frustrated at one point. But I knew that if I didn't just lay there and sleep, that sickness would have stayed with me much longer. Now I was frustrated because I lost time last week and I had to push out my how to podcast launch. I couldn't get any of my recordings done for the week. Yeah, I was frustrated about that, I was pissed, but I also knew better. So I took two and a half days off, that's it. I allowed myself. Two and a half days For me that's a big deal and I was only very ill for those two and a half days. Now, the only reason why I was only sick for two and a half days is because prior to that, I was taking really good care of my health and I was making sure I was getting the supplements that I need as a 40-year-old woman. And I was making sure I was getting the supplements that I need as a 40 year old woman and I was making sure that my gut health is good. And then I'm eating my vegetables, that I'm a vegetarian? Obviously I am.

Jenny Benitez: 11:32

So you know like you have to take those steps, because then, when the time comes that you actually do get sick, your body's already there. Your body's already kind of prepared for it and is able to bounce back better and faster. I was back at work on Thursday and I was a little bit slowed down and I had to prioritize things with my energy level, because that was actually how I came back Thursday. Friday, I knew that I wasn't going to have my normal energy levels and so I just took it slow and I just did what I could and I made sure I got through it and I was okay and I got through the end of the week and I got through the weekend and I was fine and now I'm back to myself. So take the time to make sure you're doing proper care in advance of being sick and then, should you get sick, take the time, let yourself heal, let your body heal. Don't push yourself, because you're going to regret that later on in life. You really will. So, again, incredibly important.

Jenny Benitez: 12:27

The other bit that I actually had wanted to share with you guys so this week the format's going to change a little bit. My kids are home, so, as opposed to a long episode early in the week, you're actually going to be getting dailies from me. I'm kind of excited about the format shift. This is a format we're testing out and myself and my cousin Melissa we're going to be testing it out this summer. For those of you who only joined in season two, in season one when the podcast was launched, my cousin Melissa and I were actually launched the series together. But she teaches. She's a professor, so it was very difficult during the academic year for her to be involved. Professor, so it was very difficult during the academic year for her to be involved. So we actually have very high hopes that this summer she'll actually be able to come back into the mix. So that'll be really cool. You'll see that coming through in like the June July area, and then this week you're going to get to enjoy some very quick little mini-sodes with me every single day.

Jenny Benitez: 13:26

The Avengers this week is spring break, as I mentioned earlier on a couple of minutes ago, and the adventures are going to be all housebound because in New Jersey it is raining and all of my plans for spring break were outside. So I get the joy of having to come up with things to keep my kids occupied and busy and entertained. I really want them to have a nice spring break. I'm not really a sit in front of the TV person with them, I'm more of a let's roll our sleeves up, let's do something person. So today was day one and we did lots of arts and crafts today. So it was Play-Doh. We had, like, I got some new Play-Doh kits so they played with their Play-Doh. They played with modeling clay today, um, they did some creativity on poster boards. Um, hot tip for any mom rainy day tips.

Jenny Benitez: 14:23

Um, I usually will go to Walmart and pick up poster boards for like a dollar or the trifold, posters for like presentations. I will actually pick a couple of those up and then I just let the kids go nuts on them. Let them draw whatever they want, they can paint it, they can do whatever they want with it. It keeps them entertained, it gets their creativity going, gets them off their screens for a little bit, and you know they enjoy it. They really, really like to get in there and get active and be creative. And you know what? It's something that I feel good about them doing because it's not that expensive. Most of us have, you know, crayons and stuff and whatnot in the house and it keeps them occupied and I love seeing what they come up with with their little poster boards. So that was a lot of today.

Jenny Benitez: 15:10

Tomorrow, more poster boards and that kind of stuff. If we run out of things that'll be happening in the morning, I'm going to probably do a cooking challenge with them. So tomorrow I believe we're going to be doing candied grapes. So I found or one of my kids we have kids cookbooks and I had them all pick out recipes that they wanted to try and in one of them it's basically like grapes that are rolled in gelatin and then you put them in the refrigerator and it, you know, hardens the gelatin and then it's supposed to be like eating, you know, candy basically. So we're trying that out tomorrow morning, as well as chocolate covered bananas, because they seem to really like that as well.

Jenny Benitez: 15:54

Obviously, who wouldn't? So those are the things for tomorrow morning. I'm excited about it. And then in the afternoon I'll let them do arts and crafts, video games, whatever, but I do try to do some kind of something engaging with them that I'm personally doing with them, because in the afternoons I work this week. So that's the plan for tomorrow. I will let you know tomorrow, when I record tomorrow evening, how everything goes. Wish me luck on this rainy, rainy week where I am still working and still podcasting and have my children home with me. I hope all you are having a great week. I hope everyone's doing well. Greatly appreciate everybody listening and hanging in there with me. I'm very excited to still be with all of you and to be continuing on with this journey with you. So take care, everybody, and I will chat with you tomorrow.