Am I the only one who is perpetually swearing up and down that any minute now, life is going to be totally different?
Starting Monday…
Starting Sunday…
Starting next month…
Starting next year…
Starting tomorrow morning…
As soon as the baby starts sleeping through the night…
As soon as we settle into a routine…
As soon as I can WALK ON MY DAMN FOOT AGAIN…
As soon as I get such and such work project done that I’m obsessing about…
As soon as I get the guest room cleaned out…
As soon as it gets warm again…
As soon as it cools off…
then I will…
floss.
eat five servings a day of fruits and vegetables.
make time to sew.
keep the backyard weed population to a reasonable level.
take my vitamins.
have time to start several new awesome blogs.
have time to make massive improvements to the five (eek!) blogs I already pretend to maintain.
figure out something to do with this horrible cluttered desk where I work 35 hours a week.
find interesting things for us to do during family hanging out time.
spend more time with the friends I do have in Austin.
send birthday cards on time.
sleep a reasonable number of hours.
etc.
It’s ludicrous. I have never overhauled my entire life all at once, and I’m not going to start just because the waiting list screening is caught up or I had a vacation weekend or it’s Tuesday or whatever phony landmark in time I’m pretending will herald revolution. Especially these days. These days, meaning since I had a baby, every small change feels like dragging a broken car up a mountain with my bare hands. And now we’re heading into the dark cold part of the year, which makes it hard for me to think at night, so I have to switch around when I plan to do things that require my brain. Balancing the checkbook at night? Not likely.
This week, though, for the first time ever, I made a meal plan for the week. C-Man finally agreed to it, provided I did not include weekends. He likes spontaneity with food. I tried to stage it so that even if my child care disappeared for the entire week (due to ongoing kitten drama), I could still do some prep during Boy Detective’s nap and end up with a dinner that included not just an entree, but a vegetable and possibly even a fruit as well.
This thrilled my child care provider (who is also Boy Detective’s grandma and who did not disappear) to no end and she has proceeded to basically make most of the meals. Apparently she was about to stage a coup if we did not start eating something besides pizza, quesadillas, and bread. Her “I will feed you because I love you” impulse is in full swing, and that’s perfectly fine with me. (Although I’m sure that blogging about it will cause some of you to show up at my house and kill me with sticks. Seriously, though, if you are jealous, remember that 91% of my take-home goes to her household. For that, I am not going to stop her from chopping vegetables just so the envy monster doesn’t chew on your toes.)
So let’s hope that can stay under control (note to self: don’t wait until Sunday night to make plan due to aforementioned lack of brain function after dark). Then what’s next? Maybe I can focus enough to find the other half of my garage, the guest room, and my sewing room under all the piles of “need to leave the house” things?
Oh great. I told C-Man just the other day that I was going to change my life and start going to bed at 10.
Skye, this post is exactly what I needed to read today. There’s no time like the present, is there? And one could argue that there’s never any time BUT the present!
To that end, I resolved to get much more organized this week, in an effort to reduce my stress level. So far, so good. My stomach hasn’t started eating itself yet, and it’s already Thursday!
So good luck with your meal plans and your bedtime ambitions!
I love that you included “eat five servings a day of fruits and vegetables” in your list. :)
Having a meal plan helps us budget-wise, too. Good luck with it!
It’s so true, isn’t it, that we put off so many things. There are so many “to dos” on my list that I feel like I don’t have time “to don’t.” And, I don’t even have kids! (well, except our furry ones) Good luck on your quest to fill those in to your life. I’m trying to, too!
I think we are all like that – men and women. Certainly, I am always seem to be waiting for something to settle just right in my life.
I have to learn to do things because I need (want) to do them, not because the mood is right.
The mood is usually only right for procrastinating.
I try to “just do it”, but fall far too often into “just get distracted”.