Ah, I remember the days when Friday was a celebration of a week's worth of work well done. Sure that work shifted from not hurting anyone in a cubicle near me, to not letting any harm come to small people who gave me even less personal space than said cubicle. Now, I sense another shift in the air. Sure, I have the thrill of togetherness and sleeping in to look forward to on the weekends, but seem to be coming up a little empty on what accomplishments I have made during the week. I fear I am becoming...lazy.
I am swimming in this sort of limbo land trying to figure out if it is okay to be content with being content. Can I fill each day with things that make me happy, even if they don't contribute to the family piggy bank? If I haven't tackled at least one miserable task, did I make enough of an effort? How many dust bunnies are too many? Is there something I can take for procrastination? If so, I'll wait and look into it tomorrow. This is not to be mistaken for the pity party I briefly tried to organize for myself last Friday. This is just a call (to myself, that you happen to be eavesdropping on) to define myself. I kind of like the way I've been blowdrying my hair recently and thought maybe I could capitalize on that effort and continue the forward momentum...maybe even incorporate the bottle of hair dye, (read: gray hair disguise system) I bought two weeks ago, into my plan.
I think I might just need to fine tune my to-do lists. Lately I have been keeping stuff off the list that I don't want to do. The pile of stuff I need to list on eBay could consume me before I deal with it! To put it on the list though, for the whole family to see, could result in a public notification of my failure if I continue to ignore it though. Yes, I said public failure, because what else does my teenage son talk about at lunch other than his mother's to-do list? Sheesh!
What if I tell you what I want to get done next week? Or with the rest of today even? Hmmmm...maybe this post would've been easier if I just shortened it up a bit and told you about how I started to reverse the aging process this week. I know, I didn't even set out to do so as I had barely realized that my birthday went by. I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles yesterday to deal with my license that had expired on Sunday. (Procrastinated...now there's something else I did this week, oh, and some laundry.) The lady at the lucky window I approached saw me as some sort of underachiever and had me read line seven, out of twelve. I did just fine, and when I removed my glasses for the photo shoot I thought was sure to come next, I realized that I could read all of the letters still. When I told her this, she asked me to read line eight, and then wrote "remove corrective lenses" on my papers. I was almost disappointed that I didn't get to read that very small line twelve, like the person across from me. I am sure Mrs. DMV registered this as the feat it was, and experienced much more excitement for me after I left.
You should have waited a few days and gone to the DMV on Halloween. I happened to go there on Oct 31 one year (birthday in Spetember, apparently my horoscope sign is Procrastiquarius) and all the DMV employees were dressed in costume and running around laughing and eating cupcakes and having a grand ol' time. It was that day that I told myself I would apply for a career at the DMV. Damn United Airlines called me back first, so I got to dress up as a flight attendant for a decade instead of a Spice Girl or Evil Mutant Witch. I still question whether or not I made the right decision..........
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I love to-do lists. It is so fulfilling to cross stuff off it. Sounds to me like you need to make sure your routine tasks are on the list---his isnt cheating, its just a solid strategy to give you guaranteed opportunity to mark a bunch of stuff as done!
ReplyDeleteHaha! Oh those questions about what makes a day meaningful and does it have to bring in $$, I so get that! I am "working" from home, writing etc since losing a job I had gone to for over 10 years. Very weird here in home-land all by myself!
ReplyDeleteHey congrats on the line reading accomplishment! Crazy!
Checking things off long "to do" lists is almost one of my favorite things "to do." I have not contributed ONE cent to the family coffers in more than 20 years, but I have contributed THREE wonderful young men to the human race. Yeah, I feel really good about it! :)
ReplyDeleteI think that you are defining yourself by somebody else's standards, perhaps? You are pretty darn industrious, at least as far as I can tell from all the really great stuff that you post here--recipes, great pictures, funny stories! Who could ask for anything more? Not me!
ReplyDeleteGreat post and great comments. Defining oneself when we are moms. Sad situation really that we need to even do that, but there it is. Is it that we ourselves don't value enough what we do? We feel we have to clean the leaf gutters or repaint the entire house to feel we are earning our keep? Gawd.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me started. I do have a paid job outside the home (part-time) but still have to do all the home-making duties. Why is that?
Ok...but anyway, to-do lists are awesome. And yes, I put "getting up" and "taking a shower" on mine and cross that off every day :-)
congratulations on your kick-ass vision! I will not be removing MY corrective lenses anytime soon.
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