Some Baby Steps

There really is so much going on in my life right now between taking care of kids and all their activities and various needs plus schooling and then you add in running the household and now the remodel as well.  There are a lot of days that I want to run screaming for the hills because it is all just so overwhelming.  I can't do that since every time I've tried the kids just run after me and those buggers are fast.  They cry and hug me and beg me to come back and I get suckered in for another round.  (J/K....mostly)

I've spent a lot of time just trying to get by and it's working...sort of.  Everyone has clean clothes even if they do have to get them out of the laundry basket.  There is food in the house and most of the time, the bills even get paid.  Kids are where they need to be mostly on time and school gets done.  But it's stressful.  The messier the house the gets, the more things aren't getting done, the more I shut down and have a hard time focusing on all the things that need to get done because there are just so freaking many.  It's a problem I'm aware of and I keep working on but it's a hard one to power through some days.  I know many people have it and I'm careful to make sure that things don't get so overwhelming that we can't maintain the basics but some days, even doing that much is sooo hard.

I recently took over cleaning the kitchen again.  Giving it to Chris hasn't worked out in terms of telling him (and showing him a bazillion times) and then leaving to go do other things.  So I've given up on that for now.  I've taken it back and just having the kitchen clean has made a huge difference for how I feel and my motivation to get things done.  All to the good.

I've also been doing a lot to get organized in other ways.  I got some spreadsheets done for organizing the grades for the boys so I can actually know exactly how they are doing rather than the rough "well, it's at least an 80% since I don't accept anything lower" I've been going by.  I've also made up spreadsheets for all their lessons so I can see what our make-up situation is like.  Much better than having to ask and wait for people to get back to me or just not get the make-ups because no one remembers about it.

I'm also back on the healthy lifestyle wagon.  Menu planning is really essential with our crazy schedule these days and I'm sick of the lack of energy and general blah feeling from not working out.  I've joined the BLC17 on SparkPeople and another one that starts soon by some friends on Facebook.  I've done both of these a number of times but illness or injury has ended up sidelining me and I've just drifted away.  My goal this time is to simply stick with it.  Working exercise back in is going to be hard but I know that it's worth it.  I may not feel that way right now since I had my first date back with Tony and I'm totally sore and totally tired but I know that in a couple of weeks, I will.

So that's where things are at right now.  Hoping I can keep it up as things are only going to get more nuts as the school year continues.