New Year, With a Difference

So this morning I managed to sleep through my alarm.  Both of them.  And my husband trying to wake me up.  I'm blaming the rainy weather.

Trying to get back into some sort of schedule after two weeks of almost no schedule is really hard.

Yesterday I also took the time to sync up all the calendars in the house.  I look at the month  ahead and discover just exactly how busy I am.  Every day.  For a woman who is suppose to be a "work from home mom", I seem to be never home anymore.   Karate practice, basketball practice, basketball game, doctor's appointments, teaching at the school...  Pretty much, each one of those things takes up one day, and the entire day's schedule must revolve around just that one event.

The upside is that since I'm a writer, I can pretty much write anywhere.  I don't need a computer to do it, I can use a pencil and paper, and then add it into any document later on, when I get home.  This is especially awesome since where the kids have basketball and karate has no wi-fi.  Strange in this day and age, I know.  At the doctor's office I can get wi-fi, but even the guest accounts need passwords and pins and stuff like that.  So, I drop back to a small notebook in which to jot ideas and use my microcassette recorder in the car.

Yeah, remember microcassette recorders?  For those of you too young to remember, it's what we used before we had tablets and phones that could double as a voice recorder.  Mine was really advanced, and could be set to record only when someone was speaking.  That was to save tape space and batteries.  I set mine on voice activation when I'm in the car, which means it runs all the time between the kids and radio.  But I still do manage to get some ideas onto it.  I also set it up to record when I'm in the shower.  Why do I always get my best ideas in the shower?  I don't know.  Once I remember planning out an entire series of novels when I was rinsing dye out of my hair.  I pretty much even had the first couple of chapters outlined out.  It was awesome.  I didn't have a recorder going at the time, so I lost it all.  Taught me a lesson, let me tell you.

At any rate, I'm trying to schedule better, and I'm planning on trying to get more stuff out of the way on Saturdays and Sundays.  I still need to get my dinners planned out for the coming months.   Soon it will be time to hit the cupboards and freezer to do just that.  We'll see how all this goes.

I wish you all luck in the new year for a imperfectly perfect year.  Or at least the next couple of days.

;-)  

New Schedules Are Not for Christmas

Starting a new routine right around Christmas time is probably not the best idea in the world.

It's almost impossible to try to work, while preparing for a major holiday.  There have been so many other things pulling at me, and taking up my time.  Fun, joyful things that I would so much rather be doing.

It's important to take this time to be building memories with the family, instead of being tied to my computer, or a piece of paper and pencil.  

This year, I had a hard time trying to find the Christmas spirit.  It's been really warm and raining a lot, which is kind of odd for this area.  I kind of feel like if stuff is falling out of the sky this time of year, it should be white, and turning the world into a winter wonderland, not a gray, soggy mess.  I'm sure we'll get snow sometime soon.  And then I'll be freaking out, trying keep the driveway shoveled, and the house warm.  

I long for some sunshine, though.  

The kids enjoyed Christmas, and they are continuing to enjoy their presents, and getting to see family.  And isn't family what the season is really all about?  Getting to see those loved ones we don't get to see on a regular basis.  That's where the real joy is.  When I'm with my family, we spend a lot of time laughing, which makes everything better.  

I long for a routine, though.  Changes in routines are upsetting to me.  I don't deal well with being thrown curve balls, and just about everything around the holidays are curve balls.  I'm a planner.  I like to plan stuff out.  If it's not on my calendar or schedule, I feel it shouldn't be happening.  I don't like last minute things.  I try to plan stuff out far in advance, so I have time to wrap my brain around it, find the best way to fit things in, and plan around appointments and things like that.  It's the way I am.  

I don't necessarily like being that way.  And I know that life always throws us unexpected things.  It's the imperfect part of my world, and I have to adjust to it.  I'm going to keep trying.  Maybe, at some point down the road, I'll figure out a way to handle all the little things that life throws at me.  What's the old expression?  "If you want God to laugh at you, tell Him your plans."  It's all just part of living in the imperfect world.  

