About Wendy | Mom of Five, Founder of Cozy Cadence

The before

Running on empty and calling it normal.

For a long time I went most of the week without showering. Not once. That was just the week. Every week. Not because I didn't care about myself. Because by the time everyone else's needs were met there was genuinely nothing left. Not ten minutes. Not some hot water. Nothing that belonged to me.

I was the one who remembered everything. What needed to happen next. Who needed what. What was running out. What was about to go wrong if nobody acted. I held the mental infrastructure of our entire household in my head, every single hour of every single day, and I had been doing it for so long it had become completely unremarkable.

To me. To everyone around me. Just how things worked.

Mum of 3.
Blended family
of 7.

The turning point

I completely fell apart.
Over a garbage app.

Here in the Netherlands we have a system. Three types of trash, picked up on different days. There is an app that sends a notification the night before so you know what goes out. A very normal, very boring, very functional app.

Every single time a notification came in, I was the one who saw it. I was the one who read it. I was the one who then turned to my boyfriend and said "the green bin goes out tomorrow." He would nod and say thanks and take the bin out and the whole thing would take four minutes and look, from the outside, completely fine.

Except I was the one who knew. I was the one tracking. I was the one holding the information, processing the information, and distributing it before anything could actually happen.

The bin didn't just go out. I made the bin go out. And nobody saw that part. Not even me. Until the night I completely fell apart in my living room and could not explain to my boyfriend why.

It was not about the bin. It was about every notification I had ever absorbed quietly. Every invisible yes I had said without anyone asking. Every piece of emotional and mental work I had been doing behind the scenes while everyone else just showed up and lived their lives.

That was the moment I finally saw it. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

The real life bit

Five kids. A dog. A cat. Two completely different rulebooks.

When my boyfriend and I moved in together we had two kids each. Mine were three and four. His were nine and twelve. Nobody had a manual for this. Nobody tells you that blending a family means blending completely different ideas of how a household runs, what kids are responsible for, what a mum does.

One night I had cooked dinner for six people, in a kitchen that already felt too small, after a day that had already felt too long. Dinner ended. And then, one by one, everyone disappeared outside to play. Plates on the table. Pans on the stove.

His kids were nine and twelve. Old enough. But it was completely normal to them that the kitchen would just reset itself. That the woman who had cooked for everyone would also, obviously, clean up.

I stood in that kitchen and I lost it. Not a little. A lot. And then I did the dishes anyway. Because that is what you do. You say the thing. And then you clean up the mess. Literally and figuratively.

What I believe

The things that did not change when everything else did.

You are not the problem

The exhaustion, the snapping, the guilt. None of that means you are failing. It means you are carrying too much and nobody designed a system to help you put any of it down.

Validation before advice

You do not need someone to fix you or tell you what to do differently. You need someone to see what you are actually dealing with first. Everything else comes after that.

Real life only

Nothing I make requires quiet, alone time, or a perfect morning routine. It was all built for the mom who has two minutes between someone needing her and someone else needing her.

Honest over polished

I will never pretend I have it all figured out. I still have hard days. The difference is I have tools now. And those tools are what I share with you.

The after

Not perfect. Just lighter.

I want to be clear about what the other side looks like. Because it is not a perfect life. Not a house where nobody fights or a schedule that runs itself.

It is just a Tuesday morning that belongs to me.

I take a shower whenever I want. I know that sounds like the bare minimum. It wasn't, for a long time.
I sit on the couch in the quiet and do absolutely nothing and it is glorious.
I am learning to play the guitar. For no reason except that I wanted to. It has no practical function for anyone else in this house.
I got my boyfriend to actually take on the invisible load. Not by demanding it. By finally being able to name it clearly enough that he could see it too.

That is what I want for you. Not someday. Actually. In your real life with your real kids and your real chaos still fully intact.

The current bit

What life looks like now (mostly)

I am writing this from the kitchen table I almost destroyed in that dinner-cleanup moment. The kettle is on. There is a half-finished crossword on the corner that one of the kids started yesterday and walked away from, which is a useful metaphor for at least three things.

I run Cozy Cadence from this kitchen. Daily emails go out from here. I write at the same table where I once stood with a fork in my hand losing my entire mind. The table did not change. I changed the way I lived around it.

These days I am:

A mom of three plus two stepkids in a blended family that has finally figured out a few of its rhythms
A person who runs a small business in twenty hours a week, on purpose
Capable of leaving dishes on the table and going to bed anyway
Slowly getting better at the guitar, although nobody who has actually heard me play would call it good
Happier than I was when everything looked fine on paper

Cozy Cadence is everything I wish someone had handed me five years ago. The frameworks I figured out the hard way. The community I needed and could not find. The honesty I was starving for from every other mom-content corner of the internet.

If any of this sounds like the kind of place you have been looking for, you are right where you should be.

I was the mom who couldn't give her kids a hug.

Running on empty and calling it normal.

I completely fell apart.
Over a garbage app.

Five kids. A dog. A cat. Two completely different rulebooks.

The things that did not change when everything else did.

Not perfect. Just lighter.

What life looks like now (mostly)

You found the right place.

I was the mom who couldn't give her kids a hug.

Running on empty and calling it normal.

I completely fell apart.Over a garbage app.

Five kids. A dog. A cat. Two completely different rulebooks.

The things that did not change when everything else did.

Not perfect. Just lighter.

What life looks like now (mostly)

You found the right place.

I completely fell apart.
Over a garbage app.