After a week of feeling like this I've done the one thing that really helps me to focus after prayer: I wrote it out in my journal and I've come to a conclusion. I am indeed trapped. I am trapped by the every day, same old routine, nothing has changed in far far too long bit of my life.
I ran over the various areas of my life and I find that I am repeating what I've become accustomed to doing. Not introducing anything new or challenging. And therein lies the big source of my angst. I need to be challenged.
I had more or less begun to grasp this earlier this year, when I jumped into major projects headlong and really pushed to accomplish a number of tasks around the house and yard. I can just about pinpoint where I lost steam as well. That was about June and it wasn't just heat related issues, but family ones, that caused me to lose my footing and come to a complete halt.
This month of course, I am going to be busy enough with the usual added activities that December normally brings, but I am going to definitely be planning ahead for next month and I mean to jump head long into new projects and issue myself a few challenges as well in various homemaking areas. Katie and V have made me think long and hard about trying recipes that are far more challenging than I'm accustomed to try. I know several ladies are joining in baking challenges and trying some really difficult recipes. I think this is partly inspired by the Julie/Julia food blog/book/movie popularized a couple of years ago. I don't want to just limit myself to cooking challenges. There are so many things I wish to accomplish and it does seem to me that now is a great 'some day' time in my life.
As well, I've realized that I am seriously off kilter with my schedule. I seem to have more demands than ever upon my time. I can accomplish four times as much in one quarter the time when I'm alone. I must maximize those alone days and be a far better manager of my time. I do not like to work until I am so weary I can't sit down without dozing off. I am not interested in being chronically busy. I just want to be sure I have things planned out well before I start. I lose long moments of time unintentionally. I spend far too long contemplating a project when I really meant to be working upon it because I didn't stop to think about all the project might entail. So I get stopped, sometimes just as I've started, because I must think out the next two or three steps and then I'm stopped again as I figure out how to conclude. Better to plan it out well before hand and then tackle it with zeal and a solid working plan, I think.
I also need planned rest/quiet time daily and this too is where I've gotten out of balance. I am either full on go go go or I spend an entire day doing nothing but quiet work. I need better balance there, a mix of hard work with quiet work, as well as a time to set aside work and simply relax. It is true that I find the whole business of keeping house/writing/working at home a very difficult thing to cut off. When I worked outside the home, I walked away from my work and drove home...and there was a time each day when I ceased work in the home as well and relaxed. I find now that I am home full time that there never seems to be a point where I cease work. I have a terrible tendency of late to postpone my blogging until 'later' usually around 9-10pm! That is far far too late to start a blog post (and hence the reason why posts are so sadly lacking of late). By the same token, I find that taking time to write first thing in the day means that household work is pushed off until after lunch...And by that time, my energy is lower and I am less likely to tackle a big project. Also a problem for me when I leave home too early and then come home afternoons thinking I should tackle household or blog work. Sigh.
So for this month at least the posts may be slightly fewer for a week or two or three more, but I do promise you I'm not gone. I'm just busy making resolutions about schedules, attempting to keep up with the additional things that come up in December, and planning what I hope to do with this blog come the New Year.
1 comment:
You and I sound like we've been stuck in the same rut. I think my biggest problem is I don't actually see anything being accomplished and get discouraged. There's the daily stuff that just never ends (dishes, laundry, dusting, sweeping, and general picking up), and my days are often so interrupted or spent sort of half cocked that I don't manage to get half done of what I intended to. What I mean by half-cocked is I never know the boys' schedules. When or if they're coming home for lunch, how long they'll be here, what time they're coming home for the day, etc. Larger tasks, like mopping (something I have been doing in spots room to room), will often get put off because I just don't know if someone is going to come tramp mud in right over my damp floors. There is so much to get sorted, put away, tossed, repurposed, etc. that I feel almost at a loss as to where to start. When I don't see progress, I get frustrated and then wonder if I'm fighting a lost cause.
I took your advice this past weekend, though. I took a slacker day, and since my laundry was all caught up I took a slacker weekend. I read a book I've been wanting to read for months, finished knitting a present for B, and actually feel better somewhat. Of course, all the stuff I didn't do is still waiting for me to do it, but I enjoyed reading that book. :)
I need to go back over to PennyAnn to look at those housekeeping 101 posts you did, and actually sit down and create a plan of attack. I need to give myself a work schedule an stick to it, and have an alternate work schedule for when I have typing to get done. If I have a plan, and actually follow it, maybe I'll feel more accomplished at the end of the day rather than looking around and wondering why I can't *see* a noticeable improvement.
*HUGS*
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