Until next time, keep it perfectly imperfect.

15 Minutes

So.... I'm trying something new (as always).

Over the past couple of months I have come to, once again, truly fall in love with Writing.  Of course, as with any relationship, we have our ups and downs.  There are days we go without speaking to each other.  There are times where we aggravate each other to no end.  I sometimes want to kick Writing out of my life forever.

I actually thought I had.  I thought I had kicked Writing to the curb, after many years in school, and doing almost nothing but writing.  (A Bachelors in History requires a LOT of writing.)

Now I'm having to come at it from a completely different angle.  When I was in school, I didn't have kids, and I was single.  It was so much easier then.

Now I have kids, a husband, a house, and everything that entails, which is a LOT.  A lot of responsibility, a lot fitting things in.

So, now that I have taken upon this new career as a ghostwriter, I'm trying to fit something new and different into my already hectic schedule.  It hasn't been working so great.  I hadn't been able to find the balance needed to accomplish everything, until I read this really great article.  And now, I'm actually trying it.

At first, I thought "Oh cripes.  What am I going to write about in my blog for 15 mins?"  Well, since I'm trying a new schedule, I can certainly write about that, right?  Yeah.  

I'll admit it, I was going to start yesterday.

That didn't go quite as I had planned it, but what does these days?

I slept through my alarm, woke up late, had to get the kids ready for school with barely enough coffee in me to get my eyes open.  So, the whole "get up, get dressed, and write for 15 minutes" was SERIOUSLY not going to happen.

My breakfast was nonexistent. I know I was busy doing something when I should have been eating breakfast, but I can't remember what it was.

And then, instead of spending a day toiling away in front of a computer screen, I spent the at my kids' school, helping out at the Christmas party, which was a lot of fun, but really productive, writing-wise.

And then the nap monster attacked me when got home.  And then household chores took over once I woke up.

But you know what?  I'm not beating myself up over it.  I figured all I could do is try again.

So here I am, on a Saturday morning, when I could be sleeping in.  Instead I'm trying to get myself on a productive schedule.  We'll see how it works.

If I can spend 15 minutes every morning writing in this here blog, though, I think I'll be making a good start.

Will the schedule listed in the above article work for me?  Who knows?  But I'm willing to try, and work with it until it is perfect for me and my family.

Until tomorrow, keep it imperfectly perfect!

The Year Challenge

School has been out for over a month now, and it has been HECTIC.

This year, the end of the school year means one thing:  The One Year Challenge

The challenge was thrown down by one of my friends, and because I can't seem to say no to a challenge, this is what I'm doing for the rest of the year.  My house is on the verge of becoming painfully cluttered and disorganized.  Really disorganized.  I have one year to get it cleaned up and straightened up and stuff gone that I don't need anymore.  Thank goodness there is enough to do that I can keep switching off jobs, and I won't get bored. 

There are bookshelves to go through, clothes to be sorted, painting to be done, floor tile to be replaced, furniture to be re-done, furniture to be thrown out and replaced...... Well, you get the picture.  And all of these things need to be sandwiched in between gardening, canning, dental appointments, visits from family, and the kids' summer activities.  Plus, planning for the new school year, which starts in just over a month. 

Yes, it's less fun than a vacation.  

However, I think I will find it MUCH more satisfactory.  If I went on vacation now, I wouldn't be able to relax, because I would keep thinking about the horror that is my house.  We're planning on going on vacation next year.  This year, we're concentrating on getting our house cleaned out and organized in one year.  

So far, we have managed to blow through sorting out the kids' clothing (a HUGE job), and a small section of my clothing (an even bigger job!).   I organized my canning supplies already, so that was a big job out of the way, and by organizing those supplies, I was able to organize my pantry a little more.  Or at least find space for most some of my empty jars. But I swear these things multiply at night, when no one is looking.

