The daily grind

In the past six months I have gone from stay at home mum, to full time working mum and I am about to go back again as my work was a 6 month contract.
It has been a great experience and I am very fortunate to have been given this opportunity through Hope Empowered, a great community focused organisation. However, it has been an adjustment not being home with Rayya every day. She has loved being at daycare with friends, but since she has begun, she definitely treasures one on one mummy daughter time much more. A little while ago when we would just be doing something together, she'd say is it going to be just you and me mummy? And I'd say yes bub and she would clap and cheer and be so excited at some time on our own. I sincerely hope she doesn't grow out of that too fast! I love time at home with my girl, and I've found I really enjoy doing things with her, that I can remember doing with my mum when I was her age. Just going to the shops to do groceries, going to the bank, and having a treat at the shops while we are there.
But as it is in this day and age, we can't survive on a single income and I am already looking to find work for when this job finishes,  although I won't be complaining if it so happens that I find part time work, especially since I am wanting to study as well.

This is my business card that I designed at work. A front and back view.

Do you know that if you even want to be considered for a home loan at a bank you need to have already saved a 10% deposit? Thats at a minimum $30,000 in cash, you need under your belt. That certainly isn't realistic for us right now, and we are two people both working full time. Is it just us? Is that a realistic possibility for others?  We are certainly feeling like we are under the daily grind at the moment. Both heads down, bums up hardly time or money for anything recreational. Is this where most people are at?
We went to a new bible study this week and it was a shock to me to find out of a group of over 10 christians, almost everyone struggled to have joy on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis, my husband and I included. It seems we are stuck, between struggling to get ahead in our own lives, not ahead so that we are rich or even wealthy, but ahead enough to get by and be comfortable. But also stuck because while those needs are all very realistic and reasonable, at the same time we are convicted that there is so much more to be worried about in this world, and the things that are pulling us down, and strangling our joy, pale in comparison to the needs of the world, and the needs of people who haven't yet found Jesus.

And this is a magazine cover that I designed at work also.

Where is the balance? How can we show others joy, if we don't even know what it is ourselves? Is there a middle ground between seeking out only for yourself and your family, and selling everything and moving to a third world country and working in orphanages? Which by the way I would love to do at some stage. i am certainly not mocking the idea in that sentence. Is this just us??