Remember, I'm a stay-at-home mom so if you've got a REAL JOB out in the REAL WORLD, you might not realize it, but while reading this you'll occasionally be making a "pfft" kind of noise.
On a good day, I start my day out great. The kids get up at 6:30 a.m. and come in and snuggle and watch Arthur, or Phineas and Ferb if we're especially lucky with the morning's t.v. line-up, until 7 a.m. They have the option to sleep until 7 a.m. and miss the morning's entertainment, but t.v. usually wins out over sleep. At 6:55 a.m. the drill sergeant (that would be me) announces, "It's time to get up, go to the bathroom if you haven't already done so, get dressed, make your bed, pick up your clothes, and meet me downstairs. What do you want for breakfast?" Usually the troops are plodding down the stairs by 7:20 a.m. unless they "GOT DISTRACTED!" which happens more often than not. They've already hemmed and hawed for five minutes deliberating over what to have for breakfast, so that's either been popped in the microwave, the toaster, or the cereal bowl awaiting their arrival.
Once the routine of breakfast is in full swing, it's on to lunch prep and another five minutes of deliberation over PB&J, salami, roll v. whole wheat bread, and/or, on some occasions, a homemade bologna Lunchable (no, I'm not kidding! I saved the tray from a real Lunchable and even include the cookie for dessert!)
So now everyone's dressed, fed, quaffed, and shod and out the door for the 8:05 a.m. bus pick-up. Whew! I have an almost perfect record having only missed the bus once (not counting the afternoon my clocks reset and I was an hour late picking up Kindergartner Leo from the afternoon bus, ahem. And fortunately for me, he remembers it VIVIDLY).
Aaaaaaaanyway...(say it like Dr. Doofenschmirtz)
So not to blow my own horn, but I've pretty much got it down and it runs like a well-oiled machine. The problem is, it's the only part of my day that has a schedule. The rest of the day is filled with hap-hazard attempts at organizing a closet or drawer, putting on a load of laundry then forgetting it's in the dryer getting wrinkled, catching up on Facebook (that probably should have been listed first!), writing, making a card or two, scheduling appointments, and at least once a week or so, shopping; grocery or other. I could do ten different things, finish none of them, then by 3:00 p.m., when it's time to get the kids from the bus stop, I can't say I accomplished a single one!
I wish I could be organized; make to-do lists, have a Fly-Lady attitude of "if you haven't used it in six months, trash it", plan out weekly dinner menus. I've tried. I've tried hard many many times. Even when I had a REAL JOB I was unorganized. I'd have a pile of filing as tall as my cubicle wall and think to myself, "I really need to get to that today." But I didn't, and I don't. My office desk still looks like the dumping ground for a recycling center and I still forget the occasional appointment and still hoard things because they're still usable (like an 1/8 of an inch of conditioner in the bottom of a travel bottle or three drops of clear nail polish that you can barely reach with the little brush they give you).
However, having said all this, I will say that in an on-going effort to live a well-ordered life, I have gotten a bit better. I have a dry erase calendar board that I actually fill out and refer to. I cross check it with my desk calendar that is filled out and referred to often, especially when updating the dry-erase board. I even have a wall calendar inside my phone closet in the kitchen for quick reference. But since I don't trust that one, I have to run into the office to cross check and verify. I have turned my office into a half office, half arts and crafts room and the kids have their own desk and chairs and their own shelves for storage which has freed up two cabinets in my kitchen which will be filled in the not-too-distant future in a neat, orderly fashion. (Soon I'm going to have to schedule some time for that in my desk/wall/dry erase calendars) I'm trying to take on the mindset that this is a sort of quasi REAL JOB and I should approach it as such.
Of course, I'll have to do a better job at this REAL JOB than I did at my last when it comes to organizing and planning. Fortunately for me, unlike the previous ones, my current bosses are as messy, unorganized, and hoarding as I!
~Eileen Cassidy Bishop
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