***All images in this post are copyright Julia and Jeff Woods***

NEXT WEEK: Carla Ten Eyck

{To nominate women you'd like to see in this series please list them in the comments-or if you have a question you'd like to see in the interviews--make sure to include your info in the comment fields so that I can get in touch with you- or write to me at: davina at davinafear dot com }

Davina, I am reading over these questions and am nearly moved to tears! Yes, I get stressed and yes, I get overwhelmed! I am currently working through both. I know that as wives, mothers, and business woman we all deal with similar things. So, I am happy to answer these questions and hopefully support my fellow friends.

You and your husband seem to be the perfect team. What top 5 things do you do to manage work and life together?

Jeff and I are the perfect team in so many ways, but we definitely have our weaknesses. Just like most people, we marry someone who is the opposite of us. That is good in a lot of ways, but we are finding the stress in how we enable each other in our weaknesses. We at times have to get professional help to assist us through our differences.

I understand that you homeschool your children. What led you to that decision? And how does that look on a daily basis for you and your schedule?

We decided to home school so that we could stay as a family unit and allow our children to work through their childhood andadolescence in the environment of loving parents and siblings, rather then the unpredictable and sometimes cruel peers of a school room setting.

We are currently working with a wonderful curriculum that makes the daily responsibilities of home schooling so much more manageable. Wehave a kindergartner, 3rd grader, 6th grader, and Freshman. I work with thekindergartner about 3 times a week for about 60-90 minutes a day as we work through learning to read. The other three are pretty well self maintained. I create their lesson plans at the beginning of the year, and that helps them know what to do each day. Their is grading and testing seems to work right into the days activities. I go to the office 3 days a week in the morning and the children come with me. They have aseparate school room to do their work and then they play in one of their two different play areas making up plays, doing cooking shows, and all the other crazy fun things kids do. In the late afternoons, two days a week a babysitter comes in and takes them to the park, library, or other fun places.

What do you think are the most important things you do as a mom every day?

1. Hugging my kids every morning and night.

2. Giving them love rubs, touches, and snuggles through out the day.

3. Trying to make opportunity for quality time with them. (Playing games, holding them on my lap, walking and talking, ect.)

What do you think are the top three things you must do as a business woman every day?

1. Try to see the big picture

2. Invest in our staff members

3. Make our clients feel special

You and your husband seem to have a wonderful sense of humor, creativity, and happiness. How do you keep that up when you’re feeling stressed out? Or do you just not get stressed out?

Date night has been very important to Jeff and I staying happy together. Because our relationship with each other is most important to us, we have a love and friendship that can weather the many stressful days of being business owners together. However, when we get stressed out as we are right now, (we are the unhappy owners of two houses - ouch!) we fight a bit and then realize no matter what happens we have each other and that is what is most important. We pray together about whatever is causing the stress and try to stop taking it out on each other.

What 5 tips do you have for women to help them maintain a balance in their lives between everything they have to do?

1. Make time for your faith

2. Make your spouse more important than anyone else

3. make you children more important than your business

4. take time to understand the business side of photography, so that you can make your business create the life you want for you and your family.

5. understand that without happy clients - you will have to work twice as hard to get more

How do you manage to keep up with all of the new projects, speaking engagements, children, soccer games, keeping it fresh with your husband, and so many other things?

Like I said, Jeff and I know we have to keep working at love, it doesn't just magically exist. We didn't magically fall in love and decide to get married, we worked at. After the wedding day, I think it takes even more work to stay in love. You have to schedule time for it. We have date night every other week. The babysitter is set and we just hang out. We didn't understand this for the first 8 years of our marriage, but once the kids and business came along, boy did we learn the hard way. Now that we take time for our relationship, it hasn't made everything perfect, but we both roll with the punched a lot easier, because their is a sense ofsecurity in the relationship.

Staying fresh in other things is somewhat effected by this as well. When you have your best friend walking through it with you, you just support each other and it usually works that when one is weak the other is strong and vice versa. We enjoy art, shopping, big cities, and fancy restaurants. These things help us get a fresh perspective.

Is there anything you wish you would have done differently over the years as a mom/business woman? If so, what? And what did you learn through those experiences?

There was about a two year period that I allowed our business to be my life. I put it above my faith, Jeff, and our children. I just put my head down and pushed forward trying to make the business successful in hopes that Jeff could quit his job and come full time into the business. I ran on about 3-4 hours of sleep a night and was going crazy trying with all my strength to make it work. I became miserable as a person and not much fun for anyone else to be around! What I didn't understand was no matter how hard I worked, it wasn't going to change much, because I did not understand how to run a business. I was so badly under priced that there was never enough money to make ends meet. I wish I could change that period of time in my life, but it did teach me a very important lesson that I still have to learn sometimes. This business will take everything I am willing to give it, and I am not willing to give it my family!!!

Are there times that you feel overwhelmed? What do you do?

When I feel really overwhelmed, I go for a walk. I see God's beautiful creation and I realize that in the bigscheme of things, what I am dealing with is not going to be the end of the world.

To see more of Julia's Work:

Wedding Website

PortraitWebsite

Blog

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***All images in this post are copyright Julia and Jeff Woods***

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