In Which Paige Makes Very Little Sense

I'm having a hard time adjusting to my new role as Working Girl*.

My house is a disaster, my laundry keeps piling up, dinner is often an afterthought, and I forgot to go to Mackenzie's school Open House. Just forgot. (In my defense, it happened just before she and I flew to Indiana for my reunion - the night we were packing. And you know the mental stress that accompanies dinner with people you haven't seen since 20 years and 30 pounds ago.) Also, I have 5 or 6 plants I bought 3 weeks ago and still aren't in the ground, my friend had a baby a couple of weeks ago and I have yet to get something in the mail, I have a jewelry show awaiting my wares, if I could only get them all made and shipped off, and I've been trying to develop a website for my sparkles for the past couple of months. Grrr....

I remember with longing, ten years ago when my house was always clean, I volunteered in Dillon's classroom, I had time to make homemade cookies, and the kids and I went exploring or made crafts at the kitchen table. We took walks when there was nothing else to do, and went to Sea World or the Zoo to kill a couple hours of an afternoon. And then that all changed...

For, say, the past five years I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Just barely able to keep things on an even keel. I think it all started when Mac went to kindergarten, but I can't exactly say. I was blaming a lot of the insanity on the thing that is "Life in Japan", but I'm beginning to realize that I think it's really just me. There is simply not enough time in the day to accomplish everything that needs to be done. Hell, I'm not even just talking about the super-fun extra stuff... I'm having a hard time fitting a shower in every day!

And then I went to work on top of that. Yeah, yeah, it's only 4-5 hours a day, but that's 4-5 hours of other stuff I could be doing. It's hard to hold a home together if you're not even starting to deal with it until afternoon each day.

I could make a Plan. Like a Chart... or a Log... a Checklist with little shiny stars to stick on when I actually finish something. But where in the Hell would I find time to buy the supplies and make it? And then there's the time it would take to maintain the Super-Handy Tracking Chart...

Just occurred to me: Think of the laundry I could have folded or the paperwork I could have filed during the time it took me to ramble on and on like I have.

But where would the Fun be in that? Just be careful when you leave that you step OVER the vacuum that I abandoned in the hall this afternoon when I went to make dinner...

*"Working Girl" as in Part-time secretary, not as in prostitute.