I have a list of things that need to be done.  It's an ever-growing list.  It's probably never going to end.  I'll just keep adding things as they come up.  I've actually started to hum a little song to myself whenever I add things to it:

The more it grows (tiddly pom) the more it goes (tiddly pom) the more it goes (tiddly pom) on growing.  

And nobody knows (tiddly pom) how long it grows (tiddly pom) how long it grows (tiddly pom) there's no knowing.

I'm looking forward to this process, actually.  A lot of people deem it necessary to try to find a schedule, and stick to it.  My life is constrained enough.  I need the freedom to be able to jump from one project to another, and not feel like I'm doing it in the wrong order.  Some days I'm ready for dealing with clothing.  Some days I want to work in my kitchen.  Some days I want to paint.  Some days I want to be a handyman and do repair work.  As long as I get one thing done a day that needs to be done, I'm okay with that.  It might make things kind of chaotic, but I'm okay with that too.  My life is chaotic.  It probably always will be.  But that's what makes it perfectly imperfect.

As Time Goes By....

I thought only a week had passed.  I didn't realize it has been much longer. 

 

See, this is what happens to me, and a lot of overscheduled people. It happens to all of us.  We live in this crazy world where we are continually being pulled in multiple directions at all times.  And no matter how carefully we schedule, if one little thing (or one big thing....)  goes wrong, everything seems to fall in on itself like a house of cards. 

Sometimes it doesn't need to be something going wrong.  Sometimes it's just saying "yes" to the right thing at the wrong time. 

Or a big old combination of all of the above.

On April 4, I accepted a challenge from a friend of mine to get my house cleaned up and organized.  I was excited and ready to roll with it.  I want my house clean.  I want all the extraneous stuff gone.  I was ready to move forward with it, and I was going to start documenting it here on my blog.  

Yeah.... This NEVER happens.

Guess what?  That draft is still sitting there, waiting to be finished.  Life, once again, got in the way.  Everything wound up getting in the way.  On top of everything else, two of my wisdom teeth that were in really bad shape were causing me so much pain, I couldn't concentrate on anything.  And I mean ANYTHING.  I already had an appointment scheduled to see my dentist, so I wasn't going to try for an earlier appointment. When I finally got to see him, it turned out that those two teeth had to be extracted that day.  So I wound up losing about 3 days of life, due to pain and pain medications.  I did some remarkable catching up on my sleep, and now my teeth are causing me a lot less pain.  Bonus!  

This is more like it.

However, in a perfect world, things would have gotten done, regardless.  Is this a perfect world?  Nope.  This is an imperfect world.  Dinner still needed to made.  Dishes still needed to be done, along with laundry.  Children still needed to be taken care of.  The house needed to be cleaned.  Basically, everything that I usually do still needed to be done.  Deadlines needed to met.  And I was two weeks behind on pretty much everything, or so it seemed, just because of two teeth.

So now I'm rushing to catch up.  Trying to get caught up on laundry, switching out clothes for the season, getting plants ready to be put into our plot at the community garden.  One day this week

, I have a contractor coming to take a look at our bathroom (which is needing some SERIOUS work done on it) and help us figure out which way we need to go.  Once the demolition on that starts, and the rebuilding of our bathroom, I know that my work is going to increase a lot.

I just can't seem to get back into a rhythm that works for me at this moment, so I'm plugging along, doing things as I see them.  And trying to figure out how to schedule everything, without completely exhausting myself.  

And it might just be me, but this seems to happen a lot.  In my world, anyway.  As soon as I get a good schedule going, and it's working for me, and I'm getting a little bit of free time, something comes along and clogs up the works.  

I'm learning though that taking things one baby step at a time, I'll get everything done.  I need concentrate on one task at a time, and not worry about the other 12 million things on my To Do list.  

Do you build time for problems and possible issues into your schedule?  And if so, how do you do it?  Let me know!