How a Terrible Doctor Appointment, Crazy Family Life, and an Impossible Challenge Led to This Blog!
Hi, I’m Kat Furman. My friends have called me Kat since high school which was longer ago than I would like to admit. Let me tell you a little about my family before I talk about the rest. We are a family of 6. My husband, Robert, and I work from home. We have 4 homeschooled, (since the oldest was in kinder), children. They range in age from 14 down to 18 months. Surrounded by all that craziness, things got away from us. You know: money, time, health, and everything else that goes by the wayside when you’re trying to make a life; or even just trying to make ends meet.
Time for the doctor appointment. It was two, really. Robert was told that he had type 2 diabetes, and hypertension. This didn’t really come as a surprise, as we did not take very good care of ourselves. We take great care of the children, but our health always came last. I know this is crazy familiar to most of you reading this. He needed to lose 25-50 pounds as soon as possible. Then came my appointment: I topped the scales at 325 Pounds. I had let myself go from years of neglecting myself. When Robert and I met and married, I was a solid 170. But 4 kids and 15 years later, I was almost DOUBLE that. My liver function is in question. For those of you that don’t know, that is worse and much, much scarier than the hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol Robert is facing. I was told that I needed to lose 10% of my body weight. NOW.
Crazy family life in the pandemic… that’s an understatement. The 14 year old, Michael, is in 8th grade. The 11 year old, Cassie, is in 5th grade. Daniel is 4, and all that entails. Evie, the youngest, is 18 months. This many children is a full-time job by itself. Between their school, our work, scouts, playtime, and everything else that is required; we find not enough time at the end of the day, and not enough money at the end of the month. I know this is not a new or even exciting story in today’s climate.
When trying to balance all these priorities, I got lost. I lost myself, and my family along the way. That’s where the challenge comes in: how can I support my family, my goals, and my own sense of self, while still doing the necessary things to feed my family, enrich the lives of my husband and children and meet our financial and life goals? So we started this blog. We are Taming Life’s Chaos everyday. Some days we win, and the chaos is tamed, some days we lose and the chaos tames us. But our biggest hope is that our blog, and our stories, will help others to tame the chaos that they have. Each of us will be contributing to this blog in the days to come. We all try to take our days with humor, fun, and a sense of wonder.
We all look forward to writing, and showing you all the things we do to manage all aspects of our lives. Michael and Cassie will teach other children to be self-starters, and determined and driven in their studies, and still have fun, in our Bigs Corner. Evie and Daniel, while not writing content themselves will be sharing milestones, and fun encounters in our Littles Corner. Robert and I will help all the parents in five main areas: Food (menu plans, recipes, managing food for 6 and other odds and ends from our kitchen), Fitness (we have a combined weight of 200 pounds to lose, as well as getting in shape), Finance (we all need savings and retirement, and we’ll show you how as we start from scratch), Fun (we will show you things that you can do on a budget with a big family for fun, while keeping everyone safe and happy), and Family (what we do to keep our family life strong, and deal with the challenges of parenting 4 kids that couldn’t be more different if they tried).
Here’s to 2021 being the year we all start attaining all our goals!
Kat, Robert, Michael, Cassie, Daniel and Evie